Month: September 2022

The Miami Dolphins have been one of the NFL’s most pleasant surprises through two weeks, as they dominated the Patriots and then made an unbelievable comeback against the Ravens to get to 2-0 headed into a showdown with the Buffalo Bills for first in the AFC East on Sunday.

The two teams traded touchdowns in the first half, ending at 14-14, but there was significant concern for the Dolphins after their final drive of the half saw Tua Tagovailoa get injured and leave for the locker room. After a pass over the middle, Tua got pushed to the ground late by Matt Milano and the back of his head slammed into the turf.

When Tagovailoa stood up, he was very wobbly and fell back to a knee after trying to walk, which thankfully alerted the rest of the Dolphins to alert the medical staff and get him taken out of the game and into the locker room for evaluation.

It is a scary looking injury and he was officially ruled “questionable” to return with a head injury. However, to the surprise of most, Tagovailoa returned to the field with his helmet for the second half after, apparently, clearing concussion protocols which raised eyebrows given how bad he looked immediately after the hit.

Hopefully he truly is alright, but it was a scary looking situation and the Dolphins will hopefully continue monitoring him closely.

Gorillaz’s upcoming album, Cracker Island boasts a promising list of collaborators. While we won’t hear the album in full until early next year, the band previewed a new song from the upcoming record during a performance at the Forum in Inglewood, CA.

Beck, who is featured on Cracker Island‘s closing track, “Possesion Island,” joined Damon Albarn and his cartoon bandmates for a performance of the song.

The song seems to be a piano-driven ballad with crisps drums in the background, as Beck and Albarn deliver somber, melancholic vocals.

“Good things, they don’t exist/ And we’re all in this together ’til the end,” the two sing.

Toward the bridge of the song, a symphony of horns plays, giving what seems like a nihilistic anthem a more hopeful touch.

Earlier this year, Albarn spoke with Los Angeles Times about how he grew to love the surrounding parts of LA, which may have inspired the choice to perform in Inglewood.

“..[L]ast time I was here I did some work in Malibu and in Silver Lake — I learned to drive during lockdown — and the city just opened up,” he said. “I discovered L.A. had another side to it: less self-conscious, less feeding-the-beast. Less showbiz.”

Check out the performance above.

Cracker Island is out 2/24/2023 via Parlophone. Pre-save it here.

This article originally appeared on 02.09.21

At 1:30 am on Monday morning an AMBER Alert went out in southern Louisiana about a missing 10-year-old girl from New Iberia. It was believed she had been kidnapped and driven away in a 2012 silver Nissan Altima.

A few hours later at 7 am, Dion Merrick and Brandon Antoine, sanitation workers for Pelican Waste, were on their daily route when they noticed a vehicle that fit the description in the alert.

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The sanitation workers thought it was suspicious that a silver sedan was parked alone in a field in St. Martin Parish.

“Something told me, like just look, I said what is that car doing in that field like that? What the car doing? Guess what, that’s the dude with the little girl,” Merrick said in a Facebook Live video. “That’s God.”

The video has been seen over 1.5 million times since it was posted on Monday morning.

To prevent the possible kidnapper from escaping, they parked the large sanitation truck the wrong way on the highway to “Make sure they couldn’t get out,” Merrick said. Then, they called 911.

When police arrived they arrested Michael R. Sereal, the man whose car was mentioned in the AMBER Alert. The police were also able to safely recover the girl who appeared unharmed. She was later taken to the hospital to be evaluated by medical personnel.

The Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Department’s online sex offender registry has a Michael Roy Sereal but authorities wouldn’t confirm it’s the same man.

The young girls’ family got in touch with the two men who saved her and have shown amazing gratitude. “I’m just so happy and blessed that I have actually seen the car and we actually responded like we were supposed to respond,” Merrick told KHOU.

Merrick hopes that his actions will inspire others to be proactive as well. “Don’t be scared if you see something. If you know something is wrong, report it,” Merrick said. “Call authorities because it could save someone’s life.”

via Office of the Louisiana Attorney general

The two men were applauded by the St. John Parish’s Sheriff, who offered to buy them lunch.

“I was just doing my job man. I was just doing my job and actually came across somebody who needed help,” Merrick said. “Got me tearing up.”

The AMBER Alert system was created in 1996 after nine-year-old Amber Hagerman was abducted and murdered while riding her bike in Texas. Since its inception, nearly seven in 10 AMBER alert cases have resulted in children being successfully reunited with their parents.

In 17% of the cases, the child’s recovery is a direct result of the alert.

As of December 2020, 1,029 children rescued specifically because of the system.

This article originally appeared on 01.28.21

If you’ve never seen a Maori haka performed, you’re missing out.

The Maori are the indigenous peoples of New Zealand, and their language and customs are an integral part of the island nation. One of the most recognizable Maori traditions outside of New Zealand is the haka, a ceremonial dance or challenge usually performed in a group. The haka represents the pride, strength, and unity of a tribe and is characterized by foot-stamping, body slapping, tongue protrusions, and rhythmic chanting.

Haka is performed at weddings as a sign of reverence and respect for the bride and groom and are also frequently seen before sports competitions, such as rugby matches.

Here’s an example of a rugby haka:

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Maori All Blacks Haka at sold-out BC Place in Vancouver

www.youtube.com

The intensity of the haka is the point. It is meant to be a show of strength and elicit a strong response—which makes seeing a tiny toddler learning to do it all the more adorable.

Danny Heke, who goes by @focuswithdan on TikTok, shared a video of a baby learning haka and omigosh it is seriously the most adorable thing. When you see most haka, the dancers aren’t smiling—their faces are fierce—so this wee one starting off with an infectious grin is just too much. You can see that he’s already getting the moves down, facial expressions and all, though.

As cute as this video is, it’s part of a larger effort by Heke to use his TikTok channel to share and promote Maori culture. His videos cover everything from the Te Reo Maori language to traditional practices to issues of prejudice Maori people face.

Here he briefly goes over the different body parts that make up haka:

This video explains the purerehua, or bullroarer, which is a Maori instrument that is sometimes used to call rains during a drought.

This one shares a demonstration and explanation of the taiaha, a traditional Maori weapon.

For another taste of haka, check out this video from a school graduation:

Heke even has some fun with the trolls and racists in the comments who try to tell him his culture is dead (what?).

Unfortunately, it’s not just ignorant commenters who spew racist bile. A radio interview clip that aired recently called Maori people “genetically predisposed to crime, alcohol, and underperformance,” among other terrible things. (The host, a former mayor of Auckland, has been let go for going along with and contributing to the caller’s racist narrative.)

That clip highlights why what Heke is sharing is so important. The whole world is enriched when Indigenous people like the Maori have their voices heard and their culture celebrated. The more we learn from each other and our diverse ways of life, the more enjoyable life on Earth will be and the better we’ll get at collaborating to confront the challenges we all share.

It’s hard to believe the Fast and Furious franchise began relatively small. The 2001 original, simply called The Fast and the Furious, was a comparatively stripped-down affair. There were races. There was some thieving. The idea that the franchise would last over two decades — much less that it would go to space — seemed impossible. But here we are, with an 11th installment (counting the spin-off Hobbs & Shaw) en route next summer.

But what do we know about Fast X, the 10th in the main segment of the series? Here are some major pointers to keep in mind.

Fast X will be released on May 19, 2023

In a non-pandemic timeline, the film would have been both made and released a lot sooner. In fact, we would have seen on April 21, 2021. That obviously didn’t happen, and instead F9, its also delayed predecessor, hit theaters a few months after that, on June 25. But that’s cool because now it gets a plum Summer ’23 spot one week before Memorial Day weekend.

Some newbies are joining the Family

Jason Momoa is on tap to play the baddie, which the Aquaman actor describes as a “sadistic” and “very flamboyant bad boy.” Also on tap are Daniela Melchior (The Suicide Squads’ Ratcatcher 2, Reacher’s Alan Ritchson, and — in an as-yet-unspecified role — Oscar-winning thespian Brie Larson. And there’s another Academy Award-winner joining as well: Rita Moreno, who will hopefully get some scenes with the almost-as-legendary Dame Helen Mirren, who plays the mother of Shaw brothers Deckard (Jason Statham) and Owen (Luke Evans). Speaking of…

Jason Statham is returning but Dwayne Johnson isn’t

How bad is the alleged riff between Johnson and Vin Diesel? Bad enough that when Diesel tried to patch things up publicly, Johnson snubbed him. But Statham’s apparently cool with Diesel, and after sitting out F9 so he and Johnson could galavant about in Hobbs & Shaw, Deckard is back. The same goes with [deep breath] Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez and Tyrese Gibson and Ludacris and Nathalie Emmanuel and Sung Kang and Theron and Jordana Brewster and John Cena and Jason Statham and Helen Mirren and Michael Rooker and Cardi B.

Fast X will be the first of a two-part farewell to at least the main wing of the franchise

Rather than just end things, the producers of Fast X decided to break it in two, much like Twilight series or the final two Harry Potters. Indeed, Diesel has explained there’s too much stuff to simply bid it adieu in one movie. (For one thing, there’s its habit of introducing new “family” members in each movie, including sometimes the villains.) As Diesel once explained (via GamesRadar+): “As you know, we get to travel to all these wonderful places. And they’re part of the reason why Fast [and Furious] 10 has to be broken into two different movies — it’s because there’s so much ground to cover. And there’s so many places in so many locations in the world that we have to visit.”

Fast X has been filming since April of 2022, and it got off to a rocky start

How big is Fast X? As of this writing, it’s about half a year into principal photography. There’s a lot of locations, lots of stunts. But when it began, there was one major hiccup: Director Justin Lin — who joined the franchise with The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and stayed through Fast & Furious 6 — jumped ship, for reasons that have still not been made public. He was quickly replaced by Louis Leterrier, of The Incredible Hulk, Now You See Me, and the first two Transporter films, which starred Statham.

What about spinoffs?

Even after the main wing of the Fast and Furious franchise comes to a close, that won’t mean the end of the series. There’s another Hobbs & Shaw entry in the works, though it’s unclear when it will actually be made. There’s a female-led spinoff in the works, though it’s not been revealed which of the many female characters will nab the spotlight. That has nothing to do with one film being bandied about: one centered on Charlize Theron’s baddie Cipher, first seen in The Fate of the Furious. As Diesel put it, “I will say that there is nothing that is off the table.”

Oh, and the franchise might go to Africa

In the last couple entries, two characters have formed a strong bond: Tyrese Gibson’s Roman Pearce and Ludacris’ Tej Parker. They even went to space together. They have other plans as well. “I think me and Luda’s always had this idea, think it’s time for us to head to Africa,” Gibson said back in June of 2021. “South Africa needs some love, some real estate and be in on this franchise. It could be really amazing to figure out something that we can do in South Africa. Cape Town, just somewhere that’s just got one of those beautiful skylines with ocean. Just the Fast and Furious package.”

And so, one could say the sky’s the limit for the Fast and Furious movies. But it’s clear the sky is no limit either.

Michael Irvin is a busy man, as the Hall of Famer has added a weekly appearance on ESPN’s First Take to his normal duties on NFL Network, including NFL Gameday on Sunday mornings.

Part of the problem with being a man on the go with multiple TV gigs is you spend a lot of time in hotel rooms and have different call times and car services to make, which can put you in a hurry in the mornings, to the point that you might forget something very important. On Sunday, a fan noticed that Irvin wasn’t rocking his typical glasses look and thought maybe the Playmaker had ditched them for contacts and asked him why.

Irvin, during a commercial break, responded and noted that this wasn’t an aesthetic choice, but one where he’d just straight up forgotten his glasses in the hotel room and admittedly “can’t see ANYTHING,” which makes the screenshot of him looking bewildered even funnier.

That is truly the look of a man that cannot see and is trying to navigate a three-hour pregame show on national television despite his self-inflicted blindness. Why Irvin didn’t ask a production assistant to go to the hotel and get his glasses, I don’t know, but credit to Mike for gritting it out for the show and hopefully he can get his glasses back in time to watch the actual games themselves.

Kid Cudi is just days away from dropping his 10th studio album, Entergalactic. Though much of the album was recorded three years ago, Cudi has been in the process of creating an animated special to accompany the album. For Entergalactic, Cudi teamed up with Kenya Barris to develop the album’s animated component for Netflix.

In an interview with Rolling Stone Cudi revealed why he chose to take a different approach when creating Entergalactic

“…I was tired of making albums,” Cudi said. “I was bored of it. I was bored of having an album, dropping two music videos, and then that’s it. I was tired of the same old thing. And I was like if I’m going to do another album, it has to be exciting. It has to be something different that nobody’s ever done before. And that’s when I came up with the idea to try to do this musical told through animation. And it just made so much sense from that point on. Kenya [Barris] was the first person who really put the animation idea in my head cause he said that Netflix was looking for animation.”

The animated special will also star Jessica Williams, Timothée Chalamet, Ty Dolla Sign, and 070 Shake.

Entergalactic is out 9/30 via Republic and will stream on Netflix the same day. Pre-save the album here.

It was supposed to be the “biggest J6 event to date,” claimed the far-right blog The Gateway Pundit, far bigger than the one that flopped this time last year. Over a year-and-a-half after violent Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building — and amidst a giant Department of Justice investigation — masses were expected to return to the scene of the crime, holding what was billed as a “Truth Rally.” The rally happened, but with one hitch: almost no one showed up.

As per The Daily Beast, the event, held on Capitol grounds, drew “a few dozen, at best.” Those that bothered to show up were, as reporter Zachary Petrizzo put it, were a “cornucopia of far-right groups with a variety of missions.” Many of them were part of the “People’s Convoy,” since rebranded as the “1776 Restoration Movement,” comprised of truckers who fill up highways and block exits, attempting to cripple cities but mostly proving a mere nuisance. At one point, they were foiled by a lone cyclist.

The event itself did not go off without a hitch. There were nearly as many counter-protesters as there were protesters, and they circled the attendees as they sat in lawn chairs, using bullhorns to chant things like, “Trump is a loser, a little baby loser.”

What’s more, the speakers were sometimes drowned out by a nearby Mexican festival, called Fiesta D.C., which was located less than a block away.

But how were the speakers? All over the place, according to Petrizzo, who said there was “confusion over whether to be proud of the events of Jan. 6, bill it as a set-up by the feds, or say rioters did nothing wrong.” One attendee from Texas claimed that the violence on Jan. 6 “didn’t happen.” When confronted with evidence that it sure did, she changed her tune, claiming, “It was a trap.”

(Via The Daily Beast)

Last night, Nine Inch Nails took the stage at Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. During the encore portion, the band performed six songs, one of which was a cover of Filter’s 1995’s single, “Hey Man, Nice Shot.”

For the cover, the band reunited with Filter’s lead vocalist, Richard Patrick, who worked with Nine Inch Nails as the band’s touring guitarist in their early days, and played on the band’s 1989 debut album, Pretty Hate Machine.

The day before this performance, Nine Inch Nails held a special NIN Fan Day at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in their hometown of Cleveland, OH. The band’s current line-up, consisting of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, reunited with several of the bands former members, including Chris Vrenna, Danny Lohner, and Charlie Clouser, and Patrick, who has long been open about his less-than-amicable split from the band.

In a 2020 interview on the Stop! Drop & Talk Podcast, Patrick revealed that he quit the band after Reznor suggested Patrick deliver pizzas to pick up some extra cash.

“I was like, ‘Hey, dude, I hate to tell you this now, but I quit,” Patrick recalled. “And I’m so sorry, but I f*cking quit. I’m not gonna sell pizzas and I’m not gonna drive for a [pizzeria].”

Fortunately, it appears Patrick and Reznor were able to patch things up in time for an iconic performance.

Check out the performance above.

Two years ago, the Los Angeles Chargers faced an early season game against the Chiefs with a quarterback dealing with cracked ribs, and Tyrod Taylor decided to get a pain-killing injection to try and play. Instead, the Chargers team doctor punctured Taylor’s lung with the injection, forcing him to go to the hospital and inadvertently beginning the Justin Herbert era in L.A.

Taylor is currently suing the Chargers doctor for this incident, and now the Chargers face an almost identical situation heading into Week 3 with Herbert, who has a rib cartilage injury and is mulling over the same pain-killing injection to try and play against the Jaguars. Herbert is reportedly pushing to play, while the Chargers medical staff is “encouraging him” to take the longview and sit out a week, but it will be a game-time decision — and it seems the Chargers would take extra precautions to avoid a similar disastrous situation as what happened to Taylor by using ultrasound to guide the injection.

First off, there’s a good question as to why using ultrasound to guide the injection wasn’t standard operating procedure in the first place with Taylor — and probably only helps his case in his lawsuit. Second, even with added precautions, many fans can’t get past what happened to Taylor and would like Herbert to reconsider his push to play given the worst case scenario is a punctured lung, particularly in a Week 3 game with the Jaguars.