Month: March 2021

Donald Trump, the Queens-born star of everyone’s favorite New York City-set movie (Home Alone 2: Lost in New York), returned to the Five Boroughs on Sunday for the first time since leaving the White House. “Trump pulled up to the Midtown skyscraper where he stays while in Manhattan just before 9 p.m. He was seated in a backseat of a black SUV,” the New York Post reported, adding this amusing detail: “Upon his arrival, he waved to a lone Trump supporter who was across the street next to the media.” One!

Trump is widely disliked in New York, especially the city. He received only 37.75% of the vote in the 2020 election (Biden won the state’s 29 electoral votes with 60.86%), which makes sense, considering last October, the former-president tweeted that New York had “gone to hell.” He also complained that “New York City and State are falling apart” and “all they want to do is investigate to make me hate them even more than I should.”

No wonder he changed his primary residence from Manhattan to Palm Beach, Florida:

New York is a blue state, and the city still more liberal; since Trump took office, there have routinely been demonstrations against White House policies outside his eponymous properties. New Yorkers’ dislike of Trump hit new highs last spring. His administration’s mishandling of coronavirus was felt especially deeply in New York City, an early US center of the pandemic. City and state officials begged a seemingly uninterested Trump for help.

At least he still has one fan left (it was probably Rudy).

(Via the New York Post)

Let’s just say that Meghan Markle’s 2017 engagement and subsequent marriage to Britain’s Prince Harry did not go well with the Royal Family. Fast forward to 2020, and the couple left not only Great Britain but the Royal Family behind for California life, and they seemed quite relieved to do so. The British press continues to trash Meghan, and the family hasn’t defended her at all; in fact, it feels like Buckingham Palace is joining in the criticism, and Meghan’s former Suits co-star, Patrick Adams, has trashed the British Royals in her defense. And after years of not be able to speak her mind, Meghan and Prince Harry sat down with Oprah for a Sunday CBS Evening News interview.

The interview was a doozy. People were outraged at how the couple says they were treated by Harry’s family, who more than suggested that there’s been a racially-charged motivation to what’s gone down. During the interview, Meghan also revealed that she’d grown suicidal (to Oprah’s inquiry on whether she’d considered harming herself, she responded, “Yes. This was very, very clear, … and very scary”) while living as part of the British Royal Family, and she felt that Harry’s decision to leave saved her life.

Now, people are revisiting a prediction made by John Oliver to Stephen Colbert on how Meghan might be treated in the Royal Family. As The Daily Beast’s Molly Jong-Fast tweets, “So @iamjohnoliver really called this one.”

During this interview, Oliver (who is, like Harry, a British man who married an American woman) declared that he wasn’t at all excited about the impending nuptials. “I would not blame her if she pulled out of this at the last minute,” the Last Week Tonight host declared. “I don’t think you need to have just seen the pilot episode of The Crown to get a basic sense of, ‘She might be marrying into a family that could cause her some emotional complications.’”

To that, Colbert offered, “Well this generation seems like nice people, right? They’re all nice people.” And Oliver simply looked at his host and warily replied, “Yeeeeeeahhh.”

Oliver, of course, mentioned TheCrown, which really upset the British royals with Season 4, which pulled no punches in painting in a highly unflattering light for their alleged treatment of Princess Diana — particularly how her eating disorder flew into warp speed while Queen essentially (and allegedly) told her to suck it up and deal with how horribly she was treated by Prince Charles. This led the British government to request a “fiction” disclaimer, although Netflix said no dice.

Watch the full John Oliver segment with Stephen Colbert below.

On Sunday night, while a subset of the sports world was possibly watching the NBA All-Star Game, far more eyeballs were glued to CBS for Oprah sitting down with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry for a tell-all interview about the ill-treatment and racism they’ve received from the royal family and British tabloids in recent years.

In the interview, Markle detailed the horrific things she’s been called and ways the royal family has moved to isolate her. She noted that some members of the family, who she chose not to name, expressed concern over what the skin color of their son, Archie, would be, among other things and noted that at one point during her pregnancy she “didn’t want to be alive anymore.” They also announced, on a more happy note, that she was pregnant once again with a girl, but the focus for many was on the details of the racism and emotional abuse she has faced since marrying Harry.

Among those to respond to the interview was Serena Williams, who is friends with Markle and knows plenty about the racism and sexism you can face from the British tabloids over her career atop the tennis world and as a dominant player at Wimbledon. Williams called for people to “decry malicious, unfounded gossip and tabloid journalism” and voiced support for Markle as she deals with the mental and emotional toll that can take, particularly as a Black woman when those around you don’t support you.

In the leadup to this interview coming out, there were numerous hit pieces and attacks on Harry and Meghan and that will almost assuredly continue in the fallout from it going public, but it showed immense strength from Markle to speak out against what she’s dealt with and she has a powerful ally and friend to lean on in Serena Williams.

All this week, TNT has been running The Inside Story, a four-part behind the scenes documentary on Inside The NBA. It concluded on Sunday night with a look at Shaq’s addition to the show and the more recent years, and for many that meant hope that they would dive into what has become one of the all-time great moments in the show’s history: Shaq tripping and falling while trying to race Kenny to the board.

It, along with the reaction of Shaq and Chuck to the tunnel incident between the Clippers and Rockets, is probably the moment most think of when asked for their favorite Inside moment. Happily, they went back to relive that moment on Sunday’s episode, laughing at Shaq’s tumble like it happened yesterday, with Ernie revealing he still has to defend himself from accusations that he set Shaq up.

As Chuck says, it was most definitely not staged, which you can tell from Shaq’s reaction because he immediately seeks out someone to blame in Ernie. The best part of the segment was the producers talking about how they spent weeks prepping a lip sync battle segment they hoped would go viral, only for that to be upstaged by Shaq eating it while ripping cords out of the desk — further evidence that it wasn’t staged.

It is still a hysterical video to watch and is the best example of how the show is at its best when they riff of something that’s both fun and natural.

Two years ago, Damian Lillard hit what has been to this point the biggest shot of his career when he buried the Oklahoma City Thunder with a deep three at the buzzer that has become part of Trail Blazers lore.

After the game, Paul George was asked about how you defend something like that, and he responded that it was “a bad shot,” which earned him plenty of backlash from fans and was really the beginning of the public somewhat turning on George.

On Sunday night, George watched as Lillard and Stephen Curry buried deep three after deep three in the All-Star Game, capped off by Lillard’s 42-foot game-winner for Team LeBron and was asked if he’s changed his tune on that shot. George, to his credit, said he was rightfully criticized for his past comments on the long threes, which for guys like Dame and Steph have become part of their game, and now has done a 180 and now calls it a “great shot” after seeing them go in for his squad in the All-Star Game.

It is fascinating to see in real time how quickly that shot has become just part of the NBA game, albeit not a halfcourt heave quite in the way Dame and Steph were pulling in the All-Star Game, and for those two and a select few others, it really is a good shot because of how it warps the defense. Obviously it helps to be on the right end of that shot, but it seems George has come around to the new reality of that shot being not just a part of the game today but a good shot for the right guys.

The 2020 NBA All-Star Game brought some much-needed excitement back to the proceedings as the combination of the draft format and the Elam Ending made for a highly competitive final quarter. For the 2021 edition, the Elam Ending proved as a merciful tool to end a blowout early, as the fan-less All-Star experience was, unsurprisingly, not nearly as intense or exciting.

There were still some highlights, mostly coming from Team LeBron. The team ran away to a 170-150 win on the backs of Giannis Antetokounmpo, Stephen Curry, and Damian Lillard. The reigning back-to-back MVP was a perfect 16-for-16 on the night, including three three-pointers — two of which he banked in — as he went off for 35 points. One of the highlights of the night was his 16th bucket coming on one of those banked in threes while the booth begged him not to shoot it to ruin his perfect evening.

Giannis would go on to pick up the Kobe Bryant All-Star Game MVP trophy for his performance.

Curry chipped in 28 points, as he caught fire in the first half, going 6-for-8 from deep, including a little halfcourt shootout with Lillard, and while he cooled off a touch in the second half, he still managed to hit some clutch buckets late.

The game-winner came on a halfcourt pullup from Damian Lillard, who finished with 32 points, including some highlight reel deep threes as he proved Dame Time doesn’t need a clock to exist.

As for the namesake of Team LeBron, he made sure to enjoy a nice long rest, not playing a minute in the second half and watching his draft picks do the work as his squad moves to 4-0 under the new draft format. He had four points and four assists in just over 12 minutes.

On Team Durant, Kyrie Irving led the way with 24 points and 12 assists, while Bradley Beal led them in scoring with 26 points, but they just weren’t able to keep up with the barrage of threes from Team LeBron, who shot over 50 percent from distance on the night compared to 37.5 percent from team Durant.

That put a bow on a strange night of All-Star festivities, and the players will have a few days off before the season gets back under way on Wednesday and Thursday.

For the next 365 (or so) days, Anfernee Simons of the Portland Trail Blazer is the NBA’s dunk king. Simons toppled a slightly smaller field of two other competitors at halftime of the 2021 NBA All-Star Game to become the latest skywalker to take home the dunk contest crown.

Cassius Stanley of the Indiana Pacers kicked things off in a big way. The rookie out of Duke who went in the second round of the 2020 NBA Draft effortlessly tossed the ball, took it off the bounce, and busted out a between-the-legs slam that earned him a 44, although the broadcast seemed to agree that he got undersold.

Next up was Obi Toppin of the New York Knicks, who was revered during his time in college at Dayton for his ability to yam. Toppin came in from the corner, tossing the ball off the ground as he jumped, collected it while in mid-air, and dunked with his back to the rim, getting a 48.

Simons rounded out the first round of dunks by going way up, snatching a ball that was propped on the backboard by a Nerf hoop. He didn’t do anything other than levitate, though, which led to the judges giving him a 46.

Stanley came out to start round two knowing he needed to go for broke, so he tried something ultra-ambitious. He attempted to grab the ball off the bounce and go under his legs twice, but kept coming up short and had to change up on the fly. While still starting his dunk the same, Stanley didn’t do anything besides a one-handed slam, giving him a 37 for the round and an 81 overall.

For his second dunk, Simons tossed on an old school Tracy McGrady Toronto Raptors jersey. He proceeded to lob the ball up and do a 360 with some flair, a near-perfect replica of McGrady at the 2000 Dunk Contest, earning him a 49 for this dunk and securing his spot in the final with a 95 total score.

Toppin only needed 34 to advance to the final, but decided to do something a little more impressive. He brought out two people — his father, famed streetballer Dunker’s Delight, and Knicks teammate Julius Randle — and dunked over the pair with a one-handed windmill. It earned him a 46 for the round, a 94 overall, and place in the final against Simons.

The finals looked a bit different this year, as both dudes had one dunk and the judges picked a winner. Toppin went first, going between the legs from just inside of the free throw line in a nod to his time in college.

For his final dunk, Simons got way up and almost kissed the rim, but just came up a little short.

By a 3-2 score, Simons narrowly edged out Toppin, becoming the first member of the Trail Blazers to earn the title of Dunk Contest champion. It was, ultimately, a forgettable contest due in large part to the lack of fans in attendance and the inherent rushed nature to do this at halftime of the All-Star Game, but that ultimately doesn’t matter for Simons, as he is going to go down as a Dunk Contest champion for the rest of time.

The first half of the 2021 NBA All-Star Game was, well, about what one would expect from a fanless All-Star experience. The normal lack of defensive effort was turned up (down?) all the way as both teams started out completely going through the motions, leading to this tweet from Joel Embiid as he watched from his hotel room after being removed for contact tracing.

Eventually, the two teams would pick up the action after a sloppy start and the first quarter was a competitive one, with Team LeBron edging out Team Durant by one point.

However, the talent and depth of Team LeBron showed up in the second quarter as Stephen Curry erupted as only he can, but to end the half he was joined by Damian Lillard for an in-game halfcourt shooting competition. After missing his first effort, Dame found the bottom of the net from 42 feet out to the delight of Curry, egging him on.

On the next possession, Steph had to make sure he got one up as well.

The first half featured a lot of Steph, as he was tied with Giannis Antetokounmpo for the leading scorer with 24 points, as he hit three deep threes, two from the T in All-Star and the other that midcourt shot. He also had a rare dunk on a lob from a sideline out of bounds play, that led to him returning the favor to Chris Paul immediately after.

Steph finished the half 8-for-11 with 24 points, as it seems to be a battle of he and teammate Giannis for MVP honors. Antetokounmpo was a perfect 11-for-11, including a pair of threes to the delight of his teammates.

The second half might not feature much game drama unless Team Durant makes a big third quarter run, but the MVP race on Team LeBron figures to be fun.

In the sixth episode of the current (tenth) season of The Walking Dead, Daryl and Carol are hanging out, throwing rocks at a can, and amiably chatting, as they sometimes do. Carol had noticed that Daryl seemed to be interested in Connie, and she was teasing him about it. Daryl, however, told Carol that “it wasn’t like that.” Carol wondered why not, especially since there are so few people out there with whom he could have a romantic connection.

“Then why not?” Carol asks.

“What’s it matter?” Daryl responds.

“Cause it does,” Carol continues. “You don’t have to be alone. Years pass, Daryl. You don’t have to hide out here with her dog forever.”

If one reads the closed captions, Carol says, “You don’t have to hide out with your dog forever,” but listening to it, it’s clear that she says, “her dog,” but at the time, viewers didn’t pay the your/her distinction any mind. However, in this week’s 18th episode of this season, “Find Me,” we finally understand the importance of that distinction. It was “her” dog, and in this episode, we find out who she is.

Her name is Leah (Lynn Collins of X-Men Origins: Wolverine and True Blood fame), and she and Daryl met during those years in which Daryl had alienated himself from everyone else while in search of Rick (or his remains). During those years by himself, Daryl saw a dog, and that dog led him to Leah’s cabin, introducing the two. That dog, obviously, was “Dog,” and Dog belonged to Leah.

It took many, many, many months, however, before the two forged much of a relationship because the two are so much alike. They’re distrustful of others, they like being alone, and they had both lost someone very close to them. For Leah, it was her sister’s kid, who she called her “son,” and for Daryl, it was Rick, who he referred to in this episode as “his brother,” a powerfully poignant moment that reinforced the true meaning of family in the zombie apocalypse.

Leah and Daryl, all the same, bonded, and yet in spite of that, Daryl couldn’t stop searching for Rick, which continued to take him away from Leah. At one point, however, Leah gave Daryl an ultimatum: “Stay with me, or continue searching for Rick.” At the moment, Daryl decided to continue searching for Rick, but after spending some time alone again, Daryl decided that he wanted to be with Leah. Unfortunately, when he returned to her cabin, Leah was gone. He left a note for her saying, “Find me,” but Leah never did, and Daryl eventually had to move on with his life with both Rick and Leah’s fates unknown.

In the present, however, Daryl and Carol are still sorting through their issues. The two go out into the woods to spearfish, and while they initially have a great time, old concerns resurface. Daryl still blames Carol for Connie’s absence. Carol tells Daryl that she should have gotten on the boat and Daryl stopped her from getting on, and Daryl accuses Carol of consistently running from her problems, which is in fact a lifelong issue for Carol. By the episode’s end, Carol and Daryl have had another falling out. “I stopped you from running, and I shouldn’t have,” Daryl tells her. “Wanna run? Then run! … I won’t stop you this time.”

Additional Notes

— The argument notwithstanding, it’s another great Daryl and Carol episode, and it’s clear that their spin-off together is going to be great, if only because of their chemistry together.

— I seriously doubt that Leah has disappeared for good. There are three places where she’s most likely to resurface. Either she’s joined The Reapers, and we’ll see her again this season; she was picked up by CRM, and we’ll meet her again on The World Beyond; or she moved to The Commonwealth, and she and Daryl will be reunited there in the final season (which could create some romantic tension if Connie is still in the picture).

— The episode, directed by David Boyd (who began his career as a cinematographer) includes a few impressive visual feats that we’re not used to seeing on The Walking Dead.

— I would finally like to note the irony of Daryl (who basically left Alexandria for 5 years and lived by himself in the woods) calling out Carol for “running away.”

It’s been over a year since Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, announced they were stepping back from their royal duties and relocation to America. They wound up in California, near gorgeous Santa Barbara, and it didn’t take them long to hash out a huge deal with Netflix to create original content. But it wasn’t until Sunday that they gave their first big interview, which they granted to no less than Oprah Winfrey. And Markle in particular had some things she wanted to get off her chest.

Along with news that they were expecting a baby girl — and the more light-hearted bit about their young son’s chicken coop entitled “Archie’s Chick Inn” — Markle made some pretty horrifying allegations. It’s long known that she was bullied by the British tabloids, but a lot of what happened between her and the other Royals had been largely kept under the rug.

No more. Markle said she went into her job as a Royal “naively,” and that she soon found out that things weren’t exactly rosy. Her relationship with the Queen was good — she “has always been wonderful to me,” she said — but the other members and parts of the royal institution, she claimed, tried to silence her. Nor did they shield her from the press’ often savage coverage of her.

Markle also claimed that some members, though she wouldn’t say who, expressed concern over the color of Archie’s skin, which may have been one reason why they didn’t give him a royal title. She was made to feel lonely and eventually, she said, “I didn’t want to be alive anymore.”

By interview’s end, though, she showed off her strength. “I’ve lost my father, I lost a baby, I nearly lost my name, there’s the loss of identity,” Markle told Winfrey. “But I’m still standing, and my hope for people in the takeaway from this, is to know that there’s another side — to know that life is worth living.”

It was intense television, and people were so proud of Markle for standing up for herself and taking no prisoners.

Although maybe she did take a couple prisoners at least.

People were horrified by some of the revelations.

Some were reminded of another outsider who joined the Royal Family.

Many had become disgusted with the British monarchy itself.

Some imagined the reactions at Buckingham Palace.

And others wondered how the Palace’s PR team will spin this.

(Via CNN)