Month: August 2021

Has this ever happened to you?: You and your family are trapped on a boat that’s lost power, only to be rescued from one of the judges from Shark Tank. That’s what happened to former hockey player Tom Lawson — who played for such minor league teams as the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks and the Hershey Bears — as well as his wife and their three kids, who may owe their lives to no less a TV personality than Robert Herjavec.

The Shark Tank star shared the story on Instagram. He was on Lake Joseph in Ontario. “I was out jet skiing and I saw a boat drifting with a dad and his three kids, waving their arms frantically,” he told People. “My first thought was they must love Shark Tank, but then I realized they were out of gas and stranded.”

What’s more, there was, Herjavec said, a “sense of urgency”: The sun was going down. “They were in an unlit aluminum boat not meant to be out at night,” he explained. “We found a rope, tied it to the jet ski and I towed them back to their lake house.”

And so the star of a show about fish that aren’t as dangerous as Jaws and The Shallows and Jaws: The Revenge make them out to be, as a New York Times piece argued, is a legitimate hero. “Did my good deed for the day!” he told People. “It’s funny, the dad is a fireman and said to me he normally rescues people — so now I get to say I rescued a fireman. They were super nice, appreciative and big Shark Tank fans. See, sharks can be nice too!”

(Via People)

Have you ever watched an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm and thought, “Boy, I wish I were in that situation?” Well, if for some reason you have, boy do we have the game recommendation for you! Spin Master Games has created a card game based on the beloved series that completely revolves around awkward situations and finding the best way to weasel out of them.

In the Curb Your Enthusiasm: A Pretty, Pretty, Pretty Good Party Game, 3-6 players to take on the role of Larry David as they compete to be the best, well, Larry David. Players do this by countering “Situation Cards” (all inspired from the cringe-inducing series, of course) with “Pretty-ay Good Excuse Cards,” which can range from “I’m so starved for affection…” to “The golden rule trumps everything.” However, the game allows then players to counter other players, forcing them in a competition with one another to create the best excuses to get out of some pretty awkward encounters. Ultimately, the first Larry David to win five situation wins the title of “Ultimate Larry David” and the game.

Included in Curb Your Enthusiasm: A Pretty, Pretty, Pretty Good Party Game are 75 “Situation Cards,” 200 “Pretty-ay Good Excuse Cards,” and 25 “Try Again Larry Cards,” allowing for quite a bit of play. In addition, the game boasts itself as something everyone can play, calling itself a “perfect icebreaker for parties, get-togethers, date nights, and family game nights.” All in all, it seems this game is must buy before for those season 11 premiere parties Curb Your Enthusiasm super fans are sure to throw when it returns later this year.

Hart to Heart: Season 1 (Peacock series) — Kevin Hart’s doing celebrity interviews with a twist, and that twist is wine. The result, hopefully, will be unfiltered conversation with actors, musicians, and other such influential people. Will things get a little bit messy, perhaps? With any luck, yes, as we hear about these A-listers’ journey to to their current statures, along with an obligatory discussion about obstacles with a dash of humor.

Through Our Eyes: Season 1 (HBO Max series) — Sesame Workshop gets dark with this quartet of 30-minute films that intend for adults to watch with their kids, who should be at least 9 years old, according to HBO Max’s press information. Each installment will follow children as they experience enormously challenging family issues, including parental incarceration, housing insecurity, weather-related disasters, and the hurdle of a military parent who’s been injured. These very real issues mean to teach lessons in empathy and will hopefully educate all ages.

In case you missed these Thursday picks from last week…

FBoy Island: Season 1 (HBO Max series) — Hoo boy this show looks like one hot mess, and that might be exactly what you need during this slightly disastrous summer. Escape to a land where a dozen self-proclaimed “FBoys” compete against a dozen self-proclaimed “Nice Guys” for the affections of three ladies. Nikki Glaser hosts, and the show aims to answer the ultimate social experiment’s question, according to the synopsis: “Can FBoys truly reform or do Nice Guys always finish last?” (Well, one of the FBoys crushes a mango with his bicep in the show’s trailer, so this is entertainment.)

The Wine Show: Season 3 (Sundance/Acorn TV series) — Who doesn’t want to see a bunch of dashing and distinguished gentlemen — Matthew Goode, Matthew Rhys and James Purefoy — travel across Portugal to unearth the region’s best wine? There’s also an exploration of sparkling wine and other countries involved, including Thailand and Germany, and eventually there’s New York City, along with wine, wine, and more wine.

Cecily Strong’s nine-year run on Saturday Night Live might have ended earlier this spring, but if it did she certainly went out with a bang. The sketch comedy vet put on a wine-soaked rendition of “My Way” as an unhinged Judge Jeanine that broke Colin Jost and made many wonder if that would be the last time she appeared on stage in Studio 8H.

Strong has said she’s unsure if she will return for a tenth season of the show, even if Lorne Michaels has made it clear he wants Strong and other longtime cast members on board until at least Season 50. In a lovely New York Times feature on Strong and her new memoir, This Will All Be Over Soon, the star made it clear she’s “still thinking” about her future after what was a difficult season amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“I’m still thinking,” she said. “Throughout the year there were times where I felt like a fifth-year senior and I’m just hanging around, dead weight. Then there would be moments that felt so good.”

She added, “There’s things I want to do, and I want to be open for these things. If I’m there, great — if I’m not there, great. I just want it to feel like the right thing.”

Michaels is quoted in the piece as saying “I don’t think she’s done yet,” but the feature also touched again on the potential sendoff that got everyone buzzing earlier in the year. There’s a pretty funny anecdote about the SNL crew testing out whether Strong could open her eyes in the wine-like liquid she gave her hypothetical swan song in. And we also learned what that concoction actually was.

She also pointed out that the tank she immersed herself in at its conclusion was actually filled with “watered-down grape juice, but it was very warm — I appreciated it.”

“The safety guy was like, don’t open your eyes under there because the juice will burn, and I was like, OK, thank you, I wasn’t planning on it,” she recalled. “And then he said, I splashed it in my eyes to test it out, and I was like, you didn’t have to do that.”

The full interview goes more into detail about her book and the difficult year that was. And while we didn’t get much new information about what her fall will hold, it’s clear Strong will have very fond memories about her last appearance in Season 47 whether it’s her swan song or not.

For years, fans have been begging for Aaliyah’s music to be released on streaming services. The late singer’s label, Blackground Records, finally announced that many of their artists’ music, including Aaliyah’s, will be made available to stream. While fans may be rejoicing about their ability to rock out to their favorite Aaliyah classics, not everyone can share the same excitement as several of the artists won’t see the profits.

Blackground Records announced on Thursday that they have officially inked a new deal with Empire, per a report from Billboard. The deal allows their artists’ music to hit streaming services for the first time ever. Aaliyah’s Estate, however, wasn’t happy with the decision. Hours before the news was announced, Aaliyah’s Estate issued a lengthy statement criticizing unnamed executives for coming forward to “leech off” the singer’s career. They called the deal an “unscrupulous endeavor to release Aaliyah’s music” without transparency or their approval.

R&B singer JoJo now finds herself in a similar position. The singer signed to Blackground Records when she was still a preteen. As explained in a recent Honda Backstage interview, JoJo says the label refused to release her music for years. Because of that, JoJo’s career fell off and she ended up taking matters into her own hands by suing Blackground Records and eventually re-recording her early albums.

JoJo reacted to the Blackground Records news shortly after it was announced. The singer took to social media to express her surprise about new deal. “Who would’ve thought…,” she tweeted.

Replying to a fans’ tweet, JoJo claimed she will not be awarded any profits from the streaming sales of her early albums. “never telling you what to do, but just so you know – a stream of the re-recorded 2018 version supports me and helps me continue to do what I love,” she wrote. “streaming the original unfortunately does not.”

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

Ted Cruz will never live down his ill-advised decision to flee to sunny Cancun while his Texas constituents froze during a power crisis. The much-maligned senator, however, shows himself to not take a hint when people keep coming for him. He’s keen to also self-own, like he’s done while lurking in the bushes at the U.S.-Mexico border and standing in a crumbled home while visiting Israel on Memorial Day. Yet Cruz also can’t resist a good, old-fashioned Twitter fight, as the noted The Princess Bride superfan did while sparring with Cary Elwes. Who’s Ted fighting with now? Dan Rather.

Yep, a sitting senator is duking it out (from behind a keyboard) with a veteran news anchor. To be fair, Rather threw the first punch after Ted appeared on CNBC’s Squawk Box to suggest that COVID mandates (mask, vaccine, etc.), or “papers,” of any sort are basically totalitarianism at its finest. Rather responded to the interview with a zinger: “Don’t you have to show your papers to get on a flight to Cancun, and check into a luxury hotel?”

Boom. Well, Ted never can resist pushing back, so he dragged out the time that Rather apologized for not properly verifying (in 2004) a set of documents about George W. Bush’s National Guard service. Cruz busted in and went further with that story while accuisng Rather of directly counterfeiting the papers by himself (which wasn’t what happened). “You were so partisan & dishonest that CBS fired you for fraud, which is really saying something,” Cruz declared. “So now you’re an angry Leftist who reflexively defends Dems & authoritarian mandates.”

Cruz calling anyone partisan is rich as heck. Also, he’s very sensitive for a guy who helped incite an insurrection and then hopped on a plane to abandon his constituents. And Twitter had no problem pointing this out.

A man who uses a wheelchair fell onto the tracks in a New York City subway station on Wednesday afternoon. A CBS New York writer was at the scene of the incident and says that people rushed to save the man after they heard him “whimpering.”

It’s unclear why the man fell onto the tracks.

A brave rescuer risked his life by jumping on the tracks to get the man to safety knowing that the train would come barreling in at any second. The footage is even more dramatic because you can hear the station’s PA system announce that the train is on its way.

But the frantic rescuers beat the clock and were able to pull the man to safety about 10 seconds before the train arrived at the platform.

The good Samaritans that helped the man have yet to be identified. The man who was rescued was taken to Bellevue hospital and is in stable condition.

A lot of people who saw the video on Twitter thought it was a great example of how when the going gets tough, New Yorkers are there for each other.

Six years ago, a high school student named Christopher Justice eloquently explained the multiple problems with flying the Confederate flag. A video clip of Justice’s truth bomb has made the viral rounds a few times since then, and here it is once again getting the attention it deserves.

Justice doesn’t just explain why the flag is seen as a symbol of racism. He also explains the history of when the flag originated and why flying a Confederate flag makes no sense for people who claim to be loyal Americans.

But that clip, as great as it is, is a small part of the whole story. Knowing how the discussion came about and seeing the full debate in context is even more impressive.

In 2015, a student at Shawnee Mission East High School outside of Kansas City came up with the idea to have student journalists document students engaging in open discussions about various topics. In support of this idea, history teacher David Muhammad helped arrange a debate about the use of the Confederate flag in American society in his classroom.

According to the Shawnee Mission Post, Muhammad had prepared a basic outline and some basic guiding questions for the discussion, but mainly let the students debate freely. And the result was one of the most interesting debates about the Confederate flag you’ll ever see—one that both reflects the perspectives in American society at large and serves as an example of how to hold a respectful conversation on a controversial topic.

The full discussion is definitely worth a watch. Justice had quite a few Confederacy defenders to contend with, and he skillfully responded to each point with facts and logic. Other students also chimed in, and the discussion is wildly familiar to anyone who has engaged in debate on this topic. For his part, Mr. Muhammad did an excellent job of guiding the students through the debate.

SME Confederate Flag Debate

www.youtube.com

“I had Chris in class, so I knew he was super intelligent and that he read a lot,” Muhammad told the Shawnee Mission Post in 2018. “But that really came out of left-field. He was never out there very much socially, so I didn’t expect for him to want to speak in front of a crowd like that.”

(In case you’re wondering, according to LinkedIn, Christopher Justice is now studying political science at Wichita State University after switching his major from sports management. David Muhammad is now Dean of Students at Pembroke Middle School and also serves as a Diversity Consultant.)

Thanks, SM East, for documenting and sharing such a great discussion.

Alex Jones would like to remind everyone that he’s the reason we have to stomach many of those right-wing conspiracy theories from Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

The Infowars host and Sandy Hook denier gave a minutes-long rant (via Media Matters) on his show yesterday, claiming credit for Carlson’s descent into anti-vax madness by revealing he was the one that got Carlson to “wake up.” Now, the Fox News host has always been a conservative-leaning blowhard, but lately, he’s been veering into “kooky uncle who gets his news from Facebook” territory, accusing Dr. Anthony Fauci of creating the Coronavirus, claiming the NSA was spying on him and blaming the FBI for the Jan. 6th insurrections. Apparently, we have Jones to thank for that.

“We need to see what Tucker Carlson is doing, duplicated,” Jones said, adamantly denying he wanted recognition for “red-pilling” Carlson before, well, demanding recognition for red-pilling Carlson. “If I could wake up Tucker Carlson — and Tucker has told me face-to-face, credited me with helping wake him up to a great extent. He’s a super-smart guy, once he shifted his awareness and became cynical then he sees even more than I do, you understand? And he’s more eloquent in many ways.”

Tucker Carlson being called “eloquent” is something that few thought they’d ever hear, but Jones seemed pretty sincere about his flattery of the Fox News host, before once again congratulating himself for “completing the mission” and converting “even more major thought leaders” like Carlson into his conspiracy cult. And look, he’s a nutjob, but he might not be wrong about the Carlson thing. CNN did an entire segment comparing Carlson’s on-air statements with Jones’ widely-publicized fringe beliefs and the two matched up on quite a few wild ideas.

Is it weird that Jones wants credit for crafting Carlson into Fox News’s “chief white power correspondent?” Sure, but not half as weird as when he claimed a CNN reporter got drunk on the blood of children, so …

(Via Media Matters)

Despite Stranger Things Season 4 getting pushed back because of the pandemic, anticipation for the ’80s mashup series still remains high, which raises the question of what Netflix is going to do when the show eventually reaches its “endgame.” Will it go the Game of Thrones route and start chasing spinoffs? According to a new interview with Executive Producer Shawn Levy, those talks are already happening.

While promoting his latest directorial project, Free Guy starring Ryan Reynolds, Levy confirmed David Harbour’s comments that Stranger Things is starting to work towards a definitive ending, possibly in Season 5. When asked if spinoffs are being explored to keep the fan-favorite franchise going, Levy essentially called the move a no-brainer while highlighting that the series has become a “tent pole” for Netflix. Via Collider:

Obviously certain other shows played key roles in their evolution, but Stranger Things with 196 million viewers over the time that we’ve been on the air, that’s a lot of households. And it’s unique in that Netflix service. What’s been made clear is there is an interest and a real voracious appetite for any offshoot, any other iteration format or extension of the franchise, the characters, the mythology. And certainly those conversations are hardly evolved, but they’re also not non-existent.

While confirmation that spinoff talks are happening is clearly exciting news for Stranger Things fans, the more pressing question is when can they expect a Season 4 release date. While he couldn’t offer a concrete date, here’s what Levy told Variety last week.

“It’s coming soon enough,” he said. “And as for when exactly that will be announced — quite soon.”

(Via Collider)