Month: March 2023

Vladimir Putin’s bad week (year, decade?) gets worse. Clearly, his war on Ukraine hasn’t gone over swimmingly, both with the scores of families who have lost troops and the public at large, but specifically at the moment, I’m discussing his image. This week, former underlings have expressed their stunned reaction at the disintegration of his “Superman” image, years after he posed shirtless in nature. And now, the billionaires of Russia are not only not here for his pleas to save their economy, but Putin is also being trashed in private by some of those figures.

At least, that’s what is being reported by The Moscow Times, which appears to lean towards the authenticity of a wiretapped phone call that first surfaced on YouTube before receiving Ukrainian news coverage. The following choice quotes (in a conversation purportedly between billionaire ex-Senator Farhad Akhmedov and music producer Iosif Prigozhin) seem relevant:

“[Putin] doesn’t give a f*ck about anything. And he doesn’t give a f*ck about the people. He’s fucking Satan. Wimp ..,” one of the pair says.

“How will we clean all this up later? Fascism will be here, a military dictatorship. You’ll see. That’s how it’s going to end,” a voice says, only for his interlocutor to agree.

As The Moscow Times notes, Prigozhin was quick to go on record to call this recording “fake,” even as he admitted that part of the according was real, but can you blame him? As The Daily Beast reports, Putin’s regime recently punished a father after his child worked up an anti-war drawing. It’s not pretty right now in Russia.

(Via The Moscow Times & The Daily Beast)

Chlöe isn’t shying away from any display of emotions. On her new song, the title track of her solo debut album In Pieces, she bares all, recalling the touch of a past love.

Driven by simple piano cords, “In Pieces,” which serves as the closing track on the album, allows fans to hear the pain in Chlöe’s voice, and demonstrates her ability to craft beautifully-flowing melodies.

“I don’t wanna go on / livin’ a life that you’ve been missin’ / And I don’t want nobody else / To hold me when I’m in pieces,” she sings on the song’s chorus.

In the song’s accompanying visual, she is seen dressed in red, playing at a red piano.

Next month, Chlöe will embark on a North American tour to support In Pieces. In an interview with Rolling Stone, she said she looks forward to seeing how fans react to the songs, and hopes that the fans find comfort in her music.

“I feel like when more people are vocal and honest about their trials and tribulations and obstacles, it makes all of us feel less alone,” she said.

Watch the video above.

In Pieces is out 3/31 via Parkwood Entertainment and Columbia Records. Find more information here.

The other day, Metro Boomin tweeted a teaser about him and JID working together with the caption, “Got a lot of new music but when me and @JIDsv drop,” followed by a lot of fire and one crazy-looking face emojis.

“I love working with u brudda, it’s an honor,” JID replied. Metro returned the sentiment right back, adding, “Honor is mine family.”

Rap 301 eventually picked the news up, reposting the tweet and adding, “Metro Boomin Teases His Song With JID… You Hyped For This?” JID himself then chimed in to set the record straight — confirming that it wouldn’t just be one song coming, but an entire collaborative album. “Teases album*,” he wrote.

While details about this joint project are still under wraps, many fans are extremely excited by the announcement. Additionally, Metro is also gearing up to drop a different collab album with Future sometime later this year, according to an interview with Flaunt via HipHopDX.

“Bro deadass don’t be lying right now, imma cry when this drops,” one wrote. “Don’t even joke…I need all jid and metro today,” another added.

Others threw in some jokes asking for the WiFi password to hear the album early.

Continue scrolling for some more reactions to Metro Boomin and JID teasing their album together.

John Leguizamo is filling in as this week’s guest host on The Daily Show, and he came ready to rumble with the GOP’s outright refusal to curb gun violence in America. Following the Nashville school shooting, Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett went viral for his telling response to the tragic event that left four people dead along with the shooter.

“We’re not gonna fix it,” the Republican congressman said. “Criminals are gonna be criminals, and my daddy fought in the Second World War, fought in the Pacific, fought the Japanese, and he said, ‘If somebody wants to take you out and doesn’t mind losing their life, there’s not a whole heck of a lot you can do about it.’”

Leguizamo played the clip for The Daily Show who were literally stunned into silence by Burchett’s cavalier response. Leguizamo, on the other hand, had words for Burchett.

Via The Wrap:

“There’s not a lot of heck you can do about it? That’s the best you have to offer? You’re a congressman!” Leguizamo exclaimed. “If you don’t have any ideas for how to keep our kids safe, get the f— out of the way. And go work at a Pinkberry or some s—!”

The guest host took things even further by pulling apart Burchett’s odd anecdote about his dad.

“No disrespect to his father,” Leguizamo said. “But if going to school in America feels like fighting in World War II, that should be a sign that things are seriously f—ed up in America, OK?”

(Via The Wrap)

Nothing is off limits on Conan O’Brien’s Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend podcast. In a recent episode, which featured Billie Eilish and her brother/producer Finneas, the late-night talk show host recalled watching Eilish’s documentary, The World’s A Little Blurry, and how it relates to his experience.

The Apple TV+ documentary follows a teenage Eilish as she writes and records her debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?. At the time, Eilish was 16 years old, and we see her as she argues with her mom, gets into creative disputes with Finneas, and deals with a whirlwind of teenage emotions.

O’Brien, who has a teenage daughter, said that watching the documentary was as scary as watching a horror movie. In agreement, Eilish said that seeing herself at that age spooks her as well.

“16-year-old me is a scary thought,” Eilish said. “It’s a scary sight to see. I think about myself and think about the people that I used to have to make them be put through being around me at that age… It makes me sick to my stomach thinking about if I had to be around the younger Billie. It really freaks me out sometimes.”

Check out the interview clip above.

Season 4 of Succession has officially arrived, and it’s a bittersweet moment for fans of the HBO hit. While one of the most talked-about moments from the season opener was Tom and Greg’s “Disgusting” new nickname for themselves (which seems to be a step up from Greg the Egg), bat-eared viewers caught another piece of intel during Logan Roy’s rather depressing birthday party: Marcia’s whereabouts.

As Grazia notes, in a brief exchange in “The Munsters,” Cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) mentions Marcia’s name during Logan’s soiree, prompting Logan’s assistant/presumed lover Kerry (Zoe Winters) to reply that “Marcia’s not here. She’s in Milan shopping — forever.” Whether or not Marcia is indeed in Milan is up for debate, as is the question of whether we’ll get to see Hiam Abbass’ character again in the show’s final season. No one inside of the production, including Abbass, seems to be talking about whether Marcia will return, but it’s certainly worth considering.

Marcia Roy — Logan’s third and initially seemingly doting wife — was a key character in Succession’s first two seasons. And was really the catalyst for much of the strife we have seen play out within the Roy family, as it was Logan’s desire to give Marcia two Waystar Royco board seats in the pilot episode, and his children’s unwillingness to let that happen, that really kicked off the dysfunctional family dynamics.

If Tom and Greg’s character arcs allowed them to transform into the villainous “Disgusting Brothers” over four seasons, finally being let in on exactly what Marcia’s agenda has been all along isn’t too far-fetched. Especially as she spent so many years as Logan’s most trusted confidante, and knows where the bodies are buried (literally, in at least one case).

(Via Grazia)

Rapper Latto promised a juicy first episode of her new Apple Music show, 777 Radio, and she delivered with special guest Chlöe. The “Body Do” singer has maintained a thick skin when it comes to rumors about her. However, when it comes to fans pitting her and her sister Halle Bailey against each with endless comparisons she’s not having it.

The Swarm actress fired off about the topic when asked by the host in the clip shared with People, saying, “Honestly, it really pisses me off.”

Chlöe continued by adding, “I think out of everything, that’s the thing that gets under my skin the most, when people are comparing us, because we are best friends, we’re sisters. Sometimes we forget that we’re not twins, and it’s like, don’t mess with my blood. Don’t mess with her.”

Before the clip ends, Chlöe explained, “Sometimes I just have to brush it off because people only see what they want to make up, what they want to believe, and it’s like, sometimes I don’t need to give off that energy and waste my time explaining something that I know isn’t true.”

The full first episode of 777 Radio featuring Chlöe will be released tomorrow, March 30, at 11 a.m. PT. New episodes of the series will air biweekly on Thursdays exclusively on Apple Music 1. For more information, click here.

The Ted Lasso Power Rankings are a weekly analysis of who and/or what had the strongest performance in each episode. Most of the list will feature individual characters, although the committee does reserve the right to honor anything from animals to inanimate objects to laws of nature to general concepts. There are very few rules here.

Season 3, Episode 3 — “4-5-1”

HONORABLE MENTION: Dani Rojas (quite frankly, I do not like the influence Zava is having on him); landlines (good Lord, we used to just call people and have no clue who would answer); Keeley (media training these goofs must be fun); Isaac (a very intense man); Kintsugi (the art of mending broken things with gold… feels like a metaphor): Higgins (the glue); Will Kitman (a sweet boy); cheating at Wordle (have some honor, for the love of God); Dr. Jacob Bryanson (already hate him); Nate (livid that Ted is having more success, which remains unhealthy); Rupert (showed up for two seconds and shouted a cuss word, which is pretty efficient); montages of winning streaks (love them)

10. (tie) Colin (LAST WEEK: Unranked)

Toughest ranking on the board this week. On one hand, things are… not great for Colin. He got benched in favor of Zava and his spot on the roster is in flux and, more importantly, the closeted double life he’s been leading might be in danger of blowing up after Trent saw him smooching his boyfriend (“wingman”) in an alley outside Sam’s new restaurant. None of that is, like, great. Things could get bleak for Colin going forward, if only because the things he wanted people to see him as — starting forward; virile heterosexual; strong and capable man — could all be torched at once. That’s a lot for anybody to handle.

On the other hand, though, I feel like this could be good in the long run. Hiding like that is stressful and just generally unhealthy. Some of that depends on how Trent handles all of this information. We’ll get to that in a minute.

10. (tie) Rebecca (LAST WEEK: 2)

Good news and bad news for Rebecca this week…

GOOD: The brilliant goal-scoring diva she negged into joining the team through a strategy best summed up as “cussing in a bathroom” is leading the team on a winning streak that had them rocketing up the standings. Rupert is livid, which is always fun for her. She looked incredible in her fancy dress at dinner. Not bad on those fronts.

BAD: Her mother’s weirdo psychic appears to have nailed the green matchbook thing and that’s going to send Rebecca into a little tailspin for a while, especially given the cussing and shouting she did on the way out of her… house? Office? I don’t really know how psychics designate these things. Their taxes must be a mess.

9. Ted (LAST WEEK: 7)

Hmm. Generally not a great thing when your former marriage counselor is now dating your wife and hanging out with your son and you’re sitting alone at night in another country cyberstalking all of them on social media while slugging scotch. It would probably be better if he stopped doing that so much.

The winning streak is nice, though… I guess. But even that’s not super sustainable either. The Zava thing is going to get messy soon and he’s going to have to handle it. That will not be fun. Ted is having problems.

8. Trent Crimm (LAST WEEK: 8)

Trent Crimm has some decisions to make here. The journalist in him might have seen Colin mid-smooch in the alley and processed it as a scoop. “Famous soccer player secretly closeted gay man” could move some tabloids. But also… he’s writing a book about the team and might be seeing the narrative arc of Colin’s story — see above, re: benched and closeted — develop in his head as a juicy way to sell more copies. But also… Trent seems like a decent enough dude that he wouldn’t just out someone in public without their consent. I don’t know. I don’t think Trent does either.

My suspicion, because this show is this show, is that Trent will do the honorable thing and maybe tell Colin he saw him but let Colin make the decision on coming out himself. I hope so. Maybe. I would hate to have to hate Trent Crimm.

7. Shandy Fine (LAST WEEK: Unranked)

Shandy is:

• A good friend who is protective of Keeley
• Very direct, in a kind of intimidating way
• Willing to run around with her shirt off to provide a distraction

We like Shandy.

6. Sam (LAST WEEK: Unranked)

I think it would be fun to stand up in front of your friends and coworkers and shout “EVERYONE IS INVITED TO MY RESTAURANT.” I’ve never gotten to do it, mostly because I have never had a restaurant to invite people to. Which is probably for the best. I would be very bad at running a restaurant. I can’t cook and I am bad at balancing finances. We would be out of business in weeks. There would be so much wasted food. I would probably get desperate and do the thing in wacky sitcoms where I order food from somewhere else and try to pass it off as my own and get caught when someone is like “wow, this tastes just like the lasagna at Louie’s” and I tug on my collar and gulp like a very guilty man. Trent Crimm would really have a scoop then. No, I’ll just stick to blogging.

Good for Sam, though.

5. Roy (LAST WEEK: 3)

Three Roy things worth noting:

ONE: The stuff with Jamie is cute because Roy himself dealt with being the best player in a team and then just… not being that anymore, so he is uniquely suited to train Jamie on this.

TWO: He didn’t frown. He just never smiled. It’s different.

THREE: Freaking adorable that he offered to do an interview if it would help Keeley.

The Grinch’s heart continues to grow. Roy is in danger of becoming a sweetheart. Not, like, soon. But someday. Maybe. He still does growl a lot.

4. Tish the Psychic (LAST WEEK: Unranked)

Nailed the matchbook thing. Has some nice bowls. Appears to have arguments with spirits that are all talking to her at once. We like her.

I want her to give everyone on the team a reading. I can’t decide who would react the funniest to it. Isaac would hate it. Roy would curse and grumble. Jamie would be into it, I bet. Beard would start talking to spirits, too. The only thing I know for certain is that it would shake Dani Rojas to his core.

3. Zava (LAST WEEK: 9)

Notes on Zava:

• I loved watching him mangle metaphors in Rebecca’s office, from “I am an empty vessel filled with gold” (so… not empty) to “I am your rock. Mold me” (rocks… cannot be molded) and I kind of want to read a self-help book he writes and self-publishes
• Really nice touch setting the Zava montage to Jesus Christ Superstar
• Am… am I the only one who finds it hilarious that the egomaniac athlete who looks like he does ayahuasca in a tent in the off-season kind of resembles Aaron Rodgers?

Lots to consider here.

2. Jamie (LAST WEEK: Unranked)

Jamie should be ranked lower. He’s pouting a lot and whining about Zava and having a kind of existential crisis about who he is if he’s not the best player on the team. He had a very pretty goal stolen from him when Zava snaked around and poked it in. He’s a sad little boy and his haircut doesn’t help.

But…

It remains really funny to me that he’s secretly smart and good at using language. Him correcting Beard on the irony/hypocrisy thing and correcting Roy on the pre-Madonna business was a good time. I want them all to do pub trivia someday and watch him wipe the floor with everyone. Let him go on Jeopardy. I bet he pronounces it Jeopard-eh. Dammit. I went and talked myself into needing to see something that will never happen. I do that more than I would like to admit. Never ends well.

1. Coach Beard (LAST WEEK: 1)

A fascinating man.

Following the school shooting in Nashville this week, Twitter users have been aggressively sharing a now-viral video of Jon Stewart calling out the right for refusing to enact any form of gun control. In the fiery clip from a month-old episode of The Problem with Jon Stewart, the comedian lambasts the GOP for wanting every restriction under the sun when it comes to schools and teachers yet refusing to do anything about the one thing that is actually harming children: guns.

Here’s a full transcript of Stewart’s impassioned words:

“The right wants strict rules for everything. From what teachers can teach to who can read to children to what color mermaids are. For God’s sake, they want any registry of who’s having their periods. For I assume the maintenance of well-regulated menstruation. But when it comes to just f*cking filling out paperwork to get a gun, too far! But inconvenience is not the same as infringement. Your fear of some dystopian authoritarian future is making it impossible for the rest of us to make life better in our dystopian present.”

The poignancy of the resurfaced clip is hitting hard on Twitter as people rushed to praise Stewart for condemning the right’s inaction when it comes to gun violence. You can see some of the reactions below:

People also shared another clip from the same episode where Stewart mopped the floor with a pro-gun Republican politician:

“What you’re telling me is you don’t mind infringing free speech to protect children from this amorphous thing that you think of,” Stewart said to Nashville State Senator Nathan Dahm. “But when it comes to children that have died, you don’t give a flying f— to stop that because that shall not be infringed.”

It was another brutal takedown by Stewart that, sadly, will continue to have relevance for a long time to come.

There’s always something very touching about receiving a gift from your child, especially when you know it’s something that they really put their heart into creating. A video posted to TikTok by Aaron Gouveia shows that sometimes a child can give a gift that’s so surprising it’s almost too much to handle.

Gouveia, 43, is a Massachusetts father of three who posts videos as “Daddy Files” on TikTok about the joys and challenges of family life. On March 26, he posted a video featuring his son Sam, 9, that was so heartwarming it has received over 12.4 million views.

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According to Today.com, Sam is a neurodivergent fourth-grader who’s been teased by classmates for wearing nail polish. His father believes he struggles to get along with kids his age because they “don’t understand him or his interests.”

A year ago, Sam began taking a sewing class at school, and in the video, he showed his dad the blue patterned shirt he made for him.

“I got a shirt that I made at sewing class,” Sam said, holding the shirt in his hands.

“You made that?” his dad asked, astonished.

@daddyfiles

Sam made me a shirt! Wow. #sewing #sewingtiktok #samsewgood #boyswhosew #parenting #raisingboys

“I did the buttons, and I did the button holes,” Sam continued. “I got some help, but I did most of it by myself.”

Gouveia then tried his son’s creation on and looked at himself in the mirror. The shirt fit him perfectly. He seemed astonished that his young son was able to make something so well-crafted with so little experience. Gouveia pored over all of the details of the shirt, especially the ‘70s-style lapel.

“The collar is so unique,” he noted. He was also impressed by the box pleat on the back of the shirt that Sam admitted was “hard” to stitch together.

At the end of the video, Sam said he had his father’s style in mind while designing the shirt.

“Why did you choose this pattern?” Gouveia asked.

“Why I chose the pattern is, it just looks cool to me. It stands out to me,” Sam replied. “And it goes with jeans like you usually wear.”

The proud father then asked if he could wear the shirt out to dinner that night.

“Uh yeah,” Sam replied, beaming with pride.

In a follow-up video posted on March 27, Sam thanks people for the support he’s received and says that he’s now taking orders for shirts and dresses. The transformation in Sam is delightful because he was a little insecure when he first handed the shirt to his father. But after the overwhelming support he’s gotten in the 92,000 comments the video received on TikTok, he’s excited to share his talents with the world.

@daddyfiles

Bus stop interview with my celebrity child. 🤣 Good news: Your overwhelming support made him open to doing commissions! 🪡 Thank you for 8.5M views! #sewing #sewingtiktok #samsewgood #sewingforyoupage #parenting #fashion #fashiontiktok

“That caught me off guard,” Gouveia told Today.com. “He hasn’t wanted to make things for people. You can even see in my first video, he’s nervous. He has a lot of anxiety and doesn’t want to disappoint anyone. But after reading all the positive comments, he was like, ‘Well, I can do it!’”