Election Night 2022 may be over, but NBC Sports gave political correspondent — and analytical legend — Steve Kornacki a good reason to dust off his khakis once again: Dogs!
As Digg spotted, Kornacki broke out his beloved Big Board to break down some of the most interesting findings related to the National Dog Show, which airs each year on Thanksgiving and this year was ruled by a French bulldog named Winston. That French bulldogs are the second most popular dog breed in America — just behind the Labrador Retriever, which has held the top spot for 31 years straight — are just some of the many facts Kornacki trotted out about our canine companions with no less of the enthusiasm he has for all things political.
The “big surprise,” according to Kornacki, was that the Standard Poodle is now the fifth most popular dog breed in the country — marking the first time in 25 years that the fancy-haired pup has cracked the top five, knocking out the Bulldog. “The Bulldog had been in the top five for two decades,” the stats daddy enthused, “but the Standard Poodle has bumped the Bulldog in terms of popularity.”
Kornacki went on to break down which cities you’re most likely to see these most popular breeds, and extrapolate the reasons why — though Cleveland’s favorite dog seemed to stump him. “I’m not sure why exactly, but in Cleveland the Labrador Retriever [is] the most popular dog,” he said.
Kornacki’s “favorite” part of the stats, for some reason, was a breakdown of the most popular dog names in the country, with Max and Luna dominating for male and female pups, respectively. As Teddy and Bear took the fourth and fifth most popular spots for male dogs, Kornacki guessed that this could be “people getting dogs in pairs and naming one Teddy and one Bear.” Is he correct? Who knows! Who cares!?
He also shared that in New York City alone, there are more than 5,500 dogs named Bella and more than 4,800 Maxes. “So go to a dog park in New York City, shout out one of those names, and prepare to be swarmed,” Kornacki gleefully suggested. (We would not recommend doing that.)
The end of the year tends to be mostly uneventful when it comes to new music releases, but Stormzy put his stamp on the holiday season with his third album, This Is What I Mean, which dropped today (November 25). Ahead of the release, he shared a personal letter inspired by Tyler The Creator.
The message concludes with Stormzy’s hopes for the new project: “People been tryna box me in for years but I hope this chapter at least makes my biggest critic say, ‘Hey, he’s sh*t but he loves music and I guess he’s gonna do whatever me likes’ lol. I pray you listen to this album in your own time, whenever you can. Listen to it properly with no distractions. I pray you listen to this album with an open heart and if you hate it after I promise to god I’m perfectly fine with that, I’m just grateful that you listened with openness. I pray that it moves you and captures your imagination. And I pray that someone, somewhere feels it.”
“When Tyler, The Creator released the masterpiece that is ‘Igor’ he shared a message with it and I wanted to do the same but I was hesitant. Mainly because I would love for my music to do all the talking but I thought I’d share this message anyway.
I do a lot of interviews and I forget that everything I say will be shared far and wide, which is probably naive of me. Things that I say in real life don’t feel the same when I see it in text. I feel like I overshare, which makes me feel naked at times. But I do it so that you guys can understand me a bit better and to give the art that I make some context. I’m never ever purposely trying to defy genres or go against the grain. I’m never tryna do what is unexpected of me or what is expected of me. If I rap for 7 minutes it’s because in my spirit, in that moment, I just really wanted to f*cking rap. If I sing my heart out then it’s because my soul just absolutely had to. I love music. I love, love loveeeee music. I will rap for the rest of my life. I will sing for the rest of my life, I will make art for the rest of my life. And at no point will I ever do any of those things for any other reason than I just wanted to and it just felt good. I am not a calculated mastermind with the ability to gauge what kind of music to make and when I’ll make it, I literally just feel and then let it out. People been tryna box me in for years but I hope this chapter at least makes my biggest critic say, ‘Hey, he’s sh*t but he loves music and I guess he’s gonna do whatever me likes’ lol. I pray you listen to this album in your own time, whenever you can. Listen to it properly with no distractions. I pray you listen to this album with an open heart and if you hate it after I promise to god I’m perfectly fine with that, I’m just grateful that you listened with openness. I pray that it moves you and captures your imagination. And I pray that someone, somewhere feels it.
This is what I mean
and it’s what l’ve always meant.
Twitter has its upsides and downsides. Among the former is the one known as @dril, a mysterious figure who, since 2008, has been the unofficial king of “weird Twitter.” What will happen to him when/if the social media service he calls home goes down? In a rare, predictably hilarious interview, conducted by The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz, Dril declares he’s “not planning on leaving Twitter anytime soon,” partly because the other social media apps, like Mastodon and Hive, are “unusable basically.”
So for now, Dril remains on Twitter dot com, even if he doesn’t appear to be much of a fan of its chaotic, unfunny new owner, Elon Musk. For one thing, they have a past. Back in 2020, Musk effectively stole a post from him: a tweet, from 2013, about a “skeleton war” that Musk screengrabbed, cropped, then added a picture of three angry, sword-wielding skeletons. “Sounds right,” Musk wrote.
if your grave doesnt say “rest in peace” on it you are automatically drafted into the skeleton war
“He posted the tweet verbatim and cropped my name completely out of it,” Dril told Lorenz. “His girlfriend Grimes, she condones this sort of behavior. He’s stealing my posts and not even paying me.” Dril also claimed that Musk’s new, dicey policy about effectively shadow-banning “negative” posts, had already affected him. “He’s threatening to demonetize me when he’s already capitalizing on my content, and I’m not getting a cent.”
He elaborated:
“Say a Tesla ran into my son and killed him,” he said, referring to one of Musk’s other businesses. “Maybe I think that it’s fine, it’s not negative that a Tesla ran into my son and killed him. That’s fine, because it’s a work in progress.” Musk cannot know if a Tesla running over his son was actually very positive, Dril explained, and so it should not be ranked as a negative tweet.
Still, Dril is sort of enjoying the mess Musk has caused. “Everything he does is a comedic bit,” he explained. “He’s always trying to get a laugh, that’s why he makes all his cars suicidal. Just watching everything burn, it’s entertaining, that’s for sure.”
The interview also found Dril doing his absurdist shtick, in interview form. At one point he joked (or not!) that he’d be willing to work at Twitter if Musk offered him a job. “I think it would be my duty to answer the call,” Dril said. “I would absolutely do it. I would be his dog, I would follow his every order like a disgusting dog. I would beg for his mercy and I would learn to code if it pleased him.”
Earlier this month, Dwight Howard announced he was signing with the Taoyuan Leopards in Taiwan. Shortly after, in his debut with the Leopards, the eight-time NBA All-Star dropped 38 points, 25 rebounds, nine assists, and four blocks. Then, Shaquille O’Neal mocked Howard’s dominance by belittling the league itself, saying “this league reminds me of the Lifetime Fitness league.”
Howard, who’s been a longstanding source of jokes and mockery throughout his career from O’Neal, took exception to Hall of Fame center’s comments.
“You gotta stop hating. I ain’t never, in my life, came at you about your basketball career, your family, your kids or anything of the sort,” Howard said in a message directed toward O’Neal during an Instagram Live session. “Do not disrespect my teammates in this league and these people in Taiwan like that. That is highly disrespectful and is hating. You too old to be hating. You too big to be hating. You supposed to be Superman.”
Dwight Howard responds to Shaq saying the Taiwan league reminds him of a Lifetime Fitness league.
“That’s highly disrespectful & hating. You too old to be hating. You too big to be hating. You supposed to be Superman. The original Superman is hating?” pic.twitter.com/jLQLjQa6Dj
Howard later called out O’Neal’s “hating” of JaVale McGee and said it almost cost McGee his NBA career. Since retiring and entering the media space, O’Neal’s crafted a persona partially based on aggressive, often unfounded criticism of current NBA players. Howard has often received some of the most prickly criticism. It’s clearly something that doesn’t sit right with him and he used his platform to address it, not just for himself but everyone.
Indigo is a 10-song effort that most notably includes featured appearances from Erykah Badu on album opener “Yun” and from Anderson .Paak on the track right after that, “Still Life.”
Big Hit previously noted the album “recounts the stories and experiences RM has gone through, like a diary” and said, “RM has already given fans an honest look into his world through two mixtapes. Through Indigo, RM delivers his candid thoughts and feelings and showcases wide-ranging music through collaborations with various artists. We hope everyone’s excited about RM’s latest release!”
RM also said, “I’ve been working hard to prepare this since the beginning of 2019. Please show it a lot of love.”
New albums tend to come less and less frequently towards the end of the year, but YoungBoy Never Broke Again and Quando Rondo had a joint effort, 3860, drop today (November 25). YoungBoy doesn’t seem particularly happy about it, though, as he’s claiming it was released despite his objections.
In a pair of Instagram Story posts shared today, NBA YoungBoy wrote:
“I had to tell Quando don’t nobody care as long they making a dollars off you I’ve begged for that tape to not be Released and quando respected my wishes I talk to missionaries everyday inside my home who probably gone ask me about that tape that sh*t not sitting on top of my heart right but just pay attention to what these people promote they are evil and don’t give a f*ck about us.
I see why they didn’t post my stop the violence message.
I’m trying to tell you n****s terrified of me boy the internet fooling you I don’t play that sh*t in no type of way that’s why I’m just gon stay out the way I see you trying to do some provoking.
Stop playing with me son you ain’t strong enough.”
Rondo, however, has been promoting the project, like when he shared the cover art last week.
Find scerenshots of YoungBoy’s original posts below.
As Mediaite reports, Trump was very active on his own TRUTH Social yesterday, but it wasn’t to share what he was grateful for. Instead, he channeled the spirit of the holiday into a rant against, well, pretty much anyone who isn’t pro-Trump. First, he posted about the problem with non-Republican judges and/or justices:
When a Republican Judge or Justice is proudly appointed by a Republican, he or she will ALMOST always go out of their way to make a point, even in a decision, that they are in no way “beholden” to the person or party that gave them this great honor. When a Democrat Judge or Justice, especially a Radical Left one, is proudly appointed by a Democrat, he or she just doesn’t care, it is ALMOST impossible to get a fair decision on a case if you are a Republican. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is!
That’s where things got a bit more unhinged, and ALL-CAPS-y:
The so-called investigation of me by a Radical Left Prosecutor, who is totally controlled by Eric Holder and Obama, is a RIGGED SCAM. The “Justice” Department & FBI are CORRUPT, in fact offered $1,000,000 to Christopher Steele to lie, told Facebook that Hunter’s Laptop was Russian Disinformation when they knew it was not, and paid people to “get Trump.” Did nothing wrong on Jan 6th (Peacefully & Patrioticly), or with Documents (Check out past presidents).
Patrioticly.
He summed up his feelings by dusting off a classic with a third post, which simply said: WITCH HUNT!!!
“Weird” Al Yankovic doesn’t only do parodies, but parodies are what he’s best known for. None of them, though, are mean-spirited. He’s a nice guy, and he tends to ask permission first. Sometimes they say no. Eminem turned him down. Sir Paul McCartney wouldn’t let him record “Chicken Pot Pie” (his take on “Live and Let Die,” of course) because he’s vegan. So did Prince, over and over. And when he tried to send up Harry Potter, he was either shut down or simply ignored.
“Whenever it was, about a decade or two ago, I approached the movie company just to get a general blessing like, ‘Hey, I’d like to do a Harry Potter parody.’ And I think they said no, or they never responded or whatever,” Yankovic recalled. “But sometimes when you’re dealing with franchises, and you ask permission, you know, there’s so many people that can say no, and they usually do.”
At least it taught Yankovic something that might keep him from lawsuits. “If I’m doing a franchise, it’s usually better just to do it and ask for forgiveness rather than permission,” he said.
But life can be funny, and eventually he got something even better than a Harry Potter parody: Years later, he was played on screen by Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe. The led him to joke that, in a way, Weird is “the last movie of the Harry Potter franchise.”
Radcliffe himself has joked about Weird being part of the franchise. “Maybe that’s what this film is,” Radcliffe joked to THR in a separate interview. “This has been his way of doing a Harry Potter parody.”
The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.
Through one listen of Elizabeth, the debut album by Toronto singer Lokre (pronounced lock-ree), there are at least a couple of things you can take away from the project. One, it’s filled with affirmations and reminders that point toward her true worth and optimism that the light at the end of the tunnel is much closer than it appears. Secondly, its 11 tracks are mostly carried by a vocalist who bears a honeyed voice that equally soothes the body, tugs at the strings of the heart, and uplifts the mind into a new level of confidence. All of this more or less lives at the surface of Elizabeth, but beneath that, lies a woman whose affirmations and reminders are just as necessary for herself to hear just as they are for listeners to absorb.
“I’ve been doing this since I was 16.” This is one of the first things that Lokre, born Elizabeth Loughrey, tells me at 27 years old over our lengthy conversation via Zoom. In those 11 years, Lokre has gone through the trials and tribulations that we’ve heard from countless other aspiring acts: a name change for a fresh start, the pains of a cut-throat industry, missteps in love, and the unknowns of tomorrow in regard to a dream she desperately wanted to become her permanent reality. All of that is poured into Elizabeth which, regardless of its commercial performance, stands as a point of celebration for Lokre. “I can’t reflect on that album without reflecting on my story in its entirety,” she says. “It makes me grateful to be where and who I am.”
Music is a large part of who Lokre is, and her roots in it go back to her late grandmother Champa Devi, who was a famed Indian dancer in Trinidad. Her talents and art were passed down to her daughter, Lokre’s mother, and while Lokre did not extend the family’s history of dance, her foray into music is just a mere sidestep from it at best. Nonetheless, music remained a foundational aspect of her relationship with her family as she recalls the “vivid memories” of her mother taking her to piano and voice lessons as a child. “She wouldn’t just drop me off and be like, ‘Peace, have a good lesson!’” Lokre notes. “She would drop me off, sit in the lesson, [and] take notes as the teacher was instructing me. She was just very much a part of that process.” This came after Lokre’s true first introduction to music, which came through the church where she watched her mother lead worship. It was here that Lokre saw firsthand the power of the voice and the power music has to shift the energy in a room.
Though Lokre is long removed from the days of piano and vocal lessons, her mother is still very much present in her musical endeavors. Just look at “She (Voice Memo)” on Elizabeth. Just 17 seconds long, Lokre’s mother’s voice shoots out and impacts like an angered fist banging a table. “That’s what you need to always remember,” she commands. “Who you are as a person.” It spills into the following track, “Finish Line.” “You know what I mean? Always remember who you are, my God.” The tracks sits at the midpoint of Elizabeth amid’s Lokre search to regain her self-power after drowning in battles of fear and self-doubt. “Don’t Dare” addresses the former with the clarity that only 20/20 hindsight can provide. “I wouldn’t be on the outside / If I had just let you in,” Lokre admits with both regret and acceptance on the song. “Guess I was scared you might find / The scars under my skin.” Her down-and-out feelings over this loss are soon replaced with a win over self-doubt on “Self Talk.” Here, Lokre presents the fighting spirit that takes a life of its own through the second half of Elizabeth. “I’ll swim to the river to my soul,” she sings. “Go deeper than anybody goes if that’s what it takes.”
“I’m fighting always for my own freedom, my own liberation, my own peace of mind,” Lokre says when I inquire about the things she’s fighting for. “I’m also fighting for the opportunity to allow people to experience their own freedom, their own presence of mind, their own peace of mind. I want this message to be global.” Lokre is fighting for liberation, the very thing that her mother begs her to keep in mind on “She.” When I point out the fighting spirit that she and her mother share, Lokre can only laugh in agreement. “I have like 50 voice notes on my phone of her just catching the spirit and ranting to me,” she reveals. This similarity is a benefit as much as it is a nuisance, as it often can lead to them butting heads in the way that siblings do (“Nobody pisses me off more than her”), but in the end, its effect on Lokre has not gone unnoticed or unappreciated. “The grit that I think that has given me is irreplaceable [and] she is the source of that.”
For what it’s worth, Lokre is long removed from the person that we hear on Elizabeth. That is, most of her fears are gone, self-doubt is minimal, and she is much more protective of her peace nowadays. Though they were released just two months ago, the records on Lokre’s debut album are two years old “at the youngest,” leaving plenty of time for growth, change, and new strengths. She now looks at “Finish Line,” a standout on the album and my personal favorite, and chuckles as the record details a woman who once made her life much more difficult than it needed to be. “I was really making life hard for myself,” she admits. “I wanted it to be hard almost. It was this idea that the struggle has to be present in order for it to be worth it.” As noted, change arrived and pushed things for the better. “At this point, I’m like no to the struggle, no to making life harder than it needs to be,” she says confidently. “It doesn’t need to be such a push and pull all the time. Joy is very much on the menu at this point.”
The intention to improve and change is the first step in the process of actually doing so. Acknowledgment is the first step in recovery and Lokre found her own way to make these changes when she sought it was necessary. “What I do is I set intentions for the season that I’m in,” she says. “I get really clear about a word for that season or a word for that year. Then I take time as the chapters are evolving to adjust, to recalibrate, to check in and be like, ‘Am I upholding that word for myself? Does there need to be something new added to the equation to keep going?” The intentions she sets are remembered in the form of sticky notes placed around her home more so than a repeated chant said in the mirror each morning. Its impact on her seems to be similar to that of poet Dominique Christina who Lokre heralds as an “incredible, divine feminine voice” whose advocacy for women has “become such a powerful guiding perspective for me.”
Christina concludes Elizabeth with the “Aquarian Poem,” an original piece that Christina wrote specifically for Lokre’s debut after the former discovered the singer on Instagram. Lokre sent Christina “Generations” and “Sun Don’t Set,” the full-length songs that start and conclude Elizabeth respectively, and noted her desire for the project to begin with a “wake up call” (“Grand Rising”) and end with “a prayer,” which turned out to be the “Aquarian Poem.” Christina understood Lokre’s desires and got to work. “The first thing she sent back to me was that poem in its entirety,” Lokre says. “All the words were just free flow from hearing those two songs. She just tapped in entirely to the ethos and the prayer that I had in my heart that I didn’t even have words for. Needless to say, I was like sobbing the first time I heard it.” The poem is truly a soothing and well-supplied dose of closure to Elizabeth, which Lokre is eternally grateful for.
Jumping back to Lokre’s point about the songs on Elizabeth being at least two years old, I took a moment to ask her about the artist that we’ll soon hear on the current music that she’s working on. “She is very sure of what she wants, she is very self-assured,” Lokre says proudly. “She is exploring other sides of herself. It’s not all about this becoming, it’s coming from a place of, ‘Alright, I am who I am now. I’m fully formed into Lokre.’ So I think there’s a sophistication about it, but musically, I love what I’m making right now.” With that message also comes another one for listeners, both new and old, who will eventually gather again to deep dive into the next body of work she puts out into the world: “Don’t box me in.” She continues, “I hope that I’m creating a relationship with listeners where they hear my heart so that regardless of where this goes musically, they’ll be down to ride with me for whatever evolution it brings.”
Lokre will continue to evolve, she’ll continue to fight, and she’ll extend her season of winning into a lifetime of success.
Elizabeth is out now via Eccelectic Electix Inc. You can stream it here.
The USMNT will play their biggest game of the World Cup in terms of casual fan interest on Friday as they take on England in group play, a game that’s been circled on calendars since the draw put the two squads in the same group.
After getting just a draw against Wales despite dominating action for much of the game, the U.S. could really use a result against England to have the best chance of advancing, which isn’t the ideal scenario considering the Three Lions come in looking very dangerous after a 6-2 win over Iran and are heavily favored (-205 to win) over the Americans. Securing a point by way of a draw would be huge, particularly after Iran beat Wales, setting up a scenario where beating Iran on Tuesday will be a must if the U.S. is to advance almost no matter the result against England.
All of that serves as the backdrop for Friday, where there’s not an awful lot of need for forced efforts to hype up the game, but that didn’t stop the USMNT’s Twitter account from sending out a painfully cringey tweet attempting to draw a retweet from Taylor Swift — one of many tweets the account sent to various celebrities on Friday morning.
This is the type of tweet you’d expect from a stan account desperate for some acknowledgement from their favorite artist, not the official Twitter account of the USMNT. On top of that, they couldn’t even manage to make a reference to anything off of her most recent album. With American soccer fans already on edge about their chances against England, this tweet did little to raise their confidence and many fans have decided that if the team loses they can blame this pitiful effort at some Twitter engagement for their misfortune.
Maybe they’re just trying to take some heat off the squad, because if the team gets rolled by England plenty of folks will just retweet this and blame the account rather than the players in a game they’re favored to lose. That’s the most charitable reading of an otherwise desperate attempt at a little engagement.
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