Month: March 2023

George Santos is officially under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, and his own party pulled the trigger. The freshman congressman who has been caught in a mountain of lies is reportedly being targeted for campaign finance violations and allegations of sexual misconduct.

Despite the House being controlled by Republicans, Santos’ actions were apparently too flagrant for the GOP to ignore, and an investigative subcommittee was officially formed on February 28.

Via Mediaite:

Pursuant to the Committee’s action, the Investigative Subcommittee shall have jurisdiction to determine whether Representative George Santos may have: engaged in unlawful activity with respect to his 2022 congressional campaign; failed to properly disclose required information on statements filed with the House; violated federal conflict of interest laws in connection with his role in a firm providing fiduciary services; and/or engaged in sexual misconduct towards an individual seeking employment in his congressional office.

While Santos’ shady finances have dominated headlines, the sexual misconduct allegations haven’t garnered much attention until now. The congressman was accused of sexual harassment by a prospective staffer, Derek Myers, who claims that Santos came on to him during a meeting in his office.

According to Mediaite, Santos inappropriately touched Myers while inviting him to a karaoke bar. Myers then alleges that Santos said his husband is out of town and invited him to come over. Those allegations were revealed in early February and just three weeks later they were included in the House committee investigation, which is shockingly quick for Congress to act.

(Via Mediaite)

It’s hard to come up with something that becomes a cultural mainstay, and Eminem did it unintentionally: His 2000 hit “Stan” is about an obsessive fan, and it was such a popular and descriptive depiction of that sort of person that the word “stan” is now commonly used to describe passionate devotees. The word “stan” has become its own thing distinct from Eminem at this point, as Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania stars Evangeline Lilly and Kathryn Newton proved in a recent interview.

In a PopBuzz presser, the two were asked about the word and it turned out they had complementary sets of knowledge: Lilly hadn’t heard of the term “stan” but was aware of the Eminem song, while Newton is up on her slang but didn’t know the word’s origins.

Newton explained how the word is used, which prompted Lilly to wonder if it was the Eminem song that spawned the word. The burden of confusion shifted from Lilly to Newton at that point, who had apparently never made the connection between Eminem and the word “stan” before until after Lilly explained what the song is about.

Quantumania, meanwhile, could use some more stans, it seems.

Check out Lilly and Newton’s interview above.

Everything about George Santos’ road to the House of Representatives has been, for lack of a better term, a hot mess. Even if you put aside the foundation of lies on which he built his congressional candidacy — from his history as a pet rescuer to the death of his mother on 9/11 — the Republican congressman from New York has been plagued with questions related to his campaign’s finances.

At this very moment, Raw Story reports that the Federal Election Commission is awaiting a response to a letter they sent Santos regarding the legality of at least one contribution to his campaign. And if the FEC hopes that Santos’ campaign treasurer can help sort out the details, they might be waiting a while. Because, as CNN reports, some people are now questioning whether Andrew Olson — the person officially listed as Santos’ treasurer — even really exists.

Just last week, Santos filed paperwork naming Olson, who is said to be based in Elmhurst, New York, as his new campaign treasurer. The appointment came just days after the FEC warned Santos that he could not legally raise funds — or spend ‘em — without an official campaign treasurer. But something here doesn’t seem to be passing the sniff test with the Nassau County Republican Party, which oversees Santos’ district.

When asked about Olson’s appointment, spokesman Mike Deery told CNN: “Do not know him. Have not heard of him.” Joseph Cairo, the county’s GOP chair, echoed that lack of familiarity by telling CNN that he “is not acquainted” with Olson.

While Santos finally admitted to being a “terrible liar” to Piers Morgan of all people, and has sort of implied that he’s vowing to do better, it’s hard to wash the stink of that many bold lies off. And the fact that this Olson fellow and Santos’ official campaign quarters are registered at an address that just happens to be the same mixed use apartment/commercial building where Santos’ sister used to live seems… odd.

According to CNN, “election officials in New York say no one with that name [Andrew Olson] is registered as treasurer of any political committee in the state.”

If this sounds a little like déjà vu, it might be because just about one month prior to all these campaign shenanigans, Santos announced that he had hired well-known campaign treasurer Thomas Datwyler to work with him… except that Datwyler had never agreed to work with Santos, and was confused as to how his signature might have appeared on any paperwork stating otherwise.

(Via CNN)

It’s Women’s History Month, and inarguably, Beyoncé has made plenty of history over the course of her career. Most recently, she became the most-awarded artist in Grammys history, and her list of accomplishments is long and worth celebrating.

That’s precisely what California congressman Robert Garcia did Wednesday, taking the House Of Representatives floor to give an impassioned speech praising the super for her contributions to women’s history (and Black history, since February was also Black History Month).

You can check out a video of Garcia’s speech, courtesy of People, below, along with a transcript.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the end of Black History Month and the beginning of Women’s History Month by honoring an individual who represents both so well. She’s an icon, a legend, and she is now and forever the moment. I want to celebrate none other than who I believe is the queen of pop and R&B: Beyoncé Knowles Carter.

Now a few weeks ago, this brown-skinned girl out of H-town won her 32nd Grammy, giving her the most Grammy wins of all time. But Beyoncé is so much more than a performer and a singer. She’s a creator and an artist. Beyoncé’s also a role model for millions across the country. She’s stood up for voting rights, for feminism, for women and girls, for my community — the LGBTQ+ community. For my generation and others, she simply is the greatest of all time. Her story is history.

Garcia was elected to the House Of Representatives after serving as the mayor of Long Beach, California from 2014 to 2022. A Peruvian immigrant who moved to the US when he was young, Garcia is the first queer immigrant to serve in Congress.

The Walking Dead franchise will return this spring. This will happen on Mother’s Day with the final season of Fear The Walking Dead‘s premiere, and then the rolling releases of three spinoffs will go down over the next year or so. Actually, Rick Grimes/Michonne’s standalone show only recently began filming, so we’ll see it sometime in 2024. Before that happens, Daryl Dixon will mysteriously wash ashore in France, but first, Negan and Maggie will head into Manhattan for The Walking Dead: Dead City.

This is a bad idea, obviously. Not the show but the idea that heading into one of the world’s most populated cities can work out well. Yet the show’s synopsis reveals that they’re on a “dangerous mission,” which people seem to believe is to rescue Maggie and the late Glenn’s son, Hershel, who may have been kidnapped. The irony here, of course, is that Glenn is the one who rescued Rick Grimes when he was dumb enough to wander into a city, and his son is now potentially recreating this peril.

Yet for the moment, it’s enough to witness this new BTS footage released by AMC and tweeted by Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

As Morgan also writes, we can expect this spinoff to debut in June. We’ll see six episodes with possible followup seasons, and I do hope that Maggie gives Negan a lot of hell. Redemption arc or not, he deserves to keep suffering for what he’s done. Not only to Glenn and Abraham but to most of the humans on The Walking Dead. At least Judith let him know who’s boss, though.

As the above footage reveals, the concrete jungle environment will very much be a character in this spinoff. The leafy greens of the country have been replaced by colder, harsher surroundings in a city that’s apparently still inhabited by millions of non-Walkers. Should be strange! Further, showrunner Eli Jorne has boldly promised to deliver “one of the most awesome, disgusting, terrifying walkers that I’ve seen in the history of the show.” Get ready for people to puke, but then again, viewers of this franchise have likely acquired tough stomachs.

The Walking Dead: Dead City arrives in June on AMC.

Showtime’s Yellowjackets is back the same night as Succession (and the same weekend as John Wick: Chapter 4). We know one show is ending after season four (miss you already, literally everyone on Succession but especially Greg), but the other is only entering season two. There’s plenty of Yellowjackets story left to tell — although not too much.

“The original plan was about five seasons, and we feel like we’re still on track for that,” co-creator Ashley Lyle told Entertainment Weekly. “We don’t really see this as being more than a five-season show.”

There are some shows that might never end, like The Simpsons, Law & Order: SVU, and apparently Dexter, but Lyle thinks “that when you’re telling such a deeply serialized story and it’s about these characters’ lives, you want to reach a satisfying conclusion and not just drag things out forever.” She added:

“This isn’t really one of those setup shows where it can go anywhere. So far, we’ve been really on track. Season two is largely what we always planned, but you do make a lot of discoveries along the way and so it’s always a little bit surprising.”

Spoiler: the real treasure was the cannibals we met along the way. I saved you four more seasons, Yellowjackets (jk, it’s a good show and you should watch it).

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

(SPOILERS for this week’s Bel-Air episode will be found below.)

Bel-Air didn’t get off to the most peaceful start for season two. It began with Will living at Jazz’s apartment after he had a fallout with Phil, Vivian, and his mother over the truth of his estranged father. Fortunately, Phil and Will were able to patch things up in the season two premiere and Will even returned home to the Banks’ Bel-Air mansion, but not before partying with family and friends for Ashley’s 13th birthday. In episode two of this season, the focus shifts to Will, Carlton, Hilary, and Jazz’s individual and interconnected lives where they all seek to make some type of progress toward their goals. Will has his eyes set on a getting a division one college basketball project while Carlton looks to make an impact in the Black Student Union and take a step forward in his battle with anxiety. Hilary and Jazz made things official in the season two premiere, but they aren’t exactly on the same page — something they hope to fix this week.

The aforementioned events in the second episode of Bel-Air season two, titled “Speaking Truth,” are soundtracked by songs that help to accentuate the emotions behind each scene. You can find a list of them belong as well as details about the scenes that the records soundtracked.

Check out our Bel-Air season 2, episode 1 recap here.

KAMI & Smoko Ono — “Superstar Moves”

KAMI & Smoko Ono’s track can be heard at the 01:15 mark during a Bel-Air Academy basketball game. Tensions are high as Will and his coach are not on the same page. Will wants to carry the team to a win while his coach wants it to be more of a team effort.

Easy McCoy — “Deja Vu”

At around the 06:40 mark, Easy McCoy’s “Deja Vu” briefly plays as the Bel-Air title flashes on the screen. This record is the theme song for Bel-Air.

Last Verse — “Semper”

Last Verse’s “Semper” checks in around 06:54 mark as Will and Carlton arrive at school. Will is venting to Carlton about his basketball frustrations. Carlton’s crush Yazmin arrives shortly after and asks him about attending and contributing ideas at the next Black Student Union meeting.

Tupac — “Can U Get Away”

Tupac’s track from his 1995 album Me Against the World plays around 09:05 as Jazz is tyding up at the record store. Hilary walks in as he’s dancing and rapping, but he doesn’t notice right away. She surprises him with lunch, but her agenda comes alive as she asks to use his Impala his for a video shoot with Ivy. He initially says no, but after some convincing, he changes his mind.

Jade Amar — “My Own Boss”

Jade Amar’s “My Own Boss” can be heard at the 16:04 mark as Hilary, Ivy, and friends are filming the video shoot with Jazz’s car. Contrary to Jazz’s wishes, Hilary reluctantly lets Ivy drive the car. Unfortunately for Hilary, Jazz finds out about this as he makes a surprise visit to the set.

YG — “Scared Money” Feat. J. Cole & Moneybagg Yo

YG’s “Scared Money” checks in in around 26:19 as Will and Carlton sneak out with Jazz to go to a party in South Central. Will meets with Jackie, where he also finds Doc, while Carlton lets his wild side out with a couple ladies in the club.

Inka Delli — “Bank”

Inka Delli’s record can be heard around the 28:42 mark as Carlton finds himself dancing, and rather happy, with a couple of ladies in the club. Will also gets his groove on with Jackie.

Iain Harper — “Look Alive”

Iain Harper’s “Look Alive” plays in the background during a conversation at the club between Doc and Will. Doc questions Will about his sudden appearance in Bel-Air before telling Will that the Bel-Air basketball team is hurting his potential. Doc also introduces the idea of joining an AAU team to improve his stock, something that piques Will’s interest.

Julian Roy — “Trouble”

Julian Roy’s “Trouble” checks in around the 34:15 mark as Jazz is back working at the record shop. While there, he receives a text from Hilary asking for them to meet up for a conversation about their relationship. It leads to Hilary deciding to introduce him as her boyfriend to her parents.

Coast Contra — “Legacy”

Coast Contra’s record plays around the 37:10 mark as Carlton suggests that the Black Student Union hold a protest, a walk-out specifically, in defense of Mrs. Hughes unjust firing. The idea is fully supported by the BSU.

Chel Strong — “I Know You See It”

Chel Strong’s “I Know You See It” plays around the 40:59 mark during the latest Bel-Air basketball game. Will is on a whole new level during the game as his arrogance and cockiness is at an all time high. However, once again, Will and his coach clash during a timeout.

Armani White — “Billie Eilish”

At around the 42:38 mark, Armani White’s viral hit “Billie Eilish” plays as Will goes on an absolute tear, one that is also selfish and against his team’s wishes, to end the basketball game. Will’s team wins the game, but it appears that Will may lose his team.

You can stream this week’s episode of Bel-Air on Peacock here.

New episodes of ‘Bel-Air’ are available Peacock on Thursdays at 5:01 am EST/ 2:01 am PST.

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

Liquid Death, the maker of every podcaster’s favorite canned water, is coming for Arizona Iced Tea’s crown! The brand (which makes water, sparkling water, and flavored sparkling water) has just launched a new line of low-sugar low-calorie iced teas in their signature tallboy style cans, giving us three puny-named flavors including Grim Leader, Armless Palmer, and Rest In Peach.

What’s next? Liquid Death Soda?! No really, we’re asking. We’re totally on board if the brand wants to do that. Coke needs some comp.

The new line will be sold as both single cans or 8-pack cases like the rest of the Liquid Death product family and are priced at $2.69 for a single can or $16.99 for the case. Like the Liquid Death flavored sparkling water, these drinks are all sweetened but… just barely. Each can clocks in at 30 calories with just 6 grams of sugar from agave nectar. If you’re hoping for a kick out of this drink, keep hoping, because it’s not an energy drink it’s a lot more in line with a can of Coca-Cola (with a significantly healthier amount of sugar). Each can provides just 30mg of caffeine, as well as vitamins b6 and b12, which will give you a slight head change but won’t get you wired like a Red Bull or a cold brew coffee (which hover in the 100-200mg range).

That hasn’t stopped Liquid Death from launching an ad campaign that combines Monty Python’s famous “Hell’s Grannies” sketch and Jackass stunts, merging the two ideas with a truly frightening commercial that shows grannies playing brutal death metal, grinding on rails, and shooting rockets out of their asses. No, they’re not actual grannies, and that makes the whole thing way more f*cking frightening. I haven’t been this legitimately scared of a commercial since Paul Giamatti voiced that weird Burger King commercial that was simply dubbed “Nightmare.”

Disturbing-ad-that-I’ll-never-be-able-to-purge-from-my-memory aside, is the new tea any good? And which is the best? We set out to find out by trying all three. Let’s dive in.

Liquid Death Iced Tea

If you’re a fan of Liquid Death you probably know the brand has never met a pun it doesn’t love and that unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your sense of humor) extends into the tea line. Since all but one of the names gives a clear indication of what the actual flavor is, let me break each down for you. There is ‘Armless Palmer,’ which as you might’ve guessed is based on an Arnold Palmer (one part tea, one part lemonade), the most cryptic, Grim Leafer, which is based on an Earl Grey style black tea, and Rest In Peach, which features a mix of black tea and peach flavor.

I’ll talk about them in the order I drank them, which was coincidently in alphabetical order, starting with the Armless Palmer.

Liquid Death’s version of the Arnold Palmer is very mild, it has a great balance between the earthy flavors of black tea with a subtle lemon top note. If you’ve ever had an Arnold Palmer made with sweet tea, this is far from that. It’s just sweet enough to not be bitter, but not so overly sweet that you can feel it eating away at your teeth.

There is no actual lemonade in this mix, it’s black tea and lemon juice concentrate so it doesn’t have that intense sweetness you’d expect from lemonade. In a way, it’s not an Arnold Palmer at all, just a citrusy black tea. Even though the name feels a bit like a false promise, I still think it tastes pretty damn good.

Next, I had the Grim Leafer.

As a person who loves tea, Earl Grey is a flavor profile I’m very familiar with. While I don’t think the Grim Leafer delivers the same complexity as your typical Earl Grey tea there is a lot of great flavor found here. On the palate, you’ll get a nice earthy and slightly malty base with a bergamot orange top note and a soft and delicate mouthfeel.

The flavor combination is so good that I think Liquid Death could’ve gotten away with skipping the agave nectar to sweeten it — there is a natural edge to this flavor that sets it apart from the other two.

Which brings us to Rest In Peach.

This is by far the most fragrant of the flavors with a strong artificial peach smell on the nose. I’m a big fan of peach-sweetened teas but I have to say that of all the three, this was the biggest disappointment for me. It’s not that the flavor is bad — it’s not, but it just doesn’t taste anything like tea to me.

The peach flavoring (which also has characteristics of apricot and pear) completely overpowers the tea resulting in a flavor that tastes almost entirely like peach with just a hint of something. I say something because if I had tried this drink blindfolded I’d never guessed that tea was lurking in there. I want to say it tastes like “dirty peach water,” because that seems mean, but that is kind of what it tastes like.

Let me say that I don’t think Rest In Peach tastes bad, if you like peach iced tea you might still like this a lot but it’s easily my least favorite and that’s because I think the tea takes a backseat to the peach.

The Bottom Line:

Liquid Death’s iced tea line is great, and I prefer both the Grim Leafer and the Armless Palmer to Arizona Iced Tea’s over-sweetened canned teas. But I think my biggest disappointment in this line is that Liquid Death didn’t attempt a green tea. Maybe they felt like they couldn’t compete with Arizona’s famous Green Tea with Honey, but I would’ve at least liked to see them try.

Here is my ranking for each flavor:

3. Rest In Peach: Too heavy on the peach, not enough tea. Overly fragrant and distracting. Not as good as Arizona’s Iced Peach Tea.
2. Armless Palmer: A delicious balance of lemon flavors and black tea. Delicate and not sickly sweet. Less sweet and more subtle than Arizona’s Lemon Tea/Arnold Palmer.
1. Grim Leafer: By far the best canned or bottled black tea drink on the market. Malty and complex. No equivalent from Arizona.

Pick up Liquid Death Iced tea at Amazon.

Season three of The Mandalorian debuted this week and there have been a couple of dust-ups, and both have to do with Grogu’s time with Luke Skywalker. The first, and less interesting, is the fact that Grogu’s time with Luke Skywalker came to an end not during an episode of The Mandalorian but, instead, during The Book of Boba Fett. I concede it’s a little weird,* but this does seem like an overreaction. First of all, if you pay attention to Star Wars at all the word was out that The Book of Boba Fett turned into a mini-season of The Mandalorian. Also, to those honestly caught off guard by this, well if I just learned two episodes of The Book of Boba Fett were full-on episodes of The Mandalorian, I’d be happy to learn there are more episodes of my favorite show. It’s like someone right now telling me that two episodes of Home Improvement are just episodes of Seinfeld. I would not be mad about this. I’d be ecstatic.

Again, the way this was handled was certainly unusual. I compared it to if, during an episode of Frasier, Sam Malone showed up. Now, this did happen on an episode of Fraiser, but it would be like if there were two full episodes of Sam Malone tending bar back in Boston before he boarded his flight to Seattle. I mentioned this analogy to a friend and he corrected me, saying it would be more like if Cheers were still on when Frasier was on and during an episode of Fraiser, Frasier Crane murdered someone. Then, in an episode of Cheers, Fraiser is acquitted. Then back on Fraiser, Fraiser is back to life as normal with no mention of the trial. Anyway, my point is here, this all seems like a missed opportunity for the good folks at both Cheers and Fraiser and I hope this plot point is used in the new reboot.

The other topic of note, which I find much more interesting, is Jon Favreau kind of nonchalantly mentioning Grogu spent a couple of years training with Luke Skywalker. People kind of freaked out about this because, in the nature of these shows, it all seems pretty compact, time-wise. If two whole years had passed, what was our pal the Mandalorian doing with himself? What was anyone doing? Honestly, I don’t think Favreau put much thought into it in the first place because time in Star Wars doesn’t really matter and is impossible to figure out. He later had to correct himself and lower that amount of time a bit, but he was probably surprised anyone cared in the first place because people who grew up on the Original Trilogy have been kind of ignoring this for year and years. (Actual years and years, not Star Wars years and years.)

Let’s use The Empire Strikes Back as an example. How long was Luke on Dagobah training with Yoda? It seems like a couple of days? Maybe three or four? But Luke sure improves quite a bit over the time he’s there. At least enough to survive an encounter with Darth Vader. Okay, sure, Vader wasn’t trying to kill Luke, but Luke got a couple of legitimate shots in and a moment where Vader admits Luke’s skills are “impressive.” This seems like more than a couple of days of training?

Making this more confusing is the case of Han, Leia, Chewbacca and C-3PO on the Millennium Falcon. Having somewhat successfully evaded Imperial capture (but not evaded the aforementioned Boba Fett) Han looks for places he can get his ship repaired and comes upon Cloud City, high above the gas planet of Bespin, run by his, let’s say, sometimes associate Lando. Now, how long does this take for the Falcon to get to Bespin without a hyperdrive engine? Han says it’s pretty far, but thinks they can make it. Using actual math and science, someone calculated this and found it would be over a billion years. Yeah, Luke should be really good by that point.

Since this is a fool’s errand to begin with, a popular number is maybe a month or two. But in the context of the movie, which is very tight from scene to scene, it’s jarring to think those four were just cruising along in the Falcon for a couple of months. Or even a couple of weeks. In the flow of the movie, it seems like they get there in a few hours, which even in Star Wars fiction is kind of impossible without hyperdrive.

But here’s my main point: I am not trying to figure this out in any way. Yes, I will spend months trying to figure out Luke Skywalker’s plan to rescue Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi because these are actual plot points that, still to this day, do not make sense. (Since that piece ran, even now, once every few weeks someone will tweet at me, “I have this figured out.” Every time, they certainly do not have it figured out.) But I’ve given up on trying to figure out how time works in Star Wars. It does not matter. Only 19 years had passed between Revenge of the Sith and the original Star Wars and people were already like, “Yeah I don’t buy this whole Jedi thing.” It would be like now trying to say The Killers’ Hot Fuss never existed. (Though, we’ve seen what government conspiracies can do to formally rational people so maybe, now, having lived through 2016 – 2020, I give this one more of a pass.)

Did Grogu spend two full years training with Luke? Did Han Solo spend over a billion years trying to get from Hoth to Bespin? It doesn’t matter. Don’t try to figure out how time works in Star Wars. The answer is it doesn’t work. And you can drive yourself crazy trying to make sense of it.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Amazon wants to take a stab at creating its own Yellowstone, and the streaming platform has reportedly turned to True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto to get the job done. The untitled project has a series commitment and is being “fast-tracked,” according to The Hollywood Reporter, which obtained a tentative synopsis of Amazon’s attempt to capitalize on the Western genre:

It revolves around a former outlaw who must reckon with a threat from his past in order to keep the life and family he has worked so hard to build. He sets out on an epic journey that unites a formidable gang of indelible figures to face an even greater danger, in an epic saga of adventure and romance that forces this former criminal to become the hero he’s been pretending to be.

The Western project came together after Pizzolatto exited his first-look deal with Disney/FX, which would’ve re-teamed the writer with Matthew McConaughey for a series called The Redeemer. However, the show never came to be when McConaughey walked, making Pizzolatto a free agent again.

As for Pizzolatto’s involvement with True Detective, which will soon drop a fourth season, he’s credited on the show as an executive producer “though he is not creatively involved at all,” according to THR. HBO owns the rights to the franchise, which is now being run by Barry Jenkins. In short, Pizzolatto has a lot of time to mount a challenge to Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone empire that’s in wobbly shape thanks to rumors that Kevin Costner could be exiting the flagship series over a scheduling dispute.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)