Last week, Herschel Walker did something strange even for him: The footballer-turned-MAGA candidate busted out an honorary police badge during a debate. Why? To show that he’s law enforcement, or something. Now another kooky Trumpworld figure has done the same thing.
Mike Lindell shows up at the Trump rally in TX, and promptly proceeds to undermine Ronna McDaniel’s deprogramming tour this week by telling people not to vote early. He then shows off his honorary Sheriff’s badge, which is now apparently a thing now with MAGA. pic.twitter.com/zHyqFPDvDe
As per Mediaite, Mike Lindell, the pillow salesman-turned-frothing voter fraud conspiracy theorist, was speaking ahead of the latest Trump rally, in Robstown, Texas. He gave some advice on what to do if election workers prevent people from voting, or something: Go to your local sheriff. And like Walker before him, he had a little, not-exactly-official prop.
“Encourage everyone you know to vote the day of the election, not before. Very important everybody,” Lindell advised. “The media’s all over attacking me for telling you all that. If you get a mail-in vote or whatever, mail-in ballot, just bring it with you to make sure if they tell you, ‘oh, you already voted,’ say, no I didn’t and you go to your local sheriff.”
He then pointed to a tiny badge attached to the lapel of his jacket, saying, “They just gave me a little badge.” He then joked that it made him “semi-official.”
Granted, Lindell didn’t go all-in like Walker did during his debate with opponent Raphael Warnock. Nor has he, as Walker has, had other toy badges made to hand out to his supporters. But then, if anyone’s going to burn money over total nonsense, it’s probably the MyPillow Guy.
Dwayne Johnson recently revealed that he recently cried during Braveheart. (Or rather, he got “misty-eyed,” which is close enough.) Now he has another reason to tear up: Black Adam, his superhero movie-verse debut, has overcome so-so reviews to give him the best leading man opening of his career.
As per Deadline, the latest DCEU entry — with Johnson as a semi-hero with godlike powers who does a lot of near-R-rated killing — is on track to open with a whopping $67 million from domestic theaters alone. That pushes it ahead of some of his other biggest openers. The record was previously held by Hobbs & Shaw ($60 million), in which he was co-lead with Jason Statham. It was also bigger than Jumanji: The Next Level ($59 million) and San Andreas ($54 million). Heck, it was nearly $15 million more than another DCEU episode, Shazam!, to which it’s closely related ($53).
Mind you, this isn’t the biggest opener ever for a movie with Dwayne Johnson. Those ones just tend to have the words “Fast” and/or “Furious” in the titles. In those films, Johnson is simply part of the ensemble — or was, partly because of his beef with Vin Diesel, which Johnson is apparently not ready to end. But it seems he’s doing just fine on his own.
We may not have the visuals for Beyoncé‘s Renaissance album yet, however, we did get an update on a tour. Last night (October 22) at WACO Theater‘s Wearable Art Gala 2022, Beyoncé teased the tour with a very lavish package for auction.
The concert ticket package was presented in partnership with United Airlines.
The description read:
Valued at a total of $20,000, United x WACO offers you a chance to see Beyoncé on her Renaissance tour starting in the summer of 2023 at any of United’s national and international destinations around the world.
This prize is complete with 2 first-class international United Airlines Polaris tickets to select cities with 3-night hotel accommodations at a Marriott property.
And, to one of the most sought-after musical performances of all time, 2 concert tickets to Beyoncé’s Renaissance 2023 tour with a guided backstage tour with Miss Tina!
Miss Tina, refers to the nickname given to Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, by the Beyhive.
Beyoncé herself has not yet announced the tour, however, fans in attendance at the gala snapped pictures of the announcement and shared the news of the tour on social media.
It’s one thing for royals to have select titles carry through generations, bequeathing them to monarchs when they eventually ascend their thrones. After all, writer George R.R. Martin has based much of his writing within the Song of Ice And Fire universe on the very real histories of England – from its Dark Ages to the War of the Roses – and if there’s one thing the Brits liked back in those days, it was the name Henry. Or Edward. Or Richard. Or Charles…
The point is, there’s precedent for this perverse repetition of phonetic mayhem so some of the blame must be laid at Martin’s – and by extension, all of Great Britain’s – feet.
But the rest? The rest is all showrunner Ryan Condal who, when told he’d need to change a Viserys or two for fans to follow along more easily in this Civil War tearing House Targaryen apart, said (and we quote) “I think the f*ck not.”
Episode after episode this nom de guerre free-for-all pushed fans to the brink of insanity. Sure, HOTD is based on Martin’s writings, but this is television, people! And television people cannot, in good conscience, be expected to delineate between multiple white-haired tyrants based solely on if their name ends in a “ys” or a “yra.” We are watching tiny screens for entertainment, not prepping for Westeros’ version of the Scripps National Spelling Bee! We’re trying to see if a prestige cable drama will let an uncle f*ck his niece and call it romance – spoiler, it will – not dragging ourselves through an onomastic labyrinth of Targaryen etymology for fun. And yet, after an entire season, here we stand.
Two Viserys-es. Three Aegons. A Daemon, an Aemond, and a Vaemond. A Rhaenyra, a Rhaenys, a Rhaena. A Baela. A Helaena. A Laena. A Lucerys, a Jaecaerys, a Jaehaerys, and a Jaehaera.
We’ve got errant “a’s” before “e’s.” We’ve got “n’s” confusing Velaryon and Targaryen lineage. We’ve got anagrams sneakily serving as metaphors for one-eyed nephews perversely obsessed with their hot, older uncles. We’ve got kings sharing names with princes, a would-be queen splitting prefixes with the queen-that-never-was. We’ve got an entirely nonsensical number of children whose names start with the letter “j.” (Four. Four names. The writers are just goofing at this point.)
And we haven’t even touched on the fictional anarchy these dynastic denominations have wreaked.
As Our Lady Of Millennial Trauma Taylor Swift once crooned, “Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby.” Now, sub in the name Aegon Targaryen for “sexy baby” and you’ve landed on the crux of the succession problem brewing on House of the Dragon. In its penultimate episode, too many Aegons in the metaphorical kitchen led a dim-witted Alicent Hightower to believe her son – a lecherous pervert with no real ambition to rule – was the hero her dying husband imagined would one day reunite the realm. In truth, Viserys was translating Aegon the Conqueror’s dream and doing a bad job of it. Had he lived just one more day, perhaps Viserys could’ve corrected this mistake, but his death gave Alicent and the Hightower allies the opportunity they were hoping for to usurp the throne – and the unimaginative naming conventions of House Targaryen made it all too easy to conjure a believable reason why.
Irony. A plot device as old as incest itself. And it’s a clever one for a show that constantly flirts with anti-monarchist themes and investigates designations of power – who’s worthy to rule and why. To have the downfall of Westeros’ most influential family sparked by something as banal and trivial as a name mix-up is so tongue-in-cheek it’s practically lewd. And, for a second, as geriatric lords were being murdered via paperweights, HOTD almost had us fooled that cloning character names was a cerebral narrative trick we were just too dumb to notice. Perhaps three Aegons was high art? Maybe migrating the “d” in Daemon to the end of Aemond’s name was a nightmarish exercise in surrealism that was meant to feel Kafkaesque?
And then, the twins arrived.
Again, in House of the Dragon’s penultimate episode, as the hunt for the usurping slob kebab barreled through the streets of Flea Bottom, two members of the King’s Guard had an important role to play. Both knights from House Cargyll, Ser Erryk and Ser Arryk were twin brothers, identical in both looks and phonemes. They had already been used for comedic effect earlier in the season when Alicent mistook Erryk for his brother Arryk and the good-natured knight corrected her with a serious, “I’m Erryk, Your Grace” as if the pronunciation of his name differed at all from that of his brother.
HBO
But, in episode nine, the brothers set out on a quest to return Aegon to the throne and we, as the audience, were given an equally difficult task: find a way to keep track of which Erryk is which Arryk.
The disrespect. The complete fracas. The mental hoops we as viewers were forced to jump through in order to distinguish two human beings who even Mother Nature, when posed the same challenge, threw up her hands and said “Not my problem,” before letting the system glitch gestate for nine months was simply galling. This was Emmy-winning writing, yes. But this was also mess. Glorious trash. A garbage heap so delicious, raccoons would go to war over it.
And so, we’ve reached the real point of our own rambling word salad.
House of the Dragon has done many things right, and a few things wrong, but contrary to the Twitter discourse — and the very real, very personal torture of having to “jump on a call” with your mother after each episode airs in order to remind her which Targaryen prince is cosplaying as a pirate and which is played by the actor who once gaslit her into “believing Prince Philip was hot” – the repetition of main character names falls in the former category.
Why? Because to go against one of the writing world’s most revered commandments by hinging the entire conflict of your multi-million dollar show on a moniker mix-up is John McClane-level ballsy, to the Yippee-ki-yay mother*cker degree. It’s man railing against the gods. It’s Karyn Kusama fans defiantly defending Jennifer’s Body as the feminist manifesto it is over a decade later. It’s a still-wet Picasso painting. That Elizabeth Olsen appearance on Hot Wings.
It’s the best kind of melodrama – frustrating, preposterous, bold, and unapologetic. It’s lawlessness but for the chaotic good. It is the very essence of what makes HOTD feel different from its predecessor, focusing on the minutia of life, the triviality of destiny, and exploiting the fractured family dynamics so eye-rolling in their pettiness and perpetuity that you’d expect to find them on daytime TV, not a prestige streaming platform. It is high art, forming a combustible mix with the lowest of pop culture gratification. It’s a linguistic mascot for masochism.
Please, HOTD, give us more Aegons. We deserve it.
HBO’s ‘House of the Dragon’ airs on Sunday nights.
The Miami Heat and Toronto Raptors squared off on Saturday night in a matchup of two teams that are really, really good at getting under the skin of their opponents. Both teams play hard, physical basketball, and it’s not unusual to see their approaches leading to opponents getting visibly frustrated with how things go.
This can lead to things getting a bit testy, and during Saturday’s game, Caleb Martin and Christian Koloko got into it with one another. Martin tripped up Koloko as he tried to reel in a rebound, which led to the rookie big man hitting the deck. Martin stood over a Koloko upset with something, and after Koloko stood up, he wrapped his arms around Martin and things popped off.
Martin responded to this by driving forward, which sent himself and Koloko into the stands. Players, coaches, and officials went in there to split the two up, although it took a second for everyone to get separated.
Benches vacate at Heat vs. Raptors as Christian Koloko and Caleb Martin get into it. pic.twitter.com/80lJhoqJPo
— Bally Sports Florida & Bally Sports Sun (@BallySportsFL) October 23, 2022
Unsurprisingly, both players were hit with double technical fouls and got ejected from the game. Martin, who has earned a spot in Miami’s starting lineup, appeared in 22 minutes of action before getting tossed, while Koloko got 12 minutes of work on the night.
One of the best ways to win college football games on the road is to limit mistakes at all costs. Seeing as how Texas A+M went down 17-3 in the first quarter while playing South Carolina, well, you can probably put two and two together and figure out that they made a few mistakes early on in the game.
On the team’s first drive, the Aggies ran three plays, and on the fourth, starting quarterback Haynes King got picked off. On the very next drive, King gave the Gamecocks the ball again, although in fairness to him, it’s hard to blame this one on him.
King stepped up to the line of scrimmage to call something out to his offensive line when his center decided to snap the ball. Doing this meant that the ball bounced right off of King’s leg, but instead of softly falling to the ground, it popped directly into the air and into the arms of South Carolina defensive lineman Tonka Hemingway’s arms.
One can argue, I suppose, that the QB sent the ball forward and someone grabbed it out of the air, so this should be a pick. But ESPN decided to mark it in the official box score as a fumble, although it does not assign blame anywhere.
ESPN
Someone is gonna want this one back, although it’s unclear who.
On top of a music video for “Jimmy Cooks,” which dropped earlier today, fans are getting treated to another treat from Drake and 21 Savage. Today, the two have revealed that they will end the month by dropping a collaborative album, Her Loss.
The title and release date were revealed in the “Jimmy Cooks” video.
Over the years, Drake and 21 have collaborated several times. “Jimmy Cooks” from Drake’s Honestly, Nevermind album, the two collaborated on Drake’s “Knife Talk” from Certfied Lover Boy, “Mr. Right Now” from 21 and Metro Boomin’s Savage Mode II album, “Sneakin’” from Drake’s More Life.
Not much else is known about the collaborative album, however, In an interview with Haute Living from earlier this year, 21 talked about what to expect from other music he is working on.
“I’m really just trying to figure it out now,” he said. “I go to the studio every day; that’s how I get in my zone. Everything is still in the initial stages, but I do try to make all my albums sound unique, so this one is going to be different for sure. I don’t want to sound like anybody else.”
He also noted that he will be “freestyling, not putting things down on paper.”
There are high expectations for Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers this season. Even though they started the year 0-2 and Embiid is working his way into playing shape, Philly is a popular pick to have the most wins in the Eastern Conference during the regular season and Embiid’s name is expected to be in the MVP conversation all year long.
One such person who expects a big year for Embiid is Shaquille O’Neal. On a recent edition of “The Big Podcast with Shaq,” the big man laid out his expectation for Embiid, and let’s just say it won’t be easy for him to obtain.
“Yeah, but he needs to look like it, he needs to walk like it, talk like it, act like it, and play like it,” O’Neal said. “Listen, we know you can shoot the jumper, but when you got a guy small on you, you got to take advantage. Like, when you’re seven foot, and you’re further away from the basket, ok, if the show goes in, it’s cool, but the percentages of it going all the time, it’s not going to be high. If you’re closer to the basket, you could double your percentage, it’s easy.
Shaq went on to say that Embiid is going to average 25 or 26 points per game, but argues if he gets down low a few times, that’ll lead to “6-8 extra points, and then, if you’re averaged 34, 35,” then he is going to win MVP.
“But hey, hopefully he picks it up,” O’Neal said. “Cause if I was playing, and I got beat two years in a row, I’m coming in the third year like, ‘Ok, y’all don’t think I’m MVP? Watch this.’ So, if he doesn’t get unanimous MVP, I’ll be disappointed.”
Exactly one person in NBA history — Steph Curry in 2015-16 — has ever won the MVP award unanimously, although Shaq and LeBron James have both come one vote short of earning that honor.
Magic Johnson’s found a way to stick around the world of sports through his ownership of several teams. The former Los Angeles Lakers superstar has ownership stakes in the Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Sparks, and LAFC, which has led to a few championships getting added to the five NBA titles he won as a player.
A new report indicates that Johnson and a team of investors are eyeing up an NFL team to add to his portfolio. According to Liz Hoffman and Reed Albergotti of Semafor, Johnson is in talks to purchase a stake of the Las Vegas Raiders for “a price that could set a new record for sports deals.”
Johnson has been assembling a team of investors in recent weeks for a minority slice of the Raiders, which is majority owned by the family of the late Al Davis, the people said. One of them said the group was conducting due diligence with the team. A deal hasn’t been finalized and could still fall apart.
The Raiders were previously in Los Angeles from 1982-1994, a period of time that coincided with Johnson suiting up for the Lakers. After returning to their previous home, Oakland, in 1995, the Raiders moved to Vegas ahead of the 2020 campaign. Currently, the franchise’s controlling owner is Al Davis’ son, Mark, while several others have ownership stakes.
It is unclear how large of a stake Johnson would purchase in the team if this goes through. The record amount paid for an American sports team is $4.65 billion, which a group forked over to purchase the Denver Broncos earlier this year.
When Alex Jones learned he’d lost another massive Sandy Hook case — while filming an episode of InfoWars — he seemed to go into a fugue state. The conspiracy theorist fist-bumped and cheered as each charge was read and the money he owed kept piling up, eventually adding up to an astronomical sum. He even seemed to mock the families who had sued him, charging, “’Do these people actually think they’re getting any of this money?’”But now he’s starting to take it more seriously.
As per AP News, Jones filed paperwork on Friday requesting that the Connecticut judge who ordered him to pay a jaw-dropping fee toss it altogether. In the filing, Jones’ lawyers argued that the judge’s pre-trial rules resulted in “a substantial miscarriage of justice.” They also argued that the sum was simply too much, writing that “the amount of the compensatory damages award exceeds any rational relationship to the evidence offered at trial.”
The lawyer for the 15 plaintiffs in the lawsuit, meanwhile, is planning to file a brief opposing Jones’ request.
Alas, Jones’ legal worries are far from over. On top of the nearly $50 million he was ordered to pay after a Texas trial in August — and the $965 million from the one in Connecticut — a third trial, also in Texas, is set to unfold later this year. The New England trial wasn’t quite as chaotic as the one in the Lone Star state, but it had its moments.
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(@RonFilipkowski) October 22, 2022
