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Max’s And Just Like That… has already unfurled three episodes for the Sex And The City-loving audience. Those episodes have included vaginal suppository jokes and plenty of Che Diaz, and for all the talk about Kim Cattrall’s cameo on the way, we haven’t seen Samantha Jones yet. Nor has John Corbett materialized again as Aidan Shaw, which I still cannot believe is going to happen, but yes, people (including Evan Handler) seemed surprised about Sam, so there’s a lot of anticipation there.

Naturally, the surprise partially stems from Cattrall holding out for so long on a return — due to that undeniable feud which has been called “painful” by Sarah Jessica Parker — and now, Cynthia Nixon is fretting over whether people might expect too much from Cattrall’s onscreen appearance. Nixon recently spoke with The Sunday Times and admitted that the production was “very disappointed that the secret leaked” about Cattrall’s cameo because that ruins the surprise element. Also, Nixon wonders if the leak will cause people to think that the cameo was overhyped:

“We so hoped it was something people wouldn’t know about until they saw the episode and that it would be a fun surprise as they were watching. I worry that with all the build-up people are going to wonder what all the fuss was about. It’s important to know that it is a very brief, very small cameo.”

Only time will tell, but Cattrall is having no problem discussing the issue now that it’s out of the bag. She recently told The View that she agreed to the appearance on the condition that designer Patricia Field would return to dress Samantha Jones. Hopefully, people will end up enjoying the results.

Or maybe I shall dream of a reshoot where Sam and Aidan are out having drinks together, and then their cameos get complicated. C’mon, I need some AJLT drama beyond Che Diaz, y’all.

(Via The Sunday Times)

Governor Ron DeSantis is also in search of a personality, one that might appeal to the MAGA expats he seems to be courting in his run-up to the 2024 presidential election. But his efforts to mold himself into the kind of guy bigoted transphobes might want to have a beer with have failed so spectacularly as of late that now, even top GOP strategists are urging him to press pause on future meet and greets.

DeSantis has been struggling in the polls recently, trailing behind twice-impeached, heavily indicted Donald Trump by huge margins. Some of that lost ground is being attributed to the Florida Republican’s, um, lukewarm people skills. He’s tried to stand on street corners in San Francisco gagging at the homeless, sweat it out with the normies in Oklahoma, and have pizza with Fox News interviewers, but even the most benign PR ops end up painting DeSantis in a bad light. Why? According to political analyst Tara Newsom, it’s because he transforms into a short-circuiting robot anytime he’s in public.

“It looks like voters are starting to really get to know him, and the more they get to know him, his narrative is a lot different than the man,” Newsom told WFLA’s Mahsa Saeidi. “Gov. DeSantis cannot get within striking reach of Donald Trump, and every time he makes a campaign stop, voters seem to step back.”

She suggested DeSantis step back from his campaign trail and send his more genial wife to public events in his place.

“She said that the governor should be pulled off the campaign trail,” Saeidi said. “That’s really not his strong suit. Instead, she says that the campaign should send surrogates, perhaps the first lady, to those early primary states.”

No offense to Casey DeSantis, but we can’t imagine any amount of schmoozing would erase the memory of watching her husband cackle like a hyena while denying he eats pudding with his fingers.

(Via RawStory)

It must stink to be hated by your hometown paper. Just ask Josh Hawley. The MAGA senator went to school in Kansas City, Missouri. Decades later, the local paper, The Kansas City Star, repeatedly pounced on him for his misdeeds. When he played a role in inciting the Jan. 6 riot, they slammed him in an op-ed. When footage emerged of him fleeing the Capital as it was overrun with Trump supporters, they did the same thing. And when he shared a fake Patrick Henry quote? You better believe they did it yet again.

On July 4, Hawley rang in the holiday by claiming the Founding Father once said this: “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Henry never said that. Worse, the fake quote first appeared in a virulently anti-Semitic white nationalist magazine from 1956.

The mistake earned Hawley the expected social media mockery. And, as per Raw Story, it also netted him another torching from The Kansas City Star.

“The senator could have celebrated that accomplishment with millions of other Americans, including many of his own constituents,” wrote the paper’s editorial board. “Instead, he had to make it about his thing — a chance to own the libs.”

The board said Hawley was “less interested in truly celebrating freedom — the ostensible reason we celebrate Juneteenth and Independence Day in the first case — and instead wanted to make a spectacle of himself with right-wing tweets he knew would attract attention.” They then accused him of “peacocking.”

The Star accused Hawley of being a politician who “craves attention” to the point that he’ll happily accept “bad attention,” too. Perhaps, they argued, Hawley thinks even “bad attention” will “bring him the power he craves.”

In the piece, the board also included one of Hawley’s online critics, historian Seth Cotlar of Willamette University, who informed him that Google is his friend.

“If you type in a quote from a Founding Father you’re thinking of tweeting out, in a matter of seconds, you can quite easily discover if it’s for real or not,” Cotlar said.

If the writers at The Kansas City Star are correct, then Hawley must be thrilled that he’s once again been dragged by his hometown paper.

(Via Raw Story & Kansas City Star)

In May, Sean “Diddy” Combs filed a lawsuit against Diageo PLC, his partner in the vodka brand Ciroc and tequila brand DeLeon, accusing Diageo of racial discrimination. In classifying the brands as “urban” brands, the lawsuit alleges “Ciroc and DeLeon have been starved of resources,” including “production, distribution, and sales.” Now, a new court ruling has unredacted several portions of the lawsuit, revealing that Combs also accused Diageo of developing a watermelon-flavored tequila against his wishes — even after being informed of the racist associations that could be attached to such a move.

In the original lawsuit, Combs said Diageo had not invested in Ciroc and DeLeon, and said that a president at the company, Stephen Rust, told him “race was part of the reason Diageo limited the neighborhoods where the Combs brands were distributed.” Diageo denied the allegations and ended its partnership with Combs in late June. But New York State Supreme Court Judge Joel Cohen recently ruled that Diageo could not keep the entirety of the lawsuit secret.

According to Rolling Stone, which obtained the unredacted lawsuit, Combs was not only asked to downplay his connection with Ciroc, “with the goal of rolling back its ‘image of being an African-American brand,” Combs claims that the company specifically refused to take his advice regarding the potentially prickly nature of the perception of a Black-owned tequila company selling a watermelon-flavored tequila.

“Diageo showed up in person to Mr. Combs and his team with a developed watermelon-flavored DeLeon Tequila,” the lawsuit reads. “They did this despite DeLeon not having flavored tequila, Mr. Combs’ consistent objection to adding flavors, and the efforts to educate Diageo about the racial history and connotations relating to watermelon.” However, a Diageo spokesperson told Rolling Stone, “Mr. Combs supported, publicly endorsed for several years, and benefited financially from the success of Ciroc Summer Watermelon. His attempt to recast follow up discussions regarding innovations for DeLeon is, as is his entire suit, disingenuous and self-serving.”

Diddy’s not the only rap mogul to have trouble with his alcohol brands; 50 Cent recently settled in Rémy Martin’s suit against him, while Jay-Z sold a significant stake in his D’usse brand after a heated lawsuit with Bacardi.

The last few years have brought increasing focus on the plight of delivery workers. Companies like Uber and Seamless have come under fire for inadequately paying their hard-working employees (and for gouging restaurants, too). But they’re not the only ones who are part of the problem. Customers who under-tip are at fault, too. A TikTok of a Doordash delivery guy calling out wealthy patrons for only slipping him a fiver recently went viral. And of course Fox News didn’t take the side of the worker.

As per Mediaite, during a panel discussion Wednesday, Kayleigh “Milktoast” McEnany angrily brought up the video, chastising the worker for not being happy with only a 25% tip and gloating that he was subsequently fired. McEnany’s fellow panelists agreed that the guy was out of line and that tipping 25% is acceptable. But one of them then went even further.

“It’s unbelievable,” crowed co-host Gerri Willis. “Everybody wants a tip for everything that they do. They ring up an order. They bring, you know, service. They still want a tip. I think people are taken aback by this. And, you know, do we have to pay all of this? I actually think they’re going to be coming for the money in our 401k.”

Co-host Cheryl Casone agreed, saying, “Tipping has gotten out of control in this in this country. And I think people are getting actually a little fed up with it.”

Casone claimed that there’s “now a lot of pushback about that tip jar because it’s everywhere that you do business.” Still, she at least agreed that tipping at heart is good. “And tipping is a way to say thank you. And 20%, that’s a good standard, I think, for everybody. But look, if you want to give more, give more. But you should do it for service because that person does a great job and a lot of them are very hard working.”

At another point during the same show, Casone did a rare thing on Fox News: She defended Hunter Biden after conservatives made jokes about him in connection with the cocaine discovered in the White House. “He is a recovering addict,” she said. “Nobody wants to see him regress or slip back into addiction. And I think the comments were tasteless.”

That’s nice, though Casone’s niceness is a bit undercut by her also saying that tipping hard-working employees is “out of control.”

(Via Mediaite)

Coffee is one of those random adult things that connects everyone who has ever worked in a setting with multiple people. Whether it’s an office, a school or even a warehouse, it doesn’t matter; if you have to be there with other people, you can expect coffee to be made by someone, even if you don’t personally drink it. For this reason alone, most people know the sounds and smells a coffee maker creates.

And if you’ve been around for the past decade or more, then you know the sound a Keurig coffee machine makes, because if there’s one thing Americans love, it’s ease. A teacher on TikTok has clearly heard the sounds of a Keurig machine one too many times, because he’s mastered the sound.

Devon Bowker, a high school biology teacher, uploaded a video to his TikTok page, @devonthenatureguy, of him doing an insanely realistic impression of a Keurig brewing a cup of coffee.

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Bowker is sitting in his car while filming the impressive video. He doesn’t say much, just a quick, “This is my impression of a Keurig coffee maker,” before jumping right to the familiar sounds. The video has over 3.7 million views and the comments prove the biology teacher has a marketable skill if there’s a spot for coffee maker impressions on a resume.

“You transported me. It was early. I could smell the coffee. Bravo,” one commenter wrote.

“Idk what’s more impressive, the accuracy or the fact that you did that for so long while maintaining a straight face,” someone said.

“Little know fact. Keurigs don’t make sound. They have a small chip located under the base plate with a speaker which plays Devon’s noises when brew,” another commenter joked.

If you close your eyes and hold a mug in your hands, you can almost smell the coffee brewing. Not that I’ve personally tried that or anything…that would be weird. But go grab your mug and listen to the sweet sounds below. Just make sure you have actual coffee at home because it may just make you want a cup.

@devonthenatureguy

How’d I do? @Keurig #keurig #coffee #impression #americasgottalent #thrivingtalent

In a heartfelt TikTok post, an exasperated Annalee Grace admits that her expectations of motherhood haven’t matched the reality of having children. And the difference between how people talk about parenting and the troubles she’s recently faced has made her feel alone.

However, after posting her video, many commenters shared that they also struggle with one of the hardest but under-discussed parts of being a parent, regulating one’s emotions.

Grace is the parent of two young children and a popular TikTok creator with over 450,000 followers.

“[If you] had asked me to guess what the hardest part of having kids was before I actually had kids? I probably would have guessed, like, I don’t know, lack of freedom or lack of sleep or something like that. Wrong,” Grace said as she sat frustrated in her car.

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“It is the pure exhaustion that comes from emotionally regulating 24/7. The patience and the strength that it takes to watch these humans combust in front of you and stay cool so that they can regulate and take in all of their emotions for them,” she continued.

Warning: Strong language.

@annaleegrace15

Being a mom is the most wonderful and humblimg thing ive ever done. Every day these little kids teach me something new about myself and im just so thankful for the opportunity ❤️😭 #momlife #momsoftiktok #babiesoftiktok #toddlersoftiktok #marriedlife #husbandwife

Grace posted the video after having an emotional outburst where she screamed at her two young children. “I just screamed at my kids, and I saw in their little eyes when all of a sudden it flicked. They were scared of me, and I sat them both down, and I apologized,” she said.

The underlying problem of her frustrations is that she doesn’t see many examples of other parents having the same struggles because they happen behind closed doors and not on social media.

“I feel like I’m the only one who has mornings like this with my kid. Even though logically, I know that’s not true. I can’t see into other people’s homes. Right? All I see are people out in public or cute little vlogs making pancakes in the morning,” Grace continued. “Like, and I feel like I’m this evil monster on a hill yelling at her tiny little kid. And I know I apologize, and that’s what counts is to show them how you can make a mistake and apologize.”

Grace received an incredible amount of support in the comments to her video.

“Oh, mama. You’re not the only one. We didn’t get apologies. You’re already doing better than we had,” Charity wrote.

“All of this! Apologize, ask for forgiveness, and let it go. Carrying it into tomorrow puts you in a deficit. You are not alone,” Shannon added.

“Thank you for sharing this. This is the exact day we’re having today & I feel TERRIBLE. She moves on & I’m melting in a puddle of guilt the rest of the day,” Tor Christmas wrote.

Psychologist Lindsay Perlman has some easy-to-remember advice for parents struggling with regulating their emotions around their children. She has a simple acronym: STOP. Perlman believes that by practicing the STOP method, parents can increase their “self-awareness” and “control of strong emotions.”

S – STOP, step back

T – Tune into your thoughts, feelings, and body sensations

O – Observe and notice what is going on inside and outside of you

P – Proceed mindfully

Heading into the holiday weekend, the Ron DeSantis campaign released a video that essentially argues that the Florida governor is way more homophobic than Trump and also a “badass” on par with cool Hollywood guys like Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort from The Wolf of Wall Street, Christian Bale’s Patrick Batemen from American Psycho, and Cillian Murphy’s Tommy Shelby from Peaky Blinders. Is one of those a serial killer? You bet.

Each choice is odder than the next, and not to mention, a minefield of copyright violations. So, naturally, one of the creative teams was bound to speak out, and fittingly, the Peaky Blinders came firing out of the fate with a statement denouncing the DeSantis campaign video:

On behalf of the partners of Peaky Blinders – Steven Knight, Cillian Murphy, Caryn Mandabach Productions, Tiger Aspect Productions and Banijay Rights – we confirm the footage of Tommy Shelby’s character used within the video posted by Ron DeSantis’ campaign was obtained without permission or official licence. We do not support nor endorse the video’s narrative and strongly disapprove of the use of the content in this manner.

Within minutes of the Peaky Blinders statement dropping on Twitter, fans of the show went wild dunking on DeSantis’ campaign for completely misunderstanding the show, and more importantly, Murphy’s portrayal of Tommy Shelby. The Florida governor got roasted in the replies as well as “alpha males” who routinely make memes of the show.

You can see some of the reactions below:

(Via Peaky Blinders on Twitter)

Swedish indie dance pop group Little Dragon keep soaring to new heights. Following up on 2020’s widely claimed (and very excellent) album New Me, Same Us, Little Dragon were inspired by their decades of friendship for their upcoming album Slugs Of Love, which drops Friday.

The 11-track effort was recorded in the same studio they’ve been making music in for the past 20 years. But this time around, they invited some fresh collaborators to join them. Damon Albarn and JID make an appearance on the album and offer a fresh perspective on the band’s sound.

In Little Dragon’s own words, Slugs Of Love “feels like our finest work yet,” and it’s not hard to agree. Songs like “Kenneth,” “Frisco,” and the titular “Slugs Of Love” show off the band’s unique blend of dancefloor-ready indie pop that at time detours to drum and bass, techno, and R&B territory. With lead singer Yukimi Nagano’s vocals providing a dreamy backdrop, the band leaned into experimentation more on Slugs Of Love than past records. “We’ve been exploring different ways to collaborate and communicate,” the band explained in a statement. “Dissolving patterns and making new ones. Nurturing our ability to curiously press down keys, to bang — sometimes hard sometimes gently — on different things, strumming strings, recording sounds and investigating the limits for how much or little a sound can be tweaked.”

Ahead of the release of Slugs Of Love, Little Dragon sits down with Uproxx to talk being patient, creating magic vibes, and loving fully in our latest Q&A.

What are four words you would use to describe your music?

Rhythmical, colorful, organic glitter.

It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?

As four friends who love making music and created some magic vibes together.

What’s your favorite city in the world to perform?

San Francisco has been consistent since day one.

Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?

There is no one person that we can think of… we probably inspired each other after hanging out so much through the years.

Where did you eat the best meal of your life?

Ooooh…. Mexico City! Or Tokyo!

What album do you know every word to?

Maybe Prince’s Sign O’ The Times.

What was the best concert you’ve ever attended?

Erik saw D’Angelo in Stockholm on the Voodoo tour, I wish we were all there.

What is the best outfit for performing and why?

Any outfit that makes you feel free and inspired!

Who’s your favorite person to follow on Twitter and/or Instagram?

Jack Kornfield poetry accounts are inspirational.

What’s your most frequently played song in the van on tour?

For a while it was Kraftwerk’s “Neon Lights.”

What’s the last thing you Googled?

Water parks in Gothenburg.

What album makes for the perfect gift?

Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love.

Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?

Hmmm not sure, but I recall a student home in Miami that was pretty crazy, with people partying up all night. Also Dave Sitek’s house where he played sax solos in the morning hours.

What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?

I was 18 hanging on Laguna Beach and simply wanted to get a tattoo, I chose a Japanese crest mark from a book.

What artists keep you from flipping the channel on the radio?

Floating Points.

What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you?

Loved me fully with all my flaws.

What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?

Be more patient.

What’s the last show you went to?

Can’t remember.

What movie can you not resist watching when it’s on TV?

Step Brothers.

What’s one of your hidden talents?

Cooking!

Slugs Of Love is out 7/7 via Ninja Tune. Find more information here.

St. Louis rapper Nelly is fresh off his successful first Hot In Herre Festival and it looks like he’s got another big win in the bag this week. According to TMZ, the “Country Grammar” rapper is $50 million richer after selling 50% of his catalog, joining the string of recording artists who have been trading ownership of their biggest hits for cash now. In Nelly’s case, part of his catalog is now half-owned by Harbourview Equity Partners.

Whilee Nelly’s hits have included “Dilemma,” “Hot In Herre,” “Ride Wit Me,” and “Shake Ya Tailfeather,” he’s even had more recent success with his country EP, Heartland. He also said that he was planning to release a follow-up with an all-women guest roster. “When I am with the guys, we are kegging, beering, trucking, smoking, and hanging out,” he distinguished. “I’m going to have to bring my A-game pretty much when it comes to dealing with the ladies because they are not going to play around with Nelly. They are going to bring it, and I am definitely looking forward to it.”

Speaking of ladies, Nelly and his long-rumored lady friend Ashanti appear to have reunited, after generating some sparks at recent shows. A source for Entertainment Tonight confirmed that the couple is “back together, and both of them are very happy.”