Month: August 2023

Anthony Edwards and USA Basketball are on their way to the second round of the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup. The team wrapped up a perfect first round slate on Wednesday morning, meaning they’ll progress to play two more games before a potentiel berth in the quarterfinals of the tournament.

The U.S. will play Montenegro and Lithuania in their next two games, and while both could give the Americans trouble due to the NBA players that start at center, Edwards is not particularly concerned. While speaking to the media, Edwards made extremely clear that he doesn’t think Team USA will get tripped up in its next few games.

Per The Athletic:

“I think we’re gonna win,” Edwards said after one of the better player performances at a FIBA World Cup podium in recent memory.

“We’re unbeaten also,” he said because the questioner pointed out that Lithuania did not lose in pool play, either. “So yeah, I think we got a great chance to win. We’ve got a great coaching staff, we’ve got great players. Our confidence is at an all-time high. We’re not really worried about those guys.”

It probably should not come as a surprise that the perpetually confident Edwards would answer like this, but it does help that his performance against Jordan was his best in group play. Edwards went for 22 points with eight rebounds and four assists as the United States picked up a 110-62 victory.

Beyoncé is bringing her Renaissance Tour to Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium — and with it, a crowd that will be looking for ways to get home after. For those who are planning on taking a rideshare service like Uber or Lyft once the concert ends, they might be wondering where on the stadium grounds it will be. Thankfully, we have you covered.

Here’s what to know: For getting dropped off, fans will arrive on the northbound curb of Kareem Court — according to SoFi’s website. Then, post-show pickup will happen on Kareem Court and Manchester Boulevard. They also have a helpful map for fans available here.

Fans that are coming out of town and flying into LAX also have the possibility to reserve an Uber that will take them directly to SoFi Stadium. According to Uber’s website, the ride is about twenty minutes for $33 approximately. Find more information on this here.

Beyoncé will be playing for three nights at SoFi, including September 1, 2, and on her birthday, September 4. In honor of Virgo season, the star recently requested that attendees wear silver to imitate a disco ball to all of her concerts through September 22. The remaining tickets and list of more tour dates can be found here.

Beyonce’s Renaissance Tour finally arrived in Los Angeles this week, taking over Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium for three days of chrome-clad cavorting with the singer as the tour nears its end. If you were among those fortunate enough to grab a ticket, congratulations! But if you’ve never been to SoFi — not a big Rams fan, we get it — you might be having some anxiety figuring out where to park, which can be an ordeal at just about any venue, but especially one where over 70,000 fans might show up.

Fortunately, there are a few options to help you out so you can worry less about missing Ms. Knowles-Carter’s grand stage entrance. While SoFi’s own page offers plenty of information, there are a few other options available. If you’ve got the cash on hand, ParkWhiz can help you book a spot, as can ticket resale sites like StubHub and Vivid Seats.

Meanwhile, Inglewood itself offers its own Park & Go service which should save you some money, as the remote lots cost $38.25 each and the shuttle is $8.70 per person for a round trip. The Kia Forum, which is conveniently (or inconveniently, if you live in Inglewood or need to drive through on a double-event day) located near SoFi, also has parking for the shows, although you’ll end up doing some walking — wear comfy shoes.

Beyond that, LA Metro is a decent way to get around (from personal experience), with a regular ride only costing $1.75 and recently introduced fare capping allowing you to ride for free after three rides when you pay with a TAP Card. And, of course, there’s always Lyft and Uber, but remember that traffic is going to be hectic and fares will probably see enormous surge pricing increases (plus, there’s the whole “not a lot of drivers actually want to pickup/dropoff in Inglewood due to the insane traffic” thing). Good luck and enjoy the show!

Rudy Giuliani is having one heck of a time in Georgia. On top of being indicted for allegedly attempting to interfere with the 2020 election results at the behest of Donald Trump, Giuliani just lost a defamation lawsuit filed by two Georgia election workers.

In a scathing ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell, Giuliani was found legally liable for defaming Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss by spending weeks falsely accusing the two women of manipulating ballots. By putting them at the center of Trump’s election conspiracy theories, Freeman and Moss endured levels of harassment that could result in criminal charges stemming from the Fulton County indictment.

Giuliani was slammed by the judge for “flagrantly” violating her orders to provide discovery materials, resulting in a default judgment against the disgraced attorney. A trial will take place, but solely to determine how much a jury should award in damages plus nearly $90,000 in legal fees, which Giuliani has been ordered to reimburse.

Via Politico:

Howell, an appointee of President Barack Obama, said in her ruling Wednesday that she considered it possible that Giuliani concluded that dodging his obligations related to the election workers’ lawsuit make sense strategically to avoid giving fodder to prosecutors or lawyers pursuing other cases.

“Perhaps, he has made the calculation that his overall litigation risks are minimized by not complying with his discovery obligations in this case,” Howell wrote. “Whatever the reason, obligations are case specific and withholding required discovery in this case has consequences.”

Howell also ordered Giuliani to produce documents about his “net worth” by September 20. The judge accused Giuliani of dragging his feet on providing an accurate picture of his true financial state, which might not be as dire as Giuliani has been claiming.

(Via Politico)

The Justified: City Primeval Roundup is a weekly recap feature where we take the various people, places, and things from the new limited series and score them on a scale from one to five cowboy hats. We play fast and loose with the rules here, similar to the way Raylan Givens handles an investigation. A real loose cannon situation over here.

EPISODE EIGHT — “THE QUESTION”

The Albanian mob

The whole Albanian mob — save one sweet old man who I choose to believe will rebuild it all from the ashes — got John Wicked by Clement Mansell, which once again teaches us an important lesson: keep a close eye on your dipshit failsons. This is the weakness of any organization built upon generations. In Succession, it was Kendall and Roman trying to ruin everything. In John Wick, it was Theon Greyjoy. Here, it was Skender, the poor, dumb goofus with the mangled leg and the inferiority complex that wouldn’t allow him to just leave Clement Mansell to suffocate in that surprisingly comfortable storage unit. He never stood a chance. And now, because of him, the whole operation came crumbling down. Once again: Keep a close eye on your failsons.

That said, to be fair about it all, maybe the Albanian mob’s Detroit operation wasn’t the most structurally sound enterprise anyway, given the thing where one madman with a pistol showed up at their headquarters — full of, one presumes, armed henchmen — and just walked through the hallways mowing people down like it was an early level of Call of Duty. Lots of potential lessons to be learned here. For other criminal organizations. Not the Detroit branch of the Albanian mob. Those guys are all really just very dead.

The poor prison guard played by Luis Guzman

Two things are true here:

• I was so excited when I saw Luis Guzman show up as a prison transport guard at the end, in part because, like, hell yeah, Luis Guzman, and in part because it meant I knew wild stuff was about to go down, just on account of… I mean, you’re not gonna drop in Luis Guzman and then do nothing, you know?
• I can’t wait to talk about this scene later on

We are back, baby.

Clement Mansell

Clement never had a chance of making it out of this season alive. He was too chaotic and too unhinged and there really wasn’t anyone else Raylan was going to be able to get in a gunfight with. It was always going to end with him with a bullet inside him somehow. I don’t know if I had “slumped against a refrigerator with an audiocassette of his own music in his bloody hand” on my scorecard, but that’s what makes things exciting, you know?

The only bummer here is that I really, really thought he was about to give Raylan one of my beloved “we’re not so different” speeches right before he went down. It was all set up for it and everything. A real missed opportunity.

Maureen the red-headed cop

God, I love this lady. They had her dead in the water with her name in the crooked judge’s book and everything and in a span of about 45 seconds she rolled through variations of the following:

“YOU CAN’T PROVE ANYTHING”
[unhinged laughter]
“I DID WHAT I HAD TO DO”
“YOU’RE ALL DIRTY, TOO”
“YOU HAVE NO CLUE HOW TO DEFEND A CITY”

I swear to God, if she hadn’t demanded her lawyer and union rep, she would’ve gotten to a full-on Nathan Jessup “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH” monologue in another five minutes. I want to see a web extra where she takes the stand. I am barely joking here.

Judge Carolyn

It says a lot about the way the wheels of justice turn in this version of Detroit that a criminal defense lawyer with ties to the recently massacred Albanian mob whose mass-murderous client was just shot dead in her own kitchen by the U.S. Marshal she was sleeping with can get elected judge anyway despite all of the things I just typed in this horrific run-on sentence.

Good for her.

Willa and Winona

Two things are true here…

THING ONE: It feels… right, on a cosmic level, that Raylan is raising a daughter who is a nose-ringed little hellion who just got her learner’s permit and is already mangling flowers in a Jeep.

THING TWO: We all gave Winona a tough time in the original version of this show for kind of being a frowny wet blanket all the time, but please do stop for a few minutes this week and think about how deeply exhausting it must be to co-parent a teenager with freaking Raylan Givens, of all the people in the world. It’s a miracle Winona doesn’t just sigh her entire soul out of her body once a week.

Turning in your badge and gun

Not quite as good as your boss demanding your badge and gun because he’s tired of your loose cannon shenanigans but let’s go ahead and slide “telling your boss you quit during his retirement party right after he gives you a lengthy slurring speech about how, dammit, you’re a troublemaker but you get results and, you know what, yes he would recommend you for a big promotion” into the top three of ways to leave your job.

Also: Every job should include a badge, just for reasons like this. If I decide to quit someday, I’ll just have to send my boss a note in the work chat or something. Not nearly as satisfying as slamming a badge down on his desk. Let’s all agree to work on this one.

Sandy Stanton

Sandy did not show up this week but let’s look at some things that happened that affected her:

• Clement is dead, freeing her from him
• Skender and the entire Albanian mob are dead, freeing her from them, too

Sandy is basically in the clear now. Nothing hanging over her. She can do whatever she wants. I feel like this will eventually devolve into “scamming wealthy tourists at fancy resorts in the Caribbean,” which is not exactly personal growth as most of us would classify it, but it is a baby step for Sandy, if only because she won’t have to deal with Michigan winters anymore.

This counts.

Boyd Crowder

Did you shout?

A little?

Did you shout when the word “KENTUCKY” flashed up on the screen and you saw a Bible and a tangled mess of brown hair in such a state of disarray that it appeared to be fleeing its scalp?

I did.

A lot.

I watched this screener a few days ago, too.

I had to sit on this Boyd Crowder revelation through the whole weekend and most of this week.

I had to go places, too.

Do you understand how hard this was?

For me to not just shout “BOYD IS AT IT AGAIN” at confused strangers on the street or in the waiting room of my doctor’s office?

I understand that this is not a “real job” in the sense that, like, digging coal or educating children is a real job, but this was, like, really hard.

I was so excited.

I still am.

I can feel myself going caps mode.

Yup.

Here we go.

BOYD IS BACK

BOYD CROWDER

HE IS BACK

BREAKING OUT OF PRISON BY FAKING MEDICAL PROBLEMS AND SMOOCHING LADY PRISON GUARDS

YES

YESSSSSSSSS

Getting called back in for one last job

I wasn’t sure what we were looking at after this season. If this was all just a fun little Detroit one-off, maybe, just to get us a nice little Raylan diversion to spice things up a bit. Hell, I even wrote a whole thing about plopping him into other shows just for a little bit, assuming maybe this was our last run with him in a Justified series proper.

But then…

You saw that phone ringing on that boat.

We have a “one last job” situation on our hands, people.

God, I’m so ready.

Give me Raylan chasing Boyd through Mexico and maybe even South America.

Send them to Brazil.

Please.

For me.

PLEASE.

BRAZIL.

THINK ABOUT IT.

YES.

For over a decade, Sonny Digital has been the mastermind at the helm of production for artists like Migos, Future, 21 Savage, and more. Now, he is gearing up for the release of his full-length debut album, where he will show off his chops as a producer and a rapper. Today (August 30), Sonny has shared a new single, “Could Be Worse.”

On “Could Be Worse,” Sonny calls out people who flex with luxury items, but don’t actually have the means to keep up with the lifestyle.

“All black truck, that mean it’s time to put in work / How you ain’t got no crib, but you got a Louis purse? / Baby I’m kinda confused, can you tell me how that work?,” raps Sonny on the song’s chorus.

In the song’s accompanying visual, Sonny rocks several looks as he gets ready for a photoshoot. He is also seen admiring his several gold and platinum plaques, and playing with his son, who is nicknamed Little Sonny.

According to a statement, “Could Be Worse” is the lead single from his upcoming debut album, which will drop later this year.

You can see the video for “Could Be Worse” above.

Sonny Digital is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

In the lead-up to the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup, TNT analyst Charles Barkley made the case for why it’d be a good thing if USA Basketball did not win a gold medal. While appearing on Bill Simmons’ podcast, Barkley — who is a two-time gold medal winner with Team USA at the 1992 and 1996 Olympics — argued that it’d be good for the sport’s popularity elsewhere if another country won the whole thing.

“They act like if we don’t win the gold medal it’s going to be the worst thing to ever happen to civilization,” Barkley said, per ClutchPoints. “I actually disagree with that. I think it’d be great. Because I think it’d really help with popularity in one of these little third-world countries if they won the gold medal. Can you imagine if France won the gold medal? How popular would basketball become in France?”

There are, obviously, a few non-USA things worth pointing out here — France is not a third-world country, France won the bronze the last time this tournament happen, Spain won gold in 2019 while the U.S. crashed and burned, basketball is already popular in France, this quote came from before the tournament and France has since been eliminated — but the main point is that Barkley thinks it’d be good if the Americans didn’t win. On the heels of the team’s blowout victory over Jordan to wrap up play in the first round on Wednesday, American big man Jaren Jackson Jr. got asked about Barkley’s quote and wrote it off as a joke that didn’t land.

“Chuck said that?” Jackson asked after learning about the quote. “Where’s Chuck from, Chuck’s from what, Bama? I mean, I don’t know — Chuck, keep doing that TNT thing. That’s fire, man, I love Inside the NBA, man, watching that for years, my dog. I don’t know, I bet he thought that was funny.”

It is worth saying that Jackson was not, under any circumstances, going to agree that it’d be good if literally any other country won the World Cup. Regardless, we’re willing to chalk this one up to Chuck not liking that Team USA usually blows opposing teams out of the water, as he is on the record as someone who hates “bad basketball.”

Earlier this week, Ukraine launched its most aggressive drone attack on Russia since the start of Vladimir Putin‘s invasion. The series of strikes hit multiple regions on Russian soil, and Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov is apparently furious.

During the Wednesday morning episode of his state TV show, Full Contact, an exasperated Solovyov couldn’t believe that the drone attacks actually happened. In a surprising move, Solovyov angrily criticized Russia’s military defenses, but that moment was short-lived as he immediately switched gears and called for dropping nukes.

Via The Daily Beast:

“If we can’t cope with drones, how will we cope with F-16s?!” he said, after yelling at those opposed to tactical nuclear strikes to “stop whining!” He went on to call for the Baltic states to be “wiped off the face of the earth” in retaliation, suggesting the drone attack was launched from there. “Where was the launch from? From Ukraine? Yeah, right. From the territory of the Baltics? Destroy the f*cking Baltics, if so!”

According to an earlier Daily Beast report, the Ukraine drone strike did considerable damage to Russian targets and left military aircrafts “engulfed in flames.” However, Russia was able to down some of the drones, including a few that made it to territories near Moscow. In response, the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, was targeted in a “powerful” missile strike on Wednesday morning.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Slowdive is set to release their new album, Everything Is Alive, later this week. To build fans’ anticipation, the band shared a new song titled “Alife.”

The mysterious animated video matches the psychedelic, dreamy nature of the song — pulling viewers into the world of a girl wielding her powers.

“‘Alife’ is one of the first tunes we finished for the record,” Neil Halstead, the band’s vocalist and guitarist, shared via Pitchfork. “Shawn Everett did a really nice job with the mix. We tried so many times to figure out a good mix by ourselves and couldn’t do it.”

Additionally, the band will be heading out on a fall tour across North America and a newly-announced European run next year.

Check out “Alife” above. Below, find a complete list of Slowdive‘s tour dates.

09/23/23 — Toronto, Ontario @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre
09/25/23 — Boston, MA @ Citizens House of Blues Boston
09/27/23 — New York, NY @ Webster Hall
09/28/23 — New York, NY @ Webster Hall
09/29/23 — Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer
09/30/23 — Washington, D.C. @ 9:30 Club
10/02/23 — Cleveland, OH @ The Roxy at Mahall’s
10/03/23 — Chicago, IL @ Riviera Theatre
10/04/23 — Saint Paul, MN @ Palace Theatre
10/06/23 — Denver, CO @ Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom
10/07/23 — Salt Lake City, UT @ The Union
10/09/23 — Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom
10/10/23 — Seattle, WA @ Showbox SoDo
10/12/23 — San Francisco, CA @ The Warfield
10/14/23 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Bellwether
10/30/23 — Glasgow, Scotland @ Queen Margaret Union
10/31/23 — Manchester, England @ Ritz
11/01/23 — Bristol, England @ SWX
11/03/23 — London, England @ Troxy
11/05/23 — Belfast, Northern Ireland @ Mandela Hall
11/06/23 — Dublin, Ireland @ National Stadium
11/25/23 — Buenos Aires, Argentina @ Primavera Sound
12/04/23 — Santiago, Chile @ Teatro Coliseo
12/07/23 — Asunción, Paraguay @ Primavera Sound
12/10/23 — Bogotá, Colombia @ Primavera Sound
02/16/24 — Brighton, England @ Brighton Dome
02/17/24 — London, England @ Eventim Apollo
02/18/24 — Birmingham, England @ O2 Institute Birmingham
02/19/24 — Norwich, England @ LCR UEA
02/21/24 — Liverpool, England @ O2 Academy Liverpool
02/22/24 — Newcastle upon Tyne, England @ NX
02/23/24 — Glasgow, Scotland @ Barrowland Ballroom
02/24/24 — Edinburgh, Scotland @ Liquid Rooms
02/26/24 — Cardiff, Wales @ Cardiff University Great Hall
02/27/24 — Manchester, England @ Manchester Academy

Everything Is Alive is out 9/1 via Dead Oceans. Find more information here.

Bas really leans into the theme behind his new album’s title in the video for his latest single, “Ho Chi Minh.” Since the upcoming album is called We Only Talk About Real Sh*t When We’re F*cked Up, that’s just what he does in the video, taking a break from partying to go outside and reflect on his self-destructive behaviors.

The introspective lyrics do the same, pondering a growing reliance on external substances to keep the party going. “Picture me rollin’, cue the Serotonin / I been runnin’, low but it keep me in the moment,” he raps, but chasing the high has been taking its toll. The song straight-up opens with a would-be paramour questioning, “‘Aren’t you exhausted?’” His reply? “‘That’s what they make drugs, for isn’t it?’” Yeah, dude’s not okay. On Instagram, Bas revealed that the song was “inspired by hard nights and Ken Burn’s The Vietnam War documentary” — hence the title.

Bas kicked off the rollout for We Only Talk About Real Sh*t in January with “Diamonds,” then picked it up again in July with “Passport Bros” featuring fellow Dreamville rapper J. Cole. The album is presumably due sometime soon via Dreamville Records and Interscope. Watch the video for “Ho Chi Minh” above.