Month: January 2021

Black-ish star Anthony Anderson appeared on this week’s episode of Conan Needs a Friend to talk about his sitcom, his relationship with his mother, and the ABC game show that’s hosted by Anderson and his mother, “To Tell the Truth.” Conan O’Brien, however, wanted to talk about Michael Jordan, with whom Anthony Anderson has a close friendship.

“He’s very competitive,” Anderson told O’Brien. “He talks a lot of sh*t, and he’s a fun dude to hang around with. But every little thing with MJ can be a competitive thing.” For example, Anderson spoke about playing golf with Michael Jordan, who is a better player than he is. One game, however, Jordan gave Anderson 10 extra golf strokes on a bet, and Anderson had a particularly great game — I was “on fire” — and was able to beat Jordan with the handicap. “He threw the money he owed me at me, and said, ‘You’re never getting strokes again.’”

That, however, is nothing compared to the first time Anderson and Jordan met. Jordan and Anderson were in the Bahamas for an opening of some sort, and Anderson traveled with his own dominoes. He had no idea that Jordan would be there, so he brought a set of dominoes with Jordan’s Jumpman logo on the case, which led to a conversation between the two (MJ wanted to know where Anderson got the case). Anderson eventually challenged Jordan to a game, telling MJ that he considered himself to be “the Michael Jordan of dominoes.”

“He turned to my wife,” Anderson continued, “and he said, ‘Sweetheart, I suggest you go to the bank and take out as much money as you can because after I whip his ass, he will not be able to provide for you and your children.”

Anderson was shocked. “I just wanted a friendly game of bones with my basketball hero!”

The next day, Anderson and Jordan played, and Anderson brought his camera along to document the game (Ahmad Rashad was there playing, as well). Anderson declined, at first, to talk trash to Jordan because he just wanted to enjoy a friendly game. However, “MJ is talking cash sh*t. He’s talking about my momma. He’s talking about cash trash, and I just had to sit there and take it.”

At one point, however, Anderson gained an advantage in the game, and fed up with all the trash talk, he turned to Jordan and said, “This is going to be the hardest 25 points you’ve ever had to score in your life. Let’s go.” Anderson put aside the fact that he was playing his basketball hero and stepped up his game.

“Conan,” Anderson says. “I commenced to whip his ass in dominoes. He doesn’t score another point. I am talking so much trash that, before I domino, I say, ‘Oh my God, I wish me and my wife could go upstairs and make another baby right now because we would name him or her MJ just so we could relive this moment right now, and when my baby got older, she would say, ‘Daddy, why did you name me MJ’ and that’s when I’d relive the moment when I just whipped your ass. DOMINO, MOTHERF***KER.”

After the game, Anderson and Jordan had to spend the next three days on the island together, and Jordan was so sore about losing to Anderson in a game of dominoes that “he refused to talk to me. Whenever we were taking a group photo, he’d ask… no, he didn’t ask. He told me to get out of the picture.”

“And that’s how our friendship started,” Anderson said.

After doing more than 100 of these podcasts, Conan confesses to Anderson that his Jordan story is “one of my favorite things to ever happen” on his show. It’s definitely worth listening to, and it starts around the 42-minute mark in this week’s Conan Needs a Friend.

On Dave Grohl’s birthday last week, Foo Fighters marked the occasion by releasing a new single, “Waiting On A War.” On the track, Grohl wonders if there’s more to life than the threat of turmoil. Now the band has shared a video for the track, and it touches on similar themes.

The video shows what seems to be a bunch of children in a sparse, seemingly war-torn urban landscape, dark and desolate. After they reminisce about better days and lament the state of the world, as the song picks it, they appear to be filled with hope.

When the band initially released the song, Grohl shared a statement about it, writing, “Last fall, as I was driving my 11 year old daughter to school, she turned to me and asked, ‘Daddy, is there going to be a war?’ My heart sank in my chest as I looked into her innocent eyes, because I realized that she was now living under that same dark cloud of a hopeless future that I had felt 40 years ago. I wrote ‘Waiting On a War’ that day. […] This song was written for my daughter, Harper, who deserves a future, just as every child does.”

Watch the “Waiting On A War” video above.

Showtime’s announcement (back in October) of the Dexter revival wasn’t shocking in and of itself. What was surprising, however, is that it took this long for a revisiting of everyone’s favorite moonlighting serial killer to get an official greenlight. A few months later, we know that Dexter will once again be an East coast guy and that he’ll be accompanied by an almost entirely new cast. The question of the timing still floated around out there, but star Michael C. Hall has now remarked upon why the time is right for the series to right the biggest wrong of all: that much maligned lumberjack ending.

As Hall told Entertainment Tonight, there were at least three near misses (“legitimate ideas or concepts of what we might do”) from those who hoped to dig back into those blood slides. The newest attempt felt both timely (that’s where the emphasis is for Hall’s reasoning) and appropriate, and here’s why things came together for a 2021 release:

“This one, a lot of it has to do with time passed. This is going to happen in real time, as if as much time has passed since the finale happened. And yeah, we kind of just got the creative band back together again… And Marcos Siega, who is one of the directors. He’s like, ‘We’re gonna shoot it like a long, 10-hour movie. It was a combination of the scripts and the timing. I always thought maybe the time will reveal itself when it’s the right time to do it and it did. And I’m excited.”

Hall added that he’d already visited the sets, and “it’s really happening.” Those sets, by the way, are situated in Massachusetts, which will be pinch-hitting for upstate New York. No more Miami, in other words, which must be a big reason why we’re not seeing returning names from the O.G. cast. Yet showrunner Clyde Phillips is returning after helming four seasons of the series, and hopefully, we’ll at least hear something about Jennifer Carpenter making a ghostly dark passenger appearance. That’s gotta happen, right? I’m also holding out for the whole “time has passed” reference by Hall to turn into Dexter’s son, Harrison, tracking dad down and teaching him a lesson. That’s a long overdue “reunion,” no doubt.

(Via ET Online)

The Golden State Warriors, for the second time this month have erased a monstrous deficit to beat one of the L.A. teams, this time, taking down the Lakers in Los Angeles after falling behind by 19 points in the second half.

The Lakers looked to be on cruise control, headed for a league-leading 12th win, before Golden State turned it on in the fourth quarter for another improbable comeback win over a full-strength L.A. squad. The much maligned wing duo of Kelly Oubre Jr. and Andrew Wiggins had strong performances, combining for 41 points on strong efficiency. Eric Paschall likewise gave the Warriors a big boost off of the bench with 19 points as it was the reserve unit that did a lot of the damage in closing the gap in the fourth before they turned to Stephen Curry to close the game out.

Down the stretch it was Curry and Draymond Green working their magic, with Curry slicing to the bucket for an and-1 early in what was a 15-2 Warriors run, and Green finding a timely bucket at the rim to give Golden State its first lead of the game with just under three minutes to play.

Then, after trading buckets with the Lakers, it was Curry who gave Golden State some brief breathing room with a vintage stepback three after mesmerizing Anthony Davis with some slick dribbling.

Curry finished the night with 26 points and seven assists and while he struggled much of the night to find his shooting stroke, going just 3-for-12 from three, he found it when it counted. The Lakers did have a chance to tie or win the game after Curry missed a floater and L.A. brought the ball up with plenty of time to get a good look. After forcing a pass from LeBron James to Dennis Schröder, who was the Lakers leading scorer on the night with 25, the Lakers couldn’t find a good look and had to call timeout with under two seconds to play. On the inbounds play they got LeBron the ball at the top of the key, but his long three pointer hit the back iron and fell harmlessly to the court as the Warriors, somehow, escaped with a win to move to 7-6 on the season.

The New York Mets hired Jared Porter as their general manager back in December, and his tenure with the team may very well be an incredibly brief one. On Monday night, ESPN’s Jeff Passan and Mina Kimes published a story detailing how Porter sent a foreign journalist numerous unsolicited photos of himself, some naked, over the course of a few weeks after the two met in an elevator at Yankee Stadium and briefly talked international prospects while he was the director of professional scouting for the Chicago Cubs.

The story includes screenshots of the text messages, with explicit photos blurred and censored while other selfies of himself offering concrete proof that it was indeed him sending those texts.

The journalist, who spoke with ESPN on the condition of anonymity after having gotten out of the business (she refused to speak about it in 2017 when Passan was first made aware of the texts), explained why she wanted to come forward now that Porter was in an even greater position of power and could do something similar to another woman in the industry.

“My number one motivation is I want to prevent this from happening to someone else,” she told ESPN through an interpreter. “Obviously he’s in a much greater position of power. I want to prevent that from happening again. The other thing is I never really got the notion that he was truly sorry.

“I know in the U.S. there is a women’s empowerment movement. But in [my home country], it’s still far behind,” the woman said. “Women get dragged through the mud if your name is associated with any type of sexual scandal. Women are the ones who get fingers pointed at them. I don’t want to go through the victimization process again. I don’t want other people to blame me.”

The details in the story are rather horrifying, as the woman, who cited not having a full grasp of English language and customs, found herself getting explicit texts at which point she stopped replying, before he sent 62 unsolicited texts pursuing her further with more pictures including one of an exposed, erect penis.

Once she recognized the sexual nature of the bed picture, she resolved to cut off communication, she said.

Porter would send 62 unanswered texts – including seven photos – between July 19 and Aug. 10, the day before a final flurry from Los Angeles that included the nude photo.

The Mets issued a brief statement, saying that Porter “expressed remorse” — although when initially contacted by ESPN he claimed he never sent photos, then when told they had the texts, insisted the explicit photos were “stock” photographs and then never offered further comment after asking for some more time.

The results of the investigation likely won’t come for a little bit of time, but given the details of the story it seems as though it would be pretty unfathomable for Porter to remain in his GM role for much longer.

Donald Trump never agreed to a peaceful transition of power if he lost, and sure enough, it’s been anything but peaceful. Though it appears the Secret Service won’t have to drag him, kicking and screaming, from the Oval Office, there is one thing that almost certainly won’t be happening: As per CNN, the 45th president and his FLOTUS, Melania, will not do the usual showing around as the two presidential couples pass the baton.

The tradition is this: The outgoing president welcomes the incoming president on the steps of the North Portico, at the front of the White House. They then ride to the Capitol together. Meanwhile the outgoing First Lady shows the incoming First Lady around. But this time — after two months of baseless voter fraud accusations, even a failed MAGA coup, to say nothing of Trump’s grim financial and legal future — when the new president arrives the old one will already be gone. Instead, the Bidens will likely simply be greeted by White House chief usher Timothy Harlet — a Trump hire who likely won’t last much longer.

This will be not be the first time the incoming and outgoing presidents have not partaken in this tradition. Richard Nixon wasn’t there when Gerald Ford took over, but that’s because Nixon had resigned rather than be impeached and removed. Woodrow Wilson didn’t greet Warren G. Harding at the door, but only because he was ill. The last time the snub was intentional was when Andrew Johnson, a Southern boy, refused to meet with former Union army general Ulysses S. Grant, in part because, like Donald Trump, Johnson had just been impeached.

Then again, maybe it’s for the best. When the Bidens return to the White House following a series of traditional ceremonies, such as wreath-laying at Arlington National Cemetery, the joint will have been thoroughly de-Trump-ized:

By that time, all Trump paraphernalia will be gone, and a thorough top-to-bottom cleaning of the entire White House campus will have been completed. Deeper cleaning protocols were arranged via the White House with outside contractors, on top of regular cleaning done by staff, including specialized attention to rugs, carpets, curtains and surfaces, to tackle any possibility of lingering germs, of the Covid-19 sort or otherwise.

The Bidens will even be receiving new mattresses and box springs for their bedroom, but that is mere standard operating procedure. It’s worth noting that Trump reportedly spent his administration sleeping alone, in a room that has previously been used as a study or den.

As for Trump’s send-off, he reportedly wants it to be huge, with a splashy gathering at Joint Base Andrews, where he and Melania will board Air Force One for the last time, bound for Mar-a-Lago. He’s demanding pomp and circumstance — a 21-gun salute, red carpet, military Color Guard. But though they’ve invited hordes of people, an administration official told CNN, “So far, there haven’t been a lot of RSVPs.”

In any case, it’s not surprising Donald wouldn’t want to shake hands with Biden, but the Melania snub does rankle. After all, it seems to go against what she has been arguing would be her lasting legacy as FLOTUS.

(Via CNN)

While plenty of her own fans are clamoring for SZA to give a timeline on new music, the R&B star was spending her weekend gushing over new music from another great new voice in the space – Lizzo. After dropping “Good Days” on Christmas Day of 2020, a return to form that reminded fans of the melodic power and narrative thrust of all the best SZA songs, the TDE singer tweeted yesterday that she’d just been exposed to “the best song I ever heard in my life” via new music from Lizzo.

Never one to hold back she also shared that the song made her cry, though she didn’t share much more information or reveal whether or not it would be a collaboration between the two — we can dream, right? Obviously, fans are excited to get a new project from Lizzo, too, but she released her breakout album Cuz I Love You in 2019, not all that long ago, while Solana’s breakout CTRL was all the way back in 2017. It’s been four years since her last drop, so fans are understandably a bit more antsy. Still, the support between these two women is a great thing to see, and once I hear whatever song SZA is talking about in the tweet, odds are I’ll be crying too.

Can we get it soon ladies? 2021 has already been rough, a great new pop song would be welcome.

When reigning NBA Rookie of the Year Ja Morant suffered a left ankle sprain in late December, the Memphis Grizzlies were in a perilous position. Morant’s injury came (very) early in the season, leaving the team with time to recover. However, many saw the Grizzlies as merely a fringe playoff contender and, with a potential three-to-five week absence for the team’s best player in conjunction with ongoing injuries for Jaren Jackson Jr. and Justise Winslow, the margin for error was slim for Taylor Jenkins’ team.

Almost on cue, the Grizzlies lost four of the next five games, falling to 2-6, and skepticism reigned on a national scale. Even in a season that is producing highly volatile results for myriad reasons, Memphis faced a substantial uphill battle, particularly with Morant not yet back on the court. Then, the pieces started falling into place for the Grizzlies, beginning with an unexpected home win over the Brooklyn Nets on Friday, Jan. 8. That victory did come over a short-handed version of the Nets, led by Caris LeVert, but Memphis did what they needed to do in order to emerge victorious and, almost two weeks later, the Grizzlies haven’t lost since.

Memphis picked up their fifth consecutive win on MLK Day, outlasting the Phoenix Suns in a nationally televised contest. That performance was indicative the Grizzlies’ recent success, with seven players scoring in double figures and an eighth player (Gorgui Dieng) adding an efficient eight points in just 15 minutes. Granted, the return of Morant, who has played the last two games, was enormous for Memphis, but the Grizzlies played without arguably their second-best player in Jonas Valanciunas on Monday, and they were able to win anyway.

Of course, Morant is still a significant catalyst for the Grizzlies, and much of this early-season period was simply about weathering the storm until he returned. Memphis managed to post a 4-4 record in his absence, which was huge even in a small sample, and Morant is averaging 22.6 points and seven assists per game, all while shooting 53 percent from the floor at the lead guard position. It is undeniable the way Morant sets the tone for this Memphis team, something on display to close out Monday’s win over Phoenix over a rather sensational three play stretch.

Elsewhere, the theme has been quality depth, with 12 players already taking the floor for at least 100 minutes this season. The team’s second-leading scorer, Dillon Brooks, has actually struggled to the tune of 37 percent shooting in 2020-21 and, as noted previously, Valanciunas missed Monday’s game and he is in the NBA’s health and safety protocol for an unspecified time period.

From there, however, Memphis is coaxing high-level play from its supporting cast. Brandon Clarke is averaging 13.2 points and 6.1 rebounds per game, finding his efficiency offensively during the team’s five-game winning streak. Kyle Anderson served as the team’s de facto backup point guard in Morant’s absence and, using his length and overall acumen, Anderson’s defensive impact has been substantial for the Grizzlies. Grayson Allen brings badly needed floor spacing, both in shooting 36 percent from three-point range and simply having to be guarded by the opposition. It was also beneficial for the team to have a steady hand in Tyus Jones at the point guard spot, with the veteran bringing stability even as he battles with shooting efficiency issues in the early going.

Perhaps the biggest infusion for the Grizzlies arrives from the team’s rookie class. It has long been a running joke that Memphis operates with “Draft Twitter” in mind, targeting several darlings of the analytical and scouting communities in recent years. That was certainly the case in 2020 with the selections of Desmond Bane and Xavier Tillman and, right on time, both are contributing at a lofty level in their first professional seasons.

Bane, an older college wing from TCU, came out of the gate as a solid defender, and he is connecting on a robust 48.9 percent of his three-point attempts. While that figure is unsustainable for almost anyone, Bane was billed as a potential high-level shooter, and the Grizzlies are in dire need of additional floor spacing to give Morant, Valanciunas and company more room to operate.

Bane’s fellow rookie, former Michigan State big man Xavier Tillman, stepped in for Valanciunas as the starting center on Monday and didn’t miss a beat. Tillman is well-known for his defensive acumen and physicality, both of which are translating immediately, and he is shooting 56 percent from the floor while bringing an additional threat as a short-roll passing fulcrum.

When all is said and done, the Grizzlies will need a great deal from Morant in order to reach their goals, and it could be said that they were fortunate to avoid disaster during his multi-week absence. Still, he is now back with no signs of slowing down and, eventually, Memphis should benefit from the return of Jackson Jr. and Winslow. With the injection of talent and NBA readiness from players like Bane and Tillman, Memphis might be more dangerous than previous thought and, in a season that some speculated could tumble into darkness when Morant went down, the Grizzlies suddenly appear to be in solid position as the calendar shifts to late January.

Kristy Swanson isn’t what she was back in the early ’90s. She was an “It” girl then, appearing in major films like Mannequin Two: On the Move, the Charlie Sheen vehicle The Chase, and the Charlie Sheen Top Gun parody Hot Shots! More importantly she was the original Buffy Summers, in the 1992 film, also called Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that eventually birthed the far more popular TV show, starring her replacement Sarah Michelle Gellar. In the decades since Swanson has become a Trump supporter, even being invited to the White House to meet the big guy. So when calls erupted, including from Macaulay Culkin, to edit the outgoing president out of the Christmas favorite Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, she had his back.

[met president https://twitter.com/KristySwansonXO/status/1237064590871035915%5D

“If Cancel Culture is really going to have Donald J. Trump removed from the John Hughes movie ‘Home Alone,’ then in support of MY PRESIDENT,” Swanson wrote, “I’d like to have myself officially removed from the John Hughes’ films, ‘Pretty In Pink’ and ‘Ferris Buhler’s Day Off.’”

It’s true: Swanson’s first two films (after the Disney TV movie and reclaimed object Mr. Boogedy) were Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (which she misspelled). She played, respectively: “Duckette,” aka the girl who catches the eye of Jon Cryer’s Duckie after Molly Ringwald’s Andie (wrongly) chooses Andrew McCarthy’s bland Blane; and a perky student whose teacher is played by former Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein.

Neither film would lose much without her, much as Home Alone 2, written by Hughes, wouldn’t lose much without Trump, who had a habit of demanding movie productions shoot a cameo if they were shooting in buildings he owned. (In that case it was New York City’s Plaza Hotel, which, being in the middle of a financial fallow period, he may not have fully owned then anyway.) Most of these films, after humoring him, threw his footage out. But not Home Alone 2.

Still, the response to Swanson’s request was swift and fierce, with fellow actors not holding back.

Other people also weren’t sure what she was on about.

Or reminded her that her peak is well into the past.

Some suggested editing her out of another film while we’re at it.

(Via The Daily Dot)

In the final days of 2020, social media became fixated on a matter that didn’t involve the 2020 presidential election: Has Hilaria Baldwin, wife of beloved and respected actor Alec, been pretending to be Spanish? We learned her first name is actually Hillary, that she was born in Boston, and that the accent she sometimes uses in public appearances is not her own. Now, some three weeks later, her husband has up and quit Twitter, albeit maybe temporarily.

“Twitter is like a party where everyone is screaming,” the actor wrote. “Not much of a party. Goodbye for now.”

Baldwin gave no explanation beyond a clear annoyance with the social media giant’s general intensity, even if it’s gotten far more chill in the week-and-change since the man he used to impersonate, Donald J. Trump, was permanently banned, along with reams of conspiracy theorists. But one could sense some subtweeting in the allusion to “everyone” “screaming.” After all, a few weeks back, lots of people were screaming at his wife, or at least joshing about her alleged appropriation of another culture.

Hilaria has defended her embrace of Spanish culture, saying it comes from growing up in both Massachusetts and Spain. “We celebrate both cultures in our home—Alec and I are raising our children bilingual, just as I was raised,” she said when her secret was outed. “This is very important to me. I understand that my story is a little different, but it is mine, and I’m very proud of it.” In any case, he could have at least waited for Wednesday to leave.

(Via Deadline)