Month: February 2021

Folks who follow podcaster/comedian/actor Marc Maron on Instagram know that he often takes time to get on Instagram Live to chat with followers and answer questions. Maron is an enthusiastic music fan and his fans think he should learn more about Kevin Morby, whose latest album was his impressive 2020 effort Sundowner. However, over the past few days, Morby has actually become a bit of a thorn in Maron’s side.

Last weekend, somebody mentioned Morby during one of Maron’s broadcasts. Seemingly annoyed, Maron said, “I have no idea who Kevin Morby is, but somebody always throws his name out there. I asked somebody about Kevin Morby the other day.” Morby had fun with that, sharing that clip on Instagram and writing, “Have me on and I’ll tell you all there is to know [kissing emoji] @marcmaron.”

Yesterday, Morby posted a clip from a different Maron broadcast of him saying, “I don’t know who Kevin Morby is.” Morby captioned his post, “Marc Maron not knowing who I am being a part of his morning programming is really making my week. I’m a huge Maron/WTF fan ever since hearing the Fionna Apple interview in 2012 and have logged many hours since so hearing his voice keep saying he doesn’t know who I am is an honor. I don’t know who I am either Marc [lips emoji] (@marcmaron).”

None of this amusing interaction seems to be amusing Maron. In a broadcast since Morby’s posts, Maron said, “To the Morby situation… I get it. So Morby’s aware that I don’t know who he is and he thinks it’s funny that it’s become a thing on this dumb little show that we do here, that I don’t know who he is.” Morby shared that clip and wrote simply, “#themorbysituation.”

It’s not clear why Maron seems to be so against Morby, a popular indie-rock musician who seems like a chill guy and whose work over the past decade has been looked upon favorably by fans and critics. Whatever the case may be, at least Morby appears to be having fun with it.

Some highlights live on longer in the memories of sports fans than others. “The Shot” that saw Michael Jordan eliminate the Utah Jazz. Bobby Orr diving across the crease in overtime to win the Stanley Cup for the Boston Bruins. The Immaculate Reception, maybe. But no sports highlight quite contains the power of bowler Pete Weber asking an unanswerable question, then answering it anyway.

Friday marked a big anniversary in sports history, and amid the chaos of everyday existence during a pandemic many on social media took time out to honor Weber screaming nonsense after winning a bowling championship. In 2012 while Weber was bowling to secure his fifth US Open title, he captivated the sports world with a celebration that’s been shouted all over alleys across the country when random people stumble their way into crossover strikes.

Weber’s shout of “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, I AM?” is the stuff of legend, and the clip instantly broke contain from the sports world for a variety of reasons. The nonsense of the phrase, his signature style of wearing sunglasses indoors, and a general detachment from the reality of the athletic feat Weber had accomplished with that single strike meant it was an instant viral hit.

Every so often the clip would go viral once more, and it happened again on Friday when people celebrated its nine-year anniversary.

It’s actually impressive how many different tweets containing the same video were widely shared on Friday as people reveled in the anniversary of one of the greatest sentences in the history of television.

There were even some parodies done by other pro teams.

There are actually a lot of layers to the clip, as were also discussed on Friday.

As explained in a NJ.com story, the phrase was the capper to an epic day of trash-talking. In the second frame of the match, he was going back and forth with a heckler in the crowd and complained that people were moving behind him during his shots. And he had another legendary comeback after the win, dismissing concerns that some say he’s “washed up.”

“Everybody keeps asking me, ‘When are you going to retire, grandpa? Do you need a cane?’ I’m like, ‘you know what? … ‘ ”

He finished the sentence by holding up the middle finger on each hand, and smiled.

Double birds all around in honor of the king. You are, as you made clear nine years ago, one of a kind.

This NBA season hasn’t exactly gone smoothly in terms of navigating the challenges of the pandemic, while resuming a relatively normal schedule that requires teams to travel around the country to play games. Several games have already been postponed so far, and numerous players have missed time due to COVID protocols.

But the league has opted to press ahead in the face of these issues, in no small part due to the economic realities involved. That extends to the annual All-Star Game, which is scheduled to take place next month in Atlanta, albeit in a largely scaled-down version, and despite criticism from several star players.

This week, the Toronto Raptors became the latest ones forced to miss time, as the team announced on Friday that Nick Nurse, along with five other coaching staff members, will not be on the court for their game against the Rockets, as first reported by Marc Stein of The New York Times and later confirmed by a team release.

Raptors coach Nick Nurse and five other members of the Toronto coaching staff are entering the league’s health and safety protocols and will not coach tonight, @NYTSports has learned

— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) February 26, 2021

Per Raptors: Due to health and safety protocols, six members of the Raptors’ coaching staff, including head coach Nick Nurse, will not be on the bench beginning with Friday’s game vs. Houston.

— Blake Murphy (@BlakeMurphyODC) February 26, 2021

It’s unclear how long they will be out, but given the nature of the protocols, they could be held out of upcoming games as well. The Raptors are 16-17 on the season and currently hold the No. 5 spot in the East.

On the subject of “what is Steven Seagal up to this week?” the answer is “attending the International Defense Exhibition in Abu Dhabi (aka IDEX 2021) where he has become ‘the brand ambassador for the UAE-based Streit Group.’”

The UAE-based Streit Group, which was once under investigation for violating United Nations arms embargoes in Libya and Sudan, was founded by former Russian police officer Guerman Goutorov, and now makes armored vehicles from its “12 state-of-the-art production facilities and 25 offices worldwide.”

This week at IDEX 2021 (which I assume is like Comic-Con for aspiring warlords), Seagal is helping them unveil “four new armored vehicles, including the country’s first electric tracked vehicle, called STORM.”

Mostly, that seems to mean standing by a big truck looking drowsy. Wearing his trademark scarves and a black military shirt big enough to tent a house, Seagal told UAE’s National News: “I’m interested in weapons, military history, tanks, and armored cars and I’d heard about Streit, I was very impressed. [These] armored vehicles are probably the best in the world.”

Doesn’t he sound like Trump? Steven Seagal was doing Trump-speak way before Trump.

The National News asked what sparked Seagal’s interest in armored trucks, which is a hilarious question, and also lead to a classic Seagal response — delivered in a style I like to call “petulant sphynx”: “Why do people like purple instead of green? I was always interested in that since I was a child.”

Of the STORM, Seagal said, “It is gorgeous and does a lot of great things. It goes on water, goes on land – it is armored and bomb-proof. That thing is amazing. If I could have any one of those vehicles, I’d have that one.”

Steven Seagal once ran over a man’s house in a tank while investigating a cockfighting ring so that checks out.

The irony of Steven Seagal is that he famously used to brag about weird things like knowing the truth behind Iran-Contra and the death of Brandon Lee, heavily insinuating that he was some kind of spook. Which was almost certainly bullshit at the time, but now, solely through his own vanity (say what you will about the man, he enjoys being flattered by Vladimir Putin), he runs in the kinds of circles real spies could only dream of.

Steven Seagal: Actor, author, martial artist, guitarist, kimono enthusiast, allegedly prolific sexual assaulter, and now: booth babe for stateless arms manufacturers. He is, for better or worse, the real-life world’s most interesting man. Stay thirsty, my friends.

It’s barely been a week, and already Ted Cruz is cracking jokes about his tone-deaf trip to Cancun while the state of Texas laid paralyzed from a freak winter storm. While speaking at CPAC in Orlando, Florida on Friday (dude just can’t resist a vacation), Cruz thought it was a good time to test out his new material on the conservative crowd after firing off a Zodiac Killer joke earlier in the week about his latest round of disastrous headlines. Immediately after taking the stage at CPAC Cruz yelled, “Orlando is awesome,” before quipping, “It’s not as nice as Cancun.” Noticeably, not even the audience of Republicans laughed, and it didn’t take long for video of Cruz’s “stand-up special” to hit social media, where the Texas senator was roasted all over again for abandoning his constituents to freeze while going for days without power and water.

Cruz’s trip to Cancun isn’t just getting mocked by random people on Twitter. In a bad sign for his presidential ambitions, Cruz is being trolled by his own colleagues. When arriving at the congressional gym on Wednesday, senators found printed-out memes taped to Cruz’s locker along with messages written in Spanish welcoming him back to the United States. Via NBC News:

The rendering featured a manipulated photo of Cruz from his well-documented trip to Mexico, dragging his luggage across an arctic landscape while holding a tropical cocktail garnished with a slice of fruit in his other hand. He is shown walking toward an image of a masked Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. with his arms crossed and wearing striped, knitted gloves — a pose famously captured during January’s inauguration.

Cruz reportedly let the prank go without filing a complaint.

(Via The Recount)

Yesterday, the horrific news that some thieves had shot Lady Gaga’s dog walker in order to steal her dogs, and the walker was in the hospital in critical condition. Gaga offered a $500,000 reward for the return of her dogs “no questions asked,” and her father Joe Germanotta spoke with Fox News about the missing pitbulls, Koji and Gustav, asking fans to help them “help us catch these creeps.”

Gaga has not issued a public statement, and is busy making sure her dog walker, Ryan Fischer, is ok following the unexpectedly violent situation. Fischer is expected to make a full recovery, and according to TMZ, his family issued a statement of thanks for Gaga’s support. Check out their statement below:

Ryan is receiving extraordinary care in the hospital right now and his doctors expect him to make a full recovery. We cannot possibly say enough to thank all of the first responders, nurses and doctors who have worked so tirelessly to care for Ryan. Of course, we also want to thank Lady Gaga who has shown nothing but non-stop love and concern for Ryan and our family right from the outset. Ryan loves Gustavo and Koji as much as Lady Gaga does; so we join in her plea for their safe return.

Wishing a speedy recovery to Ryan, and the quick return of Gaga’s dogs.

Video game documentaries seem to be all the rage lately, as the age of the industry itself has allowed for some introspection on how it became a billion-dollar business with gigantic influence over modern culture. The latest is a look at Nintendo’s rise to gaming dominance in the industry’s early days.

Playing With Power: The Nintendo Story, is a five-episode docuseries about the rise of Nintendo in Japan and its takeover of the gaming industry in America. Narrated by Sean Astin, the story is also told by a number of people from the gaming industry, such as head of Xbox Phil Spencer and former Nintendo CEO Reggie Fils-Aimé.

Nintendo’s rise from playing card maker to iconic video game maker was covered in series like High Score on Netflix, but the Crackle series promises a thorough exploration of the Nintendo story.

In this exclusive clip from the series, Playing With Power sets the scene for the start of the console wars which were sparked when Service Games, or Sega, decided to enter the gaming fray in a big way.

As laid out in the clip, Nintendo was a bit “drunk on their own success” and didn’t really anticipate the challenge that Sega and its Genesis console — not to mention a spunky blue hedgehog named Sonic — would offer in the years to come.

Playing With Power: The Nintendo Story premieres on Crackle on March 1.

Six months ago, Tobe Nwigwe debuted the video for his song “Eat” as part of an extensive and seemingly endless string of self-released singles showcasing the self-contained creative factory he’s created with his wife Fat, business partner/producer Lanell Grant, and director Nate Edwards. Last night, they brought their elaborate creations to late-night television for the first time, performing “Eat” on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and making sure it was an experience none of the show’s viewers will ever forget.

The performance, which was pre-taped due to COVID-19 restrictions, featured an eye-catching mod look, placing each of Tobe’s band members on a separate, social-distancing-approved circular stage, as masked models cat-walked through the background, then hit the spacious floor for another of Tobe’s elegantly-choreographed routines. Meanwhile, Tobe’s fit did as much talking as his bars did, as he flexed a massive puffer trench bearing the likenesses of Breonna Taylor and revolutionary Fred Hampton under the slogan “It’s hard to sleep these days.” Both Hampton and Taylor were killed by law enforcement officers in their sleep during raids on their homes.

Tobe’s ongoing release campaign has so far included songs like “The Truth,” “Pistol,” and “Tundah Fiyah” and featured guests like Big KRIT, Black Thought, Bun B, D Smoke, and Trae The Truth. Tobe also performed a cover of Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes’ 1975 classic “Wake Up Everybody.” You can watch below.

Watch Tobe’s late-night debut above.

Earlier this week, St. Vincent teased an album that seems to be called Daddy’s Home. That title has yet to be confirmed, but Annie Clark has discussed the album, including the inspiration behind the (again, currently unconfirmed) album title.

In an interview for the first edition of The New Cue — a new newsletter from former Q Magazine editors Ted Kessler, Chris Catchpole, and Niall Doherty — Clark said, “So the nuts and bolts of it is like, my dad got out of prison in 2019. He’d been in for ten years. My first song for it was a story about when I used to go visit him and I would sign crumpled-up Target receipts somebody had left in the visitation room. And, of course, it’s incredibly sad, but it’s also incredibly absurd so the whole family has found a way to laugh about it. So that was the impetus, I guess.”

She also spoke about the sound of the album, saying it’s “the sound of being down and out Downtown in New York, 1973” and less rigid than Masseduction:

“I would say it’s the sound of being down and out downtown in New York, 1973. Glamour that hasn’t slept for three days. In hindsight, I realized that the Masseduction and tour was so incredibly strict, whether it was the outfits I was wearing that literally constricted me, to the show being tight and the music being angular and rigid. When I wrapped that, I was like, ‘Oh, I just want things that are fluid and wiggly and I want this music to look like a Cassavetes film.’ I wanted it to be warm tones and not really distorted, to tell these stories of flawed people being flawed and doing the best they can. Which is kind of what my life is.

I went back to these records that I probably listened to more in my life than at any other time. Music made in New York from 1971 to ’76, typically post-flower child, kick the hippie idealism out of it, America’s in a recession but pre-disco, the sort of gritty, raw, wiggly nihilistic part of that. It’s not a glamorous time, there’s a lot of dirt under the fingernails. It was really about feel and vibe but with song and stories.”

Clark discussed working with Jack Antonoff as well, saying, “I started writing these songs and took a couple to Jack Antonoff. was in Electric Lady Studios in New York and wanted to do this sleazy, grimy record and Jack was fully on board. He whipped out some great Wurlitzer playing, super funky, then he’d get on the drums and do totally the right vibe. And then he was playing this f*cking awesome bass, ripping it. […] It was cool to get to see Jack bust out these chops. And same here, I actually have some deep understanding of harmony that I keep to myself most of the time but here I bust it out.”

Check out the full interview here.

Ventura rapper Kyle takes a poppy turn on his newest song, “But Cha” featuring singer/songwriter Josh Golden. Released with an anime-inspired lyrics video, “But Cha” finds Kyle serenading his dream girl, reassuring her that he intends to stick with her for the long haul. “Your stock is goin’ through the roof and I’m investin’,” he winks. “No multiple-choice, ain’t nobody to choose.”

Kyle’s latest arrives eight months after his last album, 2020’s See You When I Am Famous!!!!!!!!!!!!, his second major-label album after 2018’s Light Of Mine. While Kyle has always embraced sunnier production and heartfelt themes, “But Cha” focuses even more on melody and lighter tones, much like Famous lead single “What It Is” minus the melancholy.

The turnaround time on his new song is impressive, considering he spent much of the year promoting Famous with videos like “Money Now” and “See You When I’m Famous” in the midst of pandemic precautions. He also managed to find time to work on season two of his surreal animated variety show Sugar & Toys, so being able to start prepping a new project just goes to show how committed he’s been through the past, wild year.

Listen to “But Cha” above.

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