Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

Hotels We Love: The Ramble Hotel In Denver Blends A Great Bar Scene With Boutique Hotel Vibes

Death and Co. have pretty much conquered the current high-end bar scene in America. The throwback vibes of bartenders in bowties and suspenders pouring stone-cold classic cocktails (along with more experimental, truly innovative cocktails) have caught the attention of drinks novices and experts alike. It helps that their famed cocktail book, Cocktail Codex, is amazingly educational and accessible.

One of the group’s premier offerings is their hotel in Denver’s uber-trendy RiNo neighborhood, The Ramble Hotel. The hotel is built around the beauty of the lobby bar, with echoes of Death and Co.’s style visible in everything from the bar carts in every room to the courtyard garden to the coffee shop to the on-property speakeasy.

It’s all pretty amazing. But this is a series about hotels, not bars. And The Ramble Hotel stands on its own as a boutique property that delivers serious comfort while allowing you to really enjoy the space, the neighborhood, and whomever you end up sharing it all with. Let’s dive into what makes this the place to stay the next time you’re in Denver.

WHY IT’S AWESOME:

The Ramble Hotel

This is easy. You can get a seat at a Death and Co. bar on a first-come, first-serve basis without the elitist reservation systems of New York or Los Angeles (Death and Co.’s two other locations). You’re getting the same sky-high quality service and cocktails in a bit more laidback and accessible setting. That’s a big win for a cocktail experience as dialed in and desired as Death and Co.’s.

We’ll get into the rooms a little later. The second biggest draw is the location of this property. You’re in the heart of Denver’s hippest, sexiest neighborhood, RiNo. All the breweries you want are within walking distance, the street art scene alone is worth a long stroll, and almost every resto, dive, and bar are within a stone’s throw. This is where you need to be if you’re visiting Denver and want to really dive into what makes the Mile-High city so damn cool right now.

IN-HOUSE FOOD + DRINK:

Zach Johnston

This is pretty self-explanatory. Take your time and talk with the bar staff in the main lobby bar. You’ll find the cocktail that might become your new favorite. Or you can really dive into the ridiculous whiskey menu and get pours of super rare stuff. Or you can chat up the local sitting next to you for some serious local tips on where to go next — even if that’s your room upstairs.

While the coffee shop (DC/AM) and the Garden (open in the courtyard for imbibing and eating) are both on point and fun times, the on-site restaurant is the real draw. Super Mega Bien is a fusion of Latin American flavors served from roaming Dim Sum carts. The spot was dreamt up and executed by James Beard-nominated chef Dana Rodriguez. It’s one of those places that just vibes perfectly with the Death and Co. aesthetic while feeling very unique. Don’t sleep on the roasted beets topped with peppadews, lemon crema, and toasted pepitas, the lamb barbacoa (roasted in banana leaves) tacos, and whatever special is on offer when you walk in the door.

AMENITIES:

The Ramble Hotel
  • Double-wide walls and high-performance windows to minimize noises
  • Wide plank hickory flooring
  • Antique Persian rugs
  • Curated Bar by Death & Co.
  • French Press Coffee: Locally roasted and ground daily
  • Operable Windows
  • Makeup Vanities
  • Television Streaming
  • Free Wifi: Fast enough to seamlessly stream movies
  • Custom furnishings
  • Plush pillow and top mattress

ROOM TYPES:

The Ramble Hotel

Standard rooms come with a king, queen, double queen, and accessible versions with spacious bathrooms, large showers, and antique brass fixtures.

The suites offer a small seating area and king bed with a slightly larger bathroom with baths and showers alongside all the tile and brass.

There’s a Pied-å-Terre suite for anyone looking for a little extra room and the ability to self-cater. The sprawling suite offers a loft experience with views across Denver, separate living and sleeping quarters, and plenty of room to invite some new friends up for a party.

The last room you can stay in is the Bunkhouse. The small room comes with all the comforts and amenities of a standard room but has stacked bunk beds for you and a friend. It’s fun and costs a little less than grabbing a double queen. It’s great if you’re fine with someone sleeping above or below you.

THE BEST THING TO DO WITHIN A 15 MINUTE WALK:

RiNo ART DISTRICT/Instagram

There are a million things that could go in this slot. We’re only barely exaggerating. Luckily, the hotel offers a whole section of their website to help you dig into RiNo with 40 options for coffee, restos, bars, breweries, and shopping all with a few minute’s walk.

If you’re looking for a real sense of the area’s culinary scene, then start at Denver Central Market. The 14,000 sq. foot food hall has local vendors for self-catering right next to great street art installations next to a very long list of eateries and drinking stops. Grab a bespoke ice cream from High Point Creamery and walk around until you find the next amazing morsel of food.

THE BEST THING TO DO/EAT/DRINK WITHIN A $10 CAB RIDE:

Larimer Square

Larimer Square is the best bet. The small pedestrianized street is all about food, drink, and art while being a short Uber or taxi ride away. The vibes are definitely a bit more touristy than RiNo while still keeping a very Denver feel (you can’t miss the Denver Broncos banners everywhere).

Rioja is a great place to grab some seasonal and local fare in a very Mediterranean setting. The venison loin with a wild blackberry sauce and chanterelles is a particular highlight, along with the chicken fried sweetbreads and a killer goat cheese tart.

There’s a cool vinyl bar nearby and Bao Brewhouse is a good drop-in spot for spot-on bao all washed down with some great local beer.

BED GAME:

The Ramble Hotel

7/10 — While the bedclothes are pretty well weaved, the pillows were a bit hard (for me) and the mattress was a little soft (again, for me).

SEXINESS RATING:

The Ramble Hotel

10/10 — This is where the pretty people of Denver go to be seen, drink the best cocktails, and hook up. Grab a seat at the bar in the lobby and assuredly someone worth talking to will be seated next to you on either side.

INSTAGRAMABILITY:

The Ramble Hotel

8/10 — While this is a very photogenic property during the day, it’s very dark at night. That makes it pretty hard to ‘gram if you want to catch those dope vibes when the sun goes down. That being said, you should be looking to engage with the people at the bar once the lights dim anyway. So… maybe put the phone away?

BEST SEASON TO VISIT:

The Ramble Hotel

Denver is a very four-season city. Hot but not stifling in the summer, plenty of turning leaves and cool, dry temps in the fall, rain and sun in the spring, and a winter season that’s full of snow and apres-ski vibes. You really can’t miss.

IF I HAD TO COMPLAIN ABOUT ONE THING:

The Ramble Hotel

This might be a bit personal, but the standard rooms don’t really have anywhere you can work. There’s no desk and chair in the room, which forces you into the lobby if you want to get anything done. That’s fine in that it means your room is just for fun times. Still, it was a bit annoying.

Also, the water pressure wasn’t the greatest. It was fine in the shower but middling in the sinks.

BOOK HERE:

The Ramble

Rooms start at $360 for a standard room per night and go up in price significantly for suites and by season.

Check availability here.

We’d like to acknowledge and honor the original peoples of this land, the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Núu-agha-tʉvʉ-pʉ̱ (Ute), and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ nations.

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

‘SNL’ Has Lined Up Back-To-Back Marvel Hosts With Simu Liu And Jonathan Majors

After Succession star Kieran Culkin hosts this weekend’s Saturday Night Live, the sketch comedy show is getting a double dose of Marvel. On November 12, Loki star Jonathan Majors will host with musical guest Taylor Swift. A week later, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings star Simu Liu will step in as host with musical guest Saweetie.

While Majors is becoming a, well, major part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as he gears up to fully become Kang the Conqueror in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania following his well-received performance in Loki, the actor will actually be on hand to promote his upcoming Netflix film, The Harder They Fall. In the Western film, which starts streaming November 3, Majors plays a ruthless outlaw who won’t stop until he hunts down his former partner played by Idris Elba.

As for Liu, he’ll be coming in riding high on his breakout performance in Shang-Chi. After employing a dual streaming and theatrical release for Black Widow that resulted in Scarlett Johansson suing Disney, Marvel rolled the dice by making Shang-Chi a theatrical-only release, and it delivered. Big time. Shang-Chi‘s box office was so huge that Venom: Let There Be Carnage actually moved its release date up after rumors that Sony would punt it into January. Meanwhile, any and all talks of Eternals getting a Disney+ with Premier Access release went out the window as it became clear that Marvel movies have enough juice to pull in audiences even during a pandemic.

(Via Saturday Night Live on Twitter)

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

‘Harry Potter: Wizards Unite’ Will Be Shut Down By Niantic In January 2022

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite took a lot of what made Pokemon Go so popular, put a Harry Potter theme on top of it, and looked to see if fans of the series ran with it. While there was definitely some initial interest around the game, it never reached the same level of popularity as Pokemon Go and unsurprisingly it fell out of mainstream discussions fairly quickly.

Having said that, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite did still have a community that played the game. One report stated that it managed to make about $40 million in profits since releasing back in June 2019. The problem is that compared to Niantic’s larger title, Pokemon Go, it was a failure. As a result, once the current storyline is completed, the game is going to be shut down.

Anyone still interested in playing it will have until the end of Jan. 2022, but make sure to download it before Dec. 6, 2021. Niantic explained its decision to shut the game down on its blog.

We launched Harry Potter: Wizards Unite more than two years ago, bringing together a community of witches and wizards from all over the globe in an epic quest to put an end to the Calamity and keep the wizarding world safe. In the coming months, we’ll be concluding the story and closing the game on January 31st, 2022. Players can read more on our Harry Potter: Wizards Unite blog for full details on what they can look forward to leading up to the finale, including a variety of in-game events, new content and gameplay changes.

Not all games are meant to last forever. Our goal with Harry Potter: Wizards Unite was to bring the magic of the wizarding world to life for millions of players as they stepped outside and explored their neighborhoods. We accomplished that together, delivering a two-year narrative story arc that will soon complete.

While Niantic is correct that no game is meant to last forever, they must be pretty certain that nobody is going to miss the game to be shutting it down so quickly after the conclusion of its story. Even games that aren’t being supported anymore will frequently keep servers up long after the game is finished so any current players can continue playing the game.

We have to wonder what this means for any future games Niantic will release. They recently released a Pikmin AR game called Pikmin Bloom and are also working on a similar game for Transformers. If these don’t manage to bring in record profits the way Pokemon Go have, will they be forced to share a similar fate as Wizard’s Unite? We hope not. Games, no matter the quality, shouldn’t be able to disappear so quickly.

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

Lorde’s Cinematic ‘Fallen Fruit’ Video Condemns The Destructive Nature Of Humans

Lorde officially kicked off her Solar Power era last summer with a sunny and carefree visual alongside her title track. But the joyous nature of the video showed only one side to the themes explored on Lorde’s LP. Now sharing a video to her song “Fallen Fruit,” Lorde explores the repercussions of humans’ obsession with consumption.

The visual, directed by Joel Kefali and Lorde herself, opens in the same location as her “Solar Power” visual. Instead of showing only the sunny beaches, though, it constantly flips from daytime to nighttime, when everything has been destroyed and set on fire. In a newsletter emailed to her fans alongside the visual’s release, Lorde said the “Fallen Fruit” video was meant to symbolize how treating nature with “disrespect” will ultimately lead to its destruction:

“In the ‘Solar Power’ video, you were introduced to the island as a lush paradise — glistening water, blue skies, not a grain of sand out of place (barring that pesky beach trash…). Cut to: humans doing as they do, getting greedy, treating the land with disrespect and stripping it of its beauty. There’ll always another pristine place to start again, right?

The gardens that were once lush and fruitful are now on fire. The fishing boats are busted up and overturned. All that’s left of the peaches are their pits. Amid all that, my character makes a choice.”

Watch Lorde’s “Fallen Fruit” video above.

Solar Power is out now via Universal. Get it here.

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

This New Rye Whiskey Blends Tennessee Technique With Colorado Craft

As the year winds down, rye whiskey has proven itself the most interesting category of American whiskey in 2021. New expressions are taking mash bills, distillation methods, maturation, and even barrel finishing to new heights. One of the best examples of how great, unique, and inspired rye whiskey can be just dropped. The new rye is a collaboration between two soon-to-be icons of American whiskey, Nicole Austin of George Dickel and Todd Leopold of Leopold Bros.

George Dickel x Leopold Bros. Collaboration Blend marries new Tennessee rye with hardcore craft rye from Colorado. That alone should pique your interest in this whiskey, but there’s so much more going on here. This whiskey is about what’s in the bottle, sure. It’s also about a friendship between two of the most interesting distillers working in the industry. Nicole Austin, General Manager and Distiller at Cascade Hollow Distilling Co. in Tennessee, and Todd Leopold, co-founder and Master Distiller at Leopold Bros. Distillery in Colorado, created this blended rye based on a long-time friendship and mutual respect for what the other is doing.

Leopold is renowned for creating some of the most sought-after craft spirits in the game (his absinthe is arguably the best American version on the market). He also runs one of the more interesting craft distilleries in America. The heart of the facility is the malting house, where Leopold’s crew sources unique and standard beer grains and malts them in-house — which is rare in the whiskey game. But the bespoke aspects of Leopold’s distillery go beyond the massive amount of grains being malted on-site. There are propagated and wild yeasts at play. The fermenting tanks aren’t just some stainless steel vats you see at every distillery from Osaka to Orlando. Instead, Leopold has wooden tanks made from Oregon pine for his fermenters, which allows the bacterias and yeasts a place to hide and grow, adding depth to the mash.

That’s before you get to Leopold’s hand-crafted “Three Chamber Still” that Todd Leopold himself re-engineered from hundred-year-old manuscripts and plans. The old-school still works not only as a method to extract ethanol (alcohol) from the mash but it also extracts oils and deeply hidden aromatic esters at the same time, adding a serious depth to the spirit as it comes off the still. That spirit is Leopold’s much-sought-after Three Chamber Rye Whiskey, which is technically referred to as a “heavy whiskey.” This type of rye whiskey was largely lost to American whiskey shortly after World War II and has been given new life by Leopold as “a revival of a lost American tradition.”

This is all before we even get into the four years of maturation or the fact that Leopold found someone to grow Abruzzi Rye (the preferred rye of pre-Prohibition America) for his Three Chamber Rye mash bill. Taken all together, it’s a whole lot of technique. And that’s only 1/2 of the collaboration.

George Dickel x Leopold Bros. Rye Collaboration
Diageo

As cool as Leopold’s Three Chamber Rye is, “heavy” rye whiskeys made using this method back in the day were usually blended with a lighter column still rye to render out some of the heavier aspects of the whiskey. That’s where Nicole Austin comes in.

Cascade Hollow, home of the Dickel distillery, feels like the biggest little distillery in the whiskey game. It’s nestled in a small hollow on a creek and framed by hillsides covered in deciduous forests (best enjoyed in fall, of course). It feels well-seasoned and worn in. The mash tanks, grist mills, stills, and filtration tanks have real character from being refitted and updated over the decades. You can see the hammer marks on the outside of the grain feeder where generations of whiskey makers had to tap the vessel to keep that grain moving. And yet… Austin’s column still rye is a completely new product in the whiskey industry. That’s a stark contrast to Leopold’s sparkling new Denver facility with hand-crafted everything, which is, ironically, focused on old-school spirits from a bygone era.

That retro feeling at Cascade Hollow is what endears me (and others) to it. It’s kind of like Nicole Austin moved into one of the world’s most respected kitchens with all the seasoned pans, ovens, and appliances you could ever want offering that x-factor you just can’t quite get otherwise. Now she’s playing with all the toys in that kitchen and literally reinventing what’s on the menu from top to bottom — while still respecting the generations that came before her. The equipment at Cascade Hollow is older but it’s seasoned. It’s worth spot welding here and there to keep it functioning because that character is what makes it special.

I’d argue that it’s in the “old distillery making new expressions and new distillery making old expressions” dichotomy where this collaboration really shines. Neither Austin nor Leopold are afraid to try and fail and try again; they’re experimenters and tinkerers. They’re also deeply geeky about the infinite minutiae of not only making whiskey now but how folks made whiskey 25, 50, 100, 200 years ago. That shared interest has bonded the two whiskey makers in the pursuit of making something, anything new and interesting for us to drink.

All of which leads us to the George Dickel x Leopold Bros Collaboration Blend. Let’s take a look at what’s actually in this new bottle of rye whiskey.

George Dickel x Leopold Bros. Rye Collaboration
Diageo

George Dickel x Leopold Bros Collaboration Blend

George Dickel x Leopold Bros. Blend
Zach Johnston

ABV: 50%

Average Price: $110 (MSRP)

The Whiskey:

The blend is built from four-year-old rye made in Denver at Leopold’s distillery. The rye is their Three Chamber Rye. The mash bill is 80 percent Abruzzi Rye and 20 percent Leopold Floor Malt. That’s blended with George Dickel’s un-released new column still rye, which is a 95 percent rye cut with five percent malted barley.

Tasting Notes:

The nose on this rings like crafty rye with clear notes of bright florals (think lavender and orange blossom) next to an almost woody touch of maple syrup straight from the treetap with a very mild dusting of dark cacao powder and soft leather that really draws you in. The palate delivers on the promise of the nose, with touches of holiday-spiced orange oils and rosewater leading towards light marzipan next to a prickly bramble of berry bushes hanging heavy with dark, sweet, and slightly tart fruit. The florals come in again — with lavender leading the way but this time — but the note is tied to salted caramel-covered dates with little specks of the dried flowers decorating the sweet confection. The mid-palate holds onto the sweet and meaty date while bitter yet floral Earl Grey tea with a healthy dollop of fresh honey leads towards a finish full of more of that powdery dark cacao just touched by dry chili flakes, adding a slight embrace of warmth to the very backend.

The Bottle:

The bottle is a classic Dickel long-neck. The wrapper around the stopper is signed by both Austin and Leopold. The actual label is a double-label with Dickel’s green rye label up top and Leopold Bros.’s clean white label below.

Bottom Line:

This feels and drinks like a solid workhorse whiskey. The rye is very sippable on its own and really benefits from a few drops of water (or a single rock) to let it bloom in the glass. Those floral and dried chili notes will really pop with a deeper orange and chocolate vibe in the glass.

That being said, this also works beautifully, perhaps most ideally, as a cocktail rye. The floral and dark fruity notes really shine through in an elevated Manhattan or even something citrus-forward like a smash or sour.

In the end, you’re getting a $250 bottle of whiskey (that’s how much Leopold Bros. Three Chamber Rye Whiskey costs) cut with a brand new, very unique rye for around $100. That’s a steal for the quality of the juice in this bottle.

Ranking:

93/100 — This is a very unique and delicious rye. However, there wasn’t a big “wow” factor that I would need to bump that number even higher. That being said, this is an excellent collab whiskey that makes me really excited and hopeful that there’ll be more like this from both Nicole Austin and Todd Leopold in the near future.

George Dickel x Leopold Bros. Rye Collaboration
Diageo
Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

Summer Walker’s ‘Still Over It’ Tracklist Features Cardi B, SZA, Pharrell, And More

The wait for the follow-up to Summer Walker’s breakthrough 2019 debut Over It has been a roller coaster, one that’s now reaching the top of the climb before that final freefall that everyone looks forward to. First, Walker projected confirmation of the album’s November release timeline on the side of a building outside of the BET Awards, giving off heavy Yeezus guerilla marketing vibes. Then came a trailer announcing the November 5th official release date for Still Over It. That was followed by a tracklist teaser with an announcement for her next single, “Ex For A Reason,” featuring JT of City Girls, which dropped three days later.

Considering Over It broke Beyoncé’s record for the largest streaming week ever for an album by a female R&B artist, the build-up here is warranted. And now, today, Walker tweeted out the album cover along with the entire tracklist, and it’s stacked. Aside from “Ex For A Reason,” highlights include the album’s opening track, “Bitter,” with narration Cardi B, “No Love” featuring SZA, “Dat Right There” featuring Pharrell, plus tracks with Lil Durk, Ari Lennox, and more.

Check out the full Still Over It tracklist below.

1. “Bitter (Narration by Cardi B)”
2. “Ex For A Reason” Feat. JT from City Girls
3. “No Love” Feat. SZA
4. “Throw It Away”
5. “Reciprocate”
6. “You Don’t Know Me”
7. “Circus”
8. “Insane”
9. “Constant Bullsh*t”
10. “Switch A N***a Out”
11. “Unloyal” Feat. Ari Lennox
12. “Closure”
13. “Toxic” Feat. Lil Durk
14. “Dat Right There” Feat. Pharrell
15. “Screwin” Feat. Omarion
16. “Broken Promises”
17. “Session 33”
18. “4th Baby Mama (Prelude)”
19. “4th Baby Mama”
20. “Ciara’s Prayer (Narration by Ciara)”

Still Over It is out 11/5 via LVRN/Interscope. Pre-order it here.

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

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

Taylor Swift And Saweetie Are Set To Perform On ‘Saturday Night Live’ In November

So far, it’s been a big day in Saturday Night Live musical guest news. This morning, Ed Sheeran revealed that he will be able to perform on the show as planned following his positive COVID test. Now, not only has SNL confirmed the news, but they’ve also revealed their next two musical guests after Sheeran: Taylor Swift and Saweetie.

Swift will guest on the November 13 episode hosted by Jonathan Majors, while Saweetie will perform on the Simu Liu-hosted episode on November 20.

This will be Saweetie’s first time on the program. As for Swift, she’s an SNL veteran. Her first stint as musical guest came in 2009, and her upcoming performance will be her fourth. In her second 2009 episode, Swift had the rare honor of serving most as host and musical guest.

Beyond SNL, both Swift and Saweetie have been thriving lately. Swift is fresh off her first performance at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, where she was on hand to induct Carole King. As for Saweetie, she recently had her own McDonald’s meal and her Netflix special Sex: Unzipped premiered just a few days ago.

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

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

HBO Max’s Haunting ‘Station Eleven’ Trailer With Mackenzie Davis Is About A Different Pandemic

Maybe you’re not in the mood for entertainment about a pandemic that wipes out much of the world’s population. I get it. That being said, Station Eleven looks pretty dang good. Based on Emily St. John Mandel’s Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novel of the same name, the HBO Max limited series is described as a “post-apocalyptic saga spanning multiple timelines” that tells “the stories of survivors of a devastating flu as they attempt to rebuild and reimagine the world anew while holding on to the best of what’s been lost.”

Cheery stuff, but Station Eleven has a solid cast, including Mackenzie Davis, Himesh Patel, Gael García Bernal, and Lori Petty, and the behind-the-scenes talent includes creator Patrick Somerville (The Leftovers, Maniac) and Atlanta director Hiro Murai.

Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin praised Station Eleven as one of the best books he read in 2014. “One could, I suppose, call it a post-apocalypse novel, and it is that, but all the usual tropes of that subgenre are missing here, and half the book is devoted to flashbacks to before the coming of the virus that wipes out the world, so it’s also a novel of character, and there’s this thread about a comic book and Doctor Eleven and a giant space station and… oh, well, this book should NOT have worked, but it does,” he wrote on his blog. “It’s a deeply melancholy novel, but beautifully written, and wonderfully elegiac… a book that I will long remember, and return to.”

Station Eleven, which also stars Daniel Zovatto, David Wilmot, Matilda Lawler, Philippine Velge, Nabhaan Rizwan, and Danielle Deadwyler, debuts on HBO Max on December 16.

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

Dan Aykroyd Weighed In On Comedians, Cancel Culture, And ‘Pulling Divisive Cards To Get A Laugh’

The current incarnation of the cancel culture discussion, inevitably, revolves around Dave Chappelle’s trans jokes in The Closer. The backlash led to a Netflix employee walkout and Chappelle complaining that he’s endured the “worst three weeks of my life” while continuing to, uh, tell trans jokes at sold-out venues. So, Dave hasn’t technically been “cancelled,” but that’s really beside the point because the subject of cancel culture popped up in Hollywood Reporter interview with O.G. SNL star Dan Aykroyd (and famously one of the Not Ready for Primetime Players).

Granted, Aykroyd was on hand to discuss the upcoming Ghostbusters: Afterlife movie, and Chappelle’s name never comes up, but it’s not hard to guess that this question’s in the air because of the adversarial vibe that Chappelle continues to nurture. And Aykroyd is here to wonder why comedians can’t simply write jokes without resorting to “divisive cards” (or for that matter, poop jokes), which is a relevant point:

“There is enough range in humor where you don’t have to go scatological and you don’t have to go pulling any divisive cards to get a laugh. There is so much in the world to comment on that is outside the realm of offensiveness. As a writer, you can go to other areas and have successful creative endeavors. Scatological humor is fun. It’s easy laughs. But there is more intelligent writing that can happen if you stay away from the offensive material that should be rightly canceled for its hurtfulness.

Aykroyd continued with a personal example, which is that he’s perfectly capable of, say, doing a James Brown “imitation” because “I do his voice pretty good” and “[h]e was one of my best friends.” Yet he decided, “[M]aybe I shouldn’t anymore.” Seth Rogen recently made a similar point, that comedians should accept that some jokes don’t age well, and that’s that. Chappelle, on the other hand, appears to be in the business of being divisive, and with that, he should expect to feel the backlash.

(Via Hollywood Reporter)

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

‘Verzuz’ Expands To The Gaming World With A ‘Bigs Vs. Lils’ ‘Call Of Duty’ Tournament

After over a year of dominating the live music and live streaming spaces, the Verzuz brand is expanding to encompass live streaming video games with the next evolution of its competition format, Verzuz Gamez. While the musical hits battles have always been more about celebrating the legacies of those performers who have had a huge impact on hip-hop culture throughout the years, this time, the battle will be a straight-up fight to the finish as the inaugural edition of Verzuz Games will pit a pair of “big” rappers against two “lil” ones in a Call Of Duty: Vanguard tournament.

On Wednesday, November 3 at 6 pm PT, Big Boi and Big Sean will face off against Lil Jon and Lil Tecca for gaming supremacy in a three-hour, multi-round tournament format hosted by T-Pain with a performance by Migos. Aside from having a pretty cool theme, the teams also seem pretty well-balanced, what with pairing the oldest contestant with the youngest (you gotta handicap the zoomer, who was forged in the fires of online multiplayer chaos, by sticking him with the one guy who was around for Pong, otherwise Tecca would definitely run amok and clean up the field). Meanwhile, we’ll have to see if Big Boi and Big Sean can share chemistry as well as a misnomered moniker against one of rap’s first Twitch streaming adopters (Lil Jon — forever ahead of his time).

Tune in tomorrow night at 6 on Instagram, Triller, and Fite network.