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Last weekend, Kid Rock performed at FishLipz Bar & Grill in Smithville, Tennessee. The show was definitely memorable, albeit not for a great reason: While on stage, he got frustrated with his audience and responded by using a homophobic slur. Addressing one attendee who was filming the performance with their phone, Rock said, “F*ck your iPhone, yeah!” After singing about his crotch for a little bit, he added, “You f*cking f*****s with your phones out!”

Now, Rock has responded to the situation, although instead of putting out the fire, he fanned the flames.

On Twitter yesterday afternoon, Rock shared a tweet, written from the perspective of “Bob Ritchie” (the musician’s full legal name is Robert James Ritchie). In the tweet, he writes about “Kid Rock” like he’s a completely different person, but that’s not even the most baffling thing about the post: Rock decided to address his use of the slur by using the slur again. He wrote, “If Kid Rock using the word f***** offends you, good chance you are one. Either way, I know he has a lot of love for his gay friends and I will have a talk with him. Have a nice day. -Bob Ritchie”

The response to the tweet has been divided. Some Rock fans told detractors to “calm down” and one praised the artist for “standing up to the woke bully left.” Then there are those who mocked Rock’s decision to discuss himself in the third person. One user replied, “thanks Bob, be sure to tell him no one respects him,” while author John Pavlovitz responded, “You’re both idiots.”

Blizzard’s goal was clear when Overwatch released to PC in 2016: give this competitive shooter the potential to be the next great eSport. That meant devs were going to focus on balance and making the game a fair, and fun, experience for all players.

One of the biggest disparities in Overwatch, however, has always been the difference between console and PC. The PC game was a faster and more intense beast. Players had a significant advantage with a mouse and keyboard compared to those who played with a controller. While other competitive shooters were finding ways to add crossplay, making it so anyone with the game could play them, Overwatch always held out as an exclusive experience.

That is changing. Overwatch devs announced on Wednesday that they were going to be tearing the crossplay barrier down. PC players can play with anyone on a console and console players can play with PC players, a huge shift against how they have handled Overwatch up to this point.

On the surface, this is just Overwatch doing something that other shooters have already done. Apex Legends and Fortnite, for example, have thriving competitive environments despite being crossplay titles. Now that Overwatch is joining them, it makes the game more accessible for everyone, but there is more to it than that.

Overwatch was one of the final crossplay holdouts. If anyone had a good reason to not go to crossplay, it was Overwatch, because it has been designed to be an eSport since it launched. By adding crossplay, developers now have to put time and effort into how it will perform on consoles and make sure the balance for that is fair, or else they will develop the game and make it very clear that one platform is going to struggle compared to others. It’s a massive shift in how they’ve always viewed their game. It’s also the final nail in the exclusivity coffin.

Video games used to be an exclusive experience. Someone bought a console because it was what their friends have, but now, a group of four can have a Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and still play games together. Five years ago, when Overwatch released, that sentence would have made no sense. Video games have changed and Overwatch shifting to crossplay is a sign of that change.

The last time that Dave Grohl was a guest on The Howard Stern Show in February, he spoke about getting together with his surviving Nirvana bandmates to jam and record new music. Recently, Grohl returned to the program to promote Foo Fighters’ upcoming Madison Square Garden concert. While there, Stern again got Grohl talking about those Nirvana get-togethers.

Grohl suggested that the material he, Krist Novoselic, and Pat Smear (a touring member of Nirvana) have recorded together may never get released, or at least it wasn’t designed for an audience outside of themselves:

“Krist Novoselic is a pilot, he flies his own plane. He lives up in the Pacific Northwest and whenever he comes down to Los Angeles, you know, we always love to see each other and we’ll have dinner. Last time he was here, I made dinner for us and we hung out. Pat’s always around and the three of us, you know, we like to be together, we like to see each other. If there are instruments around or a studio that’s available, we’ll just get together and kind of jam, you know? We don’t, like, run through a big ol’ Nirvana setlist, but we do like to just fool around, and sometimes, as we’re fooling around, songs happen. And if we’re in a studio, we’ll record them. We’ve recorded some stuff that’s really cool, but we’ve never done anything with it. I think to us, it’s just more friends jamming around. It doesn’t seem like any big official reunion or anything.”

Stern then asked if Grohl handles vocal duties during these jam/recording sessions and Grohl said, “No, I’m just playing the drums. We don’t have a singer. We kind of record these instrumentals and just mess around. It’s very casual. There’s no pressure on us to do something that the world will have to hear. It’s more really just for fun and a lot of it’s really cool. It reminds you that when the three of us get together in a room and start playing, it sounds like it did, it sounds like it used to. When you put the three of us in a room, it makes that noise, it still does. […] It sounds like Nirvana. We just make that sound when we play together. It’s really cool.”

Watch Grohl discuss getting together with his Nirvana bandmates below.

In Free Guy, Ryan Reynolds plays Guy, a happy-go-lucky bank teller who learns that he’s a non-playable-character in an open-world video game. It’s kind of like the “Raiders of the Lost Arcade” segment in the “Anthology of Interest II” episode of Futurama, except instead of defeating the Space Invaders, Reynolds has to save his world from an evil tech millionaire played by Taika Waititi. Free Guy also stars Jodie Comer as Milly, who explains the rules of the game to Guy, and Lil Rel Howery as his best friend Buddy.

“I do think it’s the best movie-making experience that I’ve ever had, easily, but also the best movie I’ve ever done,” Reynolds said about Free Guy, directed by Shawn Levy (Stranger Things). “It’s the most pertinent to our times.” He praised it for speaking “in a broader spectrum of where we are in the world and how we are in the world.”

Here’s the official plot synopsis:

In Free Guy, a bank teller who discovers he is actually a background player in an open-world video game decides to become the hero of his own story… one he rewrites himself. Now in a world where there are no limits, he is determined to be the guy who saves his world his way… before it is too late.

Free Guy, which has been postponed three times due to the pandemic (it was originally scheduled for last July), finally opens on August 13.

With only one game on Wednesday night, there was ample time for the Inside the NBA crew to get into some shenanigans, which included a full on circus act before Game 2 of Nuggets-Suns in which they brought out a live python to terrify poor Charles Barkley.

After the Suns waxed the Nuggets to take a 2-0 series lead and they discussed the upcoming Thursday night action, they continued their “On This Day” journey for the Inside crew, this time looking back at Game 2 of the 2000 NBA Finals when the Pacers sent Shaq to the free throw line a ridiculous 39 times. Unfortunately, Shaq didn’t have a ridiculous story about his son telling him to hit his free throws or something for Kenny and Ernie to call BS on, but they were prepared to give the big fella a chance at redemption.

Shaq went 18-for-39 in that game, leading Chuck to question how he even got into the Hall of Fame as they watched a lowlight reel of bricks, so Ernie brought out a mini-hoop to set up on the plexiglass divider on the desk to let Shaq show off his shooting touch. Unsurprisingly, this did not go well, with Shaq growing increasingly frustrated as Kenny and Chuck laughed at his failed attempts and bet on when he would make one.

That they initially said inside five shots was actually incredibly kind to Shaq, who needed eight shots to make his first, finally banking one home. The best was, because he’s Shaq, he kept saying “I’m messing with y’all” before missing another trying to insist he was in on the joke and not actually missing. At the end, he tried to exact revenge on Barkley by carrying the hoop with him to dunk on Chuck, but sadly missed that as well.

In fairness to Shaq, shooting on a mini-hoop is hard as hell for normal people, much less someone whose hands completely engulf the miniature basketballs. That this was at the very end of the show made me want to know how long they would’ve let him shoot had he not made that eighth one — Chuck keeping a tally of how many people were already dead on the episode of Law & Order they were running over into was some excellent trolling.

The Denver Nuggets looked like they might take Game 1 after taking a brief 10-point lead in the third quarter, but since that point the wheels have come off on both ends of the floor. After watching the Suns rip of a 16-0 run in the third to take control of that game, the Nuggets have seemingly been unable to recover.

In Game 2, they never showed the fight they did in the opener, eventually scuffling to a 123-98 loss despite trailing by only 10 at halftime. On offense, they couldn’t buy a shot as the four starters not named Nikola Jokic combined for 26 points, while the MVP had 24 himself. On the other end, Phoenix was seemingly able to get whatever shot they wanted, whenever they wanted, as Chris Paul pulled the strings all night to get the Suns great looks as he had 17 points and 15 assists with non turnovers.

After the game, Nuggets head coach Michael Malone didn’t mince words when it came to his team’s effort, calling it embarrassing and admitting that he felt his squad quit.

He wasn’t alone in that analysis, as Charles Barkley the Inside the NBA crew also took the Nuggets to task for not being up for Game 2 after the way Game 1 ended.

https://twitter.com/nbaontnt/status/1402840457818767360?s=21

After reports of Aaron Gordon speaking up after Game 1 and calling the team out, Will Barton confirmed that there were again things said in what was unsurprisingly a frustrated locker room, but he believes it was ultimately what the team needed to hear.

All of this is to say, if the Nuggets can’t find a better effort level, much less a better quality of play, in Game 3, they’re going to get put on the doorstep of elimination by a Suns team that doesn’t play with its food. Phoenix has shown their ability to go for the kill when they smell blood in the water with their Game 5 and Game 6 performances against the banged up Lakers, and right now they’re pouncing on a listless Denver team in the same manner.

In the second half of Game 1, the Phoenix Suns seemed to unlock something as they went on a 16-0 run in the third quarter to flip an 9-point deficit into an 7-point advantage and have not looked back since. In Game 2, they continued to exploit those weaknesses they found in the Nuggets on both ends of the floor, led once again by the efforts of Chris Paul.

The Point God finished the game with 17 points, 15 assists, and no turnovers in 31 minutes of play. As he so often does, he steadily picked apart the Denver defense in the pick-and-roll game, finding open shooters and cutters to tee them up for buckets, and in the fourth quarter it was his time to put the game on ice attacking the switch with Michael Porter Jr. and Paul Millsap as the Suns ran away with a blowout 123-98 win.

It was a complete team effort from the Suns, as all five starters finished in double figures, led by Devin Booker’s 18 points and 10 rebounds and another efficient double-double from Deandre Ayton with 15 points and 10 boards.

Every player that touched the floor for the Suns in their main 9-man rotation was a positive on the game, a testament to the thorough domination they displayed throughout the evening. Offensively, they were outstanding as a group, shooting 47.9 percent from the field and 47.4 percent from three, as Phoenix was able to create just about any shot they wanted all night.

The opposite was the case for Denver, which started the game 4-of-17 from three in the first half and had just a dreadful offensive night aside from Nikola Jokic. The MVP had 24 points, 13 rebounds, and six assists in 30 minutes, while the other four Nuggets starters combined for 26 points, 11 rebounds, and four assists on 9-of-32 shooting. Michael Porter Jr.’s struggles to start this series continued in Game 2, as he was 3-of-13 from the field and got picked on mercilessly by Paul, Booker, and the Suns pick-and-roll offense, putting him in action all night to force rotations from the Denver defense.

With the Nuggets unable to knock down threes (14-of-43 for the game), the Suns just swarmed Jokic and steadily pulled away from Denver.

It was as thorough a two-way performance as you could hope to see if you are a Suns fan, with Deandre Ayton continuing to keep Jokic from getting easy buckets at the rim and Phoenix’s rotations being incredibly crisp behind to get out to shooters and not let Jokic pick them apart with his passing. For the Nuggets, they’re going to go home to Denver with plenty to think about on both ends. Their pick-and-roll coverage against Chris Paul has been rough now for two games, particularly in crunch time, and offensively, they have to figure out how to take the pressure off of Jokic. Some of that comes down to guys simply hitting shots, but MPJ in particular has to be better going forward as the secondary scorer — and at times primary scorer — if Denver’s to have any chance of righting the ship.

Verzuz is bringing the heat just in time for summer. The Timbaland and Swizz Beatz-led platform announced a trio of battles, the first of which will be between early 2000s hip-hop queens Trina and Eve. Their records include Trina’s “Single Again” and “Look Back At Me” as well as Eve’s “Let Me Blow Ya Mind” and “Who’s That Girl?” The matchup between the two will take place on June 16 in partnership with Tifanny Haddish’s TBS show Friday Night Vibes.

In addition to Eve and Trina’s battle, Verzuz also confirmed the matchup between Soulja Boy and Bow Wow. Last month, the former revealed that their Verzuz was “official” and shortly after the announcement, the two held an Instagram Live session to discuss their excitement for the battle.

“Me and you [Soulja] make so much sense. We’ve toured together, me and you got a whole motherf*cking mixtape together,” Bow Wow proclaimed during the livestream. “We on tour right now and on top of that sh*t, n**** you got a hot new record out. The day before we do Verzuz, my movie come out… Fast & Furious 9 drop the day before.”

Verzuz also teased an event set to take place on July 1. The matchups for this battle have yet to be revealed.

If you think Fox News is unhinged now, well, it wouldn’t have gotten there without Glenn Beck. In the late aughts and early teens, the talk radio stooge-turned-TV commentator had the most deranged show on the network. Where Bill O’Reilly would sit at a desk and rattle off his offensive theories, Beck would stand in front of a chalkboard, patiently laying out convoluted nonsense conspiracy theories. At the peak of his powers, he got compared to Network’s Harold Beale and inspired Jon Stewart to dedicate Daily Show episodes to epic impersonations. But even Beck was too bonkers for Fox News. The two parted ways after only two years. Beck lost his grip on the culture and, eventually, he even started apologizing for the way he’d once acted.

Well, no more. It’s 2021, the most powerful figure in the Republican party is a failed blogger who lives alone in resorts, and it’s time for Beck, who after Fox News crawled back to his old home at TheBlaze, to come back, baby. And so he did, appearing Wednesday night with Tucker Carlson (obviously) to repeat one of the things that got his show thrown in the can a decade back.

That thing is this: Starting in 2009, Beck called then-president Barack Obama a racist. “This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture,” he said on a different Fox News show. “This guy is, I believe, a racist.”

But the rightwing mouthpiece who years later took that patently absurd charge back is now…putting it back in, or however one phrases it. After Carlson told Beck he thought that was a “deep insight,” Beck couldn’t help but agree that he was right about himself from ten years ago.

“I take my apology back! I was exactly right!” Beck told Tucker. “And I even stated it right. You are a racist if you believe in critical race theory, if you think that what Dr. Martin Luther King said, that envisions a country that is seeing people for the content of their character, not their color, if you think that’s wrong, then yes, you are a racist.”

It’s an exciting time for disgraced former Fox News employees, what with Bill O’Reilly joining the aforementioned Donald Trump on a nationwide (well, three-state) tour later this year to talk about the one-term presidency that ended with a failed but fatal insurrection. And if you want to see proof of how the network has fallen deeper into the ether, watch Beck return to repeat a ridiculous statement that, in a very different time, helped end his employment.

You can watch the full segment in the video above, if you’d like.

(Via Mediaite)

Taylor Swift has been having a great 2021. Not only did her second 2020 album, Evermore just break an all-time vinyl sales record, but those numbers also boosted it back up to No. 1 on the Billboard chart, which officially made Tay the artist with the third-most weeks at No. 1 in history. Not too shabby for the first half of the year! Tonight she picked up yet another award, this one a bit more family-centric, when the new music video she made for “The Best Day” (that would be Taylor’s Version) for her re-recording of Fearless took home the CMT trophy for Best Family Feature.

Taylor celebrated the news on Twitter with an all-caps appreciation for her mom, Andrea. “I LOVE YOU MOM,” she wrote, while sharing a short video clip of the song winning the award. Though Taylor and her mom have always been close, their relationship was on display for fans in a new way when Andrea was battling cancer. In a song off her album <em<>Lover from 2019 she collaborated with Dixie Chicks for a heartfelt reflection on what it feels like to love someone who’s sick, “Soon You’ll Get Better.” She’s since said she thinks it’s the only song she won’t ever be able to perform live. But tonight was a much happier chapter in their relationship. Congrats to both Taylor and Andrea!