Month: April 2021

The world of digital collectibles known as NFTs have been going strong since taking off a few weeks back, and the latest musical act to get in on it is Doja Cat. The singer announced the launch of her own curated NFT marketplace, called Juicy Drops, as well as the debut of her first NFT collection, which arrives this Friday, April 23.

The Juicy Drops marketplace is a collaboration with Intellctable Holdings, a new NFT-focused company founded by 20-year music executive Shannon Schlappi. The marketplace’s first official drop features a collection of NFTs made in collaboration with toy designer BOOMTRONIC. Doja’s NFTs, which are inspired by her performance at last month’s Grammy Awards, sports a collection of 3-D digital graphics that includes a spinning, metallic Doja image in a gilded frame, as well as an image of her cat Raymus. The collection comes in six different colors with varying tiers of available quantities and price points. For instance, there’s a very rare “Metallic” tier with three different rarities and a “Flavored” tier with three additional rarities. Buyers who collect all six will earn a chance to be rewarded with a very rare “Mystery” tier that will not be for sale.

Doja spoke about the new venture in a press release. “I’m helping to launch my NFT company so that I can actually own and control my art,” she wrote. “I want to be able to make all decisions related to my creative vision and help other artists do the same. My ownership also allows me to direct how we can give back to causes that I truly believe in.”

The Washington Wizards were putting forth a terrific first half performance against the Golden State Warriors before they saw one of their best young players go down with an apparently serious injury.

Rookie forward Deni Avdija was taken off the court in a wheelchair after suffering a gruesome looking ankle injury in the second quarter. The injury was so bad that teammate Jordan Bell ran over and covered his leg with a warmup shirt, recognizing how bad it was, and consoled the young forward on the court as he was attended to.

Avdija would leave in a wheelchair in considerable pain in a scary scene in Washington.

The injury occurred as Avdija came down and had his right leg get caught underneath him as he fell backwards, with his ankle getting bent terribly. (Warning: Video of the injury is graphic.)

Avdija has had his ups and downs this season, as rookies often do, averaging 6.3 points and 4.9 rebounds per game for the Wizards, but the flashes have been there of the potential he has as a playmaking forward. Hopefully Avdija will make a full recovery and we’ll learn more about the specifics of the injury in the coming day as X-rays and MRIs will be scheduled, but for now we can just wish for the best for the young man.

For the last few weeks, Matt Gaetz has been in deep doo-doo. In late March, it was revealed the Florida representative and ride-or-die Trumpist has been under investigation for his ties to an alleged sex trafficking ring — a probe that has since expanded to campaign finance irregularities. On top of that, James Carville made fun of how he looks. Throughout it all, Gaetz has alternately asserted his innocence and tried to pretend nothing was wrong, even as longtime cohorts, including former president Donald Trump, have kept their distance.

But a new report by The Daily Beast claims that he’s done far more than that. A new campaign finance report, covering January through March, reveals he’s been dropping tons of cash during what is usually a quiet time, in an apparent attempt to sway public opinion his way. For instance, of the $170,000 he’s spent in that time on direct mail outreach to supporters, $116,543 was spent on March 31 alone — the day after the New York Times piece revealing the DOJ investigation went live.

Gaetz has also dropped $160,000 for fundraising consulting — $10,000 more than his campaign spent on such services in 2019 and 2020 combined. There’s also the six-figures he spent on TV ads — 30-second spots aired in his home district and on some national cable networks, in which he asked supporters to “fight back” against places like CNN.

There was also one alarming deposit: $5,000 on “strategic political consulting” to Drake Ventures, which is owned by notorious smear artist and pardoned former felon Roger Stone, who was recently sued by the DOJ over millions in alleged unpaid taxes. The department claims Drake Ventures is little more than a shelter for more than $1 million.

Where is Gaetz getting his money? In part by fundraising off the scandal. Earlier in April he sent out an email to supporters, asking for cash and slamming the “far-left New York Times” for publishing “salacious allegations against me in an attempt to end my career fighting for the forgotten men and women of this country.”

But he’s not getting any help from his fellow congresspeople. The Daily Beast reports that not even close friends like Jim Jordan — with whom Gaetz has been roundly mocked as “Beavis and Butt-head” — have given him financial support in thus far this calendar year.

(Via The Daily Beast)

After a hot start, the Minnesota Twins are really struggling, falling to 6-11 on the season on Wednesday with a brutal loss to the Athletics in Oakland. The Twins led by one, 10-9, going into the ninth inning, but gave up the game-tying run to force extras. In the 10th inning, the Twins leaned on Byron Buxton, who has been the bright spot for them all year as he is absolutely raking, to put them back in front as he hit a towering two-run home run (thanks to the new start extra innings with a runner on second rule) to left-center.

In the bottom of the 10th, holding a 12-10 lead, things got dicey as the A’s had loaded the bases with two outs. Minnesota got exactly what they needed with a soft grounder to second, but Travis Blankenhorn, who had come in to pinch run and stayed in the game to play second, couldn’t handle the grounder, allowing a run to score and the bases to stay loaded. No matter, the Twins still just needed one out. Once again, Alex Colomé got the A’s to roll over one, this time to third base where Luis Arráez had moved from second when Blankenhorn stayed in the game for Josh Donaldson. Arráez’s throw, well, arose all the way across the field and sailed well over the head of Willians Astudillo to allow two runs to score to hand the A’s a win.

It is, truly, one of the worst fielding sequences you will see from a Major League team, and that it happened with both guys involved in a little baserunning/defense ploy from the manager makes it even more painful. It’s a miserable way to lose a game and finish off getting swept in a series.

Lil Yachty had a big comeback in 2020 thanks to the release of Lil Boat 3. The 19-track album was a return to form, highlighted by moments like “Oprah’s Bank Account” and contributions from the likes of Future, Tierra Whack, Lil Keed, Young Thug, and more. Six months later, the rapper returned in November 2020 with a deluxe reissue that featured eight additional songs. Now he’s ready to make his first big mark in 2021 thanks to the upcoming mixtape Michigan Boy Boat, his third release in less than a year and which will spotlight rappers from Detroit and Flint.

The rapper made the announcement on his Instagram page, with the following caption: “It’s on – 4/23/21… dis 4 my second home… let’s rap.” While it’s unknown how many songs will appear on the mixtape, Lil Yachty tagged a number of artists on the image, including Swae Lee, Sada Baby, Tee Grizzley, YN Jay, Babyface Ray, Louie Ray, Icewear Vezzo, and more.

The rollout for the project began with the single “Royal Rumble,” which boasts appearances from Krispylife Kid, RMC Mike, Babyface Ray, Rio Da Yung OG, and Icewear Vezzo.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Musical artists tend to go by their stage names. One exception is City Girls rapper Yung Miami, born Caresha Brownlee. Up until 2019, her fans called her by her alias. But that changed after a string of viral videos showed close friend and fellow rapper Saucy Santana screaming, “Caresha, please!” Soon after, people began using her birth name — and Yung Miami wants them to stop that.

It began with a tweet earlier this month where she asked, “Why y’all don’t call me yung Miami?” More than a week later, she returned to the topic. “I been feeling violated every time a b*tch see me in public, they keep yelling ‘Caresha,’” she tweeted. “STOP DOING THAT I DON’T LIKE THAT!” During an Instagram Livestream, Yung Miami explained that only “delusional” people would call her by her government name. “In the back of my head I got to realize that everybody knows my name, but there’s a time and a place for that,” she said.

But it didn’t work. Fans continue to call her Caresha. The rapper recently hopped in the comment section of an Instagram post from Neighborhood Talk post to reveal she had given up trying to stop them. “Lmaooooo,” she wrote. “Ion care no more fr call me whatever lol.”

If you’ve followed conservative media since the Derek Chauvin verdict was revealed on Tuesday, you’ve seen some stuff. Multiple pundits have gone through massive meltdowns, from Tomi Lahren to Ben Shapiro to, of course, Tucker Carlson. And then there’s Greg Gutfeld. Fox News’ resident “funny” pundit had a bizarre “selfish” reaction to the conviction of George Floyd’s murderer. A day later he was back, ranting some more, and pretty clearly annoying his longtime colleagues.

On Wednesday’s episode of The Five, the network’s daily late afternoon round-table hoedown, Gutfeld launched into an rant about how a jury actually finding a police officer guilty was in no way controversial with conservatives. He eventually lost it, turning loud and apoplectic, shouting about how most police stops that turn violent are for white people. All the while, his co-hosts — among them Dana Perino and Juan Williams — sat stone-faced, clearly unamused, almost certainly irritated.

When he was done, Jesse Watters tried to spin it as a nice, adult conversation, which made even Gutfled laugh in derision. “Well, I’m on my meds, that’s why,” Gutfeld joked. His co-hosts didn’t laugh.

Perhaps they were flummoxed by something Gutfeld said earlier, in which he called into question claims that Republicans are furious over the Chauvin verdict. “The debate isn’t dividing the country. The media narrative is dividing the country,” Gutfeld claimed. “No one is divided over the Chauvin verdict. Do you know anybody that said ‘boo-hoo that was wrong, I’m really angry?’”

Thing is, there’s at least one notable person who’s claimed the verdict was wrong: Gutfeld’s Fox News colleague Tucker Carlson, who the night before had devoted part of his show to claiming that the jury only found Chauvin guilty because they were terrified of Black Lives Matter protests.

But, you know, other than all of the highly publicized meltdowns from noted Republican pundits, conservatives seem to be taking this all pretty well.

Nobody has been one of the first box office hits since movie theaters started getting lots of (hopefully vaccinated) patrons again, which means it’s given Bob Odenkirk yet another skill to put on his résumé: He’s an action star now. The Better Call Saul star and Mr. Show alum has already talked a lot about how much training he did to turn himself into an everybody who becomes a crime-fighting berserker. Now he’s telling GQ that his motivation wasn’t just to expand his repertoire: It was to channel some very real frustration he acquired through some dangerous brushes with real-life criminals.

“Making this movie was a great opportunity to let out some deep-seated frustration,” Odenkirk told the publication, adding, “And, you could say, vengeance.” What did he mean? He then revealed that his family has had two separate home break-ins. He only felt comfortable talking about one of them, which he still said was “disturbing,” though at least it ended relatively peacefully. “I didn’t do anything. I picked up the baseball bat, but I talked everyone out of it, and the police came and got the guy out of the house.”

But there was also another incident that stayed with him. Many years ago, when he was still a staff writer at SNL while also doing shows at Second City, he was held up with a gun in Chicago:

I was really out-of-my-mind tired. It was, like, 1am on a Thursday, and I’d been up since 10am on Tuesday. I’d started the day in New York, stayed up all night writing at SNL, did the SNL readthrough, flew to Chicago, did the show at Second City, and then drove home. I was with my girlfriend at the time. And I got out of the car, and a guy put a gun to my head and said, “Give me your money.”

So I got the money out, gave it to him, and then he said, “Get your girlfriend out of the car.” And I said, “No.” Now, admittedly, I was bleary-eyed, blinkered, and not thinking straight. Everyone says that you should do what they ask. But I was just exhausted. And I said, “No, get the f*ck out of here. Look at how much f*cking money I gave you.”

Incidents such as these left a lasting impression, he says:

I think about those things a lot. Just like we all think about traumatic moments in our lives. They kind of haunt us. But I do think, There’s not much I would do differently. I think the one thing I didn’t do right was that we should’ve had a therapist come over — that day — and sit with us and the kids and talk about what happened. Right away. Like, within hours. Instead of going on with our day, which is what we did. That was a mistake, because it didn’t acknowledge the impact that we’d all suffered. We pretended, to some degree. “Let’s just compartmentalize this. Everyone’s okay, let’s just go on with our lives.” And that’s really not okay.

And those are some reasons why Bob Odenkirk became an action star. He’s not done with the genre either. He says he’s kept at the training, hoping he can do another one, maybe in the style of his favorite action movie, Jackie Chan’s 1985 classic Police Story. “That’s just something you could watch with your whole family,” he says, “and also, the fighting is kind of clever. It makes you smile.”

(Via GQ)

The 2020-21 NBA MVP race has been quite strange to follow. For a while, it seemed like either LeBron James would narrative his way to the award or Joel Embiid would get it by nature of the Philadelphia 76ers getting the 1-seed, and more recently, the voting populace has seemed to realize that Nikola Jokic is obliterating everyone. As a result, the Denver Nuggets’ big man has earned favorite status, and unless he gets hurt (a fate that befell James and Embiid), he’s seems primed to win the award.

Still, there is seemingly some skepticism over whether Jokic deserves it (he does!) or if he’s just the last man standing following injuries to the aforementioned two players (he is, but he’s the MVP for reasons other than that!). It’s led to a vacuum where other guys have tossed their hats into the ring, with Steph Curry getting some love in the MVP race recently due to the fact that he is making magic happen for the Golden State Warriors whenever they play.

Whether he is the MVP or not is for other people to decide, but in Curry’s eyes, the award is his. The two-time league MVP appeared on Rex Chapman’s podcast and made clear that while he might not win the award, he deserves it for his play this year.

Curry is averaging a league-best 31.4 points per game this year while connecting on 43.1 percent of his 12.1 threes per game. He has been out of his mind this year, and in recent days, he has seen his odds of being named league MVP skyrocket, even though Jokic is still the favorite.

If you’ve tried to track what movies and shows are on which of the ever-expanding number of streaming services, then congrats: You’ve accidentally learned a lot about corporate and copyright law. What superhero movie fan doesn’t know that Sony owns Spider-Man and that there’s a byzantine deal that allows him to hobnob with his fellow Avengers, the rest of whom are owned by Disney? Those people have no doubt noticed that the stand-alone Spider-Man films, from the new Tom Holland ones to the Tobey Maguires and Andrew Garfields, are AWOL from Disney+.

But that won’t be so for much longer: As per The Hollywood Reporter, Sony has inked a deal with Disney to move most of its movies, from upcoming 2022-2026 releases to a massive back catalog, to its two streamers. That is to say the more family-friendly ones, including their comic book fare, will go to Disney+, and the more adult ones, will head to Hulu. (Their content — which, of course, includes far more than comic book fare — will also head to Disney-owned TV networks, such as ABC, FX, and National Geographic.)

When will this happen? That’s not clear, but it will happen after Sony’s current deal with Netflix expires. When that happens, movies from such franchises as Hotel Transylvania and Jumanji will hang with Marvel and Star Wars fare (as well as old school Disney titles, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Million Dollar Duck). They’ll also eventually score such upcoming Sony titles as Morbius, Uncharted, Bullet Train, and the sequel to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

The merger is a reminder that Sony, whose parent company also owns Columbia Pictures, is the only major media corporation that does not have its own streaming service. That’s in part because, unlike Disney, Warner Media, and others, they don’t have the same brand recognition — which is to say they don’t have as many towering franchises that would attract looking to Roku and chill. In other words, you won’t have to shell out for yet another streamer so you can watch the Spider-Man where Jamie Foxx is a blue meanie.

(Via THR)