Month: September 2020

Prior to Tuesday’s Game 5 between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Miami Heat, Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer noted that veteran forward Marvin Williams could be taking the floor in his last NBA game.

After all, the Bucks were facing elimination against the Heat and, without Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee was seen as the underdog to force a Game 6 against Miami. Despite a hard-fought showing, the Bucks fell short by a nine-point margin and, just minutes after the final buzzer sounded, Williams told Marc Spears of The Undefeated that he will indeed be retiring from the game after 15 seasons.

Williams, who was the No. 2 pick in the 2005 NBA Draft, was 10th among active players in games played before retiring, appearing in 1,072 regular season contests across a decade and a half. Though he did not develop into a superstar as some projected coming out of North Carolina, Williams made 828 starts in the NBA and appeared in 59 playoff games. The 6’8 forward suited up for the Atlanta Hawks, Charlotte Hornets, and Utah Jazz before finishing his career in Milwaukee, with Williams scoring nearly 11,000 points and pulling down more than 5,500 rebounds in his career.

In January, Williams told Bonnell that he wants to continue operating in the basketball world, but with “no interest in coaching.”

“I was in New York, but focused on the international basketball operations part of it,” Williams said. “I like the Junior NBA (program) where you are basically a camp counselor all around the world. Basketball Without Borders (the league’s global summer outreach), I’ve done a couple of those: I went to Africa and I went to Indonesia.

“Any opportunity I get to travel and work with kids? That’s what I would love to do.”

Though Williams is perhaps best known for being drafted ahead of both Chris Paul and Deron Williams in 2005, he carved out an impressive career, outperforming the average expectation for even the No. 2 overall pick. It remains to be seen what his next step will be, but a 15-year career is nothing to sneeze at, and Williams is exceptionally well-regarded in and around the game.

On Tuesday evening, the Milwaukee Bucks took the floor in a playoff game without Giannis Antetokounmpo for the first time since April 28, 2013. While the top-seeded Bucks performed valiantly in his absence, the Miami Heat finished off an upset series victory, outlasting Milwaukee by a final score of 103-94 in Game 5.

Here are three takeaways from what transpired.

1. Miami had to turn it on after a shaky start

Though the Heat entered as solid favorites against the Giannis-less Bucks, it wasn’t always smooth sailing. Miami scored only 11 points, while committing six turnovers, in the first eight minutes of action, and Milwaukee took a double-digit lead as a result.

Some of Miami’s issues could be traced to strong work from Khris Middleton, who opened the game with nine points and four assists in the first quarter.

From there, the Heat came alive, though, using a 30-9 blitz to take a 45-37 lead, and a buzzer-beater from Goran Dragic got things going at the end of the first quarter.

Miami held Milwaukee to 30 percent shooting and 1-for-6 from three-point range in the second quarter, seemingly setting the stage for a comfortable victory. The Bucks didn’t go quietly, though, with Donte DiVincenzo scoring seven quick points to open the third quarter.

Eventually, the Bucks climbed within one but, almost on cue, Milwaukee’s offense sputtered, failing to score for more than six minutes and allowing the Heat to zoom to a 12-point advantage. Milwaukee did maintain relative contact, even slashing the margin to four in the final three minutes, but Jimmy Butler then scored four straight and found Dragic for the eventual dagger in crunch time.

Given the absence of Antetokounmpo, this was not a performance to be disappointed with for the Bucks. Middleton, carrying the weight of the world, struggled with efficiency, but Milwaukee was competitive and pushed Miami to the point where key plays were needed to preserve the series-clinching victory.

2. An uncertain, and highly important, offseason looms for the Bucks

At this point, everyone knows the stakes. Antetokounmpo can sign a record-setting supermax extension during the off-season and, if he chooses to do so, a lot of the noise will dwindle in Milwaukee. That decision will be litigated at every turn in the coming days but, even beyond the looming decision for the reigning MVP, the Bucks have questions to answer.

Can they bank on Eric Bledsoe? The veteran point guard was named to an All-Defensive team on Tuesday and, against Miami, he performed at a high level on that end of the floor. On the flip side, Bledsoe converted only two of his 12 attempts from the floor in Game 5, leaning into the perception that he falls short on the offensive end in playoff settings.

What about Mike Budenholzer? The former NBA Coach of the Year is established as a fantastic culture builder, lifting the Hawks to impressive heights during his first head coaching stint and transforming the Bucks into the best regular season team in the NBA. Still, Budenholzer did absolutely nothing to quiet doubters about his playoff coaching style during this run and, if anything, he could be on the hot seat if the Bucks elect a nuclear option.

Remember that Malcolm Brogdon decision? Without litigating it yet again, the Bucks had the ability to bring Brogdon back and they chose not to do so. Milwaukee did get some value in a sign-and-trade but, in observing this series, it is impossible ignore the contributions he might have made.

How aggressive can Milwaukee be? Even if Antetokounmpo signs up for the future, the Bucks don’t have much, if any, salary cap flexibility and Antetokounmpo is due for a substantial pay raise. If Milwaukee was worried at all about the luxury tax previously, that will be an issue moving forward, and the Bucks will need to reassure Antetokounmpo that they are the place to provide him with a championship situation.

That might be a tall task after this series but, if nothing else, the Bucks did string together a heck of a regular season. In a few weeks (er, months?), they may be able to take solace in that but, at the moment, this feels like a monumental failure, even with the caveat of Antetokounmpo’s injury absence at the end of the series.

3. The Heat are live underdogs in the Eastern Conference Finals

Miami will have a rest advantage in the Eastern Conference Finals, even if the Boston Celtics manage to close things out in Game 6 against the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday. If that doesn’t happen, the Heat will have even more time to rest but, broadly speaking, Miami is probably the underdog in the next round.

That isn’t a shot at a Miami team that executed brilliantly against Milwaukee, but the Heat were a dreadful matchup for the Bucks and that was on full display. Against teams better suited for their attack, the Heat will need to be even better to reach the NBA Finals, though it helps to lean on a pair of genuine stars in Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo.

Miami’s next step will be quite interesting, with Erik Spoelstra given a bit of time to prepare for his next challenge. This is a team that, at its best, can deploy lights-out offensive lineups with shooters like Duncan Robinson and Tyler Herro. In the same breath, Miami can pivot to defensively stingy units with Andre Iguodala and Jae Crowder, all while pressing the right buttons with the strength of a top-flight head coach.

A full-blown series preview can’t arrive until Boston and Toronto are done battling but, in the coming hours, Miami will be able to rest and prepare for what should be an entertaining and uber-competitive series with a trip to the Finals on the line.

The Oklahoma City Thunder, off the heels of a season in which they were perhaps the biggest surprise in the league, will be on the lookout for a new head coach this offseason. According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, the team and head coach Billy Donovan will part ways after the two sides were unable to come to an agreement on a contract extension. Donovan’s deal ran out at the conclusion of this season.

As Wojnarowski noted, it does not seem like this was a rash decision, as both sides understood the situation. The Thunder, which ostensibly has a rebuild on the horizon due to Danilo Gallinari’s contract ending and Chris Paul being mentioned as a potential trade candidate from essentially the moment he joined the franchise last offseason, do not appear to match up with what Donovan wants in a team right now.

Donovan joined the Thunder prior to the 2015-16 season. While he had flirted with a move to the NBA in the past, he took his time before deciding to leave the University of Florida, where he had a decorated coaching career and won a pair of national titles. In five years at the helm in Oklahoma City, Donovan accrued a 243-157 record and made the postseason each year. However, outside of his first year with the team, he never advanced past the first round.

This season, Oklahoma City went 44-28 and nearly beat the Houston Rockets in the first round of the postseason before falling in seven games. While Donovan is out, it should be an appealing job, as the team boasts a building block in the backcourt in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and a treasure trove of future draft picks.

Just over five months removed from their first unofficial Verzuz battle back in March, Swizz Beatz and Timbaland have spent the spring and summer pairing some of music’s favorites for thrilling battles that leave viewers captivated for its 2-3 hour duration. Recent highlights from Verzuz include battles between Snoop Dogg and DMX, Rick Ross and 2 Chainz, and the most recent one between Monica and Brandy which roped in more than a million viewers on Instagram and over six million across Verzuz’s Instagram and Apple Music livestreams.

Taking it back a few decades for their latest battle, Verzuz has announced Gladys Knight and Patti LaBelle will go to head-to-head in their next battle.

Making their return to Instagram and Apple Music this Sunday, September 13, Verzuz opens their doors for some classic 70s and 80s records with Gladys Knight and Patti LaBelle’s appearances. Across the 20-song battle, fans can expect to hear classics from Gladys Knight that include “That’s What Friends Are For,” “Midnight Train to Georgia,” and “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” with the latter two coming from her soul group Gladys Knight & The Pips. As for Patti LaBelle, fans will be able to enjoy “If Only You Knew,” “On My Own,” “Lady Marmalade,” and much more during the battle.

Tune into Gladys Knight and Patti LaBelle’s Verzuz battle on 9/13 at 5pm PST/ 8pm EST.

Ghostbusters was such a big hit in the comedy world that it’s tough to imagine a time when its stars had to ask people to watch it, but that’s exactly what happened back when the movie was made. That’s what made for a charming viral video this week of Dan Akroyd and Bill Murray in Ghostbusters gear pitching theater owners on showing the film when it was released in 1984.

As explained in the tweet, the video was meant to lure independent theater chains into showing Ghostbusters at their theaters. Which is why there are some jokes tailored specifically to some small theaters and a bit of inside baseball on the budget of the movie, which cost $30 million to make in 1984. As referenced by the video, it was played to a gathering in Las Vegas and included some cheeky jokes about how much fun theater owners could have in Las Vegas.

“You guys really know how to have a good time, there’s no question about it,” Akroyd said, deadpanned. “Some of those chaps from General Cinemas are just wild. I heard about one who swallowed 12 roulette balls and took a ride in a clothes dryer.”

Murray and Akroyd riff a bit back and forth, but they get to the point: exhibiting what Akroyd called “perhaps the greatest comedy motion picture of all time.” The camera moves to a close-up on Murray, who gives a pitch-perfect approximation of the film’s greatness.

“I mean, this is gonna make E.T. look like Raiders of the Lost Ark, you know what I’m saying?” Murray said, with a signature stumble. “This is the kind of thing that your children are gonna say ‘Dad, I can look up to you now. And I never could before. Isn’t it worth it? Isn’t it worth it?”

The two speak briefly about the great “cheap movies” they made with smaller budgets and mentioned that, well, this one with ghosts and special effects cost a bit more to make. And they really give the hard sell on it being kid-friendly, too.

“And it is PG,” Akroyd said, stealing the show with a line that made Murray break into laughter in the middle of the take. “I’m f*ckin’ telling ya, it’s PG.”

The video also has a big of an unused Ghostbusters theme song in it, which you can hear more of below.

For fans of the movie, it’s a great little easter egg that makes for a fun story. And maybe another thing to quote related to the movie, which is f*cking PG, after all.

Following Drake’s Nothing Was The Same and Lil Wayne’s That Carter IV albums, the Young Money duo would embark on a nationwide tour entitled “Drake Vs. Lil Wayne” Inspired by Capcom’s Street Fighter video game, the tour featured both rappers going back and forth with their most popular songs at the time, before entering a rap battle where they went song for song with tracks like “A Milli” and “0 to 100.” At the end of the show, fans were allowed to pick a winner for the night through an app. Standing as one of the last decade’s most successful tours, fans have wondered if Drake and Lil Wayne would consider a second round in the near future and according to Lil Wayne’s manager, Cortez “Tez” Bryant, they have.

“They talked about it. I do think we need to do it again,” Tez said on Brian “B.Dot” Miller’s Art of Facts Instagram show. Tez also said the tour was one of his favorites of all the Young Money tours.

“My favorite tour of them all was this Drake vs. Lil Wayne tour,” he said. “It was at a time when Drake had arrived as an artist. Seeing him from the inception and as a superstar himself and mentor and mentee going on stage.”

This is not the first time Drake and Lil Wayne have possibly considered a second joint tour. Lil Wayne teased the idea back in 2018 in a congratulatory message to Drake following the success of his Aubrey Vs. The Migos tour that year. “I can’t wait to get back on that stage and we do our own tour again. ‘Drake vs. Tune, Wayne’…whatever you wanna call it,” Wayne said. “You will never win, you never do. Congratulations.”

Check out the interview with Tez in the Instagram post above and scroll to the 15-minute mark to hear him discuss the possibility of another joint tour.

In advance of the NBA’s restart in Orlando, the league announced the decision to delay both the Draft and free agency to mid-October. That came as no surprise given the league’s timeline, with the Draft Lottery occurring in late August as the newly announced plan outlined. In the ensuing weeks, though, rumblings emerged that the league was examining a further delay to its major offseason events, citing the potential for salary cap uncertainty and an unknown projection for when the 2020-21 season might begin.

On Tuesday, formal reporting emerged to that end, with Shams Charania of The Athletic bringing word that the NBA and the NBPA are now in agreement to push back the previously announced dates to an unspecified time.

This is simply the first of many steps in what could be a drawn out process. The 2020 NBA Finals aren’t scheduled to be completed until mid-October and, from there, the league and the Player’s Association must negotiate the parameters for next season, fully acknowledging a drop in revenue and very little uncertainty moving forward. As such, additional time may be needed, and both players and teams (as well as agents) would undoubtedly love to know what the 2020-21 salary cap looks like before the Draft and free agency.

Charania did note, however, that the current plan is for the Draft to still take place some time in October.

2020 is providing seemingly endless curve balls, both in the sports world and beyond, and this is simply the latest development for the NBA. For teams making deep playoff runs, a bit of extra time may not feel terribly out of the ordinary, but for the “Delete Eight” franchises that have not participated in game action since March, this reported agreement represents yet another delay and even more uncertainty to navigate.

With no NBA Awards show this year, the league has steadily been rolling out this year’s award winners during the playoffs. Montrezl Harrell won Sixth Man of the Year, Nick Nurse earned Coach of the Year, and Giannis Antetokounmpo took home Defensive Player of the Year.

On Tuesday, the league announced this year’s All-Defensive teams, which unsurprisingly were headlined by the DPOY in Giannis, along with Lakers star Anthony Davis — who some felt could and should’ve been the DPOY — and Rudy Gobert also making it onto the first team frontcourt. In the backcourt, Ben Simmons and Marcus Smart got the nod for their efforts on the defensive end this season, with the pair being two of the league’s most versatile defenders.

The full All-Defensive teams are as follows:

There aren’t really any surprises here, with the second team being filled with two Bucks and two Clippers, which isn’t surprising given their excellent team defense this year, along with Bam Adebayo who is sensational for Miami — and has shown his value on that end in their series with Milwaukee in taking on Giannis.

The rest of the voting and those that just missed the cut, headlined by P.J. Tucker and Jimmy Butler among forwards and Kris Dunn and Kyle Lowry, saw some curious votes — first team votes for James Harden and Luka Doncic are all nearly impossible to justify.

In Hulu’s new dramedy series, Woke, New Girl co-star Lamorne Morris plays cartoonist Keef Knight, a character who has everything lined up — the relationship goals, the new place, and the big career move. But when a thread gets pulled, things get unsettled quickly as the larger world becomes more apparent.

Created by Marshall Todd and Keith Knight (the real-life inspiration for the main character) Woke feels like a slight departure from Morris’ past on-screen work, specifically in New Girl. And that’s by design with the actor setting his sights on TV work that could specifically move people or otherwise stoak some conversation while also making them laugh. And the show definitely has that ability, launching a story that first focuses on the sometimes forgotten concept of someone too busy or caught up in their own life to get involved in the swirling storm of politics or pay too much attention to the utterly broken justice system until it directly and forcefully impacts them. How many people think like that?

As we discuss with Morris ahead, people don’t necessarily want to be as fixated on everything going on in politics as they are right now, they feel compelled to and he feels compelled to. And for Morris, Keef’s journey to wokeness and using the power of his voice feels relevant and recognizable. Something born from all he has in common with the character and something born from a close collaboration with a team of writers that, in his words, have taken “similar walks in life.”

Curious about how this came to you and also how much time you spent with Keith just trying to get the vibe of the character and what he was going for. Obviously it’s a very personal project for him.

It came about a couple of years ago. I read the script post-New Girl. I thought I’d want to take a break from television and just try to shoot my shot at film, just all film, and keep it two months on a project, take a month off, go back to work, something like that. And so we read a bunch of scripts and shot a couple of movies and I just kind of missed television a little bit. I remember reaching out to my agent saying, “Hey, what’s going on out there TV-wise?” And I got a lot of multi-cam shows, which were pretty funny, and a lot of sitcoms, which were pretty funny, but I said, “Well, I just did something that was really, really just pure comedy based.” I wanted to shoot something that kind of had more heart to it. Something that when you watch it, you kind of feel moved in some sort of way where it would have some sort of cause for discussion.

And I remember reading the script and just going, “Holy crap.” It’s kind of brilliant because it also mirrors my life and how I view the world. And so we went in and auditioned. I had a meeting. I had a meeting with the director and EP, Mo Marable, who’s fantastic. We vibed pretty well. I remember spending a little bit of time with Keith in Vancouver, texting a lot, talking a lot on the phone. Just kind of getting a sense of who he is and some of his mannerisms. I do impressions of certain people and if I really hone in, but he didn’t want that. They wanted it to be about his life and not necessarily doing a spot-on mimic him.

When I hung out with him, we spoke about his references and what he pulls from when he’s creating. The music that he likes, things like that. His family life. When you watch the show and you watch him, there are some isms that I wanted to pull from him. And I think it was a pretty good blend. It’s awkward and odd though, when he is on set, staring at you the entire time.

The music specifically is really great. Does his taste get into the soundtrack?

A thousand percent. He had his hands all over that. I think the opening title sequence has a very nineties punk feel to it. And that’s him. That’s when he was in a punk/hip-hop band in the nineties. That’s all him. A lot of times when you watch TV, if you see a predominantly black cast, a lot of times you’ll only have hip hop. That’s what you see as the soundtrack, as the backdrop. Hip-hop, hip-hop, hip-hop, and R&B. In this show, we blend a lot. Alternative, synth music, all kinds of stuff. A lot of hip hop, obviously just because it’s the best form of music to me in my opinion. But we throw a lot of punk in there. Like I said, as far as the opening title sequence.

To amplify what you were saying about the soundtrack, I really, really appreciate the diversity of sound in there. And you’re right, it’s not something you see a lot of. I think High Fidelity was another version of that where that kind of popped up. Sorry, Hulu people on this call, but they unfortunately canceled High Fidelity.

Oh, I know. When I heard about that I was so heartbroken. Just because I really do love that show.

Yeah. It was so good. I’m curious about comic book culture and cartoon culture. Is that something that you’re kind of immersed in or have been immersed in? Or is that something that you took to anew?

Anew… well, when I was a kid, obviously. I think that’s most kids. Comics and especially from our generation… I was a Marvel guy, DC guy. Oh, and I did a film called Bloodshot for Valiant Comics. And prior to it, I had already known about the character because coming up, my cousins had the comics. Now, on the comic strip side, I’d read a little bit in the Sunday paper, but I wasn’t too familiar until reading this script and obviously just doing research and having to dive in a little bit with Keith. I tried drawing. [Laughs] On set, I just remember going, “No, I’ll do it. I’ll do the drawing myself. Show me something, I’ll make it work.” And obviously we have to cheat some things, but it didn’t work out. I tried. [Laughs]

You mentioned before that the story kind of speaks to where you are in your life. Is that in regard to just being aware and socially conscious? Have you always been very engaged on social issues and very vocal or is that something that you’ve kind of grown into?

Grown into. And that’s what I mean by his journey kind of mirrored mine. Because he was always aware of what was going on, but it did take an incident to become activated and really engaged and really use his voice and platform to try to learn as much as he could. And if you can affect change somehow then do it. When I say I was the last person you’d want to ask about politics or anything happening in the world, I was the last person. I remember growing up on the Southside of Chicago and not knowing that we were different. Not knowing that there was an economic struggle. Not knowing that my mom was working 50, 60 hours a week and not making that much money and how real the struggle was. Not knowing that 30 minutes down the road, not even, other kids were getting a better education. Other kids were getting more funding for their schools, more funding for their basketball teams, more time at home with parents because they don’t have to work as hard. Or there were two parents in the household. There were all these things that you don’t pay attention to because you’re just born in it.

I remember being the smartest kid in my class on the Southside of Chicago and then moving to the West burbs of Glen Ellyn when I was about 14 or 15, something like that. And I remember going to this school and being so far behind. And I just thought, “How did I go from the top of my class? What they put in front of me, I learn it and I excel at it. What else do I need to do?” That above and beyond attitude was just limited to what I had access to. And when you move to a different side of town, you then realize, oh no, no, you’re far behind because the books are more up to date. They have computers at the school. I remember seeing my first computer when I moved to Glen Ellyn. I remember going to school and we had a computer lab class and people were legit learning how to code and build websites. This is not a joke, and I have the pictures to prove it at home and almost teared up the other day when my mom gave them to me. I hadn’t seen them in years. I was just so happy to print out photos. I just thought, “Wait, what?” Because I used to collect basketball cards, like a massive amount of basketball cards. And I just remember going to school going, “I can print out a picture of Michael Jordan and Vince Carter? I can just do that? I don’t have to go to the store, beg my mom for a few bucks so I can get some money so I can buy some cards so I can hopefully get it? I can just print it out?” I thought that was the coolest thing in the world. And the other kids were fascinated at the fact that I didn’t know. It was almost like you came from a third world country. You were like, “Wait, what?”

So even during that time, I wasn’t politically activated. I just thought, “Well, you got some catching up to do.” And I kind of struggled a little bit through school. But as I got older, then more and more I felt like my voice mattered. The more and more I would… when you’re hanging out with friends or older people who want to speak on politics, I always found myself lost in the conversation because I knew what was going on. I didn’t care to speak about it. I didn’t care about it. But in the past few years, just when you see what’s going on in our country and even in our world, you start to question things and you start to think, “Well, what can I do?” And then I just thought, “Well, you have this platform, you have a social media platform, you have TV shows and movies and stuff. Just talk about it. Speak to what you know and just try to encourage other people to get activated.” Encourage people to vote. Encourage people to pay close attention to other aspects, not just the President. Congress, things like that. People who can make change in your neighborhood. Your alderman, the mayor. All those people who can actually create change in your immediate life, that will hopefully make a happier, better living situation for you and your family. Let’s pay attention to those things as well.

When I said it mirrors him, that was the same thing. He wasn’t really speaking on it until things happened to him. And it opened his eyes to the life around him. And for anyone out there who feels the same way, it’s never too late. I’m always learning. For me, I use my instinct. Sometimes you’ll see on a post, I’ll ask, “Hey, let me know if I’m wrong on this. Somebody talk to me about something.” I get a lot of my information from my DMs where people will DM me and enlighten me on certain things. And then that’s where I kind of learn. That’s where I’ll start to do my research and do more investigating on what it is I’m talking about or what it is I think I’m talking about. So I’m still a work in progress on that end. It’s something that I would love to dive even harder into, hopefully not out of necessity, but just out of sheer curiosity and wanting to. I don’t want it to be a need. What’s happening in our world now and in our country, it’s something that I definitely don’t want to continue to happen and I don’t want to have the need to keep speaking up.

So, last thing, checked out a few tracks from the Lamorning After Pill album. How did that come together? Because it’s insane.

Oh, man. I used to joke around with my friends and freestyle and all that kind of stuff. It honestly came out of boredom. And I became good friends with this guy named Jukebox. Now he’s like a brother to me. And he’s a music producer and I knew nothing about it. I would be in the studio with him at his house sometimes literally just hanging out and different artists would pop in and out from time to time. And I just thought, “Man, that’s so fascinating how easy they make it look.” They would come in and a singer would come in and I’d be there for the whole process. In two hours, they would have this beautiful song. And I was like, “Man, that’s crazy.”

As an actor, we got to do so much to get five minutes of footage and they go in there and they just knock it out of the park. And so we would goof around the studio and I would just literally, as a joke, I would be in the booth and joking around and he would be recording and then he would make something out of it. And he said, “Man, you should actually try it for real. Obviously comedically as a joke because no one will take you seriously as a rapper for real. [Laughs] But try it as a joke.” And I was a huge fan of Weird Al Yankovic and Chris Rock, his comedy album and some of the just goofy things that would come out of that. And I decided, hey, I’m going to try it. I’m going to make a few songs.

The Common song, “Common Hates Oprah,” how did you talk him into that?

Some people that work at New Girl, like Jake Johnson, Damon, Max, they all thought the songs were funny. And I wasn’t going to do anything with it. I just had the songs. And I shot Barbershop with Common. And that’s when I took it seriously. Because on set, Common would like to freestyle. He’s an amazing freestyle artist. His performance at this past Oscars was absolutely incredible. And Common said to me, he goes, “Oh man, G, like you could actually kind of rap a little bit, bro. I’m for real, you should probably record some stuff.” He said that to me and I said to him, “It’s funny you say that because I have this album.” I sent it to him. Didn’t think he was going to listen to it. He flew back from Atlanta and said, “Hey man, I just listened to the four songs you sent me. These are pretty funny and actually really good. The production quality, the beats. You should really consider making an album.” And he’s like, “I’ll jump on that album if you want me to.” And my mind was blown. I just thought this is Common, he’s one of the greatest rappers of all time and he wants to get on an album with my silly, goofy ass. He came to LA, came to the studio and stayed as long as we needed to. And I remember even that process, I didn’t know what I was going to do just because I was so used to being by myself in the studio and just saying nonsense. And then he was like, “So what’s the concept?” And I thought, “What? What are you talking about concept? You just rap and I’ll rap.”

So he actually wrote his verse — not even wrote, he doesn’t write words down when he’s in the studio. He just freestyles it and does take after take until he gets it right. And then once he was done, I just thought, “I know exactly what I’ll do. I’ll go over his stuff and just negate what he’s saying. And then make Common out to be this horrible person because everyone loves him. Everybody loves Common.”

Until they hear the song.

Yeah. I mean, when they hear the song, hopefully, they’ll learn better because he’s not what he’s cut out to be. [Laughs] He’s like Santa Claus, you know what I mean? Santa Claus is the only guy that can break into your house and you don’t call the police. In fact, you leave him cookies. That’s how Common is. I’m fully convinced that Common could break into my house, kidnap my family, and I would go, “Great. When are you going to drop them back off?” He’s that type of guy. He’s so sweet. Whatever he wants, he can have it from me. I don’t care. He can kick me out of my own home if he wanted to. He can have my wife. “I’m leaving you for Common.” I’d go, “Great! He’s an amazing guy.”

I love Taco Bell’s Mexican Pizza. For 20 years, this cult-classic menu item has been part of my standard order (add nacho cheese, of course). Living in Southern Calfornia — where great Mexican food abounds — I buy them more often than I could possibly justify. I even made the dish in a recent cooking competition on Twitch.

So when the company announced that the Mexican Pizza would be discontinued last week, I planned on writing a big, dorky ode to this fan-favorite. A love letter to those flaky fried tortillas. An affectionate eulogy to the silky red sauce. I was all set to gush about how the dish was basically a nacho without any of the nacho’s ingredient distribution problems — offering equal amounts of beans, beef, cheese, sauce, and crunch in every bite.

Seriously, I was hyped. It would be an honorific so pure that fellow Mexican Pizza aficionado Bert Kreischer was going to get it tattooed on his chest. Together, we’d bring the Mexican Pizza back.

Then I lost the script. I looked at Taco Bell’s reasons for taking the Mexican Pizza off their menu in the first place — clicking on their official statement, which read:

One silver lining of saying goodbye to the Mexican Pizza that might help you rest easy is that removing it from our menus helps us work towards our commitment to leave a lighter footprint on our planet. Currently, Mexican Pizza packaging accounts for over 7 million pounds of paperboard material per year in the U.S.

Right then, I got it. Taco Bell didn’t have to take the Mexican Pizza off their menu. They made an active choice, at least partly for the sake of the environment. They did something rare in the world of mass-produced foods: make a decision not simply driven by market popularity or profit.

In short, they pursued a strategy that seems wrong but was actually right. And even if that bums you out, you have to admit it’s pretty cool.

In a world where what we eat is getting increasingly intellectualized — sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse — the Mexican Pizza was a clever dish that actually tasted good. A mashup in name and presentation that brought people four little slivers of joy. As the difference between food appropriation and appreciation grows ever more blurred, it was also an unrepentant blend of classic foods. Basically a double layer tostada topped with mild, red Enchilada sauce, melted cheese, and a few tomatoes, sliced in quarters.

But even as prone as I am to romanticizing this dish, Taco Bell’s website takes it comically far:

Listen, we love a well-placed karate chop as much as the next guy, but we can all agree that peace is the best, right? Especially since the Mexican Pizza was created with some peace.

The most obvious reason, of course, is because no one gets hurt. But a close second, and often-overlooked reason for why peace and harmony rule is because when different cultures get along, they start swapping recipes. It’s like tearing open a brand new pack of baseball cards only to find out that you have some duplicates and your neighbor has a card you want and you have one he wants. So you just trade straight up and basically become pals after that single encounter. But one clear example of cultural companionship at work is the Mexican Pizza.

That is, I shit you not, just the first third of Taco Bell’s ramblings on the Mexican Pizza. So clearly they saw it as important to their menu at some point. But that world peace talk wasn’t enough to justify the cancellation of the dish in an effort to meet the company’s stated packaging goals. And considering the scale at which Taco Bell makes food, the quest for peace of which they wax poetically is better off with them killing the Mexican Pizza and thereby decreasing waste and packaging production worldwide.

Not to reach too far here, but I see this as an example of what life in 2020 demands of us. Doing things that will potentially piss people off in the name of progress (generally speaking, a segment of people being pissed off is certainly one of the signifiers of positive change being made). Letting our hard-earned wisdom guide us rather than the path of least resistance.

God, I miss the days when we didn’t have to overthink fast food!

Well, they’re gone. The thing about any sort of romanticization of the past is that it puts you on a slippery slope where “make America great again” is actually code for “allow me to be racist, sexist, ableist, etc. without you complaining about it.” Or when country songs about a simpler time also imply “before I was forced to know about the complexities of the world, even though they definitely still existed.”

The fact is that in 2020, thanks to excellent food and ecology-based journalism and the numbers supplied by Taco Bell itself, we can see pretty easily that the Mexican Pizza had to go. Our ecological consciousness created its downfall, but it’s still better to be conscious. Right?

As much as I love the Mexican Pizza, I won’t cry for this perfect example of Taco Bell at its most authentically inauthentic. I won’t mourn this cultural mashup that was tastier than it had any right to be. I won’t lament the loss of the dish’s perfect topping ratios or its even distribution of meat, beans, sauce, and cheese. Instead, I’m choosing to see it as a sign of the times. I’m glad that waste management actually matters to a company whose core fanbase of people buying 12 tacos at a time at midnight may not make its purchasing decisions based on ecological factors.

Maybe one day the Mexican Pizza will come back in a compostable box. Until then, I’m going to wolf down a few more and walk away. Taco Bell thinks that our nostalgia for a mass-produced menu item isn’t worth the environmental costs and I’d like to hope they’re right. The world is changing and the company is smart to shift with it. The inexorable march of time waits for no food.

Besides, that top tortilla always got soggy as hell anyway.