Month: July 2020

Pau Gasol did not take the floor for an NBA team during the 2019-20 campaign. While the veteran big man signed a deal to join the Portland Trail Blazers at the start of the year, he did not appear in any games and was waived back in November. His career isn’t over, though, according to a report by Varlas Nikos of EuroHoops.net.

Gasol, a native of Barcelona who started his professional career with his local club, is slated to return to Catalonia. Nikos reports that Gasol and his boyhood club are expecting to wrap up a deal later this summer that will have him suit up for Barcelona one last time, and per his report, the goal is for Gasol to have things come full-circle by suiting up with Spain’s national team during next summer’s Olympics.

If a deal happens, Pau would return to his roots as he was born in Barcelona and that’s where he made the first basketball steps. He started off in Barca’s junior selection and played for three years in the pros before moving on to a successful two-decade-long NBA career.

The ideal unfolding of Pau Gasol’s story would be that the Spaniard completes a full circle in his career with one year at Barca and then retire after one final Olympic run with the national team in Tokyo.

Ideally the arrangement between the two sides does not fall through despite things being “very close to happening,” because it would be really cool to see Gasol play for Barca one final time before he calls it a career. For his NBA career, the two-time champions suited up for five different franchise and averaged 17 points and 9.2 rebounds a night with six All-Star game selections.

I live in Washington, the state with the first official outbreak of COVID-19 in the U.S. While my family lives several hours from Seattle, it was alarming to be near the epicenter—especially early in the pandemic when we knew even less about the coronavirus than we know now.

As tracking websites went up and statistics started pouring in, things looked hairy for Washington. But not for long. We could have and should have shut everything down faster than we did, but Governor Inslee took the necessary steps to keep the virus from flying completely out of control. He’s consistently gotten heat from all sides, but in general he listened to the infectious disease experts and followed the lead of public health officials—which is exactly what government needs to do in a pandemic.

As a result, we’ve spent the past several months watching Washington state drop from the #1 hotspot down to 23rd in the nation (as of today) for total coronavirus cases. In cases per million population, we’re faring even better at number 38. We have a few counties where outbreaks are pretty bad, and cases have slowly started to rise as the state has reopened—which was to be expected—but I’ve felt quite satisfied with how it’s been handled at the state level. The combination of strong state leadership and county-by-county reopenings has born statistically impressive results—especially considering the fact that we didn’t have the lead time that other states did to prepare for the outbreak.

Of course, not everyone sees it that way. We have the same anti-mask, anti-lockdown, anti-public health advice folks we see elsewhere. We have conspiracy theorists, COVID deniers, “masks are tyranny” protesters, and even a county sheriff who publicly refused to enforce the governor’s stay-at-home order. But Inslee has stood firmly on the side of public health regardless of who whines about it. While pandemic responses are always going to be imperfect and filled with uncertainty and inconsistency (that’s the nature of dealing with a novel virus), the comparative results speak for themselves.

We’ve seen other governors stand their ground under intense pressure from both constituents and the federal government as well. For example, Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, was criticized by President Trump for her response, yet when her state became one of the epicenters, she took an aggressive and consistent stance, didn’t back down, and now Michigan’s numbers are significantly lower than states that have taken a lax approach. For instance, Michigan’s daily case increase is now a small fraction of what they are in Florida, where Governor DeSantis has moved aggressively toward reopening, focusing far more on economic recovery than limiting the spread of the virus.

Whitmer’s leadership hasn’t gone unnoticed, either. She’s made a name for herself—as has Michigan’s Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson—for standing strong in the face of criticism from the president. And she’s using the spotlight to call for a stronger federal response and for the government to lead by example.

“I’d like a national mask-up campaign,” she told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota. “I think that if everyone endorsed this, it’s a simple cost effective thing that we could do to really mitigate spread. But the symbols that come from the very top matter and it changes behavior. If we can take the politics out of mask wearing we can save a lot of lives and in doing so save the pain, the economic pain, that we are feeling across this country.”

National leadership is vital in a pandemic, and our national leadership on coronavirus has been…well, lacking. A pandemic response was always going to be a challenge in a large country with 50 diverse states, but when state borders are invisible lines that anyone can cross at any time, we need to all be on the same page about how to prevent the spread. While outbreaks require a local response, a state-by-state approach to figuring out when and how to apply or ease mitigation measures makes little sense. (And making states compete with one another for needed medical equipment is just downright bizarre. Seriously.)

No response is going to win praise from every person, but epidemiologists, virologists, and infectious disease experts have prepared their whole careers for this moment. Political leaders must listen to them, follow their lead, and mold responses around their advice—otherwise we end up right where we are, with 25% of the world’s COVID-19 cases and deaths, despite only being 5% of the world’s population.

Thankfully, some governors are taking their public health responsibility seriously. Here’s to the leaders who have stepped up and stood up in the face of resistance, allowing health professionals to guide the way and implementing protective policies accordingly, no matter how much or how loudly some people complain about it.

While the world at large continues to mourn the loss of drill vanguard Pop Smoke, his contemporary and collaborator Fivio Foreign has picked up the torch for the nascent subgenre. The Brooklyn newcomer recruits one of his hometown’s vets to provide a stunner of a verse over another drill banger for his latest single. Young M.A. may not be native to the drill scene, but her choppy, punchline-ridden flow is the perfect complement to Fivio’s on “Move Like A Boss.”

Produced by Non Native, Bordeaux, and Saint Cardona, “Move Like A Boss” features an archetypical drill beat with rumbling, dub-step-esque bass drops, scattered, warring snares, and ghostly choral vocals, occasionally punctuated with the sound of a gunshot. However, all those sinister-sounding theatrics are merely the backdrop to the real action: the menacing, nihilistic bars describing Brooklyn’s underground scene of violence and bravado.

“N****s will give you a dap then shoot at your back with the same hand,” Fivio barks on his verse. “I’m well in tune with the mayhem, but I still walked out a great man.” Meanwhile, M.A., just a couple of years removed from her own encounters with street life, isn’t about to endanger the bag. “I pray I don’t see an enemy,” she drawls. “Woo-sah, serenity.”

“Move Like A Boss” is reportedly the third single from Fivio’s upcoming debut album, tentatively titled “B.I.B.L.E.” He’s also fresh off his own run of high-profile co-signs, including Drake’s “Demons” on Dark Lane Demo Tapes, Lil Tjay’s “Zoo York” video, and his own “Big Drip” remix, which features Lil Baby and Quavo.

Watch Fivio Foreign’s “Move Like A Boss” video with Young M.A. above.

By every indication, our country is not handling COVID-19 particularly well. Thanks to a raging culture war over face masks, and a President who prefers wishing away the virus to taking a science-first approach, it’s safe to say we’ve mangled this thing pretty horribly. It seems almost inevitable that we’ll soon enter a second lockdown, as states begin to roll-back their overly-ambitious reopenings.

If you spent the majority of the last quarantine in a state of constant panic — rather than using that time to take on a new DIY project or baking some damn sourdough — you’ll likely get a second crack at it. The era of self-reliance is upon us. As such, we’re seeking out inspiring voices to offer advice on how we can become more independent and resourceful in this difficult era. And one of the first names on our list was educator, permaculturist, and urban gardener Indy Srinath.

Through her experience managing a community garden in Ashville, North Carolina, her superb eye for photography, and a distinct ability to marry the Instagram aesthetic with thoughtful teaching and resources, Srinath has carved a path for herself in the DIY and foraging space. We spoke with her over the phone about how taking control of where you get your food improves not only your health but your connection to your community. She also offered easy advice for how every one of us can experiment with urban gardening, even if you have absolutely no land to grow on.

Given that we’re all living in the midst of a global pandemic, why is now the best time to become self-reliant and take control of where and how we get our food?

Now, like any other time really, it’s important to consolidate our food systems because that in its essence helps reduce the spread of Covid-19. By keeping your food sources contained within your community, you’re really reducing the number of folks that come into your area and distribute food, and you’re also able to consume more nutrient-dense food. When you’re eating it fresher, you’re not having that degraded-nutrient quality of foods that are prepackaged and have been sitting in a cooler for who knows how long. You’re able to eat it right out of your backyard! Also now is a time when we should be boosting our immune systems.

What would you say to those of us who are living in food deserts or big cities, how can we introduce fresher foods into our diet?

Even if you don’t have access to a large amount of land or a small amount of land, you can start growing your own food in containers that are as small as a yogurt cup. Just work with whatever you have and purchase a packet of seeds, pick something that has a quick harvest and turnover rate. Radishes are one of my favorites and they can be grown in a really small windowsill or if you have access to a porch. Finding ways to start growing with whatever size or scale you have available is the best way to approach that.

On your Instagram you talk a lot about balancing your passions with necessary activism. How can everyone involve themselves in an activist lifestyle?

I think that activism can start with really small acts — especially if you’re an introverted person like myself — it can be as simple as writing a letter to your congressperson or going to your local smoothie shop and asking them if they would be interested in switching from styrofoam cups to reusable or compostable plastic cups. Doing small activist movements, and small activist activities like that can make a huge impact.

It’s really important to voice your opinion because having sovereignty over your food and food sources and over the planet is really how you make a change. There is nothing too small to be impactful.

Could you speak a little bit more about food sovereignty?

Growing your own food and taking control of where your food sources come from gives you a sense of empowerment and a connection to the planet. There are so many ways that mass media tries to push a food agenda that is unhealthy onto folks. Moving away from pre-packaged food into raw produce impacts your health in a positive way and also just gives you the basic survival tools that a human needs to survive.

On your Instagram it appears you’ve connected the Black Lives Matter movement with environmentalism, arguing the two are intertwined. Can you speak on that relationship a little?

That’s one of the platforms I’m most passionate about, because black people and people of color in general in this country are the ones who made the soil what it is today. We have just as much right, if not more right, than any other person to have access to land and to grow our own food. When folks from African countries were brought to the Americas and enslaved and forced to farm this land — to move away from that is not helpful to black folks as a community. Not eating fresh produce and not eating healthy foods causes a lot of the health disparities that we see in the black community. Getting back to this land and getting back to growing food is something that all black folks should take into account. We own this land and have the right to grow food on it.

Why is living off the land a skill everyone should learn?

Watching something super small grow before your eyes, and watering it every day and fertilizing it and taking care of it gives you a sense of place in the world and it’s really healing to work with the soul. It’s empowering because having that self-sufficiency, where you don’t need to rely on grocery stores and markets that don’t necessarily have your best food interests in mind, moving away from those feels to me like a radical act.

Let’s talk foraging. What kind of resources are out there for people who want to explore foraging more but are afraid of accidentally consuming some sort of poison?

I think foraging is really incredible because there is so much food available that is literally just growing off trees and coming off of the ground and it’s there to be consumed. Educating yourself on what plants grow around you and what trees grow around you and what foods are available for free is a really great way to combat some of the health disparities that we see from not having access to fresh food.

For folks that feel a little bit timid about foraging and don’t feel very comfortable with plant identification, I really encourage folks to find local educators in your area, especially indigenous people, and black people, and people of color that offer classes in teaching foraging. Learning from your community members is one of the best ways you can get into foraging.

You’re a big mushroom enthusiast, what do you love so much about them, and can you speak to your experience foraging them?

I really love foraging for edible mushrooms because they are often overlooked and they’re a huge part of soil ecology. They make the life cycle of all other plants possible. I love their vibrant variety. The research that it takes to find mushrooms and how you have to kind of read the forest to figure out where they grow. It’s just something I like to nerd out on.

Do you have basic tips for how people can be more sustainable on their next market run?

It’s super important to start in the produce section and work your way through the grocery store after that. Fill up the button of your cart with unpackaged fresh produce. Try to find produce that is locally grown. Trade out the spinach you would see in a bag for the fresh head of spinach in the mister area. See how many veggies you can fit in your cart, then go for the grains, then go for the other packaged foods that you can build meals around, with your produce as your basic staple.

What about dealing with those little plastics we slip loose vegetables into?

I always repurpose plastic bags that spinach or kale comes in if I end up having to choose one of those. I will totally put a sandwich in them and take them to work and use it like someone would use a plastic zip lock bag. Those plastics can be used multiple times before they begin degrading. You should come from an angle at home where you imagine what it’s like if you didn’t have access to a trash can. Trying to reuse every piece of plastic that you bring into your house. From yogurt containers to the little plastic cups that strawberries and berries tend to come in.

Right now everyone is taking the time to learn new skills or improve themselves, what new challenges or skills are you trying to take on and learn in this time of quarantine?

I’ve been trying really hard to learn more ways that Indigenous folks, specifically in the Americas, grew food, and trying to honor a lot of different individuals who are the fathers and grandmothers of agriculture. Further educating myself on Indigenous folks in America. I’ve been learning a lot more about indoor mushroom cultivation. I come from an outdoor mushroom cultivation background but since I’ve been sheltering in place I’ve been growing oyster mushrooms inside and that’s been really fun.

The first trailer for The Boys season two is here and it brings some good news for Billy the Butcher fans: Daddy’s home.

After teasing a new lineup of supes that includes Stormfront (Aya Cash), who might turn out to be a bigger villain than Homelander, and dropping hints about a Karl Urban-starring short film, season two is officially getting fans riled up with a full-length look at the chaos and mayhem caused by our favorite group of misfit vigilantes.

The Boys are on the run and sure, they’ve been through some stuff before but their current “most wanted” status is a full-blown mess. While Homelander (Anthony Starr) tries to rally the supe troops who are in need of a serious image overhaul, Urban’s Butcher returns with a plan to take them down for good. Since his plans usually backfire, don’t get your hopes up.

The show’s first season ended with the mother of all cliffhangers and a world-shattering reveal — that Homelander has been divvying up the super-powering Compound V to terrorists across the globe so that The Seven would always stay in power. That revelation made Butcher’s goal of destroying these fame-hungry caped cretins even more challenging, seeing as now everyone, including the government, needs The Seven to clean up their own mess. Season two brings Butcher back and the gang together again, but now that their faces are plastered all over the news, there’s a new head honcho at Vought (hey Giancarlo Esposito!) and The Seven are welcoming neo-nazis into their ranks, we doubt eliminating these glorified lab rats will be easy.

Season two of The Boys premieres Sept. 4 on Amazon Prime Video.

At age 65, New Orleans Pelicans head coach Alvin Gentry was among the personnel in the NBA with the most concern regarding his travel to the Orlando clean site. After deliberations from the league, it appears Gentry has been cleared to participate in the NBA restart, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.

The United States Center for Disease Control notes that as you get older, your risk for being hospitalized for COVID-19 increases, and adults aged 65 or over make up the majority of deaths among age groups in America. However, Gentry has maintained his stance that he would like to coach throughout the hiatus, and it appears he is now set to do so, leading a Pelicans team that has a real shot at sneaking in as the eighth seed in the Western Conference.

Previously, Pelicans associate head coach Jeff Bzdelik, who is 67 years old, had opted out of coaching at the NBA clean site out of the same type of concern Gentry will face in Orlando. These decisions certainly are everyone’s individually, as they were with players, and we can only hope there is no pressure being put on anyone in the league to venture into the risky environment. The scrutiny regarding Gentry (and Mike D’Antoni) is not going to subside just because he chose to go to Orlando.

Earlier this year, the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame announced that it had postponed its induction ceremony to November 7, after it was originally set to take place at Cleveland’s Public Hall on May 2. However, in light of the ongoing pandemic, the Rock Hall has been forced to change its plans again. Now, there won’t be a live ceremony at all, as it will be replaced with a pre-recorded HBO special airing during the rescheduled date, November 7.

John Sykes, Chairman of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Foundation, said in a statement, “To protect the health and safety of our Inductees, their families, crews and our attendees, we’ve made the decision that the scheduled live event is not possible. Together with HBO and executive producer Joel Gallen, we will still create an exciting program honoring our 2020 inductees, by telling the stories of their incredible contributions to music and impact on a generation of artists that followed them.”

The 2020 Hall Of Fame class includes Nine Inch Nails, Whitney Houston, the Doobie Brothers, the Notorious B.I.G., T-Rex, and Depeche Mode.

This comes as Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor was warming up to the idea of the hall of fame. After previously being critical of the institution, he said of his project being inducted, “When I look back at how Nine Inch Nails are received, it always seems like we fall between the cracks or we’re not in this category or ‘that thing.’ I don’t know if it’s a defense mechanism, but I just assumed we’d stay in that category, so I’m pleasantly surprised to see us acknowledged. It feels pretty good.”

Zach Braff and Donald Faison’s Scrubs rewatch podcast, Fake Doctors, Real Friends, recently wrapped up its first season (before immediately embarking on the second season). Over the course of that first season, we’ve learned a lot about the series and its stars. For instance, until this week, Braff had never seen one of his best friend’s best movies, Donald Faison’s Remember the Titans (Braff has finally corrected that). Over the course of the season, we also learned the heartwarming reason behind John C. McGinley’s performace on the series, that Christa Miller once slept with Friends‘ star Matthew Perry, and that a drunk Donald Faison gave a noogie to NBC President Jeff Zucker during their upfronts.

One person we have not learned much about is Neil Flynn, who played the Janitor on Scrubs for eight seasons, followed by another nine seasons of the ABC sitcom The Middle. The actor, like his Scrubs‘ character, is strangely enigmatic for someone who spent 17 consecutive years as a lead on prime-time television. Actually, the real Neil Flynn may be even more mysterious, because at least we know that the Scrubs‘ character has a wife (Lady), but there’s no such information available on Flynn. In fact, he appeared on the Scrubs‘ rewatch podcast a few weeks ago, and after spending an hour and a half with him, beyond learning that he was on an improv team called Beer Shark Mice with David Koechner that no one from the Scrubs cast ever bothered to see (though it continued to run up until 2015), I frankly don’t know anymore about him.

However, we did learn in the season finale of the podcast the origin of The Janitor’s real name. Some may have heard that a reboot of Clone High is being developed by MTV. The original Clone High came from producer Bill Lawrence — the creator of Scrubs — and showrunners Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the team behind 21 Jump Street, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, The LEGO Movie and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse. Before Miller and Lloyd were two of the hottest creatives in Hollywood, they produced Clone High from the basement of the hospital that Scrubs was shot in.

In fact, that is partially why there are so many Scrubs cast members in Clone High, because they could just walk down into the basement to do their voiceover work. Christa Miller plays Cleopatra; Donald Faison is Toots; Zach Braff is Paul Revere; and Sarah Chalke is Marie Antoinette; and John C. McGinley plays Creepy Trucker.

This brings us to the origin of The Janitor’s name. Fans of the series know that The Janitor’s real name is Glenn Matthews and, despite some confusion over whether he was lying about that fact, too, Bill Lawrence has long since confirmed that Glenn Matthews is, in fact, his real name and not a fake name he gave to J.D.. Where did that come from? According to Bill Lawrence himself in the season finale of the Scrubs rewatch podcast, he is named Glenn because it’s the same name of his character in Clone High, where Flynn plays … Glenn the Janitor.

And that’s the story behind The Janitor’s real name. Also, despite Bill Lawrence’s protestations to the contrary, The Janitor decidedly is not a figment of J.D.’s imagination in the first season, as the character interacts with several other characters over the course of the season.

Fake Doctors, Real Friends continues to air twice weekly. No word yet on when the Clone High reboot will air on MTV.

Source: Fake Doctors, Real Friends

Just a year ago, Jack Harlow was a rapper on the rise whose steady stream of polished, independently released full-length projects culminated in Confetti, a well-received mixtape that landed the Louisville, Kentucky-bred rapper on a number of radars. Those radars went ballistic this year with the release of “What’s Poppin,” the single from his Sweet Action EP which became a surprise hit and launched Harlow into superstardom. With the release of a remix featuring DaBaby, Lil Wayne, and Tory Lanez, “What’s Poppin” became an even bigger hit this past week, landing at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.

That newfound success isn’t lost on the kid from Kentucky, who expressed his gratitude with a tweet that also revealed the heights of his ambition. He’s happy to have No. 2, but what he really wants is that No. 1 spot. “NUMBER 2 IN THE WORLD,” he wrote in a technically inaccurate tweet (Billboard only counts US sales/streams). “Damn I love y’all…can we take it up one more????”

It’s entirely possible. The “What’s Poppin” remix does feature the current No. 1 artist on the Hot 100, DaBaby, as well as a longtime fan-favorite in Lil Wayne. Meanwhile, Tory Lanez’s profile has risen considerably with the advent of his Quarantine Radio livestream series, while the remix as yet to receive a music video, which could help drive streams all over again. Meanwhile, Harlow himself is continuing to bask in the growing glow of the spotlight focused on him; he recently finagled his growing popularity into a feature on G-Eazy’s “Moana.”

Check out the “What’s Poppin” remix above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Texas trio Khruangbin released their third studio album, Mordechai, just a few weeks ago, but that doesn’t mean they’re done sharing new music. The group teamed up to commemorate Beck’s 50th birthday with a chilled-out remix of his 2017 Colors track “No Distraction.”

For the revised version, Khruangbin infuses Beck’s original track with their signature psychedelic style. A wistful electric guitar colors the tune as Khruangbin’s bassist Laura Lee adds a captivating beat under Beck’s newly washed-out vocals.

In a recent interview with Uproxx, Khruangbin’s Mark Speer and Laura Lee spoke about their unexpected rise to stardom: “When we started with the band, I’d pretty much given up any hope that I’d ‘make it’ in the industry,” Speer said. “I’d been trying for so many years, in different bands and different roles. I’d definitely given that up. At this point, f*ck it. Do what we want. Who cares? No one’s going to give a sh*t anyway. So let’s call it what we want let’s do it our way.”

Lee continued: “I listen to a lot of music and I feel like I have good taste so if it was moving me, hopefully it will resonate with other people, too. I’ve always believed in it. I was going to push it as hard as I could because I thought it was meaningful. But in no way did I think quitting my TA job was going to turn into what it did.”

Listen to “No Distraction (Khruangbin Remix) above.

Mordechai is out now via Dead Oceans. Get it here.