Month: December 2021

The pandemic at this point may be overwhelmingly targeting those who aren’t vaccinated, but don’t think all anti-vaxxers are on the right. There’s plenty on the left. Jordan Klepper — who’s poked that particular bear before, and the bear that’s against masks — decided to broaden his scope, in turn showing that the movement to not get safe and effective and free protection against a highly transmissible virus is bit more diverse than you’d think.

The Daily Show correspondent headed to Southern California, where he found a different breed of vaccine resistors — who, actually, weren’t all that different. Some of them may swear they don’t identify as “anti-vaxxers,” but when asked what they do believe in, some of them arguably make even less sense than their Trumpist variant.

One heavily pierced and tatted gentleman tells Klepper that, like the Red Staters whose politics he likely doesn’t share, he believes in “freedom of choice.” Why? Because mandates are a slipper slope from “Step 1” to “Step 2.” When asked what “Step 2” entails, he admitted he didn’t know but professed to not be a “conspiracy theorist.” He then made curious claims about polio vaccines, saying he’s fine with that mandate because, with polio, “we’ve known what it’s done.” To which Klepper could only reply, “We don’t know what COVID’s done?”

Wild theories fly left and right in the always sunny progressive paradise. There’s the guy who claims vaccines are all part of Bill Gates’ plan to wipe out a billion people for population control. There’s a woman who claims, mysteriously, that the vaccines are “snapping the DNA in half.” Multiple people sing the praises of staying healthy, all but repeating claims made by far right commentator Dennis Prager, who, after testing positive and probably coming very close to death, bragged about catching the virus on purpose.

And don’t think ahistorical and offensive comparisons to Nazi Germany are only regulated to Marjorie Taylor Greene. One progressive-minded woman, a native of Germany and health fanatic, claims “history is repeating itself” with vaccine cards. “‘Where are your papers? Where are your papers?’ It’s very similar to the Hitler times,” she asserted.

“So Jewish people are fleeing Poland because they can’t get into gyms?” Klepper responded.

You can watch Klepper talk to SoCal anti-vaxxers in the video above, and weep.

(Via The Daily Beast)

The Minnesota Timberwolves have, at times, looked like a team poised to make a leap into playoff contention this season. Led by Karl-Anthony Towns, Anthony Edwards, and D’Angelo Russell (currently out with an ankle injury), the young Wolves have some terrific individual offensive weapons and their defense has come together in a way few anticipated prior to the season.

However, there are nights like Wednesday against the Jazz where Minnesota is too easily bothered by defensive pressure from opponents, leading to outcomes like a 136-104 loss to drop them to 11-14 on the season. Against the Jazz, Towns had 22 points, seven rebounds, and five assists on 7-of-11 shooting, a solid stat line but one that also highlights one of the issues Minnesota can run into. When teams send doubles at Towns, he is a willing passer, but the Wolves are a team that needs him taking more than 11 shots in a game, particularly if Russell isn’t on the floor.

After the loss, second-year star Anthony Edwards explained the message he tried to send to Towns at halftime, which was to stop waiting for teams to send the double and attack a mismatch like Bojan Bogdanovic quicker.

“I told KAT the best way to beat it, you gotta go quick. I told him at halftime, you waitin on the double. You tellin them yeah come double me. Now you the best player on the floor, they takin you out of the game. Then when the double you, they not rotatin, they stayin with me and making everybody else beat you. So I just told him, like, you gotta go quick. I told him this, you watch Joel Embiid, you have to double Joel Embiid — there’s nobody in the league that can guard him — so he goes quick. You can’t double him cause he catches and goes quick. So I told KAT, you catch the ball and you holdin it like you waitin for the double. Tellin them come double me instead of just catching and going. They can’t guard you. It’s disrespectful for them to put No. 44 on you. That’s disrespectful. He know. He know he gotta kill all of them. He’s the best player on the floor every night.”

It’s something that isn’t a new request of Towns, who teammates and coaches have often wanted to be more assertive and try to dominate, but this is also the most supportive way to make that argument — the opposite of the Jimmy Butler method, if you will. Edwards isn’t challenging KAT’s manhood or will to win or anything like that, he’s simply trying to gas him up by saying you’re the best player on the floor, go dominate. Edwards is right that putting Bogdanovic on Towns shouldn’t be a viable defensive gameplan for a team, and it’s incumbent on KAT to attack that mismatch until the other team changes strategy, rather than letting that work. With that message now coming from a place of positivity, hopefully for Minnesota it will be received as such and lead to an even better version of Towns, which would be rather scary for the rest of the league.

Last week, Polo G breathed new life into his third album Hall Of Fame by releasing its deluxe edition, Hall Of Fame 2.0, which added 14 new songs to the project’s original’s 20. Today, Polo G returns with a video for one of the new additions, “Fortnight.” It finds him relishing in all the lavish aspects of his life, beginning with him purchasing a brand new Lamborghini with cash, then bringing it to his mansion to show off a boatload of money, all while Polo and his friend flex their rich statuses.

Polo G began the campaign for Hall Of Fame 2.0 with the single “Bad Man (Smooth Criminal),” and its accompanying video, before dropping off the reissue, which boasts features from Lil Baby, Moneybagg Yo, Yungliv, NLE Choppa, and Lil Tjay. The new cast joined artists like Young Thug, Roddy Ricch, Lil Durk, Nicki Minaj, and more, who appeared on the album’s original version. Shortly after he released the deluxe, Polo dropped off a video for “Young N Dumb,” a somber affair in which he honored the friends he’s lost.

You can watch the video for “Fortnight” above.

Hall Of Fame 2.0 is out now via Columbia Records. Get it here.

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

As the dust settles after the Capitol siege of Jan. 6, one perpetrator stood out more than most. He was Jacob Chansley, aka Jake Angeli, aka QAnon Shaman, the one wandering around shirtless with horns and a painted face, howling inside the chamber like an angry minotaur. But even 11 months later, we’re still learning about new eccentric members of this motley crew. There’s the “influencer” who bragged that she wouldn’t be imprisoned because she’s “white.” (She was sentenced to 60 days.) There’s the guy who was rounded up while in a touring production of Jesus Christ Superstar.

Then there’s this guy. As per Raw Story, federal officials revealed that one of the MAGA rioters that day posted videos of himself invading the premises, even bragging that he was doing so while knocking back some brewskis.

His name is Thomas Paul Conover, and he’s a Texas resident who strolled into the Capitol building after it was breached and took pictures of himself doing, among other things, brandishing an empty Coors Light.

In one video, he suggested that the violent mob, who assaulted Capitol police and whose exploits led to five deaths, was more peaceful than Black Lives Matter protesters. After all, they weren’t “spray painting sh*t or burning sh*t down.”

In another, taken after he left the premises, he told viewers, “I don’t always storm the Capitol of the United States of America, but when I do I prefer Coors Light.”

Among Conover’s charges are, as per Raw Story, “knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do and with knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, engaging in disorderly or disruptive conduct.”

Alas, there’s no evidence that Conover actually pounded Coors while inside the Capitol. And all this for a guy who hates people who drink beer.

(Via Raw Story)

The Washington Wizards were one of the NBA’s hottest teams to open the season, but have cooled off of late, losing their last three and six of their last 10 entering Wednesday night’s road trip to Detroit.

The Pistons, holding the worst record in the East, figured to be a great chance to get right, which seemed much needed for a team that has seen the rosy vibes from early in the season fade with chatter, once again, turning to the future of the franchise’s superstar, Bradley Beal. Wednesday’s game in Detroit didn’t prove to be a walk for the Wizards, who fell behind early and had to storm back in the third quarter, only to see the Pistons force overtime, but they did get a win thanks to some heroics from Kyle Kuzma.

For the second time this season, Kuzma, who had 26 points to lead the Wizards in scoring on the night, found himself with the ball in the corner as the clock worked towards 0 and buried a game-winning three.

While Washington was certainly expected to win this game, for a team that’s been on a skid, it’s a big bucket and important outcome to get themselves back in the win column for a night, pushing them to 15-11 on the season. Washington needed to see something positive happen as they have a very difficult schedule coming up, with the Jazz coming to Washington before they embark on a six-game road trip starting out West.

When Trey Parker and Matt Stone inked a cartoonishly lucrative deal to keep making South Park for Paramount through 2027, they didn’t set themselves an easy task. They didn’t only promise new episodes; they agreed to do a whopping 14 movies exclusive to the company’s newish streamer. The first one dropped over Thanksgiving, ending on a cliffhanger. But fans won’t have to wait much longer to see how it turned out.

As per Deadline, the follow-up to the special known as Post Covid — entitled, naturally, Post Covid: Covid Returns — was due some time in December. If you thought it wouldn’t be released till Christmas, you were wrong. It’s coming out a bit sooner than that, on Thursday, December 16.

South Park Studios went on hiatus at the start of the pandemic, making no new episodes, save a pair of specials, which, of course, dealt with the once-in-a-century public health crisis that continues to upend our world. Post Covid jumped 40 years into the future, revealing that our perpetual elementary students because, in some cases, angry, bitter middle-aged men. The most successful of the group was either Kenny, who became a brilliant scientist but who appears to be dead. Or maybe it’s Cartman, who inexplicably went from a raving anti-Semite to a godly rabbi, to the shock of many.

Here’s how Paramount+ describes Covid Returns: “If Stan, Kyle and Cartman could just work together, they could go back in time to make sure Covid never happened and save Kenny’s life. In South Park: Post Covid: Covid Returns, traveling back to the past seems to be the easy answer until they meet Victor Chaos.”

Will the world of South Park wind up living in a world that nipped COVID in the bud at birth? Is Cartman actually, as Kyle suggests, faking being a reverent Jew to “f*ck” with him? Find out on December 16 on Paramount+.

(Via Deadline)

Wizkid and Tems have been riding the success of their hit record “Essence” for more than a year now. The song, which appears on the former’s album Made In Lagos, was released in late 2020 and since then, the duo has pushed the song to heights that few afrobeats records have reached before. In a matter of months, “Essence” became the first Nigerian song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. It would enter the top ten of the chart thanks to a remix from Justin Bieber, which helped to boost the song’s popularity. Now, the two have brought their talents to late-night TV.

The pair stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to dazzle with the latest performance of their breakout song. Per usual, they were excellently dressed for the performance, which took place on a big concert stage draped in blue and purple lighting.

Their latest rendition of the track comes after last week, when Wizkid invited Tems to take the stage with him at London’s O2 arena in front of a massive crowd.

Their The Tonight Show performance comes after Wizkid and Tems signed on to perform at Portugal’s Afronation festival next summer. They’ll be joined by Burna Boy, Megan Thee Stallion, Ckay, Koffee, Rema, Tekno, and more.

You can watch Wizkid and Tems perform “Essence” above.

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

It’s been two months since Dave Chappelle released The Closer, and the fallout over some of its content — namely, his undying penchant for trans jokes — can still be felt. The special, his latest (and perhaps last) for Netflix, has been condemned since it dropped. It inspired a walkout from the streamer’s trans employees. It led to one of them being suspended, unsuspended, then resigning. Chappelle bragged about loving the controversy, and had no qualms about trashing a bunch of high schoolers when they called him out.

Now he’s received another, very passionate deconstruction of exactly why people worry that Chappelle’s trans jokes are so dangerous. It comes from Wil Wheaton, alum of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Stand by Me. The actor and writer is no stranger to sharing heartwarming and/or heartbreaking things over social media. When he opened up about the Chappelle controversy, it was a combination of heartbreaking and heartwarming.

On Facebook, Wheaton posted a lengthy entry about why he feels “strongly” about “people like Chapelle making transphobic comments that are passed off as jokes.” To do so, he shared a story from when he was 16. He played hockey every night at a local rink and one night he befriended a bunch of fellow players. In the locker room, the young, not terribly enlightened (yet still sensitive) Wheaton unthinkingly made a homophobic joke — not realizing that everyone around him was gay.

To his credit, Wheaton quickly realized the error of his ways:

I was so embarrassed and horrified. I realized I had basically said the N word, in context, and I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to apologize, I wanted to beg forgiveness.

The hockey players attempted to set him right, but Wheaton fumbled that attempt, trying to lie his way out of it, to save his “pride and ignorance.” In the end, the hockey players didn’t say another word to him and he hurried and left without saying a word, ashamed of himself then, ashamed of himself now.

One reason Wheaton made that homophobic joke? Because he’d learned it by watching comedy specials. In particular, he learned it from Eddie Murphy Delirious, the comic and actor’s legendary, barnburning — and also incredibly homophobic — HBO comedy special from 1983. Today, Wheaton acknowledges that the show’s gay jokes are “just f*cking appalling and inexcusable.” But he didn’t think that when he was young and impressionable:

Young Wil, who watched this with his suburban white upper middle class friends, in his privileged bubble, thought it was the funniest, edgiest, dirtiest thing he’d ever heard. It KILLED him. And all of it was dehumanizing to gay men. All of it was cruel. All of it was bigoted. All of it was punching down. And I didn’t know any better. I accepted the framing, I developed a view of gay men as predatory, somehow less than straight men, absolutely worthy of mockery and contempt. Always good for a joke, though.

Let me put this another way: A comedian who I thought was one of the funniest people on the planet totally normalized making a mockery of gay people, and because I was a privileged white kid, raised by privileged white parents, there was nobody around me to challenge that perception. For much of my teen years, I was embarrassingly homophobic, and it all started with that comedy special.

Wheaton sees much the same thing happening with Chappelle’s trans jokes:

So this stuff that Chapelle did? That all these Cishet white men are so keen to defend? I believe them when they say that it’s not a big deal. Because it’s not a big deal TO CISHET WHITE DUDES. But for a transgender person, those “jokes” normalize hateful, ignorant, bigoted behavior towards them. Those “jokes” contribute to a world where transgender people are constantly under threat of violence, because transgender people have been safely, acceptably, dehumanized.

It’s a beautiful post, which you can read in full on Wheaton’s Facebook page.

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Welcome to SNX DLX, our weekly roundup of the best sneakers to hit the market. There are only three SNX DLXs left in this calendar year and I’m sorry to say that at this point we’re totally scrapping the bottom of the barrel. There are still some key sneaker releases that are worth your time, but for the most part, 2021 is done as far as dope sneaker releases go. And generally, the big sneaker brands don’t come running out the gate as soon as the calendar switches years so if your wallet has been starved due to the holiday season, good news! We’re all going to get a bit of a break for about a month.

Unless of course, you’re a big Jordan, Yeezy, or Nike Dunk fan… Oh, that’s everybody? You don’t say. Even though the big release season is over this week still brings some pretty fresh pairs, like the Cool Grey Jordan 11, a new Casablanca New Balance collaboration, and the latest Yeezys. We’ve got all that and more in this week’s SNX, so let’s dive in!

Nike Women’s Dunk Low Golden Gals

If you’re wondering why Nike is dropping a handful of sneakers this week under this Golden Gals name, we couldn’t tell you. I have no idea why Nike is going with this name, it isn’t, unfortunately, a tie-in with the ‘80s sitcom Golden Girls, even if I think Betty White could totally rock these kicks.

The Golden Gals series is inspired by today’s makeup trends, according to Nike. Whatever, I’m into it, they look like the perfect pair of Dunks to rock if you’re attending a casual New Year’s Eve party. They sparkle without being too flashy.

The Nike Women’s Dunk Low Golden Gals is set to drop on December 9th for a retail price of $110. Pick up a pair via the Nike SNKRS app.

Nike Women’s Air Max 97 Golden Gals

I didn’t even bring up the weirdest thing about our previous entry, the Golden Gals Dunk. The fact that it’s not gold. See what I mean about these weird naming conventions? Why Didn’t Nike just call it “The Sparkle Collection” or something? Whatever, if we sit here and think about why Nike does any of the weird things they do we’ll be here all day.

If you’re missing the gold, Nike delivered with this Golden Gals version of the Air Max 97. Featuring reflective gold flake leather, this Air Max 97 is the most glamorous iteration of the sneaker to date. It combines the dad-shoe design of the Air Max 97 with a bit of glitz and glamour. We’re here for it.

The Women’s Air Max 97 Golden Gals is set to drop on December 9th for a retail price of $180. Pick up a pair via the Nike SNKRS app.

Sacai x KAWS Blazer Low Purple Dusk

Famed designer Chitose Abe has been hard at work this year dropping a handful of waffle-style kicks and Abe’s Sacai is back this week with a new linkup between the brand, Nike, and the Brooklyn artist KAWS.

Featuring the typical waffle design Abe is known for, this Purple Dusk Blazer uses contrasting hues reminiscent of KAWS URGE art series, over one of Nike’s most recognizable sneaker silhouettes. The result feels like a true balance between Abe, KAWS, and Nike itself.

The Sacai x KAWS Blazer Low Purple Dusk is set to drop on December 10th for a retail price of $140. Pick up a pair via the Nike SNKRS app.

Yeezy 700 V3 Copper Fade

Ye is the master of making sneakers that resemble the Earth — yes, that’s a weird statement, and it’s not like Kanye’s signature aesthetic is facing any competition, but seriously, how else can we describe the new Copper Fade Yeezy 700 other than saying it looks straight-up molten? Molten… but dope.

It looks less like a sneaker and more like hot lava in the midst of hardening. You can feel any way you want about Yeezys, but you have to admit, at least Kanye is doing something different than anyone else in the modern footwear space.

The Yeezy 700 V3 Copper Fade is set to drop on December 10th for a retail price of $200. Pick up a pair at Adidas, Yeezy Supply, or via aftermarket sites like GOAT.

Air Jordan 11 Cool Grey

The Jordan 11 is getting a winter makeover for the season. Featuring a Cool Grey colorway, this makeup of the Jordan 11 was one of the sneaker’s OG colorways and it’s been refreshed to mark the sneaker’s 20th anniversary.

The Cool Grey 11 features a premium patent and nubuck leather upper over an icy outsole.

The Air Jordan 11 Cool Grey is set to drop on December 11th for a retail price of $225. Pick up a pair via the Nike SNKRS app or aftermarket sites like GOAT or Flight Club.

New Balance Casablanca XC-72

New Balance and Casablanca have consistently produced some of the best sneaker collaborations the New Balance brand has delivered. This week’s XC-72 collaboration is by far my least favorite collaboration the pair have ever done, but it’s still a release that’s worth your time.

The XC-72 is one of New Balances’ stranger silhouettes, it features a low-cut profile with a hard to ignore outsole that extends into the sneaker’s toe box and features shifting traction patterns. Casablanca keeps things simple by dressing the sneaker in varying shades of white with green and yellow accents on the vintage-inspired tongue with gold-tipped laces.

The Casablanca New Balance XC-72 is set to drop on December 11th for a retail price of $149.99. Pick up a pair via the New Balance website.

We’re a nation hopelessly divided, as we’re constantly reminded. Both sides hate the other. Both sides blame the other for why they hate the other. But a new report by Axios reveals that young people on one side, the left, is a lot less willing to break bread — or, for that matter, go on dates — with the other. And now the party whose leaders don’t understand how cancer works or keeps telling them to put themselves in harm’s way is furious that people they regularly demonize, or worse, don’t want to make out with them.

The poll was conducted exclusively with college students, so it’s not necessarily indicative of Democrats or Republicans of all ages. Still, it seems to confirm what two decades of culture wars — and just straight-up wars, launched primarily by Republicans — has done to those who’ve spent their whole lives living with it.

The numbers show that, while the number of young Republicans who would fraternize with the other side is not exactly high, it’s astronomical compared to how young Democrats feel about them:

5% of Republicans said they wouldn’t be friends with someone from the opposite party, compared to 37% of Democrats.

71% of Democrats wouldn’t go on a date with someone with opposing views, versus 31% of Republicans.

30% of Democrats — and 7% of Republicans — wouldn’t work for someone who voted differently from them.

But there’s more! Women appear to feel more strongly about this than men. And no wonder: Republicans have spent the last 20 years trying curtail women’s rights, most recently by naming enough far-right justices to the Supreme Court that Roe v. Wade is very likely to be overturned after almost four decades.

The report enraged one side more than other, which is to say it pissed off Republicans, who felt it confirmed that Democrats aren’t quite the party of tolerance for not wanting to hang with people who keep voting for a guy who doesn’t like beer.

Others lamented the end of an era that may have definitively ended, after a long, slow decline, sometime around 2016.

Others said the quiet part loud, which is that they were most worried about losing dates with people they strongly dislike.

To those on the left, however, it made total sense.

Others were shocked that young Republicans didn’t feel the same way about Democrats.

Then again, young Republicans always have that hip dude who drops videos in which he looks like crap.

(Via Axios)