Category: News

Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies have made an impressive statement in the first 30 games of the season, darting off to a 19-11 start that has them tied atop the West with Denver.

A year ago, Memphis took home the 2-seed in the West before a second-round defeat to the eventual champs in Golden State, but confidence is sky-high for the young (but increasingly seasoned) Grizzlies. No one on their team exudes that confidence more than Ja Morant, who sat down with ESPN’s Malika Andrews this week and explained that the team they expect to be the biggest hurdle in the playoffs is Boston. That, of course, would mean a trip to the Finals and when Andrews asked if that meant he wasn’t worried about challengers in the West, he affirmed.

I have little doubt Morant believes this, but considering the Grizzlies haven’t made it past the second round since 2013, it’s still quite a statement to make in December. Memphis is no stranger to stirring things up and they certainly have proven Morant right in that they don’t back down after his famous “we run up the chimney” quote, but you can rest assured an early exit in the West playoffs this year will cause this clip to resurface.

On Wednesday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky visited the U.S. for the first time since the Russia invasion. For nearly a year, the nation has kept Russian forces from taking over. It’s gone terribly for Russia, but it’s far from over. Ukraine has been able to withstand invaders thanks in part to help from other nations, who’ve recognized the existential threat posed if Russian president Vladimir Putin achieves his goals. Not everyone sees Putin as a threat. As Zelensky arrived on U.S. shores, he received a chilly reception from one wing of the GOP (as well as, of course, from Putin).

MAGA Republicans were up in arms over Zelensky’s visit, which found him meeting with President Joe Biden and later addressing Congress. The usual suspects threw fits. Marjorie Taylor Greene called Zelensky a “shadow president” and his nation the “51st state.” She also blew up over foreign aid in general and singled out Mitch McConnell, who is for extending more support to Ukraine, for scorn, saying Americans were being “raped.” Greene’s former bestie Lauren Boebert was mad, too.

But arguably the most over-the-top response came from Don Jr., the son of the former president, who earned his first of two impeachments after trying to blackmail Zelensky into helping him dig up dirt on the GOP’s biggest bête noire, Hunter Biden. Sharing a story about how the U.S. was prepared to give Ukraine another $45 billion in aid, he called Zelensky “basically an ungrateful international welfare queen.”

There are arguments to be made about how much money the U.S. should give Ukraine for their fight. But Donald Trump Jr. is not someone who should be making those. (To say nothing of the loaded term “welfare queen,” with its racist and classist connotations.) Some pointed out that he really shouldn’t be making this charge the day after news broke that his father, whose tax returns are finally to be made public, didn’t even pay taxes for the last two years.

Some accused Don Jr. of projection.

Others were reminded that his father often used taxpayer dollars to do whatever he wanted.

Some argued Don Jr. was really just mad that Zelensky didn’t help his dad with his sleazy schemes.

Some challenged his use of the term “welfare queen.”

Maybe, some postulated, Jr.’s just mad that dad doesn’t love him.

Or perhaps he’s scared what Zelensky would do to him if he called him that to his face.

Henry Cavill’s about to hang up those swords and grunts and leather pants of Geralt of Rivia after The Witcher Season 3, which will arrive in mid 2023. Before that happens, showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich has suggested that there’s more to the story that we haven’t heard yet, she’s also promising that his exit will be as triumphant as possible.

As Schmidt Hissrich further reveals, she wanted this final season to “honor” Henry for everything that he’s brought to the franchise, which already launched a spinoff prequel movie about Geralt’s mentor, Vesemir, as well as the Blood Origin prequel that arrives on Christmas. And here’s the showrunner’s necessarily vague description of Season 3, which will be “the most heroic sendoff” (albeit an unintended sendoff) that the show could whip up before Cavill leaves the building. Via Entertainment Weekly:

“Henry has given so much to the show and so we want to honor that appropriately,” Hissrich tells EW. She points to Time of Contempt, the fourth book in author Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher series that the writers’ room partly adapted for the season 3 story.

“What is so interesting is that season 3, to me, is the closest thing that we’ve done as a one-to-one adaptation of the books,” she says. “Obviously, we can’t do every page, but Time of Contempt gave us so many big action events, plot points, defining character moments, huge reveals of a big bad. There’s so much to do that we were able to stick really, really closely with the books.”

Cavill, as discussed before, was speculated to have departed the franchise due to picking up his previous Superman role, but James Gunn has confirmed that the DCU/DCEU will soon dive into the younger Clark Kent’s story, meaning that Cavill will be onto different pastures. The Enola Holmes actor later detailed that he’s got a gig already and will soon dive into adapting the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop RPG universe for Amazon. In the meantime, we can look forward (?) to Liam Hemsworth’s version of Geralt as well as the return of Jaskier as storyteller in Netflix’s The Witcher: Blood Origin, which arrives on December 25.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

For Russian soldiers sent to fight in Ukraine, the biggest threat might be the person fighting alongside you. The Daily Beast wrote about a disturbing report published on iStories, an independent media outlet, which claims there’s a rising trend of Russian soldiers being killed by their fellow servicemen — because at least one party is inebriated, soldiers are ill-equipped to properly handle their weapons, and/or the unit commanders simply aren’t paying attention.

According to The Daily Beast’s Allison Quinn, Ukrainian intelligence officials released audio that has been captured of Russian soldiers speaking with their family and loved ones back at home:

In audio released by Ukrainian intelligence on Tuesday and said to capture a Russian soldier’s phone conversation, a man identified only as Aleksei tells his mother the military just sent reinforcements. He explains that the reinforcements came because “20 people are gone.”

“Our tank hit hard: It fired twice and 20 guys, f**k. I’m telling you, what the f**k kind of command is this, scumbags. They’re f**king killing their own,” Aleksei, who described himself as a commander, said.

“I’m telling you, there are more losses from our own [guys],” than the Ukrainians, he said.

In another phone call, a soldier told his friend “It’s not a war, it’s a sh*t show. It’s complete bullsh*t. That’s it, the entire response from leadership: There are 300,000 of you, basically, we don’t give a f**k.”

IStories spoke with one soldier, Dmitry Panov, who said that he volunteered for military duty in the summer but refused to continue fighting after commanders kept killing their own men. “We are just meat,” Panov said. “They don’t want to know us, they present us as some kind of animals that are being led to the slaughter.”

Back in Russia, Putin has copped to the situation in Ukraine being “extremely complicated.” Though he’s pointing fingers at “saboteurs” and “spies.”

(Via The Daily Beast)

With the exception of maybe Elon Musk and a handful of other megalomaniacs, it’s hard to imagine that there could be a worse boss to have than Donald Trump — but, oh, just think of the stories. And if you happen to be Desiree Thompson Sayle, a White House aide who served at the pleasure of the 45th president, you’d have a whopper of a memory and possibly a mountain of chiropractor bills.

As Raw Story reports, based on a feature that ran in The Washington Post, the final days of Trump’s presidency were an absolute sh*t show. As the White House was being readied for its shiny new occupants, the outgoing president — who still has not conceded the 2020 election — was learning that there are limits to what the U.S. government will pay for. And footing the bill to move a 300-pound portrait of said president (nope, that’s not it above) from Washington, D.C. to Palm Beach, Florida was not one of them. A few months after Joe Biden was sworn in, Sayle was asked to assist.

The Washington Post obtained documents that traced Sayle’s attempts to get this obnoxiously oversized monstrosity moved with other Trump belongings with the help of the General Services Administration. In April 2021, Sayle sent an email to the GSA asking for their help in transporting an “enormous” portrait of the former president, which was six-foot-eight-inches tall and weighed almost as much as Trump himself.

“I’m sorry to ask,” Sayle wrote. “This is a weird one!”

As the art had been gifted to Trump following his presidency, it was considered a personal belonging and therefore not something the GSA handles.

Several months later, Sayle sent another email in which she shared that she planned to move the painting using her personal vehicle. “We are loading the large portrait received after the 21st on a Penske truck to transport to my house so I can put it on my moving van,” she wrote.

Though there’s no email confirming its safe delivery, we’ll assume no art thieves had the audacity — or upper body strength — to make off with the piece while it made the 1,000-mile trek south.

(Via Raw Story)

Florida has been a bad boy to the dominatrix community.

A dominatrix, known only as Mistress, attended a City Commission meeting in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday, asking the councilpeople to spend $250,000 “to support doms and subs in Broward County [by building] a dungeon, created for us, by us, the taxpayers and voting citizens.” Mistress, flanked by two accomplices who looked like extras in a Lady Gaga music video, hijacked the meeting following a no-doubt riveting discussion about a “solid waste management” contract.

One of the regular items on the commission’s agenda Tuesday included debate about a $906,500 contract for solid waste management. She explained that she was “neutral” regarding the waste management contract, but “found it interesting” that the commission was willing to spend almost $1 million “to hide your secrets down the drain, hiding that condom I know you used to cheat on your spouse with.”

Mistress concluded her brief, well-reasoned statement, “Do not let this glamorous look distract you from doing your duty to take my demand. I look forward to spanking each and every one of you at the new esteemed dungeon. You are dismissed.”

The spectators seemed pretty chill about the whole thing, while one of the commissioners wished Mistress and her friends a happy holiday, which is nice. Here’s an idea: why not combine the two? A waste processing plant that’s also a sex cauldron (I thought they closed that place down). There are probably a few subs who would enjoy that.

Here’s video from the meeting:

Good luck, Mistress! We’re rooting for you.

(Via Mediaite)

After teasing the featured guest stars for her Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party NBC Special while appearing on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon earlier this month, the full lineup for Miley Cyrus’ second annual NYE bash has now been officially announced.

For starters, Cyrus has ditched Pete Davidson as a co-host, and instead, her godmother Dolly Parton will be co-hosting the bash alongside her. The star-studded lineup of musical acts has been confirmed to feature pop singers Sia and Fletcher, rappers Latto and Rae Sremmurd, as well as LA rock band Liily. It will be recorded live from Miami and broadcast on NBC.

Executive produced by Cyrus and Lorne Michaels, Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party will also feature appearances from Saturday Night Live cast members Chloe Fineman and Sarah Sherman, as well as the comedy trio known as Please Don’t Destroy of comedians Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy.

This official announcement comes after a series of mysterious “New Year, New Miley” posters popped up in Los Angeles and Copenhagen last week “The lineup is very me,” Cyrus told Fallon. “It is curated in a way that makes no sense but makes total sense.”

Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party will air live on Saturday, December 31 on NBC from 10:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. ET. The special will also stream live on Peacock.

Taylor Swift has received a lot of praise for All Too Well: The Short Film. It was one of 2021’s biggest pop culture moments and it’s won MTV Video Music Awards, an American Music Award, and we’ll learn next year if it gets the Grammy for Best Music Video. While that latter award is still up in the air, there’s one thing we know for sure: the Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien video won’t win an Oscar.

Today (December 21), the shortlists for the 2023 Academy Awards was announced, and missing from the Best Live Action Short Film category is All Too Well, despite the video previously receiving some Oscar buzz. Swift hasn’t been completely shut out from consideration, though, as her Where The Crawdads Sing song “Carolina” is on the Best Original Song shortlist.

When it comes to All Too Well, however, Swifties were quick to hop on Twitter and cry “snub.” One fan, for example, wrote, “You can snub her all you want. I know when Taylor sets her mind on getting something, there’s no stopping her. She will win that oscar sooner or later. Mark my words.” Another tweeted, “not getting nominated is not a snub but i just know taylor is disappointed and that makes me sad 🙁 she’s so proud of this project.”

Check out some other reactions to Swift not getting the nomination below.

If country music icon, entrepreneur, and humanitarian Dolly Parton decided to step away from the public eye today, her impact would still be felt. But, Parton took extra precautions to ensure her legacy would be remembered for generations to come. During her appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show, the legendary songwriter spoke about her plan for Dolly lovers.

To commemorate the groundbreaking of her retreat, Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort and Spa, back in 2015, the “9 To 5” singer gathered a few pieces of technology from the time to place into a time capsule. As a musician at heart, Parton couldn’t help but write a special song for the occasion to go into the capsule as well.

Though it has only been seven years since the capsule has been buried Parton admitted to host Clarkson that the decision has “driven her crazy.”

“You have no idea how that has bothered me. I wanna go dig that up so bad. It’s a really good song,” proclaimed Parton.

The capsule and the song aren’t supposed to be revealed again until 2045, to mark the spa’s 30th anniversary.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee no longer wants the public to want that long saying, “They weren’t expecting me to be there at all, and I probably won’t be. I might be there, who knows? I figure it’ll probably disintegrate, and nobody will ever hear it, that’s what bothers me, to think that it’s going to be a song that nobody’s ever gonna hear if it rots in there before they open it.”

Looks Dolly Parton fans looking for new music from the singer will just need to wait until her rock album drops or hold out for the rumored musical about her life.

Watch the full interview above.

8 nights, approximately 1 Hallmark movie, and about 5% of the retail floor space compared to the abundance of Christmas decor at your local TJ Maxx. That’s what Jewish people get for the holidays. I’m not kvetching, I’m just saying, would it kill people to put out a little more Hanukkah product?

Thankfully, the fine folks at Saturday Night Live have always been good to my people, giving us a schtickle of the spotlight while playfully pushing back on the disparity between Christmas and Hanukkah with sketches that reveal our secret Christmastime traditions, our Santa Claus alternates, and our very own Holiday anthem. Additionally, there are a ton of other great SNL sketches that celebrate Jewish culture and/or lovingly lampoon our acknowledged quirkiness with some pretty hilarious self-owns. This is good because laughter is like Jewish penicillin for the soul. And in an era when our space laser has been outed and we’ve had to throw out our 808 & Heartbreak records (plus a bunch of heavier stuff that I’m purposely skipping over), we could use a laugh. So, here now is a humbly selected collection of the best Jewish SNL sketches of all time.

10. Jewess Jeans

This doesn’t exactly land as hard as it did more than 40 years ago when the Jordache jeans ad it’s parodying was in the zeitgeist, but it’s Gilda Radner disco dancing to a song with the line “she’s got designer nails and a designer nose” before crushing the catchphrase by letting us all know that while the jeans aren’t made exclusively for Jewish girls, “it wouldn’t hurt.” There’s also some historic significance to this, as attributed by this interesting article on Jewish cultural representation on SNL and elsewhere. Gilda twirled so Adam Sandler could strum.

9. Drake’s Bar Mitzvah

Take a trip back to Drake (or Drakob)’s Bar Mitzvah for this monologue sketch that quickly turns into a rap about growing up with a Jewish mom and a Black dad. From raising your hands in the air to raising a chair, balling like LeBron and knowing what a W-2 is, and eating knishes with… everyone, Drake manages to celebrate his heritage while getting more than a few laughs.

8. Jewish Elvis

“I mean, it’s a little bit of singing, but it’s mostly complaining.”

Austin Butler nearly steals this one, going full superfan and screaming “ruin me Jewish Elvis, ruin me!” while flipping the script after playing Elvis in the Baz Luhrman-directed biopic. But this is Sarah Sherman’s show, doing her “little move(s)” in a rhinestone and Star Of David adorned jumpsuit as Jewish Elvis while singing about the apex predator known as lactose intolerance and catching some mighty big panties in the process. A tremendous sketch, but “Fools Rosh Hashanah” as a “Fools Rush In” parody was right there!

Honorable mention for Chloe Fineman blowing out the menorah candles like a birthday cake while doing her amazing Jennifer Coolidge impression in the same episode.

7. Jacob The Bar Mitzvah Boy

This Vanessa Bayer desk character is a masterclass in awkwardness as Jacob refuses to be thrown from his well-studied text. Total immersion here by Bayer, who nails the painful attempts at humor and the wooden mannerisms of a bar mitzvah boy living through the sheer terror gauntlet of public speaking in a freshly learned language. Imagine trying to white knuckle through with only the promise of a savings bond and avoiding family shame to keep you on point while Seth Meyers buzzes around you asking about the Yankees. We can’t all be as fly as Drake at our Bar Mitzvah.

6. Adam Grossman: Dinner With Dad’s New Girlfriend

Precocious little pisher Adam Grossman has no filter and sounds like he’s auditioning for a role as a Catskills kid comic on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. A recurring character for Jonah Hill that was born from a story told by Bill Hader, Adam is a 6-year-old who thinks he’s in his element beside adults while roasting his divorced dad (Hader) and intruding on the good times of his fellow diners at the local Benihana. In this second edition of the sketch, Adam is shouting about how being around so many knives reminds him of his bris and how taking a Viagra instead of a Flinstones chewable made for a weird day at Hebrew school.

Hill hasn’t played Adam since 2018, but here’s hoping we get to see him in the future.

5. Coffee Talk With Linda Richman

From a time when catchphrases were King in the early ’90s comes Coffee Talk from Mike Myers, who played his other iconic public-access talk show host character, Linda Richman, in 13 sketches opposite the likes of Madonna, Bill Murray, and John Travolta. A tribute to Myers’ mother-in-law, the big-haired, big personality having yenta character coined terms like “I’m a little verklempt,” “like buttah,” and “talk amongst yourselves” while talkin with celebrity guests and people calling from home. Coffee Talk is also responsible for one of the most memorable moments of that era of SNL when Barbara Streisand surprised Myers, Madonna, and Roseanne during a segment all about Babs’ Oscar snub for The Prince Of Tides.

4. Jewish Willy Wonka

Andy Samberg took the kernel of sing-song-silliness that Adam Sandler pioneered and made a vast field of comedy popcorn on SNL, so it’s only natural that he’d be on this list with his own ode to Jewish culture following in the Sandman’s footsteps. Here, the Lonely Island standout teams with host Ben Stiller to blend the world of Willy Wonka with fever dreams and fine Jewish cuisine. Both kinds of pickles!? Matzah ball soup fit to be complained about!? A sandwich that, like a miracle, lasts for days? It’s all there in this beautifully imagined delicatessen playground of Stiller’s dreams/hallucinations.

For some reason, it’s difficult to find an embed of this one, but you can check it out here.

3. Hanukkah Harry

Santa Claus is many things, chiefest among them is a brilliant symbol and marketing aid. Dude is everywhere, outside your local mall, on holiday cards and decor, being played by Buzz Lightyear and Snake Plissken. I can’t hate the hustle. But I can be very, very jealous, because Jewish people lack that kind of broadly beloved symbol. Unless you count Mel Brooks. And I do, but I also want people to know the legend of Hanukkah Harry. Played by Jon Lovitz, Hanukkah Harry is everything Santa Claus is while being steeped in Jewish traditions. He might also be a little bit nicer (Santa might put you on the naughty list for talking out of turn, but Harry will bring you a little something), even if the gifts he gives out are a little less spectacular. He even has a magic sleigh and a jaunty theme song about his donkeys Moishe, Herschel, and Schlomo.

It’s also proving impossible to find the classic Hanukkah Harry Saves Christmas, but we can all enjoy the similar vibes from the time he saved Easter.

2. Christmastime For The Jews

My affection for this TV Funhouse claymation creation from SNL, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and Triumph genius Robert Smigel is abundant. Writing the oral history around its creation is a professional highlight, partly because of how many people have told me how much they love the sketch. To paraphrase a line from the aforementioned story, Christmastime For The Jews means something to people who share an annual laugh, let the song dance around in their head for a few days, and feel utterly seen by its timeless jokes about the Jewish experience.

I joked upfront about barely getting any Hanukkah movies or decor options compared to the cultural behemoth that is Christmas, but it’s kinda weird growing up in the shadow of all of that, and so you kinda feel like an outsider. And nothing tugs on the heartstrings of outsiders more than finding something that signals that we’re not alone. That’s a lot of weight to hang on something where a clay rabbi cuts a squirrel’s nuts off, but tis the season for attached meaning and heartful sentiments. I love Christmastime For The Jews and I hope you do too.

1. The Hanukah Song

This can’t be a surprise. For one, I’ve mentioned Sandler a couple of times along the way here. For another, this is among SNL‘s most famous moments. And yet despite that awesome legacy, it’s so simple in its construction. Sandler, a guitar, and a casual-seeming song that actually has a few layers.

Its very existence nods to the lack of celebrated Hanukkah songs and Jewish people’s fascination with Jewish celebrity and accomplishment. Seth Rogen hit on the same theme in American Pickle when his man-out-of-time character pumps his fist after finding out that a Jewish person cured polio. If one of us makes it, we feel a small sense of pride and accomplishment. That’s not an exclusively Jewish thing, but it’s definitely a Jewish thing, and so The Fonz being Jewish or Paul Newman being half-Jewish or Harrison Ford being a quarter-Jewish? Not too shabby, indeed.

No one could have or would have predicted that this song would spawn such deep seeded and long-lasting affection, to say nothing of the way it sort of turned Sandler into a Jewish icon and our version of Andy Williams, but that just adds to its charm. The Hannukah Song isn’t trying too hard, it’s just a dumb little song that’s trying to celebrate the holiday while making people feel a little pride and a sense of community. What could be better?