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Comedian Shane Gillis lands a new Netflix show and comedy special

Comedian Shane Gillis attends the 17th annual Stand Up For Heroes Bob Woodruff Foundation benefit at David Geffen Hall on Nov. 6 in New York. Invision via AP

PHILADELPHIA — Comedian Shane Gillis has a new Netflix comedy special and series.

The streaming giant has secured Gillis’ six-episode comedy series, “Tires,” premiering May 23, and has greenlit a new stand-up special following 2023′s “Beautiful Dogs,” which ranked in Netflix’s Top 10 in five countries and remained in the U.S. Top 10 for two weeks.

“Tires” is built around Shane (played by Gillis), who works at his cousin Will’s (Steven Gerben) auto repair chain. The series, which Gillis writes and executive produces, also stars Kilah Fox, Stavros Halkias, and Philly comedian Chris O’Connor.

The series is a collaboration between Gillis and Philly comic and writer John McKeever, who is directing the show. The duo previously worked on Comedy Central’s “Delco Proper” and the YouTube sketch series “Gilly & Keeves: The Special” on GillyandKeeves.tv, among other projects.

Before rising to fame, Gillis, originally from Mechanicsburg, lived in West Philly’s Mantua, winning Philly’s Phunniest at Helium Comedy Club in 2016 and later being recognized as a “New Face” at the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal.

Recently, Gillis has been under fire for comments he made during his earlier podcasting days.

Nearly five years ago, he was dismissed from “Saturday Night Live “ due to past remarks about Asian people and the LGBTQ+ community, a topic that resurfaced in the media prior to his recent “SNL” hosting gig.

Gillis was added to the cast of “SNL’s” 45th season back in September 2019, but was dropped from the show days later for making offensive remarks against Chinese people.

A video from a September 2018 episode of the podcast, “Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast,” shows Gillis and co-host Mat McCusker mocking accents and using racial slurs. Another episode had the pair dropping homophobic slurs toward filmmaker Judd Apatow and comic Chris Gethard, among others.

“The language he used is offensive, hurtful, and unacceptable,” an “SNL” spokesperson stated at the time. “We are sorry that we did not see these clips earlier, and that our vetting process was not up to our standard.”

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Kevin Bacon attends the premiere of Netflix's “Leave the World Behind” at the Plaza Hotel on Dec. 4 in New York. Invision via AP

Is Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” a country song?

Of course it is. The single from the forthcoming “Renaissance, Act II” is loaded with the kind of country tropes that defines the genre.

It saddles up with a cowboy hat on and drinks “rugged whiskey” at an “all night hoedown” while emphasizing the banjo of Rhiannon Giddens, the Pulitzer Prize-winning folk-country artist who has been focused on the hidden history of Black country music, going back to her beginnings with the Carolina Chocolate Drops.

In fact, in terms of semiotic signifiers, “Texas Hold ‘Em” — the work of a real life Texan, who grew up in Houston, which she refers to as “my city” in the song — is a great deal more “country” than much of the slick, warmed-over pop that populates the country charts.

Now, the Philly-born actor and musician Kevin Bacon has weighed into the Beyoncé debate, musically speaking.

Bacon was inducted into the Philadelphia Music Alliance Walk of Fame last year, as the Bacon Brothers along with his older brother Michael. Back in 2022, they wrote and released “It’s a Philly Thing,” a song of hometown pride about all that entails with residing in the 215.

Followers of the “Diner” and “Footloose” star’s Instagram feed know that he often posts videos of him playing music while hanging out with the barnyard animals on the Connecticut farm he shares with his wife, actress Kyra Sedgwick.

On Monday, the latest edition in the series caught Bacon and Sedgwick mingling with their ponies and pigs and covering “Texas Hold ‘Em,” in a decidedly countrified version: Bacon plays mandolin and Sedgwick interjects the excitement with energetic cries of “Hoo!”

Despite the convincing musical argument and show of solidarity with Beyoncé, the argument rages on. The commenters on the post are mostly Bacon and Sedgwick fans, but there are still plenty of naysayers and gatekeepers, taking exception to Bacon covering the “non country song” or saying that “Texas Hold ‘Em” is “hideous” and admonishing Beyoncé to “stay in her lane.”

“Texas Hold ’Em” was last week’s most-added song on country radio and this week’s chart topper on Billboard’s Hot 100.

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LAS VEGAS — Adele is calling out, for the first time in her residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace.

Citing vocal concerns, the Strip headliner has knocked out all shows in March. That’s 10 shows total, beginning Friday and Saturday.

Adele referred to the pause as a postponement, saying on social media: “Sadly I have to take a beat and pause my Vegas residency. I was sick at the end of the last leg, and all the way through my break. I hadn’t quite gotten the chance to get back to full healed before shows resumed and now I’m sick again, and unfortunately it’s all taken a toll on my voice.”

She added, “The remaining 5 weekends of this leg are being postponed to a later date. We are already working out he details and you will be sent the information ASAP.”

Prior to the announcement, Adele had not missed a show at the Colosseum, and has sold out all 80 of her performances over 40 weeks. She of course wiped out her entire first residency series in January 2022, citing production delays and illness during COVID-19. That announcement arrived a day before she was to open.

Adele has suffered from vocal issues over her career. In November 2011, she underwent vocal cord surgery to alleviate recurrent hemorrhaging caused by a benign polyp on her vocal cord. The procedure forced her to cancel her world tour.

The superstar headliner talked of taking vocal rest during her show at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace on Saturday, “I can’t hit my head notes properly. I didn’t sleep very well, and my chest is on fire. Straight after this show, I am going on voice rest.”

In that performance, the “Rolling in the Deep” singer cracked that her vocal quality was similar to the villainous sea witch from “The Little Mermaid,” saying, “And Ursula from the ocean has come from my chest tonight.”

“Weekends With Adele” is scheduled to end June 14-15. She is then booked for 10 shows at Munich Messe in Germany. The arena is unlike the 4,300 seat Colosseum, with seated grandstands and standing areas and a capacity 80,000.

From combined wire services

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