Category: News

While the word “Thanksgiving” seems to give a pretty clear indication of what the holiday is all about, Donald Trump must have missed the memo. Rather than spending his holiday giving thanks for things like tax breaks for burying your ex-wife on your golf course or not being in federal prison, the former president/2024 presidential hopeful spent Thursday playing the victim.

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!!!

(Via Mediaite)

“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.

During a chat with The Hollywood Reporter for the new anti-biopic, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, the musician recalled the time he reached out to Warner Bros. to get the green light for taking on lit’s most popular boy wizard.

“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.”

Anyway, at least Kurt Cobain gave him the okay.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story now streams on Roku.

(Via THR)

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.

Stanley Kubrick was an incredibly demanding director, infamous for doing dozens of takes that drove each actor to their breaking point. Perhaps no shoot was as grueling as his final one: Eyes Wide Shut still holds the record for the longest continuous shoot, taking a whopping 15 months in production. According to supporting player Vinessa Shaw, even the famously energetic Tom Cruise was a bit exhausted by the end. It lasted so long that they had to recast one of the roles after the original actor was fired. That actor was no less than Harvey Keitel.

Keitel originally played Victor Ziegler, one of Cruise’s character’s wealthy patients. The role eventually went to Sydney Pollack, but only after Keitel had done some filming. There are two versions of what went down. In a recently unearthed interview, Gary Oldman recounted the version he heard: that Keitel had shot a scene of him walking through the door dozens of times. By take 68, he allegedly had it.

“Harvey Keitel just said, ‘I’m outta here. You’re f*cking crazy,’” Oldman recounted. Then, Oldman said, he left.

In another, also unearthed interview, Keitel was a little cagier. After calling Kubrick a “genius,” Keitel said that he “did some things I objected to.” What did he do? He didn’t go into specifics. But he said Kubrick did some things “I didn’t like,” that he found “disrespectful.” He still didn’t elaborate, saying, “I won’t be disrespected by him or anybody.” He added, “If any actor can help it, they should help it. You don’t want to be fired.” He then admitted that he was fired, by Kubrick.

The interviewer then asked Keitel, “Is that the Brooklyn in you?” Keitel simply responded, “It’s the sense of worth in me.”

So which is true? Did Keitel simply get sick of shooting dozens of takes doing mundane things? Or was Kubrick rude to him on set? The latter isn’t unlikely. Kubrick alums have spoken about getting into clashes with him, though few resulted in them getting canned. There is a behind-the-scenes documentary from the set of The Shining, which features a scene where the director blows up on Shelley Duvall for missing a cue. She didn’t fight back. Perhaps Keitel did.

Eyes Wide Shut, a fine Christmas film that could have starred Woody Allen instead, currently streams on Netflix. Happy holidays.

A couple days ago, Jennifer Lopez made some noise online when she set her social media profile pictures to blank images, an act that has become a clear indication that a musician has something new on the way. Indeed, that is the case: Today (November 25), Lopez announced that a new album, This Is Me… Now, is coming.

The project is an apparent follow-up to her 2002 album This Is Me… Then and will be her first album since 2014’s AKA. There is not yet an announced release date, but Lopez’s teaser video indicates it’s arriving in 2023.

Lopez previously said of the album, “This album is the most honest thing I have done, a culmination of who I am as a person and an artist. People think they know things about what happened to me along the way — but they really have no idea, and a lot of times they get it so wrong. There’s a part of me that was hiding a side of myself from everyone. And I.”

She also shared the project’s tracklist, so check that out below.

1. “This Is Me… Now ”
2. “To Be Yours ”
3. “Mad In Love ”
4. “Can’t Get Enough ”
5. “Rebound”
6. “Not. Going. Anywhere.”
7. “Dear Ben Pt. II”
8. “Hummingbird ”
9. “Hearts And Flowers ”
10. “Broken Like Me ”
11. “This Time Around ”
12. “Midnight Trip To Vegas”
13. “Greatest Love Story Never Told”

Move over, Paula Patton — Marjorie Taylor Greene may have just taken the title of America’s Most Unjustifiably Proud Chef. On Thursday, the conspiracy theory-loving Georgia congresswoman posed with her Thanksgiving turkey, which, like so many of her crackpot theories, looked woefully undercooked. The internet, of course, noticed.

The irony of just how white the turkey was was not lost on anyone:

Some people were shocked by how such a culinary abomination could have even happened:

Guessing games were made of the instant meme:

While others seemed concerned about the well-being of whoever at this pan full of food poisoning waiting to happen:

And many people helpfully pointed out to Greene what a turkey should look like when properly seasoned and browned:

There’s always next year — provided her turkey doesn’t plot an insurrection in the meantime.

Additionally, it’s probably worth noting that Greene’s Twitter was just reinstated a few days ago, so this marks one of her first “viral” moments since being allowed back in the platform by Elon Musk, who seems hellbent on allowing everyone ever banned from Twitter back on — well, except Alex Jones.

One account Musk has said he won’t allow back on Twitter is that of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was banned in 2018 for abusive behavior.

“My firstborn child died in my arms. I felt his last heartbeat,” Musk tweeted Sunday in response to calls for Jones’ reinstatement. “I have no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or fame.”

How was your Thanksgiving? Did you spend it at a dicey resort filled with weird dentists and an owner who yelled at you? Then maybe you’re Kanye West. The rapper, who recently torched his career by dabbling in anti-Semitism, has been doubling down on his infamy, surrounding himself with all manner of dodgy characters. He’s even thinking of running for president in 2024, which was not taken well by someone who recently launched his own campaign.

West, who recently rebranded as “Ye,” said he spent the year’s most glutinous holiday down south, having dinner with Donald Trump. When the subject turned to Ye’s presidential aspirations, Trump exploded.

“When Trump started basically screaming at me at the table telling me I was going to lose, I mean has that ever worked for anyone in history?” Ye said in a video he posted on Twitter. “I’m like, ‘whoa hold on, hold on, hold on. You’re talking to Ye.’”

Trump has been critical of Ye before. During his meltdown in October, even the former president said he was acting “crazy.” Takes one to know one! He came back around on him again, though, after Ye said some nice things about him, as that’s all it takes to get in his good graces.

Ye’s Trump story wasn’t the only shocking bit about his Mar-a-Lago jaunt. Eagle-eyed viewers noticed a bit where Ye walked through the airport next to white nationalist incel anti-Semite twerp Nick Fuentes. Between this and him hiring fallen MAGA creep Milo Yiannopoulos for his campaign — to say nothing of a guy who helped incite an attack on democracy — Ye is really surrounding himself with bad company.

(Via Yahoo!)

Phoebe Bridgers pumps out exemplary new lyrics all the time, but some of the best can come from unconventional places. In a recent British Vogue interview, Bridgers was asked where she looks for “creative inspiration” and she answered, “Misheard lyrics. I heard a song on the radio that I thought said, ‘I’m gonna kill you,’ so I wrote [‘Kyoto’] with that as the chorus.”

The song’s first chorus goes, “I’m gonna kill you / If you don’t beat me to it / Dreaming through Tokyo skies / I wanted to see the world / Then I flew over the ocean / And I changed my mind.”

Elsewhere in the Q&A, she noted that she spent last Christmas with boyfriend Paul Mescal’s family in Ireland and it was “a full rom-com.” Her best songwriting tip was, “Tell the truth, even if it sounds funny. Try to put the actual, literal truth – it’s fun.” Speaking of advice, she also noted, “Don’t fall into the modesty trap. Believe that what you’re making is great.”

As for the album that gets her through tough times: “Muna’s self-titled album. If I want to make myself cry, I’ll listen to ‘Home By Now.’” She also cited Sloppy Jane as an up-and-coming artist people should listen to, saying, “They made their record in a cave. I’m obsessed with albums that are an album — I sound like Harry Styles… records that aren’t single-based but a whole adventure.”

Check out the full piece here.

Earlier this month, Brockhampton released their “final” album, The Family, only to immediately follow it with TM. It does appear that the later project truly is the group’s final release, though, as their new video for “Man On The Moon” indicates.

The clip is a real farewell and a look back at the Saturation era, as it’s a compilation of various behind-the-scenes clips from that point in the band’s history. After dropping the video, Kevin Abstract declared that the band is officially finished, tweeting, “Thanks for everything. The rollout is officially done and the band is over appreciate y’all idk what else to say yeah idk.” Sharing the video, the band wrote, “OUR FINAL VIDEO. THANK YOU.”

In a recent letter about The Family, a portion of it that feels like a farewell reads, “I feel like whoever is reading this — whoever has been with Brockhampton since the beginning deserves some sort of closure. The album is an attempt at that. Thanks for giving us a chance. For holding me up. Holding me down. For being everything I needed when I was just some n**** from Texas. I still am. Yeah, this show is over, but the furnace is still glowing. What a blessing this has been.”

Watch the “Man On The Moon” video above.

TM is out now via Question Everything/RCA. Get it here.