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Weekend Preview: ‘Betty,’ ‘Hollywood,’ ‘Trying,’ And ‘Upload’ Launch, And ‘Billions’ Returns

Social distancing continues this weekend amid the global pandemic, and several new TV seasons are here for the binging. If nothing here suits your sensibilities, check out our guide to What You Should Watch On Streaming Right Now.

Betty (Friday, HBO 11:00 p.m.) — Skate Kitchen director Crystal Moselle (The Wolfpack) brings back her O.G. crew for this funny and freewheeling series about a group of young women who simply want to skate. Their street-level adventures are gorgeously (and authentically) shot, and these ladies are much cooler than all of us.

Billions (Sunday, Showtime 9:00 p.m.) — The fifth season begins with Chuck struggling to hold onto his bearings, Bobby Axelrod tackling a milestone, and tensions rising to a fever pitch at Axe Cap.

Trying (Apple TV+ series) — This British comedy stars Rafe Spall and Esther Smith as a thirty-something couple who’s struggling to grow up and settle down (while “trying” for a baby), and Imelda Staunton is along for the ride.

Upload (Amazon Prime series) — Greg Daniels (Parks and Recreation, The Office) created this sci-fi romantic satire series about a man who gets to select his own afterlife.

Hollywood (Netflix series) — Ryan Murphy’s latest brainchild follows an alt-history vibe in post-WWII Tinseltown that aims to put unfair systems and power dynamics, along with biases (race, gender, and sexuality), on blast. The show stars David Corenswet, Samara Weaving, Darren Criss, Jeremy Pope, Dylan McDermott, and more.

All Day And A Night (Netflix film) — Jeffrey Wright stars as a father who’s crushed to see his son (portrayed by Ashton Sanders) become his fellow prison inmate, especially since his son now has a newborn baby in the mix. The film’s written by Black Panther co-writer Joe Robert Cole and explores whether this family can break an ill-fated cycle.

Beastie Boys Story (Apple TV+ film) — Both diehard and casual fans can dig director Spike Jonze’s intimate and personal story of the collaborative adventures of Mike Diamond, Adam Horovitz, and Adam Yauch. The pioneering trio’s hybrid documentary-live stage performance film is hilarious, sad, and something you won’t want to miss.

Here’s the rest of this weekend’s notable programming:

Charmed (Friday, CW 8:00 p.m.) — The Charmed Ones are attempting to avert some new variety of demon disaster, but Maggie’s finding a double-edged sword within her newfound powers.

Friday Night In with The Morgans (Friday, AMC 10:00 p.m.) — Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Hilarie Burton are back (from home), hopefully with more motorcycle stories.

Real Time With Bill Maher (Friday, HBO 10:00 p.m.) — Virtual interview guests include Nancy Pelosi, Dr. David Katz, and Jay Leno.

Atlanta’s Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children (Sunday, HBO 8:00 p.m.) — Part V of HBO’s unraveling of a shameful legacy airs. Read our interview with two of the filmmakers, and then tune in to watch Wayne Williams’ odd behavior make no sense.

Batwoman (Sunday, CW 8:00 p.m.) — Alice receives a surprise visit, while Batwoman’s looking for an undercover favor from Julia and Luke.

Supergirl (Sunday, CW 9:00 p.m.) — Will Supergirl fall in line with Lex’s plan to have her square off against Leviathan? He’s attempting to get closer to Lena in the process.

Westworld (Sunday, HBO 9:00 p.m.) — Just think, this is only Season 3 with three more to go. This week, hosts and humans must face the music.

Killing Eve (Sunday, AMC 9:00 p.m.) — Eve is (for some reason) still attempting to make things right with the long-suffering Niko. Meanwhile, Villanelle’s thinking about her promotion, but she’s still got it, meaning that she’s still hooked on Eve, and vice versa.

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist (Sunday, NBC 9:00 p.m.) — A not-so-cheery song prompts Zoe toward a scramble to change the future.

Insecure (Sunday, HBO 10:00 p.m.) — Issa’s struggling to finalize her block party details, and Tiffany’s adjusting to life with a baby.

Run (Sunday, HBO 10:30 p.m.) — The new show from Fleabag and Killing Eve dynamic duo Vicky Jones and Phoebe Waller-Bridge barrels further down the train track as Ruby and Billy try to figure out whether this is all a huge mistake.

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Yes, Paul Giamatti Has Seen That Viral Subway Picture Of Himself

Paul Giamatti was hot and knew he was getting his photo taken. That’s his explanation, at least, for the viral shot of the Billions star (on an MTA train) that’s circulated online far longer than his New York City commute to wherever he was going.

The image, which was taken in 2017 during the MTA’s Summer of Hell, was included in a fairly robust list of celebrities who also seemed miffed by the delay-filled transit nightmare that was a big story in New York at the time. Things haven’t gotten much better on the trains in the years since, but these days, it is kind of nice to imagine traveling places and being inconvenienced by mass transit.

Anyway, Giamatti has definitely seen this photo and, what’s more, knew it was happening. In a GQ interview, he was asked about the viral photo and explained that, while yes it was a miserable commute because it was “hot” that day, he mostly made that annoyed face because he knew the moment would be captured forever by someone with a camera phone:

“My demeanor is really because I knew the guy was taking my picture and it was pissing me off. That’s actually what’s going on in that picture. I was like, “really dude?”

That’s what I thought was funny about that picture. I was like, “did it not occur to anybody that actually I’m pissed off ’cause I know a guy is taking my picture?” What’s funny when people do that is they think you don’t see them doing it, and it’s like, “I’m an actor, dude. I notice everything. That’s what I do for a living. I see everything going on around me.”

Giamatti makes a good point here: many of these ‘on the train’ moments feel like snapshots of everyday life because people aren’t used to having their photo taken. But Paul Giamatti on an MTA train is putting someone used to being noticed in close proximity with people who will likely notice him. And during the Summer of Hell in New York, pretty much everyone is going to look like that if they knew it was about to be captured forever.

(Via GQ)

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Total Bellas Total Recap: The Captain Of My Ship

Previously on Total Bellas: Nikki Bella dealt with accusations of the crime of Aunt Favoritism and Brie Bella dealt with the fallout from the much realer crime of someone stealing her car.

Was There Anything About Wrestling On This Week’s Episode Of Total Bellas?

Yes, almost everything in this episode was connected to wrestling! The drama mostly revolved around the Bellas heading back to the world of WWE for the premiere of Smackdown on Fox. Nikki dealt with the neck issues that drove her to retirement and considered non-wrestling options in WWE, Brie and Bryan’s marriage problems were again exacerbated by his touring schedule, and there was a moment of Hulk Hogan dialogue that nobody asked for. But let’s start with the storyline the least connected to wrestling.

Bellavision, Part 1

Remember how Artem got cut from the cast of Dancing with the Stars at the beginning of this season? Well, he and Nikki both do, and this week Nikki decides to get very involved in her boyfriend’s post-DWTS career choices through arts and crafts. Artem says he’s been dealing with things in his own way, but Nikki thinks he hasn’t been doing enough. Her ideas for him seem to come from a good place – maybe too good! – where she thinks he can do anything and that he’s the hottest man in the world, but her methods, as Brie puts it, show she “might be a nightmare girlfriend.”

The best scene of the episode by far is when both couples and Birdie are sitting around and Nikki brings out the borderline deranged vision board she made about Artem’s future. Artem is deeply uncomfortable and Bryan cackles at everything – a key highlight of this whole franchise that we lost for a while. The only downside is that we never get to see the part of the board where Nikki cut off Demi Moore’s head and glued it on the picture of a hot blonde cooking with Leo DiCaprio because she didn’t want Artem to picture his future with a blonde.

Bellavision, Part 2

You barely have to dust off your armchair psychology degree to deduce that Nikki is probably getting more controlling of Artem’s career because of the lack of stability in her own, especially the part connected to wrestling. This week, she explores the possibility of a “ringside” role in WWE, but is thwarted when her doctor tells her “the wear and tear is becoming faster than normal” with her neck, and if she took a bad bump she might not be able to walk again. This might be the only reason Nikki isn’t managing, like, Dana Brooke right now.

Nikki also has a less life-threatening career barrier that Total Bellas doesn’t explicitly address: she is not a good talker! There’s a shot of Paige as Smackdown GM while Nikki talks about non-wrestling roles in WWE that’s just long enough for any wrestling fans watching to imagine how awful a Bella GM situation would be.

We don’t see the outcome of her audition for WWE Backstage this week, but I think even people who don’t keep up with who’s on that show can tell Nikki tanked it. I salute her ability to pull off that Ariana Grande Nike campaign look, her delivery of “The Fiend scares me” is hilarious, and she does, in a very Nikki Bella way, sum up the issues people were starting to have with Seth Rollins as a babyface around this time, but you can instantly see why she isn’t on the show. The Bellas are good at Health magazine shoots and reality TV shenanigans; they are not great at fake sports analysis. That is completely fine, but Nikki probably won’t be fine with that, and that’ll be a story for another episode.

Overall, like with the drama in last week’s episode, the Artem and Nikki storylines stay in well-trod reality show territory (with some wrestling-related specifics), and it’s fun to watch in the way the best of Total Divas/Bellas has been fun to watch. It’s what the franchise knows how to work with! And then we have the more complicated issues between Brie and Bryan.

I’m A Business, Man

The Brie and Bryan storyline this week is interesting to think about and weird to watch because, like some of the other family drama this season, their conflict feels basically true to life, but some of its scenes seem so fake they strain the reality show kayfabe, making them more difficult to get into. Things start out pretty light, with Brie looking at her sister’s honeymoon phase relationship and wanting more PDA with Bryan. But it comes back around to the issue of Brie wanting to take care of Birdie as much as possible and have a career at the same time, and how that conflicts with Bryan being on the road 300 days a year and what he wants for their family.

It all builds to a car argument (a cargument) between Bryan and Brie in traffic in which Brie delivers some bizarre lines (“I love business!”), but the conflict can still be followed. Brie asks if Bryan would take Birdie back home to Phoenix while she deals with work stuff in L.A. for a few days, but Bryan points out that means she’ll be coming back home just as he’s leaving – and didn’t she bring up them getting more affectionate like the day before?

The ensuing fight includes the most interesting wrestling-related details of the episode when Bryan says that Brie wanted him to “sign the contract” (probably when he re-signed with WWE in September 2018) when he had been looking to work a schedule with fewer dates. It sounds like he might have been looking at options outside of WWE too when he says “I had other options” and Brie answers “It was not a guarantee.” So if those discussions were happening in the summer and fall of 2018, they could be talking about Bryan working anywhere in Japan, having an indie or ROH or Impact run, or signing with AEW, which was getting ready to be a thing at the time but was not yet a sure thing.

From just a human drama standpoint, without zooming in on the wrestling details, it’s easy to understand where both Brie and Bryan are coming from here. At least from the Total Bellas cut of the events, though, I think Brie comes out looking better even if she doesn’t always communicate that well. Their drama still continues to have a theme of Bryan expecting her to center life even more around his wrestling schedule while Brie wants the ability to experience parts of life besides her family. It’s a compelling and kind of stressful conflict because as unusual as both of their careers are, their dynamic and the core of this argument are both familiar. The episode when Brie finds out she’s pregnant again could be pretty tense.

Bella Line Of The Week

Aside from Nikki’s delivery of “The Fiend scares me,” I enjoyed her teasing Brie for not getting a Backstage audition with “Maybe they just think I’m hotter. Oh wait, maybe they just think I’m more accomplished in the ring.” This is also very much the discourse around most major pushes in Stardom and why Ishii hasn’t been made IWGP Heavyweight Champion.

Natalya Revelation Of The Week

In a Total Divas/Bellas crossover moment, we see Nattie appear on the Bella Twins’ podcast, and because I have never listened to it, Natalya saying “I want to be Mae Young” was news to me. Natalya legitimately might be having random singles matches on Raw until she’s seventy, so that’s something to look forward to, wrestling fans!

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Premier League Clubs Restated Their Commitment To Finishing The Season

Like most other sports leagues on the planet, the English Premier League is on an extended hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the fact that the league has all but decided who will be its champion, and despite two major footballing leagues in Europe ending its seasons altogether, the Premier League is motivated to pick up where it left off, giving teams the opportunity to play the final nine or 10 games on everyone’s schedules.

Premier League Shareholders held a meeting on Friday, one which which they mapped out how the rest of this season could potentially look. In a statement, it was announced that while the top priority is making sure those involved in the league are healthy, everyone is in agreement that the goal is to conclude this campaign.

No decisions were taken at today’s Shareholders’ meeting and clubs exchanged views on the information provided regarding “Project Restart”.

It was agreed that the PFA, LMA, players and managers are key to this process and will be further consulted.

The clubs reconfirmed their commitment to finishing the 2019/20 season, maintaining integrity of the competition and welcomed the Government’s support.

The news comes days after France’s Ligue 1 called its season and crowned Paris Saint-Germain champions and a week following the Dutch Eredivisie opting to cancel this year and not name a champion. England is in a spot where it could afford to do the former — currently, Liverpool sit in first place on 82 points, while Manchester City are in second on 57 points. The Reds are two wins away from securing a title, and seeing as how an unparalleled catastrophe is assuredly not going to happen, it would be hard to fault the Premier League for opting to just name them champions if they go that route.

Things are a little more complex with spots in Europe — the top-4 automatically qualify for Champions League, Nos. 5 and 6 automatically make Europa League, and No. 7 goes to Europa League qualifying. The clubs in 18th, 19th, and 20th are also relegated to the Championship, another gigantic can of worms that would need to be dealt with.

There’s no set date for when the league would start back up, but reports out of England indicate the target date is June 8.

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The Digital Mirage Festival Offered Building Blocks For How Events Can Create Community In Isolation

What does a music festival during a global pandemic look like? Turns out, it looks a whole lot like your kitchen, or living room, or bathroom — whichever room you decide to place your laptop in while you tune into a livestream of your favorite performers. During the first weekend of April, independent electronic music brands Proximity and Brownies & Lemonade invited people to do exactly that, as they linked up for a charity stream that managed to raise $300,000 to benefit the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, a 501 c nonprofit supporting out of work musicians. In the process, they created Digital Mirage, one of the world’s first post-COVID-19 online-only multi-day music festivals.

Digital Mirage was a three-day electronic music festival live-streamed on Proximity’s YouTube channel that brought together some of the genre’s best producers and performers like TOKiMONSTA, Kaskade, Alison Wonderland, Louis The Child, and A-Trak. All proceeds from the stream went towards providing financial support for musicians who make their incomes through performing and other industry professionals who are now experiencing hardships in the face of COVID-19. Though it was designed to generate funds, via sponsorships and other revenue-generating opportunities, the festival was completely free to stream for the at-home audience, a decision that was baked into the concept from the outset.

“I think it’s really important that we try to do as much as we can in this current situation to help not only people that are displaced in our community, but also to help people that are just trapped in their homes, and to keep them in their homes, ” Kush Fernando, co-founder of Brownies & Lemonade explained over the phone, last week. He was joined by creative director Chad Kenney and Proximity head Blake Coppelson.

“It just goes back to our genre of electronic music and what our community really embodies,” Coppelson added. “When we threw this event we knew that wherever people were enjoying it, they were making the best of it.”

So can a livestream ever live up to the tangible experience of a real festival? In truth, probably not. But the reality is that this is the new normal for all of us and we’re just going to have to make the best of it. Digital Mirage passed that test with flying colors, and the interface of streaming brought about some of its own unique connective benefits,

“One of the things that made it feel like a communal experience was that a lot of the artists were engaging with the fans on an eye-to-eye level through Discord and YouTube chat and other areas where there wasn’t an even playing field before,” Kenney said. “It created a level for fans, members of the community, the people producing the event, and the artists themselves to all connect.”

Some “festival-goers” even took it upon themselves to rock their favorite festival fashions to the digital event.

Contrary to common assumptions, putting on a festival experience online isn’t as easy as throwing some performers in front of a webcam and pushing play. Right now, the scene is a Wild West of best guesses and experimentation.

“One of the biggest challenges of throwing an online music festival is the fact that this is really our first time doing it,” said Kenney. “The biggest hurdle that we’re running into is being able to plug-in artists from all different time zones and places around the world live and for them to stream into this central hub. The technology isn’t really at that point yet where it ideally could be to make this stuff efficient and pretty seamless.”

Those growing pains gave Digital Mirage a distinctly charming lo-fi aesthetic that matched well with the DIY moment that we’re all collectively experiencing. For the festival organizers, it harkened back to their upstart roots, throwing small scale shows in the LA area.

“Everything that we do has always kind of felt DIY,” Fernando said. “We’re an independent event producer, so everything that we do is very much based on our relationships, our connections to the industry, and that people we’ve come up with.”

While states nationwide are gearing up to reopen by mid-May, life isn’t going to go back to normal for some time — a widespread COVID-19 vaccine likely won’t be commercially available until Spring 2021, at the earliest — which is why festival organizers across the country are scrambling to figure out how to foster a digital iteration of their events for an audience hungry for quality content and connective experiences. Burning Man is taking the leap to digital, though they’ve been openly vague about what that will look like, but other big festivals are having less success transitioning, like California’s Lightning In A Bottle, which is canceling this year and asking ticket holders to consider donating the money for their ticket refunds to ensure the festival can bounce back in 2021.

How long COVID-19 will prevent us from experiencing music festivals is anyone’s best guess, which puts the idea of a physical Coachella in October in question. In the event that we still can’t gather in large groups by October of 2020, will the technology and online infrastructure be there to deliver an experience that ticket holders will feel adequately meets their expectations?

“I think that the model is ever-changing,” Kenney said. “It’s obviously a time of global crisis but also a time for certain models and schools of thought within our industry to be tested, revised, and changed. It’s not really clear cut whether it’s sustainable per se, but I definitely see that given the projections of where the world is going to be in the next six months to a year, this is definitely going to be a very very regular thing, no doubt.”

COVID-19 may indeed put a permanent end to some of our favorite festivals that are unable to adapt to a rapidly changing landscape, but while we may not always have a Coachella or a Lightning In A Bottle or... any one of our favorite annual festivals, the idea of gathering together in some form to share the experience of live music is never going to die.

“I do think that the future is going to really reshape for us what we think of as a ‘live’ festival experience,” Kenney said, near the end of our call. “There will be more interactivity that people are unaware of yet that will really make some of these experiences for some people just as real or transformative as live experiences were. It’s obvious everything is going to be different, but the world itself is different.”

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All The Best New R&B From This Week That You Need To Hear

Sometimes good R&B can be hard to find, but there are plenty of great rhythm and blues tunes to get into if you have the time to sift through the hundreds of newly released songs every week. So that R&B heads can focus on listening to what they really love in its true form, we’ll be offering a digest of the hottest R&B jams that fans of the genre should hear every Friday.

After being liberated from her former label and signing to Warner Records, JoJo has made her triumphant return with her fourth studio album Good To Know. Trey Songz also emerged after a long hiatus with his latest release “Back Home” featuring Summer Walker, who also happens to be on Khalid’s remix to “Eleven,” with the music video dropping today.

JoJo — Good To Know

JoJo had a huge moment when her 2004 hit “Leave (Get Out)” was released at the age of 13-years-old. Due to label complications, the then budding singer kind of disappeared into an abyss until recently. Now, her fourth album Good To Know is here nine songs deep and it is where JoJo relentlessly flexes her gracious vocals, like she usually does, as a soul-simmering diary of love and heartbreak with songs such as “Lonely Hearts” and “Comeback” featuring Tory Lanez.

Trey Songz — “Back Home” Feat. Summer Walker

Like Trey Songz says, “It’s been a long time.” Trigga has arrived with his first single of the year, “Back Home,” featuring Summer Walker and it borrows Cam’ron’s “Oh Boy” vibe with a New Edition melody. Summer shows up and equally does her part as she sonically answers Trey with her luxurious brand of vocalization. This week, the Grammy Award-nominated R&B singer recently pleased all of his longtime fans with two of his most popular mixtapes, Anticipation I and Anticipation II.

Khalid — “Eleven (Remix)” Feat. Summer Walker

Khalid tapped Summer Walker for the remix to his track “Eleven” and today the music video for the celebrated single has been released. Exactly how Khalid and Summer are cruising around the city in luxury whips, “Eleven (Remix)” is the epitome of romantic car music and was made to be heard while riding through the streets at night, with the windows down and the volume turned all the way up.

Joyce Wrice — “That’s On You”

Los Angeles-based R&B singer Joyce Wrice came through this week with the oh-so smooth “That’s On You,” as the first release off her upcoming album. Brimming with the robust bliss of string and brass instruments fusing together with the love and care of her sweet voice, “That’s On You,” is an expressive spiritual experience. Joyce was recently featured on Westside Gunn’s “French Toast” featuring Wale, off his critically-acclaimed album Pray For Paris.

HER — “Wrong Places”

After appearing as a guest on NBC’s songwriting competition series Songland, HER issued the release of her slow jam “Wrong Places.” Intertwined between the sounds of an acoustic guitar and sharp snares settled in the heart of a healthy bassline, HER sings what she means while improvising flowy ad-libs infused with passion.

Bryce Hase — “Language” Feat. Tory Lanez

Up and coming Dallas, Texas native Bryce Hase really delivers with his latest release “Language” featuring Tory Lanez. While Bryce provides a majority of the song’s cozy infrastructure, Tory furiously drops a fire verse that adds something special to the entire essence of the track. Though he’s new the scene, his recently released songs, “I Know U Been Stressed <3” and “Wonderland,” have accumulated over two million streams overall.

Brandy — “Baby Mama” Feat. Chance The Rapper

Brandy‘s new song “Baby Mama” is right on time for Mother’s Day and it includes a feature from Chance The Rapper. In a recent interview with SiriusXM, the Grammy Award-winning singer said, “It’s celebrating mothers out there who are out there doing their best for their children and striving in their independence, in their strength, in their power. I just wanted to come out with a powerful message like that.”

Rome Flynn — “Keep Me In Mind”

How to Get Away With Murder‘s Rome Flynn not only acts but he sings too, and he happens to be really good at it. Assembled by Grammy Award-winning producer Bizness Boi, the R&B crooner’s latest release “Keep Me In Mind” is a provocative love ballad emanating in close intimacy.

24kGoldn — “Unbelievable” Feat. Kaash Paige

Rising singers 24kGoldn and Kaash Paige connect for the (un)official dreamy live-action visual made to their collab single “Unbelievable.” The song’s infectious melody borrows from Drake’s 2011 fan-favorite “Marvins Room,” turning it into an ethereal vortex that’s hard to escape.

Check out this week’s R&B picks, plus more on Uproxx’s Spotify playlist below.

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The ‘Parks And Recreation’ Reunion Special Provided Further Proof That Paul Rudd Is The Best

We knew coming into the Parks and Recreation reunion special that the main cast — Amy Poehler, Nick Offerman, Aziz Ansari, Chris Pratt, etc. — would be involved, but the guest stars were a fun unknown. Would Jeremy Jamm show up? Or Dennis Feinstein? Or Tammy II? Or Bobby Newport? Yes, yes, yes, and yes, although Bobby, the lovable dumb-dumb played by Paul Rudd, was a close call.

The episode originally began with Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman, as themselves, explaining the fundraiser. But, as creator Michael Schur explained in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, “the problem was that it was kind of a bummer to see, ‘Hi, I’m Amy Poehler.’ ‘Hi, I’m Nick Offerman.’ And then you dip to black and you come up and they’re there again, but they’re playing characters instead of themselves.” It wouldn’t have been confusing — although Offerman and Ron Swanson are essentially the same person — but it would have been jarring. So the writers came up with a new opening:

“So we were like, ‘Well, who else could we get that would be really fun to see?,’ and very quickly thought of Paul — and very quickly shot him the joke that he just has no idea what’s going on. We texted him and said like, ‘Hey, would you be up for this?’ And he said, ‘Sure!’ But he’s on the East Coast, he’s not here. So we were like, ‘Okay, we only have a day to do this, so we can FedEx you this rig and then you would get it tomorrow.’ And he’s like, ‘I have an iPhone! I have a little microphone. Let me just do it and see if it’s okay.’ I wrote a script for him, I emailed it to him, and then an hour later, he was like, ‘Here!’ He had just done it.

Is it possible to not like Paul Rudd? (That’s a hypothetical question. It’s not.)

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

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Report: NBA G League Players Will Get Separate Hotel Rooms And A Bigger Per Diem

A week after NBA G League players began the process of unionizing, Shams Charania of The Athletic reported one of the preliminary agreements between the league and its players. The minor league’s players will now be guaranteed individual hotel rooms on the road as well as a $15 increase in their per diem.

In recent years, the league has taken dramatic steps forward toward legitimacy as a true minor league for the NBA. That includes adding two-way contracts to NBA rosters, the addition of several new teams, the growth of the G League showcase every December, and the use of affiliates for rehabilitation by teams like the Warriors.

Unionization is the latest and biggest step for the G League. While no reports regarding the official formation of a union have come out yet, this agreement is likely an intermediate step in negotiations that will continue. It is expected that issues such as player salary and even pre- and post-game meals will be part of the negotiations between the two parties.

The G League also has the details of its Select Team to sort out in southern California after nabbing talented high-school seniors Jalen Green, Isaiah Todd and Daishen Nix. That team still does not have a coach or a firm schedule, but is expected to play about 20 games this fall and winter as a new part of the G League.

The NBA continues to invest in the G League, and it doesn’t appear the players’ motion toward unionizing has halted progress at all.

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Clairo Reworks Johnny Flynn’s ‘Brown Trout Blues’ Into A Soulful Acoustic Cover

After releasing her debut album Immunity back in August, Clairo was booked to open for Tame Impala’s tour this summer. But, along with the rest of live music events, the tour was postponed. While in quarantine, Clairo has been using her newfound free time to work on new music. On Friday, the singer shared a soulful cover of Johnny Flynn’s 2008 track “Brown Trout Blues.”

With just an acoustic guitar and her room-filling vocals, Clairo gives her stripped-down rendition of Flynn’s decade-old brassy track. Sharing the cover to YouTube, Clairo wrote that the song is one of her favorites.

Ahead of the cover, Clairo discussed the prospects of a new album in a recent interview with Apple Music’s Beats 1: “It’s a lot. It’s like over thirty right now. Obviously that’s not going to happen. Thirty-track album like no, but I think I’m just trying to make a lot of stuff. So that I’m able to kind of handpick what I still care about in six months because it becomes obvious much later whether or not it’s like a song. I have a major problem of like thinking that the last thing I made is like my best work.”

Staying true to her word, Clairo has recently been working on recording music. Ahead of her Johnny Flynn cover, the singer has released a handful of demos. Her latest, “Everything I Know,” provides a nostalgic escape from reality with toned-down vocals and fuzzy guitars.

Listen to Clairo cover Johnny Flynn’s “Brown Trout Blues” above.

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Adorable Golden Retriever interrupts meteorologist’s weather forecast and he deserves all the treats

Earlier this month, Fox 13 meteorologist Paul Dellegatto was presenting the weather forecast from home when his Golden Retriever, Brody, kept accidentally bumping the computer. So Dellegatto let Brody sit on his lap during his broadcast and cuteness ensued.

But the Golden Retriever couldn’t sit still for long. Body then jumped off Delgatto’s lap and walked towards the window where his cameraman, Craig, was filing the weather segment from his porch. This confused poor Brody who probably doesn’t understand social distancing.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Paul, but this is amazing,” the show’s anchor told the embarrassed weatherman.



‘Brody’ the dog interrupts Paul Dellegatto’s weathercast

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