Category: Trending

My world has been turned upside down. I thought I knew everything (about Jennifer Lawrence’s mom selling the Oscar winner’s toilet on Craigslist) but it turns out, it was all a lie. Well, maybe not “all” of it, because a recent development in this important news story still involves Jennifer Lawrence and a toilet, but she left out — or conveniently “forgot” — important details.

Last week, Lawrence informed People that Lee Eisenberg, the writing partner of No Hard Feelings director Gene Stupnitsky, “bought a toilet on Craigslist from my mom. My toilet.” Why was the actress’ mom selling her toilet? “I don’t know,” Lawrence said. “I’m like, ‘I broke it.’ My mom sold it for me.”

But now, Lawrence has changed her tune. “I ended up getting it backward,” she told ET (not the alien, but that would be the only way to make this story weirder). “My mom bought Lee‘s toilet. When he clarified and was like, ‘None of this is true.’ I was like, ‘Well, it’s not [not true].’ I literally just got confused about who bought or sold [the toilet].”

I, too, am always forgetting about the status of my used Craigslist toilet.

In other Jennifer Lawrence news, she recently met Ronald from the breakout comedy of 2023, Jury Duty.

More like Jury Poo-y (because of the toilet, you see).

(Via ET)

Demi Lovato recently told GQ Spain about how “absolutely exhausting” it is to “educate people and explain” their non-binary identity, leading to Lovato still accept she/her pronouns alongside they/them. But if we’ve learned anything about Lovato over the last two-plus decades, it’s that they don’t stand down from challenges.

Today, June 22, Lovato turned their never-say-die spirit toward abortion rights via the hard-charging, unapologetically rock “Swine” single.

“It’s been one year since the Supreme Court’s decision to dismantle the constitutional right to a safe abortion, and although the path forward will be challenging, we must continue to be united in our fight for reproductive justice,” Lovato posted to Instagram and Twitter.

They continued, “I created ‘SWINE’ to amplify the voices of those who advocate for choice and bodily autonomy. I want this song to empower not only the birthing people of this country, but everyone who stands up for equality, to embrace their agency and fight for a world where every person’s right to make decisions about their own body is honored.”

Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court on June 24, 2022.

Lovato’s accompanying Meriel O’Connell-directed video cinematically stages a punk-rock court hearing. Lovato doesn’t hold back, and neither do the people in the gallery behind her, as a judge dressed in all-black watches disapprovingly.

The explicit lyrics condense the anger and fear felt by millions of Americans, with lines like “God forbid, I wanna f*ck whoever the f*ck I wanna / And if he c*ms, I guess I gotta be a mother” and “My life, my voice / My rights, my choice / It’s mine, or I’m just swine.”

Watch the “Swine” video above.

High-proof bourbon is nothing new. It’s been around for decades. That’s not the whole story though. There has been an absolute explosion in the number of brands releasing higher-proof bourbon whiskeys over the past decade or so. It’s gotten to the point where if you don’t have a higher-proof expression or barrel-proof version of your main whiskey, you’re basically leaving money on the table (and leaving customers pretty disappointed).

That means that there’s just a ton of it out there on shelves. And in order to make sure we’re not favoring the most widely known brands, we decided to taste them “double-blind.”

Before we kick off, “high-proof” covers everything above “bottled in bond” when it comes to ABVs. So above 50% or 100-proof. That means that the term does cover expression styles like barrel proof/strength (whiskey bottled without proofing after it came out of the barrel), full proof/barrel entry proof (whiskey bottled at the same proof that the whiskey went into the barrel at), and any whiskey that’s 50% ABV and above.

Very generally, look at it like this:

• Low-proof bourbon whiskey is 40.0% to 49.9%
• Bottled in Bond bourbon whiskey is 50.0% to 50.9%
• High-proof bourbon whiskey is 51.0% and up

It’s as simple as that. But of course, there are whiskeys that inch into categories without being part of them. Wild Turkey 101 is 50.5% and isn’t a bottled in bond whiskey. Knob Creek is exactly 50% ABV and it’s a bottled in bond either. There’s also an old way of thinking that says anything above a 40% or 80-proof bourbon is “high proof” but I find that completely outmoded in a world where that proof marker is no longer a norm.

Since this is a double-blind, I had my wife sift through my bourbon shelves and randomly grab anything with an ABV over 50%. I also asked her to avoid bottled in bond expressions just to keep this a little more clear-cut. She ended up picking a really interesting mix that I never would have put together myself [maybe that’s why your editor is always asking for double-blind articles! -ed].

It was actually a really fun panel of pours, so let’s dive right in!

• The 100 Best Bourbon Whiskeys From Kentucky, Ranked
• The 100 Best Bourbon Whiskeys Of 2022, Ranked
• The Absolute Best Bottle Of Whiskey From Each Of The 50 States
• Our Head Drinks Critic Reveals The Expensive Bourbons He *Won’t* Pay Above Retail For
• The Absolute Best Bourbons Between $50-$60, Ranked

Part 1 — The High-Proof Bourbon Tasting

Taste 1

Tasting Notes:

Nose: Deep marzipan and dark cherry pop on the nose with a sense of zucchini bread full of winter spice, brown butter, and walnuts next to bright orange zest and a dash of black peppercorns tied to old oak and light boot leather.

Palate: Those winter spices really amp up on the palate with a sense of clove, cardamom, and nutmeg next to old vanilla pods, dried glove leather, and a hint of dank pine resin tied to a hint of cherry bark.

Finish: That woodiness and dank drive the finish toward a layer of spice nut cake swimming in buttercream with a nice dose of smudging sage and cedar bark leading to old tobacco pouches.

Initial Thoughts:

Wow! This is delicious. It’s so deep and satisfying.

Taste 2

Tasting Notes:

Nose: There’s a nice sense of funk and fruit on the nose — think standing by a barn in an apple orchard — that leads to salted caramel, cherry tobacco, and rich dark chocolate cut with red chili pepper flakes with a lush vanilla foundation of almond cakes and powdered sugar icing.

Palate: Rich winter spice cakes with a hint of rum raisin drive the taste toward dark cherry spiced tobacco with a rush of ABVs that cause a deep buzz before old cellar dirt floors and oak arrive with a dark sense of chocolate and espresso all kissed with salt.

Finish: Cherry Coke and gingerbread drive the finish with a lush and vibrant sense of red chili pepper spice, black pepper woodiness, and cinnamon bark softness before stewed apple and buttery pie crust lead back toward a vanilla almond cake vibe with a lingering warming sensation.

Initial Thoughts:

And this is f*cking delicious too. This has a tad more depth maybe but I’m going to have to go back to this and the first one a couple of times to confirm that before I rank these.

Taste 3

Tasting Notes:

Nose: Candied pecans cooked into crispy, vanilla-forward waffles dance on the nose with a touch of sour cherry tossed in sea salt, a deep winter spice bark medley, and old leather tobacco pouches.

Palate: The taste moseys through salted dark chocolate squares next to maple syrup-dipped graham crackers, dried wild sagebrush, and a rush of sharp spearmint with black cherry lush sweetness at the base.

Finish: That black cherry drives the finish toward salted caramel and dried red chili pepper spice next to a whisper of orchard bard, woody spice, and soft and chewy tobacco.

Initial Thoughts:

This is also really good. It’s not quite as lush as the last two but still hits really nicely.

Taste 4

Tasting Notes:

Nose: Toasted almonds and walnuts lead the way on the nose with a deep and rich vanilla cake lightly dusted with cacao, dry cherry, and cinnamon with a touch of old oak cellars and black-mold-encrusted old deck furniture.

Palate: The soft caramel and vanilla open the palate before a rush of woody and sharp spices — clove, anise, allspice, red chili pepper — arrive with a sense of old wood chips on a workshop floor leads to salted toffee dipped in roasted almonds and dark salted chocolate with a whisper of cherry cordial backing it all up.

Finish: That soft sweetness counters the hot spices for a while on the slow finish as the spices take on an orange/cherry/vanilla Christmas cake vibe with plenty of nuts and ABV heat.

Initial Thoughts:

This is hot but so goddamn well-balanced and tasty. I really like this. It opened up my senses and really grabbed my attention.

Taste 5

Tasting Notes:

Nose: Sweet woody notes next to oily vanilla open the nose with a rush of black peppercorns, red chili pepper, and a hint of dark caramel.

Palate: The taste delivers ripe peaches next to more peppery spice and a hint of Christmas spices, with the vanilla taking a backseat and the oak really stepping in to shine.

Finish: The end is spicy, hot, oaky, and peachy, with a hint of caramel corn that fades pretty quickly.

Initial Thoughts:

This was nice, standard bourbon with a lightness to it that didn’t help it stand out. It’s thin but still carries a solid profile.

Taste 6

Tasting Notes:

Nose: The nose draws you in with a sense of old rickhouses and mincemeat pies with a hint of plum jam over buttermilk biscuits just kissed with clove and nutmeg.

Palate: Those biscuits turn into Christmas spice cakes with plenty of nuts and dried fruits with a candied orange hint next to caramel sauce and vanilla cake.

Finish: The end is lush at first with a nice earthiness that plays into rum raisin and brandy-soaked holiday cakes before fading abruptly.

Initial Thoughts:

This was so close but kind of stumbled on the finish. It just disappeared. Everything was great up to that point though.

Taste 7

Tasting Notes:

Nose: Sweet and buttery toffee is countered by burnt orange, old oak, and a hint of cumin and red chili pepper flakes.

Palate: The palate leans into soft vanilla pudding cups with a touch of butterscotch swirled in next to orange oils, nougat, and a hint of menthol tobacco.

Finish: The midpalate tobacco warmth gives way to a finish that’s full of woody winter spices and a whisper of Cherry Coke next to orange/clove by way of a dark chocolate bar flaked with salt.

Initial Thoughts:

This was pretty nice but obviously very cheap on the palate. It wasn’t thin so much as everything was very punctuated. It was very “this then this then this … done.”

Taste 8

Tasting Notes:

Nose: This opens with a balance of old leather boots and freshly cracked black pepper next to a hint of walnut shell, vanilla pod, and orange zest.

Palate: The palate leans into what feels like star fruit as orange marmalade, salted butter, and fresh honey drip over rye bread crusts.

Finish: The end comes with a good dose of peppery spice and old leather as those walnuts and orange combine with a handful of dried fruit and a dusting of winter spices on the finish.

Initial Thoughts:

This was pretty nice overall but felt a tad standard. Good standard, don’t get me wrong. But there were no bells ringing and beckoning me back for more.

Taste 9

Tasting Notes:

Nose: Woody huckleberry jam over raisin scones mingle with eggnog spices and brown sugar cookies, spiced cherry fruit leather, and a twinge of sweet yet old oakiness.

Palate: That dark fruit leather leans into brandy-soaked dates and prunes with a sense of old oak cellars next to rich vanilla, soft apples, and sticky toffee pudding.

Finish: There’s a dark cherry spiced vibe to the finish that leans into fresh chewy tobacco packed into an old oak box and then wrapped in leather with a burnt orange rind and winter spice bouquet on top.

Initial Thoughts:

Goddamn, this is tasty. This is another one that I’m going to need to revisit before I rank it. It’s deeply delicious.

Taste 10

Tasting Notes:

Nose: The nose opens with a lovely sense of vanilla pods and orange blossom with a hint of old saddle leather and cedar bark next to wild sage, cinnamon and caramel apple fritters, and salted black licorice with a bundle of holiday spices and barks tied up with burnt orange and pine.

Palate: The palate is lush with a cream soda float with malted vanilla ice cream cut with cherries, dark chocolate chips, and espresso flakes next to cinnamon cherry bark tobacco on the mid-palate.

Finish: The end dives toward a thick braid of cedar bark, sage, and blackberry tobacco with a thin line of sweetgrass and vanilla pods woven in there.

Initial Thoughts:

This runs deep too. There was maybe a hint of lightness but I’m really reaching for something to pick at with that note. It’s just good whiskey.

Part 2 — The High-Proof Bourbon Ranking

10. Wild Turkey 101 Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey — Taste 7

ABV: 50.5%

Average Price: $19

The Whiskey:

A lot of Wild Turkey’s character comes from the hard and deep char they use on their oak barrels. 101 starts with a high-rye mash bill that leans into the wood and aging, having spent six years in the cask. A little of that soft Kentucky limestone water is added to cool it down a bit before bottling.

Bottom Line:

I kind of figured this was something like 101 when I tasted it. Again, it’s not thin but it just feels a little lesser, and by the book. That said, this was a perfectly tasty pour that feels like a great building block for a decent cocktail.

9. Brother’s Bond Straight Bourbon Whiskey Original Cask Strength — Taste 8

ABV: 57.9%

Average Price: $80

The Whiskey:

The newest release from Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley is an evolution of their brand. The whiskey in the bottle is a blend of three bourbons which create a four-grain bourbon. That blend was then bottled as-is.

Bottom Line:

This was nice with a good standard/classic bourbon vibe. Nothing more, nothing less. I’d build some nice cocktails with this one.

8. Bulleit Bourbon Barrel Strength Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey — Taste 5

ABV: 60.1%

Average Price: $45

The Whiskey:

This is Bulleit letting its whiskey shine at full force. The bourbon is small-batched from hand-selected barrels and bottled at the new Bulleit distillery in Kentucky with their own juice mixed in with some old sourced barrels that they’ve been stewarding for years now.

Bottom Line:

This was good too. I’m not going to deny that. It just didn’t have the oomph of other pours on this panel. Still, I can see this making a mean old fashioned or easy going on the rocks pour any ol’ day of the week.

7. Maker’s Mark Bill’s Recipe French Oaked No. 46 Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky Cask Strength — Taste 6

ABV: 55.15%

Average Price: $68

The Whisky:

This version of Maker’s 46 is all about shining a light on the brilliance of their stave program. The wheated bourbon is a small batch (made in a 1,000-gallon vatting tank) that’s re-barreled into used Maker’s Mark barrels that are fitted with heavily seared French oak staves. That whisky rests for another few months before bottling 100% as-is at cask strength.

Bottom Line:

Goddamn, if this had a stronger finish, it would have been top three. It just sort of petered out in the end. That says to me that you can use this to make a great cocktail as a foundation whiskey to build upon.

6. Stellum Bourbon Single Barrel Perseus Selected by Topflight Series by ReserveBar — Taste 3

ABV: 57.59%

Average Price: $52

The Whiskey:

Perseus is the latest in the astronomical lineup from Stellum Bourbon. This whiskey starts off with a mash bill of 75% corn, 21% rye, and 4% malted barley. That hot juice then rests for at least four to six years before single barrels are picked for bottling. In this case, ReserveBar snagged this barrel for their Top Flight program as a special barrel pick.

Bottom Line:

This is getting into the stellar pours. This was the lightest of those heavy hitters but still had a great overall profile. Get this if you’re looking for an easy everyday sipper or a great cocktail mixer.

5. Weller The Original Wheated Bourbon Antique 107 Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey — Taste 10

ABV: 53.5%

Average Price: $50

The Whiskey:

This is a non-age-statement bourbon that’s called “Old Weller Antique” (OWA) by those who love the old-school vibes of the expression’s previous iteration. The ripple with this expression is the higher proof. The barrels are vatted and barely proofed down to 107 proof before bottling (the entry proof is 114).

Bottom Line:

This is just good. And I know that it makes a killer cocktail since this is my house cocktail pour for everyday mixing.

4. 15 STARS Triple Cask Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey — Taste 9

ABV: 52.5%

Average Price: $179

The Whiskey:

This new release from 15 STARS is a blend of two bourbons with a big finishing run. The whiskey is made from an eight and 16-year-old blend that was finished in Kentucky in port, cognac, and rum casks for eight additional months before batching and bottling.

Bottom Line:

This runs so deep. The only reason it’s a little lower on the ranking is that it didn’t go full “wow.” Still, it delivered a great sipping experience.

3. Booker’s “Charlie’s Batch” 2023-01 Small Batch Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey — Taste 4

ABV: 63.3%

Average Price: $97

The Whiskey:

This limited edition 2023 release from Beam is an hommage to Charlie Hutchens — the woodworker who makes Booker’s boxes that the whiskey comes in and a long-time family friend to the Noe family who makes Beam whiskeys. The whiskey is a blend of mid to high-floor barrels from five warehouses. Those whiskeys were batched and bottled 100% as-is at cask strength after just north of seven years of aging.

Bottom Line:

This is delicious whiskey. I’d recommend pouring it over a rock to calm it down a skoosh and let the creaminess really mount.

2. Woodford Reserve Master’s Collection Batch Proof Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey 2023 Release — Taste 1

ABV: 62.35%

Average Price: $129

The Whiskey:

This brand-new Batch Proof release from Woodford Reserve is all about the process. The blending process of amazing cask strength barrels is front and center thanks to the whiskey going into the bottle untouched by water, leaving it “batch proof.”

Bottom Line:

This is amazingly tasty. It’s basically tied for first.

1. Elijah Craig Barrel Proof Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey Batch No. B523 — Taste 2

ABV: 62.1%

Average Price: $69

The Whiskey:

The latest Elijah Craig Barrel Proof is here (number two of three for 2023). This edition is a batch of bourbons that are a minimum of 11.5 years old (down from the usual 12-year age statements). The batch is bottled completely as is without cutting with water or chill filtration.

Bottom Line:

I’m shocked I picked this. I always harp on that it needs ice or I use it for cocktails. I evidently really like it because it kind of blew me away on this panel.

Part 3 — Final Thoughts on the High-Proof Bourbons

I guess I really like that Elijah Craig Barrel Proof. It just hits this great balance of running deep and unique with a purely classic Kentucky bourbon vibe. It’s hard not to love. The same goes for the Woodford Barrel Proof. It’s just freaking delicious.

Honestly, every whiskey on this panel was great in one way or another. If you’re looking for something you can easily find, then go with Stellum, Bulleit, or Turkey. Otherwise, take your time and track down any of the top five entries from this list. They’re all worth the time, effort, and cash.

In the great debate over which is superior — the nugget or the tender — I’m fully team tender. Nuggets are a gamble. Sometimes they’re heavily processed, sometimes they’re not even pure chicken, but with a tender you get a single cut of meat that has simply been battered and fried, even marinated if you’re lucky! But, who in fast food is making the best tasting highest quality chicken tender?

Come on, you know where we’re going with this… It’s time to blind taste test chicken tenders!

I’ve been a chicken tender fan for a long time, at one point in my life my diet consisted almost entirely of pancakes and chicken tenders. Yes, I was a picky child, but still, my love for chicken tenders (and pancakes) has never died, and I’ve had a lot of them throughout my life so my standards for what makes a great chicken tender are sky-high:

1. It has to be crunchy.
2. It has to be tender — I mean, it’s in the name.
3. It has to be battered in something that makes it perfectly flavorful, no sauce required.

So that’s how I’m going to taste them, sauceless. Let’s do it.

Methodology

Putting this taste test together was relatively easy compared to when we blind taste-tested chocolate milkshakes and cheeseburgers. All five of the restaurants chosen for this taste test were in relatively close proximity to each other and close enough to my home that I was able to grab the food and actually eat it at home instead of in a random parking lot like I’ve been doing for the last couple of taste tests.

Here is our tasting class:

• Carl’s Jr
• Chick-fil-A
• KFC
• Popeyes
• Raising Canes

Once I had each tender, I had my girlfriend bring me one tender at a time chosen at random and I ate the entire thing to get the full experience. Since chicken tenders can be very inconsistent in size and shape, I had her choose the best tender per order. Thankfully, none of them needed sauce to be edible, but unfortunately that made ranking them a bit tougher than I had imagined. Let’s dive into the tasting notes.

Part 1: The Chicken Tender Taste Test

Taste 1

Juicy and crunchy, a great start. This tender has a mix of black pepper, garlic powder, and salty flavors, and an aftertaste that is buttery with a gentle hint of lemon. Overall it’s a bright and light experience, I can see how sauce would easily elevate this to being even more delicious, but as it stands alone, it’s delicious!

Taste 2

Great breading here, it’s audibly crunchy. The chicken is a bit dry, but the flavor is nice with an emphasis on earthy black pepper notes with a sort of sweet aftertaste.

Taste 3

Dusty tasting and a bit bland. There is a staleness to the breading here, it tastes a bit burnt and the chicken inside is incredibly dry. I’m getting a lot of crunch out of this one, but eating it isn’t an enjoyable experience.

My hunch is that this one is going to rank last.

Taste 4

Incredibly juicy. This chicken is so tender that it almost melts in the mouth. The breading isn’t very crunchy, but it’s full of flavor, rich pepper notes, a hint of sweetness, and a slightly floral aftertaste. Very interesting. Sadly, I think it comes across as a bit wet and soggy. The breading sort of falls apart and sticks to my fingers — kind of off-putting.

Taste 5

Strangely flat, this piece of chicken is more breading than meat. It’s the crunchiest of the five we’ve tasted, and while the meat is scarce, all together the flavor is delicious. It’s bright, spicy, and salty. But I can’t get over just how little meat there is here. I’d say the ratio of breading to meat is 3:1.

Part 2: The Chicken Tender Ranking

5. Carl’s Jr — Hand-Breaded Chicken Tenders (Taste 3)

Carl’s Jr’s Hand-Breaded Chicken Tenders at one time, were novel. The idea of a hand-breaded piece of chicken was a rarity when the norm was fast food restaurants selling frozen pre-prepared chicken tenders with processed meat. Thankfully, we’re not living in those dark days anymore, but unfortunately for Carl’s Jr, that makes its hand-breaded tenders nothing special.

Ironically, this chicken sort of tastes like no love or care was put into crafting it, the breading isn’t seasoned well and it’s over-fried to the point of being dry, for that it stood apart as easily the least enjoyable piece of chicken we ate today.

The Bottom Line:

Carl’s Jr’s Hand-Breaded Chicken Tenders feel a little outdated and underwhelming in comparison to the chains that specialize in chicken.

Find your nearest Carl’s Jr. here.

4. KFC — Chicken Tenders (Taste 3)

KFC makes some great-tasting bird — there is a distinct character and flavor in this chicken tender that tastes undeniably like KFC. Part of me knew this was KFC during the blind tasting portion, but unfortunately, since the chicken was a bit too dry, I can’t rank it higher than the second to last place spot.

Earlier I mentioned that none of the chicken tenders needed sauce to get through, but I’m not confident I could say that about this chicken if I had more than a single tender.

The Bottom Line:

Good flavor, but a bit too dry.

Find your nearest KFC here.

3. Popeyes — Spicy Chicken Tender (Taste 5)

I love Popeyes, great bone-in chicken, and great chicken sandwiches, but straight up the tenders and nuggets need work. The flavor is on point, it’s bright, buttery, smokey, and spicy, and has a superior crunch to anything else on the market, but there just isn’t enough actual chicken here to make it rank any higher than mid-tier.

It’s literally a flat strip of meat. I’m not even sure this qualifies as a chicken tender, it’s almost as if someone shaved off a layer from a chicken filet, breaded up to three times its size, fried it, and called it a day.

The Bottom Line:

Great flavor, but where is the actual chicken? In a fast food world where chicken is king, it feels like Popeyes needs to step up its game.

Find your nearest Popeyes here.

2. Chick-fil-A — Chicken Tenders (Taste 4)

I have to hand it to Chick-fil-A, marinating your chicken in pickle brine, breading it on-site, and frying it in peanut oil is a good way to make some great f*cking chicken. Unfortunately, as good as these tenders are, they’re Chick-fil-A’s worst chicken option. Why would you ever order these over the nuggets, which are juicier, or the chicken sandwich, which is meatier?

Having said all that, we’re not here to talk about the rest of the Chick-fil-A menu, we’re here to compare it to the chicken tenders we ate in this sitting. This was so close to taking the number one spot, the only thing that kept it from taking the crown was that it wasn’t crispy enough. The breading, as delicious as it is, came across as a bit wet and soggy.

The Bottom Line:

Great flavor, it’s tender and juicy, but not crunchy enough.

Find your nearest Chick-fil-A here.

1. Raising Cane’s — Chicken Tenders (Taste 1)

Raising Cane’s straight up doesn’t have a batter as delicious as Chick-fil-A, and they don’t marinate their chicken in pickle brine (I believe they use lemon water) resulting in a brighter and less intense flavor than Chick-fi-A, but the whole package is just on point here.

The batter is perfect, it’s thick, craggy, and well seasoned, the chicken is tender and juicy (made from non-frozen chicken tenders prepared in-house), and each piece is fried for the perfect amount of time, resulting in a chicken tender that is equal parts crunchy and flavorful. This chicken doesn’t leave me wanting for anything, and for that, it’s our number one choice.

The Bottom Line:

The perfect fast food chicken tender and the standard by which all other chicken tenders should be measured.

Find your nearest Raising Cane’s here.

The September tour dates Gorillaz announced in May are no more. While Damon Albarn’s animated band had planned to play four dates with Kaytranada, Lil Yachty, and Remi Wolf, ticketholders received emails today with a statement announcing the dates’ cancelations.

Due to scheduling conflicts and circumstances beyond our control, the previously announced Gorillaz shows in September have been cancelled. Refunds will be issued automatically at your point of purchase and will be processed as quickly as possible, there is nothing further for you to do at this time. Please allow for up to 30 days for the refund to process.

In a statement, Gorillaz wrote:

We are gutted not to be able to perform for you this year. We were really looking forward to it and we hope to get back to you again as soon as we can. We love our Gorillaz family and we can’t wait to see you again.

The mini-tour, called The Getaway tour, was to mark the final dates supporting the band’s latest album, Cracker Island. It was also to be the group’s first dates stateside since they rocked Coachella with Beck, Bad Bunny, and De La Soul.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The night before the 2023 NBA Draft was full of drama. A proposed three-team deal involving the Kristaps Porzingis fell apart just hours before a midnight ET deadline, only to be revived and ultimately completed. That resulted in Porzingis ending up with the Boston Celtics, Marcus Smart heading to the Memphis Grizzlies, and Tyus Jones heading to Washington. Around the same time, Milwaukee Bucks star Khris Middleton declined a lucrative player option and chose unrestricted free agency. While the dam has not yet broken with regard to trades on the day of the draft, the first domino fell when the Los Angeles Lakers and Indiana Pacers reportedly agreed to a swap involving draft picks and cash.

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski broke the original details, with the Lakers moving from No. 47 to No. 40 with the Pacers acquiring a pile of cash for their trouble. It is always crucial to point out that “cash considerations” simply line the pockets of ownership, rather than actually providing on-court value, but Tony East of Locked On Pacers notes that Indiana will receive $4.35 million from Los Angeles. ESPN’s Bobby Marks relays that Los Angeles could send a maximum of $4.4 million under league rules, which makes sense given the reported price. Given that the haul was paid to move up only seven spots, it would be considered a fairly lofty sum.

As far as basketball is concerned, the Lakers now pair with the No. 40 pick with the No. 17 pick in the first round, and Los Angeles has a decent bit of flexibility as the offseason arrives. The Lakers undoubtedly want to retain Austin Reaves, but Los Angeles could pursue the route of salary cap space and, if they do, having two top-40 picks to add cheap young talent could be useful. On Indiana’s side, the seven-spot drop won’t change the world, and the Pacers have been very active in deals, including a transaction to swap draft capital with the Denver Nuggets just hours before this deal.

Before The Bear became a sleeper hit for FX on Hulu, the Jeremy Allen White series set in the Chicago restaurant world originally started out as a feature film. However, as The Bear bounced around Hollywood, it evolved into a series, which was clearly a good call. The show is now in its second season, and fans can’t get enough of White’s chef.

As for why The Bear made the leap from film to TV series, showrunner Joanna Caro walked The Hollywood Reporter through the decision process for chopping up the experience:

The half-hour discussion had happened before I was there. But Chris and I really stayed true to what we wanted the voice to be. … It’s like, would you really want to be in that kitchen for more than half an hour at a time? I think you need a little credit break to get you through. These things were honestly just told to us, and we were so grateful that FX wanted to make the show that we were like, “OK, yeah, sure.”

However, Caro also revealed that the creative team still approached The Bear‘s first season story like a film.

“I think we often tried to think of it as still just one big feature,” Caro said. “And so how could we tell the story without hitting people over the head with it? Is it a different experience to just live in this kitchen and get lost in the food and letting the food represent connection between these people as if you’re making a musical and there’s a dance number.”

The Bear Season 1 and 2 are available for streaming on Hulu.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

I’ve been rewatching The Sopranos this year. It’s been a long process – partly because of the density of the average Sopranos episode and partly because of the glut of new content to keep up with that has been released over the past couple of months. Also, I took February off because who wants to spend Black History Month being called an eggplant?

In the meantime, I’ve been following the racketeering case against Young Thug, Gunna, and the rest of Young Stoner Life Records – or the Young Slime Life gang, if you buy the Fulton County District Attorney’s account of events of the past eight years. I watched as Gunna, Unfoonk, and nearly a dozen other members of the group accepted so-called “Alford Pleas,” admitting to lesser charges in exchange for shorter sentences while maintaining their innocence.

Hip-hop fans and artists alike turned on Gunna, declaring him a “rat,” someone who should be excommunicated from the community. His longtime producer Wheezy deemed him persona non grata; Lil Durk assumed he must have given information about the so-called criminal dealings of Young Thug (who most rappers and producers maintain hasn’t done anything illegal, so somebody has to explain to me the logic on that).

This has all both amused and frustrated me – a lot like my Sopranos viewing of late – probably because my recent rewatch has illuminated to me just how ridiculous the show wants us to know its characters really are. The members of the DiMeo crime family are, to put it bluntly, a bunch of petty, ignorant, emotionally-stunted goobers; their entire system of rules and honor codes ultimately amounts to a grown-up version of the He-Man Woman-Haters Club from Our Gang and The Little Rascals.

The gangsters of the show are men with the mindsets of little boys, all trying to prove to each other how “manly” they are, based on a concept of manhood out-of-sync with the world around them. This holds true of most mafia-centric entertainment: The Godfather, Goodfellas, Casino, The Gangs Of New York, and yes, the hip-hop whose artists have based their stage personas (or past criminal activities) on these characters and “this thing of ours.”

Which makes it all the more baffling why Gunna is being held to these standards, when all he’s ever really claimed to be is a rapper. Yes, he’s rapped about illicit activities, but it’s been pretty firmly established by now that lyrics in rap should be understood to be exaggerated, fictionalized, or outright made up. No one believes Lupe Fiasco has a mecha in his backyard. Jadakiss’ bathtub most definitely does not lift up, nor do his walls do a 360.

Rappers are often playing roles, but what happens when those roles blur the line between creativity and reality? To take it even further, what happens when they drop the facade entirely and get “real” again? Gunna attempts to answer these questions on his new album, A Gift And A Curse, but honestly, I’m more interested in the response than I am in the music, which is as technically proficient as we’ve come to expect from Gunna – if a bit more earnest, humble, and soul-searching.

While social media was awash in posts claiming that Gunna’s career was over due to his “snitching” – something no one can confirm or do anything other than speculate about until the actual trial starts – most recent projections put the album at just under 100,000 equivalent units. That’s certainly a dip from his past projects, but it’s also far from “imminent retirement” numbers. It undermines the thesis that hip-hop and this mafioso-lite “honor code” are as closely bound as outsiders and parasites like DJ Akademiks seem to think.

And that, ultimately, is a good thing. As much as hip-hop is influenced and impacted by money from crime (after all, it costs a lot to get started in the music business, and there are few other options for many folks from America’s inner cities), it’s also taken lots of inspiration from mobster movies, leading to this impression even among the staunchest rap insiders that “keeping it real” is synonymous with acting like a Tony Soprano or Henry Hill.

But, spoiler alert: We know how their stories turn out. Hill not so coincidentally turns state’s evidence in an effort to save his own life. Tony’s fate is left to the viewer’s imagination, but that smash-cut to black bodes ill for someone whose “honor code” included murdering men he’d known since grade school, employees who he himself characterized as “good earners,” and even his own nephew (who was, admittedly, a f*ck-up of the highest order whose loose-cannon behavior often threatened the family business).

Whether or not you believe YSL was a gang or a label – and it matters, because you can’t really have it both ways in this case – holding someone who the vast majority of us only ever knew as an artist to the outdated, self-destructive rules of a pack of overgrown children is about as dumb as idolizing wiseguys who openly view the Black creators of hip-hop as “ditsoons,” “mulignans,” and “butterheads” in the first place. (Tony fainting at the sight of a box of Uncle Ben rice will never not be funny.)

And as for A Gift And A Curse, my big takeaway was this: Gunna has made some of his best music by stripping away the artifice and the trappings of gang life. That should tell us a lot about the direction hip-hop should be going instead of trying to rehash the same old stories – all of which have tragic endings.

A Gift And A Curse is out now on Young Stoner Life Records/300 Entertainment.

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

The Boston Celtics’ pursuit of Kristaps Porzingis from the Washington Wizards in a three-team trade involving the Los Angeles Clippers fell apart on Wednesday, but they managed to rally and pull off a deal before midnight that involved the Memphis Grizzlies, instead. The catch: Instead of moving Malcolm Brogdon, who was slated to go to the Clippers in the original deal, Boston sent the heart and soul of their team to Memphis, as Marcus Smart is going to play for a new team for the first time in his NBA career.

It was legitimately stunning, as Smart has been a staple in Boston since he entered the league. And according to multiple reports, he was just as shocked by the move, too. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, Smart “did not see that trade coming until the team notified him, like, maybe 15, 10 minutes before.”

Adam Himmelsbach of the Boston Globe added some more details, and reported that a source close to Smart viewed this as a “gut punch” because “He thought he was going to retire there. He wanted to retire there.”

Smart joined a brief call with his closest confidants late Wednesday night, sources said, and expressed hurt that out of all the guards on the roster, the Celtics decided to part ways with him. He had come so far with the franchise and was determined to hang its first championship banner since 2008. He believed they were so close.

While getting Porzingis and a pair of first-round picks should both help the Celtics, there are few (if any) players more beloved in Boston sports than Smart. It’s hard to imagine him playing for another team, in large part because he never thought that would happen.

Louis Tomlinson fans did not have it easy last night (June 21) at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado. They went to see the former One Direction member perform, but the concert ended abruptly when the weather took a turn for the worse.

It started hailing and it was so intense that it left many concertgoers injured. The West Metro Fire Rescue wrote on Twitter: “Red Rocks hail storm- 7 people transported to area hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries. A total of 80 to 90 people treated on scene. Injuries include cuts and broken bones. Sporadic hail still coming down in Morrison area.”

A photographer described the situation, “A freak hailstorm and flash flood hit Red Rocks tonight with golf ball sized hail while I was photographing the Louis T show. HUGE shoutout needs to go to the staff and medical teams at Red Rocks who were helping the injured as well as helping the fans be as safe as they could.”

The singer acknowledged it himself on social media, writing, “Devastated about the show tonight, hope everyone’s ok, I’ll be back! Even though we didn’t play the show I felt all of your passion! Sending you all love!”

Earlier this year, Louis Tomlinson released a documentary about himself called All Of Those Voices. “This has been something I’ve been working on for years, I’m really excited to finally put it out into the world,” he shared on Instagram. “I’ve said it a million times but I’m lucky enough to have the greatest fans an artist could wish for, and as they always go above and beyond for me, I wanted to share my story ‘in my own words’.”