Month: June 2022

Alex Morgan has kicked off the 2022 National Women’s Soccer League campaign in remarkable fashion for her new team, the San Diego Wave, leading the league with nine goals in as many games. Following an injury-plagued campaign with the Orlando Pride last year – which marked the third consecutive season in which Orlando failed to qualify for the playoffs – Morgan is having her best start yet, already matching her best NWSL single-season goal tally in 2017.

The 5’7 forward is a veteran of the NWSL, having been one of the original players to join the league in 2013 after Women’s Professional Soccer folded. She’d won club titles with the Western New York Flash and Portland Thorns FC before joining Orlando, with overseas stops at French team Lyon – where she won the European treble – and FA Women’s Super League side Tottenham Hotspur. But after roughly six years in Orlando – during which the team never quite came together enough to secure silverware – she decided it was the right time for a change.

After returning home to California in December, Morgan – who grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles – quickly became the face of the new Wave organization, which currently sits in first place in the NWSL. The establishment of the San Diego side, along with fellow expansion team Angel City FC, in California marked the first time that the Golden State had top-flight professional women’s soccer clubs since Morgan began her professional playing career in 2011. Playing for the Wave means Morgan, who has a two-year-old daughter, can be closer to her family after spending nearly a decade moving around the country and globe.

“I didn’t know if I would ever get that opportunity,” Morgan told The Equalizer in March. “A lot of us really spend some of our year playing where our team is and some of our year living where our significant other is, or our family is. So, for me, on a personal level, to be able to have both of that and be in the city of San Diego — and to make roots and call this home — is something special and something that I have not had as a professional soccer player.”

While she may be settling into a new phase of life with her family, the soon-to-be 33-year-old does not appear to be slowing down on the field. She certainly enjoys playing in front of the San Diego crowd; according to her early season numbers, six of Morgan’s nine goals this season have come at home. The left-footed forward’s stellar start to the season, including her four-goal masterpiece against Gotham FC, earned her recognition as the league’s Player of the Month for April/May. After failing to convert her penalty kick opportunities for Orlando last year, Morgan has bounced back, scoring from the spot in all four attempts so far this season. Even removing her four penalty goals, she’d still be second in the league with five goals – just one behind Portland striker Sophia Smith, who has netted two penalties this season. Morgan is also top three in the league in total shots with 25 and shots on goal with 14.

“She’s leading us on the field, she’s getting in behind, creating chances, tracking back, defending, keeping calm in big moments and overall she’s giving us complete performances which is credit to her,” San Diego Head Coach Casey Stoney said after the team’s 1-1 tie against OL Reign, which saw Morgan score her ninth goal of the season. “Her leadership is helpful especially with having a young team.”

Partly because of Morgan’s experience and veteran leadership, the Wave are unlike most expansion teams in professional sports, which tend to take a couple years to gel and get up to speed. In their first season in the highly competitive NWSL, San Diego is already leading the league and has shown strong grit – even when conceding first in games. However, while the Wave have enjoyed an impressive start to their inaugural season, they remain level on points with the Chicago Red Stars – and Portland, Angel City and Houston are not far behind – with 13 games still to go, setting the stage for a fascinating battle at the top.

This year, one of the world’s best women’s soccer players appears to have a renewed sense of purpose and fight in her. Morgan, who hasn’t played for the U.S. women’s national team since October, has made no secret of her desire to return to the national stage. One of the reasons she cited in her decision to return to Orlando following a brief stint at Tottenham was to get back into top form ahead of competing in the Tokyo Olympics with the U.S.

Morgan ultimately saw limited playing time in Tokyo and missed out on the U.S. SheBelieves Cup roster, bringing into question her future on the USWNT. In recent months, head coach Vlatko Andonovski notably began to shift his focus to the next generation, calling up many of the talented American youngsters it has in its ranks – including Mallory Pugh, Trinity Rodman, Sophia Smith and Catarina Macario – instead of older players like Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Christen Press and Tobin Heath.

But her fiery start to the 2022 NWSL campaign appears to have paid off with a spot secured on Andonovski’s 23-player squad for the upcoming CONCACAF women’s championship next month. The tournament, which will run from July 4-18 in Monterrey, Mexico, will serve as qualifying for next year’s World Cup and the 2024 Olympics, making it a pivotal competition for the U.S.

“The thing with Alex is she falls in the group with Megan Rapinoe and Becky Sauerbrunn, who are experienced players who have gone through some tough times – but some great times as well – who knows how to win and how to win under tough circumstances, how to go through adversity,” Andonovski said on Monday.

While Morgan may be approaching the twilight stage of her playing career, she appears determined to build a foundation of success at San Diego and retain a role on the national team ahead of the 2023 World Cup (which could be her last).

Those Gallagher siblings are moving on, and with The Bear, Jeremy Allen White’s making like Emmy Rossum in a very different way after the pair portrayed Shameless siblings for over a decade. Both were not easy roles, but Lip Gallagher had some tough seasons drenched in alcoholism, opening the door to some of the most heartbreaking moments of the otherwise dramedic show. Both White and Rossum are shaking off that show with Rossum taking a hard left into physical transformation-land to portray a billboard queen in Angelyne. That’s a splashy way to depart from a household-name role, but White’s leaving Lip behind in a subtler way. Don’t get me wrong, The Bear is not a subtle and calm TV show. It is, however, a lot more nuanced than portraying one of the f*cked up kids of William H. Macy’s strung-out patriarch character.

Yet as the saying goes, you can take a guy of out Chicago, but can’t take the Chicago out of… you catch my drift. The Bear does put White back into the Second City and into something vaguely resembling an underbelly. The show is, at once, a quick-and-dirty little ditty and a surprisingly layered story about how you can choose your family, rather than get stuck with a biological one that ain’t so great for one’s well-being. There’s some sweetness to be found here and there, but overall, this is a story about the tug-of-wars experienced by White’s character, Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto, a former NYC fine-dining chef who returns home following a family death. He undertakes running the family sandwich shop, where all hell breaks loose on a daily basis.

Carmy’s not used to this grind, where he’s struggling to balance the books and still attempting to express some sort of creativity through food. He’s got a loose-cannon of a cousin, portrayed by Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who’s prone to waving (dangerous) things around and brandishing megaphones in order to (paradoxically) calm down situations. This is where I say that Ebon Moss-Bachrach really is something else. He’s a versatile actor, but no matter how many varied roles (The Punisher, NOS4A2, The Dropout) he takes on, I can never initially see him onscreen without thinking of a certain “mature” scene on Girls. That’s clearly my problem, not his, because he’s pretty great in The Bear while giving us a taste of exactly why Carmy probably left home in the first place.

And you might wonder why this show called The Bear. Admittedly, I’m mildly disappointed to report that The Bear is not a reference to The Revenant, and the title doesn’t come from the name of the family restaurant, The Original Beef of Chicagoland. Let’s just say that there are some surreal interludes that explain the show’s title, but things really don’t come into full focus for those moments until the season finale. There’s plenty of some baggage involved with the fam, and Carmy’s got unfinished business, which probably will never be finished, although he will try to exorcise those demons by attempting to transform this sandwich shop into a food mecca while militantly addressing everyone as “chef,” and boy, he’s doing the work.

It’s a frenetically paced show with Carmy on an urgent crusade and pushing his motley kitchen crew to the brink while it’s apparent that his grip on reality ain’t all that. He’s got a lot of work to do on himself for, well, reasons. Fortunately for all involved, he hires a young up-and-coming talent (played by Ayo Edebir) as his sous chef who ends up being far more practical than Carmy, although they bounce off each other well. Both of them harbor pasts that could properly be described as “complicated,” and as their dynamic develops, their articulated revelations — about how they both ended up in this place — speak volumes about where their partnership could eventually take the joint.

This first season, however, is all about the urgency of running this heavily trafficked restaurant while beginning that journey in a flat-footed way. The camaraderie is part of the sheer fun of watching the kitchen crew interact, but emotions also run high on a regular basis. The show makes stunning effect out of the high-pitched, often steam-related noises at moments when tensions run high, often reaching a literal boiling point and even, at times, sparking fires. It’s a bubbling journey that occasionally falls into simmer mode during moments of Carmy’s quiet reflections, but that calmness never lasts long. The clattering noises, the chaotic visuals, and the grittiness of the work at hand all serve to bring us into the present after diving into Carmy’s mind about the past. He’s a messy guy who’s attempting to wrap his arms around an overflow and somehow keep it all contained, and it’s a fascinating train wreck to watch.

Ultimately, The Bear is a show where relationships, familial and otherwise, can stress one’s sanity to the max. Food frequently ends up being synonymous with the way that these characters communicate, although the show’s careful not to get preachy with its ultimate message to the audience. The first season’s the perfect length, as well, without feeling like it cuts corners to achieve 30-minute runtimes. Carmy, as a character, is a trip to witness, as he pushes himself to the brink in an attempt to absolve himself of (at first) a mountain of baggage. I do hope that, eventually, the guy can take a day off, but for the time being, Carmy keeps doing his thing and giving Jeremy Allen White a real opportunity to prove himself as a leading man. Although Carmy himself is no charmer, be careful because this show might just creep into you and give FX on Hulu another sleeper of a series, and another truly original one at that.

FX on Hulu’s ‘The Bear’ streams on June 22

Bill Barr has emerged as a surprising critic of Donald Trump’s election fraud claims. The former attorney general’s name and testimony has come up several times in the ongoing January 6 hearings. Not only did Barr successfully convince Ivanka Trump that her father’s “Big Lie” has no evidence — Barr has reportedly referred to the claims as “bullsh*t” — but he also slapped down Dinesh D’Souza‘s new film, 2000 Mules. According to Mediaite, that last one was a bridge too far for Steve Bannon, who apparently thinks it’s a great idea to threaten a former United States attorney general in the middle of an insurrection investigation.

“We’re not going to be blown off by somebody like Bill Barr. Bill Barr, we’re coming for you, bro!” Bannon said on the latest episode of his War Room show. “You’re sitting there lying about this. If you had any decency whatsoever … you would have reached out to Dinesh D’Souza before you smeared him.”

2000 Mules has been heavily touted by MAGA supporters for making the highly dubious assertion that cellphone metadata proves that “mules” were stuffing ballot boxes with fraudulent votes. However, Barr effortlessly shot the whole thing down during a deposition for the Jan. 6 committee. In fact, he actually laughed at the whole thing.

“The cellphone data is singularly unimpressive,” Barr testified via Insider. “Basically, if you take 2 million cellphones and figure out where they are physically in a big city like Atlanta or wherever, by definition, you’re going to find many hundreds of them that have passed by and spent time in the vicinity these boxes. And the premise that if you go by five boxes or whatever it was, that that’s a mule, is indefensible.”

(Via Mediaite)

This summer, Afropunk Festival will return to Brooklyn for the first time this year since 2019. Celebrating the diverse sound and style of the Black music community, this year’s Afropunk lineup boasts several of the best acts in music across all genres.

Taking place at Commodore Barry Park in Brooklyn, festivities kick off Saturday, September 10 and continue into Sunday, September 11. Set to take the stage this year are Burna Boy, The Roots, Isaiah Rashad, Tierra Whack, Ambre, Talia Goddess, Lucky Daye, Earl Sweatshirt, Bartees Strange, Freddie Gibbs, and more.

This year’s Afropunk festival marks Burna Boy’s first headlining set at a US festival and his first show in New York City since his sold-out Madison Square Garden concert this past April. He is expected to perform music from his upcoming album, Love, Damini.

For The Roots’ performance, the band will celebrate 30 years as a music group and will perform hits from their decade-spanning catalog.

Tickets for Afropunk go on sale Friday, June 17 at 10 a.m. EST. Citi Cardmembers will have access to an exclusive presale beginning Thursday, June 16 at 10 a.m. EST.

Check out the full line-up below.

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

Another Jane Austen novel is headed to the big screen! Well, as big a screen as you can get Netflix on. This time it’s Austen’s final novel, Persuasion, a classic tale of a family forcing you to break up with someone they don’t approve of. Of course, the leading lady Anne, played by the charming, lime-hating actress Dakota Johnson, she does NOT want to play by the rules.

Johnson and her British accent attempt (it’s decent, but she’s no Elijah Wood) stars alongside Henry Golding, Cosmo Jarvis, Richard E. Grant, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Mia McKenna-Bruce, and Ben Bailey-Smith in the adaptation, as she juggles a man from her past and her wealthy family. She throws in some deadpan stares directly into the camera for some extra pizazz. Here is the official description:

Living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy, Anne Elliot is an unconforming woman with modern sensibilities. When Frederick Wentworth—the dashing one she once sent away—crashes back into her life, Anne must choose between putting the past behind her or listening to her heart when it comes to second chances. Eight years after Anne Elliot was persuaded not to marry a dashing man of humble origins, they meet again. Will she seize her second chance at true love?

It has been a busy year for Johnson, with her comedy Cha Cha Real Smooth coming out this week, and she is gearing up to go where all actors eventually end up: the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Plus, she’s accompanying boyfriend Chris Martin around the world on Coldplay’s massive tour. How does she even have the time to hate limes?

Persuasion will hit Netflix on July 15th. Check out the trailer above.

For such an ostensibly nice guy, Logic sure does find himself embroiled in lots of beef speculation. The latest rumor circulating online involves TDE rapper Reason, who some fans believe Logic dissed on his new album, Vinyl Days. On the album’s title track, Logic raps, “Come on, homie, listen to the voice of reason / Yeah, you talk a lot of sh*t but don’t want the beef like a vegan.” This led podcaster Rory of the New Rory & Mal show to relay that the Del Amo rapper believed such lyrics were shots at him to Logic.

However, being the nice guy he is, Logic wanted to clear the air as soon as he was informed of the alleged misperception. “Hey bro @reasonTDE my boy @thisisrory said you thought I dissed you on my song Vinyl Days,” he tweeted. “If I was going to diss you, I’d diss you. I love you, you’re my brother. Let’s get ice cream together some time.”

Incidentally, Reason seemingly did diss Logic on his 2020 single “The Soul (Pt. 2),” rhyming:

N****s pronounce my name wrong, tell me that I ain’t did much
See y’all mistake my name for Logic’s, y’all got me f*cked up
How you compare a n**** that take from the culture
Versus a n**** that’s for it? This sh*t gettin’ borin’

However, in an interview with HipHopDX shortly after the song’s release, he denied that it was intended as a diss. ” I didn’t think that it was going to be perceived that way,” he explained. “If I thought it would, honestly, I wouldn’t have done it because I’m not into taking shots just to take shots at a n****. That’s not me. It’s just small wordplay, and reasoning is close to logic. That’s really as deep as I thought about it. It’s really just a lesson learned that we’re in a different day and age, and rap is different. It’s a little bit more sensitive.”

Meanwhile, Logic has seen friction with peers like Joyner Lucas, Joe Budden, and Freddie Gibbs over the years. Maybe Reason’s right; you’re damned if you and damned if you don’t in hip-hop these days. If regular wordplay can be taken as a diss, it’s no wonder Logic wanted to quit to play video games.

Tyler Perry has opened up about what went down in the aftermath of Will Smith slapping Chris Rock live on stage at the Oscars, a.k.a. The Slap. The prolific writer/director was photographed talking to Smith shortly after the incident, and there were reports of Perry praying with Smith, Denzel Washington, and others. However, Perry is setting the record straight that his involvement was not about nursing egos, but bringing the temperature down as quickly as possible. While speaking to Gayle King at the Tribeca Film Festival, Perry shot down the narrative that he was consoling Smith.

“There’s a difference between comforting and de-escalating,” Perry said via Rolling Stone. “Being friends with both of them, it’s been very difficult.”

According to Perry, he talked to both Smith and Rock in the moments after The Slap, and he told Smith he messed up big time. “I was there close up. I left early to go and check on Chris because it was wrong in no uncertain terms. I made sure I said that to Will, and when we walked over to him, he was devastated. He couldn’t believe what happened.”

While Perry doesn’t condone Smith’s violence, ultimately, he believes that it came from Smith not being able to protect his mother from his abusive father as a young boy.

“I know that feeling, I’m getting chills thinking about it,” Perry told King. “I know that feeling of being a man and thinking about the little boy. If that trauma is not dealt with right away as you get older, it will show up in the most inappropriate, most horrible time.”

(Via Rolling Stone)

Dating Donald Trump Jr. has been good for Kimberly Guilfoyle’s bank account — though all the money in the world wouldn’t be enough for me some people to cohabitate with the former president’s oft-amped up adult son/steak pitchman. In April 2020, Huff Post revealed that both Guilfoyle and Lara Trump (Eric’s wife) were being secretly paid $180,000 apiece through the Trump campaign. Presumably to continue making fools of themselves by doing things like this:

But the Trump gravy train reportedly didn’t end with that significant other salary. As Deadline reports, Guilfoyle was paid a whopping $60,000 to introduce her future father-in-law at the Stop the Steal rally on the morning of January 6, 2021 — the event which preceded the attacks on the Capitol — and people close to the disgraced former president don’t seem to be happy about it.

“I want to say two things about that,” New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman told CNN. “People in Trump world are sharing that clip, they are aghast that this is the amount of money she got for a speech to introduce her boyfriend. They couldn’t really get over — I had one former adviser say to me, essentially, these were folks raising money in small amounts from retirees telling them this was going to some legal fight that didn’t really happen, and instead Kimberly Guilfoyle is getting paid.”

California congresswoman Zoe Lofgren shared the details of this financial windfall while chatting with Jake Tapper on CNN. The Democratic lawmaker estimates that Guilfoyle’s mini-speech lasted about two-and-a-half minutes, meaning that she was paid $400 per second for her work that infamous morning. “I’m not saying it is a crime,” Lofgren told Tapper, “but it’s a grift.”

The information was part of a discussion about Trump’s fundraising in the wake of the 2020 election. The lame duck president reportedly received about $250 million in donations from supporters under the guise that the money was being used to help Trump prove there was voter fraud. (Spoiler alert: There wasn’t.) In reality, much of that money was shoveled directly into the Save America PAC, which helped pay for events like the January 6 rally — and Guilfoyle’s ridiculously high speaking fee.

“People were conned by the former president,” Lofgren said. “They were conned into believing that the election had been stolen and that they should go to the Capitol once the president asked them to. I think the average donation from those … false email requests was something like $17. These weren’t rich people. They were conned by the president. The big lie was also a big ripoff.”

(Via Deadline)

BTS are as busy as just about anybody in music, but now it looks like they have a period of dormancy coming up: The group has announced they are taking a hiatus. This is a bit of a bad-news-good-news situation, though. The aforementioned is the bad news, while the good news is that the reason for the hiatus is so BTS members can focus on their solo careers (as NME notes).

The announcement was made during the Festa dinner, which the band has annually as part of a celebration of their founding. There, RM said, “I always thought that BTS was different from other groups, but the problem with K-pop and the whole idol system is that they don’t give you time to mature. You have to keep producing music and keep doing something.”

He also said the band would use this time to consider their next direction, both as a group and individually.

Jimin also noted, “We can’t help but think of our fans no matter what. We want to be the kind of artists that are remembered by our fans. I think now we’re starting to think about what kind of artists we each want to be remembered by our fans. I think that’s why we’re going through a rough patch right now, we’re trying to find our identity and that’s an exhausting and long process.”

The gears on BTS solo endeavors started turning before this announcement: J-Hope is headlining Lollapalooza by himself, Suga teamed up with Psy on “That That,” and RM has long kept busy with material outside of the band.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average salary for a full-time worker in the United States is $53,490 per year. Kimberly Guilfoyle made more than that for a two and a half minute speech at the January 6th rally.

House Select Committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) told CNN that Guilfoyle — the loudest member of the extended Trump family (which is saying something) — was paid “a $60,000 speaking fee for introducing Donald Trump Jr., her fiancé, at the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally on the Ellipse that acted as a precursor to the US Capitol riot.”

Speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Lofgren said the panel has evidence that members of the Trump family and inner circle — including Guilfoyle — personally benefited from money that was raised based on the former President’s false election claims. The California Democrat, though, would not say whether she believed that a financial crime had been committed.

“I’m not saying it is crime, but it’s a grift,” she added. Guilfoyle really is a Trump.

Speaking on CNN on Tuesday, the New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman revealed that “people in Trump world [are] aghast that this is the amount of money she got for a speech to introduce her boyfriend. They couldn’t really get over — I had one former adviser say to me, essentially, these were folks raising money in small amounts from retirees telling them this was going to some legal fight that didn’t really happen.”

Instead, the money went to people like Guilfoyle.

In April, Guilfoyle reportedly spent nine hours speaking to the House committee investigating the failed MAGA riot; she was with Donald Trump the morning of January 6 and is considered a key witness. In her under-three minute speech, Guilfoyle said, “We will not allow the liberals and the Democrats to steal our dream or steal our elections.”

The Best. Is Yet. To Come. (If Guilfoyle Rats on Don Jr.).

(Via CNN)