Month: January 2021

Things haven’t exactly gone as planned for the Washington Wizards this season. After the blockbuster deal that sent Russell Westbrook to D.C. in exchange for John Wall and other assets, the Wizards were hoping it would be just the shakeup they need to fight their way back to relevance.

Instead, the losses have been piling up, and in the process, they’ve resulted in wasted efforts on the part of Bradley Beal, who has single-handedly tried to keep his team afloat with superstar-level performances, but whose frustration is more and more apparent with each demoralizing loss.

Emotions started to boil over on Friday night against the Hawks, with things getting chippy early between Westbrook and Rajon Rondo, although cooler heads would momentarily prevail after they were both hit with technical fouls.

Westbrook and Rondo both got technical fouls after exchanging words pic.twitter.com/KPWuMNyUTM

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) January 30, 2021

Later, it was Robin Lopez who would be the first to get tossed — while standing on the sideline, no less — for arguing a call with the official and picking up two quick technicals.

It’s getting tense at Capital One Arena.

– Bradley Beal receives a tech after not getting the foul call

– Robin Lopez is ejected after arguing with a ref about a delay of game call on Beal. pic.twitter.com/6lOW7QhZDI

— NBCSports Washington (@NBCSWashington) January 30, 2021

And Westbrook would soon follow his teammate to the locker room early in the fourth quarter, which prompted Rondo to give him a nice farewell to help send him on his way.

Rondo waved at Westbrook after he got ejected. pic.twitter.com/C62rAgRoeR

— House of Highlights (@HoHighlights) January 30, 2021

In the end, the Hawks ran away with this one, 116-100. Bradley Beal led the way with 26 points, but was 0-of-8 from downtown and finished a minus-17 on the night. It was the Wizards’ third straight loss, which keeps them firmly in possession of the league’s worst record.

At this point in the GameStop stock drama it seems like the story is destined to become a TV show or movie, and those paying attention to Reddit day traders’ assault on the stock market are apparently already looking for the entertainment industry equivalent on streaming services.

The tug of war playing out in the markets over various retail stocks like GameStop has made some Redditors millions, as short sellers take a bath on the stock they were long betting against to fail. And according to IndieWire, streams of titles like The Big Short and The Wolf of Wall Street have skyrocketed as much as GameStop and AMC stock has in recent days, as people who are following the stock market drama are getting a bit of an education in the fiduciary duties and financial factors involved in stock market rises and falls.

Apple TV, usually the quickest to detect trends and spot immediate response, currently has Adam McKay’s 2015 “The Big Short” at #3 and Martin Scorsese’s 2013 “The Wolf of Wall Street” at #4. That places them ahead of all but two current releases (“Tenet” and “Greenland”) as the most-ordered titles.

This rapid response parallels what happened last February when Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 “Contagion” flew high with its story that paralleled the then-emergent COVID-19 pandemic.

The Big Short, in particular, is a great watch for those who want to understand the concept of shorting stocks. It also will probably make you very mad about the 2008 global financial crisis if you’re not aware of what caused thousands of lives to be ruined by the hosing collapse. But what’s interesting about using Apple TV to judge this is that people are paying to watch and rent these, as they are not on more widely used streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. So it’s safe to say that people are very interested in figuring out what’s going on.

It seems inevitable that this whole ordeal is turned into a movie or TV show of its own, but as millions try to understand what’s happening in the stock market and how they might be able to benefit it seems they’re turning to entertainment to try figuring it out for themselves.

Kid Cudi is notoriously honest when it comes to his personal life. In the past, the rapper has opened up about his mental health struggles, addiction, and time spent in rehab. But on a more lighthearted note, Kid Cudi sometimes spits random facts about himself on social media. On Friday, the rapper revealed which song terrified him when he’d hear it as a child — and it’s a surprising pick.

Kid Cudi tweeted that Coolio’s 1995 track “Gangsta’s Paradise” would make him scared when it he heard it on the radio. “Cudder fact: I was scared of the beat for Gangster Paradise back in the day hahah soon as that sh*t came on the radio, change the station immediately,” he wrote.

In other Kid Cudi news, the rapper has had his sights set on the fashion industry this week. A Bathing Ape, aka Bape, unveiled their anticipated t-shirt design with Kid Cudi Thursday. The limited-edition tee features a vibrant illustration of the rapper with the New York City skyline on the back.

Along with his Bape collaboration, Kid Cudi also announced that he’s starting his own clothing line. It’s expected to drop this summer and the rapper said it’s been a “long time coming.”

Listen to the original “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio above.

GameStop’s meteoric rise in the stock market has made a mess of the last week, and had a number of unintended consequences as the Funko pop retailer’s phoenix-like ascendence has flapped its wings and caused chaos in far-reaching locales. The Robin Hood Society, for example, has certainly had an interesting week on Twitter thanks to an app of the same name throttling users trying to buy retail stocks.

One other unexpected consequence: Jon Stewart joined Twitter to complain about GameStop shenanigans. No, really. Though it wasn’t official on Thursday when the tweet popped up, @jon_actual was heavily hinted to be the former Daily Show host by friend Stephen Colbert.

And on Friday, Stewart fired off a few more tweets and earned his verified blue checkmark, which is tough to get if you’re looking to acquire one in 2021. And he shared a nice message thanking folks who have welcomed him to the microblogging platform.

On Friday, though, started really posting. And fittingly, he started with a joke about Donald Trump.

We won’t analyze every Jon Stewart tweet from here on out, but it is a good joke and actually a compliment to the man who is now banned from the platform. Trump was, for better and much, much worse, a true poster. And his presence on Twitter was a huge reason for the success of his presidential run.

That Trump’s now off the platform is a very good thing, indeed, but it remains to be seen what Stewart intends to do with his time on Twitter. He’ll certainly have an audience for it, though: he already has more than 800,000 followers in just over a day and just three tweets.

After Coachella followed a wave of other festivals and opted to cancel their 2020 dates, festival organizer Goldenvoice was hopeful that it would be able to return in 2021. Last June, Coachella announced it would be taking place the second weekend of April 2021, but Riverside County Public Health Officer Dr. Cameron Kaiser says otherwise.

Per a report from Palm Springs’ KESQ-TV, Dr. Kaiser has ordered Goldenvoice to cancel their 2021 festivals Coachella and Stagecoach. The official order notes that the festival usually attracts people from all across the world, increasing the risk of the virus’ spread:

“This Order recognizes that both the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and Stagecoach Music Festival are music concerts and gatherings of an international scope, attracting hundreds of thousands of attendees from many countries, including several disproportionately afflicted by the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. This order is intended to reduce the likelihood of exposure to COVID-19, thereby slowing the spread of COVID-19 in communities worldwide. If COVID-19 were detected at these festivals, the scope and number of attendees and the nature of the venue would make it infeasible, if not impossible, to track those who may be placed at risk.”

At the time of this post, Coachella has yet to share an official announcement about the festival’s cancellation.

Read Dr. Kaiser’s cancellation order above.

Since the 2018 forming of indie powerhouse trio Boygenius, made up of musicians Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus, many have made the same comparison: Boygenius is the contemporary answer to Crosby, Stills & Nash. But if that were true, it begs the question of who would be Boygenius’ Neil Young. Uproxx’s Ask A Music Critic column said a good edition would be Mitski, but Bridgers has now given an answer of her own.

Bridgers recently sat down with Radio.com’s New Arrivals show with Bryce Segall. Revealing who Boygenius would ask to be their fourth member, Bridgers named Big Thief’s vocalist Adrianne Lenker. “It’s Adrianne Lenker. She’s out there doing her own thing,” she said. “I feel like we would go on tour and every five years Adrianne would join.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Bridgers said that if she didn’t make indie music, she’d want to try her hand at pop tunes. “Sometimes I do listen to things that are totally opposite from my music,” she said. “I would love to top-line write for someone ridiculous, as in the opposite of my music. Like, the next Skrillex album I’ll be writing some really, really poppy top-line… I’d love that, it would be great.”

Listen to Bridgers’ conversation with Radio.com’s New Arrivals with Bryce Segall above.

Neil Young is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Like a college freshman desperately attempting to acclimate themselves to the bitter taste of coffee, I have tried so goddamn hard to get into MMOs.

I’ve wandered in World of Warcraft, journeyed through several levels of Lord of the Rings Online, and have taken more than my fair share of forays into Final Fantasy XIV. I’ve dabbled with Star Wars: The Old Republic, saved lives in both DC Universe Online and City of Heroes, and spent far too long creating a character in Black Desert Online, but ultimately–whether these sandboxes are set in space or The Shire–I come to the same conclusion every time: MMOs just aren’t for me.

And please believe me when I say, dear reader, I wish they were. I see the way my peers’ eyes light up when their favorite home away from home gets a new patch. I’ve watched from afar as these brave heroes recount how horribly that raid went and bond over their hatred of darksoldier321’s “bad heals.” After years and years of free trial and error, however I am forced to admit I will never truly “get” the appeal of MMOs. Unless they’re Destiny.

Whereas some may argue the Destiny games aren’t “real” MMOs, I argue they’re massively multiplayer, they’re online, and they’re the only ones I’ve got so please, let me have them. I must admit, though, they aren’t what comes to mind when you think of the genre and so I can understand enthusiasts giving them the ol’ side-eye. Even previous publisher Activision billed the series as the first “shared-world shooter” prior to its release in 2014, perhaps to somewhat detach the franchise from the MMO label.

Traditional MMOs conjure images of sprawling servers and a world populated by potential pals–or at the very least folks with amusing usernames. And we do get that in the Destiny games, but admittedly not to the same extent. Furthermore, beyond technicalities, there are a lot of other ways in which Destiny deviates from what we expect MMOs to be, making it perfect for those of us who bounce off of them.

We’ll start at the beginning. OK, not right at the beginning because let’s be real, character creation takes a good twenty minutes, but right after that. Every time I’m lured into starting an MMO, the hard sell I’m given comes with a promise that “it gets better later on.” And hey, I’ve recommended plenty of hard-to-get-into things to friends, I get the tactic and I know their heart is in it, but in all the traditional MMOs I’ve played, I’ve yet to get to “later.” The thing with MMOs is, in my opinion, they work best for those of us who can successfully delay gratification–the best of us, really.

With these games, the dopamine hit doesn’t come from repeated, instantaneous actions, it instead comes after you’re done putting in the work, step back and think, “wow, I absolutely couldn’t do that before.” There’s something to be said about the folks who can power through the work in search of that bit of growth, but I’ll be completely honest and say that when I play games, work just isn’t what I want to do. But Destiny? Destiny rewards both kinds of players.

I can play Destiny on a very casual level and not feel like I’m putting in an exorbitant amount of work or grinding to get to “later,” not that “later” is particularly needed when I’m having fun right away. Whereas in traditional MMOs you’re stuck killing 20 rats for a few hours clad in some nice burlap fit, Destiny lets you in on the action much earlier. I think a great deal of this comes from the game being an absolutely fantastic feeling first-person shooter, which in turn gives us that repeated, instantaneous rush that impatient folks like me need to keep going. Additionally, modes like Crucible allow us to jump in with friends right away, and anything that eliminates the awkwardness of my level 40 friend watching me collect 10 mosquito needles for my level 6 quest is very welcome.

Furthermore, Destiny is not only great at both welcoming and rewarding new players but is also less stressful to pick back up than a traditional MMO—especially if you’re like me and have a tendency to only jump back in when the newest expansion is out.

Thanks to Bungie implementing methods to help Guardians be battle-ready when the Next Big Thing begins, I’ve never felt seriously dissuaded coming back from hiatus, either. This isn’t to say the game isn’t made for near-daily play; bounties and weekly events, such as nightfalls, strikes, and raids, keep things interesting for everyone while still being accessible for on and off again fans. And for those who love the grind, the grind is absolutely there. But I’ve never felt like I needed to put in ten hours of work to get gauntlets that make me feel badass when the loot you get through casual play is honestly great-looking and effective.

The other element that keeps me coming back is how Destiny handles its world and narrative. We tend to throw this word around a lot, but Destiny truly does feel immersive. The combination of gorgeous environments, interesting character design, and top-notch voice acting makes me feel more connected to the world than I do in a traditional MMO. I’m not drowning in text or empty sidequests when making my way through the solar system, I’m in the middle of the action and a story that is compelling and deep if you’re keeping tabs and truly invested, but still rad as hell if you’re just along for a brief ride. During my time with the games, I’ve gotten better at retaining the overarching plot of the game, but even when I jumped into Forsaken a while back, I found what was immediately happening interesting enough to call that DLC one of my absolute favorites of the year.

The sad truth of the matter is when you start getting older–or paid to write about games, so a real double whammy on my part–your relationship with them changes. You start to celebrate ones that are more respectful of your time, that are more forgiving to those who can’t put in their 20 hours a week or power through an 80-hour story. MMOs aren’t for me because, quite frankly, I lack the willpower to commit to something that doesn’t commit to my joy immediately. But Destiny does and gives us a chance to enjoy a game with all the best elements of an MMO RPG and none of the ones that might make us wary of getting started. So while I might be missing out on darksoldier321’s poor teamwork, I’m thankful Destiny has given me the opportunity to groan while I tell my friend “we gotta res that guy again.”

With the premiere of his new ABC show For Life and his upcoming series Power Book III: Raising Kanan, 50 Cent has a lot on his plate. The rapper recently appeared on a radio show to chat about his upcoming projects, and the rapper also addressed the possibility of him appearing in a celebrity boxing match.

50 was asked who he’d be willing to face off in the ring in a recent interview with Radio.com and V-103’s The Morning Culture. It didn’t take long for 50 to name Floyd Mayweather as a worthy opponent, but there’s a catch. “I don’t think I could make weight though,” he said. “I’d fight Floyd (Mayweather) if I could get down there. Or he’d just have to let me not get down to 150. I tried I looked like a homeless person. I could make it down to probably, like 180.”

Elsewhere in the interview, 50 knocked down the possibility of him ever appearing on a Verzuz battle in the future. For him, Verzuz is more of a trip through memory lane rather than an actual battle. “Verzuz was more interesting when we were completely stuck in the house,” he said. “It showed up when D-Nice was the only DJ left on the plane, but other than that, it’s trying to re-write history to me. It’s already happened. The performance for the evening, if you played the music, it usually marks time. It’s that period that you dominated musically, and you felt when that song came on. We could play music right now and it takes you back to how you felt when you were around that person. Right now, Lil Baby is having a moment. So when his music comes on, I’m feeling Lil Baby.”

In 2003, MTV aired its first episode of Punk’d, a celebrity prank show so huge that it would be revived by MTV in 2010, by BET in 2013, and by the short-lived Quibi in 2020. Hosted by Ashton Kutcher, the show’s very first prank came at the expense of then 22-year-old Justin Timberlake. He was approached outside of his home by actors posing as IRS agents, and he was told that his possessions, including his car and his dogs, were being seized for nonpayment of taxes.

In the segment, Timberlake is seen at times freaking out, confused and unsure as to why all of this is happening to him. At one point, it looks as though Justin Timberlake is about to cry before Ashton Kutcher finally comes out and reveals that Timberlake is being “Punk’d.”

The prank not only helped launch Punk’d, but it has since been called one of the greatest moments in reality-television history. This week, Justin Timberlake appeared on the Armchair Expert podcast where he was reunited with the actor playing the lead IRS agent in the prank, Dax Shepard. Obviously, their episode of Punk’d was a big topic of conversation.

“The whole network was there,” Dax Shepard told Timberlake about the episode, “because MTV knew their relationship with you was very valuable … I was in your garage for an hour-and-a-half being told everything I could and could not say.”

Shepard said that it was a bizarre, high-stakes experience for him because he knew that if he messed it up, he wouldn’t work again for another 10 years. But he also said that what he learned about Timberlake from the experience is that he’s “just a beautiful guy. I’m not kidding. He just took his buddy golfing. He’s out on a Saturday, and he’s not hungover.”

“But when I brought up your dogs,’ Shepard said, “you got really emotional.” Shepard thought that he had gone too far. “I thought, ‘This is a f***ing beautiful dude. He cares about his dogs. It’s the only thing he cares about. He didn’t care about losing his house, he didn’t care that all his sh*t was locked up. All he cared about was losing his dogs.”

What Timberlake revealed about that day, however, was that there was a reason he was so emotional about those dogs. First off, while Shepard was right in that Timberlake wasn’t hungover, “I was so stoned, SO stoned,” Timberlake said, ‘that I swore off any type of cannabis for at least a year” after the episode was taped. “MTV edited out a lot because at one point I sat down on my porch and looked at [my friend] and I was like, ‘I’m so high man. Is this real? Is this really happening? I am so high.”

But there was also a reason a totally stoned Timberlake was emotional about the dogs. “The dogs? They were actually my mom’s,’ Timberlake revealed to Shepard. “My whole life, my mother has had some sort of terrier … and her dogs are everything to her.”

“When the dogs got involved, that’s when all bets were off. I just sat down on the stoop and I had this thought, ‘What if my mom never sees her dogs again? Will she ever forgive me? My mom will never forgive me.”

Fortunately, the dogs were not taken. In fact, Timberlake’s mother herself was in on the joke. However, it does explain why Timberlake got so emotional during the prank: The dogs weren’t his, and he was really baked.

Source: Armchair Expert

On next week’s episode of People’s Party with Talib Kweli, Talib Kweli and Jasmin Leigh will be joined by everyone’s favorite thrift store fit-copping rapper, Macklemore, who will sit down with our hosts to deep dive on the in and outs and ups and downs of his career in hip-hop. Long outspoken about his struggles with addiction, Macklemore also offers some advice for young people currently struggling with drug and alcohol abuse and reveals to Kweli and Leigh that he credits his early stint in rehab with literally saving his life:

“I didn’t know that there was a bunch of people, thousands in my city, that were convening in the basements of churches in random old halls talking about this disease that I had. I didn’t even know it was a disease at the beginning, I went for years like ‘why can I not fucking stop, why can I not drink and smoke like my friends. Why when I wake up is that the first thing I’m thinking about…’ I didn’t know that there was a community that was there to support and love me unconditionally that had the same fucking disease.”

Finding a community to relate to was key in Macklemore’s recovery, and he stresses the importance of that community for young addicts who have yet to recognize that they have a disease.

“There is a therapeutic value of one addict to another sharing their experience, strength, and hope that saved my fucking life and continues to save my life. You work these twelve steps and you get better, you excavate that bullshit, you figure out your character defects, you say sorry to some people, you have a spiritual awakening, and you go out and you carry that message to somebody else and that’s the most important thing in this world, being of service to other people…”

Check out the clip above to hear more about Macklemore’s struggles with addiction and his ongoing recovery and be sure to catch the full People’s Party episode when it airs on Monday.

SAMHSA’s National Helpline is found at 1-800-662-HELP (4357). It is a free, confidential, 24/7, 365-day-a-year treatment referral and information service (in English and Spanish) for individuals and families facing mental and/or substance use disorders.