Category: News

Sen. Susan Collins has been left with egg on her face (regarding her former support of Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court), and both Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are thrilled over word (via a leaked memo) that Roe V. Wade will be overturned, meaning that abortion rights (and some related privacy-related rights, possibly extending to contraception and same-sex marriage) could soon be basically nonexistent in the U.S.

Yup, the Pro Life crowd is set to get their way and take America back to the 1950s, which is why George Carlin’s 1996 take on the subject has resurfaced and is going viral. Yep, “[t]here’s always a George Carlin clip.” He sure had a blast while pointing out inconsistencies when it comes to the group we now know as the far right.

“Why is it that most of the people who are against abortion are people that you wouldn’t want to f*ck in the first place?” Carlin asked. “They will do anything for the unborn, but once you’re born [middle finger gesture], you’re on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don’t wanna know about you. Nothing! No neo-natal care, no daycare… no welfare, if you’re pre-born, you’re fine, if you’re preschool, you’re f*cked.”

Carlin then pushed forth with one hell of a kicker. “Conservatives don’t give a sh*t about you until you’re military age… conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers,” he argued. “They’re not pro-life. You know what they are? They’re anti-woman.”

He was a legend, and it’s no wonder that this clip is being retweeted into oblivion.

Be careful out there, everyone. The U.S. ain’t such a friendly place anymore.

Top Gun: Maverick was supposed to come out in 2019, but a three-year wait is worth it for an action spectacle that once seemed unlikely to ever happen. Back in 1990, four years after the original Top Gun became the year’s highest-grossing film and won an Oscar (Best Original Song for “Take My Breath Away,” which is honestly rude to Kenny Loggins), Tom Cruise told Playboy that making a sequel would be “irresponsible.”

After the Playboy reporter referred to Top Gun as as a “Nintendo game” and “a paean to blind patriotism,” Cruise replied, “OK, some people felt that Top Gun was a right-wing film to promote the Navy. And a lot of kids loved it. But I want the kids to know that that’s not the way war is — that Top Gun was just an amusement park ride, a fun film with a PG-13 rating that was not supposed to be reality.” That’s why, Cruise claimed, “I didn’t go on and make Top Gun II and III and IV and V. That would have been irresponsible.”

Instead, he made Mission: Impossible II and III and IV and V and VI, and soon, VII and VIII (and, uh, Jack Reacher II). I’ll take multiple M:I movies over multiple Top Gun movies any day, although luckily, we get both. Cruise was also supposed to star in a non-Marvel cinematic universe movie, but that plan was scrapped after “the biggest failure” of the director’s life. Not making more Dark Universe movies? Now that’s irresponsible.

Top Gun: Maverick comes out on May 27.

(Via Gizmodo)

On Tuesday, the WNBA announced that all 12 teams will have a decal on their court that features Brittney Griner’s No. 42 and her initials, as they look to keep the star player who is currently being detained in Russia at the front of mind.

Griner was detained 75 days ago in Russia for allegedly bringing vape cartridges with hashish oil in her luggage, and for the past two-plus months, the U.S. state department and Griner’s family have requested her situation be kept to a low profile to avoid her becoming a political pawn for Vladimir Putin and the Russian government. However, according to ESPN’s T.J. Quinn, the U.S. has shifted its stance on Griner and is now classifying her as “wrongfully detained,” and will begin the process of trying to negotiate her release from Russia and return to the states.

Reached late Monday, a State Department official sent ESPN a statement, saying, “The Department of State has determined that the Russian Federation has wrongfully detained U.S. citizen Brittney Griner. With this determination, the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens will lead the interagency team for securing Brittney Griner’s release.”

This comes on the heels of the release of U.S. Marine Trevor Reed from Russia last week as part of a negotiation that sent a Russian citizen back who had been accused of smuggling drugs. Bill Richardson, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations turned international hostage negotiator, worked on Reed’s release and, per Quinn, has agreed to work on Griner’s case as well.

Hopefully this can be resolved quickly, but it’s impossible to know what a timetable may look like for when Griner could possibly return home. She has a hearing scheduled for May 19 in Russia, but the shift in designation from the U.S. means they no longer consider her legal situation in Russia relevant to her detainment.

The Better Call Saul Lie Detector Test is a weekly recap of the major events of the final season, separated out by their apparent truthfulness at the time. This is not one of those recaps that gets into granular detail about things. It will miss the occasional callback or foreshadowing. But it will be fun. Sometimes, that’s what’s important.

Season 6, Episode 4: “Hit and Run”

Kim Wexler is doing great

This was supposed to be fun. Kim Wexler thought she was having fun. She’s not naive, and never was, but that still doesn’t mean she’s not entitled to get a little antsy when things start getting a little too real. Even a mischievous rascal — one who likes it a little more than others when the heat on the burner goes up and the oil in the pan starts popping — gets to freak out a bit when she suspects, correctly, that she’s being surveilled by weird dudes who work for either the government or a cartel. The episode ended with her very literally looking over her shoulder. With good reason. It’s one thing when you’re framing your doofy old boss for prostitute-related shenanigans. It’s another thing when you’re smack in the middle of a violent underground power struggle. That second one is less enjoyable.

It was also interesting that all of this real cartel business happened in an episode where she kind of remembered the thing about the law that she enjoyed. The hijinks were bred from disillusionment, mostly, probably, from being a little fed up with pulling that ponytail tight and following the rules and watching old Jimmy Shenanigans skirt the consequences over and over. There was a little bit of, “Well, if this is how it’s gonna be, then fine” to it all, I imagine. But then she pitched the legal aid thing to Cliff while she was setting Howard up for the hooker flim-flam, and Cliff was buying it for real, at least in its early stages, and she got a little excited. Which is fair, really.

But then there were the guys following her. And Mike explaining the situation to her after getting the drop on her in a public setting. And her realizing that maybe Lalo isn’t dead and maybe her ties with Jimmy have them both in danger and maybe all that talk the other week about Jimmy actually being Saul and not being a rat was a little further out ahead of things than she’s really comfortable with. Maybe not. Maybe I’m reading too much into things. But maybe Kim is not doing too great right now and might not be ever again. This is getting real for you and me, too, in that way.

The main thing I take away from all of this is that Kim Wexler is the main character of the show now. Jimmy was the main character for a while, to see how he became the Saul we saw in Breaking Bad. We see that now. He’s almost there. And that means he’s sliding, at least partially, back into his old role of being comic relief while other people deal with the consequences of the actions he takes. None of this is a complaint. It was always headed this way. We’re just there now. It’s going to be really stressful.

Rhea Seehorn is not talented

In addition to starring in the pivotal scenes in this episode and carrying the first steps of the drama that will carry us until the show merges into the Breaking Bad timeline, Rhea Seehorn also directed it. That’s… cool. It’s just really cool. I’m always kind of blown away when people direct things they also act in. That seems impossible to me, to dive into your own performance — again, in important moments! — while also having the director part of your brain humming to be sure everything else is clicking together like it should. The other actors, the camera, the lighting. It’s a lot. I heard a song I liked the other day and missed the street I was supposed to turn on. By like three or four streets. I was fully somewhere else, literally and figuratively. This type of situational awareness is like a superpower to me.

The coolest thing about it all was that this was just, like, another great episode of the show. The tone and style and everything were exactly the same as always, with the vague intro that pays off later and the cool shots of nothing that kind of mean everything. That’s a director’s job sometimes, especially in television, to just do things so well that the work becomes a little invisible, at least to the degree that none of it distracts from the story. This might sound like damning with faint praise, and I hope it doesn’t, because pulling that off is not easy at all. Real big week for this lady, in front of and behind the camera. Very cool.

Howard Hamlin has great taste in music

I stand by the thing a few inches up the page where I called Howard a doof. He would listen to elevator music while he drives around. He would. And he does. It almost makes the bad stuff that’s happening to him worth it.

In a related matter, please do not steal my car and judge the music I have been listening to. That’s different. “I Think We’re Alone Now” by Tiffany is a great song. Shut up. Leave me alone.

Having dinner with Mike would be fun

We find ourselves in one of those classic Two Things Can Be True situations…

ON ONE HAND: Mike is cool and it would be fun to just watch and observe him while he does anything at all, up to and including ordering dinner from a waiter he has probably terrified. What do you think Mike orders? He strikes me as a burger or pork chop guy, which he chases down with black coffee, even if he’s at a fancy Italian restaurant. He fascinates me deeply. I want to know everything about him. I feel like he could teach me so much. I also feel like he would hate me. I would ask for like spaghetti with two-thirds meatballs and one-third sausage and he would groan with enough force to make the entire table rattle.

ON THE OTHER HAND: Mike is very scary and serious and if he ever tried to deliver a message to any of us like the one he delivered to Kim we would probably crumble into a powder that someone mistakes for a pile of Parmesan cheese. I’m sorry I keep talking about Italian food. I should really not be writing these while I’m hungry. But here we both are, I guess.

It is good to be subtle

Here’s the other thing about the directing of this episode: There were at least two moments that were dead on the nose, about as subtle as a marching band getting hit by a runaway ice cream truck. One was the thing in the screencap way up at the beginning of this post where the episode ended with Kim literally looking back over her shoulder. The other was the thing where a smiling Gus walked into his house and switched his entire demeanor before donning all/mostly-black and disappearing into the secret tunnel that popped up into his secret crimes house. It was kind of a reverse Batman situation, in that he came up from underground to become a villain instead of going into a cave to become a hero. Again, not extremely subtle.

But also, like, who cares? It was awesome. I love that Gus has a villainous lair hidden as a normal house in an upper-middle-class suburban neighborhood. That’s hilarious. And so perfectly on-brand. He did another thing that was perfectly on-brand during all of this business, but I’ll get to that later. It deserves its own section.

Lalo is having a blast right now

We did not see Lalo at all in this episode, which was a bummer, because I love Lalo. I’m strangely more curious about what happens to him than I am about what happens to Kim, mostly because Lalo seems so invincible. We’ve seen him charm and we’ve seen him kill and he’s been incredibly proficient at both. It doesn’t make sense to me that someone will — or even can — outfox him. He is heartless and cruel and almost definitely a sociopath but I love him very much. I am not entirely at peace with this.

Anyway, until we see him on our screens and have something resembling confirmation in the alternative, I am going to assume Lalo is just chilling at a resort in Cancun with an umbrella drink. You cannot take this away from me.

Jimmy is going full Saul

Important developments:

• Officially doing business as Saul and answering the phone with “speedy justice for you”
• Getting a massive influx of clients as a result of him being “Salamanca’s guy,” which is notable for a lot of reasons but mostly because it is yet another example of his bad behavior only having negative consequences for the people around him, like he’s surrounded by a little spray tan forcefield
• Got his new office as a result of getting kicked out of the nail salon due to the massive client influx

We will continue to monitor this situation. Even though we know exactly where it ends up. Prequels are strange like that.

Better Call Saul is, occasionally, the funniest show on television

One of the many things I love so much about this show is the range it is capable of displaying. The last time it was on our televisions, it was killing off its most sympathetic villain in heartbreaking fashion, complete with a gut-wrenching phone call with his father, whose protection was ensured by the aforementioned death. This week, we opened with an extended hooker scheme that featured Jimmy, in disguise as Howard, ripping signs out of a parking lot in a frantic rush as the real Howard walked toward them. I mean, look at Bob Odenkirk — a comedy legend now in his fourth decade of doing it — make a meal out of this bit. This is a show that uses all of the tools in its toolbox.

It is also a show that is not afraid to resort to childish jokes for a cheap laugh. Meet my new favorite character on this or any show.

I am so proud of everyone involved in all of this. Good for them. Good for us. Good for Spooge.

Gus Fring is paranoid but not wrong

Back to the bullet points for three notes on Gustavo Fring:

• He doesn’t believe Lalo is dead despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, which would be a troubling/annoying personality trait if he weren’t also objectively correct
• Again, the surveillance, both in the house and on Kim, who is a lawyer in good standing with the New Mexico bar association and not, generally, the type of person one would try to intimidate or harm just based on the potential blowback
• The thing in the screencap up there where he wants Mike to find guys that are good at subterfuge but also “up to Pollo standards” as short-order cooks, which is a suuuuuuch a Gus thing and also really funny

Sometimes things are two things. That’s a good thing to remember.

The Linda Lindas—who just released their album Growing Up—are really growing up fast. The teenagers have made their third late-night television appearance, this time on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon performing their fiery anthem “Oh!” Under disorienting strobe lights, the band engages the crowd with hypnotic gang vocals and a surging punk sound with a pop bounce. The lyrics, like in most rock songs, are about feeling like a screw-up: “When I say something / I wish I had shut up.” But their energy is infectious and inspiring.

About punk music, guitarist Lucia de la Garza said told Uproxx: “It’s been making a comeback, partly because of a lot of civil rights movements, a lot of political stuff and because people are saying, ‘We need to say something because it’s been going on for too long.’ Punk is amplifying your own voice when no one else will. I think that’s a really cool part of punk. Making zines is totally telling your story when no one else will tell it. Or writing music like, ‘Racist, Sexist, Boy,’ it’s telling [Mila’s] story when no one else was talking about it.”

Watch their striking performance of “Oh!” on The Tonight Show above.

Phoebe Bridgers‘ signee Charlie Hickey has released the latest from his upcoming album, Nervous At Night. On “Gold Line,” Hickey sings of living with anxiety and OCD, both reeling over and embracing the fact that these feelings are beyond his control.

Accompanied by a bass guitar that creates a sound similar to that of an anxious heartbeat, along with drums and a chilling synth, Hickey sings “I think I’m in a bad spot / I think feeling things is too hard / I’ve got this feeling I’m not going to get what I want.”

Of the song, Hickey said in a statement, “This is a song about being overtaken by a feeling that you know is bigger than you. It’s scary, but also really exciting and joyous.”

In the song’s video, directed by Vanessa Haddad, Hickey combats his anxiety by performing to a (very) small crowd, strolling through town, and imitating the motions of an inflatable tube man.

Back in March, Hickey performed at SXSW as part of Saddest Factory’s “Corporate Retreat” set, alongside labelmates Bridgers, Muna, and more. The signees performed a cover of My Chemical Romance’s “Welcome To The Black Parade.”

Check out “Gold Line” above and the cover art and tracklist for Nervous At Night below.

1. “Dandelions”
2. “Gold Line”
3. “Mid Air”
4. “Thirteen”
5. “Missing Years”
6. “Every Time I Think”
7. “Nervous At Night”
8. “Springbreaker”
9. “Choir Song (I Feel Dumb)”
10. “Month of September”
11. “Planet With Water”

Nervous At Night is out 5/20 via Saddest Factory. Pre-save it here.

After skipping last year’s Met Gala due to its COVID-19 vaccine protocols, Nicki Minaj made her return to the charity event last night. According to Mediaite, the “We Go Up” rapper wore an all-black gown designed by Burberry chief creative officer Riccardo Tisci with a leather baseball cap. However, despite the triumph of her return, it wasn’t without drama, as Nicki encountered and confronted a reporter who had apparently leaked what was supposed to have been a surprise for her fans.

Stopping halfway up the steps to the Metropolitan Museum Of Art, Nicki pointed out the offending journalist, saying, “Hey, you. Are you the man that leaked that I was gonna be here?” After confirming that he was the culprit, she growled, “About to come up to you and slap the sh*t out of you. Come here.” While she (apparently) didn’t follow through, the message came through loud and clear.

Nicki doesn’t play around with her planned surprises. When Coi Leray’s dad Benzino leaked that Nicki would appear on the younger rapper’s new single “Blick Blick,” she nearly pulled the plug on the whole collaboration, only relenting later. Given her playful rapport with her loyal fans, the Barbz, she doesn’t seem to want to deprive them of the full experience — surprises and all (she must hate Marvel spoilers!).

As for why she missed last year’s Met Gala, it’s probably better not to rehash that potentially embarrassing chapter. You never know, I might run into Nicki and be the next writer she threatens to beat up.

In early April, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a motion to hold Donald Trump in contempt of court for failing to turn over relevant documents in her civil investigation. James also requested a fine of $10,000 for every day that Trump failed to deliver the necessary materials, which a judge approved last week. The former president, as you can imagine (and please do take a second to imagine it in detail), is not loving it. On the heels of his legal team filing a motion to stop the fines, Trump ranted to Bloomberg about how he’s being treated so unfairly. No one has ever been treated this unfair before. It’s very, very mean.

“We have a judge that frankly has been unbelievably unfair,” Trump said on the phone Monday, one week after state court Judge Arthur Engoron ruled the former president violated a court order by missing a March 31 deadline to respond to the state’s demand for records.

“We’ve given millions and millions of pages and he says give more, give more, always give more,” Trump said.

As for Trump’s lawyers, they’re calling the fines “patently improper and impermissible by law” while also arguing that he doesn’t even have the personal records the state is looking for. According to his legal team’s filing to halt the fines, the former president “performed a diligent, thorough and comprehensive search for all of the documents and items called for in the subpoena and provided complete and accurate responses,” which totally sounds like Trump. “Diligent, thorough, and comprehensive” is practically his middle name.

(Via Bloomberg)

From Joyce Manor’s seminal 2011 self-titled debut to their last 2018 album Million Dollars To Kill Me, the California now-trio have been balancing their heavy, sharp-edged side with their more pop, buoyant side. Their genre is always up for debate; fans argue about whether the band fits into the emo or pop-punk, or just indie rock. They announced a new album 40 Oz. To Fresno last month and released the crashing “Gotta Let It Go,” which only furthered this confusion about their sound.

“Don’t Try,” their blazing new single out today, is a refreshing burst of off-kilter rock—whether it’s emo, pop-punk, or indie rock. It’s just an undeniable jam. The riffs are eerie and enticing; Barry Johnson’s vocals are used more as an instrument than ever before. It helps that the band recruited Tony Thaxton of Motion City Soundtrack for drums on this album, giving the songs an even harder kick. The track is shorter than two minutes, from an album that’s shorter than 18 minutes. As per usual, in a Guided By Voices kind of way, they don’t take up too much time or space.

Listen to Joyce Manor’s “Don’t Try” above.

40 Oz. To Fresno is out 6/10 via Epitaph Records. Pre-order it here.

Before he was an internationally famous rap star, Drake got his foot in the door of the entertainment industry as an actor. Well, it’s been a while since he’s pulled those skills out of his bag of tricks with his last non-music video credit coming in 2012 (a cameo in Anchorman 2 as “Soul Brother”). However, fans apparently nearly got to see him on the big screen as a superhero, if character designer Jared Krichevsky is to be believed.

Over the weekend, Krichevsky posted a mock-up of Drake as Justice League character Cyborg, which he says was a concept for a TV series about the half-man-half-machine former football star turned superhero. “They wanted to cast Drake at one point,” he explained.

It isn’t terribly surprising that the series concept fell through. After all, hundreds of shows are conceived and pitched without even making it to a pilot, let alone actually onto TV, and setting sights on such a big name to lead the show likely brought up all kinds of issues with budget and schedule. Again, Drake’s a huge music star who would have wanted to be properly compensated and most networks just aren’t shelling out that kind of dough for new shows — even ones with recognizable faces like his.

Besides, what with Drake recording new albums and feature verses for friends like Future, showing up at NBA Playoff games to heckle players, and participating in his own homegrown hoop league (not to mention touring), Drake doesn’t exactly have time for much world-saving. Still, somewhere out there in the multiverse, there’s a version of Drake blasting aliens with his sonic cannon alongside a Black Lightning played by Future and that’s a world I wouldn’t mind seeing.