“He was articulate. He was grounded. He was spiritual. He was an athlete. He was an organizer. He was a comforter. He was an encourager.”

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Protesters enraged over two unarmed black people killed by police led to a Minneapolis precinct being stormed and the activation of the national guard.

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If you’re brand new to TikTok, it’s only a matter of time before you realize that when it comes to everyone’s favorite new social media app, it’s all about style over substance. For me, that moment came when I stumbled across the “pancake cereal” trend that has absolutely dominated the app this month — racking up over a billion views under its respective hashtag. Like March’s whipped instant coffee fad, pancake cereal requires absolutely no skill or special tools to make, and most importantly looks amazing!

Never mind how it tastes, right? Who wouldn’t want to eat a bowl of tiny pancakes? Looking cute, cool, or interesting is all food needs in order to go viral on TikTok.

For non-users of the platform, there’s no crazy recipe for success here. Tiny versions of things are cute, and TikTok loves cute things. This particular trend originated back in April thanks to a post by Sydney Melhoff who “discovered” pancake cereal after she made a batch of regular pancakes, removed some of the batter splashes from the pan and realized the tiny mini pancakes tasted amazing. From there, she made an entire bowl, put a pad of butter on top, poured some milk over it, and set the whole thing to “Over It Chinese New Year Remix” by JohhnyG.

The rest was (supposedly) delicious history. Unfortunately, once you look past how cute pancake cereal is and think about what it might taste like, you’ll quickly realize that the answer is: probably not terrific. First, you make a large batch of tiny little pancakes (okay, those sound good), then you spatula them into a bowl (no problem), then you put a pad of butter on top with a maple syrup drizzle (right, because they’re pancakes), and then you pour milk into the bowl (because it’s implied by the whole “cereal” bit). At which point, you quickly discover that there’s a reason all the videos end as soon as the milk is poured in. No one actually wants a bowl of soggy little pancakes.

With a fair bit of cooking time on our hands in quarantine, we took her Melhoff’s pancake cereal recipe and tested it out. She’s a legend in the tiny food genre (oh yes, it’s a thing), so this was the natural place to start. Once we realized that, adorable as it was, the recipe wasn’t going to work from a taste standpoint, we got creative with it and cobbled together a something that was far more enjoyable (if perhaps slightly less adorable).

Everything You Need To Make Pancake Cereal

• Pancake mix (you can, of course, make your pancakes from scratch, using real vanilla bean and 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract like our pancake-obsessed food editor, but you don’t need to)
• Zip-lock bag
• Scissors
• Butter
• Maple syrup

Like Dalgona coffee, you likely have everything you need to make pancake cereal at home right now. You don’t need to follow a special pancake batter recipe and you don’t need any special tools, just use whatever pancake mix you have in your pantry, pour it in a zip-lock bag, clip the tip, and pour batter droplets the size of a penny all over the pan. [Please at least put a little vanilla extract in there -the pancake-obsessed editor]

Everyone in your house will make fun of you for pretending to be a pastry chef with your piping bag, but the smell of freshly made tiny pancakes will win them over. Once your pancakes are done, put them in a bowl, add a pad of butter, drizzle some maple syrup.

Sounds simple but you mentioned something about it tasting bad?

Yeah, it’s absolutely awful. Once milk hits your pancakes, they will instantly soak it up and start to swell to twice their size as they become inundated with milk. Also a pad of butter in milk? What are you out of your mind? The milk will make it cold and it won’t melt. You’ll ignore it until you get wrapped up in a conversation and take a bite without looking only to find a pad of cold butter in your mouth.

Truthfully, there isn’t a single pleasant bite to be had with this dish. If you don’t have plans to film yourself putting it together and setting it to some way-too-loud remix that blows out everyone’s speakers, just don’t even bother. No shade towards Sydney Melhoff — she’s a master at making cute tiny foods. But in no world does this taste good.

But there’s got to be a way, right?

I wasn’t about to spend almost an hour making really tiny pancakes just to throw them away. So I got creative with it, not for TikTok fame, not for the sake of this article, but because I couldn’t bring myself to leave pancake cereal in the realm of “a thing that is not nearly as delicious as it sounds.”

Let me set the scene for you:

The time was 10 p.m. A gentle westerly wind blew through the kitchen window. The faint sound of a dog barking at a possum could be heard in the distance over a gentle wash of chirps from the late spring crickets. As the dank smell of freshly smoked cannabis wafted through the house, a lonely man toiled away above his stovetop — drip-dropping pancake batter onto an iron pan radiating with heat. One-by-one, the housemates who had previously criticized the man with his bag-o-batter floated into the kitchen like Looney Tunes characters, enticed by the irresistible smell of pancakes after a weed session. Eyes wide with wonder and stomachs grumbling.

“Ready yet?” they asked.

“No,” said the man, cackling maniacally as he scooped the last of the pancakes into a bowl, tossed them with butter, and arranged them on a piece of foil. “For now, comrades, they must toast.”

“Oh… alright then,” his friends said, eyeing him strangely. “Um… just let us know when you’re done or whatever?”

The man set his ancient toaster oven to 300 degrees and it began to rattle. Its coils took on a menacing red glow. As the man pulled open the toaster oven’s creaking door, the smell of a fallen onion from someone else’s sandwich overwhelmed him.

“Damn, I’ll have to clean this stupid thing first,” he thought.

After a deep clean, the man was back on track. He gave his pancake dots 30 minutes of baking time in the real oven, plus a single toast cycle. At this point, the man’s housemates had lost interest and either gone to bed or ordered pizza. It was better this way. His mad creation was finally complete and was his alone to savor.

And it was actually pretty damn good.

So wait, you did what?

The biggest problem with TikTok’s pancake cereal is that it isn’t at all like cereal. It’s just tiny, and in a bowl with milk. That doesn’t make it cereal and if you don’t believe that, just take a look at this sushi iteration (disgusting). So I decided to toast and dry my mini pancakes like bread crumbs in the toaster oven to give them a more cereal-like consistency and more resistant to being soaked. Then I doused them in a cinnamon-sugar blend, and let them cool until they were room temperature. You know, like cereal is.

• Once you’ve made mini-pancakes, toss them in a bowl with butter and maple syrup so that you don’t put those ingredients in the milk like some kind of monster.
• Arrange pancakes on a piece of foil and place them in an oven set at 300 degrees for 30 minutes.
• Remove pancakes from oven and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar to taste.
• For an extra toasty crunch, toast your pancakes in the toaster oven with your preferred amount of toast cycles.
• Let pancakes cool.
• Put pancakes in a bowl, pour your choice of milk, and enjoy your legitimately good tasting pancake cereal.

The end result is deliciously crispy (we’re talking ASMR-level crunch here) and incredibly filling. The butter and syrup toss and extended oven time allowed the flavors to comingle a little and marry with the milk in a way that isn’t totally offensive.

Does this taste better than the actual TikTok pancake trend? Absolutely. Is this better than your favorite cereal? It depends on how much you like pancakes. Is it at all worth the time and effort that it takes to make this? It depends on how much you like the idea of pancakes and cereal or have people over for breakfast you want to impress. But if you’re going to go through the trouble of making over a hundred tiny pancakes, you might as well take another few minutes to truly make something that actually tastes good. Even if it’s not as prone to virality.

Orville Peck is one of the more enigmatic figures in country music, and yet, he has found himself a space within the genre. The 2019 debut album Pony brought acclaim to the mysterious singer, and now he is ready to follow that release up with a new EP, Show Pony. That is set to drop on June 12, and alongside the announcement, he also shared a video for “No Glory In The West.”

The somber tune is accompanied by a trail-faring tune, in which he and his horse search for something across mostly barren landscapes. Lyrically, the tune mirrors the visual as it addresses his restless travels. Peck sings, “Blazin’ on ahead / Burning through it / Coming down the bend / Nowhere left to go, goin’s all we know / Ridin’ past the best / And there’s still no rest / And there’s still no rest / There ain’t no glory in the west.”

One of the biggest takeaways from the six-song Show Pony tracklist is that it features “Legends Never Die,” which is a duet with country legend Shania Twain, so that is certainly something to anticipate.

Watch the “No Glory In The West” video above, and check out the Show Pony art and tracklist below.

1. “Summertime”
2. “No Glory In The West”
3. “Drive Me, Crazy”
4. “Kids”
5. “Legends Never Die” (duet with Shania Twain)
6. “Fancy”

Show Pony is out 6/12 via Sub Pop. Pre-order it here.

As viral TMZ footage of Denzel Washington helping a homeless man during a police encounter continues to circulate, it’s worth noting another Denzel connection as highlighted in an Esquire profile of his son, John David Washington. That article’s part of the lead up to the (still planned) July release of Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, and we’ve already discussed how the Inception director decided to cast the younger Washington while attending the world premiere of Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman. Yet the Denzel portion of the profile is really something as well.

Prior to Lee’s film, John David had appeared within few roles, but as it turns out, Denzel was the last immediate family member to be aware of his son’s acting aspirations (given his football leanings) until he landed a role on HBO’s Ballers. John David told Esquire that his mother had driven him to an audition, since he was medicated after a surgery to repair his Achilles tendon — an injury that effectively ended his athletic career. The pair kept the audition situation under wraps from dad, who was in “disbelief” when John David shared the wonderful news:

“There was disbelief,” Washington says. The reaction couldn’t have been further from that celebration when he was signed by the NFL years earlier. His dad “kept asking questions like ‘For HBO? Like Home Box Office Entertainment? Who? Really? But what’s it called? The Rock?’ He just kept asking questions like ‘Is this real?’ I guess he had to check it with his agents to make sure it was real.”

Nothing like a vote of confidence from dad, even if it took a little while for Denzel to realize this was really happening, right? Still, John David explained that Denzel was quite pleased before insisting that some formal acting classes would soon be in order. Well, everything appears to have worked out for the better for all involved, and John David Washington will soon be seen in one of the only blockbusters still scheduled for summer 2020. Tenet will land in theaters on July 17.

(Via Esquire)

Cardi B has never timid about sharing her views on current events and with the recent police killing of George Floyd and subsequent uprising in Minnesota, the Bronx rapper has once again chimed in to provide context and suggest a possible solution. She opened her latest Instagram video with her reaction to the uprisings overtaking Minnesota, saying that she’s “scared” of the images, but that she understands.

“It makes me feel like, ‘Finally, yes. Motherf*ckers are gonna hear us now,’” she explains. “And as much as people is so against it, at this point, I feel like I’m not against it even though it do scare me and I don’t want anybody to get hurt. It’s really frustrating because police brutality been going on even way before I was born, but it’s been more visible ever since social media started getting popping… How many peaceful protests have we seen? How many trending hashtags have we seen?”

Cardi even throws in a self-deprecating reference to her own habit of posting videos in response to injustice. “I’ve been doing police brutality videos ever since my teeth been f*cked up and the only thing that changed has been my f*cking teeth. People are tired.” However she doesn’t leave it there, reminding her viewers that the most control they have is through the existing systems. “I don’t wanna make everything political, but it is what it is. It’s by voting. And when I say ‘voting’ I’m not only talking about the president. We can vote for mayors, we can vote for judges, and we can also vote for D.A.s (district attorneys)… They have the power to prosecute these cops.”

In an earlier video, Cardi also announced her partnership with GoGiveaways explaining that they are giving away $20,000 to four people. In the caption, she writes: “I’m giving away $20,000 to 4 people! During these hard and uncertain times I have decided to team up with GoGiveaways and give back to those in need. Although we cannot control the effects of Covid-19 We hope that we can make a difference in a few peoples lives and lift the financial burden.”

Watch Cardi B’s political plea above.

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

Aubrey Plaza’s awkward and weird, and she knows it. She recently revisited one of her most notoriously unwieldy characters in the reunion special for Parks and Recreation, and she’s found no shortage of various awkward and/or weird roles, from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World to Safety Not Guaranteed, and from Legion to Playing It Cool and so on. She further carries that vibe onto talk shows, where she’s showcased her famously deadpan humor to perfection. Now, Aubrey’s getting a little less strange alongside Kenan Thompson for a Barefoot Bubbly ad campaign, in which she indulges in a “#SummerDream in a can” with the brand’s Hard Seltzer and Spritzer drinks.

The Life After Beth zombie chatted with us about this ad gig and, in doing so, she was gracious enough to take a look back at her most awkward auditions. We also discussed her thirst to portray the She-Hulk lead (“I have a rage brewing within me”), and she passed on audition advice that, while useful for her, one probably doesn’t want to take. Oh, and Aubrey’s adept at roasting people, as we saw when she hosted this year’s Indie Spirit Awards, but I didn’t overlook that there was awkward dancing to talk about, too.

It’s excellent to be talking with a fellow awkward weirdo, especially one whose brand is strong in that department.

Oh my god. You are welcome in my awkward weirdo club. We need more members to make people feel uncomfortable.

Speaking of uncomfortable, Michael Schur once declared that you scored the April role on Parks and Rec role by making him feel uncomfortable for an hour. Was that a strategy?

No, I swear to god. What’s so funny about that meeting is that I didn’t even realize the weight of that meeting. At the time, The Office was so popular, and I was a huge fan, and when I went to LA, the casting director asked me if I wanted to go meet them, and I was like, “Sure!” And she said they were on the set of The Office, so all I cared about was being on that set and seeing famous people from the cast. Because I was so starstruck, I kept seeing like Mindy Kaling walk by, and I was like, “I can’t believe I’m on the set of The Office.” So I guess I was being awkward because I wasn’t paying attention to him? I didn’t realize that they were actually making a TV show that I could be on. I never in a million years thought that I would end up on a TV show, I just thought I was just doing a weird general meeting, and I just kept looking out the door and trying to see people from The Office.

He played it off like you were doing the side-eye for an hour straight or something.

I know! I think I just wasn’t engaged in the way that maybe I should have been because most people would be like, “Oh, this is my big shot at being on a TV show.” But in my mind, I was like, “I don’t care about that! I care about meeting famous people.” But I guess it worked out!

Let’s awkwardly talk about the Barefoot canned beverages. What is the difference between the Barefoot hard seltzer and the Barefoot spritzer?

Okay, well, I’m an expert at this now, and I will tell you that the Barefoot hard seltzer is basically like sparkling water and wine. And it’s the best because I have to be on the Barefoot hard seltzer team because Kenan and I had to pick sides. So, that is my favorite, and Barefoot spritzers taste like wine with a splash of water, basically, so they’re a little bit more sweet and really good, but Barefoot hard seltzers have that crisp, refreshing sparkling water taste, and they’re also sweet.

So if I’m the kind of person who drinks boxed wine, which would I like?

You would probably like the spritzers? Look, they are delicious. Wine with water sounds weird, but it’s actually really refreshing and good. The hard seltzers are more like if you’re into that carbonated bite-flavor, and it’s less calories and stuff, so if you’re watching your figure and don’t wanna get crazy, you might wanna opt for that. But the spritzers are so delicious that you might be like, “Fuck my figure, I need this.”

Can you dance while holding one of these cans?

Yeah, you can dance with them, and chug one and crush it up, and throw it in a bucket and make a game out of it. That’s what I would do. And then you recycle it because we have to be good.

Yes, we have to recycle. But now I’m thinking about how you once described your awkward dancing on Conan.

Oh god.

You were talking about your Irish heritage and how that reflected upon your dancing, like with Riverdance where they don’t move their arms.

Okay, so picture me with both of my arms pointing straight downward at the ground, but I have two hard seltzers in my hands and then only my feet are moving, and no one’s dancing with me because it’s weird. That’s pretty much what happens.

I need to see a Photoshop of that, which reminds me, there are Photoshops out there from Marvel fans who are dreamcasting She-Hulk. You’ve been talking about wanting that role for years. Is that still a dream?

Yes, of course! I would be honored to play She-Hulk. It’s such a fun character, and I think it would be perfect for me because people think that I’m very quiet and awkward, but I have a rage brewing within me, and it would give me an opportunity to let that out. And let my freak flag fly in a way that I could also… save the world? With my rage. Also, I really wanna be green.

Well, I saw how you throttled Michael Shannon in a The Lighthouse spoof, so I think we need to campaign for you to get that rage out somehow.

Thank you! This is what I’m talking about. No one believes in me, but I can do this! If you just give me a chance to be green and to rage out, but also be funny. I feel like I’ve got it all going on, but we’ll see what the Marvel gods want.

You got to get a little comic-book-y, if that is a word, with Legion.

Yeah, I got a taste of it.

How’d you get that role, which was meant for a middle-aged man?

I don’t know. Something about my aura, I guess. I wanted to get with Noah Hawley about playing the female lead, and then after he met one time, he offered me this one part. And after meeting me, I guess he thought, “Actually, Aubrey would be great at playing a middle-aged drug addict man in a mental institution.” I don’t remember what I said in that meeting, but I guess it was disturbing. Also, at the time, I had been recovering from ACL knee surgery, so I was on a lot of pain medication, so maybe I was, like, saying some crazy stuff on my meds and looked probably insane because I was walking on crutches. I just looked like a crazy person, and he was like, “Perfect!”

That part about the meds almost makes too much sense.

Yes, always go to an audition after you’ve had major surgery.

Great career advice there. You also hosted the Independent Spirit Awards again this year, and in doing so, you made the case that award show hosts might not be a dying breed. How did you tackle your channeling of an icon, Judy Garland?

That’s like my 12-year-old dream come true. Honestly, one of the reasons why I decided to host again is because Judy was nominated because I was so obsessed with her when I was little that I thought, “This is my chance!” To do a Judy celebration, one that I could get away with because it’s relevant. So, I just went for it. I decided, “You know what? I’m gonna be selfish about this, I’m gonna write something that I wanna do.” I thought that it also fit in with the Jojo Rabbit kind-of vibe where you have an imaginary friend, and I just combined that with Judy. And I also wanted to do an opening number, so I just leaned into the Judy-ness. I was just hoping it wouldn’t come off crazy and embarrassing.

It really did fit the Jojo Rabbit vibe, now that I think back.

Thank you! And I wanted it to be different than last year, which was a little more in line with the persona that people think of me as, like a witchy, demonic incantation, but this year, I was like, “You know what? Fuck it. I’m gonna put on a show, just like Judy would do!” And I’m nostalgic for the Billy Crystal Oscar openings. I think people remember those shows because of him, you know? And when you don’t have a host, there’s nothing to remember the show by. I hate to lose that. I think it’s important.

Do you think there’s any way to move back into having an Oscar host, with how politicized it’s all become? Old tweets get dug up, and hosts get picked apart.

I hope so! I don’t know. I think we’re living in a kind-of scary time when people are so afraid to be in the spotlight. I would hope that people would be open to someone just taking a shot at it, and there would be a way for someone to get up there and do something that doesn’t have to be some huge political statement. I don’t really do that in the shows that I do because I’m more interested in celebrating art. And art is complicated, and we can’t make everything political all the time. There’s a time and place for it, but can’t we just celebrate movies?

You clearly enjoy roasting people, so is there anyone who you’d love to roast but haven’t done yet? And who would you not want to roast?

Robert De Niro gave away the final award of that show, and I wanted him to be sitting in the audience and in the front row, so I could roast him, and that would be really funny because he did a movie called Dirty Grandpa, which is ridiculous in and of itself. I would love to roast him someday if given the chance, but who’s someone who I wouldn’t want to roast? Hmm, Meryl Streep.

Yeah, she’s untouchable.

She’s untouchable, and she’s the coolest. I want to be her, so I can’t roast her.

Watch Aubrey Plaza and Kenan Thompson’s Barefoot Wine and Bubbly #SummerDream commercial below.

America went five long months without being about to bingewatch Friends. It was a dark era between when the series left Netflix forever and resurfaced on HBO Max, which was finally made available this week. Apparently, Friends still remained very popular during that five months, as viewers did the unthinkable: they bought physical copies of the series. In 2020. Insane!

In any respect, as we all revisit one of the most popular shows of all time now that it has returned to streaming, it’s also worth revisiting the story behind the four quick claps in that iconic Friends theme song.

Anyone who knows Friends knows the theme song, and anyone who knows the theme song knows those four rapid claps. Those claps, however, were something of a fluke, more of a necessary afterthought than an intentional inclusion. As the story goes, Don Ohlmeyer — the president of the NBC network’s west coast division — watched the title sequence after the pilot aired and hated it. “What is that title sequence? It’s terrible. It’s awful,” he told Friends co-creator Kevin S. Bright. The first iteration of the title sequence only contained footage of the six actors at the fountain, and Ohlmeyer didn’t like what it insinuated, according to Generation Friends by Saul Austerlitz.

“It says to the audience, ‘We’re young. We’re hip. We’re dancing in a fountain and you can’t dance with us!’”

Ohlmeyer hated it so much that he demanded that the show reinstate the original title sequence, set to R.E.M.’s “Shiny Happy People.” As anyone can see, however, the original title sequence with the R.E.M. song is terrible:

After deciding against “Shiny Happy People” as the permanent theme, composer Michael Skloff — the husband of co-creator Marta Kaufman — wrote “I’ll Be There for You” for the show, which was inspired by the sound of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. They tried to get Michael Stipe (of R.E.M.), Natalie Merchant (of 10,000 Maniacs) and They Might Be Giants to perform the song, but they all declined. They eventually settled on The Rembrandts to record Skloff’s theme. However, Ohlmeyer was very enamored with the title sequence that accompanied the “Shiny Happy People” theme, which included clips of the various characters from the show. Kevin Bright came up with a compromise: He’d splice in clips from the show with footage of the fountain set to “I’ll Be There for You.”

There was only one catch. Skloff had used some processed sounds to provide a drum fill at one particular point in “I’ll Be There for You.” When an actual band, The Rembrandts, recorded the theme, the processed drum fill was removed, and the theme was sent to Kevin Bright to play alongside the title credits. “We have real drums now, so the drummer did what he felt was natural at that moment.”

“Where’s that drum fill?” Bright asked when he received The Rembrandt’s version of “I’ll Be There For. You.” He had already edited together the title sequence set to Skloff’s version. In Skloff’s title sequence, he had used the four beats of the drum fill to create four, fast visual cuts. Without the drum fill, the title sequence didn’t quite work, so Kevin Bright had to improvise. After some conversation, Skloff — along with two assistants — got behind a microphone and clapped along with the song to provide the basis for the quick cuts in the title sequence. Those claps would end up becoming the most remembered part of the song.

As Saul Austerlitz writes in Generation Friends: “The most memorable sequence of one of the most memorable television theme songs ever had just been recorded,” because they needed a sound to sync to the quick cut edits.

While NBA Self-Isolation Watch has been primarily concerned with the pastimes and activities of basketball players since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and as much as it can start to feel like it as we all live in varying states of lockdown, the things that get covered in this column aren’t happening in a vacuum. You could say, and I hope you do, that the nuance even in what is meant to be a lighthearted break during this very anxious time has always been about experiencing what is going on globally with solidarity, for the sake of comfort, of relief.

There can be neither while people of color are targeted and murdered in broad daylight, on video, without recourse. The killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis this week, and the killing of Ahmaud Arbery in late February, exposed the cruelty and terror experienced by black communities and communities of color regularly and reverberated through the NBA. If you are angry, and I hope you are, you can work to have uncomfortable conversations with friends and family and be an anti-racist advocate when you witness marginalization and racialized violence. If you’re financially able, you can also donate to support local organizations like the Minnesota Freedom Fund.

Thanks and thanks, as always, for being here.

Rudy Gay

Let’s ease into this one. For ourselves, like when you stretch before a prolonged burst of activity but this time for your heart, and for the sake of really taking this photo in. My initial thought is that this is an old photo that Gay shared after he found it doing what we all have, scrolling back through photos on our phones, nostalgic for a few months ago. His caption backs that up. But there is still a freshness and jolting quality to the picture, mostly thanks to Kyle Lowry popping up right in the foreground, grinning in sunglasses. Behind and to either side of him, his friends, DeMar DeRozan and Rudy Gay, in matching patterns. Gay’s gaz has caught on something in the middle distance and DeRozan looks as if he’s waiting, in no real hurry, for a response to something he’s just said. Lowry is, as always, perfect.

Rating: It’s like waking up from the most wonderful dream you don’t remember having.

Otto Porter Jr.

Porter Jr. took a much needed break this past long weekend from worrying about the deer who frolic in his backyard. The definitive answer to whether he’s transfixed or terrified of them remains unclear, but it was nice to see him relaxing in the pool, reclined on what must be one of the world’s largest unicorn flotation devices.

Rating: My Memorial Day going forward is celebrating the first time I saw this photo.

LeBron James

James went for a bike ride with his family this week and like the enhanced dad he is, filmed the excursion in its entirety. This included all the big sights like that 7-11 coming up on the right and the towering palm trees. He got home and relaxed in the yard, rewarding himself with rose straight from his personal tap.

Rating: Fun fact – “Well guess it’s time! Mid day rose life” is a popular magnet on the refrigerator doors of 78 percent of aunts everywhere.

Jimmy Butler

Jimmy Butler played dominoes outside in the sunshine with the intense concentration only Jimmy Butler could when playing a relaxed, fun game.

Rating: Right after this he stared down an ice cream cone until it melted completely, he didn’t eat it, the pleasure from watching it return to its natural form was enough.

CJ McCollum

McCollum took his growing gigantic puppy to a peaceful Pacific Northwest beach to watch the sunset.

Rating: If we could get a livestream of this going, that’d be great.

Serge Ibaka

Ibaka returned to Toronto this week with a little more than he left with — hair! Even when slacking, the number one truth in Ibaka’s universe is to always grow handsomer.

Rating: Powerful physics, even greater than gravity, at work over here.

Maurice Harkless

Taking social distancing seriously, Harkless went out for a spin on the ocean during the holiday weekend. Keeping your distance on the wide blue yonder is a love shared by pirates, sea turtles and now, Maurice Harkless.

Rating: Also no better way to socially distance your soul, that is realize its tiny impermanence, than spending some time staring out to sea.

Lonnie Walker

Walker met original (steal your) Wife Guy, Tony Parker, and the two talked shop at Parker’s palatial looking place. Walker was very thrilled with the encounter and hopefully Parker shared some solid Spurs secrets, like why the Coyote wears a shirt but no pants.

Rating: Lonnie Walker is so nice.

Kyle Kuzma

Kuzma has entered into an entirely new phase of isolation and that is, one no longer on his own! Is this NBA Self-Isolation Watch breaking news? Kuzma and model Winnie Harlow are dating! It started with pretty cute comments on each other’s IG’s and ended with Harlow taking an extended visit to Kuzma’s L.A. home where they visited some goats and he regaled her with all the things he knows about wine from LeBron James. It’s really cute!

Rating: Does Kuzma need to be disqualified from NBA Self-Isolation Watch MVP candidacy?

Tim Hardaway Jr.

I have to assume Hardaway Jr. was watching the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for artistic research, maybe inspirations for the pop art movement given his coffee table book, because that movie is a glaring terror!

Rating: Wonka is a menace with a god complex at best, a common clown at worst!

Gordon Hayward

Aside from What’s App-ing his wife from the other room, Hayward has been off the grid this ISO. That changed this week when he came swinging (and swinging, and swinging) out of obscurity with a tiny hatchet he was prepared to weld for ever against the toughest defensive opponent he’s ever faced, a section of a dead tree in his driveway. His family looked on first in support, then judgement, as he made slow progress and took a few, huffing breaks. Eventually, he prevailed, and broke that little section off the larger whole, still lying in his driveway.

Rating: The Celtics legacy of greatness lives on.

Jordan Bell

Bell has had a long journey in his career and an even longer journey this week, when he drove from Minnesota, through Iowa, an aptly tagged “Middle of Nowhere, Nebraska”. At the end of his first day on the road he’d reached Denver. He either called it a night there or chugged on a little farther, because the morning of day two saw him hitting the open road around Salt Lake City, a good 8 hours from where the sun had last set on his journey. I hope he slept?

He hit the very north-western tip of Arizona coming down Highway 15, and passed through the perma-mirage of Las Vegas. Please note the dead bug splatter accumulation on Bell’s windshield, that’s over 2,000 miles of insects.

Finally, Bell pulled into his hometown of Long Beach, California. I bet he’d never been so happy to see the ocean! His dog made itself right at home while a road weary Bell looked really happy to see his mom.

Rating: Honestly, the only version of “On The Road” I’d be willing to read again.

Jaren Jackson Jr.

Jackson Jr. has graciously tossed us a few of his ISO looks these last eleven weeks, ranging from “going to the gas station” to this, “standing beside flowering hedge in dreamy, introspective lighting”. Each is a real gift and welcome divergence from “same sad inside clothes everyday”.

Rating: The lens flare, the vest, the range.

JaVale McGee

McGee got into what I’m sure many have since being stuck at home through a season change or just feeling like “well I guess there’s no better time to look through all the dumb junk I live with” and cleaned out his closet. He started with ball caps and it really only got that far which, fair, because there were a ton of hats.

Rating: JaVale McGee labeling his storage container with baseball hats “BASEBALL HATS” for what ails you.

Wayne Ellington

The last few times we’ve checked in on Wayne’s world he’s been tracking the movements of a very large iguana around his backyard. He always kept a respectful distance from it and it, from him. For whatever reason, perhaps because Ellington decided this near mythic creature deserved to live in a real swamp rather than around his pool, he had it removed by professionals this week.

Rating: The lesson? It’s Wayne’s world, you’re just lucky to be an iguana living in it.

Dewayne Dedmon

One of the nicest glimpses ISO has given us is of the new routines players are establishing with their families. Dewayne Dedmon here shows the solemnity of morning bubble hour(s) with his young son on the porch.

Rating: The morning bubbles, they must go up.

Malcolm Miller

Miller’s dog, North, has a message for you.

Rating: And I have a message for Miller — thank you.

Terrence Ross

Ross took his family to a drive-thru wildlife park in Florida called Wild Florida. All the animals looked incredibly overheated and bored, and so did Ross.

Rating: There is something soothingly meta, maybe metaphoric for the way in which we engage with our natural world, captured in the photo of a bison as Ross takes a photo of a photo of the bison.

Marco Belinelli

Beli was gifted this uhh, gorgeous work of art. This and the excruciatingly detailed Jurassic Park Lego scene he put together earlier in ISO make me wonder if his heart has not stayed firmly snagged on the tip of a particularly tall, iconic Canadian tower and the city wherein it resides.

Rating: Toronto, I mean Toronto.

Enes Kanter

It’s getting to the point where there is less and less need to caption these more than weekly — I just spare you the bulk of them — food exploitations from Kanter than to launch a public inquiry into his waffle iron budget.

Rating: It is not clear if he is actually eating these things or what his casual candy cache looks like.

Chris Boucher

The Slim Duck witnessed a pretty scary accident in Toronto when he was out for a walk this week. Two cars appeared to collide and one continued, running into a storefront and catching fire. There was a cyclist who narrowly escaped the trajectory of the runaway car, jumping clear of their bike as it crashed. Boucher and the biker were ok but understandably shook up.

Rating: Just a gentle PSA that if you drive, don’t treat emptier than normal roads as grounds to be a total freak, there are a lot more people walking and biking out there.

Chris Bosh

Because Paul Pierce has been lost, apparently, to time itself, we will check in with Chris Bosh this week to get our retired NBA guy enjoying himself fix, a pastime for which Bosh never disappoints. CB4 took a relaxed stroll along some winding, canyon trails with a complimentary sweater tied around his waist to match his cap. He dropped a “dance like nobody’s watching” quote equivalent from Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and called it a day.

Rating: Another, less attributed Aurelius quote is, “Damn, Bosh is chill as hell.”

Before the tragic and untimely passing of Juice WRLD, the rapper had more material in the tank. His first posthumous release came via a guest spot on Eminem’s “Godzilla,” which topped charts around the world. Last month brought his first posthumous single, “Righteous,” and now the Juice WRLD estate has dropped another new track, “Tell Me U Luv Me.”

This one comes alongside a Cole Bennett-directed video, which includes footage of the two in a studio space, as well as animated clips and live video of Juice on stage. On the track, Trippie and Juice express their admiration for a girl. Trippie sings on the chorus, “Tell me you love me, tell me everything gon’ be okay / Tell me you love me, tell me you love me and you gon’ stay.” Meanwhile, Juice kicks off his first verse, “B*tch, I’m a druggie, so can you hide my drugs from me? / And when I get lonely, can you be my company?”

“Tell Me U Luv Me” could be followed by a wealth of new material from Juice to come: Last month, Chicago rapper Lil Bibby indicated that a posthumous Juice WRLD album is on the way.

Watch the “Tell Me U Luv Me” video above.