Category: Viral

Well, guess what: I’m mad about Popstar. Again. I’m mad about Popstar again. This happens every now and then, to be fair, most recently a few months ago when I wrote about Walk Hard. There’s nothing I can do about it, really. Popstar, The Lonely Island’s music mockumentary that was released in 2016, is a perfect movie, basically, and no one saw it. You probably didn’t see it in theaters. Why didn’t you go see Popstar in the theaters? I didn’t either, if we want to be technical about it, but we’re not talking about me right now. And I was busy. Shut up.

This is a pattern with Lonely Island movies, sadly. They’re all terrific and they all bomb at the box office. Hot Rod is a perfect American story that no one saw. MacGruber is a work of unhinged genius that no one saw. Popstar opened in eighth place (eighth!), behind such cinematic classics as The Angry Birds Movie (in its third week) and That Ninja Turtle Movie With Megan Fox. It’s infuriating, is what it is. Popstar is so good.

The options for recourse are limited, unfortunately. Short of inventing a time machine and forcing people into theaters all over America through bribery and/or threats of violence, our best option is to just yell about it now, years later, in a cathartic screed about how good it is. Yes, let’s go ahead and do that. For now. Time machine is still on the table.

The time has come to talk about Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.

1. The plot of Popstar goes something like this: Andy Samberg plays Connor Friel aka Connor4Real, a big deal white rapper and former member of a group called The Style Boyz, which featured his Lonely Island partners Akiva Shaffer as Lawrence aka Kid Brain and Jorma Taccone as Owen aka Kid Contact. There is a fallout and a fissure. Connor goes solo with Owen as his DJ, Lawrence moves to a farm. The action picks up as Connor is preparing to release his second album, which is getting slaughtered in the press and by fans. The movie is a classic tragedy-to-redemption story, but with full-frontal male nudity and pancakes that contain dog poop. It does all of that in just over 90 minutes. The movie is as funny as it is ruthlessly efficient. I appreciate this.

2. A music mockumentary doesn’t work if the songs don’t. They need to be catchy and slick enough that you can buy them as real radio hits, but also stupid and funny enough to gets laughs. It’s a tough needle to thread. Walk Hard did it beautifully and, yes, this is mostly just an excuse to mention “Let’s Duet” again, but Popstar isn’t exactly a slouch in this department either. There’s the lunatic energy of “Finest Girl (Bin Laden Song),” the Macklemore-roasting of “Equal Rights,” and the Adam-Levine-featuring “I’m So Humble,” among others, all of them little slices of brainworm-y genius. But my favorite, if I had to choose, and I’ve kind of backed myself into a corner here where I do, is “Mona Lisa,” a full-length song — only featured briefly in the film — about how the famous Da Vinci painting is “an overrated piece of shit.”

It’s so powerfully stupid. I love it like a long lost pet who returned home after running away three weeks earlier. I have literally played this in my car. With the windows down. I feel great about it.

3. I’ve already mentioned Walk Hard twice so let’s just go ahead and do this. The two movies have so much in common. Let’s tick off some similarities:

• They’re both satires of music movies, with Walk Hard covering biopics like Ray and Walk the Line, and Popstar covering more modern-day iterations, like Justin Bieber and his 2011 documentary Never Say Never, complete with references to the Anne Frank museum and a strange attachment to an unconventional pet (Bieber: monkey; Connor; huge turtle)
• They’re both big cult hits after underperforming financially
• They both feature wieners a-hangin’
• I love them both unconditionally
• Judd Apatow was involved with both, producing and co-writing Walk Hard and producing Popstar, which I respect greatly because it means at some point he said “Well, apparently people don’t like goofy music satires enough to make them financially viable, but screw it, we’re doing another one!”

Bless you, Judd.

4. Ahh, wait. There’s one more similarity: both movies feature Tim Meadows, as they should, because Tim Meadows is the best. He doesn’t have quite as memorable a role here (there’s nothing close to “You don’t want no part of this” for him to sink his teeth into), but he’s just so good as Conner’s sleazy manager. Tim Meadows is never bad in anything. This is a fact.

5. Things really start going sideways for Connor when he brings a new act on tour with him, Hunter the Hungry (Chris Redd), a Tyler the Creator knockoff who loves pranks and is definitely crazy. This all leads to a prank involving stage tricks and fast wardrobe changes that leaves Connor nude on stage with his penis tucked back through his legs as headlines like “Connor The Dickless” appear on trashy tabloid shows all over the country. He’s embarrassed and ashamed and starts a downward spiral that leaves him all alone. It is so, so stupid. This is the major turning point in the movie. I couldn’t love it more if I tried.

6. Popstar is littered with dumb little jokes, like a massive bee attack that happens when the cameras aren’t rolling, or a whole bit involving Seal and “party wolves” gone mad, or long runs of fake EDM stars (DJ Tommy Pizza, Oprah Spinfrey, Vinyl Richie, R2LSD2, Ecstasy-3PO, LSD-3P0, Elton John) and weed strains (Witch’s Titty, Aqua Butt, Beethoven’s Nightmare, Frog Jizz, the last of which actually appeared to be just a jar of real frog semen). All wonderful little pieces of business, to be sure. But my favorite is the recurring fake TMZ bit featuring Rob Huebel, Eric Andre, Chelsea Peretti, and Mike Birbiglia.

It’s basically just them drinking from giant thermoses and devolving into a group of howling jackals over and over throughout the movie until it stops making anything resembling sense. Just shouting and slurping and wigs and even more shouting. I have no idea how it works, but it does. Well.

7. Connor’s post-tuck tailspin, in bullet point form:

• Has a fight with his band
• Serves pancakes laced with dog poop to his hangers-on to see if they’re just yes men, which pisses off Owen, who points out that he’s Connor’s oldest friend and not some lackie before leaving the tour
• Fires his manager
• His beloved turtle dies
• He’s just kind of cruising around passed out on a hoverboard.

It’s not ideal.

This brings us to the redemption. To the triumph. To a huge weed farm in the country where Lawrence has been living, building things out of wood and stewing over a years-long grudge about credit for a particular verse.

8. You really do need to watch the confession scene to grasp how funny it is. Words and screencaps will not do, although I’ll try. The short version: Connor holds a one-sided conversation with Lawrence in which he slowly, then quickly, changes his story as the truth becomes apparent to him. The delivery of the whole speech is so good, the kind of thing that Samberg has been doing well for well over a decade now. Here are some of the screencaps I told you wouldn’t do it justice. Ugh. Why are you still reading this, anyway? Why aren’t you watching Popstar again? Incredibly poor performance on your part today.

9. Popstar has a million music cameos in it. Mariah Carey, Ringo Starr, Questlove, 50 Cent, Usher, the list is absurd. Literally dozens of them. And I would list them all here for you if not for two small issues: One, I do not want to; two, I would rather point out that a musician named “Hammerleg” is mentioned a few times during the movie and we only get to finally see him at the very end of the movie and GUESS WHO PLAYS HAMMERLEG.

Oh hell yes, Weird Al. Weird Al is the greatest. The man has been doing nothing but producing joyful parodies of pop songs and being an absolute sweetheart for like four decades now. We do not do enough to thank Weird Al for his contributions to society. There should be statues of him and his accordion scattered across the country. His birthday should be a holiday. A fun cameo in a good movie where he plays a dude named Hammerleg is a decent start, I guess. I’m serious about the statues, though.

10. The movie ends with the Style Boyz reuniting on-stage to perform a new song titled “Incredible Thoughts,” a spoken-word performance that consists of dozens of stoner observations punctuated by a Michael Bolton chorus.

It is very dumb and very funny. Just like Popstar. A good movie.

Lana Del Rey has been teasing a poetry book, Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass, and an audiobook version of it for a while. Now, it looks like we know when both are coming out. As Fader notes, listings for the book are available on Amazon (audiobook) and Waterstones (print book). The audiobook has a listed release date of July 28, while the book is expected to be released the next day.

Both listings include a statement from Del Rey, which reads, “Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass is the title poem of the book and the first poem I wrote of many. Some of which came to me in their entirety, which I dictated and then typed out, and some that I worked laboriously picking apart each word to make the perfect poem. They are eclectic and honest and not trying to be anything other than what they are and for that reason I’m proud of them, especially because the spirit in which they were written was very authentic.”

There is not yet a tracklist available for the audiobook, but the listings note that some of the poems included are “LA Who Am I To Love You?,” “The Land Of 1,000 Fires,” “Past The Bushes Cypress Thriving,” “Never To Heaven,” “Tessa Dipietro,” and “Happy.” Amazon notes the audiobook is 33 minutes long, and will be released via Simon & Schuster Audio. For the audiobook, Del Rey will read 14 poems (of the “more than thirty” from the print book) atop music from Jack Antonoff.

Meanwhile, Del Rey previously revealed that the book/audiobook will be followed by an album on September 5.

Disney doesn’t do “off” years.

Sure, in the pre-pandemic days of 2020, it might have seemed like the company was taking it easy after a record-breaking 2019 which had the highest-grossing movie ever, a new Star Wars, and Toy Story and Frozen sequels. But in February, Disney paid $75 million for the rights to Hamilton, the Tony Award-winning sensation that ensured no one will ever again confuse the guy on the ten-dollar bill with a president. The original plan was to release the musical in 2021, but then These Uncertain Times happened and, again, Disney doesn’t do “off” years, especially “off” years with baffling stinkers like Artemis Fowl. So, Hamilton was released on Disney+ over the Fourth of July weekend.

Disney is not throwing away its shot (at getting you to sign up for Disney+).

Hamilton was not only a huge get for Walt Disney Studios, it was also, I assumed, an expensive tactic to win a boatload of Oscars. But nope, it turns out the film, seamlessly made up of three performances from 2016, isn’t eligible. “Despite the various historical precedents that would seem to point toward Hamilton’s inclusion — most notably, the filmed version of Give ‘Em Hell, Harry, a one-man show about Harry Truman that earned a Best Actor nomination for James Whitmore at the 1976 Oscars — an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences source says plainly that, as a recorded stage production, Hamilton is not eligible for awards consideration,” according to Vulture. Lin-Manuel Miranda will have to settle for multiple Tonys and Grammys, an Emmy, a Pulitzer Prize, a MacArthur Fellowship, and a Kennedy Center Honor. Poor guy.

If Hamilton had been eligible, a Best Picture nomination would have been likely in a weird year for movies. Deserved? Maybe, maybe not, for the same reason that I’m still angry at everyone who listed Twin Peaks: The Return as one of the best movies of the 2010s (IT’S A TV SHOW), but I digress. Let’s say, hypothetically, it was nominated for the top prize at the Oscars. And, hypothetically, it won. That would snap one of the oddest streaks in Academy Awards history, one that Disney desperately wants to end. Walt Disney Studios is a prestigious film studio that has been around since the 1920s and is considered part of the “Big Five,” along with Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures, and Paramount Pictures. But no Disney film has ever won Best Picture.

Some of its subsidiaries have found success on Oscars night, like when the Disney-owned Miramax dominated the 71st Annual Academy Awards with Shakespeare in Love (two reasons it shouldn’t have won Best Picture: 1: “produced by Harvey Weinstein,” and 2. The Thin Red Line is better) and Pixar and Marvel have been nominated for Up and Toy Story 3 and Black Panther, but those companies were acquisitions. If we’re talking DISNEY movies, there have only been two Best Picture nominations: Mary Poppins in 1965 and Beauty and the Beast (the first animated movie to score a Best Pic nom) in 1992; they lost to My Fair Lady and The Silence of the Lambs. That’s tough competition.

With Hamilton out of the running, it’s unlikely there will be a third nomination, unless the “Bryan Cranston talks to gorillas” movie The One and Only Ivan turns out to be a masterpiece. No wonder Disney acquired 20th Century Studios, which, coincidentally I’m sure, is the production company with the most Best Picture noms. Not the most wins, though: that honor belongs to Columbia Pictures, which Disney should own by 2023.

Planned Parenthood has issued a response to Kanye West‘s recent Forbes interview in which he takes the organization to task amid a flurry of bizarre claims about his presidential candidacy announcement.

In the interview, Kanye said, “I am pro-life because I’m following the word of the bible,” while expressing a not-uncommon belief that Planned Parenthood clinics were “placed inside cities by white supremacists to do the devil’s work.”

Now, the organization’s Director of Black Leadership and Engagement, Nia Martin-Robinson, has issued a response. In an interview with TMZ, Robinson shot down West’s characterization of the organization, saying, “Black women are free to make our own decisions about our bodies and pregnancies, and want and deserve to have access to the best medical care available. Any insinuation that abortion is Black genocide is offensive and infantilizing. The real threat to Black communities’ safety, health, and lives stems from lack of access to quality, affordable health care, police violence and the criminalization of reproductive health care by anti-abortion opposition.”

Planned Parenthood has previously responded to anti-abortion activists by reminding the public that abortions are only a small part of what they do and that no abortions actually take place at their facilities. They’ve also taken other prominent public figures, such as rapper T.I., to task for making unscientific claims about women’s reproductive health through their Twitter and other outlets to try to re-educate the nation about things we all should have been learning before high school. Meanwhile, Brooklyn Vegan points out that the Supreme Court ruled to “uphold a Trump administration rule that allows institutions with religious or moral objections to opt out of the Affordable Care Act’s birth control coverage mandate.” This could lose up to 126,000 people access to birth control coverage in their employer-provided healthcare.

It looks like 50 Cent’s hijinks are actually the reason T.I. issued his Verzuz battle challenge. In a remote interview with All Def’s Roast This, T.I. explained why he really wanted to go at 50, saying, “It ain’t that many multimedia global moguls that can really see me. Everybody keep trying to put me with somebody else from Atlanta. Then they go kick some sh*t in New York City… Just to be honest with you man, I want Jay!”

However, he said, the probability of Jay doing a Verzuz battle with anyone seems low. He’s a billionaire. He’s married to Beyonce. That man is not worried about people on the internet. It’s been years since he last logged into Twitter — a rare enough occurrence that it caused a media frenzy as outlets scrambled to cover his list of lyrical inspirations for like a week after.

Which is why T.I. sees himself and 50 Cent as “neck and neck.” He also credits 50 for having the right disposition to handle his own energy. After all, T.I.’s initial challenge contained a number of goads that some might have seen as over-the-top, while 50 just laughed it up and took it back the memes. “I need somebody who I can talk to who ain’t gone feel like I’m pickin’ on him. I need somebody who ain’t gone be timid, who ain’t gone be shy. He’s the biggest bully y’all got up there.” And as he says, “How can you pick on a bully?”

And while T.I. doesn’t know “the analytics” on who has the most, biggest hits, he believes, “I’m doper.” He asserts that “I don’t care who sold how many records… I think my catalog is doper. That sh*t gone stretch all the way from 2001 to now. Which gives you a more multifaceted, diversified appetite for music.”

50 has yet to accept T.I.’s challenge, but he will most assuredly have some kind of response whenever he sees this interview. If the battle ever does happen, one thing is for sure — it’ll be one of Verzuz‘s most-watched events yet.

Watch T.I.’s interview with All Def’s Roast This above.

Ever since learning to pole dance for her “Cellophane” video, FKA Twigs has stuck with the artform. Now she has chronicled a moving experience she had with pole dancing in a new video, titled “We Are The Womxn,” made in partnership with WeTransfer.

The video explains, “In late 2019 FKA Twigs traveled to perform at Afropunk Festival in Atlanta. There she joined forces with healer and spiritual leader Queen Afua to host a moon dance in celebration of the sacred womxn. After the moon dance, Twigs led the womxn to Blue Glame: Atlanta landmark and the city’s first Black strip club. Summoning the divine feminine, together they created an environment in which womxn danced for each other.”

Twigs said of the experience:

“I decided to hold the second part of the all-female and femme sacred moon dance at Blue Flame, firstly to honor the heritage of pole dancing, but also to create a matriarchal dominance in a space that’s usually filled with, and run by, male energy. […] I found it incredibly powerful to see womxn admiring and encouraging each other to dance and celebrate all different expressions of femininity and the female form. The space was filled with laughter and joy, something that Queen Afua advocates as a form of healing for the womb. […]

For the past few years I’ve been curious about [my personal traumas], and actively trying to not only heal [them] but to also set free the ancestral traumas I carry with me. These traumas don’t belong to me, and should not hold me back, but they do…as a woman of color, the lineage of pain within my bloodline can be deafening, like tinnitus that only I can hear, so to be able to acknowledge my search for healing and peaceful silence amongst womxn who may feel the same was incredibly comforting. […]

I’m actually pretty shy, but I felt so encouraged to dance and enjoy my body by all the amazing womxn who came together. I particularly bonded with one dancer at Blue Flame [named] Kharisma. She had such vibrant energy and at the beginning of the night she called the other girls on to the stage to be admired and supported in their expression. My experience at the Blue Flame solidified that, although historically womxn are often pitched against each other for their looks or their assets by the patriarchy, when left to our own devices we are incredibly nurturing and healing for each other.”

Watch the “We Are The Womxn” video above.

The weeks and months leading up to the start of a new NFL campaign feature a whole lot of news and notes getting put out into the universe for football fans to pour over before the season begins. Tucked away in all of this is something of a rite of passage: members of the upcoming season’s rookie class learning what their rating will be in the upcoming Madden game. It doesn’t always go over particularly well when a guy thinks he’s being slept on by the folks at EA Sports, but to help soften the blow this year that can come with delivering that news, Madden got some help.

In a new video, Hall of Fame signal caller Steve Young revealed some of the ratings for four members of this year’s rookie quarterback class: Tua Tagovailoa of the Miami Dolphins, Justin Herbert of the Los Angeles Chargers, Jordan Love of the Green Bay Packers, and Jalen Hurts of the Philadelphia Eagles. While we don’t learn their overall ratings in the video, Tagovailoa, the No. 5 pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, will enter this year’s game as a 73 overall, while Herbert, who went one pick later, enters as a 70.

Madden NFL 21, which features Baltimore Ravens star Lamar Jackson on the cover, hits current-generation consoles on August 28. The exact release date for the game on next-generation consoles is still unknown, but we do know the game will be available on the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X a little later this year.

It didn’t take much for C.C. Sabathia to get used to retired life. The former Cleveland Indians, Milwaukee Brewers, and New York Yankees ace called it a career at the conclusion of the 2019 season, although for the last few years, Sabathia has had a pretty good idea of how life after baseball would go.

“I told everybody, really like two or three years ago, that I’m going to be really good at retirement,” the 2007 AL Cy Young winner told Uproxx Sports over the phone.

It certainly helps that his first foray into retired life is still within the world of baseball. Sabathia will serve as the creative director for a line of clothing that looks to pay tribute to the Negro Leagues in celebration of its 100th anniversary, along with the Black individuals who played such an important role in integrating the game. The initiative is the creation of the Major League Baseball Players’ Association, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, and the lifestyle brand Roots of Fight.

“Preserving the legacy of the Negro Leagues’ contributions to baseball is vital to growing our game’s diversity and popularity,” MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark said in a statement. “This partnership will help bring to life the spirit of these great players for a new generation of players and fans.”

While Sabathia was on his way to Yankee Stadium a little earlier this week, Uproxx Sports caught up with him to discuss the line, the role he hopes this plays in celebrating the Black individuals who are such an important part of baseball’s history, life in retirement, and getting to check out the Yankees during the team’s first televised intrasquad scrimmage.

How have you been keeping occupied the last couple of months, even beyond this being the first year where you’ve been retired from baseball?

Yeah, man. I told everybody, really like two or three years ago, that I’m going to be really good at retirement. I’m good just being in the house, being around the house, being with the kids. I traveled and played, really, all of my 20s and 30s, so being able to just kick back and hang with my family is a blessing, and it has been a lot of fun.

And actually, going through COVID and this quarantine and stuff, it was horrible for the country and we’re still going through it, but for us as a family, just getting that quarantine time, having all four of my kids in the house, there’s no school, there’s no extra activities. It’s just us kind of hanging out, being able to reconnect with them — was kind of a blessing in disguise for me, just getting back reintegrating with the family, if that makes sense.

No, for sure. I’m glad to hear it’s all going well and I’m glad to see that you have something really cool in the pipeline. Can you give me the backstory behind this line of gear that’s coming out — how it came about and when you came on board as creative director?

Yeah. So Tony Clark and I have a really close relationship, and we had been talking back and forth about wanting to do something special for the 100th year of the Negro Leagues. I think every Black player that has played in the league goes through Kansas City and goes to that museum, especially the guys that got to play at a time when Buck O’Neil was still around. And he would come to BP in Kansas City and introduce himself, and tell us stories about the Negro Leagues and just inform us about the museum and all of that stuff. So, really since 2001, I’ve been a huge fan of the museum and really had a good relationship with Buck, and been taking players there ever since. Every time I go into Kansas City, I take a trip to the museum. I try to take a couple of young guys and it’s just been my thing.

So, talking to Tony, we wanted to come up with something really cool. And immediately, I thought about Roots of Fight. I know [Roots of Fight co-founder] Jesse [Katz] and those guys, they tell great stories. I love the clothing that they do, the actual material of the clothing is incredible. And I knew that they tell really, really dope stories. So, I immediately just told Tony, I think this is the company we should go with and we just went from there.

So what became your stated goal when you decided to be a part of this project?

Just to bring awareness, you know what I mean? And tell the cool stories through this clothing line. I don’t think a lot of people really know about the Negro Leagues Museum in Kansas City, how nice it is, and how it could be a destination. And hopefully, people inquiring about the clothes, and seeing that it’s the 100th year, and seeing all the guys behind it, will bring a lot more awareness and get people educated and going through Kansas City to check out the museum.

Do you have a favorite piece of gear in the line, or is it one of those things where you just can’t pick one? Because like I said, it is a really, really nice line that you guys got coming out.

Yeah, I honestly cannot pick one. I’m wearing the “They Played For Us” shirt right now. I’m headed into the stadium right now and I have that shirt on. But I’ve been rocking this stuff every day, man. So, I can’t really pick one thing. They did such a great job with all of it. I’m just happy the way it all came out and I think people are going to be very happy with us just getting started with this.

How important is it to constantly reinforce the role that the Negro Leagues, that players like Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, etc., played in getting baseball to where it is today, both in general and as Major League Baseball is going through this moment where we’ve seen a decrease in the percentage of black players that are in the sport?

The slogan is actually, “They Played For Us.” It just came about just because, just thinking about those guys, what they sacrificed and starting their own league, and really playing amongst themselves and making it a league and making it this huge thing, and getting the game integrated, and letting the country know that we can play baseball. I wouldn’t be where I’m at today, none of us would be. So I think it’s just paying homage to those guys that — not just the Jackie Robinsons, obviously we know what he went through to be able to play Major League Baseball, but the Satchel Paiges, the Josh Gibsons, Cool Papa Bell, the guy that never really got their due. It’ll be cool to tell their stories and bring awareness to those guys.

So, it’s a direct effect, it’s a direct correlation. Those guys played baseball at a high level, they played so we can. And that was kind of the thinking behind it. It’s really simple, to be honest, and it’s easy for people to get behind because, like I said, there would be no Frank Thomas, there would be no Bo Jackson, you know what I mean? Ken Griffey Jr. It’s a bunch of different guys that wouldn’t have had a chance to display their talent had these guys in the Negro Leagues not done what they did.

This is the latest initiative that we’ve seen in celebrating the role that the Jackie Robinsons, the Cool Papa Bells, the Satchel Paiges and the Negro Leagues as a whole have played in baseball’s history. What impact do you hope this all has in this larger quest to reinforce how vital these individuals were in the game’s really rich history?

Yeah. It’s huge. And like you said in the last question, the numbers are going down, and it’s up to my generation of players to get back into inner city and get these Black kids back playing baseball. But it’s going to take for us to tell these cool stories about Satchel Paige warming up in the bullpen and Cool Papa Bell, and how we are huge figures in the game, and have been for a long time.

So, getting together with this players alliance that we formed, all the guys that we have in it. A hundred years later, after the Negro Leagues formed, we’re still fighting for some of the same things. So, it’s good to have the connection with all the guys that I have in the big leagues now.

So do want to toss a few baseball questions your way. I think I know the answer to this, but how quick did it take for retirement to set in? Was it a thing where, once you were done, you were like, “okay, whatever,” or are you still kind of processing that this is your first year without baseball since you were what, four or five years old?

No, if I had to say to somebody, do I miss it? I don’t miss it at all. I’m actually heading down in there now. So, I still get a chance to be around and hang out, but my time had passed as far as playing, I was way out of my prime, talent-wise. So, it just feels good to be able to still have the connection with the guys, and be able to go down there and hang out, and not have to actually pitch. So, that’s a lot of fun. Right after we lost in the ALCS to the Astros, I remember, I flew home, and my family was in Houston still. And I got home and I was the only one here by myself and I kind of just broke down. It was like a moment to myself, like, it’s over. And, I just got a chance to cry it all out, let it go. And then like 15 minutes later, I was good.

There you go. So is it one of those things where former teammates who have since retired are like, “We don’t need to give C.C. advice on retirement,” or do you have guys who were saying like, “This is what life is like now that you’re not preparing and dedicating 365 days a year to playing baseball”?

Oh no, I’m still always talking to the guys. I’m always talking to Andy [Pettitte]. I talk to Derek [Jeter] a lot. But me and Andy have a lot in common as far as family wise and things that we like to do. So I’ve been talking with him a long time. And like I said, amongst my friend, my circle, everybody knows that I’m going to be a good retired player. I’m pretty lazy, so I don’t need much to get going. So, just hanging around the family and doing simple things would be fine with me, I’m excited to just kind of do that.

I have to ask a few Yankee questions. First off, just how was it getting to be at the scrimmage last night and watching what was essentially a spring training game on July 6?

Yeah, it was crazy, man. Having the chance to be down there and watch those guys play, after everything that’s been going on. I know a lot of those guys were excited just to get back out there. But it was cool seeing baseball. Obviously, it’s been a rough summer for us. It’s July 7 and they haven’t played one game yet. That’s an unusual thing for a baseball fan, so being able to have baseball back at Yankee Stadium — when I pulled up last night, the lights were on at the stadium and it just looked cool driving in. So it was exciting. Hopefully we can just continue to keep being safe, do this thing right, and hopefully get a season off.

Yeah, obviously not a full live intense game, but just in what you got to see, how do you think the team looked?

I thought it was good. I don’t know if you watched, but Clarke Schmidt is going to be really good, so that was fun to watch. Watching J.A. Happ, I know he worked really, really, really hard this offseason to come back and be ready, so to see him be sharp as he was yesterday — I think we scored one run in the entire game. So, that just goes to show how good our pitching is, because our lineup is probably the best in the big leagues.

And then my last question, you know this as well as anyone, the expectations are always sky high in the Bronx. You’re still around the team, do you get the sense that even with everything that has gone on, the guys in the locker room are still as laser-focused as you have to be when the bar is win the World Series?

Let me tell you something, if a baseball season starts and the Yankees are playing baseball, every player on that team knows what’s at stake. Every time a pitch is thrown, every time it’s opening day and a pitch is thrown, all we’re thinking about is trying to win a World Series. That’s always the ultimate goal. So, no matter whether it’s a COVID shortened season, a strike shortened season, whatever, if they play baseball, every player in that locker room will be laser focused and ready to go, to try to win a championship. And, that’s the only reason you play in New York.

After a series of Juice WRLD songs that have been released in the months following his passing, the last rapper’s estate officially announced a posthumous album earlier this week. The album is quickly approaching, as it comes out tomorrow, July 10. Before that, though, there is one more preview of the record, a Marshmello collaboration titled “Come & Go.”

The song has been in the works for a while, as Juice previewed it on Twitter back in November of 2018. The track blends electronic and rock influences, and Juice repeats on the hook, “I don’t wanna ruin this one / This type of love don’t always come and go.”

Ahead of the track’s release, Marshmello shared a statement in which he appreciates the rapper’s talent and the time they spent together, writing, “[Juice WRLD] was one of the most talented people I have ever met. We were both constantly on the same page when it came to music and the time we spent together were some of the most exciting times I’ve ever had in my entire life. Watching you take breaks to do wheelies on your dirt bike and then come back and finish a whole song in one take was normal and to be able to be on this album with you and show the world what we made together means so much to me. You were a great person and I miss you everyday man. You will live forever through your music.”

Listen to “Come & Go” above.

Legends Never Die is out 7/10 via Interscope.

Glee actress Naya Rivera is the subject of a search on Lake Piru near Los Angeles after she went missing during an outing with her 4-year-old son. CBS Los Angeles was among the first to report the sad news after the pair had rented and deployed a pontoon boat early Wednesday afternoon. At some point, a swimming accident occurred within the next few hours, and Rivera’s child was discovered alone in the boat about three hours after the pair embarked upon the lake.

The child, who was sleeping unharmed upon discovery, told investigators that he and Rivera, age 33, had gone swimming in the Ventura County lake, “but his mother never got back into the boat.” In an overnight tweet, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the missing person to be Rivera and revealed that the search would enter a second day “at first light,” although Rivera’s currently presumed to have drowned.

CNN further reports word from Sheriff’s Capt. Eric Buschow, who revealed that the child was wearing a life vest when he was found, but that the boat contained an adult life vest.

Rivera’s last tweet before she went missing was a photo of herself in the child. Her caption reads, “[J]ust the two of us.”

(Via CBS Los Angeles & CNN)