Month: August 2021

Want to make someone crack up? Remind them of the time that Selena Gomez, who suffers from lupus, had to have a kidney transplant. Because debilitating autoimmune diseases are hilarious! For the second time in less than nine months, the actor/singer was forced to call out people who should know better for making light of the life-threatening surgery she underwent in 2017 due to a debilitating autoimmune disease. As Variety reports, the joke was made in an episode of The Good Wife spin-off The Good Fight, in which a group of lawyers attempt to write some jokes but first have to figure out which topics are too taboo to joke about. They come up with three things: necrophilia, autism, and Selena Gomez’s kidney transplant.

The scene sparked immediate outrage with Gomez’s fans, and on Tuesday the 29-year-old tweeted her own thoughts on the matter:

“I am not sure how writing jokes about organ transplants for television shows has become a thing but sadly it has apparently. I hope in the next writer’s room when one of these tasteless jokes are presented it’s called out immediately and doesn’t make it on air.”

But rather than issue an apology, The Good Fight team seems to be taking a cue from its own legalese and making the argument a semantic one—at least if an insider who spoke to Variety is to be believed:

“If you watch the episode in full, the reference to Selena Gomez is part of a discussion the characters are having about topics that are not okay to make fun of and the idea of cancel culture and being canceled for telling a bad joke. The reference is that Selena Gomez’s transplant is not something you can joke about.”

Yeah… it doesn’t quite work that way. And if the show was trying to make a statement on cancel culture, there were plenty of other avenues to take that didn’t yet again turn a young woman’s health issues into a punch line. Back in late November, Gomez found herself in a similar predicament when Peacock’s Saved by the Bell reboot made a joke at her expense and ended up issuing an apology, editing the episode, and making a donation to Gomez’s charity. Gomez has spoken openly about her health problems, her battles with depression, and being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It’s your move, The Good Fight.

(Via Variety)

There has been an outpouring of support for universally beloved rapper Biz Markie since his recent death. Now, Barack and Michelle Obama have shared some words as well, via a letter sent to the rapper’s widow, Tara Hall.

The July 30-dated letter, a photo of which Hall shared with TMZ, is signed by both Obamas and reads:

“Dear Tara:

We wanted to extend our heartfelt condolences to you as you reflect on Biz Markie’s life. We didn’t know Biz Markie as long or as well as you and your loved ones did. But like others who admired him, he holds a special place in our hearts as one of rap’s most innovative stylists and as a great man.

Biz Markie brightened every room he was in, and we will always appreciate him for his early support in 2008, bringing people together to ‘Party with a Purpose’ and get out the vote. His legacy in hip hop will span generations just as it has for nearly four decades.

We hope you take comfort in all the fond memories you have with him. Please know that we are holding you, Averi, and your entire family in our thoughts and prayers.”

Hall told TMZ she was “stunned” after receiving the letter and plans to have it framed. She’s also starting the Biz Markie’s Just A Friend Charity Fund to support organizations the rapper was already helping, including food banks in Maryland, Bread For The City in Washington DC), and Soles4Souls.

You just never know — during this time of unpredecented TV access made possible by (too many) streaming services — who’s watching any particular show, and who will show themselves to be a fan and then tweet about it. Last year, I spoke with Freddy Krueger Robert Englund, who revealed himself to be obsessed (after being quizzed on some tweets) with Stephen King’s The Outsider on HBO. Shortly thereafter, I became aware that King also uses Twitter to champion shows that he, too, enjoys quite a bit.

Take Black Summer, for example. That Netflix show is pure zombie adrenaline and also appeals to people who may not even enjoy most contemporary zombie fare on TV or in the movies. In 2019, King declared that the show put the “scare” back into zombies with a “stripped to the bone,” economical, and “very fluid” storytelling approach. King also accurately predicted the Mare of Easttown killer’s identity because the man digs a good mystery and was watching alongside all of us as the show picked up weekly steam.

Maybe, just maybe, Stephen King’s a binge-watcher, too, like the rest of us? It’s totally possible. In related news, someone has casually joined a movement by (seemingly out-of-the-blue) tossing up a #SaveManifest tag.

In doing so, King has aligned himself with a vast legion of fans, who hope that either NBC or Netflix (where the show has remained on the Top 10 Most Popular list for over a month) will have second thoughts and resurrect this sci-fi puppy. Interestingly enough, King did not elaborate upon his reasons for joining the bandwagon. That might seem strange, given that he’s known to go long at times (the uncut version of The Stand spills past 1300 pages), but perhaps King simply wanted to draw attention to the economy of his statement. Like the Black Summer of tweets, if you will.

Whatever the case, I still can’t help but completely imagine that King recently wondered what all the fuss was about before wandering over to Netflix and binging a few Manifest seasons before popping over to Hulu or Peacock to finish the third round. Evidently, he got wrapped up in the time-jumping-plane-ride show filled with supernatural touches and soap-operatic edges. Hey, it happens (and it’s alright to enjoy objectively bad shows, people, if they’re entertaining). It may have happened to yours truly, too.

Tony Hawk is the most important skateboarder of all time. This crown is pretty unassailable, as Hawk was the person who is viewed as being most responsible for helping the sport break into the mainstream, both because of what he accomplished during his competitive career and because of the iconic video game series that bears his name.

Basically, if there is any one human on earth who is most responsible for skateboarding getting to a place where it could become an Olympic sport, it is Tony Hawk. And yet despite this, while Hawk tried to have some fun on his Instagram account during the latest round of Olympic skateboarding on Tuesday night by providing bonus commentary during the event, the fun police stepped in and yelled at Hawk, pulling the copyright infringement card out of their back pockets and making him stop what he was doing at the risk of legal trouble.

Come ON. I know that Tony Hawk’s thing lately is having this very silly sense of anonymity when he goes out into public, but him doing something like this on IG is extremely good for skateboarding and its inclusion in the Olympics. And the worst part: Hawk is a correspondent for NBC’s coverage of skateboarding at the Olympics! Please just let him do this, powers that be. Absolutely nothing bad can come from letting this particular person talk about skateboarding on literally any platform.

Less than nine months after releasing his seventh album, So Help Me God, 2 Chainz is already gearing up to release another. During his set at San Bernardino’s HARD Summer Music Festival over the weekend, the Atlanta rapper announced the title for his next full-length project. “New album on the way,” 2 Chainz”s DJ said before the rapper himself revealed its title is Dope Don’t Sell Itself. No release date was given.

The news comes after 2 Chainz made an announcement last month about his next body of work. “This [gon’] be my last trap album, enjoy,” the rapper wrote in a tweet. While he did not specify what he meant by the message, fans’ hope is that it foreshadows a new sound.

So Help Me God was one of the stronger hip-hop efforts that arrived in 2020. The 15-track album saw appearances from Ty Dolla Sign, Kanye West, Brent Faiyaz, Latto, Lil Uzi Vert, Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, and more. In addition to Dope Don’t Sell Itself, 2 Chainz also promised Collegrove 2, a sequel to his 2016 joint album with Lil Wayne, at some point in the future. It remains to be seen if that album is still in the works as 2 Chainz last spoke about it last year.

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

Since 2014, The Basketball Tournament (TBT) has handed out a significant cash prize (and bragging rights) to the winning team in a summer basketball extravaganza. Throughout TBT’s history, a team called Boeheim’s Army, founded by Syracuse alumni, has been a fixture, but they were not able to win the ultimate prize until Tuesday evening. In a back-and-forth contest, Boeheim’s Army outlasted Team 23 by a final score of 69-67, and the winning bucket came on a memorable, walk-off three-pointer by Keifer Sykes.

TBT employs the Elam Ending, ensuring that the final play of each and every game will end with the ball going through the net, rather than playing to triple zeroes on the clock. In this instance, that set up for incredibly interesting drama, with both teams missing potential game-winners before Sykes connected on a well-contested triple.

Sykes was the star of the night even before the final basket, finishing with a game-best 21 points on 7-for-11 shooting and 3-for-6 from three-point range. The TBT win wasn’t the only positive thing for Sykes either, as it was quickly reported that the 27-year-old guard will be signing a contract of some kind with the Indiana Pacers.

While TBT isn’t considered must-see viewing for casual basketball fans, it often provides real excitement and this was no different. Following the final bucket, there was clear joy and, if nothing else, the folks from Boeheim’s Army will split $1 million and memories that will resonate for years to come.

On Tuesday, New York Attorney General Letitia James released the findings of her investigation into the state’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, concluding that he’d sexually harassed multiple employees, in turn creating a hostile work environment. It was a damning, horrifying report, and it opened many questions. Will Cuomo resign? Will he instead be impeached? Who came up with that bizarre montage he released of him hugging and kissing people? And how will his brother, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, cover it on his nightly show?

The answer was simple, perhaps even predictable: He wouldn’t. Cuomo’s show began and ended with nary a mention of the hot water engulfing his brother and, to a lesser extent, himself. (More on that in a sec.) Instead, he focused on COVID, on the surging cases in Florida under the watch of another controversial governor, Ron DeSantis, and, of course, on Trump.

Chris has long been forbidden from covering his brother, over the obvious conflict of interest. (Though he’s had him on his show on multiple occasions, often for comic effect.) But it still seemed like a sizable elephant in the room was being ignored.

Besides, the news also affected him. Chris was cited in James’ report, over news that had already been made public: that he had advised his brother on how to handle the accusations that may now destroy his career. Specifically, after an executive assistant made an allegation, he had reportedly “counseled him to express contrition.” He may have also helped craft a statement from late February responding to that accusation.

CNN has stated in the past that they won’t make any decisions regarding Chris’ employment until after the investigation’s report had been released.

(Via THR)

Last week, Simone Biles withdrew from the US women’s gymnastics team due to mental health issues. She later revealed that she suffered from the “twisties,” a condition that leads to “not having your mind and body in sync.” (She later returned to the team and won a Bronze.) Despite her honesty towards an absolutely reasonable excuse, she faced criticism from the likes of Piers Morgan and Michael Che while receiving support from names like Justin Bieber, Kevin Love, and now Taylor Swift.

https://twitter.com/taylorswift13/status/142269233749966029

“Throughout the last week, her voice has been as significant as her talents,” the singer said in a video with NBC. “Her honesty as beautiful as the perfection that had long been her signature. But don’t you see? It still is. She is perfectly human. And that’s what makes it so easy to call her a hero. Simone Biles, back on the beam, in Tokyo.”

Biles caught wind of the video and hopped on Twitter to thank Swift for her words. “I’m crying how special. I love you @taylorswift13,” the gymnast wrote. Swift replied, “I cried watching YOU. I feel so lucky to have gotten to watch you all these years, but this week was a lesson in emotional intelligence and resilience. We all learned from you. Thank you.”

Since air travel has sort of gone back to normal, there’s been a massive uptick in complaints of unruly passengers. Sometimes they push back against mask rules. Sometimes they’re just jerks. In the case of one passenger who was taped to his chair after groping two flight attendants and punching a third, his behavior came about in part because he was drunk.

As per The New York Times, a flight on Frontier Airlines over the weekend from Philadelphia to Miami was loudly interrupted by one Maxwell Berry, a 22-year-old from Norwalk, Ohio who graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in May. According to the criminal complaint filed against him, Berry started acting up after he ordered his third alcoholic drink. While requesting another beverage, he allegedly rubbed the empty cup of the preceding one against a flight attendant’s backside, prompting her to tell him, “Don’t touch me.”

Berry soon stepped things up:

Mr. Berry, who had been sitting in seat 28D, then emerged from the bathroom shirtless after spilling his drink, prompting a flight attendant to tell him that he needed to be fully dressed, the complaint said. The flight attendant helped him get a shirt out of his carry-on luggage, and Mr. Berry walked around the cabin for about 15 minutes.

That’s when he groped the breasts of another flight attendant, who told him not to touch her and to sit down, the authorities said. In the criminal complaint, officers wrote that Mr. Berry later put his arms around the same two flight attendants and groped their breasts.

When a male flight attendant approached and asked him several times to calm down, officers said, Mr. Berry punched him in the face with a closed fist.

It was then that several passengers helped pin Berry down. A male member of the crew then used what appeared to be packing tape to secure him to a seat, where he remained for the rest of the two-hour-and-change flight.

Initially, Frontier punished their employees, saying the flight attendants had been “relieved of flying.” The move was widely criticized, considering three of them had been assaulted. Later in the day the airline released a statement, saying they have “the utmost value, respect, concern and support for all of our flight attendants, including those who were assaulted on this flight.” They did not say whether or not the suspensions had been rescinded.

As for Berry, he may wind up the latest unruly passenger fined for large sums of money. The F.A.A. has already issued fines for tens of thousands of dollars for passengers clashing with airline crew. Assaulting a flight attendant carries fines up to $35,000 and possible jail time.

One other note about Berry, from NYT:

Mr. Berry graduated in May from Ohio Wesleyan University, where he received a values in action award from the Greek life community for being a “perfect role model” and for leading “the fight to dismantle fraternity stereotypes.”

(Via NYT)

We’re starting to get more info on Halo Infinite as the game’s release date is quickly approaching. Recently, 343 Industries hosted a select number of players to experience a tech demo of the game. Players were able to dive in, experience some of the multiplayer, and really get a feel for how Infinite is going to play.

So far, reviews have been really good. Players have said it has the potential to help Halo reclaim its spot as one of the best multiplayer shooters out there and they were even allowed to capture some footage of their demos. It’s been awesome to see people getting to experience the future of Halo, but we’ve also seen them pushing the engine to its limits. One example of this is a clip from streamer “MintzBlitz,” who found that if you throw a grenade at just the right point, you can launch a gun into the air and grapple it into your hands. What resulted is a highlight that looks straight out of an action movie.

Is this going to stay in the actual game? It seems unlikely because there are a lot of ways that grenading a gun into the air can be broken, but that’s why developers have demos like this. The only way a game can ever be put to the test is by putting it in the hands of players that are going to find a way to exploit every single potential flaw.

If the ability to launch guns into the air does make its way into the final game, then we can expect a lot more highlights like this — remember when the Modern Warfare games were really popular and everyone started trying to do 360 no scopes because it looked cool? We might see that, but with players trying to grapple rocket launchers out of the air instead. Then again, that sounds pretty cool, so maybe they should keep this in as a feature.