The Minnesota Timberwolves have had control well into the second half of four of the five games of their first round series against the Memphis Grizzlies, and yet they find themselves going back to Minneapolis facing elimination in Game 6, down 3-2 in the series.
A big part of the problem has been late game offensive execution, as their losses in Games 3 and 5 featured fourth quarter collapses. At the center of it all are the two stars on both sides, Karl-Anthony Towns and Ja Morant. The Grizzlies All-Star has been able to find an extra gear in the fourth quarters of those pivotal games, almost willing Memphis to wins, while Towns has gotten lost in the shuffle of a Minnesota offense that has far too often relied on them hitting difficult, contested jump shots out of iso sets for D’Angelo Russell and Anthony Edwards.
Compounding Minnesota’s issues is the fact that they have been talking a lot in these games, particularly Towns, and it has backfired spectacularly — most notably his “we in Minnesota now” comment while mic’d up during the first half of Game 3 that became an easy target for Morant afterwards. Neutral observer Draymond Green has some thoughts about this new phenomenon of KAT trying to be a trash talker, and suggested on his podcast on Friday that Towns should scrap the talking and “just be yourself” because he’s putting an unnecessary target on his back.
For years Towns has heard criticism that he isn’t tough enough and plays soft, and it’s pretty clear that he is trying to change that perception. The problem is when he does it with words only, not actions, it’s pretty easy for opponents to see through that. As Green notes, in Game 5 he was doing all that talking but let Memphis guard him with Dillon Brooks and never once went into the post trying to calm his team down and take advantage of what should’ve been a mismatch down low.
Everyone wants KAT to find That Dog In Him but it’s just not something that can be manufactured through talking. Green, who is a very natural sh*t-talker, seems to think dropping the talking act and simply asserting his dominance would work much more effectively, and if Towns needs a “quiet killer” role model, Tim Duncan tape would serve him well as he was an absolute monster who barely said a word on the court. That’s not to say Towns can’t express himself out there when it feels right, but Green points out that this year has felt out of character for Towns and a bit forced.
Throughout pretty much of all 2019, there was a lot of talk about Adam Sandler—yes, that Adam Sandler—being a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination, if not an outright win, for his role as diamond dealer/gambling addict Howard Ratner in Josh and Benny Safdie’s Uncut Gems. When Sandler didn’t even get a nomination, he quickly rose to the top of just about every “snubbed” list written. And now, after weeks of rumors that the trio might try again with a new project, Sandler has confirmed that they are indeed working on a new film.
In an exclusive interview with Entertainment Weekly, Sandler confirmed that he indeed is “going to do another movie with the Safdie brothers.” While he was tight-lipped about pretty much any other details, from what we can glean from the comments he did make, the Safdie brothers could still be writing the film, which will most definitely not be a sequel to Uncut Gems or anything like it.
“They’re working hard on it,” Sandler told EW. “Their work ethic is bananas. They’re always working, always writing, always thinking. I don’t know what I can tell you, but it’s gonna be very exciting. It’s different. But I don’t want them to ever say, ‘What the hell did you tell him that for?’ So I’ll just let them talk [about it].”
Fair enough.
For those of you keeping count, this new film will actually mark Sandler’s third outing with the Safdie brothers. Following the success of Uncut Gems, the three of them reunited in 2020 to make the short film Goldman vs. Silverman, which you can watch below.
Ray J is calling “shenanigans” on a recent viral clip from Hulu’s The Kardashians in which Kanye West allegedly returns a laptop containing Kim Kardashian’s sex tape to his ex-wife. In the clip taken from the third episode of the show, Kardashian breaks down in tears as West hands over the computer. “He got me all of the sex tape back,” she says. “And he flew home and he got the computer it was on and the hard drive. He met up with Ray J at the airport.”
However, Ray J apparently takes issue with this version of events, responding via a comment to an Instagram post of the clip. “All of this is a lie smh,” he wrote. “Can’t let them do this anymore – so untrue.” While he didn’t offer any additional explanation, he may be referring to the fact that the laptop in question reportedly didn’t have any more explicit content on it, as explained by Kardashian in a portion of the show after the clip cuts off. “It was just footage of us at a restaurant, at a nightclub. Nothing sexual, nothing weird.”
However, that statement also contradicts Kanye’s own account given during a January interview, while Ray J’s manager, Wack 100, claimed that there was “more graphic” content. While Kardashian initially refuted the claim to People magazine in January, the clip from the show seems to undermine that statement, as well. While the world may never know the truth, one thing is for sure: Most of the damage that could have been done probably already has been, and it seems everyone involved has already mostly moved on.
“I don’t want to come off as being cagey. If you and I met, just hanging out as friends, I’m, like, an open book about it,” Moss said when the topic was brought up. “I don’t want people to be distracted by something when they’re watching me. I want them to be seeing the character. I feel like, when actors reveal too much of their lives, I’m sometimes watching something and I’m going, ‘Oh, I know that she just broke up with that person,’ or, ‘I know that she loves to do hot yoga,’ or whatever it is.”
Moss called Scientology, whose other famous members include Tom Cruise, Nancy Cartwright from The Simpsons, and formerly Laura Prepon, “misunderstood” and “not really a closed-off religion. It’s a place that is very open to, like, welcoming in somebody who wants to learn more about it” (whether you allegedly want to or not).
Later in the profile, the Her Smell star was asked about an incident at the 2017 Television Critics Association awards when she reportedly left the room after Leah Remini won for her anti-Scientology documentary series. “I went to the bathroom,” she said. “I wish it was more exciting than that.” Moss also commented on the rumors that she swore during her Emmys acceptance speech for The Handmaid’s Tale because, as a former-Scientology member told the Hollywood Reporter at the time, “Scientologists are urged to communicate with ‘average people,’ and to do so effectively you have to ‘go down the tone scale.’ So they all use ‘f*ck, f*ck, f*ck’ every time they talk.”
When I asked Moss about the story, she said, “That pissed me off. That was a really, really big moment for me, and it was a big moment for my mom and me. My mom, who has supported me through the years and been such an incredible mother to both me and my brother. And to tell a lie like that, about that — I didn’t deserve that, and it was wrong.”
Big Thief were met with a wave of critical acclaim upon their release of Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, a double-LP that arrived in February. The songs are warm and welcoming, with Adrianne Lenker’s incisive lyricism making them truly special. They’ve brought some of the tracks to television, like with their blissful rendition of “Simulation Storm” on Colbert. Last night, they brought the soothing “Certainty” to The Late Late Show.
During the episode of the James Corden-led late-night television show, he announced that he will be leaving next year. “When I started this journey, it was always going to be just that: a journey, an adventure. I never saw it as my final destination,” Corden said. “And I never want this show to overstay its welcome in any way. I always want to love making it. And I really think that a year from now, that will be a good time to move on and see what else might be out there.”
It’s fitting, then, to have an act as bittersweet and evocative as Big Thief to provide the soundtrack for his farewell. The performance is pre-recorded due to COVID protocol, but it’s still poignant and beautiful.
1. Father John Misty, Chloë And The Next 20th Century
Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the latest Father John Misty album is the least FJM-centric FJM record yet. In fact, the usual protagonist has gone completely missing. Rather than write about the familiar swaggering anti-hero, Josh Tillman has instead focused on his other made-up characters — the titular “borough socialist” Chloë, a striving entertainment biz creative named Simone, the actress known as Funny Girl, an unnamed pair of ex-lovers who are reunited by their recently deceased cat Mr. Blue. As for revelations about Tillman’s personal life, it appears that the author has (smartly) retreated into the life of a family man who is suddenly averse to oversharing or further exposing himself to a hostile outside world. (This extends to the promotion of Chloë — once a reliable driver of traffic for indie-music sites, he hasn’t given an interview in several years.) For some long-time followers, this might register as an unwelcome development, like tuning into a new season of Mad Men and noticing that Don Draper no longer is part of the show. As it is, Chloë is by far the least accessible album Tillman has made under the Father John Misty moniker. The easy entry point that the character provided — like Draper, Misty provided both vicarious bad-boy highs and bracing morning-after lows — has gone missing. The album presents Tillman at his most writerly, unfolding more like a collection of short stories observed from a distant remove than the exaggerated autobiography of the previous records.
2. Kurt Vile, (Watch My Moves)
When Kurt Vile was in his 20s, he was known around the Philadelphia music scene as “the CD-R guy,” an eccentric hustler constantly trying to get people to pay attention to his melancholy, lo-fi psych-folk songs dubbed on cheap circular plastic. But now that Vile is in his 40s and has firmly established a well-respected career as one of the most consistent and unique singer-songwriters in indie rock, he knows he doesn’t have to push so hard. “I’m not too worried about anything really,” he told me during a recent interview. “I feel like I’ve proved a lot on this album, to be honest. But at the same time, I have nothing to prove.” The album to which he refers is (Watch My Moves), his eighth solo LP. While Vile is justifiably proud of the record, he conceded that listeners might need to spend some time with it before it fully sinks in. In the 2010s, Vile earned comparisons to classic rockers like Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty thanks to durably hooky indie hits like “Baby’s Arms,” “Wakin On A Pretty Day,” and “Pretty Pimpin.” But lately, he’s favored dreamier grooves and free-floating arrangements that let songs drift for several minutes, as if lost in a stoned reverie. The languid epics of 2018’s Bottle It In signaled this change in direction, and (Watch My Moves) fortifies it.
3. Jack White, Fear Of The Dawn
Like the rest of us, it appears that Jack sort of lost his damn mind during the shutdown. He has said that he stopped writing songs for a spell during the pandemic and focused instead on making furniture. Then he took to fasting for up to five days at a time, which sparked his creativity. Oh, and he also dyed his hair blue, which he claims has made him less recognizable at his neighborhood Target, though I suspect that White likely became more noticeable once he resembled an extra from The Fifth Element. As for his music, White hasn’t ditched the layered sound of 2018’s Boarding House Reach in favor of the austerity of old. If anything, Fear Of The Dawnis even busier than its predecessor, with songs unfolding as a series of sections that crash unpredictably into each other. One of the better tracks, “Eosophobia” — which translates to “fear of the dawn” — starts out as stuttering stoner metal, then opens up into a prog breakdown beamed in from an ’80s Rush record, and finally climaxes with some aggressive rap-rock caterwauling. And then there’s “Hi De Ho,” the bewildering early single that marries a Cab Calloway sample, a hip-hop verse from Q-Tip, White’s own mock-operatic belting, and some herky-jerky synth-rock riffage. It’s a mess! And if you didn’t like Boarding House Reach, I suspect it will give you a headache. But if you’re in the pro-BHR camp like I am, well, I say bless this mess!
4. Good Looks, Bummer Year
I’ve written in past installments of the monthly column about this Texas band’s song “Almost Automatic,” the kind of slice-of-life heartland rock tune that I am almost comically pre-disposed to love. Good Looks’ full-length debut album, Bummer Year, dropped earlier this month, and while no song quite tops “Almost Automatic” the rest of the record can certainly sit comfortably with that stunner. Tragically, the band’s guitarist Jake Ames was struck by a car on the night of their album release show in Austin. According to Jake’s GoFundMe page, he appears to be on the mend. Here’s hoping he’s back with Good Looks soon, so they can get back to building a promising career.
5. M.J. Lenderman, Boat Songs
Here’s another album I have been talking up for literal months in this column, to the point where I’ve tricked myself into thinking that’s already come out and established itself as one of 2022’s best albums. But in reality, it is finally out as of today. So, as I’ve said before, if you’re looking for an alt-country-ish record with funny lyrics littered with sports and pop culture references, please Boat Songs in your ears and leave it there until Labor Day.
6. Nightlands, “Moonshine”
This side project from War On Drugs bassist Dave Hartley diverges from that band’s expansive ’80s-leaning rock sound in favor of something that’s sonically ethereal and surprisingly playful. On their latest single “Moonshine” — the title track from Nightlands’ forthcoming album, due July 15 — he marries New Age vocals with low-key electronics. I can’t get it out of my head.
7. Wet Tuna, Warping All By Yourself
Matt Valentine is one of the modern masters of the intersection of indie rock and jam band music. While he’s best known for the group MV & EE, he’s lately been putting out music under the name Wet Tuna, taking a psych-rock approach to ’70s funk and jazz fusion. The third Wet Tuna album, Warping All By Yourself, is the best realization yet of this aesthetic. If you dig Herbie Hancock, Don Cherry, Songs In The Key of Life era Stevie Wonder, and the funkiest and most coked-out disco elements of late ’70s Grateful Dead, you will enjoy this.
Los Angeles police say they have secured possible footage of the shooting allegedly committed by ASAP Rocky, according to TMZ. Although they did not release any details, it’s believed that the footage came from a nearby surveillance camera and if it’s clear enough, could be the evidence the police need to prove their case. Unfortunately for them, though, none of the guns they seized from Rocky’s Los Angeles home matched the weapon that was used in the shooting; shell casings found at the scene were of a caliber that did not match Rocky’s guns.
In addition, all of the guns they found at Rocky’s home were legally purchased and registered, which police confirmed by checking their serial numbers. According to TMZ’s sources, none of the guns were even removed from the house, since officers could tell they weren’t the same caliber as the shell casings. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles District Attorney still has not charged Rocky, since there isn’t enough evidence to proceed to trial yet.
Rocky was arrested at LAX last week as he returned from Barbados on a private flight with the pregnant Rihanna. A victim in a November 2021 shooting had identified the rapper as the perpetrator, claiming Rocky shot at him three or four times and grazed his hand. Rocky was released after posting bail — set at $550,000 — and has since been seen with Rihanna at various events, including their rave-themed baby shower.
Oskar Blues/Creature Comfort/Miller/Bohemia/istock/Uproxx
While there are countless styles of beer perfect for every palate and many of them have specific, nuanced flavor profiles, sometimes you just want an easy-drinking beer. You know, the simple, sometimes crisp, thirst-quenching brews you just want to sit around and drink with your friends. We’re talking little to no-frills. Maybe it’s a crushable beer for an uncomfortably hot day, a crisp beer for when you’ve been mowing your lawn all afternoon, or simply a light beer to drink as the sun sets.
We’re talking about lagers, pilsners, pale ales, any light, drinkable, crushable beer really. This is the definition of an “easy drinking” beer. Luckily, there are many on the market to choose from. There are also a few things that are usually true about “easy-drinking” beers. The first is that they are commonly fairly cheap. So instead of paying $20 for a four-pack of 16-ounce cans, you can grab a sixer for less than $10. So that’s a plus. The second thing is that many of the best options are surprisingly underrated or at the very least not given the respect they deserve.
To celebrate the underdogs, we asked a handful of well-known craft beer experts, brewers, and beer professionals to tell us the best, most under-valued easy-drinking beers of all time. Keep reading to see all of their picks.
Miller High Life
Miller
Jesse Mix, regional manager of beer and soft drinks at Sprecher Brewing Company in Glendale, Wisconsin
Miller High Life of course. This beer is 100 percent nostalgia and classic Milwaukee. It’s the first beer I ever had and is still a staple in my fridge. This beer is great for just about anything, and pairs well with just about everything. This is the beer you drink when you want to have a great time with family and friends, or you are just plain thirsty.
Notch Kolsch
Notch
Mike Haakenstad, brewing operations manager at Sycamore Brewing in Charlotte, North Carolina
ABV: 4.9%
Average Price: Limited Availability
Why This Beer?
My pick is Kolsch from Notch Brewing in Salem, Massachusetts. It’s easily the crispest and most refreshing beer I can remember. It’s nice and golden clear with hints of honey and grape with a slight bready/toasted maltiness to it. Super refreshing, super delicious, super wish-I-was-back-in-Salem right now.
I really love Bibo Pils by Creature Comforts. Anytime someone I know goes to Athens, I ask them to pick some up for me. It’s just a perfectly crushable beer. It’s crisp and dry with just enough of a spicy hop character to keep me coming back for more.
A fresh Pilsner Urquell cannot be beaten. I’ve been blessed to tour their cellar with one of their former brewmasters and found it a heavenly experience as a fresh, unfiltered Pilsner is something that is simply unmatched. The body is soft with a light, herbal aroma that is subtle, refreshing, and begs for another sip.
Young Veterans Brewing Life Finds A Way Lager is a supremely crisp helles lager with a touch of sweetness and a light body that makes for perfect crushable quality. Tom Wilde, owner and brewer, contributes a fun aesthetic to the brewery atmosphere and labels that somehow make what is already quality beer even more exciting and approachable.
Maybe a tad outside of the box within the modern push for “crispy boi” lagers, but for me, a bright, low ABV, snappy, zesty, lightly acidic Saison-type beer is always going to fit the bill for the crispest easy-drinking beer. My mind will always harken back to Jester King’s Le Petit Prince. This little 2.9 percent ABV farmhouse table beer is zingy and fresh and carries, for me, every one of those qualities that makes a beer crisp and easy to drink. It is almost paradoxically light yet characterful with bright citrus, quenching yet low-enough acid profile, and zippy carbonation that screams crisp and easy while also delivering a profile that beckons for you to keep returning for more sips. This is one beer that I would want in endless supply through a warm summer backwoods trip.
Kona Big Wave
Kona
Hector Cavazos, owner and head brewer at Rebel Toad Brewery in Corpus Christi, Texas
Big Wave from Kona is my go-to easy-drinking beer. The tropical flavors are always great especially in this Texas heat. It’s refreshing, fruity, crushable, and has a nice floral, slightly bitter hop flavor that pairs well with the malty backbone.
Bohemia Pilsner
Bohemia
Douglas Constantiner, founder and CEO of Societe Brewing in San Diego
Bohemia Pilsner is a classic, crispy, thirst-quenching beer. To me, it’s one of the greatest Czech-style pilsners of all time but it’s made in Mexico. It’s crisp, it’s fresh, it’s delicious, and it exemplifies what a traditional old-world beer can be without any gimmicks.
Narragansett Lager is a can’t miss warm weather beer. Narragansett Lager is a New England Classic, known for its high drinkability, coaster puzzles, and pure nostalgia. This lager is easy to crush with its light malt bill and subtle noble hop aroma.
Asahi Super Dry is an underrated, crisp, refreshing beer. If you’re looking for a crisp beer, try this Japanese rice lager. Super easy to drink even though it’s extra bubbly. This is my go-to sushi pairing beer.
Suarez Family Brewery happens to be just a few minutes up the road from me, and Palatine Pils is the kind of beer I don’t feel crazy wanting to buy a case of. An unfiltered German-style pilsner, it pours with a thick white head, and every little bubble bursts with a lemony, grassy hop aroma. The flavor transitions smoothly from grain and hops into a distinct bite from the high carbonation. A great beer to crush on the porch, next to the pool, while grilling, or right now at my desk.
Bohemian Riot by Arches Brewing is a time-honored classic, a perfect example of the traditional Pilsner style made with Riverbend Pilsner malt and Saaz hops. It’s an exciting intersection of classic brewing techniques and locally sourced malt.
This is one of my favorite beach beers. When it is super hot and I’m dying of thirst, sometimes I don’t want anything too hoppy. A nice crisp Pilsner fits that bill perfectly. Plus, there’s enough flavor to keep my taste buds happy and refreshing enough to drink all day long.
Keystone Light is popular for a reason. It’s crisp, light, highly crushable, and reminds me of rafting the Colorado River. We do not brew a beer like this because we do not make adjunct lagers, but it doesn’t stop being from enjoying it.
Trumer Pils
Trumer Pils
Marshall Hendrickson, co-founder and head of operations at Veza Sur Brewing in Miami
When I was living back in the Bay Area, there was nothing better than a fresh Trumer Pils on draft. The brewery in Berkley only brewed one style, so you can imagine how dialed-in their recipe was. Fantastic beer. I wish you could get it in Florida, although it’s always better to drink closer to the source.
If you’ve ever watched any footage of an average day in British Parliament, it’s probably best described as a migraine sufferer’s worst nightmare. While it’s hard to imagine that it would be easy to get a word in with so many people shouting all at once, it’s also difficult to believe that it’s the kind of atmosphere that would be conducive to watching porn—or wanting to. Yet, here we are.
On Thursday evening, Trevor Noah—describing the typical scene at the House of Commons as “the world’s pastiest rap battle”—reported about how several female MPs complained that one of their fellow ministers was watching porn on his phone with the normal cacophony of opposing political viewpoints raged around him. Though the perv in question has yet to be publicly named, we do know that he is a Tory who could face expulsion for getting off during work hours. But Noah’s interest in the story is much more specific than that‚ and understandably so:
“I’ll be honest: I’m just trying to understand the motivation here. No, no, like, what part of Parliament made this guy want to watch porn? Like, what turned him on? Was there some new legislation that was getting him hot? Was there some other minister who was like, ‘This country is going deeper and deeper and deeper into debt. We cannot pull out at this point,’ and he’s just like, ‘Oh boy! Oh boy!’”
But Noah doesn’t think that kicking the culprit out of Parliament is the best way to teach him a lesson. “What they should be doing is what parents do when they catch a kid smoking cigarettes. Yeah! They should force him to watch all of Pornhub! That’ll teach him a lesson!”
You can watch the full segment above, beginning around the 3:15 mark.
While many artists have gotten back on the road since the start of the pandemic, it took a while for Nine Inch Nails to return to the stage. They did so last night, though, in Raleigh, North Carolina, for their first concert since 2018. They made the show special, too, with a couple of consecutive David Bowie covers: “I’m Afraid Of Americans” and “Fashion.”
Another noteworthy moment in the set happened right before the Bowie covers, when Nine Inch Nails performed “Every Day Is Exactly The Same” for the first time since 2006, as Setlist.fm notes.
Interestingly, NIN also covered Bowie at a 2017 concert, which, like last night’s performance, was their first after multiple years away from the stage.
Trent Reznor previously said of Bowie, “He just really started to become the best archetype for someone who has a fantastic voice and was kind of an actor pretending to be a rock star, in a way, which seemed to give him the ability to reinvent himself in ways that just felt like it would take a lot of courage to have had success at something and then throw it away and try something new. […] I still think about that dude all the time, and I still listen to him constantly. And I’m grateful that our lives intersected, and I’m grateful for, whether he knew it or not, how much he helped me in those dark times before I chose to get my sh*t together. And I can hear his voice. He penetrated through the layers of bullsh*t that I’d built around myself. I’m grateful for that.”
Check out last night’s Bowie covers above.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
but it’s just not something that can be manufactured through talking. Green, who is a very natural sh*t-talker, seems to think dropping the talking act and simply asserting his dominance would work much more effectively, and if Towns needs a “quiet killer” role model, Tim Duncan tape would serve him well as he was an absolute monster who barely said a word on the court. That’s not to say Towns can’t express himself out there when it feels right, but Green points out that this year has felt out of character for Towns and a bit forced.
