Month: July 2022

Lauren Boebert’s a busy person. She’s not busy making laws. Instead she spends most of her time raising endless ruckuses: making dumb arguments, heckling Joe Biden while he’s talking about his dead son, and freaking out over bricks. It should then come as little surprise that her restaurant, the pro-gun Shooters Grill in Rifle, Colorado (seriously), seems to have taken a backseat to her political aspirations. In fact, now it’s closed.

Back in June, it was reported that her new landlord had decided not to renew Boebert lease. The news came as a shock to the lawmaker, who begged them to reconsider. But it was for naught: According to Raw Story, the establishment closed its doors on Sunday.

At least she went out thinking about her favorite disgraced former president. As of Wednesday, a chalk sign in the door could be seen, reading, “Thanks for the support. Stay Tuned #Covfefe” — a nod to one of Trump’s weirder gaffes, and which is perhaps an odd thing to celebrate.

Will Shooters Grill find a second home? Maybe, but it might not be the same gun-themed mecca. “We would just dramatically scale it back, because, obviously, we’re not in our building,” Boebert said. “It may look like a Shooters coffee shop with pastries and some easy breakfast sandwiches and merchandise.”

In the meantime, pour one out for a real one — which is to say a place where employees weren’t always paid.

(Via Raw Story)

It’s Harrison Ford‘s birthday! He’s 80 years young today, which is wild because it means that the guy with one more fictional-Nazi-fighting Indiana Jones movie heading to theaters was born only 3 years after the real-life Nazis invaded Poland.

Throughout his stellar career, Ford has made his mark by flying co-stars to set in his helicopter, being frozen into a piece of modern art, and playing men who shout out their fears over the danger they’ve put their families in. From Jack Ryan to Dr. Richard Kimble, he seems to be constantly screaming his wife and children to safety. Thus, there’s probably no better to celebrate Ford’s birthday than luxuriating in his intensity and familial loyalty. It’s almost definitely what Ford himself is doing right now.

All of the clips in this compilation display an actor at the top of his game, quietly boiling with fury, gripping shoulders like an unhinged maniac, and not leaving us to wonder how he really feels about his loved ones. If anything, his dedication to this very specific set of lines throughout his filmography is a reminder to all of us, as is a birthday itself, to hold close those who we care for, to consider our own mortality and to place within its crystalline structure the love we should be shouting at our family while we all still have the chance. Don’t wait until they’re kidnapped or murdered by a one-armed man to let them know how you feel. Happy birthday, Mr. Ford!

John Wilson makes the most humane show on television. How To With John Wilson is like a slightly awkward Humans of New York where you’re not sure why his camera is focusing on random objects until some small thread of thought coalesces into deeper meaning to demand you ask the hard questions about your own life. It’s also really funny. Not in the way that Tim Robinson screaming in a hotdog costume is funny, or even in the way that Nathan Fielder (who’s an executive producer on How To) injecting himself into people’s business is funny. It’s a quiet sort of funny, where every emotion blends together to produce something pure and good and comedic.

It’s now officially an Emmy nominee. Michael Koman, Susan Orlean, and Conner O’Malley were just nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Writing For a Non-Fiction Program for their work on the “How To Appreciate Wine” episode. Really, it could have been any episode of the outstanding, legitimately unique series.

In even better news, Wilson has confirmed that he plans to bring his camera with him to the ceremony. If he can.

“I always have my iPhone with me, and that’s what I shoot a lot of the show on anyways,” Wilson told Vulture. “So, I will be shooting it if I’m fortunate enough to be able to go. I’m not sure if this is one of those categories where they make you watch from an alley next door or something. But even if so, that would be funny to document.”

What a conundrum. I sincerely hope that Wilson and company get to go inside to watch the ceremony, but filming from the alleyway would be the most How To thing possible. That the experience will be turned into an episode is a bit of speculation, but the series is getting a third season (hooray!), so hopefully they’ll find two other elements that don’t seem to tie into the Emmys to pair the footage with and make it happen.

Drake is known for many things: record-breaking music, Instagram caption-ready lyrics, a charmingly corny disposition, and an undying love for his hometown. His loyalty to Toronto materialized over a decade ago with his longstanding event OVO Fest, where he’s brought out the likes of Kanye West, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, and many more rap titans. As with many things, the pandemic hindered his ability to keep the tradition going, but OVO Fest is officially set to return at the end of this month.

In an Instagram post, the “One Dance” artist enthusiastically announced “October World Weekend” after previously alluding to his desire to make the festival happen. He revealed that he is looking to turn OVO Fest into a full tour come 2023, but to start, he’s bringing it back to its roots on Thursday July 28, Friday July 29 and Monday August 1. The July 28 show at History will feature the “All Canadian North Stars,” which opens up the imagination to a few major acts that could appear. The July 29 installment, at Budweiser Stage, will feature Chris Brown and Lil Baby. A few days later (August 1), the show returns to Budweiser Stage with Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj and a Young Money Reunion.

After not being able to tour 2021’s Certified Lover Boy and adding the June dance album Honestly, Nevermind to the mix, this is sure to be a huge moment for Drake, his fans, and, of course, Toronto.

Tickets go on sale this Friday via Ticketmaster. Check out Drake’s official OVO Fest announcement above.

The Denver Nuggets main plan for improving next season is to have their two injured stars, Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr., back around the reigning two-time MVP Nikola Jokic, but they did make a few additions this offseason to try and build a better roster around that trio.

The biggest move was trading Monte Morris and Will Barton to Washington for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Ish Smith, which likely shortens their playoff rotation but, they hope, adds a higher end player to it in Caldwell-Pope. With so much money tied up in their three stars, the Nuggets don’t have a lot of options for adding quality talent on the free agent market — although they did add Bruce Brown on the mid-level — and must do so via trade.

As such, with Caldwell-Pope coming in on an expiring deal this season, the Nuggets moved quickly to get an extension done, tacking on two years and $30 million to his deal, with a player option for 2024-25.

It’s a raise of $1 million annually for Pope off his current $14 million deal, which provides him security for at least one additional year, while the Nuggets ensure that they won’t lose a player they gave up two rotation players for after just one season. Denver is pretty much all-in on this current roster, and they’ll be hoping to return to the conference finals stage like in 2020, the last time their stars were all healthy.

Family Feud is always bringing the laughs, whether it be ridiculous answers from contestants or theatrics from the show’s host Steve Harvey. Add celebrities to the mix and the humor only increases. This week, in a preview of Sunday’s upcoming Celebrity Family Feud episode, the chuckles came as a result of Pepa from Salt-N-Pepa tapping into her inner cougar.

Harvey prompted Pepa’s team with the question “We asked a hundred married men, ‘Your wife is a lady in the street and what animal in the sheets?’” to which the 55-year-old enthusiastically replied “A cougar!” As if that wasn’t enough, she gave her rendition of a growl while playing with her own hair. Steve Harvey was clearly entertained by the answer, saying “Run over here if you want to … Learn yourself somethin’. ” Evidently, Pepa had done her homework as her answer was the third most popular. Her partner-in-rap Salt had already given the number one answer, a tiger.

The episode also features Kid from hip-hop duo Kid-N-Play as he, along with Salt-N-Pepa, will take on the cast of Disney’s The Proud Family. Kid, real name Christopher Reid, didn’t yield the same response as Pepa when he answered “a snake” to Harvey’s question. It is left to be determined whether or not this apparent blunder will hold his team back from victory.

Check out the preview of Sunday’s Celebrity Family Feud episode above.

Ever since June, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot has been doling out one shocking revelation after another. Not only have they been ratings hits, they’ve even gotten to certain Fox News hosts, who’ve expressed horror at some of the things Donald Trump and his cronies are alleged to have done. Now, just like anything that’s a hit, there’s already sequel talk.

Guardian reporter Hugo Lowell revealed that the committee is considering ““second series of hearings,” which could happen towards the end of August. The current run of hearings are scheduled to end next Thursday, with a big prime time blow out. (The majority of the hearings have taken place during the daytime.)

There has already been talk of holding more hearings. Earlier Wednesday, Chairman Bennie Thompson said he couldn’t rule out holding more sessions, saying “something could up, just like the [Cassidy] Hutchinson situation that warranted what we felt was an immediate hearing.”

That hearing featured a former aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who offered some of the more jaw-dropping revelations, including that Trump intended to join the mob he stirred up at the Capitol, that he tried to choke a Secret Service agent who kept him from doing that, and that he later got so angry that he threw his ketchup-heavy lunch at the wall.

The most recent hearing, on Tuesday, ended with a top shelf mic drop, with vice chair Liz Cheney revealing Trump allegedly tried to engage in witness tampering, which Newsmax host speculated may have simply been a butt-dial.

(Via Raw Story)

People have enjoyed Eagles’ album Hotel California for over 45 years, but there’s been an ongoing battle occurring behind the scenes ever since it was released. Now it’s coming to an end. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg Jr. has indicted the three men — Glenn Horowitz, Craig Inciardi, and Edward Kosinski — who have long tried to profit from stolen notes from the album, including “Hotel California” and other songs that are worth a combined $1 million.

The notes were stolen in the late’70s by an author who was tasked with writing a biography about the Eagles. Said author then sold them to Horowitz, a rare book dealer, who in turn sold them to Inciardi and Kosinski. Don Henley filed a police report in the hopes of regaining his notes, only for Inciardi and Kosinski to fabricate the origins of the notes, attempt to resell them to Henley, and even go as far as to claim, when the documents were recovered in 2016 after a search warrant was issued, that the notes came directly from late Eagles member Glenn Frey.

Inciardi and Kosinski now face charges of criminal possession of stolen property in the first degree. Horowitz, however, is being charged with attempted criminal possession of stolen property in the first degree as well as two counts of hindering prosecution in the second degree. Henley’s manager Irving Azoff spoke with Billboard about the charges filed and what it exposes about memorabilia sales of stolen goods.

“No one has the right to sell illegally obtained property or profit from the outright theft of irreplaceable pieces of musical history,” Azoff said. “These handwritten lyrics are an integral part of the legacy Don Henley has created over the course of his 50-plus-year career. We look forward to the return of Don’s property, for him and his family to enjoy and preserve for posterity.”

When the Mavs entered this offseason, the prevailing expectation was that Goran Dragic would finally land in Dallas as a free agent after years of the Mavs having reported interest in landing the Slovenian mentor of their budding superstar, Luka Doncic.

Dragic and Doncic’s close relationship has been well documented and the two were even spending this summer playing together for the Slovenian national team, but when the time came for Dragic to decide on his new home, he chose the Chicago Bulls over the Mavericks, which surprised many — including Dallas fans who have wanted Dragic in town for some time. It was hard for many to figure out why the Mavs wouldn’t have been in on Dragic talks, especially with him taking a one-year deal for the minimum.

The reason Dragic is in Chicago and not Dallas isn’t that the Mavs wouldn’t offer him a deal, but that the role they were extending was not what Dragic wanted. In an interview with Slovenian newspaper Vecer, Dragic explained that Dallas had offered him a “cheerleading role,” that would’ve seen him play sparingly, while the Bulls were offering him the chance to play 20 or more minutes a night — via a translation from Matej Sportinfo on Twitter (h/t Mavs Moneyball).

That certainly makes sense for Dragic, as he’s clearly not ready to completely fade to the background as a player and just be in a mentor type role. For Mavs fans, it will be frustrating to find out this was the difference in him being in Dallas and not, particularly given they don’t currently have a clear initiator off the bench with Jalen Brunson leaving town. Frank Ntilikina provides a strong defensive option at point guard off the bench, but aside from Doncic and Spencer Dinwiddie, they’re lacking in strong offensive options. While Dragic may not be what he once was, he is still a capable offensive threat and to tell him they couldn’t guarantee him regular minutes seems rather strange, and if Dallas finds itself on the hunt for more point guard help during the season, fans will not be thrilled with how Dragic slipped through their fingers.

Bad Boys for Life was highest grossing American film of 2020, which is less of an achievement when you note the year was 2020. A fourth in the franchise was obviously a no-brainer, and it was already in pre-production when a little incident happened. Ever since Will Smith slapped Chris Rock on live television during this year’s Oscars, all his projects were put on hold, Bad Boys 4 included. But now we have…well, something like an update.

In a recent cover story by Ebony (as caught by Deadline), Lawrence discusses the 30th anniversary of Martin, his beloved Fox sitcom, as well as finally nabbing a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There isn’t much mention of the co-star of three of his biggest big screen hits: his Bad Boys partner Will Smith. But he does seem pretty sure that another is coming, despite…well, all that.

“We got one more, at least,” Lawrence confidently says.

Is this an insider revealing that Hollywood is baby-stepping their way into accepting Smith back into the fold? Perhaps! (Though he is still banned from the Academy Awards ceremony until the early 2030s.) Smith will have to start his comeback eventually, and what would be a safer way to do that than returning to the franchise that took him (and Lawrence) from TV stars to movie stars?

(Via Ebony and Deadline)