Month: May 2022

On the heel of a surprising run to the Western Conference Finals, reports are already swirling about how the Dallas Mavericks may look to take the next step in their title hopes. With changes potentially coming for the Utah Jazz after another early playoff exit, there’s speculation about Rudy Gobert’s future. Dallas, given its limited big man depth, appears a logical suitor.

However, according to Marc Stein, the Mavericks could have their sights set on a different type of All-Star in Zach LaVine, who will be a free agent this summer.

“Sources nonetheless maintain that one option already being weighed by team brass is the prospect of joining the sign-and-trade bidding for the Chicago Bulls’ Zach LaVine,” Stein wrote in his latest newsletter. He went onto address another rumor we often hear regarding Dallas this offseason, saying that “Despite long-running speculation that the Mavericks hope to trade for Rudy Gobert, I’m told that an all-out pursuit of Utah’s All-Star center and defensive anchor is unlikely.

“As much as (Mavericks owner Mark) Cuban and GM Nico Harrison have openly acknowledged a pressing need to bolster their rim protection and rebounding, Dallas sees LaVine as the sort of player who could fill other crucial needs with his ability to both play off Dončić as a long-range shooter and likewise collapse defenses by slashing to the basket to score.”

Either option would greatly enhance this Dallas team. LaVine’s on- and off-ball duality offensively would fit exceptionally well alongside Doncic. Jalen Brunson and Spencer Dinwiddie thrived as secondary creators this season, but LaVine, a two-time All-Star, is a substantial upgrade.

Gobert, meanwhile, would provide valuable rim protection defensively and his lob threat is a welcomed pick-and-roll complement for Doncic. How, if at all, the Mavericks maneuver landing one of these All-Stars will be fascinating in what surely seems like a busy offseason ahead for them.

With the sudden and tragic death of drummer Taylor Hawkins this past March, the Foo Fighters were left with a huge hole in their very existence. The notoriously physical drummer was an integral part of the band’s iconic sound and the band led by Dave Grohl might never be the same. Within a week of Hawkins’ passing, Foo Fighters announced that they were canceling all of their 2022 tour stops.

“It is with great sadness that Foo Fighters confirm the cancellation of all upcoming tour dates in light of the staggering loss of our brother Taylor Hawkins,” a statement from the band read. “We’re sorry for and share in the disappointment that we won’t be seeing one another as planned. Instead, let’s take this time to grieve, to heal, to pull our loved ones close, and to appreciate all the music and memories we’ve made together.”

The difficult, but very understandable decision left a lot of gaps atop the slew of music festivals that the Foo Fighters were set to headline. Nine Inch Nails stepped in their place for both Boston Calling and Daytona Beach’s Welcome To Rockville fests. Now, Muse has been announced as the replacement for Sacramento’s Aftershock Festival. “It’s been too long and we can’t wait to come back to Northern California and headline AFTERSHOCK on Sunday, October 9th in Sacramento,” Muse singer Matt Bellamy said in a tweet.

The British arena rock band will take over Aftershock’s closing slot as Sunday’s headliner. The hard rock-focused festival will also include sets from Slipknot, Rob Zombie, My Chemical Romance, Kiss, Lamb of God and others.

You know, it’s almost a shame that Cardi Tries, the show in which rapper Cardi B takes on a variety of alternative occupations for a day, is only available on Facebook Watch and Messenger. It’s an absolute delight, quite possibly the funniest show in production these days, and more people need to see it. It’s the perfect vehicle for Cardi’s outsized yet humble personality, and she’s quite a hoot as she attempts tasks such as cooking at a restaurant, officiating a wedding, and giving her husband Offset a tattoo.

The show’s latest episode brings in a special guest, as well: Cardi’s “WAP” collaborator Megan Thee Stallion, who’s become a charming all-around entertainer in her own right. The dynamic duo teams up to face their next challenge: Learning to play football with the help of the Los Angeles Chargers. Watching Cardi B tackle a blocking dummy twice her size in what look like youth size pads that are still too large is probably more entertaining than anything we’ll see come this preseason, while of course, Megan shows off her iron knees with a signature touchdown dance that won’t likely be replicated on the field anytime soon.

You can see the full episode below.

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

School should feel like a safe space. But after the tragic news of yet another mass shooting, many children are scared to death. As a parent or a teacher, it can be an arduous task helping young minds to unpack such unthinkable monstrosities. Especially when, in all honesty, the adults are also terrified.

Katelyn Campbell, a clinical psychologist in South Carolina, worked with elementary school children in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting. She recently shared a simple idea that helped then, in hopes that it might help now.

The psychologist tweeted, “We had our kids draw pictures of scenery that made them feel calm—we then hung them up around the school—to make the ‘other kids who were scared’ have something calm to look at.”

“Kids, like adults, want to feel helpful when they feel helpless,” she continued, saying that drawing gave them something useful to do.

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It also took some pressure off to focus on making “other kids” feel better. Campbell noted that even if they are scared, it’s “easier to talk about the ‘other kids.’”

Rather than use the word “safe,” which can “be a loaded concept for kids who never feel safe,” Campbell used “calm,” and “peaceful,” which really resonated with the students.

But really, it gave the kids something to “do” that felt useful. Kids, like adults, want to feel helpful when they feel helpless. And they loved the idea that they could help “other kids” feel better (they were the scared ones, but it’s easier to talk about the “other kids”)

— Dr. K8 PsyD (@psych_k8) May 25, 2022

Pretty soon, the school was filled with “rainbows, beaches, pretty flowers, playgrounds, and happy scenery,” which stayed up for weeks.

“I’m pretty sure it helped the adults too,” she quipped.

Art therapy can be a valuable tool for any age, but it can be particularly beneficial for children who (hopefully) have not had the complex, hard-to-articulate emotions that come as a result of trauma. As psychologist Cathy Malchiodi explains in her book “The Art Therapy Sourcebook,” “the language of visual art—colors, shapes, lines, and images—speak to us in ways that words cannot.”

Incorporating a sense of helping others and focusing on “calm” images was another brilliant layer Campbell added onto her exercise, and she soon received a flood of support for her suggestion. Overall, people were relieved and inspired.

“Beautiful use of a simple mindfulness practice to foster peace, calm, and altruism-all important in times of crisis. Thanks for sharing,” one person wrote.

“Honestly the idea made me feel like a breath of fresh air. Such a sweet and positive thing, so simple but effective,” wrote another.

The massacre at Robb Elementary in Ulvade, Texas, is the second-deadliest elementary school shooting in the United States, following Sandy Hook in 2012. There’s no way around these statistics. It’s nauseating and horrific. I feel for the parents and teachers trying to fight for change, protect their children and keep up morale all at the same time. Happy doodles might seem trivial during such a dark period for humanity, but as Campbell can attest, they do make a difference.

For fans of Bay Area rap legend E-40, it was only a matter of time before the beast with the mouthpiece turned “Goon with a Spoon” into a brand. It’s a phrase E-40 has spit in songs before like “I Get Down,” and “Back in Business,” the latter of which featured this incredible bar “A goon with the spoon, wrist game sick. Paid the neighborhood chef to teach a n*gga how to whip, a fixture how to mix, counterclockwise twisting’ it, drop it off, deliver it.”

That line, it turns out, is actually pretty literal. E-40 is no stranger to the kitchen, he taught himself to cook from an early age while his mom balanced three jobs and even landed a position at a high-end restaurant where he picked up some culinary skills. So when last year we heard that E-40, fully in the elder mogul phase of his career, would be launching a food brand called Goon With The Spoon, we knew it was going to be a good fit.

The brand launched with sausages and burritos under its name, but now E-40, like Chance the Rapper and Selena Gomez, is taking on the world of ice cream offering six flavors that were apparently four years in the making and are produced sustainability using solar power and dairy from non-growth hormone-treated cows.

Good practices aside, how does this stuff taste? Is this just another celebrity-branded cash grab or does E-40 truly know his shit? We’re about to find out in our review and ranking of all six Goon With The Spoon flavors.

Vanilla Bean

Good news, all of the Goon With The Spoon flavors are solid. Each flavor is creamy, flavorful, and can hold its own against any of the top-shelf brands you’ll find at the grocery store. This includes this Vanilla Bean flavor but we have to rank it last because in the Goon With The Spoon lineup, this is the obvious weakest link.

It’s just not very imaginative, while E-40 didn’t exactly go the Baskin Robbins route here and give us any weird stunt flavors, all of the flavors bring something at the very least interesting to the table. But not vanilla bean, this is just standard vanilla ice cream.

It’s rich, creamy, and a bit floral, with speckles of vanilla throughout the white cream base.

The Bottom Line:

It’s good but totally inessential. Not many actual beans to be seen, either.

Strawberry

Bits of strawberry are strewn throughout in this fresh berry-forward flavor. It’s not candy sweet like some strawberry ice creams, instead, this focuses on creamier flavors, giving it a strawberry milkshake vibe that is just begging to be blended.

Every bite features small granules of actual strawberry, in addition to chunks of more substantial berries, providing some nice texture to each spoonful.

The Bottom Line:

Refreshing, textural, a solid 5/5 strawberry ice cream.

Salted Caramel

I love this flavor! The base this flavor is built upon here is vanilla, but unlike the vanilla bean flavor, this has interesting caramelized butterscotch notes, with hints of brown sugar, and ribbons of sweet caramel throughout. It’s one of my favorites in the whole line, so why is it chilling in the middle of the list and not in the top three? Because it feels like it’s not delivering on its promise.

The flavor here is “Salted Caramel,” and I’m just not even getting the slightest hint of salt here. I thought maybe the extra salt was in the caramel itself so I spooned out a ribbon and I’m not getting a single trace of salt. As much as I like this flavor, if what you’re after is that salty-sweet flavor profile, this doesn’t have that.

The Bottom Line:

Delicious, but perhaps “Caramel” or even “Butterscotch” is a more apt name than “Salted Caramel.”

Mint Chocolate Chip

There are pretty much two ways to do mint chocolate chip ice cream. You can infuse a minty and creamy ice cream base with shavings of dark chocolate, allowing for a balanced ratio of fresh mint flavor and chocolate with every spoonful, or you can throw large chunks of chocolate throughout the base, allowing each bite to have a different ratio of mint and dark chocolate flavors.

Goon With The Spoon took the latter approach, and while I like consistency, I actually appreciate the lack of chocolate here — it allows this very refreshing mint base to shine. I found myself savoring each spoonful of this flavor, allowing the ice cream to melt in my mouth until I was left with hard shards of rich dark chocolate that perfectly matched the experience of eating an Andes Mint.

The Bottom Line:

An Andes Mint in ice cream form. Refreshing mint dominates each spoonful followed by a rich dark chocolate finish.

Bourbon Vanilla

When I complained that Goon With The Spoon’s Vanilla Bean flavor was unimaginative, it was because I expected a twist on the classic flavor more in line with this delicious Bourbon Vanilla. This flavor has whispers of oaky bourbon and notes of vanilla that when combined taste like a very rich and luxurious banana ice cream. That might sound like a shock but there is a noticeable sweet banana quality to this with top notes of honey.

This would be my go-to flavor if I were making a banana split, chocolate sauce, crushed nuts, and some whipped cream would give this flavor an even more luxurious gourmet quality.

The Bottom Line:

Rich, creamy, comforting, a slightly tropical with banana and honey notes over a sweet vanilla and bourbon base.

Cookie Dough

In general, I’m not the biggest fan of Cookie Dough ice cream. I love chocolate chip ice cream, and I love cookie dough, but something about the union of the two just fails to deliver to my expectations. That is, until I had Goon With The Spoon.

Generally, Cookie Dough ice cream is made with a vanilla base peppered with chocolate chips and the occasional ball of delicious cookie dough. But in most cases, each of those ingredients is bottom of the barrel. It’s never Vanilla Bean or French Vanilla, it’s never the same chocolate chips found in actual chocolate chip ice cream, so you pretty much eat it as a socially acceptable delivery device for cookie dough. That’s not the case for this Goon With The Spoon Flavor.

It mixes up the formula by providing tiny bites of chocolate cookie dough throughout a creamy base, giving you what you want — cookie dough in every bite — over a vanilla cream base. The use of chocolate cookie dough over the usual chocolate chip dough infuses richer chocolate notes into this flavor and manages to deliver the best of both cookie dough ice cream and cookies and cream, making this a sort of hybrid flavor that is so good we’re surprised it isn’t more common.

The Bottom Line:

A cookie dough ice cream that actually delivers on the cookie dough.

Shop Goon With The Spoon products here.

I don’t know, guys. I’m all for late season twists, but this latest episode of Top Chef Houston felt like a nasty curve with a 3-2 count. In the bottom of the 9th. With the bases loaded. And drug dealers have kidnapped YOUR WIFE! Sorry, halfway through that I realized I was bad at baseball metaphors.

On a serious note, it’s taken me a while to start writing this week’s rankings, simply because I was just that bummed out. I’ve had favorite contestants go home before (shout outs to Chris Scott, Isaac Toups, Fati) but never in such a way that felt quite this unfair. Arbitrary, like an uncaring universe. Could it have even been helped? Are we all just doomed to a life of sadness? This episode made me want to smoke French cigarettes and stare at the sea.

Fine, I’ll stop wallowing and finish this. So, as teased in the previous episode, this episode took the chefs to that world famous UNESCO city of gastronomy, Tucson, Arizona, where the beer flows like wine.

First stop on their sojourn in glorious Tucson (Oh Tuscon, my Tuscon!) was the El Charro cafe, the oldest, continuously operating Mexican restaurant in the United States. As if that wasn’t cool enough, it’s also the place that invented the chimichanga. They invented it? The chimichanga?! Incredible!

Which, according to legend, happened when someone accidentally dropped an entire burrito in the deep fryer. Mmm, “accidentally,” sure. C’mon, man, this is America, we don’t need “accidents” to invent deep-fried shit, it’s just what we do.

It was there that the four remaining chefs learned all about carne seca, a Mexican-style beef jerky that the El Charro dries by basically hanging it from a giant clothesline above the restaurant like a pair of sneakers. I dunno, man, I think if I wanted to get a look at some dry roast beef I’d have my editor’s mom pull down her underpants (okay last mom joke this week, I swear).

PADMA OUTFIT WATCH

Carne seca, more like carne sexy, am I right? Yes, “pockets and belts” was definitely the dominant theme with Padma’s designer this season. I’m beginning to think this dude (or lady) just made 30 different motorcycle jackets out of different materials. “HERE’S A MOTORCYCLE JACKET MADE FROM SATIN! HERE’S A MACRAME MOTORCYCLE JACKET! THIS MOTORCYCLE JACKET I MADE OUT OF OLD TOENAIL CLIPPINGS!!”

Hey, man, are you okay?

Anyway, the quickfire challenge (this season’s last) challenged the chefs to incorporate El Charro’s world famous carne seca into a dish highlighting the carne seca. Maybe it should’ve been a bad omen when Damarr reacted to the carne seca like a dog when you rub peanut butter on its gums. He chewed that for a very long time. He did not seem to be having a good time.

After that, it was off to the Sonoran Desert (the most biodiverse desert on Earth!) to bone up on the local fruits, spices, and herbs and stuff. The chefs’ challenge would be to make two dishes; one salty, one sweet; highlighting the local cactus and local pepper — the chiltepine, the only chili pepper native to North America.

Have we ever had such a late-season challenge that was such a gift to one contestant in particular? I know I should probably be the one to answer that question, seeing as how I’ve been writing weekly recaps of this show for like seven years now, but honestly I mostly summon all my strength for a few terrible mom jokes every week and then pass out in a sweaty heap with no memory of the past two hours. Trust the process.

RESULTS

• Quickfire Challenge Top: Evelyn, Sarah*. *Winner.
• Quickfire Challenge Bottom: Buddha, Damarr.

• Elimination Challenge Winner: Evelyn.
• Eliminated: Damarr.

POWER RANKINGS

4. (-1) ((Eliminated)) Damarr Brown

AKA: Catchphrase. James Beard. Screech. Dusty. Drew Barrymahi. Chew-bacca.

Elimination Challenge Dish(es): Pork shoulder glazed in prickly pear barbecue sauce with chiltepin pikliz.

Quotable Critiques: “The pork is beautifully cooked, but there’s not a lot of chiltepine flavor.” “Damarr’s cake makes me want to go back and back and back.”

Yes, I’ve been in the tank for Damarr basically since the beginning. What can I say, he’s one of the most genuine reality show contestants I’ve ever seen. He brought sincere emotions to super corny spon-con challenges, I don’t even understand it.

Damarr maybe tried to soften the blow of his future elimination by grilling an avocado in the quickfire. C’mon, man! Just say no to cooked avocado! I think Padma was as aghast as I was — she did spend most of her teen years in California, after all. For her part, guest judge Carlotta Flores, owner of the El Charro, didn’t seem to mind and chalked Damarr’s bottom-half finish up to a lack of texture.

But it couldn’t soften the blow enough. Damarr got eliminated during a challenge in which he had to cook ingredients he’d never used before, two episodes after Last Chance Kitchen ended, for a dish that received at worst mildly positive reviews. The heartbreak! The disrespect! Tom Colicchio how could you! Un. Fucking. Believable. This world is a toilet filled with rotten turds and we’re all circling the bowl.

3. (+1) Sarah Welch

AKA: Ms. Marvel. Lula Roe. Aunt Frances. Kooky Librarian.

Elimination Challenge Dish(es): Lamb chop with chiltepine vinaigrette.

Quotable Critiques: “I think Sarah absolutely nailed this dish.” “Sarah’s dish, it’s a sticky sweet bold goodness.” “Sarah’s dessert was a little too soupy for me.”

Yes, Aunt Frances won the quickfire using ingredients she was just as unfamiliar with as Damarr. Yes, Tom said that her lamb was a worthy of being served at a three-Michelin star restaurant, and as an unabashed lamb piggy I absolutely would’ve ordered that on a menu. Yes, I’m just as biased against Sarah’s chilly, WASPy, faux-chipper Midwesternness as I am for Damarr’s low-key earnestness.

Where was I going with this? I don’t even know anymore. No matter what my brain is telling me about Sarah peaking at the perfect time and tearing through a million chefs in a row in Last Chance Kitchen, my heart is still sandbagging her. Dammit, Sarah! Couldn’t you have screwed up just a little this episode? Not even Sarah battling an uncooperative ice cream machine (classic food show cliché) and spilling half her ice cream base down her shirt could keep Damarr in the competition this week.

My tinfoil hat conspiracy theory is that Buddha was playing 10-dimensional chess when he helped Sarah use the liquid nitrogen for her ice cream, elevating a competitor he thinks he can defeat (Sarah) one he perceives as his greatest challenge (Damarr). Not really, but it’s fun to make stuff up.

2. (even) Evelyn Garcia

AKA: Cuddles.

Elimination Challenge Dish(es): Nopal relleno with shrimp purée.

Quotable Critiques: “This wasn’t just a great dish, it made me feel creatively inspired.”

Look, I like Evelyn. How could you not? But to state the obvious, a challenge involving ingredients that Evelyn was the only chef familiar with felt like a massive gift to Evelyn. To her credit, she rose to the occasion and won, against some stiff competition, and that nopal relleno did look both delicious and inspired. It may have been a familiar ingredient, but she still found a way to take it out of her comfort zone. I go back and forth about ranking Evelyn at number one. I guess the only reason I’m not is that I can’t imagine things going so easily for her twice in a row.

1. (even) Buddha Lo

AKA: Mr. International. Big Pun. Asian Ben Mendelsohn. The Salad Nazi. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Terminator. Moneyball. Big Data.

Elimination Challenge Dish(es): Mission Garden Tom Yum

Quotable Critiques: “My mouth is still warm and throbbing and glowing a little bit.”

Buddha unlocked his “Vacation Mode Buddha” skin this week:

Nothing says “just here for the vibes” like visible nipples. I like to think Buddha just cut the corks off one of these hats:

Jokes aside, it’s a tough, some might say controversial, nay, BRAVE decision ranking Buddha at number one. But for all his goofy Australianness, Buddha just seems like a Top Chef assassin designed for this exact purpose.

Buddha said he’d been “studying up” on indigenous and Mexican cuisine for this challenge (he always trusts the data) but he also noted that this study didn’t include actually working with any of the ingredients. In the quickfire, Buddha decided to make a “tostader,” and not just a regular tostader like anyone could, but an upside-down tostader. In Australia, the tostaders circle counter-clockwise.

That actually sounded like a pretty good idea (is Taco Bell’s Mexican Pizza just a form of upside-down tostada? Discuss.) but its conceptual genius was undermined by its execution. For all his genius, Buddha apparently couldn’t figure out how to fry a tortilla at the proper temperature and ended up having to double fry, ending up with a greasy tostada shell. “NAAAURRR! This tostader belongs in the dunny, mate.”

For the elimination challenge, Buddha said he was going to make a tom yum inspired by his dead dad and I thought he was done for. Aside from his marry me pasta, Buddha, unlike virtually every other Top Chef contestant, is usually at his worst when he does heartfelt family recipes with a story. This time it did feel like he was learning, because although he did choose a heartfelt family dish, he prepared his soup Buddha-style, with meticulously carved decorative ingredients and insanely labor-intensive dumplings inside. He didn’t win but he fared okay.

This competition is shaping up as a pick-em between perennial favorite Buddha, whose food almost always looks catalog ready, and regional advantage-haver Evelyn and even streaking Sarah. I guess I’m seeding Buddha at number one, partly out of inertia and partly because he just seems like he knows how to play this game the best.

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Read the rest of our Top Chef Power Rankings here. Vince Mancini is on Twitter.

The Golden State Warriors just handled business in the Western Conference Finals and sent the Dallas Mavericks packing with a 4-1 series win. Now the Warriors are heading back to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2019 and will be a likely favorite against either the Boston Celtics or The Miami Heat — especially if the hip-hop gods work their magic with the Dubs again, because, are you ready for this? In the “Woah… that’s crazy!” department, every Kendrick Lamar album drop since 2015 has also been accompanied by a Golden State Warriors NBA Championship.

That’s right: When Kendrick dropped To Pimp A Butterfly in 2015, the Warriors beat the Cleveland Cavaliers for the team’s first title since 1975. Then when DAMN. dropped in 2017, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and company beat the Cavs again in the Finals. Finally, when Kendrick was at the helm of the excellent Black Panther Soundtrack in 2018, the Warriors cemented their dynasty with a third title, against the Cavs again, leaving LeBron James in the dust. Maybe if Kendrick hadn’t started taking a very long break from putting out albums, the Warriors wouldn’t have dropped the 2019 Finals to the Toronto Raptors?

(The exception to this rule is Untitled Unmastered, which was released in 2016, when the Warriors lost to the Cavs in seven games. However, Untitled Unmastered isn’t usually considered a proper studio album, since it’s made up of demos from the To Pimp A Butterfly era. So, objection overruled.)

So does this year’s release of Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers signify that another Warriors title is on the horizon? We’ll find out just how powerful this Kendrick/Warriors synergy is within the next two weeks. And somehow, even with the Raptors not making it anywhere close to the Finals this season, Drake still finds himself as a big winner here no matter what.

Angel Olsen delivered a double dosage of positivity today, releasing her take on Bob Dylan’s “One Too Many Mornings” and dedicated all proceeds made from the song to the gun-control nonprofit Everytown For Gun Safety.

Olsen heavily emotes throughout her spin on the record, adding a fresh new sound while respecting its legacy. The cover will appear on the soundtrack Apple TV+’s original series Shining Girls starring Elisabeth Moss, who also serves as an executive producer for the show. The track and soundtrack are both produced by Claudia Sarne.

This cover comes ahead of Angel Olsen’s forthcoming sixth studio album Big Time, led by the singles “All The Good Times,” the title track “Big Time,” and “Through The Fires.” Olsen’s new album will also be accompanied by a 28-minute film of the same name. Olsen is no stranger to covers, as Big Time will follow her 2021 covers EP Aisles. Heck, she covered Harry Styles’ “Boyfriends” before it was even released. The singer is currently preparing for a tour this summer alongside Sharon Van Etten and Julien Baker.

Check out Olsen’s cover of Dylan’s “One Too Many Mornings” above.

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

Despite attempts to portray himself as a free-thinking independent, Joe Rogan has routinely sided with conservatives on a wide variety of issues from anti-vaccination views to decrying “wokeness.” So it really shouldn’t come as a total surprise that Rogan is fully against any sort of gun control in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting. You can practically set your watch to it, which is oddly, very close to the metaphor Rogan reaches for in decrying the government restricting gun ownership.

“What about people that are just gun enthusiasts?” Rogan wondered aloud while discussing the push for stricter gun laws. “There’s people that love handguns the way some people love watches. There’s people that are enthusiasts of, you know, gun engineering.”

Right, why should people who are in awe of how a hammer and pin make a bullet go “pew pew” have to suffer just because lots of people die when it happens? It’s a slippery slope, argues one of America’s most popular podcasters with an audience of millions. Via Mediaite:

“There’s so many guns, there’s more guns than there are people. I don’t think it’s a gun situation,” Rogan added. “I don’t think it’s wise to take the guns away from the people and leave all the power to the government.”

“The situation is should you be able to own a gun to defend yourself if you’re a law-abiding citizen and you know that the police are horribly understaffed and you know, that crime and violence are real things?” Rogan asked. “What should we do? Should we red flag, any kid who writes an awful poem or draw something f*cked up on his notebook?”

Rogan and his guest then proceeded to opine that red flag laws are “pushing surveillance” with the podcast host ultimately deciding that everyone needs to stop assuming these problems have a “limited amount of variables.” Like, again, robbing gun enthusiasts of their purely engineering-based fun. Clearly, that would be the real crime here. (It’s not.)

(Via Mediaite)

If you’ve watched Breaking Bad, you know what happens to Gus Fring. If you haven’t watched Breaking Bad and you’re reading a post about Better Call Saul, what are you doing, you fool? Watch Breaking Bad. It’s a holiday weekend. You have the time.

Among the countless parallels between the two series, one of the biggest is Gus Fring’s adversaries: Walter White on Breaking Bad and Lalo Salamanca on Saul.

Breaking Bad writer and Saul co-creator Peter Gould was asked by Variety whether Lalo is a “more worthy opponent” to Gus than Walt, or do we just see more of what’s cooking (no pun intended) for the Chicken Man on Saul. “Well, I think Walter White’s great advantage is that Gustavo Fring underestimates him. And I don’t think Gus can truly see what he’s dealing with in Walter White. The other side of it is that Gus always wants the best, and Walter White is the best. So he’s in kind of a pickle there,” he replied.

Meanwhile on Saul, Gus “understands what he’s dealing with much better with Lalo. But on the other hand, when Fring is dealing with Walt, we’re in the future, and Gus is a slightly different guy. He’s conquered a lot of enemies at that point.”

Gould is, to a degree, bipartisan when it comes to choosing Walt vs. Lalo, but it sounds like he’s leaning towards Walt being the more formidable opponent, which… yeah. But would Walt ever hang out in the sewer to get revenge? Nope, only the crawl space.

(Via Variety)