Month: October 2021

In theory, the Brooklyn Nets and the Philadelphia 76ers can remedy their single-biggest problem in the lead-up to the 2021-22 NBA season by trading Kyrie Irving for Ben Simmons. The former can’t play with the team until he receives a COVID-19 vaccine, the latter doesn’t want to be in Philly anymore, and both players would be sensational fits on their new teams.

There is just one problem: Sam Amick of The Athletic reports the Sixers have no interest in making this deal. According to Amick, the Sixers are not convinced that getting Irving and Joel Embiid on the floor together would work out any better than Embiid and Simmons.

One thing is for sure — at least for now. While an Irving trade for Ben Simmons with Philadelphia is seen by some as an easy solution to both teams’ problems, sources with knowledge of the 76ers’ view said there is no interest in Irving at the moment. From management on down, it seems there is an unsurprising level of skepticism about that pairing working out any better than the Joel Embiid-Simmons duo that is zombified at the moment.

From a basketball perspective, pairing Embiid with the kind of perimeter scorer and creator that Irving is makes a ton of sense. Embiid’s never really played with someone quite like him, and it would be hard not to get excited about that possibility. But there have been rumblings that Irving, should he get traded, would retire, and it’s understandable that any of the other 29 teams would be concerned about acquiring him given that fact.

About a year and a half after the release of her album Punisher, Phoebe Bridgers is finally able to take her album on the road. She’s been performing across the country at venues and festivals, like ACL, which recently cut the sound off during her set. Though she’s still on tour, the singer was still able to stop by Jimmy Kimmel Live! to give an otherworldly performance of her Punisher track “Moon Song.”

This time around, Bridgers chose not to wear her signature skeleton costume, which she has sported in several of her performances. Instead, the singer fully leaned into the “Moon Song” aesthetic by building the set to look like a space station on the moon. She and her backup musician were dressed in reflective NASA suits and stood in front of faux space ships.

During her set, Bridgers was accompanied by just one other musician, violin player Rob Moose, who contributed to several songs on Punisher. What Bridgers lacked in instruments, the singer made up for with her room-filling vocals. Backed by the frantic chords of Moose’s violin, the singer belted a tender reflection on a complicated but meaningful relationship.

Watch Bridgers’ “Moon Song” performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! above.

Punisher is out now via Dead Oceans. Get it here.

After a series of delays and growing concerns about his age, William Shatner has officially gone where no TV actor has gone before: outer space. The iconic actor, best known as Star Trek‘s Captain Kirk, left the Earth on Wednesday morning aboard the second launch of Jeff Bezo’s Blue Origin capsule. Minutes later, Shatner was back on solid ground where he was visibly emotional from the once-in-a-lifetime experience.

After emerging from the capsule with his fellow astronauts, Shatner was greeted by Bezos, who stood by as the actor pontificated on the space flight.

“I’m so filled with emotion about what just happened. It’s extraordinary, extraordinary. I hope I can maintain what I feel now. I don’t want to lose it. It’s so much larger than me and life,” Shatner told Bezos via CNN. “What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine. It hasn’t got anything to do with the little green men and the blue orb. It has to do with the enormity and the quickness and the suddenness of life and death.”

Clearly moved by seeing the vastness of space, Shatner continued to expound on the experience to Bezos, who wanted to hear every word of it as the crew celebrated around them.

“You look down, there’s the blue down there and the black up there … there is Mother Earth and comfort, and there is, is there death? I don’t know, but is that death? Is that the way death is?” Shatner said. “It was so moving; this experience, it was something unbelievable.”

(Via CNN)

LeBron James and Anthony Davis both played in the Los Angeles Lakers’ 111-99 preseason loss to the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday night. Neither guy played a ton, they both did a solid job as they’re working off the rust that might have built up this past offseason, and it is still the preseason, so neither dude seemed particularly bummed about how things went after the game, in part because their focus was on something else: Squid Game.

James and Davis both spoke to the media, with James going first. After his time at the podium came to an end, Davis started walking up, and the pair had a quick conversation about Netflix’s smash hit series that is the most-watched show in the company’s history. While there are obviously spoilers in the below video, the biggest takeaway was that James did not like how it ended.

This sentiment was shared by another NBA player, Miles Bridges of the Charlotte Hornets.

It is very funny how visibly upset James is over the final episode of a television show. Then again, people really got into the first season of Squid Game, so it makes sense that even LeBron James would have such a strong reaction to how it ended.

Coldplay is now just a couple days away from releasing Music Of The Spheres, which will be the band’s ninth album. The way Chris Martin sees it, the new album could actually end up being one of the band’s final releases.

Speaking with Absolute Radio’s Andy Bush in an interview set to air on October 15, Martin said he thinks Coldplay will stop making albums after their 12th one. Martin said (via The Independent), “I think that in a few albums’ time, we will finish making albums. This is not a joke. This is true. I think after 12, that will be the end of our catalogue, but I think we will always want to play live together. So, I think in the way that the [Rolling] Stones do, it will be so cool if we can still be touring in our late 70s. That will be wonderful, if anybody wants to come.”

Coldplay has typically released a new album every two or three years since their 2000 debut Parachutes. So, doing the math, the band’s 12th and perhaps final album could drop — assuming the band continues releasing projects at the same rate they have been — at some point between 2028 and 2031.

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

Buffalo, NY’s Super American sounds like it has more than just two members. On their new album SUP, multi-instrumentalists Matt Cox and Patrick Feeley deliver a collection of massive pop-punk tracks that juxtapose the miracle of being alive with the constant sense of nagging fear. It’s confrontational, vulnerable, and driving ten tracks that will surely elevate Super American to the next level of the indie punk scene.

To celebrate the new album, Cox and Feeley sat down to talk wearing cowboy outfits on stage, the best TNT dramas, and more in the latest Indie Mixtape 20 Q&A.

What are four words you would use to describe your music?

Dense, Studious, Deliberate, Sexy

It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?

Hopefully, it just makes them feel something. I know that’s vague but art is so subjective. So, any sort of feeling would be great.

What’s your favorite city in the world to perform?

Nothing like playing at home here in Buffalo, but over the years we have really enjoyed playing in Dallas, Cleveland, and NYC.

Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?

As much as I’d love to pick an individual, the honest answer is it’s really the collective of all my friends. They’re the reason I really even started, and they’re the force of encouragement to keep me going when it feels easier to quit. I don’t want to let them down. I’ve pretty much had the same group of my friends my whole life, and our interests vary drastically, so that positive, comradic (is that a word?) energy, is in some weird way, an extended “member of the band”. Amongst the chaos of life, they’ve been been a constant for me, and I love them forever for that. That stuff is what really gets me fired up.

Where did you eat the best meal of your life?

Loco Pez in Fishtown.

What album do you know every word to?

Enema Of The State. I have my Bachelor’s in blink-182.

What was the best concert you’ve ever attended?

Wow, tough. I hate to butcher your question but this is a tie, between “coolest” and “best”. So. I’m going to actually lean on my first concert — which was MEST, Something Corporate, and Good Charlotte and Buffalo State in the gym in 2002 as the coolest. The best concert I’ve ever consumed was a few years ago when my girlfriend and I went to Chicago to see Whitney play at Thalia Hall on Valentine’s Day. Talk about being humbled.

What is the best outfit for performing and why?

Best outfit on stage I’d say is whatever is going to make the artist feel most confident in their expression. But the best outfit I’ve ever seen while performing is West Seneca’s own Danny McCormick’s cowboy outfit he wore when we played Audiotree a few years ago. Yeehaw.

Who’s your favorite person to follow on Twitter and/or Instagram?

The Bang Energy CEO.

What’s your most frequently played song in the van on tour?

Typically the driver picks — but we all really vibe with the same stuff. Sometimes its nice to get off the beaten path of guitars while on tour, so we’ll listen to all kinds of stuff. When we’re bored or need a boost in morale, sometimes we’ll make prank phone calls or listen to Wheeler Walker Jr.

What’s the last thing you Googled?

“Deer and golden retriever friends 11 years”

What album makes for the perfect gift?

SUP by Super American.

Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?

One time we stayed at a random place in NYC — a mystery semi finished basement. There was zero prior context provided on the environment, so I was a little thrown off when it ended up being 4 stone walls covered in a variety of wigs.

What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?

My first tattoo, I was technically still underage so I used a fake ID and went and got a matching tattoo with my cousin at a skeptical (yet legal) location. I didn’t have any money, so he paid for it. My favorite tattoo, not that I’m actually a fan of any of them, is a tattoo I got in California that was inspired by Flea’s “Go Lakers” handwritten tattoo. Instead, I got “TRIBAL TAT” written and really begged the artist to do it freehand, but understandably so, he was unwilling. So we met in the middle and found a text that made both sides happy. Now I can say, I do in fact, have a tribal tattoo.

What artists keep you from flipping the channel on the radio?

In this very moment, it’s Limp Bizkit, Little Simz, and Petey.

What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you?

A few years ago, Pat bought me a 2001 Ford Taurus Hatchback. It’s actually on the SUP cover, but mine was a sexy baby blue. Now I drive a BMW, but that will be best the best car I’ve ever had.

What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?

Ouch. To get a grip, relax, shut my mouth, and realize I don’t know everything.

What’s the last show you went to?

We saw Hot Mulligan, Piebald, and the legend himself, Neetchy at both Riverworks and Black Dots in Buffalo.

What movie can you not resist watching when it’s on TV?

I’m a real sucker for the TNT era, so it might be a deadlock between Twister and Armageddon. I love and live for cable TV.

What would you cook if Obama were coming to your house for dinner?

To start, it’s chicken wing dip with restaurant-style Tostitos. As the entree, we are having a 16oz ribeye — and on the side, twice-baked potatoes, asparagus, and side salad (dealer’s choice). For dessert, I will DoorDash McFlurry’s.

SUP is out October 22 via Wax Bodega. Pre-order it here.

When the children’s hospital called Aileen’s pediatric occupational therapy clinic in July of 2020, the clinic was closed due to pandemic lockdowns. The hospital informed her that a set of quintuplet baby brothers had been born in November of 2019 and would be in need of her services once they were released. Would she be able to help?

Aileen often gets direct referrals from the hospital for families with special conditions, and premature quintuplets who spent their first year of life receiving oxygen and feeding through tubes certainly fit that bill. She decided to open her clinic specifically for the babies and their mother, Jackie. As the babies were released, they came to Aileen for ongoing occupational therapy, and by November 2020, all five boys were being cared for at the clinic.

The quintuplets stayed in the NICU for nearly a year after they were born.Courtesy of Nextdoor

Jackie is a single mom who moved to the U.S. from Ghana a couple of years ago. She lives with her mom and aunt in the Atlanta area and also has another son, Daniel, who was 3 years old when the boys came home from the hospital. With a preschooler and five babies needing medical care, Jackie definitely needed more help than her family and church could provide, but she was too shy to ask for it. Eventually, she confided in Aileen that she could use help with diapers. Even with one baby, diapers are expensive; keeping up with five at once would be overwhelming.

Aileen contacted local aid organizations who normally have diapers to offer, but they were all in short supply due to the pandemic. So she decided to reach out to her neighbors instead.

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In January, Aileen posted on the Nextdoor app asking locals for recommendations for diaper resources. Though she didn’t ask for donations, 15 people sent her messages offering to donate diapers. Neighbors also recommended that Aileen start a GoFundMe and an Amazon baby registry for Jackie so people could assist her and the boys with more than just diapers.

Aileen did just that. And when she shared the links on Nextdoor, her neighbors showed up in a big way, sending messages of support (which Aileen would share with Jackie), donating money and buying items through the registry. Many families with multiples asked how they could help out.

The quintuplets on their first birthday.

One woman saw the post and shared the family’s needs with four of her friends. They each assigned themselves to one of the boys to help out and ended up collecting two entire truckloads of items—40 boxes of diapers, clothing, chairs, and more for the family. The woman has kept in touch with Jackie and hopes her group of friends can stay connected with the boys as they grow up.

In all, people donated $6,000 to the GoFundMe on top of countless donations of items.

The quintuplets will be 2 in November and are doing very well. In August, Aileen shared an update on the boys with her Nextdoor neighbors.

She wrote:

“Back in January, I posted about the quintuplet boys in Lawrenceville and was just amazed to witness the kindness this community has shown to this family. Mommy Jackie shared with me these pics to keep you posted on their progress. I hope it will make your day and remind you how we are blessed to have so many wonderful neighbors.

Jayden, Jayson, Jordan, Jeffery, and Jared are now 1 year and 9 months old. The boys are thriving! All boys are receiving OT, PT, and speech therapy at our clinic. 3 of the 5 are now walking (running, actually) 2 are crawling and starting to cruise. All the boys are eating although 3 are still on tube feeds. They are also getting stronger and almost all are weaned from oxygen. They have their own personalities and making huge gains in therapy. We’re hoping and praying that they will all be walking, eating, and breathing on their own before their 2nd birthday!”

Aileen says that Nextdoor became “an avenue for blessings” and that she sees it as her connection to people.

“I still get goosebumps of how that one post sparked all of this,” she says. “I became a witness to just how good people are. We only hear negative news, but there are so many positive things happening.”

In honor of Neighbor Month, Nextdoor is celebrating the people and places nearby that make our neighborhoods wonderful. Share a story about why you #LoveYourNeighborhood on your @Nextdoor newsfeed for a chance to be featured for Neighbor Month.

You’ve probably heard the phrase “from ashy to classy.” Last night on The Tonight Show, emerging pop-R&B superstar Chloe Bailey went “from classy to ass-cheeks” with her performance of the big booty anthem, “Have Mercy.” Backed by a string orchestra, the multitalented singer presented the trap-leaning jam as a classical sonata at first, draped in a flowing white gown with a fuzzy top. But then, she yanked off the gown’s train, showing off the sultry single’s subject, and strutted over to her drum machine, where she rebuilt the signature “Have Mercy” beat from the pre-loaded samples.

From there, she put on a virtuoso display of both vocals and her other — ahem — assets as the strings embellished the thumping drums and New Orleans bounce samples that make up the seductive solo song. As it was network television, Chloe didn’t get too frisky, but the suggestive turns and dips she did were just enough to elicit some enthusiastic responses from the crowd.

Since debuting “Have Mercy” last month, Chloe has performed the song at the MTV VMAs and seen it covered by Prairie View A&M University’s marching band, marking its growing popularity. The singer said her solo debut album is “90 percent done,” so it’s likely we’ll be hearing more from her in the near future.

Watch Chloe’s classical performance of “Have Mercy” on The Tonight Show above.

Earlier this month, there were signs — literal signs, in the case of the billboards — that Adele’s new album, titled 30, is coming soon. That info was unconfirmed at the time, but now, we know for sure: Today, Adele announced that her next album is indeed called 30 and that it’s set for release on November 19.

Adele made the announcement with a lengthy message about the album, which she shared on social media. It begins, “I was certainly nowhere near where I’d hoped to be when I first started it nearly 3 years ago. Quite the opposite actually. I rely on routine and consistency to feel safe, I always have. And yet there I was knowingly — willingly even, throwing myself into a maze of absolute mess and inner turmoil!”

She goes on to describe how 30 was like a close friend to her “throughout the most turbulent period” of her life. She ends the message, “I’ve painstakingly rebuilt my house and my heart since then and this album narrates it. Home is where the heart is x.”

It won’t be long until fans get their first taste of the album, as Adele’s next single, “Easy On Me,” is set to drop this Friday, October 15.

Find Adele’s full message below.

“30

I was certainly nowhere near where I’d hoped to be when I first started it nearly 3 years ago. Quite the opposite actually. I rely on routine and consistency to feel safe, I always have. And yet there I was knowingly — willingly even, throwing myself into a maze of absolute mess and inner turmoil!

I’ve learned a lot of blistering home truths about myself along the way. I’ve shed many layers but also wrapped myself in new ones. Discovered genuinely useful and wholesome mentalities to lead with, and I feel like I’ve finally found my feeling again. I’d go as far as to say that toe never felt more peaceful in my life.

And so, I’m ready to finally put this album out.

It was my ride or die throughout the most turbulent period of my life. When I was writing it, it was my friend who came over with a bottle of wine and a takeaway to cheer me up. My wise friend who always gives the best advice. Not to forget the one who’s wild and says ‘Its your Saturn return babes f*ck it, you only live once’. The friend who’d stay up all night and just hold my hand while I’d sob relentlessly not knowing why. The get up and go friend who would pick me up and take me somewhere I said I didn’t want to go but just wanted to get me out the house for some vitamin D. That friend who snuck in and left a magazine with a face mask and some bath salts to make me feel loved while inadvertently reminding me not only what month it actually was but that I should probably exercise some self-care!

And then that friend who no matter what, checked in on me even though I’d stopped checking in with them because I’d become so consumed by my own grief. I’ve painstakingly rebuilt my house and my heart since then and this album narrates it.

Home is where the heart is x.”

30 is out 11/19 via Columbia. Pre-order it here.

With the premiere of Dune fast approaching, Dave Bautista is making the interview rounds and the former wrestler has been opening up about his desire to be a big actor in Hollywood, but not the way you think. Dune will mark Bautista’s second collaboration with director Denis Villeneuve after appearing in Blade Runner 2049, where he flipped the script on being the muscle-bound heavy with a quiet, soulful performance. Until it wasn’t.

While sitting down with Men’s Health, Bautista revealed some early mistakes in his career, like blowing through cash as quickly as he earned it.

“I wasted all that money,” Bautista said. “And I could’ve done a lot of good things with that money. I could’ve helped people; I could’ve helped animals. But honestly, I was miserable and I was just trying to buy happiness.”

Fortunately, his career continued to grow, and with it, the opportunity to continue to distance himself from other “wrestlers-turned-actors” like John Cena and The Rock, a topic Bautista has grown increasingly vocal about. Via Men’s Health:

“I realize what I look like. I joke and say I look like I got out of prison yesterday. But I do. I’m very aware of that. So that’s why I’ll take an extra minute with somebody to show them I’m just not that guy. I may look like that guy, but I’m not that guy.”

When he finishes work on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Bautista has made it clear that his time with the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be over, and from the sound of things, the actor is dead set on not being trapped in action roles like Cena and The Rock. Instead, Bautista wants to make thoughtful, subtle appearances that show his range.

“I want to be that guy that makes people cry, who makes people think, who inspires people,” he told JoBlo back in April. “I want to be a dramatic actor. I just love it. I love acting.”

(Via Men’s Health)