Month: February 2021

While Texans literally froze this week after a winter storm robbed millions of power and forced entire cities to shut down for days, the state’s Republican Senator Ted Cruz tried to live out his Spring Break fantasies down in Cancun. Cruz accompanied his family on a mid-week vacation to Mexico, initially blaming his daughters for the trip. According to Cruz, he just wanted to be a “good dad” when the girls asked for the weekend getaway, assuring his constituents he only flew south of the border wall to drop the kids off before heading back home the next day. Of course, that was a lie, but Cruz was caught in it thanks to some fed-up members in his wife Heidi’s friends and family group chat.

Someone leaked details of the chat to The New York Times, sharing how Cruz texted some friends and family this week to see who would be up for a week-long stay at the Ritz-Carlton in Cancun, where rooms go for around $300 per night.

“Anyone can or want to leave for the week?” she reportedly wrote after complaining her home was “FREEZING.” “We may go to Cancun.” When no one replied to Cruz’s message, she followed up with, “We have gas stove so at least we can heat water little that there is happy to help anyone we can too.”

The whole thing is pretty on-brand for Cruz, a noted cretin on Capitol Hill who’s despised by pretty much everyone, Republican colleagues included, but Twitter is having a hell of a time roasting the family over how they were outed to the media by members of their group text chain.

We hope this latest installment of the world dunking on the human opossum known as Ted Cruz sparks joy for you today.

[Minor spoilers for the new episode of WandaVision]

Before WandaVison premiered in January, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige teased that the Disney+ show’s sitcom homages would “go up to the Modern Family and The Office style. The talk-to-the-camera, shaky-camera, documentary style.” That episode arrived on Friday, with Wanda speaking directly to the camera (and the person behind the camera, although we wouldn’t know who that was until later). The opening credits also were inspired by The Office (with the lyric-less theme song) and Modern Family (with the font), as well as a lesser-known sitcom that might be the best of the three.

ABC’s Happy Endings only ran for three seasons, but those three seasons packed more jokes than most sitcoms do in five. Created by David Caspe, the ABC comedy starred Eliza Coupe, Elisha Cuthbert, Zachary Knighton, Adam Pally, Damon Wayans Jr., and Casey Wilson, and was produced by, among others, Anthony and Joe Russo. They also directed episodes of Community and Arrested Development, as well as Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, and two of the five highest-grossing movies of all-time, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. The Marvel connection is likely the reasoning behind the delightful and unexpected Happy Endings homage. Or maybe the world is finally coming around to the show’s rapid-fire brilliance.

Either way, nothing but respect for my captain America.

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

This May will mark two years since Lucky Daye graced the world with his official debut album, Painted, and with it came an exponential rise to the top of the R&B world. The New Orleans native was stamped as the next best thing in the genre, and rightfully so. Lucky’s ability to shine in different areas of R&B made him an instant appeal. From the infectious grooves of “Late Night,” “Extra,” and “Karma,” to the heavy-hearted symphonies of “Concentrate,” “Misunderstood,” and “Love You Too,’ the Keep Cool singer’s chameleon nature is a thing of beauty when it comes to his music.

With that being said, Lucky has a couple of things to prove on his upcoming sophomore album: growth and consistency. While that remains to be seen, his latest project, Table For Two, put two things on display for listeners, versatility and charisma. Lucky proves the former by working with six different female singers across six different tracks and the latter comes to life with the EP’s underlying narrative: a well-put-together man who seeks the ideal woman to bless with his top-notch table manners and incomparable charisma. However, despite his attempts, his hopeful meal for two often becomes nothing more than an exaggerated late-night TV dinner.

Lucky’s missteps with love begin with “How Much Can A Heart Take” featuring Yebba. The singer gets levied with accusations of infidelity, as Yebba sings, “And somehow you find the time to wine and dine your b*tches better than me.” Lucky lines up his rebuttal and paints her in a gold-digging light, seeking his wallet and nothing else. “You take my money / And I don’t get a thing back,” he croons. Determining who’s right or wrong is a matter of viewing the wine glass as half-full or half-empty. Even then, the answer is subjective. Regardless, neither party has received a full offering from each other and that, quite frankly, is the root of the problem in this scenario.

At other points on the EP, Lucky’s attempts to woo the attention of a lonesome damsel result in the sting of a door that’s been slammed in his face. Fear keeps a potential partner at a distance on “Access Denied” with Ari Lennox, while the best moment on Table For Two stands as another moment of denial with “On Read” featuring Tiana Major9. The project’s lead single encapsulates the digital qualms of dating in the 21st-century, as Lucky Daye longs for a response from his love interest, but the London singer couldn’t care less for the message he hopes to receive. In a world where blue bubbles prevail over green ones, Lucky is one of the few who receive neither.

The thing about Lucky is that his soul is far from jaded in the realm of love. A missed shot warrants nothing more than the opportunity to try again. He fantasizes love as something that’s well within reach, despite it falling through his hands multiple times in the past. “Dreams” with Queen Naija presents the EP’s first example of love in its best form, but doubts about its very existence cause both singers to voluntarily reside in their romance dreamland. However, once its reality is confirmed on “Falling In Love” with Joyce Wrice, a moment of jubilee is coupled with a stern warning to not let what they’ve built go to waste for nothing.

Table For Two proves that while Lucky is dressed to impress, it will always take two to tango. In his mind, things are set up perfectly. The meal is on ten, the music is just right, and the entire aesthetic of the night is sure to bring good results, or so he thinks. All of that is just half of the puzzle and the absence of his guest of honor makes all of the aforementioned things pointless. With a warm meal in front of him, Lucky was forced to watch the ghost of what could’ve, should’ve, and would’ve been in the world of love take a seat across him time and time again. Table For Two champions the idea of collaboration while advocating for a life that’s shared with another individual, one worthy enough to bestow the heart to. It also reminds us that love is never a request away, but rather, it’s something that arrives at its own discretion, with little care for how long we’ve waited for it.

Table For Two is out now via Keep Cool/RCA. Get it here.

Megan Thee Stallion covers March’s issue of Harper’s Bazaar, but rather than celebrating the milestone, some of her fans instead took to social media to express their disappointment in the pictorial, shot by Collier Schorr and styled by Samira Nasr. Shot on blank backgrounds and styled in Alaïa, Chanel, Prada, and Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello, the results are dripping in high-fashion taste but many fans seem bored with the final photos, calling them “bland” and comparing them to past shoots in GQ, Paper, and Time.

Because the internet, the original tweet from the publication got few responses — mostly negative ones — but when the photos were retweeted by another account, the reactions came rolling in, decrying Bazaar for its photographer’s direction and styling. “These photos are horrendous,” one account wrote. “Someone needs to be fired.” Considering photographers generally work on commission and Schorr has probably already been paid, this seems like an improbable outcome, but that didn’t stop fans from sharing the sentiment.

Others compared the “bland” photoshoot to similar ones that also received backlash featuring Simone Biles and Kamala Harris — both for Vogue — saying that the normally vibrant Megan looks “lifeless” and “washed out” in the photos. Some fans thought Meg’s own selfies from her iPhone on social media had better lighting and composition and while there are a few defenders of the Bazaar shoot, the general consensus is that it doesn’t adequately capture the “Cry Baby” rapper’s full colorful personality and style.

Check out the shots and fans’ reactions above.

After making and releasing her quarantine album How I’m Feeling Now at breakneck pace in May 2020, Charli XCX has taken a deserved break from the public eye. She’s back with new music today, though, hopping on a remix of Elio’s “Charger,” an emotionally charged synth-pop tune in which they debate going back into an awkward situation to retrieve their phone charger.

Charli has been interested in “Charger” from the very beginning. Elio shared a snippet of the track in mid-January and Charli retweeted a fan who wrote of the preview, “This has the power of a Charli XCX snippet leaked on Lanaboards so you KNOW it’s good.” That perhaps prompted Charli and Elio to make something happen with the song, because when Elio announced the song’s premiere in late January, Charli wrote, “MIGHT BE WORKING ON A LIL REMIX OF THIS SONG AS WE SPEAK! CHARGE UR PHONES AND GO LISTEN!” Then, the remix was announced last week, and now, here we are with the end product.

Elio previously told Apple Music of the song, “I wrote it with my friends Andy Seltzer and Brett McLaughlin, who’s Leland. I’ve lost my charger at a house, post-party or post-fight, and it’s a cheap iPhone accessory, but for some reason it’s so essential. I can risk going back and getting it, whether it’s going through another whole long goodbye at a party or going back in and being really awkward after having a fight. I’m so fascinated with people’s relationships with phones, obviously — I write about it a lot — but this was a lot less personal and it was a lot more like, ‘Everybody relates to this.’”

Listen to the Charli XCX-featuring version of “Charger” above.

Charli XCX is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

(Spoilers from Marvel Studios and Disney+’s WandaVision will be found below.)

We’re now in Week 7 of WandaVision (with two more weeks to go), and it’s nothing less than stunning how Kevin Feige is pulling off the unexpected, over and over again. Not only did he deftly combine the Fox superhero universe and Marvel Cinematic Universe with one bold move, but each week is bringing us a brilliant example of storytelling. The show’s inventive, to the degree that it resembles nothing that we’ve ever seen before (in theaters or on TV), and honestly, as a Marvel fan, I feel spoiled (especially after not visiting a theater for nearly a year). Even more importantly: this effect wouldn’t have been possible without weekly episodes, and whereas The Mandalorian certainly used that structure to its own benefit (and sometimes for the monster-of-the-week thing), WandaVision‘s proving that a weekly format is essential to its success. The fans are eating it up on social media, too, with trending topics every week, and yeah, those cliffhangers are really something.

What’s especially surprising about this week’s ending is that it told us something that a lot of people suspected — Agnes is truly Agatha Harkness, a sorceress from the comics who helped Wanda come into her powers while training with HYDRA — but no one expected it to be revealed this way.

Agnes is revealed to have been pulling strings in Westview “all along,” and to make her even more dastardly, she offed Sparky the dog, too. This makes her the most evil MCU villain of all time, in my book. Move over, Thanos.

The cliffhanger aspect, and the anticipation of what Agnes will do next after this Modern Family-style episode, keeps on proving that the weekly format could be King again.

As for what exactly this means, I’m not completely sold (yet) on Agnes pulling every string in Westview. She could still be training Wanda, in a way, or we’ll see Wanda join forces with her. We saw that Agnes orchestrated Pietro’s return (though he was “recast,” apparently by Wanda, as Evan Peters rather than Aaron Taylor Johnson), but I still can’t guess whether Pietro is completely under Agnes’ control. He hasn’t been acting like the Pietro (or the Peter) that we’ve known before, and it’s entirely possible that this is by Agnes’ design. Still, I’m wondering if his devil-horned hair from last week points toward him secretly being Mephisto, the MCU’s version of the Devil.

Yet it is still entirely possible that Agnes Husband is really Mephisto (and that he’ll be played by Al Pacino). See how wonderful this show is? It’s got us talking, really talking, on a weekly basis. And what are we to make of Pietro’s confirmation of Monica (who discovered evidence of Agnes as witch) during the post-credits scene?

His statement could be purely innocuous (Pietro is a curious type these days), or he could be defending Agnes while under her control. Or he could be Mephisto! This is nuts, simply nuts. And we must also acknowledge that Monica’s eyes are glowing after her exposure to the Hex, which could point toward mere reflection or the emergence of her own superpowers (which will likely include flying, superspeed, and being able to manipulate energy). Some strong Photon comic-book vibes are coming our way.

Another highlight of this episode: Darcy and Vision’s chaotic team-up energy. This dynamic could make for a fantastic buddy comedy if Marvel Studios and Disney+ run out of show ideas one day.

In the end, though, we’re left with questions about where Wanda stands, and a lot is left wide open. Earlier in the episode, she struggled to maintain control while fretting over her family (the weekly easter-egg ad was all about antidepressants, in Mother’s Little Helpers kind of way), and Agnes stepped in like Auntie Agnes to take care of the twins, and I feel like the ending doesn’t set up Agnes as the big bad but merely one of them. I’m guessing that they join forces with Wanda as Agnes’ trainee, and I could be wrong, but that would be the perfect setup for Wanda’s (significant) role in the next Doctor Strange movie. Only two more episodes to go and this show could go anywhere.

Disney+’s ‘WandaVision’ streams new episodes on Fridays.

This week, Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen are discussing two of the most exciting indie releases of the week. First up is a passionate discussion of Open Door Policy, the new album from veteran rockers The Hold Steady. Hyden appreciates the band’s long-running arc and recent comeback, while Cohen has never connected with the Beat-style of what he calls “dude writing.”

Next up on the docket is A Billion Little Lights, the new effort from Wild Pink’s. Led by singer-songwriter John Ross, who moved to Brooklyn after college to be a film composer, Wild Pink’s latest is undeniably cinematic and meditative, a stubbornly un-flashy affair that was originally intended to be a double album about the American West, but was eventually condensed to a lean 10-track affair.

In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Cohen is vibing with New Music And Big Pop, the debut album from Another Michael, while Hyden is enjoying Call In The Mess, the forthcoming sophomore album from New York outfit Nervous Dater.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 27 on Apple Podcasts and Spotify below, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts here. Stay up to date and follow us on Instagram and Twitter.

While conservative commenters like Meghan McCain had the wherewithal to distance themselves from Republican Senator Ted Cruz and his tone-deaf trip to Cancun in the middle of a statewide emergency where Texans are literally freezing to death in the aftermath of an unprecedented winter storm that crippled the state’s power infrastructure, Donald Trump Jr. has gone the opposite direction by rushing to Cruz’s defense in the most Don Jr. way possible. In poorly written tweet, Don Jr. seems to insinuate that Texas Governor Greg Abbott is a Democrat, which is a hilarious blunder for someone who’s attempting to set himself up as the next “kingmaker” of the Republican Party. Also, it’s just plain dumb if you know even the bare minimum about the political landscape in Texas.

“The hypocrisy of those trying to cancel Ted Cruz who have been totally silent on their Democrat Governor’s incompetence is telling,” Don Jr. tweeted. “My thoughts on the Cancún Cruz fauxoutrage! #Cruz #CancunGate is fake.”

After firing off the badly written tweet, Don Jr. was instantly roasted on Twitter for not knowing that Abbott is a Republican:

As for his defense of Cruz, Don Jr. has become a frequent user of the video-sharing app Rumble in the past 48 hours, which his where he posted his thoughts on Ted’s Cancun trip, and awkwardly tried to imitate his dad’s knack for handing out nicknames. Via Newsweek:

“Now, if I were a Trump, which I am, I’d come up with a nickname for something like this, like Cancun Cruz. It’s funny,” he said. “I can’t get on this bandwagon trying to cancel the guy. It’s totally ridiculous. It’s absolutely absurd.

“In the grand scheme of things, he’s a senator. He doesn’t manage crises in states,” he added. “That’s a governor’s job. He’s a federal employee, they mostly vote on things.”

After returning to Texas on Thursday, Cruz has since admitted that he planned to stay in Cancun until the weekend and that he regrets getting on the plane. “It was obviously a mistake, and in hindsight, I wouldn’t have done it,” Cruz told reporters.

(Via Donald Trump Jr. on Twitter)

I listen to a lot of celebrity interview podcasts, from WTF to Marc Maron to Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard to Life is Short with Justin Long to Literally! With Rob Lowe, and in the last couple of months, Matthew McConaughey has stopped by all of them (and more) to promote his memoir, Greenlights.

I have listened to them all, and I’ve heard a lot of McConaughey stories since last October, so many in fact that I feel like I already know most of the content of his book. McConaughey is an interesting guy, obviously, although the more I hear him, the more I realize how out there he is. One story that seems to get repeated on every podcast, however, is how his father died. I think I have heard Matthew McConaughey say the phrase, “Called his shot” at least a dozen times.

The phrase refers to his father, who “called his shot,” so to speak, in the manner in which he would die. According to McConaughey, his father repeatedly told him that he would die while having sex with McConaughey’s mother, and that is exactly what he did. As sad as it is to lose a father — and McConaughey was close to him, although he was complicated — that particular story is clearly a huge part of the McConaughey family lore, and it’s given his father a mythic quality.

“He called his shot, man,” McConaughey said on Rob Lowe’s podcast. “He called his shot!” It was something his father had told him numerous times. “He’d say, ‘Boys! When I leave this place, I’m going to be making love to your mother … when I get on outta here, I’m going to makin’ love to your mother!’ And damned if he didn’t. Six-thirty in the morning on a Monday, he wakes up frisky. He and my mom make love, and as soon as he finishes, heart attack. On top of her.”

There’s a post-script to the story, however, that is not included in his memoir. “As my mom tells it,” McConaughey continues. “She calls the paramedics, and we’re living in this cul-de-sac in this little neighborhood in Southwest Houston. All the neighbors have come out at 7 in the morning to see what’s going on. There’s an ambulance across the street at the McConaugheys. They’re out in the driveway, and they’re rolling [my father] out on the gurney.”

“My mom is still in her nightie,” McConaughey says. “They have a sheet over [my father], right? That would be the nice thing to do, right? Guess who is pulling the sheet off of him and yelling, ‘No you’re not going to cover him up. I want the world to see why he was known as BIG JIM.’”

The neighbors were shocked, but McConaughey’s mother continued, yelling, “He did it! He did it! He said that’s the way he was going to go!”

Sure enough, it was exactly as Jim McConaughey had written it up.

Is it true? McConaughey says it is, and he’s had a wild enough life that I absolutely would not doubt it.

Source: Literally! with Rob Lowe

While Ted Cruz was doing things like going on Fox News attempting to defend his “good dad” trip to Cancun to spinelessly flee a once-in-a-generation storm that left millions of Texans without power, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was helping to raise money for those in need. “Team AOC is launching relief efforts for Texas starting today. Our first effort is a partnership w/ 5 Texas orgs getting on-the-ground relief to Texans ASAP. If you’re able, please donate here – it’ll split your contribution to all 5,” the New York congresswoman tweeted, adding that 100 percent of proceeds will go to the organizations. They are: the Bridge Homeless Recovery Center, Ending Community Homeless Coalition (ECHO), Family Eldercare, Houston Food Bank, and Feeding Texas, all of which are “working around the clock to assist houseless, hungry, and senior Texans in Travis and Dallas County, and beyond.”

AOC tweeted that at 5:42 p.m. EST. By 9:17, over a million dollars had been raised.

“Holy smokes. Our Texas relief mobilization has already raised $325k for food, housing, elder care & direct relief straight to vulnerable Texans. This might be a little crazy… but can we raise $1M by midnight?” she wrote, soon after followed by, “Wow. We officially raised $1 million for Texas relief at 9:17 p.m. Thank you all so much. I’m at a loss for words. Always in awe of movement work. 100 percent of this relief is going straight to Texan food assistance, homelessness relief, elder care, and more.” Ocasio-Cortez was thanked by former-Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, who helped set up over 700,000 phone calls to senior citizens, for her fundraising efforts.

Meanwhile, the last thing Ted Cruz tweeted was himself on Fox News.

If you wish to donate to the Texas relief efforts, you can do so here.