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During his speech at the Republican National Convention on Monday, Donald Trump ,Jr. quickly became a trending topic thanks to the sweaty face, gritted teeth, and squinty eyes that made it look a whole lot like he was blasted out of his mind on cocaine. However, while stopping by Fox & Friends on Wednesday morning, the President’s son denied pulling a Scarface for his RNC speech after being asked about his “glassy eyes” by host Steve Doocy. Trump, Jr. also couldn’t help but take a jab at Hunter Biden, the son of Democratic candidate Joe Biden, who has openly spoken about his years struggling with drug addiction.

“I guess there must have been something with the lighting,” Trump Jr. said about his odd appearance. “But they started doing this trending thing, ‘Donald Trump Jr.’s on cocaine’ and all that. I said, ‘Oh no, you have me confused with Hunter Biden.’”

You can watch the video below:

After Trump, Jr.’s alleged cocaine use dominated social media, it didn’t take long for late-night hosts to get in on the act. During its live coverage of the RNC, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert managed to take aim at both Trump, Jr. and his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, whose manic speech also became a viral moment earlier in the night. Colbert referred to her as a “vengeful banshee” that was simply here to “scream a message of hope.” Although, her delivery might have taken its toll on Trump, Jr.

“It was his keynote address, in that he looked like he had snorted a key,” Colbert joked. “So before I tell you what he said, can we zoom in on Junior’s sweaty face and wet, bloodshot eyes? Either he’s high or that’s what happens when you live in the splash zone of Screamin’ Guilfoyle. Just bring a poncho!”

(Via The Daily Beast)

Donald Trump’s presidency has exposed some remarkable hypocrisy within the evangelical Christian movement.

The group, which once claimed to be the backbone of America’s “moral majority” made up of “family values” voters, have given their full support to a crass and cruel man whose narcissism has absolutely nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Astonishingly , he’s gained their support without showing any real understanding of Christianity or The Bible. Who can forget the time he was unable to name a single verse from his “favorite book” of The Bible?

Trump unable to name one verse from “favorite book” The Bible

www.youtube.com

Despite this, 72% of white evangelical Christians support the president, according to a poll conducted by Pew Research,

Franklin Graham, evangelist and son of the man who essentially founded the movement, Billy Graham, believes Donald Trump’s election was divine intervention.

“I think God was behind the last election,” Graham told conservative news site The Western Journal.

Evangelicals praise the president for appointing conservative judges and aggressively supporting the pro-life movement while turning a blind eye to his many failings as a politician and a man.

Would Jesus separate children from families at the border? Would the king of kings tolerate Trump’s pathological lying? Would Christ support Trump’s hostility towards women and people of color? Should Trump be forgiven for his unquenchable greed?

So why have evangelicals seemingly abandoned their beliefs to support Trump? A Stanford study found that people’s political beliefs tend to be more firmly held than their religious faith. So when they come into conflict, people will follow their political beliefs, then they rationalize the rejection of their religious side.

An indeed, many evangelicals have rationalized their support for Trump by calling him an unlikely vessel or “someone God has chosen for an important historical purpose, despite not looking like — or having the religious character of — an obvious man of God.”

Which is why it makes it all the more remarkable that Billy Graham’s granddaughter, Jerushah Duford, has called out evangelical hypocrisy in a powerful USA Today ope-ed, entitled: “I’m Billy Graham’s granddaughter. Evangelical support of Donald Trump spits on his legacy.”

In the article, she calls for evangelical women to stop criticizing Trump in hushed tones and to raise their voiced against him in the run up to the election. She also says it’s necessary for the church to reject Trump to regain a shred of credibility.

Duford says Trump’s election made her feel “homeless” and “disoriented” as she watched her church turn “its eyes away from everything it teaches.” What first began as a gentle tug at her spirit, grew to become a feeling she could no longer stomach.

“The gentle tug became an aggressive yank, for me, earlier this year, when our country experienced division in the form of riots, incited in great part by this president’s divisive rhetoric. I watched our president walk through Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., after the tear gassing of peaceful protesters for a photo op,” Duford writes.

“He held a Bible, something so sacred to all of us, yet he treated that Bible with a callousness that would offend anyone intimately familiar with the words inside it,” she continued. “He believed that action would honor him and only him. However, the church, designed to honor God, said nothing.”

She also spoke of the damage that the church’s support for the president has caused its reputation.

“It seems that the only evangelical leaders to speak up praised the president, with no mention of his behavior that is antithetical to the Jesus we serve. The entire world has watched the term ‘evangelical” become synonymous with hypocrisy and disingenuousness,” she writes.

“My faith and my church have become a laughing stock, and any attempt by its members to defend the actions of Trump at this time sound hollow and insincere,” she writes.

Duford called for fellow evangelicals to get their priorities straight by putting God before politics and believes that doing so would be empowering to women in the faith.

“The God we serve empowers us as women to represent Him before our churches. We represent God before we represented any political party or leader,” She writes. “When we fail to remember this, we are minimizing the role He created for us to fill.”

“Jesus loved women; He served women; He valued women. We need to give ourselves permission to stand up to do the same,” she continued.

Duford’s op-ed is a bold and brave statement for an influential figure in a movement that has become synonymous with the Republican Party to nake. But, according to Duford, that type of bravery is what’s demanded of her by her faith.

“I chose to listen to my spirit to speak out. Not because doing so feels comfortable, but because it feels like the right way to leverage the voice God has empowered me with,” she writes.

“Now I am asking all of you who feel as I do, to embrace your inner tug, and allow it to lead you to use the power of your God-given voice and not allow Trump to lead this country for another four years,” the piece concludes.

Lil Tecca has had fun with his recent visuals. February’s Cole Bennett-directed video for “IDK” saw him take over a school dance, and in June, he played Cupid in his heart-filled “Out Of Love” visual. Now the 18-year-old rapper back with another delightful new clip, this time for “Royal Rumble.”

As the title suggests, Tecca is the star of a flashy WWE-style wrestling promotion. The action starts with him in a locker room, championship belt over his shoulder and waiting to enter the royal rumble. Tecca is significantly slimmer than his muscle-laden competitors, so he takes his licks during the event. Still, he manages to pull off a last-second victory and secure another belt.

The clip ends with a little skit, where the excited official approaches Tecca in the bowels of the arena, asking for the secrets to his success. Tecca acknowledges his enthusiasm in informs the ref that he can’t stick around because he has some chicken nuggets waiting for him, and he’s not interested in letting them get cold.

“Royal Rumble” is the latest track that will presumably appear on Virgo World, the rapper’s upcoming debut album and the follow-up to his 2019 mixtape We Love You Tecca.

Watch the “Royal Rumble” video above.

Hard Knocks returned this week and HOT DAMN, are we doing full-contact scrimmages now? I’m glad there’s only one more week of this show — if a quarterback got grass stains on his pants I might have an actual heart attack from the excitement of it all.

Last night I had a tough TV choice between the Clippers stomping the Mavs by 30 points, a halting speech by Melania Trump about bullying or something, and Hard Knocks. Hard Knocks won that one, so kudos to HBO for clearing that extremely low bar for entertainment. I’ll be honest: I didn’t realize this show was going to be so bad this year when I pitched a column about it. I feel bad for the producers trying to make a football show with no football. Ah, 2020, the year when absolutely nothing panned out.

Elephant In The Room

Starter: The Sofi Stadium won’t have any fans this season

As bad as 2020 is, could anyone have predicted that on the very same day, the very same day, that Hard Knocks: Los Angeles would release an episode with a glowing sizzle reel dedicated to the Rams and Chargers fancy new stadium — complete with loving shots of the field, the new locker rooms, the massive video screen — those same two teams would announce that this season’s games would be played without fans? The same day! The pure sack-tapping kismet of it all! Not even Hard Knocks, which comes together infamously fast, had time to include this tidbit in the show. So instead we watched Aaron Donald and Jared Goff and others daydream about making plays in Sofi Stadium to the roar of a packed audience knowing it won’t happen this season, if ever. 2020 in a nutshell.

To be fair, the Chargers don’t have fans anyway.

Quote Of The Week

Starter: “I’m over here hittin’ blubber.” -Rams linebacker Samson Ebukam, on being tired of playing without pads.

Second: “If yo ass a turd I’mma tell ’em you’re a turd.” -Chargers coach Anthony Lynn on being honest with other coaches about personnel.

What can I say, using “turd” and “yo ass” to refer to a person in the same sentence really did it for me. Is it all about butts and poop for you?

Seventh: “Bring yo sweet and sour chicken ass home.” -Keenan Allen, to Chris Harris Jr.

The ratio of people talking about what a good trash talker Keenan Allen is to Keenan Allen actually talking trash this episode was about 10 to one. The package on the rivalry between Keenan Allen and cornerback Chris Harris Jr. culminated with Allen calling Harris (I think?) a “sweet and sour chicken ass.”

I’m still scratching my head over this one. Maybe it’s an inside joke? Was that just the edgiest burn they could show on TV? Was it like Charlie Parker, where he got called out for eating chicken one day and was “Bird” forever after? I need the annotated version of Hard Knocks.

Colorful Underdog We’re Trying To Make Happen

Starter: Juju Hughes.

Haha, this guy has a toothpick in all the time! Can you believe it? What a character!

These poor producers, they have to try to give us the inspirational underdog player to root for that we expect from this show without any actual games to go on (and, I assume, heavy monitoring from the NFL of what they’re allowed to show). Everyone’s so image and scandal conscious that now the best we can do is a guy whose shtick is an ever-present toothpick. A toothpick! Gosh! (Also, Benson Henderson would like a word.)

Second: Clay Johnston.

Speaking of gosh, if gosh was a person it’d be Rams LB Clay Johnston. There’s a yawning chasm between how invested in Clay Johnston Hard Knocks wants us to be and how interesting Clay Johnston actually is. An aw shucks coach’s son who never swears? Hard pass, guys.

If you didn’t roll your eyes hard enough at Johnston yelling “fudge!” during plays these past two weeks, this week gave us Johnston referring to Brett Favre (at whose wedding Clay’s father was the best man) as “Papa Favre.” Yeccch. I don’t think Brett Favre’s actual dick pics could make me cringe harder than the words “Papa Favre.” Papa Favre, why are these Wranglers so comfortable?

The only brief sympathy for Johnston I could muster was when his father started giving him grief over his “long hair.” That’s the long hair you can see in the screencap above, which didn’t go past his eyebrows. Some real “trim those sideburns, Mattingly!” vibes.

Third: Dont’e Deayon

Double D made a couple plays in the scrimmage this week, how about that!

Fallback Career

Starter: Chargers LB Melvin Ingram III as a rapper

Second: Rams QB Jared Goff as a member of the Village People

With the mask it actually looks like some kind of Village People burlesque.

Most Studiously Boring Veteran

Starter: Joey Bosa.

Sweet Jesus, does Joey Bosa always sound like that? Joey Bosa’s voice sounds like Ben Stein after a handful of quaaludes. If this is a strategy, to be as boring as possible in order to avoid the media scrutiny that might produce a scandal, Joey Bosa is doing an excellent job. Joey Bosa is the league MVP of boring dude cosplay.

Bombshell Of The Week

Starter: Did you know they used shaving cream and shoe polishers to rehab old footballs? As hard as the producers tried to find interesting color from the players this week I could’ve used more about the guy who puts Barbasol on the old footballs and polishes them up with a shoe polisher.

Only one more episode of this, you guys. And then we get NFL football. Maybe. Honestly don’t hold your breath at this point.

After his breakout debut Worlds in 2014, Porter Robinson remained quiet. That is, until this January when the singer returned with his first new music in six years. Robinson ushered in a new era with the wistful track “Get Your Wish.” After dropping “Something Comforting” in March, Robinson returns once again with the airy single “Mirror.”

The new single boasts glitchy melodies and moves fluidly between lulling piano and a driving beat. Much like the rest of his catalog, Robinson distorts his vocal track, taking it to brand-new heights.

In a statement about the track, Robinson said it’s a reflection about being his own worst critic:

“‘Mirror’ is a song about the costs of being hard on yourself. We all have these avatars that we give to our critical inner voices – we might imagine a scornful parent telling us we’ll fail, or a critic telling us our work comes up short, or a society telling us that we aren’t good enough – it’s about recognizing that most of this criticism is self-inflicted. For years, I was imagining the worst thing a critic might say about my music and looking at my own work as negatively as possible as a way to protect myself from criticism, but it never once served me. My hope is that other people can overcome this same kind of shame – it can be really liberating to recognize that most of the time, we’re only letting our own thoughts get in the way, and we can do something about it.”

Listen to “Mirror” above.

There’s a lot of “Hemingway” foods and drinks out there. Papa was the original gourmand, blazing his own culinary path across the world. The Hemingway Sour and the Hemingway Daiquiri are probably the most popular. Then there’s the Hemingway Hamburger.

I was only tangentially aware of this recipe. I’d read about it here and there but really didn’t know more than it was a hamburger that Hemingway preferred to make while living in Cuba. I decided to rectify that situation and actually make the damned thing. But first, let’s get a little background.

This is a real recipe from Hemingway himself. It was part of the writer’s “papers” from his time in Cuba which were donated to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. The papers included correspondence with Hemingway’s editors, personal letters, and even shopping lists with handwritten notes and recipes, including the scribe’s famous hamburger recipe.

The recipe’s gist is two-fold. One, it’s meant to be a hamburger that’s full of flavor and texture inside the patty. Two, it’s meant to be super “juicy” and meaty. Hemingway’s recipe was also very exact. He gives tips on how long to let the meat rest, marinate, sear, and cook in precise minutes. I tried to follow these as exactly as they were written.

I wasn’t trailblazing any new paths here. This road has been walked before by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan for the Paris Review. Tan gives very helpful instructions and also helped with sourcing a couple of ingredients I couldn’t get my hands on. After I followed Hemingway’s instructions via Tan’s guidance, I decided to see what would happen if I add my own flair to the hamburger with some of the things I like on my burger.

Okay, that’s enough preamble. I love making recreation hamburgers. So, let’s get into the Hemingway Hamburger and see if it stands the test of time.

The Hemingway Hamburger

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. ground beef (85/15 lean/fat)
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1 green onion finely chopped
• 1 heaping tsp. India relish*
• 2 tbsp. capers
• 1 heaping tsp. Spice Islands Sage
• 1/2 tsp. Spice Islands Beau Monde Seasoning**
• 1/2 tsp. Spice Islands Mei Yen Powder***
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/3 cup dry white wine
• 1 tbsp. neutral cooking oil

*This is likely just the regular Heinz India Relish from the late 19th century. The recipe on the jar is identical to Heinz Sweet Relish. Sot that’s what I used since that’s what I could get.

**I cannot get Spice Islands Beau Monde Seasoning. So I looked it up and recreated it from scratch using Spruce Eats’ recipe. It’s a mix of one tablespoon each ground clove, onion powder, salt, ground bay leaf, allspice, black pepper, and one teaspoon each white pepper, nutmeg, mace, and ground celery seed. I combined everything into a small bowl and mixed it together

***Spice Islands Mei Yen Powder has been discontinued. So I used the instructions Tan gives in the Paris Review guide. It’s a mix of nine parts salt to nine parts sugar to two parts MSG. I combined 4 1/2 teaspoons salt, 4 1/2 teaspoons white sugar, and 1 teaspoon MSG in a small bowl and mixed it together.

Prep:

So, Papa described the first step of the burger-making process as such: “Break up the meat with a fork and scatter the garlic, onion, and dry seasonings over it, then mix them into the meat with a fork or your fingers.”

As you can see above, that’s what I did … in too small a bowl. So I transferred everything to a bigger bowl and used my fingers to mix the garlic, onion, and dry seasonings into the meat. Hemingway then says to let the meat rest for “ten or fifteen minutes.” So, I did.

And yeah, I can see the point of giving the spices and salts a chance to marry to the meat. Next, I added the rest of the ingredients. I was a little incredulous though. I’ve added an egg to a patty in the past (I lived through the early 2000s after all). But it often isn’t necessary. And I really couldn’t see an entire one-third cup of white wine not making this all a little sloppy. Anyway, I trudged on diligently, trusting in Papa’s gourmand ways.

So, I added in the beaten egg, minced capers, relish, and white wine. I worked in the wet ingredients with my hands. It was at first a little sloppy but did start to come together into a super-soft meatloaf after about a minute of kneading.

I then let that meat rest of ten minutes to “marinate.” Finally, I formed four, equal-sized patties very gingerly. The meat was very soft and needed a lot of coaxing to stay together. But, I was able to make four thickish patties that met Hemingway’s requirement of “an inch thick, and soft in texture but not runny.”

Cook:

I got my cast iron on a high flame and added some Canola oil — one tablespoon as per the recipe.

Once the skillet was hot but not smoking, again per the recipe, I added in two patties and turned the heat down. I let the patties fried for exactly four minutes.

Papa then says to “take the pan off the burner and turn the heat high again. Flip the burgers over, put the pan back on the hot fire, then after one minute, turn the heat down again, and cook another three minutes.” So, I did exactly that. Accept one thing — I added two slices of aged Irish Cheddar to one of the patties for my experimental update. It’s also important to note that I never pressed down on the patties.

In the meantime, I toasted off two potato buns with butter and garlic powder in another pan. Once, those were ready, the three minutes had passed on the second side of the patties and we were ready to plate up.

As you can see below, the patties shrunk a little bit but maintained their girth. I was hoping they also maintained their juices because there’s nothing worse than a thick patty that’s also dry.

Looking at this crosssection of the burger, it’s pretty clear Papa knew what he was doing when it came to thick and juicy burgers. The look of this burger was very enticing with the speckles of relish, capers, and onions adding a nice nuance. But how did it taste?

The damn thing was dripping with juices full of flavor too. It was slightly funky with all the capers and relish alongside a real meatiness. It was also an umami bomb of a burger. The relish and capers did add a little bit of a textural element that I’d say is a step back from a crunch but you know it’s there. It’s really all about the flavors and this burger was full of them.

I mean, look at all that juice that comes out of this burger when you squeeze it! And yes, it was delicious all on its own on that bun.

The Updated Version or: The Hemingway Deluxe

So, I had to try this with a few accouterments to modernize it a bit. Hemingway’s Hamburger is literally just a burger patty on a bun and I had to know if it needed anything else.

Additions:

So, I added two slices of aged Irish cheddar, a slice of in-season beefsteak tomato, some more pickle (I love pickles on burgers), and a couple of thin slices of yellow onion.

I decided to forgo any lettuce or sauce. There’s so much juice in the patty, that the sauce would have been washed away. As for the lettuce, I didn’t feel like a cold, bitter crunch would have added much more to all the flavors already in play.

And yeah, this was great. But about two bites in, I realized it was a great burger not because what I put on it but because that god damn patty was so god damn good. In fact, I’d argue the cheese smothered a little sharpness of the burger patty which I didn’t want happening at all.

Final Thoughts:

This hamburger was really better with the less it had on it. If I made this again, I’d go full Ron Swanson and simply serve you this patty on a well-toasted bun. I’d watch as your doubts turned to bliss as you took your first bite and realized you can have a perfect hamburger with simply a patty and a bun and nothing else. I know it sounds crazy. But alas, it’s as true as the sun rising again tomorrow.

Discogs is the unofficial home to all things music. The site is a crowd-sourced and comprehensive resource for information and discourse on artist discographies, from commercial to bootleg releases. With Record Store Day adjusting to life amid the pandemic, users are flocking to the site to decide which exclusive vinyls they should pick up. That’s where one Discogs user came in. Inspired by Okayplayer’s shortlist of Black-owned record stores, one Discogs user has begun rounding up an growing catalog of Black-owned record stores to support.

As the #ShowMustBePaused industry blackout took place in June, Discogs user Ben Kessler decided to lean on the community to form an encyclopedia of Black-owned record stores. Speaking to Discogs about the project, Kessler said as the national conversation focused on Black voices, he wanted people to be aware of these independent record stores: “I thought it made the most sense to stand in solidarity with Black record store owners in this small way. Nobody should expect something in return for his or her support of what is right, but if someone was going to buy a record anyway, wouldn’t it make the most sense to buy it from someone who is already competing on the wrong end of an uneven playing field?”

Kessler continued that he sees vinyl-heads as a largely white group, but recognizes many of those buying vinyls focus on music from Black artists:

“I don’t think one has to be collecting records for particularly long to realize we are a largely homogeneous group. I’m 35 and have been buying records since I was around 12 or 13. White men are the vast majority of folks in record stores on both sides of the counter. This is despite the fact that we are often buying recordings created by Black artists or by people who owe, to say the last, a debt of gratitude to Black creators. All parts of the music supply chain should be representative of the people who make the music.”

At the time of publication, Kessler’s list boasts 29 entries, but he hopes the list will continue to grow with the help of the music community.

Check out and contribute to the list here.

Winning the Madden NFL 20 Celebrity Tournament wasn’t enough for Derwin James, it seems, as the Chargers safety is doubling down on his competitiveness in the game by spearheading the NFL’s Madden offerings this upcoming season. James will take on a new challenger each Tuesday in “Derwin James vs The World,” which will feature a different celebrity, musical artist or athlete taking on James each week of the NFL season.

The tournament is the keynote event of the Madden NFL 21 Championship Series, which will pair Madden competition with real gridiron competition among NFL players throughout the fall and winter. Also on Tuesdays, different NFL athletes will compete against competitive Madden gamers in a King of the Hill tournament, with gamers competing for a $1.4 million prize pool.

“Fans got a taste of my skills when I won the Madden NFL 20 Celebrity Tournament back in April, and this time, I’m back to quiet any doubters that I’m the best Madden player in the League,” James said in a statement. “I’m a huge Madden fan and I look forward to showing up every Tuesday to take on new challengers and ultimately test my skills against the season’s best Madden player.”

James’ games and the King of the Hill competition will be broadcast each week on the Madden Twitch page and the game’s YouTube channel. The game itself will be available on Friday, Aug. 28, while those who purchased the MVP Edition of the game have access starting Wednesday.

It’s hard to believe that almost two months have passed since Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds fired new shots in their years-long “feud,” but it just came roaring back to life on Tuesday. While appearing on The Jess Cagle Show, Jackman was asked what he’d get Reynolds for his upcoming birthday in October, and you can definitely say the gift idea is pretty crappy. Literally. Via The Hollywood Reporter:

“The first thing that came to mind was a game we used to play as kids, did you ever play that game, we used to call it Ring and Run?” Jackman began. “Where you go knock on someone’s door and run away. So of course my older brother took it to the next level and when you came to open the door there was a package that was on fire. The package was filled with various amounts of dog poo from the neighborhood. So you would stamp it out. That’s the first thing that came to mind.”

Jackman was also asked about a recent fan request that he and Reynolds star in a reboot of Face/Off, the ’90s action film from director John Wo that saw Nicolas Cage and John Travolta swap faces and do battle. Surprisingly, Jackman seemed into it, but he had one very specific condition. “Is it possible to shoot it where we are actually never together? Is that possible?”

The last time the two adversaries “met,” Reynolds crashed an X-Men virtual reunion in June prompting everyone to leave after the actor mocked the film franchise’s convoluted timelines. “It’s like a recap of Knot’s Landing,” the Deadpool star quipped as Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, James McAvoy, and Sophie Turner filed out one-by-one until only Reynolds and Jackman were left alone together.

(Via The Jess Cagle Show)

Moroccan-Canadian singer-songwriter Faouzia turned 20 years old recently, and she has already made waves in her young career. She has collaborations with David Guetta and Kelly Clarkson under her belt, and she has dropped some material unaccompanied in 2020. She shared “How It All Works” in July, and now she returns with another new one, the brief but blood-pumping “Born Without A Heart.”

Faouzia explained her musical background in a recent interview, saying, “I started performing at a really young age, and when people would come up to me after talent shows and such, they would always say the kindest and most supportive things! It made me think, ‘Hey!, Maybe I can start performing more often!’ Eventually, I decided that I wanted to start putting covers on YouTube and I released my first song when I was fifteen years old. It was a gradual process, but it has always been a passion of mine and I’m so happy that I get to do what I love.”

She also hinted at her plans for 2020, saying, “This year has been very unpredictable but one thing I know for sure is that there is a lot of music coming and I am so excited for everyone to hear it!”

Watch the “Born Without A Heart” video above.