Month: April 2021

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has been a frequent guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert over the years, so Stephen Colbert feels comfortable offering advice to the wrestler-turned-actor. As long as it’s not candy-ass advice. During Tuesday’s episode of the late-night program, Colbert skillfully transitioned from Senator John Cornyn criticizing Joe Biden for not being online enough to The Rock potentially running for president.

“Look, folks,” Colbert said, changing his tone and emotion, “I love Dwayne ‘Rock’ the Johnson as much as the next middle-aged man who loves Fast Cars Go Zoom. But for the love of Ludacris, Dwayne, we don’t need another celebrity in the White House! Just ’cause people love something doesn’t mean we should hand it the nuclear codes. That’s why we’ve never elected President Surprise Onion Ring in Your French Fries.”

Besides, Colbert continued, “we’ve already have a couple of Presidents Johnson. We’d have to call his administration 2 POTUS 2 Prez: Executive Drift.” Also, “no one would come to our state dinners,” as the meals would be “12 pounds of steamed cod and a blender full of creatine powder.” It’s no mountain of McDonald’s and Wendy’s, but it’ll do.

Colbert then spoke to Johnson directly. “Bottom line, Dwayne, you won’t even like the gig,” he said. “You’re an action star. Being a president is boring. It’s all legislation and diplomacy and paperwork. And as all we know, paper… beats Rock.” Well done.

You can watch the clip above.

After getting banned from Twitter for repeatedly violating the terms of service by pushing the “Big Lie” that Donald Trump won the 2020 election, Mike Lindell, the MyPillow Guy, has launched his own social media platform and an online store that won’t be subjected to “cancel culture” and will “get our free speech out there.” Naturally, both of these sites are bananas, and Jimmy Kimmel spent the opening part of his Tuesday night monologue going to town on Lindell’s latest ventures.

Kimmel made short work of Lindell’s new social media platform, FrankSpeech, which will be a safe haven for free speech, yet also a profanity free zone. “Oh great, that means kids can watch you have a full mental breakdown,” the late night host quipped.

From there, Kimmel pivoted to MyStore, which Lindell is trumpeting as a “rival to Amazon,” despite its business plan of selling a random assortment of super weird items:

Peanut brittle, naturally. Freedom flags, which are 48 percent more patriotic than regular flags. There’s a series of children’s books called “Donald the Caveman” featuring a neandrathal Donald Trump beating an elderly dinosaur with the Constitution. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are bunch of products that sound like we made them up. We didn’t.

WoofPurrfect is a pet stain remover. BleedStop stops bleeding in seconds. And my footsie a $45 sleeping bag for your feet. And for only $39.99 you could have a life-sized cardboard cutout of Mike Lindell lurking menacingly in your home. Who would buy this? I mean, besides me. Who would buy this?

Here’s the thing, Kimmel is telling the truth: His writers did not make any of these products up. Everything from “Donald the Caveman” to BleedStop is actually for sale on MyStore, and Kimmel is understandably confused by all of it.

“Why is he doing this? Why is he starting these websites?” Kimmel asked. “You’re a former crack addict who somehow made millions of dollars selling pillows. Sell pillows! Why isn’t that enough? You’re lucky you have teeth.”

Following Daunte Wright’s death after being shot by police during a traffic stop a few days ago, many thoughts about the situation have been shared. Now Cardi B has chimed in and one of her big questions is why she’s not seeing a lot of high-profile Republican leaders addressing the incident.

Cardi shared a video last night, which she started by summarizing the Wright situation, as well as that of Caron Nazario, an Army lieutenant who was pepper sprayed and had guns drawn on him during a traffic stop in December (video footage of the incident recently surfaced). She then continued, “My thing is: Where the f*ck are you Twitter blue-check Republicans at? Y’all are the loudest in this motherf*ckin’ app. Y’all not saying nothing, y’all not complaining. Y’all blame everything with what’s wrong with America beside the police! Y’all have been very silent! What’s going on?” She also wrote alongside the video, “Ya been real [quiet] .Twitter Blue check Republicans are a f*ckin joke .I don’t ever want to see yaa ranting on celebrities,athletes until yall address what’s REALLY WRONG IN AMERICA !”

Other folks from the music world have chimed in as well, including Snoop Dogg, Phoebe Bridgers, and Madonna.

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

You should never take advice from Tucker Carlson, but you should extra-never take medical advice from Tucker Carlson.

During Tuesday’s episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight, Fox News’ finest “performatively outraged wedge salad” blasted conspiracy theory particles all over the studio. Carlson said he’s not against vaccines (you know there’s a “but” coming), but “before we take this one, [I have] a few questions about it, about this specific vaccine.” His I’m-just-asking-questions include, “If vaccines work, why are vaccinated people still banned from living normal lives?” and “Honestly, what’s the answer to that?” Carlson continued:

“If the vaccine is effective, there is no reason for people who have received the vaccine to wear masks or avoid physical contact. So maybe it doesn’t work and they’re simply not telling you that. Well, you’d hate to think that, especially if you’ve gotten two shots, but what’s the other potential explanation? We can’t think of one.”

Carlson isn’t directly telling his mask-less viewers to not get the vaccine because “it doesn’t work,” but he’s not NOT saying it, either. The next morning, Dr. Anthony Fauci was asked by CNN’s New Day anchor John Berman about Carlson’s comments.

“That’s just a typical crazy conspiracy theory. Why wouldn’t we tell people it works. Look at the data,” the medical director replied. “I don’t have any idea what he’s talking about.” Berman wondered whether it’s “dangerous” for a “TV personality” like Carlson to spread misinformation, to which Fauci said, “Well, it’s certainly not helpful to the public health of this nation or globally. I don’t want to get into arguments about Tucker Carlson, but to me, it’s counter to trying to protect the safety and health of the American public.”

To recap: don’t listen to Carlson. About anything. Ever.

(Via Mediaite)

Taylor Swift guested on The Late Show last night and the segment was a bit of a throwback for Stephen Colbert for a number of reasons. One was that he revived an old claim of his that Swift’s Fearless track “Hey Stephen” is about him, and another is that Colbert was basically in character for the conversation (like he used to do on The Colbert Report way back when), as the whole interview was a bit about “Hey Stephen.” As for Swift, fans believe that she dropped a number of hints that her next re-recorded album will be 1989 (Taylor’s Version).

During the interview, Swift made references to New York City (1989 of course leads with “Welcome To New York”), referenced “Shake It Off,” mentioned 1989 directly, and seemingly gave other hints. Fans got to work decoding the interview and they’ve come up with some findings, which don’t seem too outlandish given Swift’s love of sending Swifties on Easter egg hunts.

Some fans noted Swift’s vision board of Colbert features eight hearts and nine stars, which could be a visual representation of ’89 (so 1989). The poster also features a seagull, which may be a reference to the seagull-covered shirt Swift wears on the 1989 album cover. Furthermore, at one point during the interview, Swift starts to reveal Colbert’s social security number but gets cut off after saying just “33035.” The digits of that number add up to 14, and since May 14 is a Friday, some believe that is when the first single from 1989 (Taylor’s Version) will be released.

It’s also worth noting that it seems Swift has already started re-recording the album, as a snippet of her new version of the 1989 single “Wildest Dreams” premiered last month in a trailer for Spirit Untamed.

Check out some tweets about the 1989 (Taylor’s Version) theories below and watch the full Late Show interview above.

In a rare moment of political unity, comedian-turned-activist Jon Stewart joined a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Tuesday to announce legislation that would allow easier access to VA benefits for veterans who were exposed to burn pits during their military service.

The bill, officially known as the Presumptive Benefits for War Fighters Exposed to Burn Pits and Other Toxins Act, is being spearheaded by odd couple Kirsten Gillibrand and Marco Rubio, who were both advocating alongside Stewart for this landmark legislation. If passed, the law would remove the current burden of proof that is placed on veterans to establish a direct link between their time in the military and the health condition(s) from which they’re now suffering, which range from respiratory illness to cancer.

“These men and women swore an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic,” Stewart said. “Well, what do you do when you’ve fulfilled that obligation and you come home and the enemy is now negligence and bureaucracy and apathy? They’re not trained for that.”

Burn pits are open-air swaths of land that the military uses for disposing of everything from human waste to munitions. The smoke from these areas has been shown to cause a wide range of health issues, many of them fatal. Though they were originally designed as a temporary solution to ridding military bases of excess debris, they’re no longer legal in the United States precisely because of the health hazards they pose.

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, approximately 3.5 million veterans have been exposed to burn pits. In 2014, the VA created the Airborne Hazards and Open Burn Pit Registry, so that veterans experiencing health issues related to burn pits could document their cases and receive the appropriate care. But so far, less than 240,000 people have registered, as an estimated 78 percent of burn pit claims are denied. But according to Stewart, it’s not the VA’s job to determine who is and is not eligible for benefits — nor should the onus be on the veterans themselves, who were never warned of the dangers of these burn pits, even when they were sleeping just a few feet away from them.

According to Stewart: “The VA has one job: to act for the benefit of the veteran. That’s it. You’re not an insurance company. You’re not an obstacle to care. You are there to act for the benefit of the veteran. And if the culture doesn’t change, then we will continue to make the same mistake we’ve clearly made decade after decade after decade.” Stewart has likened the issue to both Agent Orange exposure during the Vietnam War and the health issues faced by 9/11 first responders — another group that has remained close to Stewart’s heart.

Stewart brought further awareness to the issue of burn pits when he chatted with Jake Tapper later in the day. “This is sort of a moral imperative,” Stewart told the CNN anchor of his push for stronger laws to protect the men and women who are losing their lives after fighting for our country. “This is the cost of war when you send people overseas, you have to be prepared for taking care of the consequences of that service.”

Though the fate of the Presumptive Benefits for War Fighters Exposed to Burn Pits and Other Toxins Act is uncertain, other proposals are currently being floated that would seek to compensate the victims of burn pit exposure. But to Stewart, the matter goes far beyond financial compensation.

“For those that have fought and defended and served this country, for them to come home and have to fight against the very government that they volunteered to defend is immoral.”

(Via ABC News, The Lead with Jake Tapper)

Morgan Wallen’s 2021 was off to a fire start. He began the year with the release of his sophomore full-length effort, Dangerous: The Double Album, a project that would tally the biggest debut streaming week for a country album and spend its first ten weeks atop the album charts, the first album in history to ever accomplish this. Despite the achievements, a huge stain in the midst of this run would arrive when TMZ released a video of the singer using a racial slur with friends outside his home. Wallen would eventually apologize for the incident, but since then he’s laid low and avoided the public eye. He returned on Tuesday night with an update for fans about his future plans.

“I’ve found this time away to be very valuable to me in many ways, but I feel like I need a little more of it, and therefore will not be performing tour dates this summer,” he said in a lengthy handwritten note he posted on Twitter. “It means I won’t be playing festivals or the Luke Bryan tour dates. But it’s important to me personally, if you can, still go to these shows — support country music. Country music is back & that’s a beautiful damn thing.” Concluding the letter, he added, “My story is far from over & getting back out to see y’all is all I can think about. So just know you’ll be seeing me sooner than later.”

You can read the full letter from Wallen in the post above.

After a stutter of a start, the vaccine rollout in the United States has gone better than expected. Millions of doses are being injected daily, and while we’re still a ways away from herd immunity, we’re in far better shape than we’ve been since the pandemic began. But on Tuesday, a monkey wrench thrown into the gears: After six people who’d been given the one-shot Johnson & Johnson brand developed rare blood clots, the CDC and the FDA announced they were putting that line on pause. The move caused real concern — for people worried it would inspire those already reluctant to get dosed to avoid vaccines altogether.

One of those people was Trevor Noah, who used his Daily Show platform to put things into perspective. He pointed out the ridiculously low odds — six people out of seven million doses. “That means you’re more likely to get struck by lightning 10 times,” he said — or 0.0001%.

He also pointed out that, while you definitely don’t want a rare blood clot, you also really, really, really don’t want to contract one of the many possible side effects of COVID-19.

“If you get coronavirus, you can get lung damage, heart damage, neurological damage, strokes, seizures, Guillian-Barre Syndrome, immune disorders, erectile dysfunction, and — get this — also blod clots!” Noah said.

He also praised the company itself. “Honestly if you ask me, I think it’s impressive Johnson & Johnson made an effective vaccine with such a low risk of blood clots,” Noah said. “I mean, Phizer and Moderna, those are drug companies. Johnson & Johnson make baby shampoo. I’m surprised their s*it works at all.”

Far more worrisome, though, is how this might affect skeptics. “This is setback for a country that is already dealing with a s*it-ton of vaccine hesitancy. Because even if they look at the problem, and they see that the vaccine is safe, you best believe for a lot of people the damage is already done,” he said. “Imagine you’re at a restaurant and the chef comes out and says, ‘We need to pause eating to make sure your dinners aren’t going to give you diarrhea.’ Even if he says, ‘Nevermind, your crab cakes are safe,’ by then you’ve been thinking of diarrhea for 20 minutes. So you’re probably just going to have drinks.”

Still, Noah was careful not to be a Debbie Downer. He gushed about how well the vaccines rollout has gone, this (hopefully brief and minor) setback aside. “Given how America handled everything else about the pandemic,” he said. “I wouldn’t have been surprised if when Vaccine Time came around, America accidentally locked all 300 million doses in the trunk of the car.”

You can watch the full segment in the video above.

Brockhampton has promised two albums this year, and the first, Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine, arrived last week. Already there’s a new video for one of its tracks, and it finds the boy band teaming up with two of his musical peers, Lil Nas X and Dominic Fike. The two star in the video for “Count On Me,” the second single from the new album, and it begins with Lil Nas and Fike riding in a Jeep as they kick off while cracking jokes like, “Who the f*ck is Radiohead?” Things take an unexpected turn when the two singers end up in the midst of a seemingly drug-infused trip that ends with surprising make-out session.

Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine enlists ASAP Rocky, ASAP Ferg, Danny Brown, Jpegmafia, Charlie Wilson, and more for the thirteen-track effort. Prior to the project’s release, Kevin Abstract, the groups’ lead vocalist, delivered news about Brockhampton’s future in a tweet. “2 brockhampton albums in 2021 – these will be our last,” he wrote. Exactly when that second album will arrive remains to be seen, but it appears that after a long run that started back in 2016 with their debut mixtape, All-American Trash, Brockhampton will be no more come 2022.

You can watch the “Count On Me” video above.

Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine is out now via Question Everything/RCA Records. Get it here.

In April of 2000, Papa Roach released their sophomore album, Infest. While their debut record, 1997’s Old Friends from Young Years, was more fan favorite than chart-topping hit, Infest went 3x platinum in the United States, in large part because the second song on the album, “Last Resort,” is the most well-known song the band ever released.

Papa Roach has dropped a handful of albums in the two-plus decades since, but unless you really liked the song “Scars,” the default Papa Roach track for most people is “Last Resort.” Apparently, this also applies to the person who sat behind the keyboard of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Twitter account on Tuesday night.

Luguentz Dort had a gargantuan first half in the team’s game against the Utah Jazz, scoring 18 points and hitting all four of his attempts from three in the frame. At one point, he was also the subject of this extremely good tweet:

Honestly, terrific post. We need more tweets from NBA teams that reference songs that your middle/high school basketball team put on the pump-up CD that one kid burned after downloading a bunch of songs off of Limewire. It can go in any number of directions — in this context, a “‘Till I Collapse” joke is just as good as, say, a “Remember the Name” joke or something — but the person who sent this post for the Thunder deserves a ton of praise, regardless. Even if they do not become the trendsetter they deserve to be, this was a good tweet. Good job. And good job to Lu Dort, too. That’s a very impressive first quarter against any team, let alone one as good as the Jazz.