last time

Pete Holmes understands the art of conversation — especially the way to get people to open up about their secret weird tendencies.

It’s what helped Holmes, known for his youth pastor aesthetic and wholesome jokes, build his more than 20-year-long comedy career (his next show is Jan. 21 at Largo at the Coronet) and create his semi-autographical HBO series “Crashing.”

In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.

In 2011, Holmes launched “You Made It Weird,” an interview-style podcast that delves into topics like the meaning of life, mental health, art and everything everything in between. More than 1,000 episodes later, he is celebrating the 14th anniversary of the show and has recently signed with podcast network Lemonada Media (which is also home to Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ “Wiser Than Me,” “The Sarah Silverman Podcast” and “Hasan Minhaj Doesn’t Know”).

“I’ve never for a second considered stopping, which is a good sign that you’re doing something you’re supposed to do,” says Holmes, whose guests have included John Mulaney, Maya Rudolph, Anna Kendrick, Kenan Thompson and Henry Winkler. Once a week, Holmes co-hosts the show with his wife of eight years, Valerie Chaney.

His nervous system also assures him that he’s found the right project. While Holmes says he feels “tense” before his stand-up sets, there’s a sense of comfort in sitting face to face with someone and simply having a conversation. “When I’m doing my podcast, especially in person, there’s very, very little tension,” he says. “It’s the thing in show business, I’ve found, that winds me up in a bad way the least.”

Here’s how Holmes would spend an ideal Sunday in L.A. with Chaney and their 7-year-old daughter, Lila.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.

8 a.m.: Visit a coffee shop with a sense of humor

My daughter and I are both morning people, which really works out because her mom is not a morning person. So we get up early and we’ll color, make breakfast, that sort of stuff. But if we were all getting up together — which is what my wife would want to do even though she doesn’t like it — we would go to Bru in Los Feliz. I love recommending Bru to people because it’s in an “I Think You Should Leave” sketch. Tim Robinson is leaving a job interview and he’s pulling the door, but it’s one that you have to push, and he doesn’t want to look stupid so he keeps pulling it. They actually have a little plaque up that says something cool about it without being too obvious. I like drinking espresso by itself, Val likes oat milk lattes and Lila would get a steamed milk because she wants to feel like a grown-up. It’s very cute.

10 a.m.: Read at least seven children’s books at Skylight

Afterward, we’d go to Skylight Books, which is nearby. I can tell you from experience, they’re incredibly generous with allowing you to read your kids seven books without any trouble. On principle, I’ll buy at least one of the books on our way out, because that’s exactly what people are talking about when they’re like, “Shop local.”

11 a.m.: Drink a terrible dark green juice

Then we’ll walk to the Punchbowl and I’m gonna get a terrible dark green juice that nobody wants and would make a goat go blind. I love it because I’m 46 and now I eat almost exclusively for how it’s going to make me feel. So it’s very uncool but that’s what I’m doing. My wife and daughter are going to get a smoothie called the honeybee, which is very sweet and delicious.

Noon: A pancake for the table at Kitchen Mouse

We would go to Kitchen Mouse in Highland Park. It’s really hip. The last time I was there, I ran into Phoebe Bridgers. Literally rock stars are at Kitchen Mouse and there’s a little kids area where my daughter can play with like a fake hamburger and a child she just met. I get the same thing every time: the breakfast sandwich and a snickerdoodle pancake for the table. If you and I went to breakfast together, I would never ask, “Do you want a pancake for the table?” because I don’t need you to be my accomplice. I know you want a pancake for the table because guess who wants pancakes? Everyone. This is going to reverse the juice that I had earlier, but it’s going to be worth it.

2 p.m. Enjoy an Angry Samoa donut at the park

We have friends who live in Highland Park, so we’d visit them and we’d all take a walk to Donut Friend, and eat the donuts at the little park nearby. The park has giant bugs and a tube slide. When you’re 46 and have kids, sitting down is your heroin. Not to keep mentioning veganism, but Donut Friend has really good vegan donuts. You gotta get the Angry Samoa, which is a Girl Scout cookie.

I once went to Donut Friend while I was tripping on LSD and it was the funniest thing that’s ever happened to me. I think it might’ve been my birthday and I was coming down. I’m not a crazy person. I just couldn’t believe that there was another person standing there with all of the donuts in the world. It felt so overwhelmingly loving that they were like “Which donut can I give you?” I was just floored by the generosity. I was probably making an a— of my myself like laughing in that sort of hippie way. Not like a drunk way but like a benevolent alien who couldn’t believe that this planet had donuts. They gave me one and I wish I could’ve seen myself eating it. My wife was there. She doesn’t do psychedelics, so she was just watching me, sort of babysitting me, to be honest. While I’m eating the donut, she was just laughing so hard at just how happy I was. I wouldn’t do that on a normal Sunday. That’s a rare thing for me, but that’s a true Donut Friend story.

4 p.m.: Feel fancy at the Huntington

The greatest hack of parenting is the Huntington. Speaking of Phoebe Bridgers, she mentions in her track “Garden Song,” jumping over the fence [at the Huntington], which I always think is a cute detail. I think they filmed “Beverly Hills Ninja” at the Japanese Gardens there. One of my favorite L.A. things to do is the white glove tea service. It’s not that expensive and you just feel fancy. We’ll also stop at the Chinese [garden] and get noodles there because every step of the way there’s just constant eating.

7 p.m.: Vegan food done right

If it were just Valerie and I, I would want to go to Crossroads [Kitchen]. I love it to death. When the pandemic happened, they would text us and ask if we were OK and if we needed food. We were like “What do you got?” and the manager brought it over. If anyone’s wondering if that’s like a famous thing, I really don’t think so. I really just think they’re really about serving the community because I’m not famous like that [laughs]. We’ve been there enough, we’ve had enough conversations and it’s a real staple for us.

It’s a vegan restaurant and I’ve had meat-eating friends say that their carbonara is their favorite. It’s not like one of those vegan places that’s trying to trick you or deep-fry their way around things. They’re just actually making you eat really delicious things that just happen to be like artichokes. I’ve had so many birthdays there and you can tell this is where people who are looking for the best food in L.A. are going.

9 p.m.: Catch whatever is playing at Largo

My favorite thing that I get to do once a month is Largo at the Coronet. I literally once had a dream about a magical venue that feels safe and the crowd is always good and you just felt warm. Like if twinkle lights became a venue. That’s Largo. It’s the only place where if somebody’s visiting L.A., I would say just go to Largo. It doesn’t matter who’s performing. One night it might be me, the next night it might be Chris Fleming, and then it might be Sarah Silverman. Then it might be improvised Shakespeare, and then it might be a live podcast. It doesn’t matter. If Flanny [Mark Flanagan] booked it, it’s exceptional. He’s from Belfast and he’s sort of mythic.

11 p.m.: Eat at Norms

Norms is literally one block away from Largo, and if Val and I were really having a kid-free night, she, Flanny, and I would go there to eat our celebration. Judd Apatow does the show a lot and he loves food, so he’d be there too. You get a milkshake or you get some fries, but it’s open for 24 hours. I think L.A. gets a bad rep for not having diners. Granted in New York, they’re everywhere.

Midnight: Enjoy “blue couch time”

It doesn’t matter what time it is when we get home, we have to watch at least one episode of something. “30 Rock” or right now we’re watching “Black Rabbit,” but that’s not a good wind down show. Our couch is blue so we call it “blue couch time” and it’s a ritual we just don’t miss. It doesn’t even matter what we’re watching. We just want to be on that couch, even if it’s just for 12 minutes. I can’t go from the car to the bed. I want to go from the car to something else, then to bed. That’s why houses have entryways or a mud room. There’s supposed to be a threshold that you cross over, take off your coat and your shoes. You’re entering a new space. For us, it’s the blue couch.

While the swirl of chatter around Travis Kelce on Christmas Day was on whether he plans to retire at the end of the season, the 11-time Pro Bowl tight end quietly moved up to No. 9 on the NFL all-time receiving list.

Kelce’s fifth and last catch in the Kansas City Chiefs’ 20-13 loss to the Denver Broncos was No. 1,077, pushing him past Anquan Boldin. With two more receptions in the Chiefs’ regular-season finale, Kelce will surpass Terrell Owens in the No. 8 spot.

Statistics were seemingly the last thing on Kelce’s mind as he walked off the Arrowhead Stadium field on Thursday, perhaps for the last time. The Chiefs finish the season on the road next week against the Las Vegas Raiders.

Kelce’s recent years are inextricably linked to his fiance Taylor Swift. Was this the last time the music megastar would grace the Kelce family luxury suite to watch her beau rack up the receptions? (If so, let the record show that Swift wore a red bomber jacket from the Frankie Shop.)

Kelce, 36, admitted he was feeling reflective afterward.

“A whole lot of emotions,” he told reporters. “You’ve got everybody in the world watching you. You get to go out there with the young guys on prime-time television. Young guys getting an opportunity to taste what this NFL life is like.”

For Kelce, the NFL life has been fulfilling. He’s won three Super Bowls and is all but certain to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. And he’s played his entire 13-year career with the Chiefs.

So while he sorted through emotions and memories after the game, he basked in the adulation beforehand.

“You only get a few of those where you get to stand there and appreciate 70,000 Chiefs fans cheering for you,” he explained. “I always embrace that moment.

“You feel the generations of happiness and the love [the fans] have. It’s a beautiful thing, man.”

For a decade, Kelce was a regional sports figure, revered in the Midwest as a hard-nosed, consistent producer on the field. His profile began to change ahead of the 2022 season when he and his brother, Jason, launched an immediately popular podcast, “New Heights.”

Kelce and Swift began dating ahead of the 2023 season, and a year later, the Kelce brothers signed a three-year, $100-million podcast deal with Amazon’s Wondery. Then in August, Kelce and Swift announced their engagement.

Tight ends, with their three-point stances and proximity to tackles and guards, traditionally don’t seek or attract attention. But Kelce is now a full-fledged national celebrity.

Just don’t allow that to obscure his numbers. Kelce has 73 catches for 839 yards in 2025, putting him alongside Jerry Rice as the only players in NFL history to eclipse the 800‐yards receiving mark in 12 consecutive seasons. Kelce also is the only tight end to exceed 90 catches for seven seasons in a row, a streak that will end this year.

Rice, the former San Francisco 49ers great, is the NFL‘s all-time leading receiver with 1,549 catches. Larry Fitzgerald is next with 1,432. Then come the only tight ends with more catches than Kelce: Tony Gonzalez (1,325) and Jason Witten (1,228).

Should Kelce decide to play another season, he almost certainly would climb to No. 5, passing Marvin Harrison (1,102), Cris Carter (1,101) and Tim Brown (1,094) in addition to Owens.

Kelce may have already decided whether this is the right time to retire. He just isn’t ready to say so, indicating he will let the Chiefs know soon after the season ends.

“I’ll let that be a decision I’ll make with my family, friends and the Chiefs organization when the time comes,” he said.

Untold riches awaited Adrian Kempe as one of the NHL’s top unrestricted free agents next summer.

Mitch Marner, among last summer’s top targets, got $12 million a season from Vegas in a sign-and-trade deal with Toronto hours before he would have hit the open market. With more goals than Marner over the last four full seasons, how much could Kempe — in his prime at 29 — have demanded?

We’ll never know. Because whatever amount it might have been, Kempe decided it wasn’t worth more than his happiness. So last month he signed an eight-year contract extension worth a reported $85 million with the Kings that figures to keep him with the only organization he’s ever known for the rest of his career.

“There’s probably some teams that would have given me offers. But I never really got to the part where that was something that I wanted,” he said. “I’m really happy here. Always have been. Family-wise, the same.

“So there was never anything else in my mind.”

That’s a mind that is apparently at ease now that Kempe’s hockey future has been determined. With 13 goals and a team-high 17 assists, he leads the offensively challenged Kings with 30 points and seven of those goals have come in the 17 games since he signed his extension.

But that’s done little to lift the team, which has lost six of their last seven heading into Saturday’s game with the Ducks. The last time the Kings had a seven-game stretch this bad it cost coach Todd McLellan his job.

“I’m not happy, but I really believe in this group,” said winger Kevin Fiala, who shares the team goal-scoring lead with Kempe. “I really believe this is a great team, great players. We just have to kind of find the game. And not just for some minutes, not even for one game, 60 minutes.

“We have to go for a stretch here, get some wins in a row. Start feeling good, start playing good.”

That might be tough given how the Kings will finish 2025. After Saturday’s home game with the resurgent Ducks, the team travels to Colorado to face the Avalanche, who lead the NHL in points.

If the Kings are to turn things around, they will have to jump start an offense which is second-to-last in the NHL, averaging 2.52 goals a game, and a power play that has converted on less than 14% of its chances, also 31st in the 32-team league. And the responsibility for making that happen probably will fall to Kempe, who has scored as many goals over the past four full seasons as Sidney Crosby and has just six fewer assists than Alex Ovechkin, keeping the Swedish Olympian in heady company.

Kings forward Adrian Kempe shoots during a win over the Winnipeg Jets on Nov. 4.

(Harry How / Getty Images)

“Adrian is a bit of a streaky scorer,” coach Jim Hiller said. “A lot of his recent goals are goals that we’ve seen him score before, where he’s either beating someone with speed, a nice deke.

“So to me it’s the type of goals he’s scoring right now that’s got me encouraged.”

That’s not all that’s encouraging. Kempe, a quick and physical two-way forward, is averaging a career-high 19:18 of ice time per game and is on pace to score 30 goals and top 68 points for a second straight season.

With captain Anze Kopitar retiring at the end of the season and defenseman Drew Doughty in the penultimate year of his contract, re-signing Kempe, the team’s future leader on and off the ice, was at the top of Ken Holland’s to-do list when he took over as general manager last spring. And while the length of the contract he offered Kempe never wavered, the price did.

In the end, media reports said Kempe blinked first, telling agent J.P. Berry to lower his salary demands to get a deal done, eventually accepting an average annual value of $10.625 million beginning next season. That nearly doubles the $5.5 million he’ll earn this season and makes him the fifth-best-paid Swede in the NHL, according to the Sweden Herald. But it’s less than he would have gotten on the open market.

“I think it says two things,” Hiller said of the deal. “What it says about the franchise is that the player was known, was drafted here, was developed here.”

What it says about Kempe, he continued, is that he values that loyalty more than money.

Kings forward Adrian Kempe against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Nov. 18.

(Chris O’Meara / Associated Press)

“I think he probably appreciates the time and energy spent on his career, getting him to where he was,” Hiller said. “Now it’s his choice and he says, ‘You know what? I want to stay in place.’”

He’s not alone. A number of the Kings’ recent cornerstone players — among them Dustin Brown, Kopitar and Doughty — spent their entire NHL careers with the team. If he avoids serious injury and a major dropoff in play, Kempe will almost certainly rank among the top five in franchise history in games, goals and points when his contract runs out.

That’s the long-term return on investment Holland and the Kings are hoping for. For the time being, however, they’re counting on Kempe to save a season that seems in danger of spiraling.

Like Fiala, Kempe believes in the Kings.

“If I weren’t happy here, obviously I would consider not playing here,” Kempe said. “We have a good core. We have a good group of younger guys coming up. I think we’re in a good spot.

“Obviously you have to take that in consideration, too, when you sign a new deal. You want to play on a good team, you want to win cups.”

And it’s hard to put a price tag on that.