Category: News

The fount of joy that is Bill Walton has been plugged up as he’s been away from ESPN broadcasts the past three months, but an interview with Tim Cato of The Athletic uncovered a fantastic new story of how Walton once helped Rick Carlisle, a former teammate and current head coach of the Dallas Mavericks, acquire Grateful Dead tickets for Carlisle during his first date with his wife, Donna.

Walton had a relationship with Grateful Dead Productions President Laurence “Ramrod” Shurtliff, and the band would mail Walton their tour schedule ahead of time. He found out late in the afternoon that Rick and Donna were headed to a show in Washington, D.C., but encouraged them to go nevertheless, and tell the folks running the event that they knew Ramrod. From there, Walton’s magic worked.

From Cato’s interview:

And so he goes to the Capitol Center with Donna, going through the crowd, and so Donna’s like, “Wait a second, we’re going to a concert and we don’t have any tickets? And we don’t have anything? This is our first date? What am I doing here with this guy.” And so they get to the back door, somehow, some way. Rick knocks on the door and this big, burly guy opens the door and says, “Who are you and what do you want?” And Rick and his very quiet, very shy way says, “Is Ramrod here?” And the guy steps back and says, “Who are you and what do you want Ramrod for?” And Rick says, because I had told Rick to go to that backdoor and ask for Ramrod, so Rick says to the guy, “My name is Rick Carlisle, and Bill Walton told me to come and ask for Ramrod.”

So the guy relaxes a little and he says, “Wait here.” So he closes the door and five minutes later Ramrod shows up, comes to the backdoor, he knows Rick because Rick had been to a whole bunch of concerts with us before, and so Ramrod says, “Come on in, Rick, and bring your lovely friend.” So Ramrod walks him through the backdoor, takes him up and puts him right on the stage about 10 feet away from Jerry Garcia, gives him two chairs and a cooler full of drinks, and says, Enjoy the show.

As Walton explained, having this sort of in is just “the way life works with the Grateful Dead,” and fortunately for Carlisle, having this in led to a pretty good first date, as he’s been married to Donna for years. It stands to reason that it will be a while until Walton is back on television again, if only because the ongoing pandemic likely means hat we won’t get college basketball for a while, but someone should really give him a gig on a morning talk show or something, because we could use as much Bill Walton as possible right now.

A Lyft driver in Reno, Nevada is the perfect example of staying calm in a heated situation with a racist.

The trouble started the minute that Edgar, the driver, picked up Richard who requested a four-mile ride to his home. After Richard got in the car, Edgar asked him to wear a mask, explaining that members of his family had been infected with COVID-19.

The passenger replied saying he didn’t believe the government about the coronavirus. Edgar asked him to please cover his mouth with his hand, which he did.

Richard then questioned Edgar about the route he was taking and things escalated.

“You want to get out?” Edgar asked, calmly.

“No, I want you to take my ass home and I’ll give you a shitty review,” the passenger responded.

Racist Lyft passenger rages at driver for asking him to wear mask

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The two then argued over where Edgar was able to drop him off and whether the car was Edgar’s or Lyft’s. The answer is easy. It’s Edgar’s car so he can do whatever he likes, especially if he feels threatened by a passenger.

Richard then called Edgar a “candy ass faggot with white glasses” and muses that he could crush his “fucking skull right now.”

Edgar let him know that the interaction was being recorded on video and he quickly backpedaled.

The violent threat was the last straw for Edgar who stopped his car and asked Richard to get out. But Richard continued to squabble over whether the ride was canceled or not.

He then began poking fun at Edgar’s accent.

“Where are you from, boy?” he asked with a condescending tone.

“I’m from here.”

“No, you’re not,” the passenger responded.

“Yes I am,” Edgar said confidently.

The passenger responded: “You’re a fucking wetback.”

Eventually, he got out of the car.

Lyft responded to the incident by banning Richard from using the service. “The behavior shown by the rider in this video is despicable and has no place on the Lyft platform,” the company said in a statement.

“Lyft is committed to maintaining an inclusive and welcoming community, and discrimination is not tolerated.”

Edgar should be commended for handling the situation calmly and confidently. He didn’t feel compelled to drive the racist passenger home, he just dropped him off and went about his day.

What’s insane about the entire incident was that Richard knew he was being recorded, but it still didn’t stop him from going off on a racist, homophobic rant. That’s probably because anyone who is a racist probably doesn’t have much brains to begin with.

We all know history has a habit of repeating itself, but the fact that we find ourselves in a global pandemic almost exactly 100 years after the last major one feel almost too on the nose.

While the coronavirus outbreak differs from the Spanish flu pandemic in some important ways, there are also some striking similarities. The same uncertainty of how to handle it. The same differences of opinion on how bad it could get. The difference now is that we have a whole lot more science to help us figure it all out—but also a massive information machine that feeds off of people’s misunderstandings of how science works and makes it easy for misinformation to spread like wildfire.

Good times.

But it can be eye-opening to look at historical documentation of a similar event, especially through photographs depicting the details of daily life. As we’re all in various stages of lockdown or reopening, mask-wearing and physical distancing, it’s fascinating to see people a century ago dealing with the same things.

CBS Sunday Morning did a segment on the 1918 pandemic in early March, just before states in the U.S. began coronavirus shutdowns. From some physicians downplaying the Spanish flu as “old-fashioned influenza, nothing more” to people wearing masks in public—or refusing to—there are so many parallels to what we’re experiencing now.

The story of the 1918 flu pandemic

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Watching this segment now, several months into the pandemic, is really something, isn’t it? One thing to be thankful for is that we’re not in the middle of a world war while also dealing with coronavirus outbreak, though we do have our own era’s social and political upheaval happening at the same time. Let’s just all sign a pact to not add an all-out war on top of everything else we’ve got going on. 2020 has been eventful enough.

Some of K-pop boyband BTS’ global success can be attributed to their productivity. Though the group just released the 20-track record Map Of The Soul: 7 earlier this year, BTS is already gearing up for yet another release. Following the debut of their track “Stay Gold,” BTS has returned with a sunny video.

Directed by Ko Yoo Jeong, the video follows each of the BTS members as they long to free themselves from dark situations. They daydream of enjoying the little things, like playing Jenga with a friend, reading a book, or petting a dog. After a long journey, BTS finally find each other and successfully seek paradise.

“Stay Gold” arrives on BTS’ upcoming Japanese language album, Map Of The Soul: Journey. The album music from their back catalog, translated from Korean to Japanese, along with a handful of stand-alone singles.

Their upcoming album is a way for the group to celebrate their massive global success in 2019. Last year, BTS became the first K-pop group to ever become certified Platinum in the US. Their 2018 effort Love Yourself: Answer had been certified Gold until a boost in sales led it to jump to Platinum, meaning it sold one million equivalent album units in the US.

Watch BTS’ “Stay Gold” video above.

This bonus episode of the Frotcast is now live on Patreon. To hear it, sign up on Patreon at Patreon.com/Frotcast. I promise, you won’t regret it! Or maybe you will. Hell, I don’t know. Better to just let our talking do the talking.

This week on the Frotcast, ex-film critic, author of Film Critic, and star of Whoop Dreams Laremy Legel rejoins Matt and Vince in the Zoom Frotquarters to discuss Jon Stewart’s new movie Irresistible — starring Steve Carell and Rose Byrne as dueling political consultants who wage proxy war in a small Wisconsin mayoral race. At first we were like “why the hell is this movie called ‘Irresistible?’ But then the title came up at the end, along with some creative typography, and we were all “Oohhh, that’s why it’s called Irresistible.” (Note: it’s not ‘irresistible’ it’s ‘irRESISTible’.)

Anyway, it’s an interesting movie. Most people seemed to hate it. Matt and I mostly liked it. On some level, it’s kind of a good movie masquerading as a bad one for two acts. The third act twist basically saved it in our eyes (shifting it from hopelessly naive neoliberal morality play to a parody of a hopelessly naive neoliberal morality play). Though I suppose I can understand not wanting to wait 40 minutes to start actually enjoying a movie. Also, it is admittedly very Caucasian.

Though on another level, it does seem like a certain subset of the critics who saw it disliked it not for the flawed structure but because it dared utter the taboo that the mainstream Democratic party and MSNBC-adjacent media are not simply the antidote to Donald Trump but individual entities also deserving of criticism. Which some dismiss as “both sidesism,” or whatever. But I still think Irresistible‘s essential message — that our two-party system and corporate media are heavily invested in making the two parties’ fairly similar visions of America seem drastically different — is a valid one. For Christ’s sake, during this pandemic we’ve practically managed to make covering your mouth when you sneeze a political act. If that doesn’t validate the essential message of Irresistible I don’t know what does.

One thing we can all agree on, however, is that Rose Byrne is an absolute gem, and has displayed incredible comedic range since Bridesmaids in a handful of vastly underrated performances.

After all that we discuss Matt getting mistaken for the Jeff Tiedrich, the least-funny #resistance grifter on Twitter (truly an achievement) and whether Alex Jones is actually Dan Carlin’s Wario. We hope you will enjoy! No refunds.

EMAIL us at [email protected], leave us a voicemail at 415-275-0030.

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Decision time is coming for colleges across the country, as coronavirus spread in many states grows wider yet again and the financial realities of fanless games and a damaged football season dawns on university leaders. To that end, Morehouse College became the first Division II school to officially wipe its slate of fall sports clean.

This only includes football and cross country, as the HBCU does not play a full schedule of sports like many other colleges in the Atlanta area. The decision, Morehouse President David A. Thomas said, comes as the school attempts to maintain a safe campus environment for the student body to return to in August.

“Our Maroon Tiger teams travel to other NCAA institutions and cannot compete without breaking from social distancing guidelines still maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” Thomas said. “Sporting events also invite individuals to our campus who will not be subject to the testing and monitoring that we plan to implement for our students, faculty, and staff.”

Previously, individual matchups like the Southern Heritage Classic had been canceled, as well as Division III Bowdoin’s full fall calendar. Morehouse has more name recognition than any of these schools, and it will be interesting to see if this decision leads to a domino effect among other universities that are trying to figure out the best way to go forward amid the pandemic.

Aside from being partially responsible for one of the year’s finest albums so far (RTJ4), El-P is also a generous Twitter user. It’s far from uncommon to see him take time to answer questions his fans ask him, and his responses often contain interesting insight. For example, around the release of the new Run The Jewels album, he held an impromptu Q&A and shared some great trivia about the record. Now he has again offered some great info via Twitter, this time revealing how he and Killer Mike came to form Run The Jewels.

He began with a neat tidbit about the duo’s self-titled debut album, writing, “fun fact: the song run the jewels off the album run the jewels was the first run the jewels song ever made.” A fan then asked, “Was the song or group named first?” El-P responded, “the group name was first. true story: originally i was going to call my solo follow up to cancer for cure ‘run the jewels’.”

Another user asked, “How much of this did you guys seriously conceptualize from the start? Like was it gonna just be a couple songs and done, one full album?” El-P answered, “it was originally going to be an el-p project but mike came to hang and the rest is history. by the time we got to 6 jams we knew it had to be an album.”

In that same series of tweets, somebody asked, “what artist or group would you like to collab with next that you’ve never worked with before?” El-P responded by naming three big-timers: Missy Elliott, M.I.A., and Jay-Z.

Read our review of RTJ4 here.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

When you think about human rights, it’s impossible to disagree that all people are entitled to life, liberty, and the ability to express themselves freely. These are truths that many of us grew up believing. And yet it may surprise you that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a milestone document created by the United Nations, which enshrines these rights and more, is only 72 years old.

Since founded 75 years ago to preserve the worth and dignity of all human beings, the United Nations has achieved an unprecedented number of human rights victories. According to new data shared by the organization, every one of the UN’s now 193 member states have ratified at least one human rights treaty — 80 percent have ratified at least four. But the leadership in uplifting human rights goes beyond laws, treaties, and agreements.

Human rights victories have snowballed over the past 75 years — creating a huge wave of change. Here are a few of the significant human rights milestones that the United Nations and its member countries have achieved:

Between 1946 and 1986: Regional human rights frameworks were created and adopted in the Americas, Africa, and Europe for the first time.

1965: The United Nations created and adopted the first of its human rights treaties, which are dedicated to bringing an end to discrimination and violence on the conditions of race, culture, and political beliefs. Today, nine core human rights treaties are in force.

UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

1979: The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women was adopted by the UN. Often dubbed the international bill of rights for women, this document both defined the conditions of gender-based discrimination and bound the areas that promote gender equality.

1993: The United Nations established the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to promote and protect human rights.

2002: The International Criminal Court, the first-ever worldwide court dedicated to investigating and ending crimes against humanity, was founded.

2006: The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) was established to promote and protect human rights around the world. It has endorsed a number of resolutions including one on human rights and climate change.

2011: UNHRC adopted the first United Nations resolution on sexual orientation and gender identity – placing the rights of the LGBTI community on the international agenda.

2015: The 2030 Agenda and the SDGs emphasize the responsibilities of member states to respect, protect and promote human rights and fundamental freedoms for all.

Wikimedia/Marco Carrasco

Yet, the international community has fallen short many times. The current pandemic has not only threatened the health of the world’s population, but has exacerbated existing threats to marginalized communities — including racism, discrimination, and disparity in access to health care — while introducing new ones. Wars, violence, and persecution have forced 70 million people to flee their homes. Refugees, migrants, and asylum-seekers searching for safety are instead often met with prejudice or xenophobia. And anger at the injustice and pain of longstanding systemic racism has triggered mass social movements, including Black Lives Matter in the United States and beyond.

For these reasons and many others, the urgent work of the United Nations must continue swiftly. The march for progress can’t stop. And as we move through these uncertain times, the UN will continue to fight towards a brighter, safer, more equitable future for all of us.

You can learn more about the goals by checking out “Voice Our Future” — an immersive and interactive reality experience exploring the then, now, and next of some of the most critical challenges of our times. You can also further the reach of your voice by taking the one-minute survey to help inform the UN’s thinking and priorities.

The PS4’s days are numbered now that we know the PlayStation 5 will hit shelves and entertainment centers later this fall, but it’s certainly going out with a bang thanks to The Last Of Us 2. The highly-anticipated sequel to the Neil Druckmann classic officially went on sale last week and has been one of the fastest-selling games in the console’s history.

Sony announced on Friday that The Last Of Us 2 was the fastest-selling PS4 exclusive title in history, with more than 4 million copies sold as of June 21. That means it hit the 4 million mark in just three days, easily eclipsing the pace of other PS4 exclusives like God of War (3.1 million) and 2018’s Spider-Man (3.3 million) over the same mark.

“We are so immensely grateful to the millions of fans around the world that have played The Last of Us Part II and shared their experiences with us over the last week. We set out to tell a new kind of story, one that deals with difficult themes and would challenge you in unexpected ways,” Druckmann said according to the Sony blog. “Hearing how the experience has resonated with so many of you and witnessing the type of thoughtful discussions it has sparked has been so incredible.”

The sequel to 2013’s The Last Of Us took years to develop and saw some significant delays, but the way appeared to be well worth it. The first game sold 1.3 million copies in its first week, but plenty of buzz and rave reviews for the sequel saw it smash that mark to sell more than 4 million copies in its first few days of release.

Bay Area rapper Rexx Life Raj brings big business advice to his “Stimulus Check” video as he cruises the nighttime streets of his home city solo, detailing the ins-and-outs of independent hustle. Raj reels off rapid-fire bars throughout the song. explaining how his direct marketing strategy has paid off in the past few years. “Off a government dividend / Jugglin’, flippin’ it, double and triple it / I got on top of the game when I finally cut out all the middlemen,” he boasts on the high-speed hook.

That commitment to making his own way in the game has led to some standout moments in 2019, as he released his most successful project to date, Father Figure 3: Somewhere Out There, as well as racking up guest appearances with and from Russ, Kenny Beats, and Kehlani — all without the assistance of a major label.

The freedom of being independent also allows Raj to release new music at a faster clip than many of his contemporaries. In the past month alone, he’s released videos for “Thank You (4:18),” “Bittersweet,” and “War” — all of which are brand new since the release of Father Figure 3. Raj is on a mission to prove that indie rappers can win too, and he’s making plenty of headway in a hurry.

Watch Rexx Life Raj’s “Stimulus Check” video above.