Category: News

The Mars Volta has been broken up since 2013, but the group got fans excited yesterday when they teased something called La Realidad De Los Sueños. Some speculated new music was coming, but it turns out that old music is coming: Today, the group announced that La Realidad De Los Sueños is a huge 18-LP box set.

The collection features the band’s first release, their 2002 EP Tremulant, as well as all of their studio albums: De-Loused In The Comatorium, Frances The Mute, Amputechture, The Bedlam In Goliath, Octahedron, and Noctourniquet. There are a bunch of other goodies included in the near-$500 set as well, as the product page notes:

“‘La Realidad De Los Sueños’ is literally ‘the reality of dreams’ for the numerous The Mars Volta fans all around the world. It not only contains the band’s whole studio discography but also some true treasures like ‘Landscape Tantrums,’ unreleased material from the De-Loused In The Comatorium Sessions and a photo-book with exclusive behind-the-scenes shots. The 18 LP set is limited to 5,000 copies, pressed on 180 gram black vinyl and comes with a characteristic and The Mars Volta-esque designed box. Rack included and ready-made for a perfect presentation.”

It does appear that new music is on the way at some point, though, as the band’s Cedric Bixler-Zavala said back in 2019, “When [Rodríguez-López] played me a grip of new sh*t I f*cking cried. Like Claire Daines in Romeo & Juliet cried. Yeah it was f*cking weird. It’s in its infancy right now. No deadlines, no ball tripping, no drama, just 2 grown ass men using essential oils and bold new perfumes shooting ideas and scooting their ass across the f*cking lawn trying to get rid of these worms.”

La Realidad De Los Sueños is out 4/23 via Clouds Hill. Pre-order it here.

It looks like Cardi B fans might not see more of her trademark clap backs or Asian snack purchases for a while; the “Up” rapper has deactivated her Twitter account. A search of Cardi’s @ name shows a “does not exist” message and there was apparently no explanation or warning before she deactivated the account. It’s unknown why she deactivated it or whether the deactivation is temporary, but she does have 30 days to restart her account before Twitter deletes it entirely.

Before the deactivation, Cardi announced that she was closing in on finishing her album, so that may have a bit to do with it. The account was also infamous for featuring Cardi’s wildest thoughts and clashes with other big social media personalities, including conservative commentators who tried to take her to task over her uninhibited lyrical content. She also used it to tease collaborations and new projects, such as potential songs with Playboi Carti and Lizzo, and address critiques of her music and personality, such as the time she explained why her songs inspire TikTok challenges.

Fans can still get Cardi B updates on her Instagram and her OnlyFans, which she started so that she could address fans directly without outside observers jumping to conclusions.

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE — Love these dudes

Few things in the world of television have brought me as much joy as the rise of Desus and Mero. Their story is so cool. They were a couple of dudes with regular day jobs who were funny on Twitter, and they turned that into a podcast, and they turned that podcast into television gigs, and they turned those television gigs into their own television show on Vice, and they turned that show into a big deal television show on Showtime. They interviewed Obama a little while ago. It is really wild to see two guys you started listening to on a podcast years ago getting roasted by a former president on a premium cable network. I love it.

I also love that they love it and seem committed to doing awesome and/or hilarious stuff with their big new platform. Their show is such a blast. Huge chunks of it are them just cracking jokes about the news and talking junk about people who deserve to have junk talked about them, and other chunks of the show are spent interviewing or doing stuff with celebrities. They’ve spoken to AOC. They took Anna Kendrick to the Bronx. They had Letterman on and he more or less anointed them as the next kings of late night. It rules. It’s exactly what you should do if you get a shot at fame after years of working a regular job. I hope they start popping up in movies as themselves all the time now, like how the guys from PTI play themselves in sports movies sometimes.

I say all of this now for two main reasons: One, because it is true and someone should say it; two, because they did something really cool this week, and talking about it gave me an excuse to write that two-paragraph intro about how good they are. Please take a few minutes at some point today or this weekend to watch this video. It is very funny and very sweet and just really cool.

The gist of it goes like this: Desus and Mero take over a fifth-grade class from St. Charles Borromeo Catholic School in Harlem. They do it for the jokes, in part, because giving children a live microphone on television is almost always good for a laugh or two. But they also do it to highlight the work the teacher, David Robles, is doing during an impossible time to make school fun and interesting for kids who are stuck inside and attending school via Zoom from their living rooms.

Watch it all the way to the end. Watch the kids say some really nice things about their teacher. Feel your heart grow about two or three sizes when you see the difference this is making for kids who are just barely old enough to understand what is happening in the world but not old enough to do anything about it on their own yet. And then watch as one of the kids, after hearing that Desus and Mero are sending everyone a new pair of sneakers, shout out that he wants Yeezys. I like that kid. Shoot the shot when you’re open, you know?

Anyway, again, all of this is great. I’m glad they did it and I’m glad they’re very famous now and I’m glad I have a little space on the internet to ramble about it. The brand is strong, as always.

ITEM NUMBER TWO — June 25 is now the most important date on the 2021 movie calendar

Good news and bad news. Bad news first because I can put enough English on it to spin it straight into the good news: The ninth Fast & Furious movie, the one that was supposed to come out last year, the one that released its trailer over 13 months ago now, the one that revealed that Han — a character who died in the third movie but appeared in films 4-6 thanks to the franchise turning itself into a chronological pretzel — is either alive or has been replaced by a person/robot/hologram who looks exactly like Han, the one in which Charlize Theron has a bowl cut and a magnet plane, the one that apparently introduces John Cena as Vin Diesel’s evil secret brother and may or may not send its characters into outer space, has been delayed yet again.

F9, which was slated to debut over Memorial Day weekend, has pushed back its release date once again. But fear not, adrenaline junkies: the high-octane sequel hasn’t spun too far out; it’s still expected to open this summer on June 25.

So there’s that. It’s a bummer because I want to see this movie as soon as possible. I want to have seen it. I want it to be done with its theatrical run and airing on basic cable already. But I’ve waited this long, and if one more month increases the chance I can see it safely inside a movie theater, then fine. This brings us to the good news.

The sequel to Venom, the terrifically titled Venom: Let There Be Carnage, also comes out on June 25. Couple this information with the fact that there will apparently be enough vaccines available for every American adult by the end of May, and we are — if we can stay reasonably careful and vigilant about all of this a little longer — looking at a future where we can see both of these movies… in a theater… on the same weekend. We could even do it on the same day. Think about that. Think about going to a movie theater and buying all the candy and soda you can carry and seeing an F9/Venom double bill on a Saturday. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?

Well, it does to me. Stick me with all the vaccines you got and then shove images of Vin Diesel and Tom Hardy into my eyeballs. This is not a sentence I expected to type as recently as 13ish months ago, back when the F9 trailer dropped, but now it is all I want in the entire world.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — Freakin’ heck yeah, Anthony Hopkins

This is a video of Anthony Hopkins — Sir Anthony Hopkins CBE, a man who has been knighted by the Queen and won an Academy Award for playing a genius murderer cannibal — doing a fun little dance from what looks like a luxury villa in some tropical location. He posted it on Twitter this week. Like, he just uploaded it and I saw it and I retweeted it so fast I almost hurt my finger.

But how could I not? It’s so strange. And cool. Good for him. Good for Anthony Hopkins. The man is 83 years old and appears to be having more fun than anyone I know. Imagine being in such a good mood that you decide, on a Tuesday in March, to go online and post a video where you do a little tropical dance. I’ve watched this video maybe 20 times this week and, after I got past the thing where Hannibal Lecter is doing a little two-step from what appears to be a Sandals resort, I can’t help but think he has something about life figured out. Teach me your ways, Anthony Hopkins.

While we’re on the subject of Anthony Hopkins, here’s a fun story: He used to date Martha Stewart and, according to Martha, she broke it off with him because she couldn’t get the image of Hannibal Lecter out of her head. From a 2006 interview with Howard Stern:

Stewart appeared on shock jock Howard Stern‘s radio show last week and admitted she had second thoughts about romancing the Welsh-born star after watching The Silence of the Lambs while they were dating.

She said, “Oh, I loved him, but he was… scary. I was going to invite him up to Maine; I have this beautiful home in Maine… but then I reconsidered because I saw that movie again.

“Do you want someone eating your brain while you are sitting in your beautiful dining room in Maine?”

Do I think there’s a chance Martha is playing things a little loose with the facts in the name of doing good radio? Yes, I do, in part because this is too good and in part because Martha Stewart is a professional entertainer who would see the fun in it. But… it’s not entirely impossible, right? You could see Martha Stewart doing this, couldn’t you? I don’t know. I almost like not knowing. Let me believe this is true. If I can’t do a fun little dance in the Caribbean, at least let me have this.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — Meanwhile, on the 9-1-1 Chaos Block

It’s been a while since we checked in with the Fox Monday Night Chaos Block, 9-1-1 and 9-1-1: Lonestar, so let’s do that. The screencap at the top of this section is from the original flavor. What we have here is two neighbors arguing over a giant wooden boat-shaped playhouse that one of them built for his kids. Turns out it may or may not have been too close to the property line, which a) upset the older gentleman in the screencap, and b) is exactly the kind of trivial argument that people have on these shows before something truly nutso happens. Let’s skip ahead a bit.

Oh, baby. Oh, this is a promising development. It seems to imply something is happening in the sky that will affect the situation on the ground. The best part is that it could be anything. I mean that. Anything. This show has had tsunamis and earthquakes and babies flushed down toilets that were rescued from the apartment building’s plumbing. I am so excited to see what ends up happ-…

HOLY CRAP.

A damn Hummer fell out of the sky and crushed this guy under a giant wooden boat-shaped playhouse. And he survived. And it wasn’t even the most elaborate lunacy that happened in the episode This hour opened with an all-mom punk rock band bleeding from the eyes after smoking a joint laced with rat poison, and ended with a Rear Window situation where Angela Bassett’s characters ex-husband uncovered an illegal bootleg surgery operation being run out of a luxury apartment across the street.

And that was only the first hour. I wasn’t exactly sure how 9-1-1: Lonestar could go about topping all of it, but if I know anything about these shows, it’s th-…

Oh no.

Oh God no.

Not again.

They’re not going to drop something else out of the sky.

Not in both hours.

Not at a funeral.

They wouldn’t do th-…

THEY DID IT.

THEY DROPPED SOMETHING OUT OF THE SKY IN BOTH EPISODES THIS WEEK.

I MEAN…

HOLY CRAP.

THAT’S WHAT I SAID.

To be very clear, this is a dead body that fell off an airplane and crashed into another dead body in a casket during a funeral. And later in the episode, a medical transport guy got stuck butt-first to the monster magnet in the hospital’s MRI room and Rob Lowe and the other firefighters had to strip down to their metal-free underpants to go in and save him. These are good shows. It’s incredible they are on network television, back-to-back, every Monday night.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — This trailer is extremely important for two reasons

This is the trailer for the upcoming HBO Max dark comedy Made for Love. As I said in the section heading, I bring it to your attention here for two main reasons. The first is that it stars Cristin Milioti and sounds weird as all hell, and as we know from her performance in Palm Springs, Cristin Milioti thrives in comedies that are weird as all hell. Look at the description of this sucker.

‘Made for Love’ follows Hazel Green (Milioti), a thirtysomething woman on the run after 10 years in a suffocating marriage to Byron Gogol, an unstable, needy, possibly sociopathic tech billionaire. Soon she discovers that her husband has implanted a revolutionary monitoring device – the Made for Love chip – in her brain, allowing him to track her, watch her and know her thoughts and feelings as she tries to stay alive. Also, there are dolphins. The chip allows Byron unprecedented access to Hazel’s brain as she flees to her desert hometown to take refuge with her aging widower father and, alarmingly, his sex doll.

That is… a lot. Maybe too much. I don’t know if it will work, but I do know that I will support Milioti for reasons including but not limited to scenes like this…

… so here we are.

The second reason I’m sharing the trailer with you is that, as you know by now if you clicked play already, it features Ray Romano doing a spoken-word voiceover rendition of “Crazy in Love” by Beyoncé, and that is something we all need in our lives desperately even if we didn’t know we needed it until this very moment. The best things in life usually work that way. Yes, I am implying that Ray Romano doing a spoken-word performance of “Crazy in Love” by Beyoncé is “one of the best things in life.” Listen to it now. Listen to it again. It’s beautiful. Life is beautiful. Things are going to be okay, guys.

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From David:

My wife and I have been doing so many grown-up things during the pandemic. We re-financed our mortgage, got life insurance, and are finalizing our wills. The only part that has made these things tolerable is that the lawyer we are using for our wills is named C. Robinson. I have never once thought about the lawyer’s name without pronouncing it in my head as Nandor from What We Do In The Shadows speaking about Colin Robinson.

So two questions:

What is something weird that helps you take care of boring, adult responsibilities?

And, related, what names or references from somewhat obscure TV shows keep you from 100% functioning like a responsible adult?

Oh, David. Oh, buddy. Welcome to my universe. What you just described is how almost every day of my life goes. It’s great most of the time, but sometimes it results in me veering across two lanes of traffic so I can pull into a parking lot and take a picture of a sign because the words on it would make a good fake name. A sign like this, for example.

It’s fine. I’m fine. And I think that’s the answer to your first question. I was out running errands when that happened. I was probably going to buy, like, antacids or something, because my adult stomach does not always handle foods that are spicy and/or fried too well anymore.

As far as the second question, I’ll say this: In the fourth season of Justified, there was an episode called “Money Trap.” It aired in 2013, over nine years ago. It featured a character who never appeared in another episode before or after, a female college student who hustled and grifted chumps on card tables and riverboats all over the South. Her name was Jackie Nevada. I suspect I’ve thought about this once a month since it happened. Again, it’s fine. I’m fine. You and I are having fun, David. That’s what’s important here.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To England!

A council is reviewing CCTV footage after reports that a large section of pavement was stolen from a village in West Sussex.

Folks, I need to clarify something, just so nothing gets lost in the English-to-English translation: What we have here is a sidewalk heist. Someone, or a group of someones, stole a damn sidewalk. Click on the link and go look at it. It’s a chunk of cement-like material between parking spaces and a residential property. Call it pavement if you want, if it makes you feel better. But these maniacs stole a freaking sidewalk.

I am filled to the brim with questions about this. Why did they do it? What was their endgame? Did they show up at a local pawn shop with like eight feet of sidewalk and begin bargaining? Is this just step one in a much larger plan, like how Danny and the boys stole the big science gizmo in Ocean’s 11 so they could use it to rob Terry Benedict’s casino? Is there some impossibly British quote about all of this from a witness? I need to know.

Storrington resident Alan Stainer said whoever had taken the slabs had “made a right old mess”.

Well, at least I got one answer. What a beautiful collection of words that is. Bunch of rascals stole a sidewalk and this guy is out here being more British about it than Michael Caine. It’s a good story.

Horsham District Council said it believed that “the paving slabs may have been stolen overnight,” adding that it was taking steps to make “the area safe for car park users”.

Perfect. Wonderful. I’ve got to believe this is the silliest news story to come out of England this week. I don’t see how anything could top it. There would have to be, like, to choose an example at random, a commuter train delayed at rush hour because a cat was sitting on top of it and refused to get down.

Okay, this one’s on me. I spoke this one into existence. My apologies to the people of England.

You should watch The Price is Right clip above without any context. I’ll wait.

Welcome back. I probably do not need to describe The Price is Right “Showcase,” as you have also spent time in a waiting room, but just in case: the winners of the Showcase Showdown (that’s the big wheel spin) compete against each other to take home a bunch of prizes, some more impressive than others. After the first showcase is presented, the highest-earner can either pass the showcase to the other contestant, or keep it for themselves by guessing how much it costs. Either way, both contestants will pretend to know the cost of a jet ski, or whatever. Whoever’s closest without going over, wins it. Also, Drew Carey is there. This is, all these years later, still a surprise every time.

The showcase for Jennifer, a contestant on the March 3 episode, included a video camera, a home theater, and a Nissan Versa. She guessed $23,294. Considering Robert, her game show enemy, was over by $6,083, she had a good chance of winning. “You bid $23,294,” Carey said, drawing out the tension. “The actual retail price is 23 thousand… two hundred… ninety… one.” Jennifer was over by three dollars. Three! My favorite part of the whole thing, above even the Ralph Wiggum-esque look on her face and Carey suggesting that she drown her sorrow in ice cream,” is the “buzz” sound effect that plays right after Jennifer’s heart is broken. It’s no “losing horn,” but it still stings.

Poor Jennifer.

There are a lot of bourbon choices on the shelf. Big-name distilleries in Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee, and beyond can put out five, ten, even 20 or more different labels from the same stills and barrel houses. Celebrities are launching lines left and right. Drinkers are rich with choice and, even still, many of them like to stick to the tried and true.

It must be scary as hell to be an upstart craft distillery. How do you compete?

By being as skilled at creating craft expressions as Woodinville Whiskey Co. out in the Seattle suburbs, that’s how. The relative newcomers have been killing the whiskey game over the past couple of years. Their entry-point bourbon won Double Gold and was named the Best Straight Bourbon of 2020 at last year’s San Francisco World Spirits Competition. Their 100% Rye is equally lauded, along with their Port Finish Bourbon — our favorite bourbon of 2020.

This is quality juice, is what we’re getting at. And people who know bourbon whiskey see that.

Woodinville is a small operation making big whiskeys, which makes this ranking a little shorter than our normal Friday brand rankings. We’re only talking about their four core expressions (though you can find some serious barrel picks out there and great cask-strength one-offs at the distillery when it’s open). The flipside of that coin is that it also makes ranking these four bottles almost impossible — it would have been easy to finish with two ties.

Still, we’re going to give it our best shot. That way, when you do come across a bottle, you’ll know which one to start with.

4. Woodinville Double Barrel Blended Whiskey

ABV: 43%

Average Price: $60

The Whiskey:

Double Barrel is a great example of the craft involved with this brand. The juice is fermented from grains (corn, rye, and barley) pulled exclusively from Omlin Family farm in Quincy, Washington. The distillate then goes into barrels that spend two years air-drying on the leeward slopes of the Cascade Mountains before a light toasting and very light charring. The hot distillate mellows in those barrels and is then transferred to used bourbon barrels to finish out their maturation.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a nose of red berries dusted with cinnamon and brown sugar with a buttery base next to a hint of that toasted oak. The palate veers away from the berries towards a ripe peach floating in vanilla cream with honey and eggnog spice cutting through. The end circles back to the dry wood notes, with a slight spicy tobacco chew offering a counterpoint to that silken vanilla cream and stonefruit on a medium-length fade.

Bottom Line:

Something has to be at the bottom of this list. The main reason for this landing in the bottom slot is that this feels like the best mixer on the list — or the bottle we reach for the least when sipping neat or on the rocks. It’s absolutely a fine sipper but, really, it’s a better cocktail base for a craft Manhattan or old fashioned.

3. Woodinville 100% Rye Whiskey

ABV: 45%

Average Price: $45

The Whiskey:

American Distilling Institute Craft Spirits Awards named this their Best Rye back in 2017. The juice is 100 percent rye with grains sourced locally from the Omlin family farm. The whiskey is barreled in air-dried and toasted barrels but this time they’re heavily charred before the spirit goes in. The barrels are then hand-selected and married to create a pure rye whiskey experience at an accessible 90 proof.

Tasting Notes:

This very much falls into the “classic” rye category with a nose full of dark and woody spices next to bright red fruits, honey, and a touch of fresh and (maybe even wet) tobacco leaves. The palate embraces the nose while adding in a, dare we say, plummy Fruit Roll-Ups taste and vibe next to a slight nuttiness, mild vanilla/caramel, and spicy dried tobacco chew on the end of the sip. The finish is long-ish, velvety, and touches back on the almost cedar woodiness and leathery fruit as the spicy tobacco warms the chest.

Bottom Line:

This rye feels like it’s for aficionados while still holding onto real accessibility in flavor and mouthfeel. While it can be a bit bold, it’ll never overwhelm, especially when you get a little ice or water in there to really let it shine in the glass.

2. Woodinville Straight Bourbon Whiskey

ABV: 45%

Average Price: $42

The Whiskey:

This much-lauded bourbon is Woodinville’s touchstone expression. The whiskey is made with those same family farm grains. The juice spends years in the toasted and heavily charred barrels maturing until it’s just right (around five years in total). The results are married and proofed down with local water to a very welcoming 90 proof.

Tasting Notes:

You’re greeted with a thick vanilla pudding with caramel candy and a cedar box full of dark spices. The caramel thickens to a buttery and rich toffee with notes of dark chocolate peeking in next to more of those woody spices and a vanilla oil velvetiness. The end is long and really embraces the sweeter edges of the vanilla pudding while allowing the spice to warm the senses.

Bottom Line:

This is one of those drams where you’re left thinking after the first sip, “Oh, this is what good bourbon tastes like.” It’s matter-of-fact while also being incredibly sippable neat or on the rocks … in a highball … or in your favorite cocktail.

In short, it’s as versatile as it is drinkable.

1. Woodinville Straight Bourbon Whiskey Port Finished

ABV: 45%

Average Price: $52

The Whiskey:

This expression is the brand’s award-winning five-year-old bourbon taken up a notch. That means you’re getting that grain-to-glass experience of local Washington craft along with the bespoke barreling process on those snowy Cascade Mountains. The juice is then finished for six to 12 months in port casks, adding a whole new dimension to the bourbon.

Tasting Notes:

Candied fruit, roasted nuts, and bourbon vanilla entice you throughout the sip. Those notes lead right into a Christmas cake full of dried fruits, spice, nuts, and plummy sherry depths. The end shines in all of those notes, adding a warming feeling that revels in all the candied fruit, cake, spice, nuts, and oak as it slowly fades away, leaving you with a silken mouthfeel and sweet warmth.

Bottom Line:

This word gets thrown around a lot, but this bourbon is smooth. It’s just the right amount of sweet, spicy, and bourbon-y, creating a unique and delicious sipping experience. We like it neat. But don’t sleep on making a killer cocktail with this one — something like a Sazerac, eggnog, or boulevardier feels right.

Australia has been kind to the world in terms of its musical output, as the country has exported a range of esteemed artists including Kylie Minogue, AC/DC, Courtney Barnett, and a host of others. One of the country’s most successful groups of all time may not be an obvious pick, but it’s one a lot of children have heard over the years: The Wiggles.

Hosts of Triple J’s “Like A Version” segment and fans recently campaigned to get The Wiggles to make an appearance on the show, and sure enough, those efforts were a success: The band stopped by to cover another Australian classic, Tame Impala’s “Elephant,” but mixed it up by combining the track with one of their own most beloved tunes, “Fruit Salad.”

At this point, the only remaining member of the band who was around during their commercial peak in the 2000s is Anthony Field (the Blue Wiggle), as Murray Cook (the former Red Wiggle), Jeff Fatt (Purple), and Greg Page (Yellow) all left the group in 2012. However, Cook and Fatt put their colored shirts on again and rejoined the band for this performance.

The appearance coincided with the band’s 30th anniversary, which they are celebrating with the compilation album We’re All Fruit Salad: The Wiggles Greatest Hits.

Watch The Wiggles cover “Elephant” above. They also spoke about the cover in an interview video, so check that out below.

(Spoilers from Marvel Studios and Disney+’s WandaVision will be found below.)

After weeks of speculating what the ramifications of bringing Evans Peters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe might mean, the WandaVision finale went a direction that we can safely say no one saw coming: a boner joke. Instead of a dramatic bridging between the Fox X-Men movies and the MCU, which the show seemed to be heading towards thanks to the official Disney+ caption labeling Peters as “the version of Pietro from the X-Men films” when he first arrived in Episode 7, Peters ended up being an entirely different character. Namely, Agnes’ mysterious husband Ralph whose last name is Boehner, which sounds exactly like you think it does.

The problem is the “Ralph Boehner” moment is the last we see of Peters in the finale. He literally laughs at his own last name just to drive home the boner joke, and that’s the end of his story. Obviously, that wasn’t the explanation Marvel fans were looking for after weeks of hoping for some sort of big Multiverse X-Men reveal, and they’ve been sharing their feelings on Pietro being reduced to a dick joke on Twitter.

Of course, even in the end, WandaVision can’t help but stir up fan theories. Right now Marvel funs are furiously sifting through the finale for clues that maybe Pietro is more than just a boner gag, and they’re zeroing in on the fact he has a photo of himself with his name on it, which seems odd. Not to mention, he laughed at “Ralph Boehner” like he’d just heard it for the first time, and we still don’t know the identity of the witness protection suspect Jimmy Woo was looking for…

At the time of his death, Pop Smoke was one of the hottest commodities in the rap game but he wasn’t the only drill-influenced artist with a stranglehold on radio and playlists. Chicago artist Polo G, working from the blueprint established by Windy City forebearers like Chief Keef and Lil Durk, also had a parade of hits traveling down the pipeline. Although the two shared common roots — they were even the same age — they never got to work together while Pop was alive. That’s a shame because “Fashion,” their posthumous collaboration from the Boogie soundtrack, is a stone-cold banger.

Built over a more New York drill-style beat — which is, technically, more of a UK drill style — the track leaves plenty of space for the two rappers’ lyrics to breathe, although there is a truly thunderous low-end typical of the style as well. There’s an interesting contrast between their styles as well, Pop’s gravelly, laid-back growl offering a smooth complement to Polo’s jagged, high-energy cadence.

Boogie, Pop Smoke’s acting debut and Eddie Huang’s directorial one, is out today via Focus Films. It follows a first-generation Chinese-American high-school hoop star as he tries to decide what to do with his future, with Pop Smoke playing his rival. Pop appears multiple times on the soundtrack, including on the song “AP.” The music for the film is by New York rap legend Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest and go-to New York hip-hop television composer Adrian Younge, who previously worked on Marvel’s Luke Cage.

Listen to “Fashion” above.

Things are going pretty well for Desus and Mero right now. Well, as anyone who has followed along with their careers over the years can tell you, the pair are as good as any at having fun with just about anything they do. But even beyond that, there are plenty of things that are making them happy amid all the weirdness in the world right now.

The pair are well-documented fans of the New York Knicks, which will enter the NBA’s All-Star break at 19-18, good for fifth place in the Eastern Conference. The team is the surprise of the season so far this year, getting spurred on by the individual brilliance of All-Star selection Julius Randle and head coach Tom Thibodeau’s tough, hard-nosed approach to basketball. The duo, like all Knicks fans, have been starved for a ray of hope to come from Madison Square Garden, and that hunger has been satiated in a big way so far this year.

The two are also parlaying their ability to be good at, well, most things they do into hosting an awards show, teaming up with Gatorade and taking the reins for this weekend’s Bolt24 Real Star Awards. What awards will they be giving out? Well, they couldn’t tell us most of them, but Mero made a promise: these are “fire awards.”

Dime caught up with the pair to discuss the Knicks, taking the various punches that come with Knicks fandom, why the Nets are “carpetbaggers,” and of course, their partnership with Gatorade, which will become clear in about two seconds.

I think the obvious place to start is how has this season been as Knicks fans?

Mero: HOOOOO HOOOO HOOOO HOOO, BABY. Refreshing, like a long sip of Bolt24.

Desus: Well-played! Well-played!

Mero: There you go! All the vitamins involved, all the electrolytes, we’re feeling refreshed and revived and great. For real, though.

Desus: We joke, but he’s 100 percent right. If you think about, to keep the analogy going, Knick fans have been dehydrated for quite some time.

Mero: For real.

Desus: I mean, the last energy drink we had was one called Linsanity, so now, we are back. We can actually check the standings and not be scared, we’re hopelessly optimistic. We’re using the forbidden P-word,”playoffs.” So you know, we’re having a good time, man. It’s a great time to be a Knick fan.

Mero: It’s been a while since I’ve had to use “the Knicks covered, so they won” excuse, the moral victory excuse. It feels like a really good time to be a Knicks fan, hovering around .500.

In your own words, what happens in New York City when the Knicks are good? Because, I’m from New Jersey, and I don’t think people understand how the Knicks are the one team that unites the entire city when they’re good.

Desus: Absolutely. And it’s just one of those thing where even if you’re … the Knicks are basically the default team. Like, if you don’t watch basketball, you don’t follow any sports, but you’re from New York, you’re like, “Oh, I’m a Knick fan.” Or you do the thing New Yorkers do where if the Knicks get in the playoffs, all of a sudden, you start watching, you start rooting for them, you start cheering for them.

So it’s a natural team for New York, it’s an established team, and New Yorkers love this team. And now you see it on the back of the Daily News, on the back of the New York Post, good news about the Knicks, and it’s raising the hopes and spirits in the city right now, especially when the city really needs it, because the city got really hit hard by COVID, and you know, just a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel is helping people get through it.

Mero: Oh, man, it’s such a beautiful thing. Because people tell us all the time, “Hey guys, yo, your guys show, your podcast, the stuff you guys put out, it gives me a little bit of respite from all this wild stuff that’s going on.” And, like, the Knicks are that for us, right now. Watching the Knicks be up 20? In the fourth quarter? You’re like, “Yo! Let’s go!”

Desus: I mean, they might blow it and have to only win by two, but it still feels good.

Mero: Still’s a W.

Desus: A win is a win.

When was the moment that it dawned on you guys that this team is different, that it’s not just the kind of Knicks team that we’ve seen in the past where they have a nice little stretch but you know they’re gonna hit that bump and then the Knicks happen.

Mero: It’s really Thibs, man. Thibs, and the roster’s so young. Thibs is an NBA coach, but he’s like a college coach in his brain. He’s really like, “Yo, I don’t care if you’ve got 35 points, if you blow this defensive assignment, I’m yanking you.” Everybody bought in, I feel like the average age on the roster is like 17 and a half.

Desus: Super young.

Mero: That’s exactly what they need, a real coach that’s gonna be like, “Yo, this is a system, we’re all buying in, don’t worry about minutes, just play hard and success will come.”

Desus: Also, very early in the season, I think probably the first game, every Knick fan was like, “Wow, they are doing ball movement, something we have not seen for how many seasons with the Knicks?” The Knicks, what was it, pass the ball, you just hold the ball until there’s like five seconds left on the shot clock and chuck it up, or just keep passing it around, no one has it. Now they’re running plays, just seeing that, you knew this team was going to be different. You knew this team, Thibs was doing his thing, and it was a whole new day in the Knicks organization.

Mero: Listen, I don’t wanna be hyperbolic, but like, yo, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Skyhook, Immanuel Quickly floater, same thing, right there. Unstoppable move, works every time.

Desus: Also, shout out to our guy Obi Toppin. He’s out there doing big things, it was a big pickup when we got him for the Knicks. Also, you know, to parallel, he’s gonna be one of the people in the Bolt24 Real Star Awards. That right there is cool because we’re New Yorkers, he’s a New York Knick, you know the vibes, bro. You gotta throw him an award real quick, throwing some of our friends awards, Sue Bird, it’s gonna be litty.

The story I always tell whenever I tell someone how starved New Yorkers were for a good Knicks team is that I went to a game in 2015 where they lost to the Hornets by 28 and Quincy Acy got MVP chants because he played hard. Do you guys have any stories like that where it’s just Knicks fans will fall in love with anyone?

Mero: Yup.

Desus: Bro. Bro, come on.

Mero: Ron Baker! Ron Baker!

Desus: First of all, I wanna let you know, I was probably at that game. I went through the Quincy moment. But yeah, like he said, Ron Baker, I own a Ron Baker jersey.

There we go.

Desus: If you wanna know how dysfunctional Knicks fans are. I was at that first Jeremy Lin game and I remember, we were just chanting, we just wanted him to play. The Knicks always have that one player that…

Mero: 12th guy on the bench.

Desus: You have no chance of him being good, so you’re like, “Yo, we’re already losing, let’s see him play.” And Lin came in, it changed everything for a couple weeks. I was there for when Melo set the scoring record against Charlotte, so many Knick memories. But yeah, we Knick fans love to give anyone an MVP chant for the littlest thing. We gave Doug Christie an MVP chant. Doug Christie!

Mero: Doug Christie, fam.

Desus: Come on!

Mero: Yo, I’m out here publicly comparing Julius Randle to LeBron James with no sarcasm, no irony whatsoever. I’m like, yo, Julius Randle? LeBron James? Same thing. Same court vision, all that.

Desus: Just getting everyone on Twitter upset, I love it.

I wanted to ask about the Nets, because I think non-NY people will say there’s Yankees/Mets, there’s Jets/Giants, there’s Rangers/Islanders, Knicks/Nets have to be part of that. But I’ve never gotten that sense as someone from the tri-state area that Knicks fans view the Nets as anything other than “the team that came to our city,” what about you guys?

Desus: Literally, that’s what it is.

Mero: The little brother team.

Desus: It’s one of those things where Nets fans are like, “We’re your rivals.” And we’re like, no you’re not. We’re chillin over here, because it’s just like they literally just moved to Brooklyn, they’re still figuring out how to ride the train, the Knicks are established. Us Knick fans are invested in the Knicks — we’ve had so many losing seasons and that’s what New York is about. New York is not about being a carpetbagger and getting quick success, you gotta earn your keep here. You have to prove that you can make it here, like Frank Sinatra said.

So, it’s never seen as a rivalry. Every now and then we’ll joke, “Oh, it’s a rivalry,” whatever, but Knick fans, if the Nets win, we don’t care. You go on the timeline, if the Knicks win, it’s taking over everything, everyone’s reporting on it, ESPN is like, “The Knicks are great this year!” Meanwhile, the Nets have three superstar players, they’re barely winning some games, and it’s not as hyped as everyone thought it was gonna be. That’s because when the Knicks are good, everyone benefits from it in the NBA, and that’s what people wanna see.

Mero: And it’s like what Desus was saying, when the Knicks do something good, it’s like, that’s what they report on. That’s how the media is covering the Knicks and the Nets right now — the Knicks are like, wow, the Knicks are overperforming! They’re performing beyond expectations! And with the Nets, it’s like, they need help defensively, they have no interior defense, they need perimeter defenders, they’re very thin on the bench, blah blah blah blah blah, you know what I mean? As a Knicks fan, it’s kind of, like, ha ha ha!

Desus: It’s also cause the Nets have set the bar so high. If they do anything less than a championship this season, they fail. Meanwhile, all the Knicks have to do is get to the playoffs and we’re gonna have a parade. What team you wanna be on?

What do you guys have going on with Gatorade?

Desus: Oh yeah, baby! We are hosting the first-ever Bolt24 Real Star Awards, it’s an awards show honoring the realest talent in basketball. But it’s Bodega Boys-style, so it’s a hot, fun mess. You guys are gonna enjoy it, you’re gonna be like … if you were worried, you’re like, “Desus and Mero are working with Gatorade and Bolt24, they sold out,” wait til you see this. No we did not.

Mero: Nooooo!

Desus: This is authentic, sucio boy, you’re gonna enjoy it. Bolt24 did their thing, they got us talent, we’re gonna be giving awards out to athletes, but not, like, regular awards.

Mero: Not, like, corny awards like most points scored in a game. Fire awards. We’re not even gonna tell you what it is.

Desus: Here’s one: Who’s most likely to wear a sweatsuit to a wedding?

Mero: There you go.

Desus: Someone’s gonna win that award.

I mean, Carmelo once wore a bathrobe to a bodega, so.

Desus: We can’t say anything!

Mero: We can’t reveal the winners!

I respect it.

Desus: Shout out to Bolt24, cause we’re drinking it through the whole awards show, it’s delicious, they’ve got a lot of flavors. My favorite is Watermelon Strawberry.

Mero: I bang with Cherry Lime, got mad vitamins, A, C, know what I’m sayin? Mad antioxidants, all that good stuff. It was mega hydrating. It was so hydrating to the point that we were like, “Yo, we gotta go to the bathroom, like, right now, cause we’re not athletes.”

Desus: But if did that to our washed bodies, imagine what it could to do if you’re an athlete.

The coolest thing is, if you wanna see this show, it’s gonna be on Instagram Live on our respective social handles, so either go to desusnice at Instagram, or thekidmero on Instagram, Saturday, March 6 at 7 p.m. Eastern, it’s gonna be right there. Special guests, I can name a couple: Damian Lillard, Seth Curry, Obi Toppin, Tacko Fall, Sue Bird, Robin Lopez, some surprise guests.

Mero: Some musical performances. It’s a real, legit award show.

Desus: It’s gonna be great.

The last time Sacha Baron Cohen was on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, he wasn’t. It was Borat on the late-night talk show (that also served as the world’s introduction to Tutar, played by Oscar hopeful Maria Bakalova). But on Thursday, Baron Cohen came as himself to talk to host Jimmy Kimmel. He discussed Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and how he “really wanted to expose the hypocrisy… those using power to get ahead, criminality…”

Baron Cohen trailed off because his phone started ringing during the interview. “Bono?” the Golden Globe winner said, answering the call. “Hey man, what’s up? Yup, I’ve got AstraZeneca, I’ve got some Pfizer, what do you want? Yeah yeah yeah, Venmo is fine.”

To get by during these dark times, Baron Cohen has taken to selling COVID-19 vaccines to his famous friends, including Tom Cruise (“I thought the thetans were immune”), Kanye West (“I can get you Johnson & Johnson. No no, not Dakota and Don… What do you mean you only need one now? I’ve got you down for six. Oh, sorry, I hadn’t heard”), and Mark Ruffalo. A strung-out Isla Fisher also made a cameo, “looking higher than Don, Jr.” The interview only gets wilder from there, including a dig at the Hollywood Foreign Press and a police raid on the Baron Cohen/Fisher household. You can watch it above.