Month: October 2021

While Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump impression anchored late night TV for years, Saturday Night Live has shuffled through a number of Joe Biden impressions in recent memory. And Jason Sudeikis’ return to the show on Saturday night offered up a chance to poke fun at the many faces of Biden in the cold open of the show’s Halloween episode.

Billed as visits from the ghosts of Biden past, the sketch mostly offered a chance to show the new Biden next to a very familiar one played by Sudeikis. James Austin Johnson’s Biden starts things off by talking with Chloe Fineman’s press secretary Jen Psaki, and both admit things aren’t going very well for his presidency.

Enter 2013 Biden, looking lively and much more enthusiastic than Johnson’s more beaten-down modern Biden. Even Alex Moffat’s Biden showed up, with the other two a bit hazy on which version of Biden he even was. That’s because his turn as the president was brief, of course, and “March 2021” Biden didn’t have much help to offer anyway.

The sketch was a bit of a meta commentary on the show, as for decades Saturday Night Live has impacted the way politicians are viewed by millions of Americans. The perception of Biden as a “care free” uncle certainly stuck because of Sudeikis amplifying those aspects of his personality on screen for years. But as the sketch makes clear, we now live in very different times.

Matt Araiza is the best player in college football you have likely never heard of unless you are a fan of San Diego State or a connoisseur of great punting. The Aztec two-way kicker/punter is one of the greatest special teams weapons in recent college football history, booming punts at an absurd 53 yard average that would be a record if he keeps it up.

On Saturday, he did his part to maintain that monstrous average with this 81 yard bomb against Air Force, taking full advantage of being in the altitude of Colorado Springs to show off his ridiculous leg.

Any time you can make a color commentator like Aaron Taylor gasp out loud on a punt and say “jeez,” you know you’ve done something special. That ball went 75 yards in the air and trundled out to 81 yards, as he pulled off the incredibly rare feat of not outkicking his coverage but outkicking the return man.

He also hit a 51-yard field goal for the Aztecs, because of course he did.

In case you thought that 75 yard carry was a fluke, please enjoy this 66 yard carry punt later in the game.

Or this 86 yard bomb (with some helpful roll) from last week.

So, yeah, San Diego State isn’t the most exciting offensive team in the country, but their games are worth some late night attention because when Araiza steps on the field it is show time.

Klay Thompson has been steadily working his way back from his Achilles injury (suffered after his torn ACL) and is hopeful to return to the Warriors lineup for the first time in two years in January.

In the meantime, he’s been rehabbing, boating, and other Klay-type activities. This week, he’s also been posting a lot to Instagram about his frustrations with the NBA’s 75 Greatest Players list (that was actually 76 names long) after he was not among those who made it, saying he guessed people didn’t care about winning as much as him. Thompson wasn’t at the top of most people’s snubs list — Dwight Howard and Tracy McGrady were, for many, the most egregious exclusions — but his resume is quite impressive and, as is the case with any elite athlete, he thinks highly of his accomplishments and skills.

His Warriors teammates have noticed his gripes and decided to mess with Klay on Saturday, getting him a new jersey with the number 77 in honor of him being just outside the cut line for the top 76. Draymond and Steph found it hilarious, while Klay unsurprisingly played into it and wore it around the facility as he worked out.

Steph’s reaction in particular to seeing it is great, and Klay wearing it with pride is how you’d expect him to take the joke. I don’t think he’s going to make the pivot full-time to No. 77, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we see that jersey out on the boat at some point.

Chris Wallace has long been one of the more freethinking members of Fox News, holding onto his job despite his penchant for asking folks like Donald Trump the tough questions they never get from anyone else at the right-wing network. But recently he may have gone too far. While his colleague Peter Doocy regularly clashes with press secretary Jen Psaki — and more often than not humiliates himself in the process — Wallace has no problem showering her with praise.

On Friday, Psaki and Doocy had a testier-than-usual duel, with the Fox News correspondent grilling her about whether Biden had visited the southern border. Doocy accused him of not doing his job; Psaki said he didn’t need to go down there simply for a “photo op.” It got ugly. But Wallace didn’t see it that way. In fact, he praised both of them.

“Honestly, as somebody who’s spent six years in the White House, my immediate reaction was those are two people at the top of their game,” Wallace said. He singled out Doocy. “I mean this as a compliment. I think he has become the Sam Donaldson of this White House press corps,” jokingly adding, “And since I was working in the press corps when Sam Donaldson was there, that’s a very grudging compliment on my part.”

He then called Psaki “one of the best press secretaries ever.”

Conservatives often bristle at Wallace for daring to question GOP officials as though he was a real journalist. But even when he paired his Psaki praise with adulation for Doocy as well, rightwing pundits still lost their minds. We don’t need to embed tweets from these folks, whose views you don’t need to read. But they were numerous enough to make Wallace’s name go viral. And they were mostly all along the lines of radio host Seb Gorka, who called Wallace a “clown,” and over-tweeter Brigitte Gabriel, who wrote an all-caps “TURN OFF FOX NEWS.”

But Wallace? If he’s lasted this long, he almost certainly doesn’t have to worry about losing his job.

(Via Mediaite)

Phoebe Bridgers is in the middle of a tour behind her excellent 2020 record, Punisher, and played a set of hometown shows in Los Angeles this weekend. If the traffic on Los Feliz Boulevard didn’t alert you that Bridgers was the headliner at the Greek Theater on Thursday and Friday night, then a cryptic tweet from Phoebe herself might’ve been a better clue: “Come early tonight. Trust me,” she wrote, following that up with a tweet of her collaboration with The 1975, “Jesus 2005 God Bless America.”

It seemed pretty clear from those hints that Matty Healy of The 1975 would be showing up as a surprise opener at her second LA show to perform their collaboration, and that’s exactly how things went down last night. Healy also performed a new song called “New York,” 2018’s “Be My Mistake,” and “Sex,” which he introduced as “an emo classic.” If you were lucky enough to be there, thanks for shooting clips so the rest of us could watch the video back! If you weren’t there, the boat I’m in, check out the video of their first live rendition of the tune up top. There’s a few more social clips down below, too. The song is taken from The 1975’s own 2020 album, Notes On A Conditional Form, and probably would’ve been a frequent staple in the setlist if Phoebe and the band had been able to embark on their original tour together. Ah well, at least we got this performance now.

For quite some time, Boosie Badazz has been openly homophobic on social media, including recent comments directed at Lil Nas X. The rapper has been critical of the singer on multiple occasions, and the most recent example of it is by far the worst. After Lil Nas X joked that he and Boosie had a collaboration on the way, Boosie delivered a truly unhinged homophobic thread.

https://twitter.com/BOOSIEOFFICIAL/status/1451996938124005383?s=20

“STOP TROLLING ME F***** LOL U A WHOLE B*TCH PLAYING WITH A GANGSTA SMH U CAN KEEP SUCKING D*** N GETTIN F***** N YOUR ASS N PEACE.” He continued, “N #uhateyourself I WOULD TOO IF I WAS YOU LOL NASx IF YOU #commitsuicide YOU WOULD DO THIS WORLD A HUGE FAVOR,” before concluding with, “NOBODY WANTS U HERE.” Boosie continued his rant by using a clip of Stephen A. Smith talking on the ESPN show First Take. He concluded by writing, “#thinkaboutit NOBODY WANTS U HERE” and “STOP PLAYING WITH THE STRAIGHT #F***** LOL.”

Lil Nas X seemed to respond to Boosie’s tweets with a sarcastic post of his own. “I am truly saddened,” he wrote. “I have never been so mortified in my life. I can’t believe disney channel has yet to play halloween town this entire October.”

Both college football and the NFL have made taunting penalties a point of emphasis this year, with the stated intention of cracking down on players crossing the line in the direction of the other team.

However, what it has produced are some dreadful calls as relatively mild celebrations have at times drawn 15-yard penalties that can impact the outcome of drives and games. On Saturday, Iowa State was on the wrong end of one of the most egregious of these against Oklahoma State, when Xavier Hutchinson caught a slant on an RPO, shook loose of the corner, and darted downfield with no one near him for a touchdown.

If you’re watching this for the first time you probably struggled to figure out why there was a penalty, and you would be with the majority there with fans, neutral observers, and even most Oklahoma State fans. As he neared the goal line, Hutchinson looked back, slowed up a touch, and did a very minor high step that, somehow, drew the penalty flag and backed Iowa State all the way back to the 18 yard line. The good news is that the Cyclones were able to get a touchdown to tie things up anyways on the drive, avoiding a much bigger story, but it’s indicative of why the new emphasis has frustrated fans so much, because this was in no way crossing a line.

Last week, Coldplay released their ninth album Music Of The Spheres, which arrived two years after their last full-length effort, Everyday Life. The band recently took their talents to The Late Late Show With James Corden for a week-long residency. Upon completing it, Coldplay headed to Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena to hold a concert in celebration of its grand re-opening. It was there that they performed a cover of Pearl Jam’s “Nothingham.”

“So because we’re here in Seattle we wanted to pay tribute to all of the bands that we fell in love with when we were just young teenagers in the ’90s,” Coldplay’s lead vocalist Chris Martin told the audience. “This is a 44-year-old man remembering how much he fell in love with Pearl Jam in 1991. And if you told that kid he would be here singing this song, that kid would’ve said ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’ And I would’ve said ‘Maybe not!’ But we’re doing it.”

Martin, who was on guitar, was accompanied by the band’s drummer Will Champion, who played piano for the cover. Martin joked that he made Champion learn the song “like 25 minutes ago,” and spoke kindly about Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder at the end of the performance. “If Eddie ever hears this, I love you, man,” he said. “Thanks for being so kind to our band.”

You can watch a video of their performance above.

Music Of The Spheres is out now via Parlophone/Atlantic. Get it here.

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

Aside from being an incredibly talented performer and singer in her own right, Charli XCX has also been acclaimed for quite some time as a songwriter for other people. The British talent has written hits like “I Love It” for Icona Pop and “Fancy” for Iggy Azalea, and more off-the-wall songs like should’ve-been-a-banger “OMG” that Camila Cabello released back in 2017. Anyway, for a new project called Song Start, a video and podcast series for up-and-coming songwriters and producers to learn about the industry, Charli sat down with fellow pop star and songwriter Tove Lo to discuss the art of collaboration.

The two are natural friends as they’ve both been working just below the mainstream of pop music for years, quietly making edgier, alternative music that sometimes hits big in the radio and chart world and sometimes doesn’t. But as songwriters, they both know the importance of reading the room when working with someone new, or tactfully changing suggestions to suit what they actually want to do. Watch the two musicians discuss their collaborative processes up above.

Song Start is a new project from songwriters Ali Tamposi and Tamar Kaprelian, who are working in partnership with Noteable and Spotify for Artists. Their new series also features artists like Phoebe Bridgers, Ingrid Andress, Hayley Kiyoko, and so many more. Learn more about it here.

It’s been over two months since Meghan McCain left The View, which means it’s been over two months since the world has been without Meghan McCain getting into shouty fights. In the last week, though, she’s tried to make up for lost time. The commentator just released the audiobook Bad Republican, a memoir that, of course, features plenty of side-eye at two of her former co-hosts. But Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg aren’t the only people she’s been bad-mouthing.

As per Insider, McCain recently appeared on Andy Cohen’s Watch What Happens Live, where she unloaded on another pair: Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Ivanka’s father, former president-turned-failed blogger Donald J. Trump, did not get along with McCain’s father, John McCain; among other things, Trump didn’t like that he was once captured by enemy forces. When her father died in 2018, Donald was not invited to his memorial service. But Jared and Ivanka showed up.

“They should never have come, they had no business being there, I remember seeing them and seeing her specifically,” McCain said. “They had no godd*mn business being there and it’s something that still angers me, clearly.”

Meghan said she heard a “lot of different stories” about how they ended up there, but one claim was that it was at Lindsey Graham’s invitation. (Graham was both a great friend of John and a big cheerleader of the man who loved to publicly trash him.) After Meghan’s appearance, Graham claimed it was someone in the family who invited them.

Donald Trump weighed in, too, trashing both McCains once more for posterity in a typically loony “press release.”

Meanwhile, Kushner is reportedly in talks to receive a lavish sum from Saudi Arabian officials, a couple years after he reportedly helped the nation’s prince “weather” the storm following the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

(Via Insider)