Season two of the HBO comedy The Righteous Gemstones looks primed to be even more chaotic and hilarious than the first things to its latest additions to the cast.
According to Variety, Eric Andre, Jason Schwartzman and Eric Roberts will join the cast of the Danny McBride-led comedy as reoccurring members, and we already know the unsettlingly weird and almost certainly hilarious roles they will play.
The nine-episode Season 2, which is currently in production, will see Schwartzman in the recurring role of Thaniel, a journalist working on a story on the ministries. Roberts will play Junior, who grew up with Eli and has suddenly re-entered his life, while Andre will play Lyle Lissons, a megachurch pastor from Texas who befriends Jesse and Amber.
The news should be joyous for pretty much anyone who enjoyed the first season, as Schwartzman and Andre in particular have a litany of oddball roles to their credits. The Eric Andre Show is a staple of weird comedy on Adult Swim, and he can absolutely pull off a megachurch pastor almost certain to have ulterior motives. Schwartzman, meanwhile, is a veteran of Wes Anderson films and certainly has “journalist working on megachurch expose” in his wheelhouse.
And then there’s Eric Roberts, who seems absolutely game for anything and is a perfect fit for the vibe of the evangelical mayhem McBride and company showcased in its first season. If that’s the energy everyone is bringing to Season 2, we’re all in for a real treat.
Variety reports that Chicago’s Lollapalooza has been cleared to continue with a four-day event in its usual venue (Grant Park) at full capacity — or else, near to it. The festival’s organizers, C3 Presents, are expected to make an official announcement sometime next week, along with headliners. While C3 declined to comment, Variety notes the organizers expressed optimism about the festival’s return in 2021 to the Chicago Tribune, while Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced the city would loosen its pandemic safety restrictions.
The Windy City Smokeout on July 8-11 is expected to be the first street festival, requiring full vaccination for all vendors, performers, and staff, while attendees will need to present proof of a negative COVID test within three days from attendance. Meanwhile, Rolling Loud is scheduled to return to Miami on July 23-25 at the 65,000-capacity Hard Rock Stadium with ASAP Rocky, Post Malone, and Travis Scott headlining, while New York’s Governor’s Ball returns in September, including many of the same artists, as well as more pop-oriented acts like Billie Eilish. If trends in festival booking hold to what they’ve resembled in the past, you can rest assured that many of the same names will appear on Lollapalooza’s announcement next week. Fingers crossed!
On February 19, 2020, a group of outdoor adventurists took a 25-day rafting trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. During the trip, they had no cell service and no contact with the outside world. When they ended they ended their journey on March 14, the man who pulled them ashore asked if they had been in touch with anyone else. When the rafters said no, the man sighed, then launched into an explanation of how the globe had been gripped by the coronavirus pandemic and everything had come to a screeching halt.
The rafters listened with bewilderment as they were told about toilet paper shortages and the NBA season being canceled and everyone being asked to stay at home. One of the river guides, who had done these kinds of off-grid excursions multiple times, said that they’d often joke about coming back to a completely different world—it had just never actually happened before.
The rafters’ story was shared in the New York Times last spring, but they’re not the only ones to have had such an experience.
Twitter user @thought_grime shared a mind-blowing story of a man who came extraordinarily late to the pandemic party last winter.
“I will never forget the guy who came into my work this past December with no mask on saying, ‘Can somebody please tell me what’s going on!!??'” they wrote. “We gave him a mask, learned that he had been living off the grid for a while, and had not yet learned that there was a global pandemic. He was so sweet and so confused and he said he only came to town because he ran out of oats.”
he was so sweet and so confused and he said he only came to town because he ran out of oats
People who live that far off the grid for that long are rare, but they exist. It’s hard to imagine being that unplugged from society, but even those who disconnect even temporarily can find themselves returning to a world that’s very different than the one they left, sometimes just days before.
Imagine being backwoods camping when 9/11 happened. Or when the Soviet Union fell. Imagine coming back to a world forever changed by a major event you had no idea had occurred.
@pdxbrock @thought_grime @clapifyoulikeme I came back from a backwoods camping trip to find the Soviet Union no longer existed.
— Kits Fool and 1000s of others (@kitzfuhel) 1620869575.0
It’s hard to imagine now with everyone carrying internet-enabled cell phones, but even being disconnected for a matter of hours can leave a person feeling dazed and confused if they miss a major event. There were some people who didn’t know their loved ones were safe after 9/11 hours after it had happened, and even some people who didn’t know it had happened.
@Goofyfan_Chuck @thought_grime A friend of mine worked in the twin towers. On 9/11 he missed his train then the tra… https://t.co/Qj3vd04x1k
We’ve become accustomed to news coming to us in real- time, but it wasn’t that long ago that news of only extraordinary news events warranted interrupting regular television programming. And prior to television, news came out only as fast as word of mouth and print newspapers could carry it.
These days, it’s generally people who have chosen to live in isolation or those who are living someplace remote who find themselves blindsided by major world changes that they missed.
For instance, imagine what it was like for this team of science researchers studying on a remote atoll 1300 miles from Hawaii, who returned to civilization—and a raging pandemic they hadn’t heard about—in December.
Isolated Science Researchers Learn of Pandemic 8 Months In
Living in the age of constant connectedness and instant information makes these kinds of stories all the more incredible, and perhaps ironically, also makes them more accessible to more people. The fact that some of us can miss big things due to a lack of technology, and then utilize the technology we were lacking to share that experience with millions is a sort of surreal sign of the times.
At long last, the Friends reunion is finally happening. On Thursday, HBO Max unveiled the official teaser for Friends: The Reunion, along with a release date for the highly anticipated special: May 27. While the teaser doesn’t show much except for a silhouette of all six of the original cast members walking together, fans will be happy two know that that the reunion is only two weeks away after the pandemic postponed the production barely a month after it was announced in 2020.
HBO Max also unveiled an insane amount of guest stars, which includes faces hardcore fans of the NBC sitcom will surely remember: Monica’s old boyfriend Richard (Tom Selleck), Rachel’s younger sister Jill (Reese Witherspoon), and of course, the bane of Chandler’s existence, Janice (Maggie Wheeler.) Also, for some reason Game of Thrones‘ Kit Harrington shows up.
Here’s the full list via Entertainment Weekly, and yes, we noticed a distinct lack of Paul Rudd, too:
In addition to the series main cast members Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schimmer, Friends: The Reunion will feature guest appearances by BTS, Lady Gaga, David Beckham, Justin Bieber, James Corden, Cindy Crawford, Cara Delevingne, Elliott Gould, Kit Harington, Larry Hankin, Mindy Kaling, Thomas Lennon, Christina Pickles, Tom Selleck, James Michael Tyler, Maggie Wheeler, Reese Witherspoon, and Malala Yousafzai.
As for how HBO Max arranged a reunion where others have failed, each of the original six cast members are reportedly getting paid $2.5 million each for the special.
Friends: The Reunion reunion hits HBO Max on May 27.
On Thursday, the CDC announced that fully vaccinated individuals could begin going to outdoor and indoor gatherings of any size without needing to wear a mask, as the biggest step yet towards an indication of a more full return to normalcy as vaccination rates expand nationwide. In the sports world, this means more fans in stands, which has been a welcome sight, especially for the athletes who have not enjoyed playing in front of empty arenas and stadiums for the past year-plus.
In baseball, many stadiums are at or nearing full capacity, and while that brings the joy of the full ballpark experience back to baseball it also means, well the full ballpark experience good and bad. On the negative side of fans being back is that fans of opposing teams are back to jawing with each other and starting fights, which we saw in some matinee action on Thursday at Coors Field during Padres-Rockies. The Rockies have been one of baseball’s worst teams to start the season, but picked up a 3-2 win over San Diego on Thursday.
The conversation about the game was not about the Rockies beating the Padres, but what happened in the stands when a Padres fan very calmly strolled up to a Rockies fan and knocked him out cold with one punch, sparking a brawl as other Rockies fans descended on the man in the Padres brown jersey.
We have absolutely no context for what led to this, but clearly there had been some jawing and as the guy in the Padres jersey comes rolling up on the Rockies fan, he pops up expecting some more, up close talk. Unfortunately for that gentleman, the Padres fan was not here for talk and was about that action, boss, absolutely cooking the Rockies fan with the best right hook at a baseball stadium since Rougned Odor gave Jose Bautista one in Texas.
The Rockies fan goes out like a light and then it becomes all out chaos in the stands as fans jump to his aid, albeit too late for him as he got rocked by one punch. This is a reminder that if you’re jawing with another fan, you can never be sure that they aren’t there looking for an excuse to knock you out, especially after a year inside. As for what happened with the fans in question, Denver police say no charges were filed by the fan that got punched and no arrests were made.
The person who threw the first punch, was contacted by police. However, the person struck did not want to press charges. No one was arrested.
— Denver Police Dept. (@DenverPolice) May 13, 2021
When it comes to pop culture figures that rappers love to reference in their songs, NBA Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal stands head and shoulders above the rest — literally, in most cases. Not only does he have an extensive hoop, film, and rap career to draw lyrical comparisons to, but there is a wealth of words that rhyme with “Shaq” — not to mention, his many, many nicknames. The Big Diesel, who’s now best-known for his nightly hoops analysis on NBA on TNT, tried his hand at breaking down some of the bars about him from rap titans like Biggie, Cardi B, Drake, and Jay-Z for Genius’sBetween The Lines.
Throughout the course of the video, Shaq gives his impression of the many, many rap lines about him. Nas’s “It Ain’t Hard To Tell” was one of the first songs to make reference to O’Neal (more precisely, to the way “Shaquille holds the pill”), blowing the then-NBA sophomore’s mind, while Mannie Fresh’s “Still Fly” line about buying a car from him turns out to be a true story. Shaq also notes he wasn’t bugged by Biggie’s line about losing money on Lakers games from “I Love The Dough” because it too was based on the performance of the Lakers in their first three playoffs appearances with Shaq on the team, plus due to BIG’s contribution to Shaq’s own album — which he naturally gets into as well.
There’s plenty more to talk about; watch the full video up top.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
You know what the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine definitely doesn’t need? The input of a far-right TV commentator on Newsmax.
The commentator — Grant Stinchfield — is now on a breather, but before he was pulled from his hosting duties on the conservative news channel, he made some tasteless comments about the war in the Middle East. During his Wednesday night broadcast, Stinchfield ranted about a recent series of attacks that have reignited the battle between Palestinians and Israelis. After Israel’s police force raided a mosque during Ramadan and began forcing Palestinians out of their homes to make way for Jewish settlers, Hamas launched rockets that killed two people. Israel responded by firing on innocent Palestinian citizens, killing women and children. Though the actions of both sides are condemnable, Israel has the advantage of a superior military force, advanced technology, and the support of nations like the U.S. So really, this is not a fair fight.
But you couldn’t tell Stinchfield that. Despite identifying as neither Jewish nor Muslim, and having no ties to Palestine or Israel, Stinchfield used his time on-air to rant about the fight between the two nations and accuse Jewish Americans of not doing enough to support their “home country.”
Newsmax host: “If you are Jewish and you are a Democrat and you are living in America today, how do you support an administration that turns its back on your home country?” pic.twitter.com/yc9RjpHxlU
“If you are Jewish and you are a Democrat and you are living in America today, how do you support an administration that turns its back on your home country?” Stinchfield questioned before claiming that without Israel, the U.S. would be “devastated” and there’d be “chaos” in the Middle East.
Wading into this fight hasn’t worked out well for people like Gal Gadot, so no one’s sure why Stinchfield decided to try his luck, but naturally, people took offense to the anchor suggesting that Jewish Americans have some kind of responsibility or loyalty to a country they weren’t born in just because of their religion.
I don’t belong to any political party but I am Jewish and newsflash: my home country is the United States. To suggest otherwise is bigotry. https://t.co/v9pv0LvGo2
Grant Stinchfield is a Catholic. Does he consider Vatican City to be his “home country”?
Stinchfield is also the guy who said on air on April 29 that the dandelion President Biden picked and gave to his wife Jill while walking on the Ellipse was “was a planted dandelion there.” https://t.co/hJpVgefvRT
These days it’s easy to feel like it’s J. Cole’s world, we’re just living it. As the North Carolina label head and rapper readies his next release, The Off-Season — which is dropping later tonight at midnight — the constant updates and hip-hop fan fervor has been hard to ignore. Cole is more than capable at creating hype around his new projects by putting out information bit by bit, and just hours before the album drops tonight he’s shared both the tracklist and a list of producers involved in the project. Obviously, his collaborators read like a list of who’s who in the rap world, and all signs point to The Off-Season being a direct contradiction of its tongue-in-cheek title. And don’t worry, this isn’t his retirement project, either.
Check out the tracklist below, along with his list of producers.
The Off-Season tracklist:
1. “95 South
2. “Amari”
3. “My Life”
4. “Applying Pressure”
5. “Punchin’ The Clock”
6. “100 Mil’”
7. “Pride Is The Devil”
8. “Let Go My Hand”
9. “Interlude”
10. “The Climb Back”
11. “Close”
12. “Hunger On Hillside”
Producer credits:
Timbaland
Boi-1da
DJ Dahi
Jake One
Frank Dukes
Tae Beast
Maneesh
Wu10
Sucucki
Coleman
Tommy Parker
Mario Luciano
T-Minus
J. Cole
The back cover of the album also notes the executive producers: Jermaine Cole, Ibrahim Hamad, and T-Minus. Now all we need is the music!
LeBron James is expected to make his return to the Lakers lineup this Saturday when they face the Pacers with what they hope will be a slight chance to play their way out of the play-in tournament. James has missed the last six games with an aggravation of his right ankle sprain that held him out for over a month previously.
While the Lakers are getting set for a playoff push and a hopeful run at back-to-back championships, James’ various off-court efforts are also picking up steam coming into this summer. Space Jam 2 is set to release on July 16 and unveiled the full Goon Squad on Thursday, and James’ first new commercial spot with Mountain Dew Rise after leaving his partnership with Sprite late last year debuted Thursday morning as well. In it, James imagines a life where he didn’t have the drive to work hard to become the player he is and, for whatever reason, that means he ended up becoming a salsa dance instructor rather than a basketball player.
— MTN DEW RISE ENERGY (@MountainDewRise) May 13, 2021
I’m not sure if this is supposed to be a bad thing, because in all honesty, LeBron James: dance instructor is a pretty incredible thing to think about. Still, it’s best for all of us that he stuck with hoops because we’ve been privileged to enjoy nearly two decades of one of the best basketball players in history because of it. That said, LeBron should absolutely break out this salsa outfit for the playoffs because he is absolutely pulling it off.
Jaden Smith — who is also known mononymously as “Jaden” — is set to expand his philanthropic food truck operation into a full-blown restaurant, according to Variety (scroll down a bit). The restaurant, called I Love You, builds on the efforts he made to help feed homeless people on Los Angeles’ Skid Row two years ago with his I Love You food truck. In order for the concept to work, Jaden has figured out an unusual strategy to help offset costs: Those who can pay will pay more to “pay for the person behind you.”
While the report sports meager details — we don’t yet know when or where I Love You restaurant will open — it’s a pretty safe bet he’ll be able to follow through on his plans. Last year, he partnered with Lyft to provide free rides to people in communities like Flint, Michigan so that they have access to clean water, grocery stores, and work opportunities. He also has a boxed water initiative aimed at encouraging people to use more environmentally friendly methods of drinking portable water than plastic bottles.
Jaden is coming off a successful 2020 that saw the well-received release of his Cool Tape Vol. 3 and Jaden’s participation in the soundtrack from the Spider-Man: Miles Morales video game.
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