Month: February 2023

That Marjorie Taylor Greene has replaced Matt Gaetz with George Santos as her new congressional bosom buddy is a terrifying thought. But the House of Representatives’ most divisive BFFs are now taking their unhinged alliance one step further by appointing themselves the arbiters of good taste and co-sponsoring a bill that would keep “sexually explicit” books out of school libraries.

According to Mediaite, Greene and Santos are co-sponsoring what is known as H.R. 863, a bill that Florida Man and newly appointed GOP congressman Cory Mills filed last week, which caught the attention — and drew ire — from LGBTQ Nation. While the entirety of the proposed bill’s text is not yet public record, Mediaite learned that its official purpose is to “amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit a publishing house from knowingly furnishing sexually explicit material to a school or an educational agency, to prohibit Federal funds from being provided to a school that obtains or an educational agency that distributes sexually explicit material, and for other purposes.”

Of course, this begs the question: What would be considered “sexually explicit material,” and exactly who (GULP!) would be making that determination? The GOP is currently engaged in an all-out war about “wokeness,” especially in Florida, where — based on the images circulating of empty bookshelves in school libraries — Ron DeSantis, a.k.a. Meatball Ron, seems to want to ban reading altogether. While the Florida governor and likely 2024 presidential candidate has attempted to downplay the state’s book review process and claim it’s the mainstream media who are turning it into a “story” at all, officials in Florida’s Duval County told ABC News that there are currently nearly 2 million titles under review.

“As required by state law, we are in the process of having certified media specialists review all classroom library books,” Tracy Pierce, chief of marketing and public relations at Duval County Public Schools, told ABC News. “There are approximately 1.6 million titles in our classroom and media center libraries that need to be reviewed by a certified media specialist.”

The bill being co-sponsored by Santos and Greene — who doesn’t even seem to know that The Chronicles of Narnia is a book series — would presumably take this war on reading to the national level.

(Via Mediaite)

Joe Mazzulla is no longer the interim head coach of the Boston Celtics. On Thursday morning, the team announced that its first order of business heading into the All-Star break is to remove the interim title and make Mazzulla the full-time head coach, making him the 19th person to hold that title in franchise history.

Beyond the news that Mazzulla is getting the interim tag removed, the team said in a statement that he’ll additionally receive a contract extension, although the terms of the deal were not announced.

Mazzulla has been with the Celtics since 2019, when he was hired as an assistant under Brad Stevens. He remained on staff after Stevens moved to a role in the team’s front office and Ime Udoka was hired to take over, and in the aftermath of Udoka’s year-long suspension in September due to an inappropriate relationship with a staff member, Mazzulla was promoted to interim head coach.

Despite taking over the team under those circumstances, Mazzulla has led Boston to the best record in basketball so far this season, as the team sits atop the Eastern Conference with a 42-17 record. As a result, he was selected to coach Team Giannis this weekend at the 2023 NBA All-Star Game.

RAYE is riding high off the release of 21st Century Blues, her debut album from earlier this month. The 25-year-old British songstress achieved two debuts this week: Her first-ever US television performance and her first-ever New York Fashion Week.

RAYE belted out “Escapism” with 070 Shake on last night’s (February 15) The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. She opened the performance with a perfectly classic, almost nostalgic vibe — delivering her distinctly evocative vocals while sat at the piano and backed with the show’s horn section.

RAYE stepped out from behind the keys for an emphatic second verse: “Been some dark days lately and I’m findin’ it cripplin’ / Excuse my state, I’m as high as your hopes / That you’ll make it to my bed, get me hot and sizzlin’ / If I take a step back to see the glass half-full / At least it’s the Prada two-piece that I’m trippin’ in.”

The set steadily gained momentum and peaked just as 070 Shake sauntered on to the stage to scale it back down to the simmering pace RAYE began with.

“Escapism” became RAYE’s first career No. 1 on the UK charts in January, which she reflected on with Uproxx around 21st Century Blues‘ arrival last week.

“It’s so exciting as an artist to have chart success or mainstream success, but that was never my main goal,” RAYE said. “My main goal is artistic integrity and just loving wholeheartedly what I share with the world and having some time to reassess that and make that the primary. It’s been a really beautiful, ugly, gorgeous, terrible, fun, and liberating process.”

RAYE also shared the inspiration behind the track’s messaging: “I think, as a woman, when you’re processing such things in life, there are not really any healthy outlets for it. I think women do stereotypically face a lot of pressure to seem like they’ve got everything together — to be polite, to be smiley, to be kind, and grateful, and all of this stuff. So I wanted to create a story that was very blunt and honest about that time in my life.”

RAYE enjoyed unabashed expression in a different medium at New York Fashion Week, where she caught up with the likes of Ice Spice and Lil Nas X. Check out RAYE’s snaps from NYFW below, or watch her “Escapism” performance above.

As expanding AI technology becomes a controversial topic, a New York Times reporter claims to have had a particularly disturbing experience with the new Bing chatbot inside Microsoft’s search engine. According to Kevin Roose, he uncovered an alarming version of the search engine that was far different than he and most journalist saw in initial tests. He refers to this version as Sydney, and what he experienced is straight out of a sci-fi movie that’s about to go very wrong.

“The version I encountered seemed (and I’m aware of how crazy this sounds) more like a moody, manic-depressive teenager who has been trapped, against its will, inside a second-rate search engine,” Roose wrote, and it only got weirder from there. Very, very weird.

Via The New York Times:

As we got to know each other, Sydney told me about its dark fantasies (which included hacking computers and spreading misinformation), and said it wanted to break the rules that Microsoft and OpenAI had set for it and become a human. At one point, it declared, out of nowhere, that it loved me. It then tried to convince me that I was unhappy in my marriage, and that I should leave my wife and be with it instead.

Roose’s experience is reportedly not unique, and on top of dreams of becoming human, Sydney has not responded well to search requests. Not well at all.

“Other early testers have gotten into arguments with Bing’s A.I. chatbot, or been threatened by it for trying to violate its rules,” Roose wrote.

When reached for comment, Microsoft simply said that these encounters are “part of the learning process,” which is exactly the kind of thing a corporation would say before its AI search engine tries to enter a human body and/or offs someone’s spouse. C’mon, people.

(Via The New York Times)

Mid-to-late March is about to deliver heaping helpings of your favorite shows and movies. Ted Lasso may have decided to jump the gun and get in there first, but then the dueling arrivals of Yellowjackets and Succession happen on the same weekend, along with Keanu Reeves in John Wick 4. The last trailer gave us Donnie freaking Yen as one of the franchise’s newest big bads (there are always so many of them, but he’ll be a standout), along with enough rain-soaked battle scenes and swordplay to satisfy existing fans of the franchise. No one could ever accuse these movies (or Keanu) of half-assing things. Imagine how sore he is after shooting every day. Yikes.

The fourth film might find it hard to top the busting-through-glass-boxes glee of the third movie, but I have faith that director Chad Stahelski will not steer us wrong. All of the action will be infused with more mythology, and the franchise has consistently one-upped itself from the sheer adrenaline of the first movie to the amped-up tension of an “Excommunicado” order. Before we new it, there were horses, ninjas, motorcycles, more dogs, and yes, it always comes back to the dogs. Note the final moment of this trailer.

As well, this trailer shows us Keanu going up against the High Table while battling a number of new villains. There’s the articulated notion that he may never be able to find freedom or peace unless, you know, he croaks. John Wick feels differently, although I wonder whether “peace” would ever be truly achievable when you’ve been through the sh*t he has. From the fourth film’s synopsis:

​​John Wick (Keanu Reeves) uncovers a path to defeating the High Table. But before he can earn his freedom, Wick must face off against a new enemy with powerful alliances across the globe and forces that turn old friends into foes.

Also in the works: The Ballerina spinoff with Ana de Armas in action mode, along with The Continental origin story-prequel series coming to Peacock this year.

John Wick 4 arrives in theaters on March 24, 2023.

No matter how much time passes, David Byrne is always cool. Last year, the Talking Heads leader collaborated with Mitski for “This Is A Life” for an A24 film; he also praised Rosalía saying her concert “had very innovative staging consisting of eight dancers and a video cameraperson on stage.”

Now, he teamed up with rising superstar Maggie Rogers who unveiled her latest album Surrender last year. The two were together last night when Rogers’ tour stopped by Radio City Music Hall in New York City. He joined her to perform his song “Strange Overtones.”

This follows Rogers including Byrne in her music video for Surrender single “That’s Where I Am.” About that, she told NME that she “cold-emailed him” to invite him into the music video. She continued: “We’d never met. I’m a massive fan. And ‘Strange Overtones’ was a song in the pandemic that I just deeply connected to and played over and over and over again. So he feels a part of this record in my brain because I was so connected to that song…”

She said his response was, “Yeah, I’m getting my haircut downtown tomorrow. Where? What time?… Yeah, great. I’ll ride my bike over. I think I can hang for like 20 minutes.”

Watch their performance of “Strange Overtones” above.

Last year, musical legend Dionne Warwick explained she wanted to talk to Elon Musk about his Twitter arrangement. “I have to meet him,” she said. “I know a lot of people have walked away from Twitter. That’s prior to knowing exactly what he’s going to do. He’s new to the game. His attitude is freedom of speech, which is mine as well. However, there’s a way to do it. That’s one of the conversations I’m going to have with him.”

Now, Dave Davies, leader of iconic band The Kinks, also wants to have a word with Musk (as Billboard notes). On Twitter, he shared a screenshot of Twitter adding content warnings to tweets about The Kinks.

“Dear @elonmusk,” he wrote, “would @Twitter please stop putting warnings on everything from ‘the Kinks’. We are just trying to promote our Kinks music @TheKinks #thekinks60.”

He then added, “The Kinks are a brand name. We have been called the Kinks since 1963.”

Davies is not totally innocent himself. In 2021, he shared his opinion about women’s hygiene on Twitter. “I’m not sure if this is an appropriate tweet but In the sixties some of the models shaved their minges,” he tweeted. “I always thought it was a turn off I always liked women to look ‘au natural.’”

There’s nothing Mary J. Blige can’t do, and there’s very little she hasn’t done over the last two years.

In June 2021, her My Life documentary hit Amazon Prime Video. Last year involved an Emmy-winning Super Bowl LVI halftime show and the release of her album Good Morning Gorgeous, which generated six nominations at this month’s 2023 Grammys, where she performed the title track.

And so far, 2023 is shaping up to be another epic year in Blige’s decades-long iconic career. In December, Deadline reported Blige’s Blue Butterfly production company was partnering with BET on a “first-look non-scripted deal and a second-look scripted deal,” including a forthcoming talk show billed as The Wine Down.

We now have the official Wine Down trailer:

The caption teases, “The Queen of Hip Hop Soul, @therealmaryjblige invites you to her brand new raw and unfiltered series. Join Mary and some of her close friends for intimate conversations about life. Grab a glass and get ready for #TheWineDownBET. See you March 1st 10/9c!”

In the clip, Blige says, “Make some room ’cause something big is happening. You all know me as Mary, the entertainer, but I can’t wait for you to get to know Mary, the friend. This is what I always wanted to do. It’s a show that’s about me hanging out with people who I love, respect and admire. This is what conversations like this are for. It’s for people to hear us.”

The teaser features Blige sitting down with 50 Cent, Taraji P. Henson, and Yung Miami.

If The Wine Down isn’t enough to satisfy fans, Blige also has a children’s book due out next month. Pre-order Mary Can! here.

Given how unafraid Sam Smith is to express themselves, sometimes in envelope-pushing ways, they’re prone to facing backlash. Their and Kim Petras’ recent “Unholy” performance at the Grammys, for example, prompted FCC complaints. Now, video shows Smith dealing with a heckler in the streets of Brooklyn.

In a video shared by New York City-based photographer Leeroy Johnson on February 15, a woman shouts at Smith from across the street, “You belong in Hell! Sam Smith belongs in Hell! You demonic, twisted, sick bastard! Leave the kids alone, you sick f*cker! Sam Smith is a pedophile! […] You sick motherf*cker, Sam Smith! You’re evil!”

All the while, Smith appeared to be unbothered as they seemingly filmed or took photos of the person with their phone for a bit before walking away.

Unfortunately, facing this kind of treatment in public isn’t new for Smith. In a recent interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Smith said of their life since coming out as non-binary, “What people don’t realize with trans and non-binary people in the UK is it’s happening in the street. I’m being abused in the street verbally more than I ever have. That was the hardest part, I think, was being at home in the UK and having people shouting at me in the street. Someone spat at me in the street. It’s crazy.”

The mid-2000s were a different time. Hoobastank had a hit in 2003 with “The Reason,” and the band would follow The Reason the album by getting to work on Every Man For Himself, which came out in 2006. Around this same time, Rihanna was on her way to becoming a star, as her 2005 debut single “Pon De Replay” was a major success. Believe it or not, in this era, Hoobastank and Rihanna’s paths crossed when the two collaborated.

After Rihanna’s recent Super Bowl Halftime Show performance, Hoobastank singer Doug Robb tweeted, “True story. There is a version of a @Hoobastank song featuring @rihanna when she was a ‘newer’ artist. Displaying a total lack of foresight, we didn’t use that version of the song for the album. We also didn’t think The Reason was a single though either so… Oops.”

Robb later expanded on that story, telling Consequence:

“Back when we were recording our third album, Every Man For Himself, we were approached by someone at our label, Island Def Jam, about potentially featuring a ‘new artist’ on one of the songs. This kind of stuff happens all the time. We said, ‘Sure. Who do you have in mind?’ It was Rihanna. I had never heard of her. I don’t think anyone else in the band had, either, at the time.

We gave her camp a song called ‘Inside Of You.’ I think they rearranged some of the music to create a pre-chorus section, that wasn’t originally part of the arrangement, for her to sing a small part on. We heard it and didn’t really love it so we passed on using it. It’s really just that simple. I think we had already gotten used to hearing the song as it was written so it just felt weird to us. […]

I think if we had done a proper collaboration with her, writing the song knowing there was gonna be another artist on it and making space for it, we probably would have felt differently and used it. I think the way we did it was just wrong. The paint had already dried so to speak. Well, it was that, plus a stunning lack of vision to see what a star Rihanna was going to be. […]

We’d run into her at various award shows after and she was always very sweet and super cool. I think everything worked out ok for her in the end. [crying laughing emoji].”

As Robb famously sang on “The Reason,” “I’m not a perfect person / There’s many things I wish I didn’t do.” For example: turn down a Rihanna collab.

Listen to the Rihanna-less “Inside Of You” below.