It all began over the summer when Bowen Yang was asked on Watch What Happens Live to name the “worst SNL host behavior” he’s seen during his time on the show. “This man who — this person, this host — made multiple cast members cry on Wednesday before the table read because he hated the ideas,” he said, adding that he was “terrible.” Yang didn’t call out the host by name, but Chloe Fineman did on Monday in a since-deleted TikTok video.
“OK, I just saw some news article about Elon Musk being like butt-hurt over SNL and his impression, but I’m like you’re clearly watching the show, like what are you talking about?” she said. “And I’m like, you know what? I’m gonna come out and say at long last that I’m the cast member that he made cry. And he’s the host that made someone cry.”
Fineman continued, “You made I, Chloe Fineman burst into tears because I stayed up late writing a sketch. I was so excited, I came in, I asked if you had any questions and you stared at me like you were firing me from Tesla and were like, ‘It’s not funny.’”
Musk replied on (where else?) X. “Frankly, it was only on the Thursday before the Saturday that ANY of the sketches generated laughs. I was worried,” he wrote. “I was like damn my SNL appearance is going to be so f*cking unfunny that it will make a crackhead sober!! But then it worked out in the end.”
Did it, though? Of the 977 episodes of SNL with user ratings on IMDb, Musk’s 2021 episode (with musical guest Miley Cyrus) is ranked 967th, with a 4.7. The host of the lowest-ranked episode? Donald Trump.
Most of what Björk does requires an explanation, as the experimental Icelandic artist is seemingly always trying something new and innovative. Take, for example, “Nature Manifesto,” which she just announced.
The sound installation, described as an “immersive sound piece,” runs for 3 minutes and 40 seconds, and Björk created it alongside fellow Icelandic artist Aleph. It will be presented as part of the forum “Biodiversity: Which culture for which future?” at the Centre Pompidou in Paris from November 20 to December 9.
“We would like to share our ‘Nature Manifesto,‘ a sound installation at the Centre Pompidou @centrepompidou, Paris. Produced in collaboration with the IRCAM using AI software, this immersive sound piece gives endangered and extinct animals a voice by merging their sounds with our words. We wanted to share their presence in an architecture representing the industrial age, far away from nature. In the veins of the escalator of the museum, known as the ‘caterpillar,‘ we wanted to remind citizens of the raw vitality of endangered creatures. Even though you are restlessly traveling between floors whilst listening to this soundpiece, the tone of animals’ voices hopefully builds a sonic bridge towards the listeners. And in the spirit of these animals, in the magic of how they are sensually aligned with their environment, they become our teachers! Their ghosts remind us of improving our primordial mindfulness. But we didn’t only want to talk the talk but walk the walk, so together with young environmentalists in France and Iceland, we have set up a campaign. It will launch later.”
Before HBO and Matt Reeves’ The Penguin series arrived, word surfaced that it would bridge the gap between The Batman movies. That promise appears to have been fulfilled (although we won’t really be able to judge connective success until the next Battinson movie surfaces), and a demonstrative thread exists between Sofia Falcone and her half-sister (in this universe), Selena Kyle.
The Penguin viewership has also proven the Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti-starring series to be “the most-watched current HBO or Max title debut season globally behind only ‘House of the Dragon’ and ‘The Last of Us.’” So, questions of a second season have been swirling after Oz Cobblepot positioned himself on top of Gotham’s underworld.
The difficulty with a renewal, however, is that Colin Farrell spent the lead-up to this finale talking about how he never wanted to sit through the makeup-and-prosthetics process again. To be fair, it sounds like a lot to endure, and as he recently told Games Radar about a second season, “I don’t know, man.” He then added, “Don’t get me wrong – I loved it – but it got in on me a little bit. By the end of it, I was b*tching and moaning to anyone who would listen to me that I f*cking wanted it to be finished… I had ‘grumpy gratitude.’”
After the finale, how does Farrell feel in light of the show’s growing ratings and following positive reception? He sounded much more open in retrospect while talking to Hollywood Reporter:
“If there’s a great idea [for season two], and the writing was really muscular and as strong or stronger on the page than it was the first season, of course I would do it.”
Farrell then added that the initial critical response to the series was of course nice, but “I’ve been around long enough [to know] that it’s the audience who are really the most important critics.” In other words, being “back by popular demand” could actually happen. Maybe he’ll be able to avoid reliving that crotch prosthetic if the show continues? As a compromise.
With that said, HBO has not yet announced a second The Penguin season, but surely, that remains an option.
The NBA’s efforts to add a little excitement to the doldrums of its regular season will return on Tuesday evening. For the second straight year, the league will hold its new cup competition, now known as the Emirates NBA Cup. The first year was fun, with the Los Angeles Lakers winning the whole thing by knocking off the Indiana Pacers in Las Vegas, and now, the NBA will continue its efforts to turn this nascent event into a crucial part of its calendar.
What does this all mean? Well, we tried to answer that today by explaining what’s new this year, how the whole thing will work, and why we’re excited to watch this as it tries to become a tentpole event on the NBA calendar.
So is this just the In-Season Tournament but with a new name?
It is! While the NBA has never explicitly said this, my assumption is that they spent the first year calling it the In-Season Tournament so fans would get a sense of what it is before calling it what they always wanted to call it: The NBA Cup, or more specifically, the Emirates NBA Cup. Or maybe they just couldn’t find a sponsor in the first year.
What’s that Emirates thing? I’ve seen its logo on courts but never actually looked into what it is.
It’s an airline based out of the United Arab Emirates that sponsors a lot of stuff. They’re sponsoring this event, which is the second-best thing that the NBA does, and fortunately, Emirates has plenty of experience sponsoring the second-best thing, as they are the shirt sponsor for Arsenal.
What?
Just let me cook.
Ok, so, any major differences from last year other than the name?
A big one are the courts. Last year, they came under criticism from players (who kept slipping on them) and fans (who thought some were huge eyesores, particularly because of the weird, cumbersome stripe they had going down the middle of the courts). They’re not nearly as bad this year, as they replaced the stripe with rings in the center of the floor and got rid of some of the more abrasive designs that just do not work on television. I’m sure not everyone will love them, but I think they are a huge improvement on last year — we just have to see if players struggle with their footing on them, or else the aesthetic changes do not matter at all.
What about point differential? I know some players disliked that.
Well, that’s still sticking around as a potential tiebreaker for which teams do and do not advance. Frankly, I think it’s fine and we saw last year that some of the European players were trying to egg their teammates on — Domantas Sabonis was the main one I remember — but it’ll still take a bit of a shift for everyone to get on board with it.
Remind me how determining how teams advance will work again?
So the easiest way to move on is to just win your group and not worry about any tiebreakers.
That is correct.
Well then, what do the groups look like?
Once again, the NBA broke things up into three groups of five teams in each conference — this will, hopefully, look a lot cleaner when expansion happens, we get up to 32 teams, and they can do groups of four in each conference where each team plays group games home and away. The group games will happen on Tuesdays and Fridays starting tonight and running through Dec. 3.
Here’s how it all looks:
West Group A: Minnesota, LA Clippers, Sacramento, Houston, Portland
West Group B: Oklahoma City, Phoenix, LA Lakers, Utah, San Antonio
West Group C: Denver, Dallas, New Orleans, Golden State, Memphis
East Group A: New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Charlotte
East Group B: Milwaukee, Indiana, Miami, Toronto, Detroit
East Group C: Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Atlanta, Washington
How do these teams qualify for the knockouts?
Same as last year — win your group and you get a spot. Both conferences then get one remaining spot for a wild card team, which goes to the best remaining team that did not automatically qualify by winning its group. This is probably where those aforementioned tiebreakers would come in, but you never know.
And will the knockouts work like last year, too?
Yup! Single-elimination basketball games, with the quarterfinals happening on-site at home arenas and the semifinals and final happening in Las Vegas. The quarters are on Dec. 10 and 11, the semis are on Dec. 14, and the final is on Dec. 17.
And are these games all considered regular season games, too?
For the most part they are — group games, the quarters, and the semis will all count towards regular season records again, while the championship game will not.
So it looks a lot like last year, then.
That’s right, the league has, essentially, decided to keep a lot of things the same other than the name and the courts. Oh, also, as a programming note: home teams will wear their Statement Edition uniforms, while road teams wear their Association edition uniforms, according to the league.
Huh, well then, ok.
You don’t seem enthused about all of this, dear reader.
Yeah, I mean, I am still unsure why I should care about this.
Well that’s easy: You don’t have to! You’re an adult with agency and the ability to care about whatever you want, times are tough, maybe you don’t want to get super personally invested in a new thing the NBA is doing, that’s fine.
But you seem to like this.
I do!
Why?
I think a big split I have noticed here is “fans who like soccer” and “fans who do not,” with the former being more open to the idea of a midseason cup competition — Adam Silver has compared the NBA Cup to the FA Cup in English football, but basically every domestic league has a secondary cup competition.
The thing is that these competitions are universally considered not as important as winning the league, but they are still important because it’s an opportunity to win something historic and provide some validation for a team’s season. The NBA Cup is only in its second year, so clearly, it has a way to go before it gets taken that seriously — the whole saga with the Lakers debating putting up a little banner is an example of this.
But the FA Cup, for example, is not considered cool because everyone farts around and then Manchester City wins it at the end. It’s considered cool because teams from several levels of English football have a chance to win it, and sometimes, you get magical runs to the very end. We got a glimpse of what that could look like last year when the Indiana Pacers nearly won the whole thing. Hell, if not for the fact that they’re the Lakers, it’d probably be viewed as proof of concept that the final was between a Play-In team and an upstart young squad trying to win something for the first time. That is, to steal a phrase from the English, the magic of the cup.
So acknowledging that this isn’t as important as winning the NBA Finals is fine?
One-hundred percent. The longer the NBA sticks with this — and, let’s face it, Silver is essentially staking his legacy as a commissioner on this becoming a big deal — the more likely it is that it’ll settle into a spot where fans/franchises like that it is a thing that they can win, all while understanding that the big prize is still waiting for them in June. It helps, of course, that there’s a financial incentive to do well.
Remind me what that is.
Sure! Players whose teams make the quarterfinals make $50,000, players whose teams make the semifinals make $100,000, players on the runners-up make $200,000, and players on the team that wins the whole thing makes $500,000.
Nice.
I agree.
Anyway, this sounds like, bare minimum, a thing I can have on my television on Tuesdays and Fridays.
It is, and really, if that’s all that comes from this for the next year or two, that’s totally fine. Something like this will only become a big deal the more it happens and the more it becomes ingrained as part of the sport’s culture, and as long as this year is a step towards doing that, I’m sure it’ll all work out in the long-run.
Nice. Well, I suppose I can tune in.
That you can, and if you want to know what games are on, when they’re on, and which networks they’ll be on, you can click right here.
The NBA will head to the Bay Area next year for All-Star Weekend. While the league will have a presence in a few different places, its two main events — All-Star Saturday Night and the All-Star Game — will set up shop at the Chase Center in San Francisco, which is the home of the Golden State Warriors.
It stands to reason that we’ll see some of the big names associated with the franchise involved in the festivities — Steph Curry, if I had to guess, is going to be an extremely busy man for a few days. And in the lead-up to the league making its way to California, a number of the biggest names in music from the Bay Area teamed up with the Warriors to release a new song in celebration of the All-Star Game going to San Francisco.
The track is titled “Players Holiday ‘25,” and features Saweetie, G-Eazy, P-Lo, LaRussell, Larry June, Kamaiyah, Thuy, and YMTK. It’s not the only release the team has in store for All-Star, as a full album, titled For The Soil, will come out in January. You can listen to the song — which is being released via the Warriors’ record label Golden State Entertainment — at the top of this post.
“The Warriors have been a big part of my journey, and it’s an honor to collaborate with Golden State
Entertainment and some of the most iconic voices from the community to create something that
represents the culture we live and breathe,” P-Lo said in a statement.
The 2025 NBA All-Star Game will take place on Sunday, Feb. 16.
The recent When We Were Young headliners are going on tour to support the album that gave us “Teenagers,” “Famous Last Words,” and, of course, the title track (which Phoebe Bridgers once memorably covered). Each show will feature a different MCR-selected artist as the opening act, including Death Cab For Cutie and Thursday in New Jersey, Pixies in Toronto, and Devo in Chicago. You can check out the tour trailer above.
Tickets for The Black Parade Tour go on sale this Friday, November 15, at 10 a.m. local time. You can find more information here.
You can see the full dates and poster for The Black Parade Tour below.
My Chemical Romance’s 2025 Tour Dates: The Black Parade
07/11/2025 — Seattle, WA @ T-Mobile Park (with Violent Femmes)
07/19/2025 — San Francisco, CA @ Oracle Park (with 100 Gecs)
07/26/2025 — Los Angeles, CA @ Dodger Stadium (with Wallows)
08/02/2025 — Arlington, TX @ Globe Life Field (with Garbage)
08/09/2025 — East Rutherford, NJ @ MetLife Stadium (with Death Cab For Cutie and Thursday)
08/15/2025 — Philadelphia, PA @ Citizens Bank Park (with Alice Cooper)
08/22/2025 — Toronto, ON @ Rogers Centre (with Pixies)
08/29/2025 — Chicago, IL @ Soldier Field (with Devo)
09/07/2025 — Boston, MA @ Fenway Park (with Idles)
09/13/2025 — Tampa, FL @ Raymond James Stadium (with Evanescence)
My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade Tour Poster
Over the past few years, Tyler The Creator has seemingly become more and more interested in publicly sharing parts of his creative process with his fans and followers, and that trend continues with his new album Chromakopia. After securing the No. 1 Billboard spot for the second week in a row, Tyler posted a video of behind-the-scenes clips from the album’s recording process titled “Mask Is Off” — a reference to a song from the album called “Take Your Mask Off.”
Like the song, which contains a vulnerable look at some of Tyler’s insecurities with its admonishment to listeners to be their true selves, “Mask Is Off” finds Tyler baring parts of his process he’s previously admitted to being shy about, such as his singing. We also see his production work, instrumentation, engineering, and collaboration, as he works out bars, beats, choruses, and melodies, both in his own private bubble and with collaborators like Daniel Caesar and Thundercat. (The recording for “Sticky” looks like the most fun anyone’s ever had in a recording booth since the ’80s.)
Speaking of Tyler’s creative process, you can check out Uproxx’s story on Silent House, the production house behind Tyler’s unique stage shows, ahead of this weekend’s Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival in Los Angeles.
Angel Olsen dropped the album Big Time in 2022 and followed it with the Forever Means EP last year. Now she has detailed what’s next: Today (November 12), Olsen announced Cosmic Waves Volume 1, which has a bit of a atypical structure.
The first five tracks are songs by other artists, while the final five are covers of those same artists, performed by Olsen. For example, today, we get Poppy Jean Crawford’s “Glamorous,” as well as Olsen’s cover of Crawford’s “The Takeover.”
Olsen says of Crawford:
“I remember speaking with my good friend Angela Ricciardi about Poppy starring in the film The Giver Gives to Give, and was immediately transfixed by her overall vibe and ’30s era beauty. But it wasn’t until later when Angela shared one of Poppy’s early demo grunge songs with me that I was blown away. Poppy gives me hope that guitar music will come back. She has such a powerful voice made for pop while also having this edge to her that, for me, communicates the kind of rage I can always relate to.”
Listen to Olsen’s rendition of “The Takeover” above and find the Cosmic Waves Volume 1 cover art and tracklist below.
Angel Olsen’s Cosmic Waves Volume 1 Album Cover Artwork
somethingscosmic
Angel Olsen’s Cosmic Waves Volume 1 Tracklist
1. Poppy Jean Crawford — “Glamorous”
2. Coffin Prick — “Blood”
3. Sarah Grace White — “Ride”
4. Maxim Ludwig — “Make Believe You Love Me”
5. Camp Saint Helene — “Wonder Now”
6. Angel Olsen — “The Takeover (Poppy Jean Crawford cover)”
7. Angel Olsen — “Swimming (Coffin Prick cover)”
8. Angel Olsen — “Sinkhole (Sarah Grace White cover)”
9. Angel Olsen — “Born Too Blue (Maxim Ludwig cover)”
10. Angel Olsen — “Farfisa Song (Camp Saint Helene cover)”
Cosmic Waves Volume 1 is out 12/6 via somethingscosmic. Find more information here.
The second edition of the NBA Cup (now with a fancy sponsor, Emirates) will begin on Tuesday night as group stage action gets started. Feelings on the NBA Cup vary, but for the most part, it seems to have been at least a mild positive in terms of adding a little juice to November regular season hoops.
Last year, the eight teams that emerged from group play were the Celtics, Bucks, Pacers, and Knicks in the East, and the Lakers, Kings, Suns, and Pelicans in the West. Ultimately, the Lakers beat the Pacers in the final, marking the high point of the season for Los Angeles, while that was just the beginning of a run to the conference finals from Indiana. There are differing views from teams on how they approach the Cup, but because most of the games until you get to Vegas count all the same as regular season games, you should see contenders still trying at least until the quarterfinals where they may punt to avoid adding a trip to Vegas to their schedule.
Not every team has the Cup schedule circled on their calendars, and for some, it gets in the way of the long-term goals (either to get lottery balls or winning a title). But as the Pacers showed a year ago, for a young team without much playoff experience, the Cup can get guys feet wet to that kind of environment and build some confidence for the tournament everyone cares about come April, May, and June.
Here, we’ll look at eight teams that we think should be willing to invest early season energy into trying to get to Vegas and hoist the NBA Cup.
Houston Rockets
Houston’s gotten off to a strong start this season at 7-4, and I think they’re in a similar position to the Pacers last year, as they can use this as a way to test their young roster without much playoff experience. A successful run to the knockout rounds (and maybe beyond) would be a genuinely big deal for the Rockets, who can assert themselves as a genuine threat in the West playoff race with a strong tournament showing.
Los Angeles Lakers
We saw that the Lakers were willing to raise their level a year ago in the Cup competition, and it’d be kind of incredible if they went back-to-back. Their group is a bit less daunting now that the Thunder are without Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein (although that’s still an excellent team), and if they make the knockout rounds, a team with LeBron and AD is always going to be a threat in a single-elimination basketball game. We’ll see if they approach it with the same aggression, but this is a team that has to try and chase wins regardless, so I’d expect the effort to be there, even if they can’t replicate the same kind of run.
Memphis Grizzlies
The Grizzlies want to prove they are fully back as West contenders, and they can make a strong statement if they come out of the aforementioned Group of Death. They are playing at a high level right now, led by Jaren Jackson Jr.’s continued brilliance, and if they can get to Vegas, they’d have a very good chance at lifting the Cup. And if Ja Morant can get healthy and come back in time, absolutely no one will want to see that guy in a one-off.
San Antonio Spurs
By the time the season is over, the Spurs will likely have filtered out of the Play-In race, but this is the exact kind of team I think should place an overemphasis on the NBA Cup. The Spurs are still building around Victor Wembanyama and figuring out what that should look like, but this team has been fairly competitive early (5-6) and could take advantage of some injury woes for the top teams in their group to try and make a little noise in the Cup. We saw in the Olympics that Wemby loves some heightened competition, and this might be a good chance to turn him loose and make an all-out push for something in November, understanding that they probably don’t have the roster just yet to really threaten the playoffs.
Cleveland Cavaliers
Will the Cavs ever lose? At some point, yes, but why not keep the good vibes rolling as long as possible and try to win the Cup? Yes, they’re a title contender, but unlike, say, Boston, this isn’t a team that’s had any real playoff success. Building some good habits in the knockout rounds could pay dividends down the road, and seeing as how they’re in the same group as the Celtics, I’m sure they’d love to use this as a statement of intent in the event they cross paths in the postseason.
Milwaukee Bucks
The Bucks desperately need something to turn around their season, and maybe the Cup gives them a carrot to chase that can wake things up. I’m skeptical they have the juice to make this happen, as the vibes are just horrendous in Milwaukee right now, but theoretically, Giannis and Dame (who will miss their opener with a concussion) are good enough as a tandem to beat anyone. That will require them to get on the same page, which hasn’t really happened to this point, but perhaps playing on different courts can change the mojo in Milwaukee.
New York Knicks
Like every team other than the Cavs and Celtics in the East, the Knicks are off to a sputtering start at 4-5. Their star-studded roster isn’t clicking just yet, the defense has taken a major step back, and the offense hasn’t been quite good enough to make up for it. Their group, at one point, looked like the toughest in the East, but the Magic are without Paolo Banchero and the Sixers … well, we’ll get to them in a second. That cracks the door for the Knicks to try and lay a foundation of winning they can build on as the season progresses and create that chemistry that’s been lacking in games with a slightly bigger game feel.
Philadelphia 76ers
Joel Embiid is back for the Cup games, but Tyrese Maxey is out and Paul George has been on a minutes restriction. This team is desperate to go on a run, and with the big fella back, there’s no time like the present to try and climb out of the East’s basement. Like the Bucks, Philly just needs to stack some wins and get some positivity, and if they can somehow make it to Vegas, they can erase a decent amount of the early season concern about them.
It’s been over a year since Harlem season 2 ended with a cliffhanger. But thankfully, the Prime Video series is coming back soon: Harlem season 3 will premiere at the beginning of next year, on January 23.
Created by Girls Trip writer Tracy Oliver, Harlem follows four friends, Camille (played by Meagan Good), Tye (Jerrie Johnson), Quinn (Grace Byers), and Angie (Shoniqua Shandai), on the “precipice of change like never before,” according to the official logline. “Whether it be motherhood, singlehood, sisterhood, complicated career journeys, or even more complicated families, our stylish and ambitious best girlfriends strive to finally choose themselves above all else.”
Season 3 will introduce a number of new characters, including MLB player Seth (Kofi Siriboe), the “edgy and beautiful” Portia (Logan Browning), and “a driven, yet playful venture capitalist” Eva (Gail Bean).
When asked by Pop Sugar about the themes she’d like to explore in season 3, Oliver replied, “I feel like there’s just a growing number of women that are not waiting for the right situation or the right man or woman to come in their lives. They’re just like, all right, I can provide for a kid. I’m ready for it. I’m just going to go about that journey on my own. I think that there’s something really powerful about it, and I’m excited to maybe explore that next season.”
You can check out a first-look image at Harlem season 3 below:
prime video
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