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The Goon Sax were supposed to head out on the road with Spoon and Interpol as well as do some shows with Pavement this year. But that won’t be happening. The Australian indie trio announced their breakup today, albeit with an overwhelmingly positive spin, in a decision that calls this decision their way of having “a happy ending.”

Though the statement is optimistic, it’s fairly vague and doesn’t offer real reasoning as to what caused their dissolution. Read the full thing below.

“To all friends of the Goon Sax we have some bittersweet news…after nine years of giving it our everything we’ve decided to draw the curtain on this band. It’s taken us places stranger, more beautiful, and far beyond anything we could have imagined, and brought us to meeting and working with so many special and incredibly inspiring people. Our gratitude to everyone who’s been with us and allowed the madness of the last 9 years to happen is far beyond anything we can palpably express. Although this means we won’t be doing our US tour anymore, including the Interpol & Spoon tour and the Pavement shows, we promise we will play one or two more shows in Australia before we finally say goodnight. For us it feels like a happy ending. We love each other and we love you! thank you for everything
Riley, Louis & Jim”

Better Call Saul began its final run of episodes Tuesday, which will find it finally linking back up with Breaking Bad. That means nail-biting episodes featuring shocking twists. It also means they’ll be showing else that’s big: the episode they were shooting when star Bob Odenkirk had his relatively minor heart attack. And Odenkirk himself says it’s coming pretty soon.

The Hollywood Reporter rang up the beloved actor and filmmaker to congratulate him on another Emmy nomination. They also discussed his health and how the show changed to ensure he wasn’t pushing himself too hard.

“I feel very good. I’m in great shape. I’m gonna go to a workout right now!” he said. “I didn’t go back to shoot for five weeks. I had a five-week break to recover. And then when I went back, we limited our shooting to 12-hour days… And so they took care of me and I was able to do it, and hopefully you can’t tell when I had the heart attack and when I didn’t.”

However, he decided to tell everyone which one it was: the one airing on July 18th. It still might be hard to tell. He said they had “probably about three quarters of the scene was shot before I had the heart attack, the day of the heart attack, and then the other quarter scene was after.”

Odenkirk also talked about watching that episode. “The strangest thing about it is that I really have no memory of that day,” he said. “I’m really watching something that I don’t have any memory of acting in, which is a rare thing. I mean, usually you watch some, and you have some recall of that even if it was shot months ago. But in this case, it’s such a complete blank. It’s very strange. I gotta tell you, it’s a weird thing to have lost basically about a week and a half. Clean, just clean, clean nothing. That’s a strange experience anyway. Otherwise, I’m fine.”

When news broke that Odenkirk had suffered health issues during a shoot, there was an avalanche of well-wishes, followed by widespread relief when it turned out it wasn’t as bad as it first sounded. It’s such a relief that he’s doing fine and dandy.

(Via THR)

At his press conference after the NBA’s Board of Governor’s Meetings in Las Vegas, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was asked about Kevin Durant requesting the Brooklyn Nets trade him. His response was clear: he’s not for players asking out.

“We don’t like to see players requesting trades and seeing it play out the way it is,” per the Washington Posts’s Ben Golliver. “The basketball was fantastic this past season. I don’t want to be naïve, but I would love the focus to be on the play.” He added that he’d like to find ‘remedies’ in talking to the NBPA about players not asking out early in their contracts in the next round of CBA negotiations.

Silver’s comments on players demanding trades aren’t new. On All-Star weekend last February, Silver said that players asking out was ‘bad for the league’. So it’s not a shock that he’s not thrilled about Durant asking out with four years left on his contract with the Nets.

What feels notable here is saying he’d like to work with the NBPA to find ways for players to not ask out of their contracts right after they’ve signed them. The counter the players will surely make is that teams can trade them at basically any time with a few restrictions. They’ll reasonably argue that them demanding out on their terms is simply taking back from power from the owners. It’s also a problem that only reasonably affects the NBA’s top-end players like Durant who have enough sway to ask out.

That certainly makes a solution that works for everyone hard to figure out, but it’s clear that the league’s ownership isn’t happy with the current state of affairs with regards to stars asking out and will make that a bargaining chip in the next labor negotiations.

Phoebe Bridgers has always been outspoken, but she’s been even moreso as of late due to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The singer discussed her own abortion in an interview with The Guardian, as well as started a “F*ck the Supreme Court” chant at the Glastonbury festival. Today, she talked more about the issue on MSNBC’s The Beat With Ari Melber.

“I’ve only actually seen it a couple of times, people walking out,” she said about fans leaving her shows because of political beliefs she’s expressed on stage. “But it always is validating in some way. I think I get pretty self-conscious of having a fanbase [where] it can feel like when I talk I’m preaching to the choir, so it’s nice to know that a message is getting to somebody who disagrees with me.”

About the way younger people have been reacting to the overturning of Roe V. Wade, she said, “I think people are terrified. We have a dollar of each ticket going to the Mariposa Fund, which is an abortion fund based in Santa Fe, and there’s all kinds of things we can do. But I hate that the responsibility has been thrown on these grassroots organizations instead of the government.”

She added: “I think I’ve been raised my whole life thinking, ‘Everything’s moving up! It can only get better!’” she said. “As a 27-year-old, that’s how it feels to me. But I definitely talk to 20-year-old people who are like, ‘What do you mean? It’s been a trash fire since I was watching the news with my parents.’”

Watch the full interview above, and also watch her discuss the pandemic and the way it affected her career below.

The NBA has voted to officially implement a new penalty for take fouls, after adopting the rule for Summer League competition this month.

According to the league’s announcement, the change takes affect for the upcoming 2022-23 season and will look to stop the scourge that is players breaking up transition opportunities with a purposeful foul. When a player commits a take foul — defined as ‘an intentional foul committed by a defender to deprive the offensive team of a fast-break opportunity’ — the offensive team will get a free throw that any player on the court can take, they get to keep the ball, and the person who committed the foul is assessed a common foul.

The only time a take foul will now be allowed is in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter or in the last two minutes of an overtime period. A similar overall rule set has been used in the G League since the 2018-19 season.

In the same news release, the NBA announced that the play-in tournament will now continue on a full-time basis after it was used for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons.

The take foul rule change makes a lot of sense and, frankly, is overdue. Take fouls have long been used by teams to bail themselves of bad turnovers on transition. Until now, a foul in the open court — even, and often, away from ball — stopped a team from an easy two points. This should largely limit those types of fouls and, in theory, lead to more transition baskets and highlight plays on the break.

There are two small kinks to watch in the rule. The first is the last two minute exception, which surely will be something coaches and players will have to think about in the last two minutes of games now. It also could, in theory, slow down the end of games. The league’s announcement stated that take fouls are allowed in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter and overtime because it allows teams ‘to use the longstanding tactic of taking a foul to stop the clock during an attempted comeback or prevent the opposing team from potentially tying the game on a three-pointer.’

The second is that the offensive team obstructed by a take foul gets to pick its free throw shooter. That eliminates the possibility of teams trying to manipulate the take foul penalty by fouling a bad free throw shooter and sending them to the line. Whether this completely eliminates take fouls or not remains to be seen, but it is at the very least a much stiffer penalty and should lead to fewer of them, which is great for fans because they often prevent some of the most fun opportunities in a game.

At the beginning of the month, Cardi B unveiled the track “Hot Sh*t” with Lil Durk and Kanye West, and not without some teasing beforehand. Today, the music video is out, picturing Cardi dancing on the top of a city and strolling up and down the buildings in a revealing latex outfit.

This video was not released without any struggles. The rapper expressed issues in an interview the other day. “Oh my goodness, I don’t want to talk about the video because this video has brought me so much drama,” she told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “So this is the first time I ever do CGI. I’m very particular on how I like my things, and I really like when things look super realistic. I like building sets, or I like to be in a place.” She added, “I couldn’t maneuver or move how I wanted to, because I was very confused. After I finished the video, I find out that this sh*t takes so long.” The wait has been worthwhile, and the CGI is quite impressive.

Watch the video for “Hot Sh*t” above.

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

Chicago Bulls guard Lonzo Ball missed the end of last season after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery in late January. He was unable to return for the playoffs and had issues ramping back up to return.

According to Bulls executive vice president Artūras Karnišovas, it’s still unclear when Ball will return. Speaking on an NBA TV broadcast during a Bulls summer league game, Karnišovas said Ball is “progressing,” but didn’t any specific update.

“He’s progressing. That’s as much as I can say. He’s getting better. Probably not at the speed that we would like. But he’s getting better,” Karnišovas said, via K.C. Johnson of NBC Chicago. “Hopefully, he’s going to be ready for training camp. That’s just our hopes.”

Johnson reports that Ball has dealt with occasional discomfort whenever he ramps up his workload, which is why what was initially a 6-8 week diagnosis last January remains a mystery going into the middle of the summer. Ball’s status looms large as Chicago looks ahead to next season with hopes of building on a sixth-place finish in the East. He’s a key player as a bigger combo guard who can help cover defensively for Demar DeRozan and Zach LaVine, while providing secondary playmaking and off-ball shooting. They don’t have the same ceiling if he’s not right, particularly on defense.

Ball is also only 24 years old. He should be a player still growing and approaching his prime years, which is why the Bulls made a splash to acquire him in a sign-and-trade and sign him to a four-year, $80 million deal. If this knee isn’t fully right now, it casts doubt over that future and what he can bring to the team. Two of Chicago’s offseason moves — signing Goran Dragic and drafting Dalen Terry — certainly seem to indicate that the Bulls are preparing for a world where Ball isn’t ready to start the season.

Less than three months ago, Milwaukee Bucks standout forward Khris Middleton suffered an MCL sprain that ended his season. With Middleton unavailable, the Bucks were unable to defeat the eventual Eastern Conference champion Boston Celtics but, if not for that injury, it is at least plausible that Giannis Antetokounmpo and company would have made a return trip to the NBA Finals. Now, Middleton will reportedly be recovering from a different injury over the summer, as ESPN’s Tim Bontemps and Adrian Wojnarowski report the three-time NBA All-Star recently underwent wrist surgery.

Notably, Middleton’s wrist injury is on his non-shooting arm, which is at least slightly preferable. However, the wording is interesting in that Middleton’s projected return is noted as “sometime near the start of the regular season,” rather than in advance of training camp. Beyond that, the Bucks have every reason to be careful with Middleton, both because he is a key piece of their team and also because Milwaukee undoubtedly plans to make a deep playoff run again in 2023.

Middleton, who is now 30 years old, averaged 20.1 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 5.4 assists per game for Milwaukee last season. While Antetokounmpo is the team’s clear No. 1 option on offense, Middleton often takes on an incredibly important role as a shot creator, particularly in difficult situations, and he is also a solid defender on the wing. If his absence continues into the season, the Bucks will likely turn to Grayson Allen, Wes Matthews, and Pat Connaughton for more minutes, particularly as newly-signed wing Joe Ingles is also recovering from a long-term injury.

Whereas some musicians were not too worried about being associated with the Capitol riots that took place on January 6 of last year, others don’t even want to be mentioned in the same sentence. This is especially true of the punk band Descendents.

As it happens, a Descendents t-shirt was worn by one of the rioters, Jason Van Tatenhove, during a hearing. He is known as the former spokesman for the far-right extremist group the Oath Keepers. The band took to Twitter to share their opinion of the situation, writing, “We completely disavow groups like the Oath Keepers and in no way condone their hateful ideology.”

People on Twitter were quick to call out the hypocrisy of being both a Descendents fan and a far-right extremist: “Tell me this Trump supporting rioter who is about to testify to the Jan 6th committee is not wearing a @descendents shirt. There is nothing further from punk rock than a right wing nationalist supporting a billionaire elitist politician. Poser,” one user wrote.

While testifying, Tatenhove said about the Oath Keepers, “They may not like to call themselves a militia, but they are, they’re a violent militia. In my opinion, the Oath Keepers are a very dangerous organization.”

Donald Trump has a lot to worry about right now, from the ongoing Jan. 6 hearings to the testimony he has to deliver under oath to the New York State attorney general’s office. Maybe that’s why he’s blowing off some steam by getting into it with Elon Musk. The latter is likely about to go to court over backing out of his deal with Twitter, and Trump has been needling him relentlessly over it.

Trump stepped up the beef even more on Tuesday, a day after Musk said he should “hang up his hat & sail into the sunset” — an odd mixing of cowboy and sailor angles. Trump took to his rinky dink Twitter clone with a thread, repeating some of what he said about him at a rally on Saturday but also expanding upon his taunts.

“When Elon Musk came to the White House asking me for help on all of his many subsidized projects,” Trump wrote, “whether it’s electric cars that don’t drive long enough, driverless cars that crash, or rocketships to nowhere, without which subsidies he’d be worthless, and telling me how he was a big Trump fan and Republican, I could have said, “drop to your knees and beg,” and he would have done it…”

He then dragged him for buying what he sees as an inferior social media service (that he definitely misses like crazy). “Now Elon should focus on getting himself out of the Twitter mess because he could owe $44 billion for something that’s perhaps worthless,” he wrote, adding, “Also, lots of competition for electric cars!”

He had one addendum: “P.S., Why was Elon allowed to break the $15 million stock purchase barrier on Twitter without any reporting? That is a very serious breach! Have fun Elon and @jack, go to it!”

Musk wound up briefly responding to Trump’s taunts on the very service that permanently banned Trump.

Anyway, it’s been another exhausting bit of fighting from two of the worst ever hosts of SNL.