Swizz Beatz and Timbaland earned acclaim by launching the series Verzuz during the pandemic, giving musicians a chance to square off while social distancing. But on Saturday they came full circle, doing one of their own. While the battle went well, there was one moment that caught the attention of many viewers as it came when Swizz called out Justin Timberlake for not partaking in a battle.
When Timbaland played Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake’s “Holy Grail,” which he produced, Swizz took a direct shot at the singer. “Until you can get Justin Timberlake on Verzuz, I don’t really wanna hear those vocals,” he said, according to Vulture. Later on, when Verzuz entered overtime, which occurs after both participants play 20 songs each, Timbaland played a pair of songs by Timberlake: “Cry Me a River” and “SexyBack.” That sparked another response from Swizz. “Until Justin let the world know that he —”, he started saying. But Timbaland cut him off, adding, “Justin gotta come out, he’s coming out.”
However, Swizz wasn’t done. “He gotta admit that he love the Black culture and he gotta be on this stage,” Swizz said. “You took from the Black culture, you give to the Black culture. Come to Verzuz and be a part of the Black culture.”
Later on, during a recap of the battle which they held on Instagram Live, Timbaland told Swizz he “went a little hard on my brother JT.” Swizz then gave his reasoning. “Look, man, I had to go hard,” he said. “Did you hear how them songs were sounding on that stage? You and JT, it was like JT was in the building. I was like, man!” Swizz added that he “was just having fun” and “don’t got no problem with JT.”
He then invited the singer to partake in a future battle. “Shout-out to JT,” he said. “We can’t wait to get you onstage having fun, ’cause you deserve it too.”
On Monday, 2-seed Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open following a win in her first round match, after her request prior to the tournament to not do press conferences created an uproar. Osaka said she didn’t want to be “a distraction” and chose to withdraw, going into detail on the anxiety she feels during press conferences and noting that stepping away was best for her mental health.
It was the unfortunate end to a saga that became much bigger than it needed to be, and despite her withdrawal, it remains a top point of conversation at Roland Garros. Players are being asked for their thoughts on the situation, with others being asked for how they’ve coped with the media scrutiny and criticism over the years, as the topic of players mental health has shifted more to the forefront — which should be the conversation we’re all having.
Venus Williams has been doing this since 1997 and understands the mental toll it can take hearing criticism not just as a player, but as a Black woman. When asked after her first round loss on Tuesday for how she’s handled that, she had a very to the point response.
It is a more than fair mindset for a professional athlete to have, and one many have adopted when it comes to critiques from those of us that write about, talk about, and analyze sports. That confidence is part of what gets people to the elite level in sports and maintaining that confidence means being able to ignore criticism, particularly harsh and at times unfair criticism. It’s also something that isn’t easy to do, which is likewise just as understandable for someone to struggle blocking it out.
The athlete-media dynamic is a complicated one, because neither side is a monolith. Media, as a whole, covers a wide array of jobs, from beat writers and reporters to sports talk takesmiths and hot take artists and everything in between. Athletes also handle the media differently, with some embracing what it can do for their profile and enjoying the experience, while others loathe it or battle anxiety with public speaking. As such, each case needs to be handled individually and a better understanding of that latter point of athletes being individuals and people needs to happen among media as a whole. Some like Venus are just better at ignoring us than others.
While millions of Americans were enjoying a hopefully relaxing Memorial Day weekend, conservatives were doing the opposite of chilling. For one thing, there was an actual, QAnon-adjacent conference, which featured things like disgraced lawyer Sidney Powell claiming Trump will be back in office and also disgraced brief Trump staffer Michael Flynn agreeing with a call for a Myanmar-like coup in the U.S. (Flynn tried to deny saying words that were clearly captured on video.)
So much alarming stuff went down there that one matter almost fell through the cracks: Louie Gohmert, the Texas representative who rode into power on the waves of the Tea Party (remember that?), became the latest conservative to downplay the events of Jan. 6.
As per The Washington Post, Gohmert — who went viral last December when one of his teeth fell out during a press conference dedicated to spreading 2020 election lies — appeared at the “For God & Country Patriot Roundup” over the weekend. On Saturday he addressed the crowd, claiming that “it wasn’t just right-wing extremists” at the failed insurrection, which resulted in five deaths, plus two suicides after. His words seemed to parrot the long-debunked claim that among those storming the Capitol were left-wing activists posting as Trumpists.
But there was more. He also suggested a bloody attempt to overturn the election was no big whoop. “Some of us think Pearl Harbor was the worst attack on democracy, some of us think 9/11 was the worst attack,” Gohmert said. “Some of us think that those things were worse attacks on democracy.”
Gohmert also reportedly posed with a QAnon podcaster who bragged that he’d been at the Capitol siege.
The lawmaker has since tried to distance himself from the event, especially in light of Flynn’s inflammatory comments. But he still tried to downplay the events of the bloody day, as conservatives like Tucker Carlson have done already. And Gohmert will almost certainly not be the last to try and rewrite history.
It was grim and ugly and miserable. The clothes and hair were unkempt. The cheesesteaks looked sad. And yet Mare of Easttown — HBO’s contribution to the regional murder series wave, as parodied on SNL — raked ‘em in. The network has put out numbers for the seventh and final episode, which aired over the Memorial Day weekend, and it allegedly was a record-breaker.
Audience for the series grew each and every week, allowing #MareOfEasttown to join THE UNDOING as the only series in HBO’s history to accomplish consecutive growth with each episode. HBO credits digital viewership as a major growth area.
According to HBO themselves, the Mare closer raked in four million viewers over the holiday weekend across both the HBO cable channel and its streamer HBO Max. Three million of those watched it on Sunday, when it dropped. That’s more than those who watched such similarly popular original HBO shows as The Undoing and The Flight Attendant during the same window of time. What’s more, it’s the most-watched single episode of an original show on HBO Max since it launched last summer.
But that’s not all! Mare managed to increase its viewership week-to-week. The only other HBO show to do that is The Undoing, which ran last fall.
Just to stress this: These numbers come from HBO itself. Much like Netflix, they release their own data, and there’s no independent source to back this intel up. But considering how popular the show has been over social media, it doesn’t seem too far-fetched.
Over a mere seven episodes, Mare followed Kate Winslet as a Philly burb detective tracking an increasingly convoluted murder case, which had so many twists that Uproxx was actually able to rank them. There are already calls for a second season, which would give its Oscar-winning English star another chance to feast upon southeast Pennsylvanian delicacies. For instance, we don’t remember seeing her chow down on a Tastykake Tasty Klair Pie…
After over a year of everybody going stir crazy and the summer months arriving, there’s no better time to get outside and experience the wonderful outdoors. Now, that doesn’t mean jumping on a plane and traveling to Antarctica. That could simply mean enjoying the incredible and beautiful wild spaces and national parks that we have right here in the United States.
I don’t care who you are, I guarantee you have not seen all of the amazing wild spaces that are within two hours of your home if you live in North America. We are lucky and fortunate to be here. There are incredible parks, campgrounds, national parks, and wild spaces preserved all within a couple of hours of where we live, no matter where you live in this country. But one thing that a lot of people don’t realize while they’re visiting our parks and wild spaces is that they can leave a pretty big carbon footprint — even if they don’t intend to.
Let’s break that down a bit. When you are gearing up for a summer trip, you’re going to fuel up your car. You’ll buy a bunch of sunscreen, throw a case of water in your trunk (all individually bottled, of course), and pack your car with pre-packaged foods. And then, you’re going to go on your trip.
This all adds up. So as summer ramps up, here are some ways you can remedy this while traveling.
Have A Target In Mind:
Forrest Galante
This is something I always do. I never understood people who go hiking. I know, I know — you’d think an avid outdoorsman like me that I’ve just love hiking. I don’t. I hate hiking. So when I go hiking, there’s a purpose behind it. I’ll like to go and see if I can find California condors at the Pinnacles National Park. When I’m on a mission like that, I’m willing to hike for ten hours because I’ve got a reason behind it.
Try and find something unique or interesting, whether it’s a waterfall or a cool rock formation, or a piece of wildlife that other people can’t find. Do your homework on what time of day is best to see your target or maybe what time of day or night that animal is most active in that habitat, and then set off on your mission. That’s going to give purpose to your adventure, which is going to make it a lot more fun than aimlessly going on a hike in 110-degree heat. More importantly, it your various “missions” can often be ecologically based.
BOTTOM LINE:
Take part in citizen science programs! Pick up trash on the trail! Carry water filters to remote communities! Point being, if you give your adventures a purpose, that purpose will often be a positive one!
Give Back To The Environment:
Once you’re in that “have a purpose mode”, you can also start to think of all the smaller, accessible ways that you can give back to the environment. Instead of bringing plastic bottles, get yourself a nice metal Hydro flask, or bring a Nalgene that you refill on your hike.
Even if you don’t make picking up trash your focus, still do it. It’s such a small gesture and it’s easy to do. When you’re on your hike, take a stick with a nail in it to pick up every piece of trash you find. If everybody were to do that, you’d never see any trash on the trails. Most of the time, it’s their Clif Bar wrapper or something that’s escaped from someone’s pack. But if you don’t pick it up, who’s going to?
BOTTOM LINE:
Even if you’re on a pure party trip, doing something for the environment (however small) is a realistic goal.
Stay Local! Buy Local!
This is one of those things that people tend not to do. Take a tent with you and experience the night sky. On the way up, look for a local shop where the food is sustainably farmed or comes from a nearby source and is grown seasonally. This allows you to support local farmers with good practices and will help you avoid too much packaging/waste from pre-packaged foods.
It’s little things like that that make a big difference and are going to make your experience more enjoyable. You’re going to have a target when you go out there, you’re going to have something to search for, and it’s going to make that camping trip feel like an expedition instead of just a chore.
BOTTOM LINE:
Do your best to support local, buy local, and remember that those small communities are what you really want to be supporting on your trips.
***
These tips are all so easy. Truly. There are a million more, too. But these will lead to you connecting with nature much more. Once you connect with nature, you begin to appreciate and understand it, and ultimately fall in love with it. And once you fall in love with something, you care a whole lot about protecting it.
And that, my friends, is how you go from a weekend warrior to an impassioned conservationist without even realizing you’ve done so.
More About Forrest Galante:
Forrest Galante’s book “STILL ALIVE: A Wild Life of Rediscovery,” available to purchase on June 1, takes readers on an exhilarating journey to the most remote and dangerous corners of the world. While introducing the fascinating rare species he has encountered throughout his life.
The Philadelphia 76ers are on the verge of the Eastern Conference Semifinals if they can take care of business in Game 5 against the Washington Wizards on Wednesday night. According to a new report, it seems unlikely that they’ll have the services of their best player as they try to close things out.
Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN brings word that Joel Embiid is doubtful to take the floor on Wednesday after suffering a knee injury in Game 4.
Joel Embiid will be doubful for Game 5, sources tell ESPN. He had an MRI on his right knee today, and is expected to be evaluated further in next day.
Embiid took a tumble after getting blocked by Robin Lopez during the first quarter on Monday night. While he was able to stay in the game, the big man was moving gingerly, and eventually, he made his way into the locker room for evaluation. He didn’t come back onto the floor for the beginning of the second half, and eventually, he was ruled out with knee soreness. Philadelphia fought admirably without Embiid in the fold, but the Wizards went on to win, 122-114.
The Sixers should still be able to beat Washington at some point in the next three games without Embiid, but obviously, their prospects of winning a championship are severely lessened if the MVP candidate is out for an extended period due to an injured knee.
The Staircase was one of the first big true crime documentary series. Premiering all the way back in 2004, it did what the genre rarely did before, which was space out one murder mystery over an entire season. You can thank it for shows like The Jinx, Making a Murderer, Tiger King, even ones you could say have criminal elements, like The Inventor and the twin Fyre Festival films. Recently we learned it was taking that next step, which is to say it was being turned into a dramatic HBO limited series, complete with an all-star cast. Now that cast has gotten even all-star-ier.
As per Variety, no less than Sophie Turner — Game of Thrones’ erstwhile Sansa Stark — is joining a cast that already includes Colin Firth, Toni Collette, Parker Posey, Juliette Binoche, and Rosemarie DeWitt. The show tells of one Michael Petersen (Firth), a wealthy novelist who claimed his wife (Colette) fell down the stairs in their mansion and died. Police, however, suspected he had bludgeoned her to death and made it look like an accident.
Turner will play one of Petersen’s adopted daughters, Margaret Ratliff. It’s one of the actress’s splashier roles since GoT ended in 2019. Since then she’s gone on to resume her role as Jean Grey in the X-Men movie Dark Phoenix and appear in a show for the failed next-level streamer Quibi, called Survive.
In the meantime, you can watch the original The Staircase — which bowed in 2004 and which received two separate updates in 2013 and 2018 — on Netflix.
Sandwiched between the much larger Baby Boomer and Millennial generations, Gen X is often left out of the intergenerational conversation. However, given the fact that Gen Xers are best known for shrugging off most things with a “whatever,” most of us probably don’t mind.
(Editor’s Note: This article is written by a card-carrying member of Gen X, born in 1977.)
People born between 1965 and 1980 have a unique perspective on life because they bridge the divide between the old world of analog and the digital revolution.
We’re the last generation that knows how to use a rotary phone and the first that dated people by meeting them on American Online. And we remember a world where there were actually music videos on MTV.
Gen Xers also grew up during a distinct period in history. We’re the first generation in America who feared they wouldn’t do as well as their parents. The AIDS epidemic made sex and relationships serious, life-or-death topics and we grew up during one of the most violent eras in American history.
We are also known as the “least parented generation in history.” Many of us were born during the divorce boom of the ’70s and ’80s, a time when both parents worked, but there weren’t as many daycare resources. So, a lot of Gen Xers were latchkey kids who came home to empty houses and took care of themselves.
Gen X also grew up during an incredible time for entertainment. We saw the first “Star Wars” trilogy, “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” and the “Indiana Jones” films on the big screen or at drive-ins, not on Netflix. We also got to grow up during the greatest era of pop stars being entertained by the likes of Prince, Madonna, and Michael Jackson.
So, if you’re a member of Gen X, you know there’s a lot to feel nostalgic about.
Twitter user New Wave Tag Game, gave people born into the “forgotten generation” an excuse to share what it was like #GrowingUpGenX by starting the hashtag on Twitter.
Hi!
Let’s play #GrowingUpGenX!
There’s been lots of talk about every other generation lately. Let’s give a forgot… https://t.co/QkDRZzCKyn
— New Wave Tag Game (@NewWaveTagGame) 1622520000.0
The technology was much different.
When you had to use one of these to play your Atari #GrowingUpGenX https://t.co/tQfs9G64r6
If there were ever a person who could make people rethink their fear of bees, it would be Erika Thompson.
The professional beekeeper and founder of Texas Bee Works has created an enormous social media following with her oddly soothing videos of bee infestation removals. Thompson only wears protective equipment when she needs to, but she is able to determine when it’s not necessary. Watching someone scoop up and move handfuls of bees with her bare hands is terrifying, and yet somehow not.
Thompson’s most recent video shows her moving a colony of bees from the underside of an umbrella into a hive. She said that when bees collect in swarms like this, they are looking for a new place to live. Under these circumstances, because they don’t have any resources to defend, they are usually very docile.
As she explains in the video, she always looks for the queen bee as she moves the worker bees to their new home, but this time, she didn’t find one—a rare queenless colony. She just happened to have a queen bee in a box with her, which she placed on the hive. She explained that the bees will either reject the queen, in which case they will try to kill her, or they will accept her by eating through the candy that serves as a barrier on the end of the box to release her.
No pressure, queenie.
As the bees in the hive start accepting the queen, they begin to send signals to the bees that are still on the umbrella to come on down and move in. At that point, all Thompson had to do was wait until most of them got the message and moved—about 15 minutes.
Thompson’s videos regularly receive millions of views, and it’s not hard to see why. Not only is she doing good work to save bees and help people, but her calm voice and fearless handling of the buggers is almost meditative. Who knew that beekeeping could be therapeutic?
Video games are political. This is an inescapable truth that everyone will have to accept at some point. An industry that features stories about heroes triumphing over challenges, shooting their way through hordes of zombies, and going through emotional trauma has always struggled to accept that their stories are political in nature. While yes, Final Fantasy VII is a story about a group of unexpected heroes coming together to save the world from an evil force that wants to destroy it, ignoring the obvious commentaries on capitalism and corporations effect on the environment would be a disservice to the game and developers.
Video games may rarely be overtly political, but they are political in nature, and that’s part of what makes the upcoming Far Cry 6 so interesting. Far Cry and Ubisoft are no strangers to politics in games, but that is a company that has always struggled with what side it wants to stand on when it comes to making political statements in their games. Their Assassins Creed franchise frequently makes use of a female protagonist, but their marketing focuses on the male protagonist instead as he dominates box arts. They also had to apologize when one of their games in development implied that Black Lives Matter was a terrorist plot. Then there’s Far Cry.
Far Cry 5 marketed itself as a game with something to say and one that would push the edge. It fell well short of that as most messages were pretty tame, and the game itself still fell more into the wacky absurd realm that most Far Cry games exist in. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but because they marketed it as something overtly political while focusing so hard on making sure no one was offended, it ended up falling very flat. A game can be both silly and political. Satire is a thing after all, but it has to be handled with a level of care that Ubisoft has struggled to prove it possesses.
So far, trailers of Far Cry 6 indicate a game that is once again going to challenge politics. This time with a story around modern revolution that very inspired by countries such as Cuba. Still unsure if this will be political? The developers themselves stated as such in an essay to fans. This is going to be a game about politics.
What players will find is a story that’s point-of-view attempts to capture the political complexity of a modern, present-day revolution within a fictional context. We have attempted to tell a story with action, adventure, and heart, but that also isn’t afraid to ask hard questions. Far Cry is a brand that in its DNA seeks to have mature, complex themes balanced with levity and humor. One doesn’t exist without the other, and we have attempted to achieve this balance with care. My only hope is that we are willing to let the story speak for itself first before forming hard opinions on its political reflections.
We’ve always known politics are in video games, but we don’t have as many examples of video games attempting to tell a story about politics very well. Far Cry has already failed at this once before, but Far Cry 6 is a chance to make up for the failures of Far Cry 5. If Ubisoft allows the developers to tell their own stories, then this could be the game that does what Ubisoft has been trying to accomplish for a long time. Narrative director Navid Khavari has stated that the game will ask hard questions. Let’s hope that Ubisoft allows him to also give some tough answers.
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