Month: August 2023

Ole Pudding Fingers Ron DeSantis gave his first GOP primary debate “performance” on Wednesday night on Fox News. We had previously heard about an apparent debate prep list by a DeSantis-supporting superPAC, which proposed that he should attack Vivek Ramaswamy as “Vivek the Fake.” However, that list of items did not address DeSantis’ tendency to send off Homelander vibes, nor did it do much about his all-around awkwardness. (The Daily Mail recently reported, however, that his advisors coached him to remember to smile, which may have been what happened here.)

Interestingly enough, opponent Chris Christie attacked Ramaswamy has resembling Chat GPT with the way that he talked. However, one moment in particular had Bobblehead DeSantis looking rather robotic. That was when DeSantis shouted, “I will not let you down.” This was followed by an incredibly eerie smile that (later) got the closeup treatment. Naturally, the Internet set the followup moment to “hello Darkness, my old friend.”

Soon enough, jokes about DeSantis “smiling like a human” and being an AI form attempting to “learn human emotions” surfaced. Stephen King, who obviously knows scary sh*t, agreed.

He sure did seem like an awkward machine, even more so than the Trump-deemed “chocker” Marco Rubio in 2016.

As well, The Washington Post recently published an article called, “Awkward Americans see themselves in Ron DeSantis.” Not sure that’s actually the case, judging from these responses.

While Donald Trump proudly skipped the first GOP debate of the 2024 election cycle, his fidgety son was begging to be let in.

Donald Trump Jr. threw a tantrum when he was blocked from accessing the spin room following the debate on Wednesday night, featuring a real who’s who of people we’ll hopefully have forgotten about this time next month (looking at you, Asa Hutchinson!). “Fox News is trying to censor and silence Trump supporters to protect their hand-picked establishment candidates. That’s a big reason why their ratings are dying, while my father’s interview with Tucker Carlson is already at 93 million views!!!” he wrote on X, along with a video showing him speaking to reporters after the debate, which he attended as a “surrogate” for his dad.

“Right now trying to ban people from actually having discourse about politics,” he said in the video, while his fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle shouted off-screen. “Probably, probably shouldn’t surprise any of us. But that’s what it is. And I’ve been told by others that I would be able to go in. So they said we were able to go in and they said they were in now that we’re here. And the candidate that… They’re telling me right now, Fox won’t let me into the spin room.”

Trump Jr. contended that this is “why Trump was 100 percent right to not go to this debate. It’s beneath him! And when you know that you’re walking into a setup because of exactly these kinds of circumstances, you understand exactly what’s going on in mainstream media, even conservative. I like to knock the one side I like to not the one side, but I got to call balls and strikes.”

It’s going to be an exhausting year-plus until the actual election.

(Via Mediaite)

Before Selena Gomez was a solo pop superstar, she had her band, Selena Gomez & The Scene. Gomez had plenty of success with the group and one of the biggest songs from that era was “Who Says,” the lead single from When The Sun Goes Down, the third and final album by the band. The song has since been certified multi-platinum single and is the second-most streamed Selena Gomez & The Scene song on Spotify, with about 420 million plays.

It turns out, though, that initially, the song was given to another artist. In a recent interview as part of the Twilio Signal 2023 conference, Gomez explained how this crushed her and what the song still means to her, saying:

“So, it’s actually a funny story. I was working with Disney at the time, and they were actually giving the song to another artist. I cried — I remember I was with my mom — because I loved the song so much. I basically said to my label, ‘I feel like my fans are young and they need it.’ That’s all I kept saying because I was 16 at the time, and I was like, ‘I think my fans really need it, tell [them] my fans really need this song.’ And so maybe it just didn’t work out with the other artist, but that was a gift to me that I did not know I needed. I love that song, and it has carried with me through my whole career, and I fought for it. So to be honest, I, to this day, need to hear it.”

As for the other artist, it would appear Gomez is likely referring to Jordin Sparks. In a 2021 TikTok video, Sparks revealed, “Fun Fact: Back in 2010, I recorded ‘Who Says.’ I loved the message of this one. It ended up being a great fit for Selena Gomez. She killed it!!”

Check out a clip from the interview above and revisit “Who Says” below.

Zach Bryan and Maggie Rogers have a winner with “Dawns,” which Uproxx named one of the best songs of 2023’s first half. Well, Bryan brought The Burn, Burn, Burn Tour to Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles last night (August 23), and sure enough, Rogers popped up for a striking performance of the song.

Uproxx’s Philip Cosores (who filmed the video above, by the way) previously wrote of “Dawns,” “While his sound veers closer to the outlaw lane, this one-off collaboration with Maggie Rogers isn’t really a country song at all, showing the range and possibility for a young artist that doesn’t have expectations yet to defy. But while the male-female vocal tradeoffs and driving string section underscore the song’s emotional pull, it’s in Bryan’s words that he demonstrates his power, evoking his mother’s death, his relationship’s disillusion, religion, and the passing of time. Bryan is turning out great songs by the dozen these days, but ‘Dawns’ is one of his best yet.”

Meanwhile, Rogers just wrapped up her Summer Of ’23 Tour, which followed news that she has finished recording her third album.

Check out a clip of the “Dawns” performance above.

Zach Bryan is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Concertgoers have been pretty wild this summer, throwing things at performers. It’s made some musicians mad. But 50 Cent welcomes it. In fact, he would like to be showered with bras on stage during his The Final Lap Tour.

“They don’t treat Drake like this. Drake, they throw him bras. What do I get? Aye, could you please go get me some Drake fans?” 50 Cent said in a behind-the-scenes video posted to Instagram this week, referencing Drake’s concurrent It’s All A Blur Tour. “Sh*t just don’t feel right. I need to feel special around here. I need them to treat me like I’m Drake. Drake get bras every night! Bras every night! I used to get bras in the beginning of my career.”

The North American leg of The Final Lap Tour kicked off on July 21 at Maverik Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. Along with openers Busta Rhymes and Jeremih, 50 Cent will next hit Houston’s Toyota Center on Thursday, August 24. See all of the remaining North American and international dates here.

According to Reddit and setlist.fm, 50 has been mostly taken the stage around 9 p.m. local time for each show so far. One person commented on Reddit, “I just attended the Cincy show last night [July 29]. 50 came out at 9pm, and the performance was 90 minutes. We had an amazing time! Jeremih started a little after 7pm with a 20 minute set, and Busta came out at 8pm with a 30-35 minute set.”

Only a few shows have been chronicled on setlist.fm, but 50 Cent took the stage around 9 p.m. local time for all of the recorded dates except for on August 11 at XFINITY Theatre in Hartford, Connecticut, where he is said to have begun his set at 10 p.m. local time. You can also check out his setlist here.

Whether 50 will start receiving bras remains to be seen.

Concertgoers have been pretty wild this summer, throwing things at performers. It’s made some musicians mad. But 50 Cent welcomes it. In fact, he would like to be showered with bras on stage during his The Final Lap Tour.

“They don’t treat Drake like this. Drake, they throw him bras. What do I get? Aye, could you please go get me some Drake fans?” 50 Cent said in a behind-the-scenes video posted to Instagram this week, referencing Drake’s concurrent It’s All A Blur Tour. “Sh*t just don’t feel right. I need to feel special around here. I need them to treat me like I’m Drake. Drake get bras every night! Bras every night! I used to get bras in the beginning of my career.”

The North American leg of The Final Lap Tour kicked off on July 21 at Maverik Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. Along with openers Busta Rhymes and Jeremih, 50 Cent will next hit Houston’s Toyota Center on Thursday, August 24. See all of the remaining North American and international dates here.

According to Reddit and setlist.fm, 50 has been mostly taken the stage around 9 p.m. local time for each show so far. One person commented on Reddit, “I just attended the Cincy show last night [July 29]. 50 came out at 9pm, and the performance was 90 minutes. We had an amazing time! Jeremih started a little after 7pm with a 20 minute set, and Busta came out at 8pm with a 30-35 minute set.”

Only a few shows have been chronicled on setlist.fm, but 50 Cent took the stage around 9 p.m. local time for all of the recorded dates except for on August 11 at XFINITY Theatre in Hartford, Connecticut, where he is said to have begun his set at 10 p.m. local time. You can also check out his setlist here.

Whether 50 will start receiving bras remains to be seen.

Donald Trump skipping Fox News’ GOP debate wasn’t the only humiliation the conservative news network suffered Wednesday. Visitors to their website were in for a bit of a surprise: ads not for one of the many Republican candidates trying to unseat Donald Trump, but for Joe Biden. They weren’t just any Joe Biden ads. They were “Dark Brandon” ads — the very internet meme that drives Fox News hosts nuts.

As per People, the Biden campaign evidently shelled out money to have the ad run all day Wednesday, from midnight through 11:59pm. It features the “Dark Brandon” character: a drawing of Biden beaming a big smile, his eyes a crimson, burning red. “Get real, Jack. I’m bringing Roe back,” the text reads — a nod to the overturning of Roe v Wade by a right-leaning Supreme Court last summer. On top of giving visitors to the Fox News site easy access to Biden’s campaign page, it also reminds them about the GOP’s wildly unpopular stance on abortion access.

The ”Dark Brandon” meme evolved out of the “Let’s Go Brandon” bit created by conservatives in 2021. The term was code for “F*ck Joe Biden.” One classy guy even used it on Biden himself during a children’s Christmas event about Santa Claus. Eventually it was co-opted by Democrats to describe how Biden, who had a rough first year in office, had started getting stuff done. Any time he passes some remarkable piece of legislation or stands up to Republicans, the “Dark Brandon” jokes fly, much to the far right’s chagrin.

Fox News isn’t the only place getting “Dark Brandon” ads. Three other versions will appear on billboards in Milwaukee, addressing other issues. One of them reads, Get on board, folks. We’re lowering prescription drug costs.” Another: “Social Security cuts? Try me.” The last one: “Tax cuts for yacht owners? Good luck with that, champ.”

Meanwhile, the Fox News GOP debate was not exactly an inspiring affair, mostly featuring in-fighting, with multiple candidates sticking it to businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. The counter-programming bit, namely Trump’s Twitter chat with Tucker Carlson, wasn’t much more exciting, with the low energy former president at one point rambling about Biden’s popular beach photos.

(Via People)

Did Donald Trump skip the first GOP debate because he thought it’d be a waste of time or because he’s chicken? Both are plausible explanations. But at least he made other plans. The former president wound up offering the Fox News event some eff-you counter-programming, sitting down for a chat with one of the network’s former staffers on Twitter, in a video that dropped five minutes before the debate was scheduled to begin. It…wasn’t very exciting. But it did contain some choice ramblings, including one extended, bizarre bit about Joe Biden’s beach pics.

During a diss session on the former president, a very low energy Trump that, at 80, his presidential successor is “worse mentally than he is physically, and physically he’s not exactly a triathlete, or any kind of an athlete.”

Trump even laid into the way Biden walks, despite that infamous ramp moment from late in his presidency. “He can’t lift his feet out of the grass, it’s only two inches at the White House, right? It’s not a lot,” he said. “But you watch him and he looks like he’s walking on toothpicks.”

He then moved onto Biden’s beach trips. “And then you see him on the beach where he can’t lift a chair,” he told Tucker. “Those chairs are meant to be light, right?”

Biden has been photographed at the beach, including this summer, which just makes Trump mad. “They love pictures of him on the beach. I think he looks terrible on the beach,” he said. He then claimed that Biden “can’t walk through the sand.” He then admitted, perhaps by accident, that “sand is not that easy to walk through,” but that when Biden “walks through it, he can’t walk through the sand.”

Trump seemed almost jealous that Biden’s beach pictures tend to be popular. “There’s somebody in there that thinks he look fabulous at the beach. I think he looks horrible at the beach,” he said. He concluded that “the beach doesn’t represent what a president’s supposed to be doing.”

So someone doesn’t like the beach, huh?

Tucker and Trump talked about a lot, though not much of it was about policy. They talked Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy theories. They talked about the Panama Canal at some length, for some reason. Tucker trashed his former Fox News colleague Chris Wallace.

Like Tucker’s Twitter show, it was a steep drop in excitement from his Fox News days, when he had fancy graphics and a producer and commercials. Those that tuned into the GOP debate instead at least got Chris Christie mopping the floor with Vivek Ramaswamy.

“Sometimes, you need to change perspectives in order to gain new insights!” is not exactly a sentence one might expect to hear from a corporate exec, but it is a philosophy that led Jens Ritter, CEO of German company Lufthansa Airlines, to taking on a shift as a flight attendant.

In a post shared on LinkedIn, Ritter detailed his experience of working as additional cabin crew for a flight heading to Riyadh and Bahrain, taking care of passengers in business class.

Though Ritter’s previous career as a pilot gave him some insight into the challenges of working a flight, taking on the responsibilities of an attendant left him “astonished.”

“I was amazed by how much there is to organize, especially if something doesn’t go as planned,” Ritter recalled, noting how on his flight the offered menu items weren’t actually the meals loaded onto the plane.

Beyond purely administrative tasks, Ritter acknowledged the difficult task of addressing individual wishes and dealing with different energies (something airline attendants don’t get credit for nearly enough).

And on that note, Ritter found it particularly taxing to “be present and attentive and charming” during an overnight flight “when the biological clock just tells you to sleep.” He confessed that it was an “entirely different” experience than what pilots endure.

Ritter concluded his post by thanking the cabin crew and said that his time spent on the ground (well, on the ground, in the air) would make “deciding things in the office different” moving forward.

At a time when stories of out-of-touch, greedy CEOs inundate the headlines, it’s refreshing to see those in managerial positions actively try to connect, empathize and support their workers, rather than exploit all resources for a bottom line. Not enough business heads recognize how crucial this kind of connection is—not just for the sake of virtue, but for the profit they so desperately want to maintain. But as Ritter’s action shows, it’s not all corporate greed out there.

We could probably all stand to benefit from taking a shift in the service industry. The stress of having to maintain everyone’s good time while simultaneously problem-solving, organizing and generally keeping things afloat is not for the faint of heart. And flight attendants in particular juggle it all on a daily basis—and some even manage to make it a show. It’s great that Ritter is advocating for flight attendants by stepping into their shoes.

All in all, a change in perspective can lead to wonderful things.

50 Cent is in the thick of his ambitious The Final Lap Tour, celebrating 20 years since his Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ debut, but he’s not going it alone. Busta Rhymes is accompanying the rapper on all dates — and the two recently graced the cover of Men’s Health with Method Man — while Jeremih is the special guest for the North American leg. However, a different guest made headlines at the first of two shows at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York on August 9: J. Cole joined 50 Cent on stage to perform “No Role Modelz.” He even dropped a hot take on his way out.

“Can I say this before I walk off stage? Make some noise for one of the greatest n****s to do this sh*t: 50 Cent, Curtis Jackson,” Cole told the crowd (as seen in a fan-captured video). “Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ is the best album of all time. I don’t give a f*ck what you talkin’ ’bout! It’s Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ at No. 1, and it’s Thriller at No. 2, and I love Michael Jackson.”

The Final Lap Tour began on July 21 at Maverik Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, and 50 Cent has since performed 21 North American shows. Next up is the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas on Thursday, August 24.

The North American leg is due to wrap on September 17 at Pine Knob Music Theatre in Detroit, Michigan. The European and UK leg kicks off on September 28 in Amsterdam and will continue throughout November before visiting Australia and New Zealand in December. See all of the remaining dates here.