Category: Viral

The Boston Celtics were a highly effective team during the 2019-20 regular season, finishing in the top five in both offensive and defensive efficiency and cruising to a top-three seed in the Eastern Conference. While Jayson Tatum, Kemba Walker, and Jaylen Brown receive the lion’s share of attention, Marcus Smart remains a key cog for the Celtics, and his impact was on full display in the team’s Game 2 victory over the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday evening.

Smart finished the night with 19 points in 39 minutes, providing top-shelf play on both ends of the floor. The 26 year old also reminded observers of his flair for the dramatic, almost singlehandedly erasing a double-digit deficit with a three-point shooting barrage in the second half.

Smart scored 16 of his 19 points in a four-minute span to open the fourth quarter and, as seen above, he knocked down five (yes, five) three-pointers in a row. That included a four-point play to punctuate the run and, without that explosion from Smart, it is difficult to see how the Celtics would have emerged victorious against a hungry and talented Raptors team.

This offensive eruption isn’t predictable for anyone, even for players at the top of the sport on that end of the floor. Still, Smart has come a long way offensively in the recent past, especially with regard to his perimeter shooting. In his first four seasons, Smart was a full-blown liability as a floor-spacer, shooting just 29.3 percent from three-point range and earning jeers when he attempted deep shots. Since the start of the 2018-19 campaign, though, Smart is a 35.5 percent three-point shooter, displaying tangible improvement.

While no one will mistake Smart for Steph Curry or even his teammates in Tatum and Walker, it isn’t only the efficiency that has improved with Smart. He attempted a career-high 9.9 three-pointers per 100 possessions this season and, with that kind of volume, defenses simply must respect his long-range arsenal, opening the floor for teammates. Smart is also capable of creating his own shot, bringing another element to the table to feed into one of the league’s best offenses.

Game 2’s shooting display will draw the attention and, given the aforementioned four minutes of bliss, that is understandable. Smart remains an incredibly lethal defensive force, however, and he flummoxed Toronto’s leading scorers throughout the night. The exclamation was a play in the final minute in which he stoned Pascal Siakam and, while the play didn’t actually end in a turnover after an official review, it was a reminder of Smart’s brilliance and strength.

In the absence of Gordon Hayward, Smart is even more important for the Celtics. Boston does have some intriguing depth pieces but, at the highest level, Brad Stevens’ allotment of quality options took a hit without Hayward, putting increased focus on a five-man lineup of Walker, Tatum, Brown, Daniel Theis, and Smart.

Ultimately, it is a luxury for the Celtics to have a super role player available in Smart, and he is the kind of impact performer that would make a difference on any team in the NBA. Defensively, he can guard four (or even five?) positions effectively, taking away smaller guards with his size and tenacity, while leveling up against forwards with his physicality and toughness. Offensively, Smart can draw from his background as a primary creator, handling the ball effectively and creating for himself and others when needed. In the same breath, he can space the floor, doesn’t need the ball to be effective and Smart helps to unlock a Boston team that already has plenty of star power.

It may seem silly, at least to some, to laud a player that averaged fewer than 13 points per game this season, especially when compared to his peers with more impressive box-score numbers. In the end, though, Smart lands in the top 50 of the NBA in an average of catch-all metrics compiled by Bball Index and, given his All-Defensive Team pedigree in quelling opponents, a case could be made that Smart’s value exceeds his raw numbers as much as any player in the league.

The Boston Celtics took Game 1 against the Toronto Raptors, 112-94, on Sunday, drawing first blood in a highly-anticipated series between two teams with legitimate aspirations of winning the Eastern Conference. Tuesday afternoon marked Game 2, and despite entering the fourth trailing by eight, Boston came out on top, 102-99.

Now, Toronto finds itself in an 0-2 hole to an Eastern Conference foe for the second postseason in a row, while Boston is two games away from returning to the conference finals. But before what should be a scintillating Game 2, we took a quick look back on what we just witnessed.

Jayson Tatum is that dude

Kemba Walker and Marcus Smart struggled to get much going from the field for three quarters. Jaylen Brown started hot but cooled off and scored five points over the final three frames. Save for a first half explosion by Robert Williams, Boston’s big men didn’t exactly give them all that much of a scoring punch.

Fortunately for them, they have Jayson Tatum, who is in the conversation for being the best offensive player in the Eastern Conference. Heck, when he plays like he did on Tuesday, Tatum very well may deserve to be at the top of the list.

The All-Star forward was a smooth operator all night, scoring a game-high 34 points on 8-for-17 shooting, hitting four of his seven attempts from deep, and connecting on all 14 of his free throw attempts. To add to that, Tatum pulled down eight rebounds, doled out a team-high six assists, and played his increasingly usual brand of physical defense that can seem awfully tough to break down.

All the other stuff that he does is legitimately really impressive, and outside of his rebounding, the fact that he is able to find ways to contribute to winning basketball besides scoring is something that didn’t seem guaranteed when he was first coming into the league. But he’s still refined all of that stuff, and man, can he really score the ball. Tatum can do a little bit of everything – he’s a wonderful pull up player, he can catch and shoot, he can take dudes off the bounce, and there is no area of the court where he can’t get buckets. Boston legitimately has a shot at winning the East, something that is, in large part, due to what Tatum can do every night.

SMARF

There’s some sort of talismanic quality about Marcus Smart. It’s impossible to totally define, but he really is this team’s heart and soul, and even when he is not having his best game, he finds ways to leave an impact and help the Celtics play winning basketball. The other funny thing about this is that Smart seems to have this inherent sense of the moment and when Boston seem to be able to do that little something extra in the pursuit of picking up a win.

In Game 2, this came early on during the fourth quarter. Smart entered the frame with three points on 1-for-7 shooting from the field. Even though scoring has never been his thing, you still expect him to give you a little bit more than that. Then again, what ended up happening more than made up for three tough quarters.

Somehow, someway, Smart hit five threes in a row to help the Celtics go from eight points down to start the quarter to ahead at the 7:55 mark of the frame. After that final triple — which included a foul and turned into a four-point play — Kyle Lowry scored, and then Kemba Walker scored, and then Boston did not relinquish the lead en route to taking a 2-0 series lead.

But after a huge third quarter by Toronto — which included an 11-0 Raptors run to give them a lead that seemed at least somewhat comfortable — someone on the Celtics needed to give them the shot in the arm that was necessary for them to pull out a win. As his often times been the case during his tenure in the city, Smart gave that to them, the emotional boost that the team needed to pick up a win. On the night, Smart scored 19 points, with all six of his made field goals coming from deep.

Toronto’s offense needs to figure something out

Counting Toronto all the way out is, of course, incredibly premature. Even beyond the fact that they no longer have Kawhi Leonard, who got them out of this exact same hole last year against the Milwaukee Bucks in the conference finals, the raptors have carried themselves with the swagger in confidence that can only come from being champions all season long. It seems very, very unlikely that they will suddenly start doubting themselves.

Having said this, Nick Nurse and co. need to figure something out on offense. In Game 1, they scored 94 points, hit 36.9 percent of their shots from the field, and connected on 25 percent of their threes. In Game 2: 99 points, 40 percent from the field, 27.5 percent from three.

Toronto’s big thing all season has been that when they can get out and run, they are capable of beating anyone four times in seven games. Their issue, though, is that their halfcourt offense is not as good. They really have to find ways to manufacture points due to the lack of a true number one option in the halfcourt, and that just has not happened. The team’s nominal three-best options on offense — Kyle Lowry, Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet, all of whom are tremendous players — are a combined 32-for-98 (32.7 percent) from the field through the first two games.

Again, the Raptors are champions, and champions do not go down without throwing everything they have at their opponents. Nurse is the most creative coach in the league, and no one is more willing (and, thanks to the talent on hand, able) to try funky stuff with the goal of manufacturing points.

With just one album to her name, Cardi B has already accomplished so much, from winning a Grammy to placing atop the Billboard albums and singles charts. And here’s another accomplishment: Balenciaga revealed that Cardi wold become the latest face of their brand. In a new ad, the rapper lays on a large piece of green turf in a navy blue dress while surrounded by various yellow items. The new campaign for Balenciaga can also be found on a billboard on the side of the Louvre museum in Paris.

The news comes after Cardi scored two consecutive weeks atop the Billbaord singles chart with her and Megan Thee Stallion’s latest single, “WAP.” The song also broke a record for the most streams in an opening week, with 93 million, while it became the second-most streamed song in a week among female artists after Ariana Grande’s “Thank U, Next.”

Cardi recently explained why her label was hesitant to release “WAP.” “It got to the point one time that even my label asked, ‘Yo, are you sure? Because this song, it’s so raunchy You cannot even play it in certain places,” she said in an interview with Hot 97. She even revealed that Atlantic Records asked if she would drop Megan from “WAP” and allow her to do another verse on a different Cardi song. But Cardi wasn’t having that.

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

The world never lacks for Donald Trump news, each and every day bringing with it an embarrassment of creative ways in which he’s made the world worse. But sometimes there’s so much Trump news that some of it slips through the cracks. To wit, on the first day of September — in which he already inspired a meme involving the 1997 action film Con Air — there surfaced video from the last day of July. In it, as per Second Nexus, the president of the United States held a round table with the National Association of Police Organizations Leadership — a pow-wow that included a lengthy and not terribly coherent rant about soup.

Trump was talking about the makeshift weapons being hurled at police — not weapons like guns, but frozen bottles of water, even cans of soup. Here’s what he said:

“And you have people coming over with bags of soup — big bags of soup. And they lay it on the ground, and the anarchists take it and they start throwing it at our cops, at our police. And if it hits you, that’s worse than a brick because that’s got force. It’s the perfect size. It’s, like, made perfect.

“And when they get caught, they say, ‘No, this is just soup for my family.’ And then the media says, ‘This is just soup. These people are very, very innocent. They’re innocent people. These are just protesters. Isn’t it wonderful to allow protesting?’”

Granted, there hasn’t been too many reports about soup being wielded by protesters or even the far-right agitators who have routinely slipped into their midst and exacerbated situations.

There followed what has become a familiar pattern: The news is relentlessly and increasingly grim and, to blow off steam, people online glom onto something ridiculous Trump or someone near him has said and, whoomp, everyone’s making variations on the same joke. Or everyone winds up making the same joke.

In this case, Trump’s soup rant had everyone thinking about a certain Seinfeld character: the fearsome “Soup Nazi,” who reigned over Season 7.

Some took an extra minute to really think about the logic of what he was saying.

Some tied it in with a meme from earlier in the day, when it was wildly speculated that the president may have suffered a stroke.

Some dug up the time a couple years back when Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross used a can of Campbell’s to defend a controversial tariff policy.

And some just thought it all sounded like BS.

Finally, the best Trump impressionist of all weighed in.

When Jim Belushi talks about cannabis things can get intense. Over our brief half-hour chat, one thing became abundantly clear: His passion for the plant is undeniable. Belushi truly loves weed. This is probably why one conversation is all it took to convince Live Nation’s CEO Michael Rapino to put up the money for the actor, comedian, and cannabis farmer’s new three-part docu-series on Discovery Channel, Growing Belushi.

“I told Michael Rapino this idea and in eight minutes he stood up, shook my hand, and said, ‘how much money do you need?’” Belushi tells me. “I’m just so grateful for this guy to believe in this project.” Growing Belushi follows the Blues Brother on his quest from Los Angeles to Southern Oregon (where Belushi has spent the last few years growing a cannabis empire) to the mountains of Columbia on a quest for the Santa Marta Gold Strain, an elusive high terpene strain of land raised weed. Throughout the series, Belushi attempts to shed cannabis in a different light than it has been shown. And while Belushi is always funny, his new series couldn’t be further from a typical stoner comedy.

The reality of cannabis legalization, even the dark sides, isn’t lost on him. This is why in between touring with the Blues Brothers, making movies in Hollywood, and growing pot on the farm, Belushi spends his time on the board of the Last Prisoners Project. The organization helps people who are serving 15 to 20-year prison sentences for cannabis possession.

“Michael Thompson in Michigan had three pounds of marijuana on him. He served 25 years for pot and now he’s in the hospital with COVID!” Belushi continues, “while we’re selling it on the street. The injustice of it!” It’s this depth of interest, from the healing powers to the business side of things, to the injustices left unaddressed that make Jim Belushi such a fascinating and vital voice in the cannabis space.

Ahead of Growing Belushi‘s third and final episode, airing this Wednesday, September 2nd, we chopped it up with Jim on all things weed, including what he looks for in a strain, Growing Belushi, what made him want to become a cannabis farmer, and why always looking for the highest THC content isn’t always the smartest way to shop for bud.

So what exactly are we getting into with Growing Belushi?

It’s called Growing Belushi. It’s not called “Growing Pot.” So there are three things going on here. First, It’s very informative and educational content about the safety of marijuana, the growing of marijuana, the testing of marijuana, the medical benefits of marijuana, and the use of marijuana — explaining the CBD, THC, terpene contents. What is in a vape pen? What is the oil? Whether its full spectrum or distillate. How to smoke it. How to buy it. The second thing is the actual agricultural farming business of growing cannabis as well as the industry of growing cannabis and selling it.

Finally, there is another section about my personal growth through following this marvelous plant. About my own PTSD and how it has helped me cope with things. And of course, the fourth thing is, it’s funny! But it’s not a stoner show. It’s not like people are getting high in this. It’s not like anyone is smoking pot like “I’m reeeeally high, man!” It’s cool. It’s very real.

So you’re trying to show cannabis in a new light?

Right, a different light than it’s been shown. They’ve done comedies where it’s just stoners and dispensaries. I’m trying to show it in the light of what it’s like for those of us in the industry.

You’ve left Hollywood to spend more time on your Oregon farm. What made you decide to make that change?

Well, I wouldn’t consider it a change because I’m still in the Hollywood scene. I’m still an actor. I still do the Blues Brothers with Danny. I do an improvisational group with Larry Joe Campbell, and we travel all over the country. I still do movies, TV, and now with the show, I’ve kind of married that world with the farming world.

What have you learned living the farm life, and what made you decide to grow cannabis in the first place?

Well, I had a friend who lived down the river in Oregon. His children are the same age as my children, and they all went to school together in Los Angeles. He had this huge ranch on the Rogue River and he used to invite our family up in the spring and fall. And my god, we had so much fun in that southern Oregon area. It was just so gorgeous, and it was a great family experience. One time, I went into the river skinny dipping, and I came out and it was like a baptism. I talked to the ranch manager, I said “Are you familiar with property around here?” And he said, “I’m from here!” And I go “I think I want to start looking for property” and he found this old Elk’s picnic grounds with 1,800 feet on the river, which is very unusual. There’s a long story there, but I eventually got it.

I’ve been reworking it for years. I built a house there, and then the farm behind me came up. My neighbor Becca, who I loved deeply like a sister, she passed and she wanted me to have it so I bought it from her. So I had another 80 acres of ag-land, and I thought, “I don’t know what to do with it? Raise cattle, grow alfalfa?” Cannabis became legal that year, so I said “Hey! It’s the new agriculture!”

So Danny Akroyd introduced me to Captain Jack and another guy I knew, Jeffrey Iverson. I brought them to the farm and we started growing their plants. Captain Jack used to be the weed dealer for SNL in the early ’70s.

What strains are you growing on the farm?

Well, he’s got one. He had seeds from the bottom of the Kush Mountains that he got in 1971 or ’72. He brought those back and grew them from seeds to flower and that was the strain he used to give to the smokers on Saturday Night Live. He was known as “The smell of SNL.” It was the most creative, old school weed, and it is just really fun and great medicine. I think they wrote a lot of sketches on that stuff because it really is fun stuff.

He has a strain called Gulzar Afghanica. I have a strain called Cherry Pie, which is my favorite. It’s got about an 18-19 percent THC, two percent, maybe 1.5 percent CBD. But, it’s got about three percent terpenes. So it has a real nice entourage effect.

For me, it’s mild. I use it as a microdose just to chill me out instead of beer or whiskey or wine. I call it the “Marriage Counselor.” I came downstairs one day and my wife was like “Are you hungry?” And I said “Yeah, let’s go out to eat. Where do you want to go? What do you want to eat? Maybe some cheeseburgers?” She said, “eeeh, that’s a little heavy for me, anything else?” I said, “How about some sushi?” “Eeeeh, I had sushi last night with my mom. Anything else?” I said, “How about that natural food place?” She goes “Eeeh, Cilantro Cilantro Cilantro? They put cilantro on everything!” I said, “What are you wasting my time for?! You know damn well we’re going to go where you want to eat what you want to eat!”

The next night, I take a little hit off the Cherry Pie and I come downstairs and she says “Are you hungry?” I go “Yeah!” She says “Where do you want to go?” I say “Baby, we can go to Taco Bell as long as you’re sitting across from me.” And she goes “Wow, aren’t you charming?” And I say “Am I?” So I call Cherry Pie the Marriage Counselor.

I’ve also got Black Diamond OG. I go to a lot of dispensaries myself. I deliver it. I talk to people. I make personal appearances. I meet a lot of people and this is really where my education comes from. I met a veteran who said he was a medic in Iraq. He said “I saw things happen to the human body that no one should ever see. I have PTSD. I can’t talk to my wife. I can’t talk to my children. And I can’t sleep. I won’t take that medicine that they give me. Your strain, Black Diamond OG is the only strain that puts me in a place where I can relate to my family and I can sleep” and he kind of teared up and he hugged me. And I said “Hey man, I didn’t make this” and he said, “No but you’re the steward.”

That’s when everything really changed for me, that moment with that man. Then it really did become about medicine for me, because the more dispensaries I’ve visited, the more veterans I’ve met in wheelchairs who say the Black Diamond helps them with their nerve spasms. I’ve met women who’ve had 85 bones broken in their body from car accidents and got off of opioids and use this as medicine, and they’re just so grateful to the medicine. I hear story after story of the beauty of what this plant is doing and I believe that there is a way to put a dent into this opioid crisis with cannabis.

I believe that if my brother John was a pothead he’d be alive today. I really believe that.

What makes a good strain of cannabis to you?

There are so many different strains out there, it’s like wine. But with cannabis, there are also so many different effects, so it really depends on what you’re looking for. A lot of people look for it to sleep. A lot of pf people look for it for pain. A lot of people look for it to go to a concert and enjoy the way it enhances the music. The way that Cannabis helps with Alzheimer’s, headaches, PTSD, seizures, arthritic pain, it also enhances the sound of music. It vibrates the taste of food. It stimulates creativity. It enhances the touch of your lover’s skin. But it also brings joy, euphoria, good feelings, generosity of spirit. All of that is the wellness of cannabis.

So when you ask me what I like? I like the Cherry Pie. I like a lower THC with higher terpenes. I think the entourage effect gets rid of the possibility of anxiety or anxiousness. I’m functional on it. I can talk. I’m a little more charming a little more forgiving. I can sleep. I microdose, I take one little hit. I’m not a guy who is blowing joints, but other people do and that’s their thing.

But for me, that’s what I like. I have five or six other strains, like the Blue Dragon. That’s a lower THC and more of a Sativa. But then I got a thing called Chocolate Hashberry that I won’t go near because it’ll knock your ass on the couch. I got a Bubble Mint that if you smoke too much of it it’s almost like mescaline for Christ’s sake. There is a Lemon Chiffon Cake that will knock you out. I only smoke about two or three strains of my own that I grow because of what I like.

Do you have a preferred method of consumption? Smoking, edibles, vapors?

I like to take one little hit off a joint. But I really like the edibles now. There is this company, Bhang Chocolate, that I’m starting to work with that I like. I’m also growing chocolate in Oregon with another great chocolate company. I like to take two-and-a-half mg. It really helps me sleep. Five mg is most dosages, which is like a warm hug. Dut depending on the THC level in your body, you can take up to 10 or 15 mg. I prefer just a little edible, and a little hit off a joint.

Vape Pens, they’re getting so much better now. I’m releasing a Captain Jack Vape Pen through Select Curaleaf in Oregon. We’re making it right now. 300 pounds of Captain Jack that we’re making into a full spectrum vape pen that releases in September. The terpene values in it are great, the entourage in the full spectrum is better, and it lasts longer. Maybe an hour or an hour and twenty minutes. The distillate is like a 20-40 minute bump which is really great for management, but I go more toward the full spectrum.

Now, they’re doing live resin vape pens, which I’m curious about. But it’s important that people find what works for them. For all the novices, I always recommend 2.5 mg of chocolate, or I start them off on a CBD. I like chocolate better than gummies. I just believe the fats in the chocolate blend together in the THC better, go through your liver better. I feel like the gummies have too much sugar in it. There is sugar in the chocolate too, but I don’t know, for some reason, I feel like I get too high with the gummies.

I took one to bed and in my dream, it was like an Ayahuasca journey, fireworks, and these lights and it looked like there was this carnival with a Ferris wheel and I was in my dream going, “Man, you’re high!” But with the chocolate, I don’t experience that at all, I just experience my body relaxing and drifting off to sleep, and I just have a very nice sleep.

I love talking about this shit, Dane. You’ve got me going!

I hear for some time you’ve been looking for the Santa Marta Gold Strain. What’s that all about?

Well, we have great hope for it. There is a problem with the land-raised strains. They’re classically lower in THC, but that’s okay because the Terpene levels are so great. You can get higher on a 15 percent THC joint with the right terpenes than you can with a 23-28 percent THC. But the marketplace demands higher THC levels, which doesn’t make sense!

You drink a bottle of wine at 14 percent, you still get high. You like the taste. You like the feeling. You don’t want to drink white lightning at 100 percent alcohol. It’s just you can’t convince the consumer, and the retailer is stuck because they get a higher price for a higher THC.

So the Santa Marta Gold, we’re growing right now and I’m curious about the THC level. But I have great hopes for it.

Keeping Cannabis affordable is something you’re very passionate about. Why is that accessibility so important?

Well, Dan Aykroyd and I are doing the Blues Brother and it’s a working man’s thing. Blues Brothers are musicians and they’re working men. He came up with the Blues Brothers Working Man’s brand because 53 percent of the consumers of cannabis are working people. It’s important to keep the medicine for them affordable.

These veterans aren’t making a lot of money. They’re hurting, and you want them to get their medicine. College students, you want them to have their medicine. And it’s medicine! I really believe that, Dane. There was this woman on the street in Portland that I watched for three nights walking across the street because I was having a cigar at night. And one night she screamed, nobody was around her, it was a little thing, walking with a plastic bag of oversized sweatsuits that she must’ve gotten from a homeless center. But she screamed so loud on the third night it was like she took a knife in the belly. Nobody was around. And I thought to myself “god, if I could just get her an edible, maybe it would stop the screaming.” I started thinking, “you know what? We are all screaming inside.”

Whatever trauma we’ve experienced, whether it’s divorce, or severe illness, or death in the family, or losing a job, or even right now during this time, people are screaming in their bodies with worry and loss of control. Most of us find a way to manage it, and the people on the street have lost their management. So I’m trying to figure out a way to get cannabis to these people, and I do have a program I’m starting in Portland, but I can’t talk about it yet.

My point is, we all need the medicine to help our screaming. Some people go get a beer or a whiskey, or some people over-exercise or over-work, everybody chooses something to help them with their management. And cannabis, I believe, is the safest, most organic, most spiritual, forgiving generous medicine we can use. Forget Xanax and Valium. Ambien, which will get you to sleep, but man it makes you weird. All this shit goes through your liver or sits in your brain. But cannabis is just so sweet and generous.

A few months ago, Lana Del Rey revealed that her next album would be titled Chemtrails Over The Country Club, which she said would arrive on September 5. But now that is no longer the case. In an update on Instagram, Del Rey promised the album’s lead single, “Let Me Love You Like A Woman,” is on the way but said the album will take a bit longer.

I am on the very contained set of my first music video for the title track of my album Chemtrails Over The Country Club. And I’m very excited about it. And before you even see this, you’ll hear another song called “Let Me Love You Like A Woman.” And I just want to let you know that I love the record and I love you guys and I can’t wait to see you soon. Probably in 2030. Just kidding. See you in 2029. But in the meantime the album’s coming out soon. Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass is coming out this month. And I know it’s been a super challenging time and I just want to let you know my prayers, my meditations are on all of us. So be safe, god bless, I love you, and I’m looking forward to finishing this up for you.

When the album arrives, it will be her follow-up to Norman F*cking Rockwell, which came out in August 2019. That album was considered by critics to be one of the best releases of the year with Del Rey. On a more recent note, Del Rey shared her audiobook project Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass back in July.

Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass is out now via Simon & Schuster Audio. Get it here.

Founded in 1847, MGP (also known as Midwest Grain Products of Indiana) is a distillery located in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. If you’ve never heard of it, there’s a good reason for that. It’s likely because most of the spirits it produces are sold for other distilleries and whiskey makers to use.

They produce around 50 different private labels that are bottled by brands like High West, Redemption, Templeton, and Angel’s Envy to name only a few. Their 95 percent rye mash bill rye whiskey makes appearances in an even longer list of whiskeys around the country. But, while MGP’s main business is crafting whiskey for other brands, it also makes its own proprietary expressions including Till Vodka, Rossville Straight Rye, and George Remus Bourbon.

Recently, its whiskeys won numerous accolades at the 2020 Whiskies of the World Competition. This is the 6th year of the event, and spirits are judged on a 100-point basis by a panel consisting of industry professionals from around the country. Rossville Straight Rye, George Remus Straight Bourbon Whiskey, and Remus Repeal Reserve Straight Bourbon Whiskey all took home gold medals. But it was only Remus Repeal Reserve that also received “Best in Class” recognition. And we were lucky enough to give it a try!

Remus Repeal Reserve Straight Bourbon Whiskey Series IV

ABV: 50%
Price: $75

The Whiskey:

Named for the “King of the Bootleggers” George Remus, this high-rye bourbon is made using reserve bourbons distilled in 2008. This limited release was created to pay homage to the end of prohibition. This is the fourth iteration of the expression that’s released annually in late fall and remains available until Prohibition Repeal Day on December 5. This year’s award-winning offering is dropping in September to correspond with Bourbon Heritage Month.

Each release is made using a subtly different recipe. This year, it’s made up of two different mash bills. The first, which makes up 77 percent of the blend consists of 21 percent rye. The second has a 36 percent rye mash bill. Made in limited quantities, its sure to cost you more than its current price tag on the aftermarket.

Tasting Notes:

It’s not surprising that a distillery known for its rye whiskeys would roll out an award-winning high-rye bourbon. And from the first nosing, this is obvious. The first aroma is that of the rickhouse and the sweet smell of maturing whiskey. This evolves into subtle peppery spice, rich vanilla, and dried sour cherries. The first sip is full of pleasing heat with hints of cinnamon, brown sugar, sticky toffee, and butterscotch, all with a backbone of ever-present peppery spice. The finish is very long, warming, and full of candied orange peel, cooking spices, and toasted oak.

Bottom Line:

This whiskey is something special. It deserves to be savored and sipped slowly on a cool, fall evening. But, it’s so complex that its high-rye content works well in an old fashioned or your go-to whiskey-based cocktail.

The Milwaukee Bucks got taken down by the Miami Heat in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference Semifinal series on Monday evening. While it was not the kind of emphatic, one-sided defeat that leads to the losing team making gigantic changes — Miami won, 115-104 — the Bucks should probably figure out a better plan of attack with regards to Jimmy Butler. The All-Star wing was magnificent, dropping a playoff career-high 40 points and relentlessly going at the Bucks defense, especially down the stretch.

One thing that Milwaukee decidedly did not do was use Giannis Antetokounmpo to man up Butler. According to NBA.com’s tracking data, the Defensive Player of the Year spent 38 seconds checking Butler in Game 1, while Wesley Matthews and Khris Middleton spent the most time defending him. It led to a whole lot of people asking why Antetokounmpo doesn’t just take Butler on that end of the floor.

When asked about whether he asked to take Butler on in his media availability after the game, Antetokounmpo said no, then said he’d do whatever Mike Budenholzer asked of him.

One day later and Budenholzer revealed that Antetokounmpo taking on this assignment is something that is on the table, noting that he does believe the team needs to be better defensively against him and one of his Miami teammates, Goran Dragic, who scored 27 points in Game 1.

That sentiment was shared by Middleton, who said that Milwaukee has to defend Butler better as a five-man unit, because letting him play one-on-one is a recipe for disaster.

Of course, while the idea of having Antetokounmpo and Butler battle is a fascinating one, there are some inherent issues with it for Milwaukee, mainly that they’ve been able to beat teams this year by making it brutally hard to score at the rim, something that is possible in large part because they have Antetokounmpo patrolling that area of the court. The Bucks are also a team that believe in their system, and seeing as how they were the best team in the league this year, it makes sense they would not want to do a total overhaul of how they defend so Antetokounmpo can guard one player.

Having said this, a major issue that led to Milwaukee’s departure last year was how something the other team did — in this case, Toronto putting Kawhi Leonard on Antetokounmpo — threw them out of sorts and they struggled to respond en route to losing four games in a row. If Butler keeps this up, it will be fascinating to see if the Bucks do decide to play the Antetokounmpo card, even if it would require moving him a little farther away from the basket.

Back one million years ago — that is, last December — the Internet came for Jason Sudeikis. Why? Because he punched Baby Yoda. The actor saw a dream come true: He got to appear in the Star Wars-verse. But it was a monkey’s paw kind of situation: He was playing the anonymous Stormtrooper that whacks the beloved Baby Yoda on the head during the first season of The Mandalorian. But it turns out Sudeikis forgot he committed that crime until the episode premiered and the incident went viral.

On a recent (remote) episode of Conan, the actor was talking with O’Brien about his and actress Olivia Wilde’s kids, specifically about showing their oldest child, Otis, some of his favorite age-appropriate movies. Sudeikis has shown him E.T. and the Star Wars movies. But he hasn’t yet shown him The Mandalorian, nor has he told him that his character did something that enraged the Internet.

Thing is, Sudeikis kind of forgot about his crime against the show’s most meme-able character. He says he shot the episode, then life just kind of carried on. It wasn’t until the episode dropped that he remembered what he’d done. Then one morning, as he was hanging with Otis, Wilde came in, informing him that he was trending on Twitter. Though he’s on Twitter, he’s not addicted to it, so this was news to him.

“Immediately I was like, ‘Wait, why?’” he recalled. “In today’s age, it’s like, ‘Wait, am I dead? Did I die? Am I cancelled? What’s happened?’” But he was being cancelled, sort of, at least for the time being. It took him a few seconds to put two and two together. “I had that moment like in the end of Sixth Sense or Ratatouille, where I’m like, ‘Oh, right!’ I should have been able to anticipate two-and-a-half months earlier, when Baby Yoda became the belle of the ball on the Internet. I totally forgot.”

But it all worked out in the end. The Internet mostly forgot about Sudeikis’ in-character transgression, moving onto, well, other, more serious topics. But it taught him what it feels like to have the internet gang up on you. “I know what Jim Gaffigan’s going through,” he joked, referring to the comic getting blowback over his epic anti-Trump tweetstorm. “I get it, I get it.”

You can watch Sudeikis’ chat with Conan O’Brien in the video above. The Baby Yoda business begins around the 3:27 mark.

50 Cent and Eminem have a near-20-year friendship that has spanned rap beefs, business partnerships, musical collaborations, and several film and TV roles for both men. In a new interview for his website ThisIs50.com, 50 Cent details one of the more unusual aspects of that friendship: The sometimes bizarre and “random” content of their text conversations. 50 says the two maintain a regular correspondence but that he’s often nonplussed by the contents of Em’s messages for him.

By way of example, he pulls out his phone to read the last text Em sent him: “He texted me and he was like, ‘When you gone fly me out private so I can land on that dick? Oh, so you on some other sh*t,’” he reads bemusedly. Of course, Em is actually referring to one of 50’s lines from the recently-released Pop Smoke single “The Woo” with Roddy Ricch, which finds 50 describing a question from a paramour. However, he says these sorts of messages make his day because it lets him know that Em will “stop doing what he’s doing to send me that. That sh*t makes my day on a whole other level. I’ll always have love for him. That’s my guy.”

Watch the full interview above.