Month: November 2023

The Portland Trail Blazers frontcourt is about to take a major hit, as one of the two veteran centers they acquired during their offseason of wheeling and dealing is about to get surgery. According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, Robert Williams has to go under the knife to fix a knee injury that he suffered on Sunday night against the Memphis Grizzlies.

According to Wojnarowski, it’s yet to be determined how much time Williams will miss. It is worth mentioning that he injured his right knee, while his left knee was the one that required surgery last offseason.

Williams came to the Blazers as part of the Jrue Holiday trade to the Boston Celtics. His acquisition was something of a surprise, as the Blazers already brought in a center via trade when the team acquired Deandre Ayton in the three-team deal that sent Damian Lillard to the Milwaukee Bucks. But through the first seven games of the year — six of which have included the former Celtics big man — Portland used Williams in a bench role, where he averaged 6.8 points, 6.3 rebounds, 1.2 blocks, and 1.2 steals in 19.8 minutes per game.

The Blazers have accrued a 3-4 record through the first seven games, and won their first In-Season Tournament game against the Grizzlies.

When it was announced that Donald Trump would take the stand in his New York fraud trial, few expected it would go smoothly. What would it be like to interrogate one of the world’s top shelf chaos agents? Cameras weren’t allowed in the courtroom, but all reports say it was as wild as one would imagine. Trump threw insults, got testy, muttered under his breath, and rambled off-script so often the judge threatened to throw him out. So it was a disaster? Not according to Trump.

After exiting the courtroom, a calm Trump said, “I think it went very well.” Did it, though? What he said afterwards suggested it might not have:

This is a case that should have never been brought. It’s a case that should be dismissed immediately. The fraud was on behalf of the court. The court was the fraudster in this case. They made references to assets that were very valuable, and they said, uh, they had no idea. They had no idea what the numbers were when they said $18 million for Mar-A-Lago, has 50 to 100 times that amount by any estimation. It’s a terrible thing that’s happened here. We’re taking days and days and weeks and weeks and it goes on. And then you look at the outside world and what’s happening. But of course, they’re getting their wish because I don’t have to be here for the most part. But I certainly do have to be here because I want to be here because it’s a scam. And this is a case that should have never been brought, and it’s a case that now should be dismissed.

So maybe Trump meant it went “very well” under the circumstances. After all, he wasn’t actually thrown out of court. And maybe he enjoyed annoying everyone by refusing to answer questions, instead babbling about things like his alleged wealth and claiming that he was president in 2021. If that’s how he measures a good day in court for a trial his company has already partially lost, then so be it. Or maybe it’s just further proof that his brain is mush.

(Via Mediaite)

Over the past few years, as Nigerian pop music — also known as Afrobeats, perhaps a bit reductively — has grown more popular stateside, the artist who has emerged as the central focus for the movement is Burna Boy. Amid a constellation of rising stars such as Asake, Davido, Rema, and Wizkid, his has been the one that burns the brightest. From a semi-coincidental US breakout to becoming the first Nigerian musician to headline an American stadium tour (more on that later), Burna has become the most recognizable face of the genre and its unofficial ambassador from his homeland to the “land of opportunity.”

Of course, I knew all this going into the Los Angeles stop of his I Told Them… Tour Friday at BMO Stadium (home of the Los Angeles FC and Angel City FC soccer teams). But I was still unprepared for the show of sheer enthusiasm from the massive crowd at the recently renamed stadium. While the crowd itself was visibly smaller than the venue’s capacity of 22,000 seats, its energy filled the space, making the misty late-night show feel like the crowded arena show it probably should have been (for the record, the nearby Crypto.com Arena seats 20,000).

While I was perfectly prepared to jibe at the African Giant’s self-aggrandizing decision to pursue the eyebrow-raising “first artist” headlines over the more pragmatic decision to sell out an ostensibly smaller venue (not to mention, the seating shell game used to achieve those headlines), by the time Burna was three songs into his setlist, I was not only converted but I also fully believed that Burna is the perfect ambassador for Afrobeats in the US.

Some of this is down to background info. Having written about the artist for the past five years, I’ve gleaned some insights into his politics, including a belief in the small-but-growing “One Africa” movement, and his insistence on fighting to clarify the Afrobeats moniker. Burna staunchly rejects the classification, preferring the term “Afro-fusion,” which he believes is both more accurate and less confusing, considering his countryman Fela Kuti pioneered a genre called Afrobeat (no “S”) over 40 years ago.

And while he believes that Africa, the continent, should be united under one banner — sort of the way the EU is made up of several different countries using similar trade and financial laws — he is careful to note that “Afrobeats” paints with a broad brush that doesn’t accurately distinguish between contemporary African music such as Amapiano, Coupé-Décalé, Ethio-jazz, Gqom, Makossa, Sungura, and more. There are so many different sub-genres, instruments, languages, and cultures, that the term Afrobeats can truly be seen as reductive (and often is, outside of Nigeria).

But the main aspect of Burna’s performance that makes him such a perfect ambassador for Afro-fusion is, naturally, the music, and the ease and confidence with which he performs it. While the music itself often expresses a joy that can’t be easily put into words (and certainly not in less than these 800 characters), what I can say is I’ve never seen any artist appear to enjoy themselves onstage as much as Burna. Longtime readers will know: that’s a LOT of artists.

Both his ear-to-ear grin and his lighthearted, sometimes goofy dancing are infectious. Security gave up trying to keep concertgoers out of the aisles almost immediately on Friday, recognizing quickly that maintaining neat little lines would not only be impossible but ill-advised. You’ve probably seen how energetic some African dances can get; folks all around dipped and swayed and dropped down with the sort of urgency and stamina that would even make Megan Thee Stallion’s adamantium knees cry out for assistance.

Meanwhile, despite Burna’s lyrics mostly being in the pidgin Yoruba spoken among natives of the region, the crowd seemed to know every word, singing along like they were his real background vocalists (both sounded spectacular). He exhibited immaculate crowd control with call-and-response segments that brought the spirits of the ancestors out of the audience — even those without African ancestry (a group of SWANA guys behind me were having so much fun dancing in the aisle, it seemed like Burna’s dream of a united Africa was much closer than it might be in reality).

And even after the set lulled an hour in when Burna played most of his slow songs back-to-back (this after starting after 10 pm), he snatched the crowd back to wakefulness with joyous anthems like “It’s Plenty” and his breakout hit “Ye” before closing with his biggest hit to date, “Last Last.” That’s a guy who knows how to finish a show (confetti rain, band vamps, the whole shebang). With Burna Boy introducing more and more of the population to the music of his homeland, it makes perfect sense why Afrobeats is taking over the world.

Burna Boy is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

On Monday, word broke from John Ourand of the Sports Business Journal that the 15 NBA franchises that have local TV rights deals with Bally Sports will get their rights back at the end of this season, no matter how long their current contracts run, as part of a new deal with Diamond Sports Group as part of their ongoing bankruptcy case.

Because every team in the NBA is on a different local TV contract for varying lengths of time, there has never really been a time like this where half of the league will be shopping their rights at the same time. This presents a unique opportunity for the NBA to finally reshape its long-standing issues with local TV rights and take back some control going forward, building towards a vastly improved League Pass model that could benefit the league and teams.

The first step is for teams to negotiate that they have control over their streaming rights. We’ve seen a few teams debut direct-to-consumer streaming services in recent years — the Clippers, Suns, and Jazz all moved to that model recently with their current TV deal, and it should be the standard going forward. What must change is the need to purchase both a DTC service and League Pass to watch the league as a whole.

One of the biggest issues with selling teams on a leaguewide streaming service has been the biggest franchises — Lakers, Knicks, etc. — make a ton off of their local rights, while smaller markets do not. Those big teams don’t want to share that much of the pie, and understandably so. However, it would benefit the league greatly to find a way to sell a League Pass option without blackout restrictions locally, and the shift to DTC models could provide a way to bridge that gap. From a fan perspective, having to bounce between apps to watch different games is incredibly annoying. It’s also annoying to have to pay a significant amount for multiple services to watch the league as a whole.

So, what if instead of having to pay $125 for a local option and $99/149 for NBA League Pass (regular/premium), the league brought those under one umbrella (the current DTCs already sell through NBA.com) and let teams sell a local streaming option and also a League Pass without blackout restrictions for $199, much like MLS’ new structure with Apple. Teams could still sell their broadcast TV rights to bring in that revenue, and it would be easy to track streaming sales to ensure teams get their cut of the League Pass purchase. That would mean the big market teams could still reap the benefits of being in the big market, while small market teams would get some help from the league in terms of running the streaming service rather than having to get it off the ground themselves. That would also (hopefully) cause the league to be more invested in the League Pass product and it would mitigate a lot of the previous concerns for bundling everything together.

As pretty much anyone that has tried to cobble together different streaming services is aware, the value is largely gone at this point as things become more fractured, and this is a rare opportunity for the league to look to take control of their own streaming rights to avoid further splintering as the RSN model becomes more fraught. Adam Silver has noted that the RSN model has to change and the league has to be proactive in figuring out what the shift should be, and with the opportunity to get half of the league under one umbrella next summer, this is the best chance to take a major step forward in that.

There might be a short-term financial hit teams would take by splitting up the broadcast TV rights and the streaming rights to sell those themselves, but with franchise valuations ballooning and a new national TV deal set to make everyone lots and lots of money, that seems like a worthwhile gamble. Silver has been adamant that the NBA needs to make it easier to watch games and he is clearly skeptical of the TV bundle still being the answer long-term.

If that’s the case, then why wouldn’t you look to bring everyone’s streaming rights under one umbrella and control it as a league, letting the teams be the ones to sell it directly to their fans? There won’t ever be a better opportunity to do so than next summer when you could get 15 of your franchises on board, and then look to add the rest whenever it’s their turn to renegotiate.

TV used to be lousy with Peanuts specials. They started in 1965, with the beloved A Charlie Brown Christmas, and there used to be about one a year into the ‘80s, when they slowed down and, well, got not so good. Apple scooped up the specials back in 2020, with plans to make new shows. Now they’re working on a new movie — the gang’s first since the pretty good one from 2015.

Per Variety, the as-yet-untitled film will follow Snoopy, Charlie, et al. as they go on, per Apple, “an epic adventure to the Big City.’ Which big city? Maybe it’s an amalgam of a bunch, as in Babe: Pig in the City. Along the way they’ll be “ learning the true meaning of friendship, while meeting some surprising new friends along the way.” The story, if not the script, is credited to Peanuts creator Charles Schulz’s son Craig, his son Bryan, and Bryan’s writing partner Cornelius Uliano, keeping it all in the family.

It’s good news, and maybe it’s good enough to make up for one sad development: This year the aforementioned Christmas special won’t air on ABC, as it did for decades. There is a very popular Change.org petition to get it back on the airwaves this year, but that might not be enough to fix rights issues, which is what’s keeping it off the air. At least those with an AppleTV+ subscription can watch it at their leisure, along with plenty of other classic Peanuts specials, like that one where Charlie spends the New Year’s school break lugging around a giant copy of War and Peace, which is honestly a good way to spend the holidays.

(Via Variety)

(Spoilers for The Iron Claw will likely be found below.)

The cast of A24’s The Iron Claw has commenced promotional touring after the project secured a SAG-AFTRA strike exemption to do so. The means that we’re gonna hear many anecdotes about in-the-ring training and diets that Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, and Stanley Simons endured to portray the jacked-and-tragic Von Erich brothers in a wrestling biopic. The first three on that list got a raging start in an Entertainment Weekly feature shoot, and you really should follow the link to see them eat ribs in slo mo while rubbing sauce all over their shirts.

I’ve got no clue how they maintained serious faces while doing so, but that’s one reason why they are professionals. Additionally, the group of course discussed how many thousands of calories per day they ate to maintain wrestling physiques. Let’s just say that Efron has done this before (for Baywatch), but the experience was a novelty for White. Even though he’s surrounded by food on The Bear, he’s not necessarily a Chef stuffing food in his face for fun. The avocados and waffles sound delicious, but everything else sounds monotonous. Yet The Bear‘s notoriety helped the team:

White shakes his head at the memory of their diet. “I was just eating frozen turkey patties and avocados and protein shakes and waffles and almond butter,” he says. Sometimes the four brothers would go out to dinner, and together, they’d order a minor mountain of food.

“Jeremy, thankfully, had just done The Bear,” Simons, 22, says of the culinary TV star. “So, we’d go to restaurants and [the employees] would be like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s Jeremy!’ and bring out a free dish. We were eating a lot.”

Yes Chef? It would appear so, and we will be able to see how well they bulked up when The Iron Claw arrives in theaters on December 23. In the meantime, go enjoy this Yellowstone-esque photoshoot from EW.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

With over three and a half decades under its belt, “The Simpsons” have more than few recurring bits that fans have come to expect—Bart’s cheeky chalkboard writing during the opening sequence, Homer arguing with his brain, greeting every Halloween season with a new “Treehouse of Horror” episode, just to name a few.

However, one of the show’s longest running gags has seemingly come to an end.

---

In a recent Season 35 episode titled “McMansion & Wife,” Homer and Marge go next door to visit their new neighbor Thayer, who greets Homer with a handshake.

“Whoa, that’s quite a grip,” Thayer remarks, to which Homer boasts, “See, Marge? Strangling the boy paid off,” referring to his impulse to yell “why you little!” while putting his hands around Bart’s throat.

But then Homer, apparently reformed, looks back to Thayer, saying, “Just kidding, I don’t do that anymore. Times have changed.”

Watch the moment below:

In a new Simpsons episode, Homer Simpson reveals that he stopped strangling Bart as times has changed. pic.twitter.com/LUR06RbqbY

— ToonHive (@ToonHive) November 5, 2023

Homer strangling Bart has been a staple of cartoonist Matt Groening’s iconic show since its humble debut as a series of animated shorts on the “Tracy Ullman show”, inspired by the real temper of Groening’s father. While he never actually strangled Groening, he would get so mad that it “felt like the next move sometimes.”

Over the years, “The Simpsons” would address Homer’s penchant for violence, especially in Season 22’s episode titled “Love is a Many Strangled Thing,” where Homer takes a “fathering enrichment class” and gets strangled by a much larger man (played by Kareem Abdul Jabbar).

Traumatized, Homer isn’t able to perform his standard punishment on his son. That is, until Bart pranks him with a whoopee cushion in the following season.

But now, Homer seems to have completely mended his ways. And while some longtime fans expressed disappointment, most are on board with the change.

“I knew my man Homer was gonna learn,” one person quipped on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Another added, “Y’all call it “woke”, I call it good character development for Homer.”

This certainly isn’t the first time “The Simpsons” has made a few tweaks to adapt to the changing times. A prime example being in 2020 when Hank Azaria confirmed he’d no longer be voicing Indian convenience store owner Apu Nahasapeemapetilon after receiving criticism that the character perpetuated racial stereotypes.

via GIPHY

It stands to reason that adapting to more modern views is essential for any long running television show. “The Simpsons” is no exception. And really, whether or not you consider the gag removal as necessary, we can probably all agree that it follows along with the Simpsons theme of mirroring—not to mention poking a little fun at—society’s ever shifting perspective.

There are a few big reasons why 70% of divorces in the United States among heterosexual couples are filed by women. Women have more economic opportunities than in decades past and are better positioned to care for themselves and their children without a husband’s income.

Another big reason is that even though the world has become much more egalitarian than in the past, women still bear the brunt of most of the emotional labor in the home. Gilza Fort-Martinez, a Florida, US-based licensed couples’ therapist, told the BBC that men are socialized to have lower emotional intelligence than women, leaving their wives to do most of the emotional labor.

Secondly, studies show that women still do most of the domestic work in the home, so many are pulling double duty for their households.

---

A TikTokker with two children (@thesoontobeexwife) shared why she decided to leave her husband of two decades and her story recounts a common theme: She did all the work and her husband did little but complain.

The video, entitled “Why women leave,” has received over 2 million views.

@thesoontobeexwife

Y’all I laughed when I realized he truly does treat me better now then when he was trying to be in a marriage with me. How is this better?? How did I ever think before was ok?? #toxicrelationship #divorce #mentalloadofmotherhood #divorcetok #divorceisanoption #chooseyou #mentalhealth #mentalload #fyp #mentalload #emotionallabor

“So for the men out there who watch this, which frankly I kind of hope there aren’t any, you have an idea maybe what not to do,” she starts the video. “Yesterday, I go to work all day, go pick up one kid from school, go grocery shopping, go pick up the other kid from school, come home. Kids need a snack–make the snack. Kids want to play outside – we play outside.”

Her husband then comes home after attending a volunteer program, which she didn’t want him to join, and the self-centeredness begins. “So he gets home, he eats the entire carton of blueberries I just purchased for the children’s lunch and asks me what’s for dinner. I tell him I don’t know because the kids had a late snack and they’re not hungry yet,” she says in the video.

She then explains how the last time he cooked, which was a rare event, he nearly punched a hole in the wall because he forgot an ingredient. Their previous home had multiple holes in the walls. Dr. Gail Saltz, a psychiatrist and host of the Power of Different podcast, says that when punch walls it’s a sign that they haven’t “learned to deal with anger in a reasonable way.”

“Anyway, finally one kid is hungry,” the TikTokker continues. “So I offered to make pancakes because they’re quick and easy and it’s late. He sees the pancake batter and sees that there’s wheat flour in it and starts complaining. Says he won’t eat them. Now I am a grown adult making pancakes for my children who I am trying to feed nutritionally balanced meals. So yes, there’s wheat flour in the pancake mix.”

Then her husband says he’s not doing the dishes because he didn’t eat any pancakes. “Friends, the only thing this man does around this house is dishes occasionally. If I cook, he usually does the dishes. I cook most nights. But here’s the thing. That’s all he does. I do everything else. Everything. Everything.”

She then listed all of the household duties she handles.

“I cook, I clean the bathrooms, I make the lunches, I make the breakfasts, I mow the lawn, I do kids’ bedtime. I literally do everything and he does dishes once a day, maybe,” she says.

@thesoontobeexwife

I HAVE OFFICIALLY FILED FOR DIVORCE 🎉 #divorce #divorcetok #toxicrelationship #divorceisanoption #fyp #mentalhealth #chooseyou #iamenough #iwillnotbeafraid #mentalloadofmotherhood #emotionallabor

The video received over 8700 comments and most of them were words of support for the TikTokker who would go on to file for divorce from her husband.

“The amount of women I’ve heard say that their male partners are only teaching how to be completely independent of them, theirs going to be so many lonely men out there,” Gwen wrote. “I was married to someone just like this for over 35 years. You will be so happy when you get away from him,” BeckyButters wrote.

“The way you will no longer be walking on eggshells in your own home is an amazing feeling. You got this!” Barf Simpson added.

This article originally appeared on 5.21.23

You may think the Illuminati secretly rules the world, but it’s actually cats. Cats have been treated like gods since the start of human civilization, whether it was the ancient Egyptians or those of us in the modern world who would do anything for our furry friends.

And to conquer the world, cats need cutting-edge military technology. That’s why Suck UK creates awesome cardboard gadgets you can buy for your cats.

“These fun and playful toy houses for your cats are designed to add a sense of adventure to their daily lives about the house. Why spend an afternoon relaxing in a boring, plain old box, when there’s the opportunity to become a life saving fireman, thrilling tank driver or LA socialite?!”

---

“Sit back and have a giggle at your cat ‘doing human things’ and help keep them away from clawing your favorite sofa!”

“These cardboard playhouses come in various humorous designs; the Tank, the Catillac, the Fire Engine, Plane, and for those kitties with a bit more style, the Cabin and Tepee.”

“There’s no need to glue or tape and they easily fold away if you need a bit more space around the house.”

Just look at these guys having so much fun…

They even have a plane, every army needs an air force after all.

As you can probably imagine, people are loving the vehicles, though their cats are still turning them down for plain cardboard boxes. One customer writes:

“A few weeks down the line, they both play with it but not as much as the huge cardboard box I got for free from a supermarket… But I like it, so maybe that’s what counts! It does look impressive, with color printing on the inside and outside.”

And they don’t only do vehicles. Your cat could be a superstar DJ, too.

This article originally appeared on 12.12,.19

Have you listened to the miscellaneous voices of your miscellaneous items on the floor lately?

Oh yours don’t speak? Well these do.

---

And they have something to admit.

THEY ARE MURDERERS!

Conveniently enough, they offer four easy steps to make them not murderers.

ONE:

TWO:

THREE:

FOUR:

*phew*

And now for some follow-ups…

YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO…

Less murderous miscellaneous items, safer babies, better world.

This article originally appeared on 1,14.15