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Few pop stars have had a stranger trajectory than the one and only Charlie Puth. After a Wiz Khalifa collaboration for a Fast & Furious soundtrack cut, “See You Again,” honoring the fallen Paul Walker, became incredibly popular and broke record after record, his debut album proceeded to absolutely flop. 2016’s Nine Track Mind was one of the lowest rated albums of all time on Metacritic, until Puth’s luck changed again and his second record, Voicenotes, was solid, cohesive, and well-received — he was once again back on top after that 2018 project.

Now, Puth is giving fans an update on why his third record is taking more than two years to complete, offering a very detailed explanation of writing songs while on the road and under pressure in a Notes app screenshot posted to Twitter this morning. Puth remembers things a little differently, conveniently skirting the fact his debut was panned and instead focusing on the commercial success of his singles, while painting a picture of the stress he endured attempting to follow up each new single with another hit. At this point, he apparently wants to focus on getting all of CP3 ready to present at one time, hence no new music since the Voicenotes era. Read his overly detailed explanation below and settle in for a bit of a wait before we get new music from Puth.

Hi! I know it’s been awhile and I feel like I owe you an update about CP3. Here it is…
When “See You Again” came out, it’s [sic] success blind-sighted everyone and I had to put out a follow up single to start off my artist career RIGHT AWAY. So I scrambled and put together “Marvin Gaye.” This song also did incredibly well, but I had no follow up and had to scramble yet again to figure out what the next song was going to be. That ended up being “One Call Away” which went number 1 and was a big success! But guess what… still no follow up song. I was on radio promo tour making “We Don’t Talk Anymore” while promoting “One Call Away.” It was an incredibly hard thing to do but we pulled it off and that song ended up being my first solo Hot 100 top 10. For the first time, I had room to breathe and relax, so I made “Attention” with ease. We had months to set it up and it was my most successful song at that point. But with it’s [sic] great success came a heavy promo schedule and tour and I still had NO follow up single. So I had to make one while I was on tour with Shawn [Mendes]. I would be getting off stage, just to run to a studio in Canada to record “How Long” until 4 AM.

My point is this. I am so grateful for all of these songs and their accolades. But I’ve never had a completed body of work to present to you at one time. At this point of my career, I owe it to myself and you most importantly, to not just give you ONE SINGLE, but the whole vision. I’m making the best album I’ve ever made and I don’t want to rush it. I just need a little more time to mix and perfect these songs. I think you’ll really like them. Until then….

CP

As the master behind the famed Kogi food truck, one of the best outdoor eating establishments in the game, chef Roy Choi understands what makes the summertime great. It’s about hanging out with your friends, soaking up the heat, and crushing some good food at the park. In addition to good food, every gathering needs a good fit — which is why Choi is delivering us both of those things by linking up with plant-based food brand Field Roast to bring the world the first-ever Kogi plant-based hot dog, which is dropping alongside a baseball-inspired streetwear capsule collection made in collaboration with Shepard Fairey’s Studio Number One, and manufactured by the LA-based Family Industries.

Dubbed the “Home Run,” the new dog, which will be available from now until late September at the Kogi food truck, is made using Field Roast’s signature Stadium Dog, which is double smoked using maple hardwood chips, and topped with Choi’s famous Kogi slaw, cilantro-onion lime relish, three different types of salsa, roasted sesame seeds, and Chao Creamery’s dairy-free cheese, all inside a perfectly toasted bun.

The six-piece streetwear collection, which will be exclusively available at the Kogi food truck in Pasadena, California, and the Kogi Taqueria in LA between June 26-27 (sorry non-California people!), consists of four graphic prints that pay homage to the Field Roast Kogi partnership across a long sleeve, t-shirt, baseball shirt, and hoodie, as well as two caps as well as stickers and other branded merch.

This is the first time a vegan-friendly plant-based hot dog has appeared on the Kogi truck, so this is a pretty big deal for hardcore Kogi heads. If you just happen to be a fashionable Kogi fan, well, this is Christmas in July! Or… June.

Field Roast’s Signature Stadium Dog is now available for purchase online and in retail stores nationwide at Whole Foods, Wegmans, and Sprouts, so if a Kogi truck doesn’t grace your neighborhood, give it a try yourself. You’ve got the whole summer to experiment! Or just wait until July when the Home Run hits Goldbelly.

People often think of government bureaucrats as being boring stuffed shirts, but whoever runs social media at the National Park Service is proving that at least some of them have a sense of humor.

In a Facebook post, the NPS shared some seasonal advice for park-goers about what to do if they happen to encounter a bear, and it’s both helpful and hilarious. Not that a confrontation with a bear in real life is a laughing matter—bears can be dangerous—but humor is a good way to get people to pay attention to important advice.

They wrote:

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“If a bear clacks its teeth, sticks out its lips, huffs, woofs, or slaps the ground with its paws, it is warning you that you are too close and are making it nervous. The bear’s nervous? Heed this warning and slowly back away. ⁣What else should you do or not do if you come across a bear in Yellowstone?

⁣ Do not immediately drop to the ground and “play dead.” Bears can sense overacting.⁣⁣

Do not run, shout, or make sudden movements. ⁣⁣

Do not run up and push the bear and do not push a slower friend down…even if you feel the friendship has run its course.⁣⁣

Running may trigger a chase response in the bear and you can’t outrun a bear. Bears in Yellowstone chase down elk calves all the time. You do not want to look like a slow elk calf. (Apologies to the elk calf.)⁣⁣

Slowly putting distance between yourself and the bear may defuse the situation. ⁣⁣

Draw your bear spray from the holster, remove the safety tab, and prepare to use it if the bear charges.⁣⁣

In most cases, climbing a tree is a poor decision. Bears can climb trees (especially if there is something up the tree that the bear wants). Also, when was the last time you climbed a tree?⁣⁣

Running to a tree or frantically climbing a tree may provoke a bear to chase you. If the friend you pushed down somehow made it up a tree and is now extending you a hand, there’s a good chance you’re not getting up that tree. Karma’s a bear.”

HA.

They also shared this link to more bear safety tips on the NPS website.

Well done, random National Park Service employee. Thank you for entertaining us while educating the public about wildlife safety at the same time.

Abigail Disney is the daughter of Patricia Ann and Roy E. Disney and granddaughter of Roy O. Disney, co-founder of The Walt Disney Company with her great-uncle Walt.

At the age of 21, she came into considerable wealth and at 60, has a net worth of around $120 million. According to Business Insider, she has given away approximately $70 million of her personal fortune over the past 30 years.

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Abigail is a documentary filmmaker, peace advocate, and host of the podcast “All Ears.” She has used her status to bring attention to the excesses of the super-rich and called for reforms to address income inequality.

She is part of The Patriotic Millionaires, a group of wealthy people who support hiking taxes on the rich.

In a new op-ed published in The Atlantic, she discusses the rules that the super-rich and their heirs live by to hold onto the “dynastic wealth.” The article was a reaction to a recent ProPublica article that revealed how little America’s top 25 wealthiest pay in taxes.

I offer my perspective on the blockbuster report in Pro Publica. https://t.co/GTxWazYdZX

— Abigail Disney (@abigaildisney)
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Here are the five secrets Disney says the super-wealthy pass down through the generations to hold on to their wealth.

1. The common ideology

“One factor is the common ideology that underlies all of these practices: The government is bad and cannot be trusted with money. Far better for the wealthy to keep as much of it as possible for themselves and use (a fraction of) it to do benevolent things through philanthropy.” — Abigail DisneyAbigail Disney

I wonder whether this philosophy comes from a realistic criticism of the excesses of government or a selfish desire to hold on to every last penny?

2. Never spend the corpus

“When you come into money as I did—young, scared, and not very savvy about the world—you are taught certain precepts as though they are gospel: Never spend the ‘corpus’ (also known as the capital) you were left. Steward your assets to leave even more to your children, and then teach them to do the same.” — Abigail Disney

The corpus is the principal or property handed down through an estate or trust. Say you inherited $10 million, to live by this philosophy, you would live off the investment income produced by the original amount but never dip into the original inherited sum.

According to the philosophy, ideally one would grow the corpus and then hand down even more than they originally inherited, to their children.

via US Naval War College / Flickr

3. Keep it away from the government

“Use every tool at your disposal within the law, especially through estate planning, to keep as much of that money as possible out of the hands of government bureaucrats who will only misuse it.” — Abigail Disney

In the article, she also discusses the large loopholes in tax law that allow the super-rich to easily avoid paying taxes are so commonly used among the upper 1% that it’s astonishing they’re legal.

4. Philanthropy

“If you are raised in a deeply conservative family like my own, you are taught some extra bits of doctrine: Philanthropy is good, but too much of it is unseemly and performative.” — Abigail Disney

This advice falls apart pretty quickly when one realizes that people can give money away anonymously so that it doesn’t appear “performative” or “unseemly.”

5. Marriage

“Marry people ‘of your own class’ to save yourself from the complexity and conflict that come with a broad gulf in income, assets, and, therefore, power.” — Abigail Disney

This advice is fine unless you happen to believe that marriage should be based on love, not the cultivation of power or wealth.

It’s been less than 48 hours after Fox News host Tucker Carlson started peddling a conspiracy theory that the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol building was orchestrated by the FBI, and already, Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert is demanding an investigation. No stranger to crackpot theories, Gohmert took to the floor on Thursday to support an investigation into the insurrection, which was a surprising about-face after Gohmert previously sided with Republicansm who did not want to open a commission looking into the attack sparked by a Donald Trump rally. Via Raw Story:

“We really need to know what the FBI knew and when they knew it,” said Gohmert. “And not only that, we need to know how much participation did any of our federal friends, either at DOJ, at FBI, or any at the intel community — what kind of role were they playing,” he said. “Because there’s information that came out about the effort to kidnap the Michigan governor and there were federal agents. So, it’s been said that there were federal agents involved in that.”

Again, the conspiracy theory can be directly traced back to Carlson who devoted a portion of his Tuesday night broadcast to heavily insinuating that the FBI was behind the January 6 attack because some of the protestors have not been charged yet.

“The government knows who they are, but they have not charged them. Why is that? You know why,” Carlson said. “They were all certainly working for the FBI. So FBI operatives were organizing the attack on the Capitol, on Jan. 6, according to government documents!”

Naturally, Gohmert was one of the first Republican politicians to bite on the theory and demand an investigation. Earlier in the month, the GOP congressman actually suggested that the government should somehow alter the Earth’s orbit around the sun to stop climate change, so we’re not exactly dealing with the sharpest tool in the shed.

(Via Raw Story)

Ziwe Fumudo has already earned a reputation for convincing people to give very candid interviews, and her next venture will apparently use some of those acting skills to execute a fictional scam for comedic effect.

Ziwe, last seen making Andrew Yang struggle to recall the name of a single Jay-Z song, reportedly will add an Amazon comedy to her already-full plate as a Showtime talk show host. According to a Variety report, Ziwe will develop a project for the streaming platform where she plays a young woman willing to grift her way to the American Dream:

The project follows Zoe, a wise-beyond-her-years 20-something who, debilitated by student debt, partners with a known grifter in a desperate bid to achieve the American Dream. The two prep school grads make an unlikely alliance all while secretly plotting to scam each other.

Ziwe is the writer and creator of the series, with Will Graham and Hailey Wierengo of Field Trip also executive producing. Wondaland Pictures — the production company founded by Janelle Monae, Chuck Lightning, Mikael Moore, and Nate Wonder — will also executive produce.

Ziwe has certainly found ways to make a splash in recent months, including her Stop Being Poor parody that went viral. A scripted comedy is a slightly different kind of muscle at work, but her already-long list of work with shows like Desus and Mero and Dickinson, not to mention a studio album in the works, certainly have a lot of people talking. There’s no word just yet on when we’ll see more of what Nigerian Princess looks like, but from the sounds of it there will be plenty of online grifting to enjoy very soon.

[via Variety]

Anthony Mackie shoulders a pretty substantial burden in the MCU going forward. He’s embodying Sam Wilson/Falcon, who finally got his day in Disney+’s The Falcon and the Winter Solder season finale. The show really made the MCU earn Sam’s position as a Black man holding Captain America’s shield, and it was no easy feat for Sam to show that the government wanted to put almost anyone else (who was white) in the position, but it worked out in the end. The show deftly handled the issue of systemic racism in America. As far as some of the other issues go, well, that did not go as smoothly.

[Deep breath.] In a nutshell, it’s safe to say that the writers of the show went for a buddy-comedy vibe but also paid lip service to fan fiction by suggesting, ever so playfully, that Sam and Bucky Barnes could be a romantic item. This was heavily implied in places, with the two formally being made to endure couple’s therapy while bickering as if they were truly married. And when they fell off a train, the writers had them rolling around in a field together. And then the writers went and made Bucky sweet on Sam’s sister, rather than Sam, and it would be understandable if some fans felt that the rug had been yanked out from underneath them.

So, that’s why it’s difficult to process what Mackie said (during a Variety podcast) on the subject of Sam and Bucky’s relationship. Variety tweeted out a partial quote with Mackie stating, “It used to be guys can be friends, we can hang out, and it was cool.” He added, “You can’t do that anymore, because something as pure and beautiful as homosexuality has been exploited by people who are trying to rationalize themselves.”

This didn’t make much sense, and this led to people wondering what on earth Mackie was saying. Was this like the Sirius XM interview where Mackie admitted to being confused about Easter eggs and kind-of suggesting that he’d really rather just focus on the script and not worry too much about the outside noise? Stick with me here for some more digging, but first, here’s how the Variety tweet led to a lot of “huh?” reactions.

However, the Variety tweet left out some context from the full quote in the podcast transcript itself. Here’s more of what Mackie said:

“So many things are twisted and convoluted. There’s so many things that people latch on to with their own devices to make themselves relevant and rational. The idea of two guys being friends and loving each other in 2021 is a problem because of the exploitation of homosexuality. It used to be guys can be friends, we can hang out, and it was cool. You would always meet your friends at the bar, you know. You can’t do that anymore, because something as pure and beautiful as homosexuality has been exploited by people who are trying to rationalize themselves. So something that’s always been very important to me is showing a sensitive masculine figure. There’s nothing more masculine than being a superhero and flying around and beating people up. But there’s nothing more sensitive than having emotional conversations and a kindred spirit friendship with someone that you care about and love.”

That’s a little bit clearer, but also not the best look. It’s not apparent whether Mackie’s suddenly realized that abundant fan fiction exists (in which people write their dream-scenarios, including Sam and Bucky being a couple), and perhaps he’s not realizing that The Falcon and the Winter Soldier seemed to already realize this and chose to send out signals toward the fans who churn out this fiction. Disney+ played with it, sort of as a nod to fans, to show that they’re listening. Yet some fans felt too teased, which is understandable. It’s one thing when people genuinely read into things too much, like with the whole Mephisto business when the hints weren’t really there, but yeah, The Falcon and the Winter Solder did heavily suggest romantic vibes between the lead heroes.

Ultimately, though, the LGBTQ+ community is seeking representation in stories, and it’s fair for them to wonder what on earth Anthony Mackie is saying.

(Via Variety)

Senator Ted Cruz is one of many GOP members who only values science when it’s convenient for him. Case in point: his latest performance in faux outrage over on Twitter.

The Congressman took to social media on Thursday to rip House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over her comments relating to the importance of Roe V Wade during a recent press conference. In the clip Cruz shared, Speaker Pelosi is asked by a reporter whether she believes an unborn baby at 15 weeks qualifies as a human being. Instead of being baited into one wading in the middle of the right-wing’s most beloved morality crusades, Pelosi instead references her own experience giving birth to five children in six years.

“Let me just say that I am a big supporter of Roe V Wade,” Pelosi answers. “I think I have some standing on this issues as to respecting a woman’s right to choose.”

Of course, any time the phrase “women’s rights” echoes across the online cavern, Cruz must rear his poorly-manicured mullet to accuse Democrats of being baby murderers but this time he used “science” to do it.

Now, this is a guy who disregarded science during a global pandemic, fighting against mask mandates by invoking the same human rights slogan that so many pro-choice proponents use when it comes to the controversial topic of abortions. When Cruz was forced to wear a piece of cotton over his face, he seemed gung-ho about people’s right to choose what they do with their bodies, but apparently that freedom doesn’t extend to women’s reproductive systems. It’s also laughable that Cruz is seemingly upset that Democrats aren’t valuing the sanctity of human life considering he left millions in his own state to literally freeze to death in favor of a vacation to Cancun, but instead of dragging out all of his damning receipts, we’ll let Twitter point out the blatant hypocrisy on display here:

Nipsey Hussle will soon be immortalized in a way that is rare for most entertainers, let alone rappers: He’ll be among 38 new honorees to receive a star along Hollywood’s Walk Of Fame in 2022. The honor is especially notable for Grammy-winning musician, as he was an LA local who was renowned in the area for both his music and his works of philanthropy, such as refurbishing school basketball courts and hiring members of the community to work at his various businesses.

Such was Nipsey’s importance to the city of Los Angeles that his funeral was held at Staples Center, with a procession that that stretched 25 miles past various LA landmarks. Memorials were held for days after both his initial passing and the funeral service, while Hussle’s visage graces various murals throughout the city, including on a court like the one he previously helped to update.

Nipsey’s 2022 Walk Of Fame class also includes another posthumous honoree: the late actress, producer, and writer Carrie Fisher, who will forever be best known by her role as Princess Leia in the Star Wars series (no word on if the star is being repurposed from Donald Trump’s as suggested by her costar Mark Hamill). Other musical honorees will include Ashanti, Black Eyed Peas, and DJ Khaled. Previous honorees from the world of hip-hop include Snoop Dogg, Missy Elliott, and 50 Cent.

Nipsey Hussle is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

I have not had the pleasure of watching F9 yet, so for all I know, Luke Hobbs appears in the post-credits scene. But considering the ninth film in the completely ridiculous (not an insult) Fast and Furious franchise was released last month overseas and I haven’t heard a peep about Dwayne Johnson being in it, I’m guessing Dominic Toretto will have a convoluted explanation for his post-Hobbs & Shaw absence. That doesn’t mean he’s been kicked out of the family, however (even if Vin Diesel might want him gone).

Director Justin Lin was asked in an interview with CinemaBlend about whether The Rock, who was involved in a “candy ass” feud with Diesel, could return for Fast and Furious 10 and/or Fast and Furious 11. “I think that’s always been our approach,” he answered. “So many of the conversations I have is about characters that are not even in there, but are still, obviously, they are living and breathing in this universe.”

“On this one, when I came back, I was thinking a lot about Hobbs and Shaw, and all of the other characters. I never think of them as being gone, for sure.”

If Han can come back from the dead, Hobbs can go to work one more time.

(Via CinemaBlend)