Month: January 2021

The 2020 NBA offseason was a strange one, as it took place over the course of a week or so in November with an incredibly condensed schedule that brought us from the NBA Draft to free agency to the preseason in one fell swoop. Within that, the strangest saga of the offseason was that of Bogdan Bogdanovic, the restricted free agent shooting guard of the Kings who was reported to be headed to Milwaukee in a sign-and-trade days before free agency began.

In the subsequent days, that deal fell apart in large part because Bogdanovic didn’t know it was happening and hadn’t agreed to a deal, which is a key part of a free agent sign-and-trade. The league investigated what happened and ended up docking the Bucks a future second round pick for tampering, and in the end, Bogdanovic ended up in Atlanta where he has taken on the role of sixth man for the Hawks, albeit a very well paid one.

On Tuesday, The Athletic’s Sam Amick published an interview with Bogdanovic that dove into that botched sign-and-trade from his perspective. The young Serbian standout said it eroded any remaining trust he had with the Kings, resulting in him wanting out and being worried they might match the Hawks deal, and also led to mass confusion for he and his team when he awoke in Serbia to the news on Twitter.

I just couldn’t believe everything was happening like that, you know? Nothing was in my hands, really. When I saw that tweet about the Milwaukee stuff, I really saw it on Twitter. It’s not bullshit. That’s why I felt caught off guard.

…

When the news came out, we were like, ‘What the fuck?’ I didn’t know what was going on. I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure what was going on.

It is truly one of the weirdest free agency stories in recent years, at least since the infamous DeAndre Jordan will he, won’t he between the Clippers and Mavericks with emojis and barricaded doors. For now, Bogdanovic seems happy to be out of Sacramento and on an up-and-coming Hawks team, even in a role he might not be fully enthralled by — he says the right things about taking on whatever coach Lloyd Pierce calls on him to do, but it seems fairly clear he’s not in love with his sixth man role. As for the Bucks, they were left scrambling to refigure their roster after failing to land a fourth star, and are still working on dialing in their rotations as the season rolls on.

Alex Trebek made a lot of TV appearances over the years, the best of which is almost certainly the time on Cheers when Cliff Clavin unexpectedly bombed on Jeopardy! But he didn’t do a ton of movies, even if the only thing he did in them was play his charming self. (His filmography’s wild, too, spanning the Julia Roberts cancer weepie Dying Young, the Leslie Nielsen spoof Spy Hard, and the 2000 Charlie’s Angels.) But one of the last times you see him may wind up being his cameo in the long delayed Ryan Reynolds movie Free Guy, in which he played himself. And during the final run of Trebek’s Jeopardy! episodes, Reynolds paid back the favor, making a cameo on the beloved game show — a move that now seems extremely bittersweet.

Reynolds’ appearance came on the first Jeopardy! of 2021, when he appeared in the video of one of the night’s clues. His answer involved “NPCs,” and if you don’t know what that acronym stands for, well, then you’re not as up on things as Brayden Smith, the contestant who got it right. Here’s a hint, though: It involves the plot of Free Guy, in which he plays a Regular Joe he discovers he’s been living inside an open-world video game.

Reynolds’ appearance was paired with a brief montage from the film, which was supposed to open in July of 2020, but then, well, you know. (It’s now scheduled for May 21, but frankly even that seems optimistic.) Is this the first time what was essentially an ad for a movie was sneaked into a Jeopardy! clue? Possibly! Still, two of Canada’s most beloved entertainers briefly got to share a screen, even if that now feels unbearably sad.

News broke this week that super producer Jimmy Iovine had sold his catalog to Hipgnosis Songs Fund, but the money from the deal won’t be adding to Iovine’s already substantial fortune, but going toward education in Los Angeles.

In a statement, Iovine said that he’s committing the proceeds of the deal to build a high school in South LA, a school that will be something of an extension of the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy, an undergraduate program he established in 2013 with his frequent business partner Dr. Dre (Andre Young). “I’m happy that my work as a producer with so many great artists has found the right home,” Iovine said. No further details on the exact location or construction of the high school have been shared yet. As for the deal with Hipgnosis, founder Merck Mercuriadis gushed about his admiration for Iovine’s work over the years.

“While barely in my teens, I noticed that so many of my favorite albums had one name in common,” he told Billboard. “The best albums by John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith all had Jimmy Iovine on them. I have been glued to everything Jimmy does ever since. His incomparable success with Interscope and Beats means that he would never have to make a deal for money again, but leave it to Jimmy to figure out the most efficient way possible to use his producer royalties to build a best-in-class high school in the inner city and once again make a massive difference, as he has throughout his life. It’s an honor to now be a custodian of his incredible work on these iconic albums and I’m very happy to welcome him to the Hipgnosis family.”

If you’ve been extremely online at all in the past few months, you may have noticed a strange phenomenon: that Eve 6, a briefly medium-famous post-punk group from the early 2000s, had seemed to have been reborn as a weird Twitter account. The account had been on a tear, @-ing celebrity accounts, asking everyone from Elon Musk to Kamala Harris, “do you like the heart in the blender song?” This in reference to Eve 6’s biggest hit, 1998’s “Inside Out.”

A few even responded, leading to surreal moments like the actor Vincent D’Onofrio (Men In Black, Full Metal Jacket) checking in to say that he was more a fan of “Here’s To The Night.”

In parallel to that, the account seemed to be practicing radical honesty, both about Eve 6’s own trajectory and catalogue, and about a lot the folks they crossed paths with along the way to 90s and early aughts pseudo-stardom. About “Inside Out,” the so-called “heart in the blender song” that brought them fame and infamy, the account wrote “I was literally a virgin when I wrote that song,” adding the beautifully timed tag a few beats later, “i’ve since had sex.”

@Eve6 also shared a meme about it:

Then there were the celebrity stories, most notably all the ones starring Third Eye Blind’s Stephan Jenkins. Jenkins, one of the last of the rockstar’s rockstars, had, according to Eve 6, done everything from boasting of having slept with Eve 6’s girlfriend to getting him “fake arrested” for stealing candy.

Between the near-perfect style-imitation of popular weird Twitter accounts like Dril and PixelatedBoat, to the self-referential kitsch and conscious attempts to start surreal beefs, it was easy to wonder whether the Eve 6 guy had undergone some kind of Office Space-style conversion. Did he get hypnotized and then wake up one day simply not giving a shit? Or maybe the band, gearing up for another run with two of their three original members, had just hired a brilliant social media person who had a particular affinity for goofy leftist Twitter.

About that second possibility… In an age when brands like Steak Umms and Whoopie Pies frequently ape online irony, it’s impossible not to wonder “Is this a trick?” every time a new phenomenon crops up on Twitter. And this new incarnation of online Eve 6 seemed an almost too perfect new twist on the old Us Weekly standard, “Celebrities Are Just Like Us!” Only now reformulated, and aimed specifically, almost to the point of genuine pain, at me. “Bands you listened to in 2001 tweet just like you!”

The rebirth of Eve 6 as a funny Twitter account having already spawned countless articles, in everything from Spin to Rolling Stone to Billboard to the A/V Club, I had to know what was behind it. So I reached out to the account online. As it turns out, by his own reckoning and as far as I can verify, @Eve6 is indeed being controlled by Eve 6 frontman Max Collins, the writer of the heart in the blender song.

“I likened our Twitter account to Dudley Moore from Crazy People,” says Collins, now a 42-year-old father of two, a reference to the 1990 film in which Moore plays an advertising exec who one decides to tell the truth.

Collins also says he started playing around with the account right around the time he got back together with his other Eve 6 founding member Jon Siebels to start making new music. So in a way, both theories (change of heart or promotional strategy) are kind of true.

Still, it’s all the work of Collins himself, aka Eve 6, and perhaps I should’ve known. Just beneath the adherence to the weird Twitter style guide (no caps, frequent use of imagery divorced from traditional sentence structure, practiced glibness), there’s an honest introspection to the tweets that would be hard to fake. Which is probably why so many people seem to love them. The virgin thing, for instance, wasn’t just a joke, it was also true. Regarding the same song, Collins tweeted, “imagine if the worst diary entry you ever wrote as a teenager went double platinum.”

In that way, @Eve6 combines Mortified (the stage show where performers read their own adolescent diaries), irony Twitter, and True Hollywood Stories, all of which Collins seems fully aware of. As evidenced by his declaration, mid-random anecdote about Staind, “im writing the memoir of alternative rock mediocrity rn.”

And honestly, who better? Wordplay was always Eve 6’s strong suit (I always thought Eve 6 had the Cake curse, of becoming famous for arguably one of their lesser songs). With everyone suddenly interested again, I managed to get in touch with Collins almost immediately (probably not surprising for a musician in the middle of a quarantine who is also extremely online) and scheduled a Zoom call. (For the record, I beat the Washington Post by two days.)

—

I imagine you’ve gotten a lot of interview requests lately.

Yeah, a lot of interview stuff, a lot of podcast stuff. It’s just, it’s very surreal, the whole thing is quite surreal.

Have you been surprised by that?

I’ve been surprised by the whole thing. I guess I’d be lying if I said when I pushed out the “I was a virgin when I wrote the heart in a blender song” tweet that I didn’t think that it was a good tweet, but I didn’t think it would go viral.

So, I need to ask about your Stephan Jenkins’ feud/whatever. Also, I have a tangential connection there because my podcast co-host used to be friends with someone Stephan Jenkins was dating, so he does a Stephan Jenkins’ impression and also has Stephan Jenkins’ stories.

That’s funny.

I think you said one about him f*cking your girlfriend, but I’ll take any and all Stephan Jenkins’ stories.

Yeah, we were at the Fillmore, on his turf in San Francisco in the dressing room. And I don’t know if my impression of him will match up to your friends, but he was like [doing a Jenkins impression, which is sort of a cross between catty gay man and SoCal frat bro], “So, I heard you’re dating Sonya.” And I said, “Yeah.” And the context that makes this even funnier is that he was at least 34 at the time and I was 19 or 20, so he’s flexing on a teenager. And he goes, “You know I f*cked her, right?” And I honestly think I just laughed. But yeah, certainly never forgot it.

What year would that have been?

It would have been ’98, I think. ’98 or ’99. We did two tours with them. I can’t remember if they were consecutive but they were pretty close because we did their Bonfire Tour and then we did the MTV Campus Invasion Tour, and both tours were long, full U.S. runs. So, yeah.

You guys were still in high school when you had your first record deal?

Well, our first record deal was with a tiny label out of Orange County called Doctor Dream Records that signed all the guys from washed-up punk bands. We started doing a record with Steve Soto from The Adolescents. And then the label hooked us up with this woman named Jennifer Harold who had a syndicated radio program at the time called Radio Asylum. We recorded three live songs for her there in the studio, and she thought we were good and wanted to manage us and sent a copy of that live recording to Brian Malouf at RCA. A couple of months later Brian Malouf and another A&R guy flew out and saw us do a showcase out here. We did a showcase for them that I just remember being really awful. I remember our drummer dropping his sticks and stuff. And I was like, “Oh, they’re going to hate this.” But they didn’t and they signed us. But we stayed in high school and finished school. So it was a record deal, but in practice it was more like a glorified production deal. Because I feel like they thought, “Oh, maybe these kids will turn into something. We want to have a claim on it if they do.” I think that was their mentality.

Besides Third Eye Blind, who are some of the other people that you were touring with in your heyday? I don’t know if it’s offensive to say heyday or not but…

Oh dear, no. Not at all. Let’s see. We did a tour with Wheatus. A full headlining tour with Wheatus.

Oh yeah, I saw the tweet about you accidentally turning off their sound system at some point.

I accidentally stepped on their cable outside of the stage. And the thing about Wheatus is their show is completely self-sustained. They don’t even use a front of house guy. Their drums are electronic. They run their light show themselves. All the instruments are electric. There’s no acoustic sound emanating from the stage whatsoever. And when I stepped on this cable their entire light rig went out and a hundred percent of their sound went out in the middle of “Teenage Dirtbag.” Who else? American Hi-Fi, Goldfinger. We did a co-headline with them.

So I can’t remember if there was a Better Than Ezra story or if someone just asked you about that.

No. There’s not a Better Than Ezra story, there’s a Soul Asylum story. Maybe that’s what you’re thinking of? We were on tour with them in 2013, them and Everclear and Spacehog. We were doing a show at a venue on Long Island. And after my set I went with Dave [Pirner, of Soul Asylum] to this little bar that was around the corner and we were sitting there for a minute just talking and stuff. Then I realized I was late to go introduce Everclear. So I got up quickly and left, and when I walked off the stage after introducing them Dave was there holding a wallet and he said, “You might want to take this with you.” And I said, “Oh man, that’s not my wallet.” So he went and returned it to the bar and the guy whose wallet it was thought he’d stolen it and punched him in the face.

Wow!

Yeah. I’m a huge fan of Soul Asylum, but Dave’s a pretty eccentric guy, and I think he felt like the universe was sending him messages around this. The next day he got off of his tour bus, I forget where we were, and a homeless person pointed at him and said something like, “You’re a bad person.” And that fed into this narrative and really put him into a depression for a couple of days. Understandably, Jesus. But yeah, no good deed.

Are there other personalities or surreal moments that stand out from that era of touring?

Let me think here… not really. I think that’s why Stephan Jenkins is such a polarizing figure, because I think most of the other guys in the “late ’90s alternative milieu” were really nice guys, and also pretty boring. I did a tweet about it, but I would venture to guess that there is a performative element to his seemingly abject shitty personality, which is okay with me. I think at the end of the day that stuff can be pretty entertaining.

Of the people that you asked whether they like the heart in the blender song what were some of the most memorable responses?

Well, Hillary Duff responded saying she preferred “Wrong Things” by Chevy Mustang, which is my alter ego, this project born of quarantine that’s absolutely stupid and that everybody hates called Chevy Mustang that I do with the guys from the band KONGOS. So that was cool. Marianne Williamson saying yes was quite surreal. Who else responded? Ninety percent of people-

I saw Vincent D’Onofrio gave you a nice compliment.

Yeah, that was nice. And then there was a little bit of miscommunication because I think he thought I was being mean, but I was just trying to be fun on the internet when I accused him of having false humility and it being an unattractive trait. But I tried to clean that up and then I didn’t feel like any of it was landing so I just deleted it.

Yeah, that happens. Oh, so there was another burning question that’s been on my mind: what was it like to have your song referenced in a Limp Bizkit song? (In 1999’s “Nookie,” Fred Durst raps, “she put my tender / heart in a blender / and still I surrendered.” The 90s were f*ckin’ weird, man.)

Very strange! I ended up at a urinal next to Fred Durst at some bar and he was like, “Hey, man, I used your lyric in a song,” and I was like, “I know.”

You got sober after your guys’ initial fame when you were younger, right?

I didn’t get sober till ’06. So we did all three records and touring cycles when I was very much still in it. And then disbanded in ’03 and then in ’06 I got sober.

Do you have Twitter influences?

Probably too many to name and a bunch that I would forget. I did tweet the other day about how I don’t use punctuation because I was moved by Luke O’Neil’s “Welcome To Hell World” newsletter, which is absolutely true. I don’t know if you read him at all.

I do. I’ve had him on my podcast.

I have a weird Luke O’Neil story. I was on tour with Fitness, this other band that I was doing for a while, and we were out supporting Big Data. We were in Boston, and I’m a swimmer so I try to find lap swim pools. And I found a YMCA fairly close to the venue and I was doing my swim. I had a lane to myself which is really nice, and then this big dude I saw from the other side of the pool sauntering over and got into my lane. And now he’s swimming in my lane and I’m thinking, “This guy looks really f*cking familiar.” And I thought, okay, the tell is going to be the nose ring, because I remembered the nose ring from his picture. And so we both stopped at the same side of the pool and I was like, “Are you Luke O’Neil?” And he’s like, “Yeah.” And I said, “Oh, I’m a big fan.” And he’s like, “Oh, that’s cool.” I didn’t tell him about Eve 6, I just told him I was in a band that was playing that night with Big Data. Did he want to come? No, he was busy. And then that was that. We finished our swim. We interacted, over the last couple of years and DM’d a few times and he’s since figured out I’m the heart in a blender guy. He told me that the heart in a blender song was the first song he learned on guitar and stuff like that. So, yeah. Shout out to Luke.

That’s got to be hard. It seems like something that would be weird to just bring up when you first meet someone, like “Hey I’m the heart in the blender guy,” but then after the fact, I feel like people would be like “why didn’t you tell me?”

Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t identify with it so it’s like… I don’t know.

So I read your tweet about “imagine if the worst diary entry you ever wrote as a teenager went double platinum.” Are there lyrics that stand out as things that make you cringe that you are forced to keep singing again and again?

Yeah, but you develop a compartmentalized relationship with the stuff, because even the stuff that makes me cringe about that song I have framed, and maybe it’s just a survival technique, but in a way I do also see beauty in it. Because with that song, and I said this to a journalist at Spin, it’s guileless. It’s so absurdly open-hearted and for that reason there’s just a big target on its back. Also for that reason, I think it worked because… do you know what I’m saying?

Yes. It’s not guarded. That’s why it’s good.

Yeah, it’s the opposite of guarded, for better or for worse. And so it’s hard to run any kind of counterfactuals with this stuff, because if we had waited and developed more and made our first record when we were 27, who knows? Maybe we would’ve made a better record and no one would have heard it. Maybe we would’ve made a great record and it would have been big. Who f*cking knows?

I always thought you were an English major just from the way that you wrote songs. So I was surprised to learn how young you guys were when your first hits were coming out.

Well, thanks. I definitely littered those songs with five-dollar words. I think it was some kind of compensatory thing because I didn’t have any comprehension of melody when I was writing that stuff. And you hear it, the chorus of “Inside Out” is basically one note. So I think I would play with words and jam words in to make up for the fact that there wasn’t a lot that was particularly melodically interesting going on.

I didn’t even think that they were necessarily five-dollar words. I think that about Panic! At The Disco, or even Bad Religion to some extent, but with you guys I just thought it was clever wordplay, and genuinely enjoyable.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

So you guys have new music coming out?

Yeah. We were going to wait to do this announcement about new music because we’re on a label called Velocity that is brand new and is just getting their website up and stuff. But we have a five-song EP called Black Nova that’s going to come out soon, in about a month. The first single’s called “Black Nova.” It’s a little punk record. And we started making music again, when was it, I guess at the end of 2019, just to do it. We were like, “If we’re going to do this we’re going to do just exactly what we want with no extra f*cking considerations.” And so that’s what we did. And I guess I’d be remiss if I didn’t say we do have a record coming out in about a month.

Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

Over the past ten or so months, we’ve thought a lot about where in the world we’ll go as soon as it’s safe to do so. For most of 2020, that list has seemed like little more than a distant pipe dream. But now, with two COVID vaccines approved by the FDA and another one waiting in the wings, it’s finally beginning to look like there’s some light at the end of the tunnel.

Don’t get us wrong, we still don’t have a definitive date for when traveling will be something to get excited about again. But we can say with some confidence that it’s coming a lot sooner than later. So it’s worthwhile to start thinking about where you want to go when that magical time arrives.

Travel influencer and Bravo star Jenna MacGillivray thinks that Bali, Indonesia should certainly make your list. (We agree, while also recommending you see other parts of Indo.).

Better known as “Jenna The Mac” by those who follow her adventures on Instagram, MacGillivray is Chief Stewardess on Bravo’s Below Deck Sailing Yacht. That means she calls the shots with the crew and has a concierge’s skill at figuring out the best places to visit in every port. Naturally, we were more than eager to tap her expertise for a post-pandemic travel guide to Bali, a destination she adores.

Let’s dive in, and catch Jenna on Below Deck Sailing Yacht when it returns for season 2 on Bravo sometime in early 2021.

Best Place To Grab A Smoothie or Coffee?

Beetlnut Café

There are so many amazing places! In Caangu, I go to the Beetlnut café for breakfast most mornings. They have this amazing gluten-free bread with hummus, it’s so simple, yet so perfect. It’s my favorite breakfast of all time. They also make amazing smoothies and smoothie bowls.

Favorite Beach or Outdoor Area?

Dreamland

I like to surf when I’m in Bali, so my favorite surf spot is Dreamland Beach, near Uluwatu. Dreamland has crystal blue waters and a little wave that’s perfect and usually not too crowded.

Best Spot To Grab A late-night dinner?

The Lawn & La Brisa

For me, late-night dinners are early in Bali — because you go to sleep early so you can wake up at 6 am and get most of the day. Two super vibey spots to get dinner and watch the sunset are “The Lawn”, and “La Brisa” in Caangu.

It’s all about watching the sunset in Bali, everyone gets together for sunset, beers, and some food. If you go to The Lawn or La Brisa it’s perfect for groups and you order a bunch of different small plates and share while you relish in your day. Every day is paradise there! Both spots have pools and overlook the ocean, La Brisa is this little spot that reminds me of if you were in a fantasy movie of being cast away on an island with a bunch of fun people. It’s magical.

Best Bar To Grab A Drink?

Finns Beach Club

I love going to Finns, it has a massive pool overlooking the ocean, with a DJ playing. You can watch the surf, have a drink in the pool and stay as long as you want.

Best Place In Bali To Catch A Great View?

Sunset Point *& Single Fin

I think the best place for a view in Bali, is wherever you can watch the sunset, two best places are Sunset point in Uluwatu, a super casual family-run spot off the beaten path, or at “Single Fin”, a spot in Uluwatu that has amazing surf and the best sunsets.

Favorite Thing To Do In Bali?

Live the island life

My favorite thing to do in Bali is to enjoy the feel of the island. Everyone there seems to be in this magic headspace and never wants to leave because it feels like this paradise that meets all your needs if your needs include meeting amazing travelers, surfing, massages, great food, sunsets, perfect weather.

One Thing People Visiting Bali Must-Do?

Surf

If you go to Bali, you MUST try surfing, even if you’ve never been on a board. There are tons of spots for beginners and it’s such a nice community.

It’s not a coincidence that the best season of Dexter was the one with the best villain. As played by the great John Lithgow, serial killer Arthur Mitchell was menacing yet still likable, and the role earned the actor both a Golden Globe Award and a Primetime Emmy Award. Dexter could never recapture the magic of season four, but if the key to a good season is a good villain, the upcoming revival could be very good.

Clancy Brown, best known for The Shawshank Redemption and voicing Mr. Krabs on SpongeBob SquarePants, was cast as the lead villain in the Dexter limited series. He’ll play Kurt Caldwell, the “unofficial mayor of the small town of Iron Lake,” according to Variety. “He’s realized the American dream by going from driving big rigs, just like his father did, to now owning several trucks and the local truck stop. Powerful, generous, loved by everyone – he’s a true man of the people. If he’s got your back, consider yourself blessed. But should you cross Kurt, or hurt anyone that he cares for, God help you.” Brown is no stranger to Showtime: he is also Waylon “Jock” Jeffcoat on Billions.

It’s unclear if Iron Lake is the Oregon town where Dexter Morgan now works as a lumberjack, but we do know that the primary setting for the 10 episodes isn’t Miami. Gee, it gets pretty cold in the Pacific Northwest. I hope Dexter remembered to pack a piece of equipment that can help him exercise indoors…

(Via Variety)

Update: Megan Thee Stallion responded to the accusations against DaBaby by revealing the behind-the-scenes video shoot photo shared by Tory is “old and not cleared.” She then advised that the “Cry Baby” video is coming soon.

DaBaby is no stranger to online criticism. The North Carolina rapper has been censured for accidentally striking a woman in the face during a concert in early 2020, holding concerts during the ongoing pandemic, and even posting his lunch purchase from Chik-Fil-A on Twitter. Up until now, though, he’s taken the most punishment over his music — particularly for only having one gear when it comes to his flows. However, his music is taking flak for another reason today: Working with Tory Lanez on a new song, which the latter promoted on his Instagram this afternoon.

News that DaBaby has crossed the proverbial picket line that popped up around Tory after he was accused of shooting Megan Thee Stallion is especially distressing for fans in light of DaBaby and Megan’s relationship, which has seen the pair collaborate a number of times as their breakouts coincided with each other, most recently on the song “Cry Baby” from Megan’s debut album Good News. Coincidentally, Good News was also notable for being the first time Megan rapped about the shooting incident, addressing Tory’s rebuttals of her accusal from his album Daystar.

While Tory didn’t reveal the title of the new song or its release date, it’s drawn enough attention on social media to ensure that it at least elicits a wave of curiosity streams — which is likely the desired result of his latest controversy-baiting maneuver. Meanwhile, fans were quick to express their displeasure at DaBaby’s perceived disloyalty to Megan. While fans’ assumptions are based on their perception of the two artists as friends, one can certainly understand why they could read into it DaBaby’s latest move and one thing is for sure: “Cry Baby” is likely to be the last collaboration between Meg and DaBaby.

See more fan responses below.

https://twitter.com/_bvrzdalyricist/status/1346535144639741952

https://twitter.com/_bvrzdalyricist/status/1346546971398455297

In a scathing op-ed for The Economist, Arnold Schwarzenegger blasts Donald Trump‘s plan to overturn the 2020 election and cautions Republicans that if they go along with Trump’s “stupid, crazy, and evil” scheme, “Judgment Day” will be coming for them. While drawing on his early years in post-World War II Austria, Schwarzenegger warned the GOP that he’s seen what happens when a country gives up on democracy. In Austria’s case, it was a descent into Nazism, which isn’t too far off from America’s current trajectory under Trump. Via The Economist:

Growing up, I was surrounded by broken men drinking away their guilt over their participation in the most evil regime in history. They were part of a system that murdered 6m Jews along with at least 5m other innocent people, tortured and experimented on human beings and started a war that caused 75m deaths. Not all of them were rabid anti-Semites or Nazis. Many just went along step by step down the road toward greater and greater evil because it was the easiest path.

While Schwarzenegger says he doesn’t personally believe that America is capable of those “depths of evil,” he can’t help but see the warning signs as the country faces a choice between “choosing selfishness and cynicism over service and hope.” But should his fellow Republicans not heed Schwarzenegger’s call to stop Trump’s effort to subvert democracy, he has stern words for how they’ll be remembered.

“For those in my party considering standing up against the voters on January 6th, know this: our grandchildren will know your names only as the villains who fought against the great American experiment and the will of the voters,” Schwarzenegger writes. “You will live in infamy.”

(Via The Economist)

History of Swear Words — (Netflix series) A Nic Cage-hosted TV show? Yes please. A Nic Cage series where he teaches us lessons about expletives? Give it to me now. Cage hosts here with an array of guests — including Jim Jefferies, Zainab Johnson, Nick Offerman, Sarah Silverman, Baron Vaughn, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Joel Kim Booster, DeRay Davis, Open Mike Eagle, Nikki Glaser, Patti Harrison, London Hughes — to dive deep into his proudly profane stance. Over the course of six episodes, you’ll learn about the origins of “F*ck,” “Sh*t,” “B*tch,” “D*ck,” “Pu**y,” and “Damn.” Alright!

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist (NBC, 8:00pm) — The marvelous Jane Levy returns for Season 2 of this fancifully musical series. This time around, Zoey returns after an appropriately extended time away to discover that her personal and work lives are now the portrait of chaos. Cue the songs.

Boruto: Naruto Next Generations (Viz series on Hulu) — This series isn’t exactly new to Hulu, but the dubbed version is fresh, so settle into the transformation of the life of the shinobi. The son of the Seventh Hokage Naruto Uzumak enters Ninja Academy, and a series of mysterious events transpires.

Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates Jr. (PBS, 8:00pm) — Jordan Peele, Gayle King, and Issa Rae dig into their pasts and discover previously unknown ancestors and consider profound inquiries about family.

This Is Us (NBC, 9:00pm) — Season 5 picks up with Kate confronting past events, Randall experiencing the aftereffects of viral fame, and Kevin building toward his future.

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert — Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Anya Taylor-Joy

The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon — Gwen Stefani, Ralph Macchio

The Late Late Show With James Corden — James Marsden, Tim Minchin

In case you missed these recent picks:

The High Note — (Focus Features film on HBO) Movies in 2020 didn’t fare so well in theaters, but HBO is giving this film a second whirl. The comedy-drama picture stars Dakota Johnson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Zoë Chao, Bill Pullman, Eddie Izzard, and Ice Cube, and it’s about the personal assistant who aims to be a music producer while working for a famous singer.

The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina: Part Four — (Netflix series) The Riverdale spinoff will come to a (planned) end with this installment starring Kiernan Shipka. This time around, the Devil-afflicted Nick’s attempting to win Sabrina back after surrendering to his darker urges, but The Eldritch Terrors have descended upon Greendale, and The Void could truly be the End of All Things. Can the Fright Club save the day? I’m (strangely) pulling for Harvey over here. And Salem the Cat. Meow.

Vikings: Season 6B — (Amazon Prime) The final ten episodes of the History Channel series are making their debut on streaming first. The epic saga comes to a close with grave consequences from the confrontations between the Vikings and the Rus. Ivar the Boneless has a last reckoning with the King, and there’s unfinished business all over England. Get ready for (of course) a violent and bloody end to the show.

The 2020 college football season was marred by cancellations and postponements, as programs tried, often in vain, to proceed with a season in the midst of an ongoing pandemic. Next Monday, the season is set to come to an official close with the College Football Playoff national title game between Alabama and Ohio State, but at present their ability to play that game as scheduled is in a bit of peril.

According to AL.com, Ohio State has alerted Alabama, the Big Ten, the SEC, and College Football Playoff to COVID-19 issues that could threaten an entire position group and may need the game to be postponed.

There have been discussions amongst the SEC, Big Ten, the College Football Playoff and the schools related to possibly postponing the Jan. 11 title game, sources said, though a final decision on the situation has yet to be reached. The CFP has already established Jan. 18 in Hard Rock Stadium as the makeup date should the title game have to be postponed.

According to Aaron Suttles of The Athletic, the SEC is pushing for the game to be played as is, which should come as little surprise, but a decision remains to be determined.

Per Pete Thamel of Yahoo, the game is still being planning on being played as scheduled, but should things get worse for the Buckeyes that can change.

And the Buckeyes still want to play as scheduled, provided things do not get worse.

It is a fitting close to a season that’s been as much defined by the stop/start nature as what’s happened on the field, and the biggest hope is that everyone involved with the Buckeyes remains healthy. Should more positive tests emerge and Ohio State indeed lose a position group due to contact tracing, then things will become much murkier and a postponement could ensue.