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Things are getting weird on the monolith front, which means many people no longer think it’s actually aliens or something that may end life as we know it on earth. A third monolith has been found, the second one found in America in the last few weeks, and this time the reaction from the general public has been very different.

The first monolith found in the Utah desert shortly before Thanksgiving had already vanished when a second, scuffed up version was discovered in Romania. Reaction to the news that a third one was found in California this week, however, led to violence against the art installation/marketing scheme/ancient artifact intent to spell doom for humanity. And it’s already led to some copycats.

But, more importantly, many people seem to be dreading whatever the truth behind these metal structures actually is.

As the old saying goes: The first time you stumble upon a monolith is a mystery. A second time is a trend and a third time is probably a marketing campaign.

Perhaps the reason so many people are skeptical is, well, they’ve seen this kind of thing fall flat before. And they’ve also watched as countless companies have tried to springboard off the viral attention for their own marketing purposes.

Netflix marketing stunt was a popular answer as speculation about the third structure grew.

But just as quickly as the third mysterious monolith appeared, it was gone.

According to Vice, that’s because men attacked it and knocked it down while chanting “Christ is king” among other things.

In a way, it’s very fitting that this quickly went from a unique curiosity to something that spirals out of control in a matter of days. We’ve gone from bighorn sheep scouting to evangelical lunatics toppling what might be a marketing campaign near a California hiking trail in the middle of a pandemic in a matter of days. It would be a new record if not for, well, everything else that’s already happened in 2020.

Most Christmas songs are about the joy of the season, snow, spending time with family, and other jolly things of that sort. 100 Gecs, who are fresh off a collaboration with 3OH!3, have made a Christmas song, and of course, they didn’t do things the traditional way. Their new tune is called “Sympathy 4 The Grinch,” and like the famous green character, they too have a bone to pick with the holiday season.

Throughout the ska- and punk-influenced song, the duo tell a story about being scorned by Santa Claus. The song begins by setting the scene: “Wanted some speakers, Xbox, and t-shirts / I’ve been good like every single day / Looked under my tree, my box was empty / Santa made an enemy that day (what the f*ck?) / Done being jolly, time to be naughty / Think it’s time we settle up the score / Fill up the wishlist, let’s cause some mischief / Grab my keys, I’m headin’ out the door.”

From there, the story continues with 100 Gecs breaking into Santa’s house to steal his magic bag and make a getaway. It’s both exactly what one would expect from a 100 Gecs Christmas song and something that we couldn’t have seen coming.

Listen to “Sympathy 4 The Grinch” above.

Over the past decade, there’s a been a sea change in perspective when it comes to marijuana and its usages and benefits. It’s now legal for recreational usage in 11 states and for medical purposes in 34 states. In the most recent election cycle, five more states voted to legalize it, while South Dakota and Mississippi — states that have been historically more conservative on the topic — voted it in for medical purposes in the most recent election cycle.

A big reason for this change in thinking is the touted medical benefits associated with it, as various research studies have shown it can be a safer alternative to pharmaceuticals in pain management, as well as a host of other ailments. Still, the stigma surrounding it has slowed its progress, but more and more sectors of American life are continuing to come around.

The NBA, for instance, will reportedly discontinue random marijuana testing in the coming season, a continuation of the pause they placed on that testing during the Orlando bubble. The league will, however, continue to test “for cause,” but is apparently shifting its focus to more dangerous PEDs.

The NBA has officially suspended random marijuana testing for the 2020-21 season …

— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) December 4, 2020

The policy on testing is still built into the CBA, but many believer that will be re-evaluated in the next collective bargaining negotiations. Players Association chief Michele Roberts, who recently joined the board of directors on Cresco Labs, a marijuana startup, in part because of their social initiative to help minorities get past marijuana convictions expunged, said the following in a recent GQ interview:

“When I was watching the cannabis industry grow, again I saw an opportunity for communities of color,” Roberts told GQ. “I thought it was especially appropriate given there are so many poor people and people of color who ended up paying huge penalties for being involved in an industry that is about to be, within the next 10 years, legal throughout the United States.”

The NBA is still a long way from eliminating the testing altogether or advocating for its medical uses, but all the recent trends show that it’s heading in that direction.

This year has been awful in too many ways to count, from tiny inconveniences to total devastation. Like its cousin the hospitality industry, the live music business has been flattened by the pandemic. If 50 people is too many to inhabit a bar or restaurant, then clearly 300 in a club or 50,000 in a stadium isn’t going to work. And unlike professional football or baseball, rock and roll really doesn’t make sense without a live audience. Livestreams can be fun, but sweaty lovefests they ain’t. Which means that not only are bands left adrift, but so are the places where bands ply their trades: bars and venues.

Like a lot of us, Rocio Verta-Ray had big plans heading into 2020 — one of them being a series of vinyl singles featuring a variety of bands she admires, all recorded at the vintage-leaning studio she co-owns with her husband Matt. (You might recognize his name: Matt Verta-Ray has done time in ‘90s pop outfit Madder Rose as well as Heavy Trash with Jon Spencer.)

But not long after a recording session with the Spanish band Go Cactus at NYHed Studios, that Big 2020 Event That Shall Not Be Named happened. Instead of continuing on from New York City to Austin for South By Southwest, Go Cactus had to flee, not even sure they could easily get back into their home country. Singer-guitarist Pau Gual, after charmingly apologizing for his perfectly good English: “We weren’t sure if Spain had closed the border. We had to go so fast. We were so happy to have recorded some songs, though.”

With her vinyl series already in the works, Verta-Ray added an element of giving, dubbing the endeavor Vinyls For Good. It’s right there in the name: The records wouldn’t just benefit bands or the studio, but something larger. With bars and restaurants particularly battered by world events — government help is still minimal at best — she envisioned donating proceeds to the businesses that needed them badly, which also happened to be businesses that traditionally support live rock ‘n’ roll.

The format was never in question: Nothing digital would do. “We use a more naturalistic approach to miking at NYHed,” she says. “We like to record the sound of the room. It’s a more old-fashioned type of recording, which I guess is fashionable again. It’s the same thing with vinyl; everybody’s loving vinyl again. People thought for a while that it was dead, but obviously it’s not.”

With bars and music taken care of, the missing ingredient was beer — and the financial support that beer companies often bring to the music world. (Where would every music festival, big and small, be without them?) Verta-Ray happened to know somebody in the biz, or rather a whole bunch of somebodies.

“All the men in my family work at this beer factory in Spain called Mahou,” she laughs. “All the women work in film and music. My father worked in this factory, my two brothers, my nephews — we have a long history with this beer company.”

So it was easy enough to get Mahou, which has been brewing beer since 1890 but only recently started making inroads in the States, involved in the project. And Verta-Ray knew that the first band would be — like her and the beer — Spanish in origin. She immediately thought of Go Cactus, a young, garage-rocking trio that fit perfectly with NYHed’s ethos: recording live, in a room, on tape rather than computer. They’re messy and brimming with life, a ray of rock sunshine in a dark time.

And the only way to get a copy of this special Go Cactus single — ”Would You Hold My Hand” b/w “Hippie Jump” — is to make your way, safely of course, to a bar that sells Mahou. The record is cheekily priced the same as a can of the beer. “Our studio is mainly analog with vintage gear,” says Verta-Ray, “and Mahou wanted to be associated with that sort of artisanal way of making things. Anybody can buy the record for the cost of the beer, and the proceeds of the record go to the bar itself.”

She hopes that the Go Cactus single is just the first of many, and Vinyls For Good will continue to raise money for bars and venues as long as there’s a need. Verta-Ray hopes it will be safe enough soon to get bands back into NYHed’s Lower East Side studio for sessions and singles, and she thinks it’ll be an American band next.

The last live show that Gual and Verta-Ray attended, he was on stage and she was in the audience: Go Cactus played at Pianos just before things fell apart. They can’t wait to get together again. “I’m looking forward to personal interactions, and to having bands back in the studio. After the 70s, everything about recording was so separate and compartmentalized. When we record bands, they like to all be in the same room playing, and that’s something we’ve been deprived of by this horrible situation,” she says. “We’re ready to be together.”

For more information on Vinyls For Good, check out their website.

A new report from Fred Katz and Kelly Iko of The Athletic details from both the Wizards’ and Rockets’ sides why the John Wall-for-Russell Westbrook trade happened, and the main takeaway is that despite their long history of close friendship, Westbrook and James Harden simply could not co-exist “in a realistic basketball situation with a championship as the long-term goal.”

The adjustment both players had to make to sharing the ball, control of the team, and the spotlight, was not as smooth as expected despite their relationship, the report says.

Here’s more on the breakdown of their partnership in Houston:

In a realistic basketball situation with a championship as the long-term goal, sources said, Harden and Westbrook simply couldn’t co-exist on the floor. This isn’t a knock on their personal relationship, an aspect that has been misconstrued in recent weeks. Harden and Westbrook have a deep-rooted friendship that spans over decades, but the NBA is a business. Individual legacies are at stake and winning a championship seems more unlikely by the year. At 31 and 32, respectively, Harden and Westbrook aren’t exactly NBA spring chickens anymore, either.

Nine years ago, when both players were in Oklahoma City, this awkward pairing might not have mattered. Westbrook and Durant shared the spotlight with Harden excelling as the spark plug off the bench. Since then, dynamics have changed. Both Harden and Westbrook have won MVPs, a host of personal accolades, and have established brands for themselves. This, combined with the never-ending clock that is Father Time, made a split almost inevitable.

As Iko notes, Harden faced a bigger change to his offensive style than expected, with Westbrook posting a usage rate 10 percentage points higher than even Chris Paul’s highest-usage Rockets season. That reared its head especially once Westbrook got to the Bubble after recovering from COVID-19 and a quad injury and was less able to create for himself.

With few options on the table via trade because of Westbrook’s enormous salary, the Rockets now face another interesting feeling-out process with Wall.

After previously featuring on Big Sean’s “Friday Night Cypher,” Detroit rappers Kash Doll and Tee Grizzley reconnect on the boastful “Bossa Nova.” Produced by Hit-Boy, the new single combines a skittering snare rhythm, ghostly chants, and a whining lead to backdrop the two Motor City MCs’ chest-beating rhymes. Kash establishes her dominance early, questioning, “What the f*ck I look like hoppin’ out a Uber?” Then Grizzley steps up to the plate playing lothario with a lustful verse of his own before Kash bats cleanup, dragging would-be players with “air in his Magnum.” Yikes.

Kash is a little over a year removed from her last full-length project, Stacked, but she’s kept her buzz louder than a packed barbershop with singles “Wake Up,” “Rich Hoochie,” and most recently, the DJ Infamous, Mulatto, and Benny The Butcher team-up, “Bad Azz.” “Bossa Nova” is yet another in-your-face single from her upcoming sophomore album, which doesn’t have a title or release date as yet.

Meanwhile, Tee Grizzley is fresh off the release of his 2020 mixtape The Smartest after losing his aunt/manager to gun violence last summer. He teamed up with Motown rap vet Big Sean twice this year — once on the latter’s Detroit 2 in the above-mentioned “Cypher,” and again on “Trenches” from The Smartest.

Listen to “Bossa Nova” above.

New York rapper Lil Tjay has been gaining popularity ever since featuring on the 2020 XXL Freshman Class, rewarding him for his standout album, True 2 Myself, and mixtape, State Of Emergency, and dubbing him one of the hottest rising stars in the rap game. His latest single may solidify that status, as it samples one of music’s biggest hit makers, Justin Bieber, borrowing the Canadian singer’s breakout hit “Baby” and repurposing it into “None Of Your Love.”

Tjay’s newfound stardom may be the reason the song exists in its current form at all. The 19-year-old originally put the track on his YouTube in July 2018, but couldn’t keep it there due to sample clearance issues. Then, over two years later, he made the announcement on Instagram that the song had been cleared for an official release, allowing him to bump it to streaming services and expose a whole new audience to his warbling rhymes.

The pop-leaning song arrives at an opportune time for Tjay; with the eyes of the world watching to see if he lives up to his Freshman placement, expanding his range from the Bronx-approved street tales of his prior projects may improve his mainstream appeal as he works to complete his sophomore album.

Listen to “None Of Your Love” above.

If you caught my pasta snob article from earlier this week, you should know that there’s some irony in me writing it. Enthusiastic cork-sniffer though I may be, there was once a time when I ate McDonald’s almost every single day. No exaggeration.

We lived way out in the country in Fresno County, past where my school’s buses ran. So every day when I got out of school at 3 o’clock, from about middle school until I could drive, I’d go to the junior college where my mom worked to wait until she got off at five to take us home. There was a McDonald’s across the street from the college, and, probably to keep me from annoying the shit out of everyone in her office, she’d always give me a few bucks to go get myself something.

It likely stunted my growth and guaranteed future heart disease, but I loved McDonald’s. Hell, I was obsessed with it. It was the highlight of my days.

This week, to widespread acclaim, McDonald’s has brought back the McRib (for a limited time). The saucy riblet roll debuted in the early 80s and came back for a limited run in October 2019, but hasn’t been available nationwide since 2012. In any case, the internet loves the McRib, for whatever reason. And with the sandwich back on the menu, we thought, who better to review it than me, a McDonald’s enthusiast with decades of experience?

Since I don’t have a favorite McDonald’s franchise anymore, I just went to the location nearest my house. It was one of those fancy jobs with the double-lane drive-through. I didn’t see the McRib on the menu yet, but I ordered it anyway and they took it in stride, as if they expected me all along. The payment window was no-touch and by the time my credit card was done processing the person at the next window was already holding my food bag in an outstretched fist, waiting for me to come get it.

Clearly, these were professionals. It was like they thought I was some spy from corporate, sent there to secretly time them and report my findings back to headquarters. I was sent there to do a job, alright, but not that job… (*long drag from cigarette, dreamy anecdote about some dame*)

Fine, fine, enough foreplay. I had to resist the urge to eat my sandwich in the car (the place where I’d normally eat McDonald’s food, the place where I’d argue McDonald’s food is meant to be eaten) so that I could photograph it. But it was only a two-minute drive from home so it didn’t have much time to get cold or soggy(er).

Opening up the bag…

In contrast to the effortlessly efficient service, this thing looked like a damn crime scene. I’m surprised no one took the time to write “HELTER SKELTER” on the lid of the box. They expect a person to eat this inside a car? Yeah, right. I’m going to end up with half of that on my hands, face, and crotch. No way I eat this on the way to anywhere that doesn’t stock extra gym shorts they can loan me from the nurse’s office.

Just hefting it, I knew that the bottom bun was, as you might expect, soggy as hell.

First bite:

Okay, not bad. I was expecting that red sauce to be way too sweet but it actually isn’t so bad. The pork stuff (in classic boneless riblet shape!) reminds me of that pork loaf you sometimes get in Vietnamese restaurants — not sure what it’s called, but it looks kind of like a pork meatloaf with diced rather than ground pork?

Anyway, I love that stuff so it’s not a bad food memory to evoke. The cornmeal dusting on the bun is also a nice touch. Adds a subtle but needed flavor and texture contrast. There are big slices (for McDonald’s) of fresh onions, which add freshness and crunch. I’m very pro onion, so that’s nice.

Second bite:

Now I’m now noticing weird textures in the meat. Like microscopic bone fragments? The meat somehow comes on juicy but chews dry. Noticing the processed flavor more here, probably because of the texture putting that thought in my head.

Third bite:

Ooh, it has pickles. The pickles are great. This should have more pickles. You ever notice McDonald’s pickles are just the right size? You can bite right through them. Nothing worse than a thick-ass pickle that falls in your lap when you’re trying to bite through your burger, I always say.

The McDonald’s engineers solved that one years ago.

Fourth bite:

Okay, I’m halfway through and I’m tapping out. The sugary sauce and processed pork are yummy enough at first, and the pickles and onions help a lot, but it sort of loses its appeal. I mean… it’s fine. There’s a reason the similarly processed McNuggies only come in small crunchy bites (I confess that I still love McNuggies, even though I know deep down that they’re made of disgusting pink chicken slime). But this is like a whole big sandwich where the dominant ingredient is pork McNugget filling. Probably ill-advised.

Final thoughts:

There’s a reason McDonald’s only serves the McRib for a limited time. Scarcity seems to be the main appeal. It might not be the worst thing on the menu, but you probably don’t want your workers in the back slipping in puddles of bright red barbecue sauce all year, either. Who needs that headache? Better to release it only when public demand reaches a fever pitch. But hey, that’s just me playing “Fantasy McDonald’s Exec” here.

Oscar Issac has been extremely busy lately, but apparently he’s adding video game espionage to his to-do list. The Star Wars actor is slated to infiltrate your TV thanks to HBO Max snagging Dune, but according to reports he’s interested in helming a legendary video game franchise as well.

As reported by Deadline, Issac will take the role of Solid Snake in a Metal Gear Solid movie.

Sony’s long awaited Metal Gear Solid adaptation looks to have gained some major momentum as sources tell Deadline that Oscar Isaac is attached to play Solid Snake in the Jordan Vogt-Roberts film. The movie is currently in development at Sony Pictures with Vogt-Roberts on board to direct.

The film is based on the Metal Gear Solid video game created by Hideo Kojima and published by Konami. The script is written by Derek Connolly. Avi Arad is producing. Peter Kang is the executive overseeing for the studio.

The Kojima classic is one of gaming’s most famous series, with more than three decades of games and spinoffs. Landing Issac for the role is something of a triumph for Vogt-Roberts, who went through a not-so-secret courtship with Issac to play Snake over the years. As Variety noted, in 2019 he said on Twitter that “the ball’s in Oscar’s court” when it came to casting after Issac himself told IGN he’d like to play Snake and a fan put together a movie poster featuring Issac.

As Deadline noted, Issac will star in both Dune and The Card Counter in the coming months and is involved in Brian K. Vaughn’s Ex Machina comic adaptation. There are also some projects still in motion, though the MGS adaptation will reportedly take top priority for him as Hollywood attempts to resume production during a still-ongoing pandemic.

Even as the industry slowly gets back into production due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Isaac has been busy setting his future slate in recent months. He is set to star in HBO’s Scenes From A Marriage opposite Jessica Chastain, followed by playing the title role in Marvel’s Moon Knight for Disney+.

That’s a lot of Issac in the entertainment world of the future, but it seems his top priority in all this is learning how to sneak around unnoticed in empty cardboard boxes. It’s an important skill to have, especially after all the press he’ll have to do to promote these works.

As teams continue to ramp up for the start of the new season on December 22, players met with media members during Zoom calls on Friday and subjected themselves all all sorts of lines of inquiry about the upcoming campaign, the changes their teams made during the offseason, and so much more.

Joel Embiid was among them, and Sixers’ star had plenty to discuss as he looks to capitalize the major upgrades his organization made in hopes of getting the team over the hump and into championship contention. But first and foremost, Embiid appeared to want to set a few things straight about both his future in Philly, and his dynamics with certain other teammates.

Never one to be cagey about what he means, Embiid told reporters point-blank that he’s committed to winning a championship with the Sixers and wants to finish his career there, if possible.

Here’s the full quote from Joel Embiid: https://t.co/DS6phfFC8s pic.twitter.com/Ts7BaRfe8o

— Jackson Frank (@jackfrank_jjf) December 4, 2020

And on the topic of teammate Ben Simmons, Embiid also stuck to his usual tract of insisting that he wants Simmons on his team and that any rumors to the contrary are manufactured wholesale.

Joel Embiid on Ben Simmons: “I want him on my team. … The national media is always trying to make stories because they don’t have anything to talk about.”

— Jackson Frank (@jackfrank_jjf) December 4, 2020

He also sounded off on bringing in Doc Rivers and Dwight Howard, the latter of whom he believe he can take some pointers from, as Howard was once one of the NBA’s premier centers.

Embiid sees the value of having Dwight Howard with him this year. “I’ve never had a Hall of Fame [big man] coach or player around me.” Believes even though their games are different he can pick his brain as a guy who has been there and done it before.

— Kyle Neubeck (@KyleNeubeck) December 4, 2020

All in all, the Sixers will once again enter the new season with a load of expectations, and a similar level of scrutiny, as Doc tries to get this team to a level they’ve never reached previously.