Month: October 2021

The Brooklyn Nets will open the season in Milwaukee against the Bucks on ring night for the now-defending champs, and for that game and their second contest in Philadelphia, they will be at full strength. However, when they return to the Barclays Center on October 24 for the start of a six-game homestand, they will play that stretch without the services of Kyrie Irving, who continues to refuse to get the COVID-19 vaccine and cannot play home games due to New York City’s vaccine mandate.

It is one of the strangest situations we’ve seen in some time, as a superstar player will, quite literally, not be able to play in 42 games this season — the 41 home games for the Nets and their one road game against the Knicks — as it stands now. There were reports the Nets could have “hard decisions” to make regarding Irving, but it appears that they have simply accepted the fact that they won’t have one of their stars for half of their season, as Steve Nash spoke about the situation matter of factly on Sunday.

It’s not a wholly surprising quote at this point, but it’s just confirmation that the Nets are just going to try and figure out how to have a part-time starter, who only plays on the road. This is a franchise that has gone all-in on its Big Three and with all the good that comes with that on the court as the title favorites, it has also put them in a situation where they couldn’t do much to press Irving into getting the vaccine and now must go forward in a precarious position. They certainly have the talent to still make this work, but this isn’t a situation that seems like it will have a resolution before the playoffs and, for a team that figures to have homecourt advantage for at least one or two series, the margin for error and injury now for a team with title or bust expectations shrinks considerably.

At the end of August, Halsey shared her fourth album If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power, a project that arrived just a year after her third release, Manic. With four albums to her name, it should be noted that Halsey has just as many appearances on Saturday Night Live as well. She returned to the Emmy-winning show last night to deliver a pair of performances for the Kim Kardashian-hosted episode. Halsey started the night by impressing the crowd with a stunning rendition of “I Am Not A Woman, I’m A God” where she stood tall and proud on the futuristic stage in a leather bodysuit.

Later on in the night, Halsey returned with a fiery performance on “Darling” with Lindsey Buckingham to conclude yet another strong appearance on SNL. Halsey’s first performance on the show came back in 2018 when she played her “Bad At Love” single from her second album Hopeless Fountain Kingdom. The following year she did double duty as the musical guest and host for an episode, and in 2020, she once again found herself on the Studio 8H stage where she performed “You Should Be Sad” and a medley of “Finally” and “Beautiful Stranger.”

You can watch Halsey’s performances in the videos above.

If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power is out now via Capitol Records. Get it here.

There are few joys quite like watching your favorite sports team pull off a massive upset. Those moments are usually spent in the company of other fans who are experiencing the same emotions as you, or, at the least, you are in the comfort of your own home on your couch.

However, for Effrage Davis, a Texas A&M fan living in the Quad Cities area of Illinois, she had to deal with the stress of watching her Aggies try to hold on to beat Alabama while live on the air for WQAD 8 News. Davis, the station’s meteorologist, was asked to give the weather report with 90 seconds to go in the A&M-Alabama game and, to her credit, had warned the anchor that this wouldn’t go well as she was heavily invested in her Aggies.

The result is a rather hilarious video of her freaking out when the game-winning field goal went through the uprights mid-report, as she tried her best to power through.

The best part is that she’s delivering this weather report to folks in Illinois and Iowa who, while maybe intrigued by the Alabama-A&M game, are not nearly as invested in it as she is. The “can it wait til after the game is over” question is one we’ve all asked at some point when watching our favorite team, and Aggie fans all over can relate to this freakout, even if many of her viewers weren’t as dialed.

Through two episodes, the new additions to the cast and writing group for Season 48 of Saturday Night Live have been pretty easy to spot. James Austin Johnson has played Joe Biden and Lindsey Graham in consecutive weeks, and Sarah Sherman has looked comfortable in the later sketches where things get a bit weirder.

But Saturday’s second episode of the season saw a trio of new writers for the show air a digital short that stole the show on a night where Kim Kardashian and her very famous family took up much of the show’s oxygen. Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy, sketch comics and writers that make up Please Don’t Destroy, starred in a short about some very weird hard seltzers that replicated the style of videos that have seen them go viral on social media in recent months.

The concept is simple: the three were in Studio 8H late at night working on the show when one of them decides it’s time to unwind with a hard seltzer. But things go off the rails when the brand of seltzer is revealed: J.C. Penny.

These aren’t just weird companies making seltzers: they taste like JC Penny, too. Ben then arrives with Jiffy Lube-branded hard seltzers, including a seasonal variety pack that includes flavors like “leather seats” and “windows.”

The quick back-and-forth between the three is familiar to anyone who has watched their shorts about, say, a fictional Shailene Woodley video game.

It’s unclear just how often we’ll see Please Don’t Destroy in front of the SNL cameras, but it was certainly a welcome break from more boilerplate celebrity sketches like The People’s Kourt that aired on Saturday.

For the second straight week, SNL went political with its cold open. But with not much changing with an infrastructure bill dragged down by Democratic infighting and Republican obstructionism, the sketch comedy show settled on a new way to make fun of congressional inaction: Facebook.

It’s been a very bad week for Facebook, with evidence emerging that not only do those working for the company know they played a part in disinformation campaigns and the MAGA riot on January 6, but they actually tried to cover it all up. So a sketch where Facebook’s whistleblower is interviewed by Congress about all the wrong things certainly makes sense. The gist of the sketch is simple: most people in Congress are too old and out of touch to even really understand just how the social network’s algorithm can radicalize people. There were also, however, some opportunities for the cast to work on their political impressions.

Aidy Bryant’s Ted Cruz drew wild applause from the studio audience, as well as one of the bigger laughs of the sketch.

“‘Ted Cruz sucks’ isn’t misinformation it’s just one person’s opinion,” the whistleblower says at one point.

SNL newcomer James Auston Johnson also showed off a twist on a Lindsey Graham impression, framing the South Carolina senator as someone obsessed with working out to pull off a cosplay outfit.

“Everyone knows you need the V,” he said during the very suggestive bit. There was also, improbably, an Animorphs reference through some memes.

Facebook was also in the crosshairs of Weekend Update, with Colin Jost making jokes about his former Harvard classmate Mark Zuckerberg as well.

“Sometimes I wish I had a time machine so I could go back to college and find mark and say ‘Hey man! Can I be part of your company?’” Jost said.

The Austin City Limits music festival got underway last weekend from Zilker Park in Austin, Texas. The showcase is highlighted by performances from Billie Eilish, Miley Cyrus, Tyler The Creator, Doja Cat, and many more. One of the performers many fans looked forward to seeing is Phoebe Bridgers. The singers first set at the festival last weekend went smoothly, but that was not the case for the second weekend.

According to fans who were in attendance, the sound on Bridgers’ stage was cut after she barely went past her set’s allotted time.

As one could imagine, Bridgers and her fans did not respond well to the move from festival organizers. “Lol f*ck acl,” the singer wrote in a tweet after her performance. She also liked a few tweets from fans and peers who were also upset with the way her set came to an end. In one post, a Twitter user wrote, “Shame on the ACL sound techs who cut off Phoebe Bridgers during the climax of her finale for only going 1 minute after her time.”

Singers Jason Isbell and Margo Price even chimed in with thoughts of their own. Isbell wrote, “Make your own festival it’s more fun,” while Price said, “Holy sh*t, they cut your mic?! I would have taken a piss on the stage.”

The incident at Austin City Limits comes after Bridgers shared a studio version of her cover of Bo Burnham’s “That Funny Feeling.”

Saturday Night Live‘s 47th season entered its second week with Kim Kardashian as host, but plenty of special guests also joining the show to help out.

One sketch in particular was loaded with guests stars, as they did a The Bachelor spoof — The Dream Guy — with a number of stars from the world of entertainment making cameos and vying for Kim Kardashian’s love. Among them were Chase Crawford, Chris Rock, and Jesse Williams, but sticking out in a big way was Blake Griffin, who lurked not so subtly in the back line. Griffin earned a token despite his “inexcusable” behavior at the luau BBQ.

The sketch closes with Kim making the very difficult choice of having to pick between “Zeke” and John Cena, noting that Cena being married was certainly a difficult hurdle to clear in a potential relationship. Ultimately, she did choose the WWE superstar turned movie star, who continues to flaunt his comedic chops — Blockers is still one of the best comedy movies of the last decade. As for Griffin, I have to believe this won’t be his only SNL pop-in while he’s with the Nets, as his love of comedy is well known and his ability to play the absurd with a straight face (while also being gigantic) figures to have plenty of use on SNL.

We’re now into the second week of the 47th season of Saturday Night Live, and for this week’s episode, Kim Kardashian took on the hosting duties while Halsey arrived as the show’s musical guest. Kim, along with the rest of her family, are by far one of the most recognizable names in entertainment as they’ve amassed a huge following through several endeavors in the worlds of business, reality television, and more. Kardashian is no stranger to being on camera, so it’s no surprise that she delivered an entertaining and comical monologue to open the show.

One of the highlights came when she joked about her divorce from Kanye West. “I’ve been very blessed in this life, and I’m grateful for everything, honestly, all the ups, all the downs,” she said. “I mean, I married the best rapper of all time. Not only that, he’s the richest Black man in America, a talented, legit genius, who gave me four incredible kids. So when I divorced him, you have to know it came down to just one thing: his personality.”

She continued, “I know it sounds mean, but people keep telling me that comedy comes from truth. And if there’s one thing that I always strive to be, it’s genuine.”

Kardashian also joked about her family’s failed political campaigns, that being Kanye’s run for president and Caitlyn Jenner’s run for governor of California, as well as being “much more than that reference photo my sisters showed their plastic surgeons.”

You can watch the full monologue in the video above.

Boxing’s latest trilogy fight lived up to the billing. WBC and The Ring heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (31-0-1, 21 KOs) put his championships on the line against his old rival, Deontay Wilder (42-2-1, 41 KOs), in their first fight since Fury took those titles off of him back in Feb. 2020. It took 11 rounds, but ultimately, the Gypsy King was able to pick up a knockout to continue his reign atop the spot.

After two rounds of going back-and-forth, Fury sent Wilder to the mat first. Fury had Wilder up against the ropes and hit him with a left and right that had him rattled. Wilder dropped his head and Fury looked like he made contact with his right, which gave him the first knockdown of the night.

But after heading back to his corner and regrouping, Wilder came out and dominated round four. The Bronze Bomber picked up a pair of knockdowns, throwing the kinds of huge right hands that have been a staple of his career as a fighter so far. That was particularly the case on the first knockdown, as Wilder strutted away seeming to think he was a 10-count away from regaining his title.

Things looked like they were hanging by a thread for Wilder in the seventh round. Fury caught him with a pair of right hands, which led to Wilder wrapping him up. While there, Fury hit him with a left, but Wilder was able to survive the round despite looking awfully wobbly.

The following round, Fury once again made good contact and had Wilder stumbling, but he managed to stay on his feet.

In Round 10, Fury planted the seeds for his eventual win, knocking down Wilder with a vicious right. Wilder got back up, however, and looked like he caught a second wind towards the very end of the round.

But eventually, the Gypsy King finished the fight with a brutal right hand that sent Wilder to sleep.

At the time of the stoppage, Fury was up on the cards thanks to his relentless onslaught in the later rounds, erasing the early deficit after Wilder picked up a 10-7 round in the fourth.

Still, this was a fight that deserved a finish before going to the cards and Fury delivered, emerging with a sensational knockout win, while Wilder picked up a ton of respect for how he battled throughout despite the barrage of power shots Fury delivered.

Jimbo Fisher made history on Saturday night, becoming the first former Nick Saban assistant to beat the greatest coach of his generation. The top-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide walked into College Station against an unranked Texas A+M side, and thanks to a field goal as time expired by Seth Small, the Aggies came out on top, 41-38.

Texas A+M seemed like they were primed for a special night from the beginning. Alabama turned the ball over twice in the first half, while their offense was nowhere near as lethal as it has looked at other times this season. By the time the two teams walked into the locker room, the Aggies found themselves up 24-10.

Still, this is Alabama we’re talking about here, so their ability to make stuff happen made a comeback seem inevitable. Its defense clamped down, with A+M only finding the end zone on a 96-yard kickoff return for the first quarter and a half of the second. And then, after back-to-back field goals followed by Aggies punts, Alabama broke through. A nine play, 82-yard drive ended with Bryce Young finding Jameson Williams for a seven-yard strike, and after the ensuing two-point conversion, the Tide went up, 38-31.

But the Aggies found a way back. On the next drive, A+M’s offense went 65 yards in six plays, with Zach Calzada dropping one in to Ainias Smith from 25 yards out to tie things up.

After forcing a three-and-out on the next drive, Calzada and the offense got the ball with two minutes left on his own 35. A+M marched right down the field, setting up Small for a layup. It looked, for a brief moment, like the ball was going wide left, but his 28-yard boot was good, and by the time it hit the net on the other side of the uprights, Alabama found itself losing to an unranked team for the first time since 2007.

The win snaps a two-game losing streak for A+M, as the team was coming off of losses to Arkansas and Mississippi State.