Month: October 2023

Taylor Swift has been in the news a ton lately. While she is currently on a break between dates of The Eras Tour, that hasn’t slowed her down. Swift is set to release her 1989 (Taylor’s Version) re-recording later this month — which might have people wondering what label she’s signed to.

Swift is currently signed to Republic Records at Universal Music Group, after getting a deal with them a few years ago. She has released everything from her 2019 album, Lover, until today with them. Her label deal also gives her complete ownership over her masters, leading her to re-record her first six original albums to gain control.

As a teenager, she first was part of Big Machine Records. However, things soured between her and label owner Scott Borchetta. When Swift left for UMG, she wanted to buy her early master copies as well, but the deal was reportedly rejected. Instead, they were sold to Scooter Braun — who then sold them to Shamrock Holdings as of 2020.

Upon hearing of Braun selling them, Swift revealed on social media that he would not consider her purchasing them without signing a NDA. “He would never even quote my team a price,” she wrote. “These master recordings were not for sale to me.”

When Tyga and YG announced that they were teaming up for a joint project at Rolling Loud earlier this year, I admit I was eager. Hometown pride aside, YG and Tyga are two of artists left from the blog era who have consistently shown improvement on each project. Tyga’s last project, Legendary, was an overlooked gem in 2019, while I would take YG’s I Got Issues over the other, more highly touted album from a Compton rapper that dropped last year.

The reason is simple: They both know what they do well and they don’t try to do too much else. Truly, there is not enough of that “stay in your lane” mentality in rap music these days. It often feels like every new rapper wants to be a capital-A “Artist” or a rock star, and while diversions from the beats-and-rhymes tradition like Lil Yachty’s Let’s Start Here are fun and interesting in doses, there’s an elitism to those artists’ insistence they aren’t just rappers.

What, exactly, is wrong with being “just” a rapper? Rap music blew the ceiling off of pop culture, reshaping society in its image. It was the most dominant genre in popular music for longer than it was acknowledged for it. It changed the face of advertising, fashion, film, politics, television, and more. I get it; Drake and Kanye West are globally-recognized household names. But T.I. and Ludacris are doing just fine, thanks.

Which is why Hit Me When U Leave The Klub, the joint “playlist” from two of Compton’s longer-tenured second-generation hip-hop stars, is so valuable. It asserts — efficiently, at just 14 tracks, and effectively, with at least 11 of those tracks being certified bangers — that staying in your lane can be profitable and fulfilling too. Someone has to make the music that makes the clubs go up; it might as well be them.

Especially because that’s what they’ve done so effectively individually for so long. Both Tyga and YG took their time figuring what works for them, so why fix what isn’t broken? Both rappers’ breakout singles — “Coconut Juice” for Tyga and “Toot It And Boot It” for YG — belied their individual talents for making uptempo, ratchet dance anthems; both found their grooves in large part thanks to collaborations with Mustard, whose production supercharged their respective comeback hits and helped make them a fixture of radio in the last decade radio mattered.

Since then, both have seen their popularity rise and fall, but they’ve always bounced back; YG’s highest-charting single came in 2018 with “Big Bank,” a decade after his debut, while Tyga came roaring back in 2018 with “Taste.” Their 2019 collab “Go Loko” was, incidentally, the last time either went double platinum with a straight rap song since and likely laid the groundwork for their chemistry on Hit Me When U Leave The Klub. (YG went 3x platinum alongside Bay Area singer HER with “Slide” while Tyga’s Blxst collab “Chosen” was certified platinum — both R&B songs featuring rap verses.)

“Go Loko” is the baseline and the North Star for the musical direction on Hit Me, with most of the album following a similar formula of the stripped-down, post-hyphy club thump that has dominated the LA underground for the past decade or so, with boastful verses about money, sex, and the occasional gangland shootout. Wisely, they stay away from a bunch of the latter and stick to the more aspirational topics, with beats that rarely drop below 90 bpm. Again, if it works, it works, and they’ve long been aware of their strengths.

That isn’t to say they don’t try a few new things too. The main difference is a clear focus on writing; in the past, both boasted that they rarely put pen to paper when conceptualizing their songs. While this often resulted in a freewheeling aspect that really worked for their turn-up anthems, it also led to an unfortunate assumption among many rap fans that they couldn’t rap well. Hit Me dispels that notion with verses loaded with slick wordplay and clever turns of phrase that might surprise those who’d written them off at the nadir of their respective careers.

And while R&Bass experiments like “PARTy T1M3” and “Boachella” aren’t great, singles like “West Coast Weekend,” “Platinum,” and “Brand New” present Tyga and YG at their best, and the remaining tracks could all easily be singles themselves. Limiting the guest list to just three fellow rappers — Blxst, Busta Rhymes, and Lil Wayne — lets their chemistry shine, and they have plenty of it. No, there’s no salient social commentary aside from autobiographical accounts of life in inner-city LA and neither does much crooning, but again, this is a feature, not a bug. Sometimes, you just want to hear two of rap’s finest trade bars.

The recent wealth of collab projects bears this idea out. Personally, I’ve always loved rappers getting together for quick-hit albums and EPs that clearly stem from their chemistry and friendship (certainly, more than the endless array of diss records and “beef” that much of the fanbase seems to love), but the fact that they’ve always needed to feel like “events” has made them harder to enjoy. It’s hard to live up to Watch The Throne or What A Time To Be Alive (which barely lived up to itself). Hit Me When U Leave The Klub offers an example of the form that seems more sustainable and exciting. There’s a wealth of possibilities for further entries to the joint album canon — this one is a fantastic starting point.

Hit Me When U Leave The Klub is out now via Last Kings Music / 4Hunnid Records / EMPIRE.

The current most popular series on Max isn’t The Sopranos, The Wire, or Enlightened (what a beautiful world that would be). It’s Naked Attraction, a British series where a clothed contestant decides which naked person they want to go on a date with. If only there was another way to see nudity…

Naked Attraction premiered on Britain’s Channel 4 in 2016 and has run for seven seasons, so there are hundreds of British people who have stood in the glass tubes, naked, hoping to be picked. Based on a Reddit thread from before the show debuted on Max, they enjoy talking about the experience.

User stevielfc76 asked, “Does anyone know anyone who has been on Naked Attraction?” Here are some of the more memorable responses:

Yep, a girl who worked with us (40 people in the company) went on, told everyone, and absolutely owned it. Was a bit of a shock, as I guess I’d always slightly judged people who went on but she made me rethink me prejudices. Nothing came of it for her but hell she took a chance.

Yes a friend of mine did. We got it up on the TV at our local and everyone watched it. From Fetlife I know he was into small dick humiliation so I’m assuming he went home, read the online comments and wanked himself into a coma.

A friend of mine went on it; I’ve not seen the episode as I watched a few of the first series and never bothered after that.

He was photographer at my wedding. Apparently it came up in conversation during the wedding breakfast and another mate of mine who was on the same table excused herself for a few mins, found the episode online, watched his reveal, and then came back. She continued flirting with him so presumably she was impressed with what she saw!

A really obnoxious guy who used to drink at my local. He also bragged about it. Obviously it didn’t take long for screenshots to get passed round all the regulars/ staff. He was so up himself he really did appear to be immune to ridicule. Fascinating.

My girlfriend worked with a guy for a short time who was on one episode, he was an arrogant twat. He drove a stupid car around that looked like some thing out of Ali G. He was fairly open about the whole thing. His boss at the time would tell everyone to watch the episode. She was in a sex club and wasn’t exactly shy about it at work either. She managed to “accidentally” send a picture of her vagina to a work WhatsApp group among other things.

Yes, but I’ve not watched it, but of the people I know who did watch his episode they said they weren’t surprised he was willing to go given the equipment he has haha

I know of someone who I’m friends on Facebook with (same job, different company in an incestuous industry with lots of mutual friends) that was on it. He had a smaller member and they zoomed in on it for about 15 seconds while discussing how it was ok to be smaller.

He occasionally posts about it on Facebook and doesn’t seem to be bothered by it.

A guy from my secondary school was on there. I always thought he was kinda hot in a “mysterious way”, but hadn’t seen him since I went onto college.

Was kinda intrigued to see what he looked like naked, and when finally he went nude I actually didn’t really think much – it was a bit if an anti climax. But not in the way of “he didnt look good naked”, more like I was no longer the 16yo who giggled at slight nudity and I’m now a 31yo woman who has seen plenty of it. Wasn’t a big deal, and I actually was impressed with his bravery.

Nice dong tho.

I was hoping that story would end in marriage. Alas.

(Via Reddit)

Despite the marketing trying to forget Jonathan Majors is a big part of this second season of Loki, everyone involved in the production is acutely aware and, to Kevin Wright’s credit, didn’t shy away from discussing the situation. Honestly, with the lack of really any statement on the matter from Marvel, I was fully expecting to be told Wright wouldn’t be discussing the situation and be asked not to bring it up, which would force me to politely not agree to that and probably canceling the interview altogether. And again, to their credit, none of that happened.

And this second season is a lot of fun as Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Mobius (Owen Wilson) enlist the help of Ouroboros (Ke Huy Quan) to track down a variant of the evil Kang, Victor Timely (Majors) before he’s found by Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) or Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), who both want to find him for very different reasons. (It’s all a bit more complicated than that because this is a pretty complicated show that kind of dines out on the joke about how a lot of it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, adding to its charm.

Ahead, Wright takes us through this second season and what he wanted to accomplish for the character of Loki and how he convinced new Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan to join the cast. And yes he addresses Majors and how this situation affects Wright as a producer and if there was any talk at all of replacing Majors in this role.

I enjoy how dense the plot is, but the attitude of the TVC is still, “Oh, another day at the office.”

Yeah, look, I’m a details guy. I love shows and movies that just really feel like they are packed dense with information. That you could pause any frame, and that there is a story in there. And I think all of our filmmakers and department heads really enjoy that, too. So it’s just fun world-building…

Does it work without Owen Wilson deadpanning though?

No, and that’s the thing. It’s like you write that character completely straight, and he is going to bring some kind of incredible charm and turn to that character that you could never put onto the page.

There’s a great scene with Ke Huy Quan’s Ouroboros where Loki is talking to him while jumping back and forth in time, in both time periods. And present-day Ouroboros is getting new memories in real time.

That was an “a-ha” moment. We always have moments, we had them in season one with some of Michael Waldron’s early drafts. And then with Eric Martin on this season, the real a-ha moments. And Eric’s first draft of that introduction is very, very close to what’s on-screen. And it was one of those moments where we all just went, “That’s how we do this.” That’s how we’re going to proceed with our time travel this season.

I think when you see it on the page, that was like, all right, we knew we wanted to do time loops. We knew we wanted to literally do the snake-eating-its-own-tail kind of storytelling structure this season. And it’s a big, fun sci-fi concept. But it also made sense. It was easily digestible. And that’s always our guiding light on this show: intrigue and simplicity, versus confusion and homework. Once it becomes confusing and homework, no good. We’ve got to simplify something or figure out how to land it. But it was just there in that first pass.

And this is the part that you’ve probably had to take PR classes about before you started doing interviews. Jonathan Majors has a trial that starts this month. And I know there’s no way you don’t know this is going to pop up in every review. And I’m not asking you to comment on an upcoming trial. But as a producer, how does this affect you?

Yeah, I think what you said is right. We don’t know what that will all be. But what I can say is the show that is on-screen, that will be, going out, is the show that we wanted to make. Victor Timely was always a big part of that. The story that is there is what was written, what was shot. This is maybe the first Marvel movie or show with zero additional photography. So I think we feel strongly about what the story is, what the performances are. And we’re happy with it, and it’s what the show is. And what happened afterwards, none of us really know. And we’ll see.

Was there any thought, even a quick discussion, about making a change and re-shooting his part? Now that I’ve seen it, he’s in it a lot so I’m guessing that wasn’t possible.

No. And I think it’s because we had shot the show. We made the show. And there’s nothing really to act on at this moment.

Ke Huy Quan is wonderful. When did he get cast?

It happened super quick. Everything, Everywhere, All at Once was playing in LA and New York. It hadn’t gone nationwide yet. And it hadn’t gone global yet. I think it was in that week it was about to go out across America. We got a call on a Thursday evening from Sarah Finn, our casting director. We were in London. We were prepping the show. We were probably starting shooting in two or three months at that point. She said, “I can make you a list for potential OBs, but I think you guys should meet Ke. I think it should be Ke, and you have to act very quickly.”

Did you have other people in mind before he was brought up?

No, not yet. When everyone’s in the writer’s room, things are talked about. I think we knew we wanted probably some kind of comedic vent to it, which could’ve opened up a lot of possibilities. And that was a Thursday night. On Friday, myself, we set up a Zoom. We pitched Ke the show. We pitched him the character. We sent him that first introduction scene.

How did that Zoom pitch go with him? How do you even explain this character?

I would love to go back and see what it was, because I had COVID at the time as well. So I was like, out of it. But he seemed really excited and we made an offer over that weekend. And then that Monday we called in the big guns. And we had Kevin Feige call him and basically say, “Ke, we want you to do this. Will you join the family? Can you come to London?” And he’s kind of on record saying this, he already loved Marvel. He loved Loki, season one. He had already decided he was doing this. And two months later he was in London, helping us develop the character and dig into the script. But it happened really quick. And then obviously the Oscars and everything came afterwards. But he fit right in. He fit right into the team. And I’m sure that was intimidating for him, to come into a team that already had such a great rapport.

How tough is it with just the character of Loki himself at this point? We’ve watched him for 12 years now. He’s the hero of this show, but I feel you put moments in to remind people of the bad things he did. Like when he casually references taking New York City hostage.

Yeah. And this version of Loki is not far removed from that. That Avengers thing that he’s joking about, that happened for him weeks ago.

Right, this version of him just got caught.

But the serious answer to that too though is so much of this season, from season one and now into this one, is about identity. It’s about growth. It’s about what’s your place in the universe? Can you become the best version of yourself? And the exciting path with this variant of Loki – and that we’ve been following for, by the time this ends, almost 12 hours of storytelling – we still have not seen the best version of this guy. And I mean the one that’s fulfilling his potential, which maybe explains when he uses magic in the movies, he’s using it for duplicitous means. He’s using it for mischief.

Now it’s like, we wanted to send him down the path of can you be the best version of yourself? What does that look like? And the idea, can you even become the best version of yourself if you’re not acknowledging your past and where you came from and what you are? And so those reminders coming in, they’re fun, they’re flippant. But they also hopefully are serving, or will have a cumulative effect, of building to this larger story arc that he’s going on.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Paramore is releasing a new remixed version of their recent This Is Why, album, this time titled Re: This Is Why. The band brought on some outside artists to either provide classical reinterpretations of songs, or rewrite/rework others.

Fans had been waiting for the tracklist, which consists of musicians like Julien Baker, Foals, Wet Leg, and even Apple Music’s famous interviewer, Zane Lowe.

“We’ve long wanted to recognize the connection we have with some of the artists who’ve influenced us as a band and/or who have cited our band as an influence,” Paramore shared with the social media announcement. “It’s incredible to hear all our worlds colliding.”

Continue scrolling for Paramore’s Re: This Is Why tracklist.

1. “This Is Why” (Re: Foals)
2. “The News” (Re: The Linda Lindas)
3. “Running Out Of Time” (Re: Panda Bear)
4. “Running Out Of Time” (Re: Zane Lowe)
5. “C’est Comme Ça” (Re: Wet Leg)
6. “Big Man, Little Dignity” (Re: Domi and JD Beck)
7. “You First” (Re: Remi Wolf)
8. “Figure 8” (Re: Bartees Strange)
9. “Liar” (Re: Romy)
10. “Crave” (Re: Claud)
11. “Thick Skull” (Re: Julien Baker)
12. “Sanity” (demo)

Re: This Is Why is out 10/6 via Atlantic. Find more information here.

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

The beginning of fall is one of the greatest sections of the American sports calendar, as you have the MLB and WNBA playoffs, NFL and college football in full swing, and the NBA and NHL getting set to begin. Beyond the Big Four sports, you have the NASCAR playoffs, beginning of the soccer season overseas, and, every two years, the Ryder Cup in golf.

For golf fans, the Ryder Cup (which pits the best golfers from USA and Europe against each other in a rare team competition) is a massive event, but it doesn’t often get the shine golf fans would tell you it deserves from the major sports networks. This year’s Ryder Cup in Rome was particularly spicy, with some shouting matches in the parking lot, internal Team USA turmoil, and mostly European dominance on the course. That wasn’t a hot topic on First Take for the early part of the week, but when Chris “Mad Dog” Russo showed up on Wednesday for his weekly appearance, he used his time to rant about whatever he’d like to deliver an incredible monologue about the catastrophe the week was for the USA side that had Stephen A. Smith at one point keeled over on the floor and Marcus Spears cackling in the corner.

Mad Dog asking if anyone had seen the Patrick Cantlay hat stuff, getting a resounding “no,” and then screaming “PAY ATTENTION” was incredible, as was him yelling “HE’S A CADDIE” about Joe LaCava getting in Rory McIlroy’s grill on the 18th green. There are few people who can deliver a rant quite like Mad Dog and he’s so good at it he can make Stephen A. and company roll around about a golf event they were absolutely not dialed into otherwise.

LANY is continuing their critically acclaimed A Beautiful Blur World Tour. Today (October 4), the band announced the North American leg of the tour, which is set to kick off early next year.

The tour comes in support of the band’s fifth studio album, A Beautiful Blur, and LANY is scheduled to play various venues throughout the US and Canada. Fans can register for a pre-sale via Seated, and will be able to purchase tickets beginning Tuesday, October 10. General on-sale begins Friday, October 13.

You can see the list of tour dates below.

02/13/2024 — Raleigh, NC @ The Ritz
02/16/2024 — Nashville, TN @ Municipal Auditorium
02/17/2024 — Atlanta, GA @ Coca Cola Roxy
02/20/2024 — Charlotte, NC @ The Fillmore
02/23/2024 — Orlando, FL @ Hard Rock live
02/26/2024 — New Orleans, LA @ The Fillmore New Orleans
02/29/2024 — Austin, TX @ ACL Live – Moody Theater
03/02/2024 — Dallas, TX @ South Side Ballroom
03/04/2024 — Kansas City, MO @ Uptown Theater*
03/05/2024 — Tulsa, OK @ BOK Center
03/07/2024 — Denver, CO @ Mission Ballroom*
03/09/2024 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Delta Center
03/10/2024 — Boise, ID @ Revolution Concert House
03/12/2024 — Seattle, WA @ Paramount Theatre
03/14/2024 — Vancouver, BC @ PNE Forum
03/16/2024 — San Francisco, CA @ Bill Graham Civic Auditorium*
03/17/2024 — Wheatland, CA @ Hard Rock Live
03/21/2024 — Phoenix, AZ @ Arizona Financial Theater
03/22/2024 — Las Vegas, NV @ The Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan
03/23/2024 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum
03/26/2024 — Minneapolis, MN @ Armory
03/27/2024 — Madison, WI @ The Sylvee
03/28/2024 — Indianapolis, IN @ Egyptian Room
03/29/2024 — Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed
04/02/2024 — Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore
04/04/2024 — Montreal, QC @ MTELUS
04/05/2024 — Toronto, ON @ History
04/08/2024 — Washington, DC @ The Anthem
04/09/2024 — Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore
04/11/2024 — Boston, MA @ MGM Music Hall
04/12/2024 — New York, NY @ Hammerstein Ballroom

Optimism does not come naturally to Philadelphia sports fans. I know because I have been one for my entire life. Every little sliver of hope is often dashed by a crushing defeat or bad vibes. Look at the Sixers right now, with the reigning MVP and a bouncy young emerging star both getting dragged through the muck by the James Harden fiasco. Look at the Eagles, too, who are undefeated and loaded with talent and still make every game feel as exhausting as a marathon. (Follow some Eagles fans on Twitter if you need proof of this.) It’s making this Phillies season very weird. The vibes are entirely too good. It’s all kind of unsettling.

Another thing making it weird is that the whole team is… well, weird. They’re just a collection of dinger-smashing dirtbag himbos who do things their own way, the history of baseball and general logic be damned. Start at the top. Literally. Start at the top of the lineup, in the leadoff spot, a role generally reserved for fast little slap hitters who get on base and steal bags and is filled on this squad by Kyle Schwarber, a big beefy boy who looks like a guy who drives a truck that delivers hoagies to the clubhouse and sometimes opens the game by doing stuff like this.

It’s incredible. The Marlins have a leadoff hitter, Luis Arraez, who hit about .350 this year on the back of a zillion slapped singles, and the Phillies roll out a dude who hit 47 home runs and 48 singles and whose batting average didn’t even crack .200. Pretty much all he does is draw walks, strike out, or hit home runs. Sometimes the home runs go halfway to the moon. It’s great. Look at this guy.

The whole team is like this, in a way. Just a collection of weirdo characters. There are games where Schwarber starts in left field and he isn’t even the team’s weirdest outfielder. It’s hard to take that crown when there are guys like Nick Castellanos in right field, with his shirt unbuttoned halfway to his navel doing stuff like this.

To be clear, this play was madness. Catching the ball was ill-advised at best, with a runner on third ready to tag up and score what would have been the game-winning run. The quotes about it all after the game drive this home and help convey what a collection of goofballs we have out there.

“Drop it,” manager Rob Thomson said.

“I already told him that I had to be honest,” Garrett Stubbs said. “I was screaming at the top of my lungs to drop it.”

“I saw him not get behind it,” Bryson Stott said, “and I said, ‘Oh crap.’”

There is a voice in his head, Castellanos said. “Usually he just pops up when I’m hitting. You know? Like, don’t take this 2-0 pitch.” The voice does not sound like Scooby-Doo. He heard the voice as he moved toward the foul ball with one out in the ninth inning and the winning run on third base. “Catch it,” the voice said. “Throw him out.” Castellanos did it with a flourish, a spinning motion that resulted in a perfect throw home. It was both wrong and lucky.

Two things worth noting here…

ONE: It’s delightful to picture a professional athlete making decisions from moment to moment based on what a voice in his head is telling him.

TWO: That reference to Scooby-Doo in there was not random. It’s a callback to earlier this year when Castellanos was asked who his favorite superhero is and backed up his claim like this.

I mean… he’s not wrong, right? You have to love a silly outfielder who is guided by voices and makes you rethink everything you know about possibly stoned cartoon dogs. And he’s having a great influence on the other starting outfielder, Johan Rojas, a 22-year-old defensive phenom who has also been unbuttoning his shirt like he’s in a Miami nightclub in 1986. With the blessing of Castellanos. Look at these guys.

The background here is that Castellanos told Rojas he needed to loosen up more when he got called up straight to the majors from Double-A after some injuries, and unbuttoning seems to have helped, because the kid has been setting centerfield on fire in his time in the majors. Here’s a decent rundown of what he’s accomplished out there.

Rojas is challenging how defenders are measured in modern baseball. It’s best to ignore small samples. Rojas, obviously, is a talented defender who makes it look easy. He does things others cannot. But, entering Monday’s game, he had accumulated 14 Defensive Runs Saved. That ranked 14th among all fielders this season — and Rojas had played only 310 innings in the field. It’s an astounding rate. Rojas has broken the metric.

Or not.

“No,” Marsh said, “I don’t think it’s crazy. I mean, the dude had 11 Defensive Runs Saved in August. Right? You don’t see that.”

Marsh had the number right.

And here’s the best part of that blockquote: Brandon Marsh, who said those glowing things about Rojas, is the guy who basically lost his job to the new guy. Marsh went from starting centerfielder to platooning out in left because Rojas has been so damn good, and he seems actually kind of thrilled about it. This is what I mean about the vibes. They’re borderline immaculate. Here’s what Marsh did the night the Phillies clinched a playoff berth on a walkoff single by Rojas.

I mean… come on. How can you not root for these guys? What are you, some kind of Mets fan? Be serious.

The weirdness doesn’t stop in the outfield either. The team’s $300 million shortstop, Trea Turner, started out the year with a five-month slump before getting an extended “we got your back” standing ovation from notoriously fickle Philly fans and then hit about .350 with 16 home runs over the next two months. Their first baseman, Rhys Hoskins, last season’s bat-spiking playoff hero, tore his ACL in spring training and has been replaced by Bryce Harper, who returned from Tommy John surgery faster than anyone in history and learned a new position with no rehab stint in the minors and promptly returned to smashing game-winning home runs in the playoff push. The catcher, JT Realmuto, hits 100 points higher on the road with no good explanation why. The second baseman, Bryson Stott, moved there from shortstop without complaint when the team signed Turner and looks like Dax Shepard and showed up to the Little League Classic with a bat designed to look like a number two pencil. I love him very much.

And as if all that wasn’t enough, as if all the weird and positive energy in Eastern Pennsylvania weren’t firing itself like a laser beam into Citizens Bank Park, we also had this happen in the last week of the regular season.

What we have here, via bullet point:

• Phillies rookie reliever and minor league pitcher of the year Orion Kerkering making his major league debut
• Striking dudes out like freaking Mariano Rivera
• While his dad, a former Marine, drops tears and snot out of his face about it in the stands

It was the cutest damn thing I’ve ever seen. As was the article about it the next day.

“I guess it was just seeing the kid,” Todd, who is 59, said Monday morning. “I don’t know. I’ve seen a lot of good things. I’ve seen a lot of ugly things in my life. I guess maybe it’s a culmination of all those things through life and, you finally reach a point when you get to something that is just unbelievable. I mean, there are 900 guys roughly in the MLB right now at that level. And he’s one of them. You know? I mean, I don’t know. It’s just what came out.”

He scanned the text messages from his Marine friends. They know Todd and some of them know Orion. They understood.

“I got tears in my eyes, too,” one told him. “Don’t worry.”

And so, again, the optimism. It’s an odd feeling. Especially since the team refuses to be normal. No lead is safe, for any team, when the Phillies are on the field. This season alone they’ve blown an 8-1 lead and come back from an 8-1 deficit. I’m actually more comfortable when they’re losing, sometimes, because I have more confidence in them making a comeback than holding a lead. I am equally as sure they are going to win the World Series as I am they are going to blow the next two games by a combined score of 24-3. Anything can happen. It’s… I mean, it’s nerve-wracking and it’s exhausting but it’s also a great time. I love my bomb-blasting boys. I love my tear-stained dads. I love my…

Wait.

Alligators?

This is real. His name is Wally. Yes, I researched this.

Wally, who will be 4 in July, was rescued from just outside Orlando when he was 14 months old. Henney said Wally could grow anywhere from 14 to 16 feet long and weigh 900 to 1,100 pounds. Wally eats chicken wings and shares a 300-gallon plastic pond, indoors, with Scrappy, a smaller, younger alligator the family has also rescued. Wally’s favorite programs to watch on television, of course, are Gator Boys and Swamp People. He also likes to watch The Lion King.

Scrappy watches what Wally watches.

What I’m getting at here is that there is a non-zero chance we are screaming toward a scenario where Kyle Schwarber holds an emotional support alligator named Wally as the Phillies World Series parade makes its way down Broad Street.

I deserve this.

Wally deserves this.

We all deserve this.

Go Phillies.

Boygenius has been everywhere this year. After reuniting for the first time since their debut EP Boygenius, which was released in 2018, the supergroup — comprised of Lucy Dacus, Phoebe Bridgers, and Julien Baker — dropped their full-length debut record, appropriately titled The Record.

Last night (October 3), the trio paid a visit to The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, during which, they performed “Cool About It” from The Record.

During the performance, the trio stands around a microphone, delivering raw, intimate vocals. The ladies are dressed in black-and-white suites, with Bridgers playing guitar and Baker playing banjo. Baker and Bridgers glisten the song with sugary background vocals, while Dacus takes command of the song vocally.

In an interview with Loud And Quiet, Dacus spoke about her songwriting process, and how the women’s parts all come together in

“A lot of times I’ll write a song for us in a different frame of mind, so you can be harmonizing with me and saying something that’s still true for you,” said Dacus. “I don’t want to make either of you sing lyrics that don’t resonate with you.”

The Record has proven to be a promising era, with the supergroup performing at SXSW and Coachella this spring, and a critically-acclaimed tour over the past few months. Next Friday (October 13), Boygenius will release The Rest, a new EP, completing the story of The Record.

In the meantime, you can see the performance of “Cool About It” above.

After tackling the Halloween series, director David Gordon Green is back with another take on another horror classic, but so far, the only thing frightening are the reviews.

Heavily touted as a direct legacy sequel to the original film, The Exorcist: Believer arrives in theaters this week, and critics are not feeling this latest addition to the franchise. While the original Exorcist directed by the legendary William Friedkin is one of the best in the genre, Believer reportedly fails to capture that feeling of demonic horror thanks to its double-possession plot and its own inert fear of making bold statements about faith and religion.

Like previous attempts to expand the Exorcist franchise beyond the first film, Believer just doesn’t possess the skill and mastery of the original, and instead is a mish-mash of horror tropes that are old hat by now.

You can see what the critics are saying below:

Owen Gleiberman, Variety:

A new “Exorcist” movie shouldn’t be a slavish imitation of the original “Exorcist,” but it should conjure a certain danger; that’s what “The Exorcist” was all about. “The Exorcist: Believer,” in its superficially competent and poshly mounted way, feels about as dangerous as a crucifix dipped in a bottle of designer water.

David Ehrlich, IndieWire:

An execrable film that’s redeemed by almost nothing besides Leslie Odom Jr.’s well-modulated lead performance and the ambient sense of unease that Green casts over the story’s first half, “Believer” is so creatively spineless and bereft of its own ideas that its entire concept of sacrilege is limited to imperiling its franchise’s legacy.

William Bibbiani, The Wrap:

David Gordon Green’s “Halloween” trilogy reveled in returning Jamie Lee Curtis front-and-center to the franchise, but he doesn’t quite do the same thing with Ellen Burstyn. Whether that’s an interesting narrative choice, a half-assed attempt to capitalize on the enduring legacy of the original “Exorcist,” or merely a disappointment may be up for some debate, but the “half-assed” argument is by far the most convincing.

David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter:

The music by David Wingo and Amman Abbasi turns up the tension, even if there’s nothing here to rival the needling effectiveness of Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells,” which makes a welcome return in key moments, albeit in a remix that nixes the bells. That watered-down version of an inspired horror theme is symptomatic of a movie that starts out full of promise but fumbles the material as the stakes get higher.

Tom Jorgensen, IGN:

The Exorcist: Believer is a simmering duel with the devil buoyed through a confused second act by an enthusiastic cast and a timely meditation on the importance of community during crisis. But Believer is also palpably reluctant to deviate from the formula of its legendary forerunner. Though its predestined, blockbuster exorcism sequence just manages to provide a satisfying conclusion to the story, the underdeveloped synchronized possession element creates more problems than it solves.

Benjamin Lee, The Guardian:

His major ace is the return of the original protagonist Ellen Burstyn, who had wisely steered clear of any sequels, but was lured back by a “whole bunch of money” and the promise of a scholarship program for acting students. It’s a sound rationale given both the $400m Universal paid for the trilogy and what Burstyn, as one of our finest elder actors, deserves. But it’s also indicative of the overall emptiness of the endeavour, from an Oscar-winning William Friedkin classic to a soulless cash grab originally intended for a dual platform release on Peacock. Taken as just that, it’s serviceable; a silly, gloopy Halloween shocker that offers just about enough goofy entertainment for an undemanding fright night crowd. But it might be close to impossible for those with deep reverence for the original, of which there are a great many, to take it as such.

Chase Hutchinson, Collider:

There is something almost comical about how The Exorcist: Believer takes the premise of the first movie and attempts to go bigger by making it two girls becoming possessed instead of one. Rather than being something fresh or different, it comes across as a largely empty escalation in search of more profound emotion. On top of that, it isn’t particularly scary, as nothing visually holds the same mesmerizing power as Friedkin’s work, and the whole thing seems increasingly scattered.

Meagan Navarro, Bloody Disgusting:

What made The Exorcist so scary and enduring wasn’t its concepts of faith or lack thereof but its authentic characters grappling with relatable issues as they venture further into the dark abyss of evil. Believer doesn’t spend enough time with any of its characters and instead rushes through all the requisite beats of an Exorcist movie right until it fizzles. Its bold, cynical commentary and occasionally effective imagery get lost in the shuffle. Believer is handsomely shot, at least, but mostly, it’s just unscary and soulless.

The Exorcist: Believer opens in theaters on October 6.