Month: September 2023

Rudy Giuliani completely lost it during a Wednesday night interview on Newsmax where he abruptly cut off Eric Bolling. The embattled attorney flew off the handle when asked about the recent allegations that he groped Cassidy Hutchinson during Donald Trump’s now infamous “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6.

“Completely, absolutely false!” Giuliani blurted out before Bolling could finish his question. The disgraced attorney then proceeded to argue that he couldn’t have groped Hutchinson because there were too many people around.

Via New York Post:

“Totally absurd. She claimed that I groped her in a tent on Jan. 6, where all the people went in that were very, very cold as a result of the president’s speech … I’m going to grope somebody with 100 people?

“First of all, I’m not going to grope somebody at all. And No. 2, in front of 100 people?”

Giuliani said that he had “extra security” and his “entire staff around me virtually all day.”

However, Giuliani’s defense doesn’t exactly hold up. In the excerpt from her book detailing the alleged groping, Hutchinson said it occurred in plain sight of noted Trump world figure John Eastman, who did nothing about it.

“I feel his frozen fingers trail up my thigh,” Hutchinson wrote about Giuliani allegedly slipping his hand up her skirt. “He tilts his chin up. The whites of his eyes look jaundiced. My eyes dart to John Eastman, who flashes a leering grin. I fight against the tension in my muscles and recoil from Rudy’s grip… filled with rage, I storm through the tent, on yet another quest for Mark [Meadows].”

(Via New York Post)

Today is September 21, which means that, as is the case every year, Earth, Wind & Fire will be on a lot of minds: The band’s classic 1978 single “September” starts with the lyrics, “Do you remember / The 21st night of September? / Love was changing the minds of pretenders / While chasing the clouds away.”

The big question, though, is what’s so special about the 21st of September? What happened on that date? Why did the band choose it for the song? It turns out Allee Willis, who co-wrote the song alongside Al McKay and Maurice White, has already answered that question.

She was asked about it in a 2014 interview with NPR and she said:

“We went through all the dates: ‘Do you remember the first, the second, the third, the fourth…,’ and the one that just felt the best was the 21st. I constantly have people coming up to me and they get so excited to know what the significance was. And there is no significance beyond it just sang better than any of the other dates. So… sorry!”

In a Wall Street Journal interview in 2019, though, Willis noted she was told by White’s widow Marilyn that September 21, 1978 was the due due date of White’s son Kahbran, so that may have been a contributing factor to the lyric.

Don’t you hate it when you meet a cute guy then start seeing the ghosts of your dead parents?

In All of Us Strangers, Adam (played by Andrew Scott, a.k.a. Hot Priest from Fleabag) and Harry (Oscar nominee Paul Mescal) begin a relationship following a chance encounter. As things begin to get serious, “Adam is preoccupied with memories of the past and find himself drawn back to the suburban town where he grew up, and the childhood home where his parents, appear to be living, just as they were on the day they died, 30 years before,” according to the official plot synopsis. The parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell) appear to be supportive, but there’s a lot of grief and trauma to unpack here.

Men would rather, see a therapist, etc. You can watch the trailer above.

“I’ve been more objective in how I’ve shot sex scenes in the past. Here, I really wanted to feel the subjective nature of having sex and what it feels like — the nervousness and the excitement and the physical sensation of being touched by someone else and what that does to you,” director Andrew Haigh told Vanity Fair about the intimate scenes between Scott and Mescal.

All of Us Strangers opens on December 22nd.

Donald Trump was rarely spotted with a mask during the pandemic. But it wasn’t because he was afraid to be seen with a “face diaper” in front of his most deranged supporters. He just didn’t want his makeup to smear.

That’s according to ex-White House aide Cassidy Hutchison, who revealed in her book, Enough, that Trump asked staffers what they thought after he tried on a white mask. “I slowly shook my head,” she wrote in an excerpt provided by the Guardian. “The president pulled the mask off and asked why I thought he should not wear it. I pointed at the straps of the N95 I was holding. When he looked at the straps of his mask, he saw they were covered in bronzer.” Trump snapped, “Why did no one else tell me that? I’m not wearing this thing.”

Trump wears bronzer? I had no idea. He hides it so well.

“The press would criticize him for not wearing a mask,” Hutchinson writes, “not knowing that the depth of his vanity had caused him to reject masks – and then millions of his fans followed suit.”

Elsewhere in Enough, Hutchison accused Rudy Giuliani of groping her on January 6th. “Rudy wraps one arm around my body, closing the space that was separating us. I feel his stack of documents press into the small of my back. I lower my eyes and watch his free hand reach for the hem of my blazer… His hand slips under my blazer, then my skirt,” she wrote.

(Via the Guardian)

Back in April, Millie Bobby Brown and Jake Bongiovi announced that they were engaged. Bongiovi’s father is legendary rocker Jon Bon Jovi, so naturally, a question on people’s minds is: Will Bon Jovi sing at the wedding?

The answer appears to be “no.” In a recent interview on Today (as E! notes), Brown was asked that very question and she responded, “I feel like that’s asking me to go and do a full-on play for everyone. I think the man needs a break, he doesn’t stop. He’s always doing tennis or singing lessons. I think he needs a break.”

That’s how Brown sees things at the moment, but perhaps singing at his son’s wedding would be special for Bon Jovi and is something he’d offer up himself. Either way, it seems Brown isn’t about to start begging her father-in-law-to-be.

She also spoke about how planning the big day has been going, saying, “It has not been stressful at all for me. Jake is very involved. He’s very helpful during the whole process. I’ve never felt alone in it, which I think is really nice. I’m always like, ‘Is this a good idea? Is this a good idea?’ But ultimately, it’s just a very intimate day for the both of us and we’re really both very excited.”

In another recent interview on Good Morning America, Brown said of planning, “Really, really exciting. It’s such an amazing part of my life so far, and just being able to do it with someone makes it even better.”

Jada Pinkett Smith has often spoken about her relationship with the late Tupac Shakur, and she brought it up again in a pair of recent Instagram posts, in which she shared a video of her and the rapper dancing and lip-syncing to, of all songs, Will Smith’s “Parents Just Don’t Understand.”

Sharing the two-minute clip on Instagram yesterday (September 20), Pinkett Smith wrote, “Here is part of the original video of Pac and I doing a terrible job at lip syncing Parents Just Don’t Understand.”

That post came shortly after another one in which Pinkett Smith shared a short passage about the clip, from her memoir Worthy. It reads, “Not in a million years would I have dreamed that the Fresh Prince and I would become, um, very acquainted. Not in a million years did I imagine three lives, their fates, would be so intertwined. And… I never would have imagined that this video would become a tangible memory, of the last time Pac and I, were simply kids together. Pac and I lip syncing Parents Just Don’t Understand by Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince during our Junior year in high school. Who would have thought?”

Check out both posts below.

Now that Tory Lanez has been transferred to state prison — with a fresh mugshot and all — to serve his 10-year sentence after being found guilty on three felony counts related to shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the feet three years ago, Los Angeles-based legal affairs journalist Meghann Cuniff can turn her attention toward other matters.

On Wednesday night, September 20, Cuniff posted court documents to X (formerly known as Twitter) showing that United States District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald “has ordered Nicki Minaj’s husband, Kenneth Petty, to serve ‘up to 120 days on home detention’ for ‘making threatening remarks toward a specific individual while in the company of someone with a criminal record.’”

“For background, US Dictrict Judge Michael Fitzgerald in July 2022 sentenced Petty to three years probation for failing to register as a sex offender,” Cuniff added.

This is related to videos that circulated last weekend of Petty and his crew spitting vitriol toward Offset and Cardi B, his wife, including a threat to “knock the veneers” out of Cardi B’s mouth.

In response, Offset posted video to his since-expired Instagram story, giggling and mocking Petty.

Earlier this year, Nicki Minaj’s motion to sanction Tyrone Blackburn, the lawyer of Petty’s alleged rape victim, Jennifer Hough, was denied by an East New York judge.

In January, Nick Cave explained why he wasn’t impressed with the then-relatively new AI technology ChatGPT. Cave became aware of it after “many people” sent him songs created by ChatGPT “in the style of Nick Cave.”

“What ChatGPT is, in this instance, is replication as travesty,” Cave wrote to a fan named Mark. “ChatGPT may be able to write a speech or an essay or a sermon or an obituary but it cannot create a genuine song.”

ChatGPT also can’t stage two North America tours simultaneously, as Cave is — one for music, and one in support of the paperback edition of his 2022 book, Faith, Hope, And Carnage.

His musical North American solo tour began on Tuesday, September 19, in Asheville, North Carolina and will continue until October 28, including back-to-back shows in Brooklyn, New York on October 6 and 7 as well as back-to-back Los Angeles shows on October 27 and 28. All of Cave’s dates can be found here.

Below is Cave’s setlist from opening night (as chronicled by attendees on setlist.fm).

1. “The Sorrowful Wife” (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds)
2. “Sad Waters” (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds)
3. “Girl In Amber” (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds)
4. “Galleon Ship” (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds)
5. “(Are You) The One That I’ve Been Waiting For?” (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds)
6. “Higgs Boson Blues” (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds)
7. “Euthanasia”
8. “I Need You” (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds — Cave’s first solo performance)
9. “O Children” (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds)
10. “Waiting For You” (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds)
11. “Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry” (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds)
12. “Nobody’s Baby Now” (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds)
13. “Carnage” (Nick Cave & Warren Ellis cover — Cave’s first solo performance)
14. “The Mercy Seat” (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds)
15. “Into My Arms” (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds)
16. “The Weeping Song” (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds)
17. “Jubilee Street” (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds)
18. “Push The Sky Away” (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds)

Encore

19. “Balcony Man” (Nick Cave & Warren Ellis cover — Cave’s first solo performance)
20. “The Ship Song” (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds)
21. “Palaces Of Montezuma” (Grinderman)
22. “God Is In The House (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds)
23. “Give Us A Kiss (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds — Cave’s first solo performance)
24. “Cosmic Dancer” (T. Rex cover)
25. “Stagger Lee” (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds)
26. “Man In The Moon” (Grinderman)

With the Connecticut Sun’s convincing Game 3 win over the Lynx in Minnesota on Wednesday night, the lone first round series to go all three games, the semifinals of the WNBA Playoffs are now set. The Sun will head back east to face the New York Liberty in the 2-3 series, while the Las Vegas Aces will host the Dallas Wings in the 1-4 matchup.

The Liberty swept the Sun in the regular season, winning all four contests against Connecticut, while the Aces went 3-1 against Dallas. The five-game semifinal series will tipoff on Sunday, allowing all four teams ample time to get rested and ready after the first round. Each game of the semifinals will be played on the ESPN family of networks, with the complete TV schedule for each below, although Game 5 for each series, if necessary, will not get a time scheduled until later.

Sunday, Sept. 24

1:00 p.m. ET: Sun at Liberty (ESPN)
5:00 p.m. ET: Wings at Aces (ESPN2)

Tuesday, Sept. 26

8:00 p.m. ET: Sun at Liberty (ESPN)
10:00 p.m. ET: Wings at Aces (ESPN)

Friday, Sept. 29

7:30 p.m. ET: Liberty at Sun (ESPN2)
9:30 p.m. ET: Aces at Wings (ESPN2)

Sunday, Oct. 1

3:00 p.m. ET: Liberty at Sun (ABC)
TBD: Aces at Wings (TBD)

Tuesday, Oct. 3

TBD: Sun at Liberty (ESPNU/NBATV)
TBD: Wings at Aces (ESPNU/NBATV)

Some shows drag on far past their expiration date, ruining what could have been perfection. Others end on top. That’s what happened with Succession, which did four great seasons then skedaddled, never to return (unless it does). Indeed, there are only 39 episodes of HBO’s other show about a family dynasty beset upon by its crappy scions, making for easy rewatches. But what if there were just a teensy bit more? Because there almost was.

In an intro to the Season 4 scripts published by Vulture (in a bit teased out by The AV Club), creator Jesse Armstrong recalls considering one of two paths for the final episodes. They could do another 10-episode season (even though Season 3 had only been nine). Or they could go the Sopranos/Breaking Bad route and Stretch Armstrong it into two parts, airing six or eight episodes at one point, then the final six or eight later.

“My sense was that we should do one last full-fat season rather than stretch it out,” writes Armstrong. “But I was wary of saying good-bye too fast to all the relationships and opportunities, of leaving creative money on the table, regretting all the subplots that would go unwritten, the jokes left untold.”

And so what Armstrong called the “little committee on whether to whack the show” voted. Ultimately it was executive-producer-writers Lucy Prebble who made the most convincing argument:

“We could, if we wanted, keep going with a show that became increasingly rangy and fun—a climbing plant grown leggy but still throwing off beautiful blooms now and then. But the ten-episode season was the muscular way to go out.”

So yes, you could have had more episodes, more jokes, more chances for a Roman-Gerri reunion. But then isn’t quality better than quantity? (The answer, by the way, is yes.)

(Via Vulture and The AV Club)