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The who, what, when, and where of hip-hop artist Mike Jones

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If you think about it, Mike Jones is basically McDonald’s. That’s a baseline conclusion that Mike Jones reached over the phone while traveling between recording hip-hop, sure, but he’s wholly right.

“Everybody knows about McDonald’s whether they’ve been out in the last five years, six years—they got a household name,” Jones says, “If they do come out with the McRib next year, they can still take over the game.

“Everybody know the brand—we didn’t like ‘Scandalous Ho’ but we like ‘Back Then’ … You like my brand, you like my songs. You might not like all the food at McDonald’s but you still in the drive-thru.”

It’s a robust, irrefutable parallel. Except that nobody in their right mind dislikes Jones’s pair of ace singles, “Back Then” and “Still Tippin’.” You could soothe captive orcas in labor with those chopped up orchestral samples, grill-shining epigrams (“Catch me lane switchin’ with the paint drippin’ / turn your neck and your dame missin’”), and mesmerizingly fluid, DJ Screw-homaging choruses. It’s not a stretch to consider “Still Tippin’”—the song that tilted the game in favor of Team Houston in summer ’05—a magnum opus. Complex certainly does, which is why it tapped Jones for a freshly premiered mini-doc about the song's jumbled creative narrative, impact, and fallout.

 


For Jones and the trout farm of talent hanging around record label Swishahouse 10 years ago, the massive indie success birthed out-of-the-box fame when the single dropped because it featured distinct, seemingly united H-Town voices.

“I knew it was real around the end of 2004 when the labels started coming and sitting down with me and wanted to take me out,” Jones says, “At the time ‘Still Tippin’' was already out six months before the world caught it. We already had vocal regional love and support for the single. We were on the road getting paid from a song that did good for us.

“When we came out in ’05 it was Mike Jones, Paul Wall, Slim Thug—it was a whole conglomerate. It wasn’t just one thing; it was a movement.”

Unfortunately, Jones’s career has been dictated by trunk-unlocking highs and the subsequent fallout from two singles. In both cases—“Still Tippin’” and T-Pain feature “I'm 'n Luv (Wit a Stripper)”—short-term success was followed by aggressive, ostracizing politics. Legal troubles got so burdensome, Jones says, that he quit rapping altogether for three years in 2011. But the Complex uptick in trending media this week is the first step toward a full-service revamp that includes the imminent Money Train mixtape as an amuse-bouche to this fall’s winkingly titled Where Is Mike Jones?

But first, Jones had to tweak his diet.

“I just got tired of being that size.” Jones says, today 100 pounds lighter than the doughy jester that first broke national and went double platinum. “Subway was fresh food-wise. I knew that a eating a hamburger was like 1,000 calories. I was able to make a sandwich [at Subway]—you know what I’m saying—that didn’t have a lot of calories.”

•••

As the major label push from nine years ago resulted in heralded and mainstream work, the downside was a Texas-sized rift within Houston’s hip-hop elite. The original version of “Still Tippin’” featured local legend Chamillionaire. Cham’s verse was scratched in favor of a (fantastic, quotable) part from Jones. As the more technically proficient of the two, Chamillionaire went on the offensive, releasing a three-volume mixtape dedicated to attacking Jones.

“[The Chamillionaire beef] was just a lot of misunderstanding,” Jones says, “I see Cham now, you know, and everything is cool. It ain’t even beef.

“As I started, you know, blowing up and growing and doing my own thing and started going solo, Cham had his feelings or, you know, whatever he felt at the time.”

Jones is vague about it, but reading between the lines, it strikes me as basic: Chamillionaire didn’t appreciate Jones breaking away from the family tree to go solo and felt slighted. Being swapped for Jones’s self-referential verse was a last straw.

Cham’s clout in the local scene reverberated, though—Jones’s reputation bubbled as a sort of opportunistic ham. “Still Tippin’” proved a consequential, divisive moment as it likewise ruptured the friendship of Cham and Paul Wall. Wall was happy to ride the song’s success. Cham and Wall previously recorded exemplary records together (see: 2002’s underground slang starter kit, Get Ya Mind Correct) under The Color Changin’ Click moniker. In 2010, Wall spoke candidly to Ozone Magazine about what he perceived to be Jones’s self-interested presence in the Houston scene—one that ballooned infighting between the camp.

"When [Mike Jones] left Swishahouse, he was dropping salt on everybody from Swishahouse and not giving us any credit at all. He was talking down on a lot of us and he would never directly say our names, but he was still hating. There were times when I felt disrespected and I would call him out on it, and he'd be like, 'Nah, I wasn't talking about you. I would never do that.' I'm sure there's a psychological term for this problem that Mike Jones has. He has a problem. His perception of reality ain't the real perception of reality … I'd say he dug his own grave. He lied to a lot of people, he turned his back on a lot of people, and he burned a lot of bridges."

These days, all parties have let the career jostling-related beef go. But because Jones was such a targeted presence, it seems to have taken him a while to develop an appetite for rapping again. During our conversation, the theme of politics and surviving drama was a lingering burden.

“No regrets,” Jones says about his first brushes with national success, “I’m educated from what happened you know. I learned a lot… At the time, it was very pure, and when fame and success started coming in, sometimes people started changing. But right now, everybody’s cool.”

Collegial quarrels happen when there’s a pie on the windowsill to snatch, but it was one afterthought performance that Jones says almost ended his career.

•••

Jones and T-Pain single “I’m ’n Luv (Wit a Stripper)” was the Sgt. Pepper of ringtone rap. If you weren’t into Motorola Razrs in the mid-2000s or missed the age of rap singles as personalized, mobile phone expression, ringtone rap was commoditized by downloads.

“Stripper” moved a shit ton of tones, and with a feisty verse Jones tacked on in post-production, he was grandfathered into its success. Except that a trio of career songwriters, Rodney King, Jeff Byrd, and James Reese, sued T-Pain and his label in 2008 for allegedly ripping off the chorus to an old floating demo called “Makin’ Luv 2 a Player.” The lawsuit wasn’t settled until 2011.

“The T-Pain song blew up and did 5 million ringtones,” Jones says, “[After the lawsuit], Warner Brothers is freezing all the money. Ah shit, I got my career on freeze now because I did a favor for somebody.” Jones says he had to wait until eight months after the suit was settled to legally release music. This, he says, is why he hasn’t released an album since 2009’s The Voice. Asked if the success of “Stripper” was worth the trouble, Jones just writes it off as “bittersweet.” The hit was the most successful of his career to date, though, and he speaks at length about, basically, all the cool things he was able to experience from its reach.

“But I just hate that it slowed up a lot of shit,” Jones says, “Moving forward, if anybody comes at me [about] doing a song, I’m checking for certain things.”

That’s where Jones is these days: forward. The Houston icons are cordial. The legal perils are cleared brush. He’s working with close, longtime associates for the new record. Probably smart—while contemporaries like Slim Thug and Lil Flip were criticized by Texas rap fans for abandoning the sonic qualities of their underground tapes (woozy beats, some dude conversing in the background, slowed down vocals, extended freestyles) upon their major label success, Jones’s Who Is Mike Jones? was an aggressively Houston-centric LP. It’s held up beautifully—there’s Big Moe two-stepping in the vocal booth, belting out soulful hooks; Jones is rapping about his grandmother and overdosing on slang about turning lanes, backstroking in codeine imagery. The guy is understandably proud.

“One thing you have to know man, before I leave, like, I came from zero, you know what I’m saying?” Jones says, “To even make half of what I made, you know, I’m still blessed with that because when I came out, I wanted people to know who I really was. And no strings attached. I’m not finna play a person that I’m not. I’m not finna be fake. I’m not finna put on a thousand chains and then when they say ‘camera off’ then I gotta take it all off. I couldn’t sleep at night.”

He’s almost defensive about it—the charmer seen as skating by on charisma.

“When I got in the game, I was mashing,” Jones says, “My numbers speak for me.”

Screengrab via Complex


Orlando Jones sends powerful, provocative message with 'bullet bucket challenge'

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While pedestrians and celebrities alike have spent the past two weeks dumping buckets of ice over their heads in increasing comical and entertaining ways, actor Orlando Jones, took a different route with his challenge video.

He emptied a bucket full of bullets over his head, tying together the viral trend with the disturbing news out of Ferguson, Mo., following the killing of unarmed teen Michael Brown.

Jones isn't belittling the ice bucket challenge or supporting ALS (he says he's sending his check to support the cause), but he decided to use his time to challenge himself to "listen without predjudice, to live without limits and to reverse the hate." The Sleepy Hollow actor wrote abut the challenge on his Tumblr with the accompanying video: 

My “bullet bucket challenge” is not about pointing fingers and it’s not about being angry. Every shell casing in that bucket represents the life of someone who fought and died in the goal for civil rights and human dignity. As a member of law enforcement (yes I really am a reserve sheriff) I will not stand idly by while others violate civil and human rights under the cover of authority and I will insist that other good cops rise to the same standard as well.  

Since releasing the video, Jones says the experience of creating a video that goes "viral" (with more than 1 million views) is an interesting one. 

"I've been truly humbled by the feedback and comments from people who wrote me to say that my words inspired them, or made them think, or made them want to challenge themselves," Jones told the Daily Dot. "The less positive responses are par for the course and represent a small percentage of those who have seen the video."

Jones cited two individuals who made their own "bucket challenge" videos in the spirit of his own,  First was Temitayo Osinubu, whose video addresses the shooting death of John Crawford III in his home state of Ohio, and the second being Michael Korte, who filmed himself pouring voter registration cards over his head as a reminder that registering to vote is an essential part of any movement.

 

"If that's all that ever came of this I consider my 'call to action' an unqualified success," Jones said via email. "I thank both these gentleman and all others who are inspired to join our movement to #ReverseTheHate."

Screengrab via Orlando Jones/YouTube

The 5 best shows on AOL Originals

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Finally, a show about something.

That’s what Steve Buscemi says from his perch on an everyday park bench in the Emmy-nominated show aptly named Park Bench. Buscemi’s signature webseries is part of a generally overlooked collection of digital programs known as AOL Originals. The slate of shows, which is gaining momentum as it draws well-known behind-the-camera talent to its fold, includes some of the more enjoyable video content the Web has to offer.

Yes, this is not the AOL that used to carpet bomb us with trial disks.

Nate Hayden, who in early August was named head of AOL Originals, told the Daily Dot that the secret to his company’s video series is “providing authentic voices who tell unique stories.” In the case of Park Bench, nominated for Outstanding Short-Format Nonfiction Program (losing to ESPN’s 30 for 30 Shorts), Hayden said Buscemi came to AOL with a vision. “Steve talked about an old cable access show that featured the late Lou Albano and a guy from the patent office. The show was about creating connections between people, and he wanted to replicate that,” Hayden recalled.

“The fact it was Emmy-nominated is a testament that we have been successful in putting the right people in the right place,” Hayden added.

Part of success for AOL Originals, Hayden went on to say, is what he called a corporate attitude of “doing them on a rain-or-shine basis.” That creative lead over instant revenue means the network is focused on nurturing an audience and not necessarily worried about driving a huge audience right away.

Of the webseries available on AOL Originals, here are five standouts that should be added to any TV viewer’s must-see list.

Park Bench

While quite a few of the episodes are funny, insightful, or both, the pilot, which features Chris Rock, is hilarious. “Oh, it’s a talking show, not a talk show,” says Rock. (It sounds funnier when he says it.)

A few of the others worth catching are those featuring Rosie Perez and Joel Grey.


 

City.Ballet

Ballet may not be your thing, but the stories behind what it takes to become a member of the New York City Ballet go far beyond dancing. Produced and narrated by Sarah Jessica Parker, the episodes of City.Ballet successfully capture the creative passion and competitive nature of those who aspire to become part of this 66-year-old cultural institution. 


 

Fatherhood

I can’t say that I love every one of the 12 episodes of Fatherhood, actor/voice master Hank Azaria's unexpected voyage into becoming a dad, but when it hits the right note, it soars. Not only do we see Azaria go from someone who had no interest in being a parent to sudden fatherhood, we watch as he checks in with his famous buddies (Kevin Bacon, Bryan Cranston, Mike Myers) to get their points of view. It's long on good-natured bantering, perhaps a tad short on strong parental advice.


 

In Short

The premise of putting famous actors behind the camera to create a short point-of-view film may seem tired, but in the hands of such folks as Jeff Garlin, Katie Holmes, and Judy Greer, the idea works. I’d like to think of these vignettes as miniature masterworks that capture the essence of what drives individuals to success. I liked Holmes's episode on empowering young women to succeed against the odds so much, I immediately sent it to my 22-year-old daughter.


 

Acting Disruptive

Again, not necessarily a series where every episode knocks it out of the park. Perhaps the setup in calling it a show in which famous names change the status quo is a tad too much hype. Still there a few strong pieces here, especially with Adrian Grenier talking about SHFT, a company focused on sustainability, and Moby with his Web venture Mobygratis, a venture that offers free music to filmmakers.

 

There’s more to come, Hayden said, speaking of some of the AOL Originals programming that will launch later this year. A few highlights:

Making a Scene with James Franco: Franco chats with fellow actors about their favorite movie scenes and what makes them great.

Win/Win: Pairing famous athletes with big names in business to discuss how they achieved their advanced status.

So Much More: The story of Laura Jane Grace (née Tom Gabel) of the band Against Me! who came out in 2012 as transgender.

Photo via Pat Guiney/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) | Remix by Jason Reed

Watch George R.R. Martin squeal during the ice bucket challenge

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George R. R. Martin is the best-selling author of the critically acclaimed A Song Of Ice And Fire fantasy series, an accomplished television screenwriter, a 7-time Hugo Award winner, a loving husband—and, as of Saturday, Aug. 23, a participant in the viral charity ice bucket challenge.

Designed to encourage donations to the ALS Association—a charity combatting amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a neurodegenerative disease commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease—the challenge has been a runaway success. It's raised more than $70 million in less than a month (compared to $2.5 million in the same timeframe in 2013). Along the way it’s seen everyone from George W. Bush to drugged up teens take part. 

Participants are nominated by previous challenge-takers, at which point they have 24 hours to drench themselves in ice water, or donate $100 to the ALS Association (though you’re are encouraged to donate even if you do take the challenge). 

Some, like Bill Gates, take the soaking stoically—but not so for Martin, who positively shrieks when he feels the cold. 

GRRM—as his fans call him—was nominated by acclaimed fantasy novelist Neil Gaiman, among others.

GRRM's references the Iron Islanders' aquatic baptism rituals, shouting "what is dead may never die!" after hopping into the swimming pool. But even if no-one has nominated you to meet the Drowned God, you can still donate by visiting the ALS Association's website or by clicking here.

Photo via David Shankbone/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Cowabunga! The Ninja Turtles documentary is everything you hoped for

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For children in the late ’80s and early ’90s, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles might as well have been The Beatles. Actually, they did have their own band. They were everywhere and on everything. You could even eat Ninja Turtles—pizza crunchabungas, anyone? There were ninja turtle comics, cartoons, films, video games, tennis shoes, and waterboarding potty torture playsets. 

The origins of the turtle franchise, one of the most lasting and powerful in the children’s entertainment industry, is what filmmaker Randall Lobb managed to capture in his newly released film Turtle Power: The Definitive History of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Released on Aug. 8, Turtle Power is a 98-minute documentary that traces the origin of the turtles from their latest Hollywood incarnation back to their humble beginnings, in the comic book pages of Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. 

Eastman and Laird, who published the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book in 1984, are among the most interviewed in Lobb’s film. Dozens of others, including voice actors, stuntman, artists, producers, and puppeteers, talk about their experiences in the turtle business.  

If you grew up surrounded by this phenomenon, and like millions of others were obsessed with anything combining turtles and ninjas, Turtle Power is like peeking behind the curtain of your childhood. The marketing, licensing, and ownership of the “turtles property” is a huge part of the story. So, maybe your favorite cartoon of all time was created just to sell you toys. Who cares? Your kids are still going to have a kickass time playing with Bandito Bashin’ Mike and his Native American friend, Chief Leo. (And after 30 years, is an actual Technodrome still too much to ask?)

If it’s a choice between going to the theater for the latest Hollywood reboot or watching this new documentary online, I’ll put it like this: If you want to watch guys in motion-capture suits fighting a Transformer on a rooftop in 3D, go to the theater. But if you wanna hear some great TMNT lore—like the time a costumed martial arts actor vomited into one of Jim Henson’s animatronic ninja turtle heads—you should check out this documentary instead. 

Last week, Lobb spoke with the Daily Dot about Turtle Power and what it was like researching the Ninja Turtles: 

What's the story behind this film? Why did you decide to make a TMNT documentary?

The story is as follows:

By day I was a high school teacher in Goderich, Ontario, Canada, whilst by night I was a founding partner in FauxPop Media with local tech-wizard Mark Hussey. Our skill sets were highly complementary, with me as a writer/director/producer and him as a sound/music/post-production mastermind.

The idea was that technology had reached the point where, between us, we could make pretty much anything and distribute it via the Internet (it was 2004 when this company started) at a high enough quality to compete with anyone, anywhere.

We worked on documentaries about Canada's military in Afghanistan and Cambodian landmine issues, along with music production, indie book publishing, music videos, and whatever else came our way.

In November 2008 Isaac Elliott-Fisher, a young cinematographer/operator we'd worked with, approached us with a passion project he had in mind: a fan documentary on the history of the TMNT. He'd done a fan/passion doc in the past on Toyota Land Cruisers and thought this project was too big to do alone. When he asked us to partner up I said no at the exact moment Mark said yes.

The second I said no, I knew we had to do it because we'd been talking about finding good niche subjects that would have an automatic audience. This really did fit the bill, and 2009 would be the 25th anniversary of the Turtles. I was worried about clearances, costs, travel, every other logistic, but Mark is the eternal optimist and Isaac, a lifetime Turtle fan, has an obsessively one-track mind when it comes to anything that he wants, so I agreed to start the process.

Of course, the first step was the establish that we weren't just a couple fans with camera phones, so I started the conversation with Gary Richardson, CEO of Peter Laird's company, Mirage. He eventually told me that, because of Fair Use, he couldn't stop us, so he would wish us well. I told him that we wanted to make a positive story that left people feeling good about the franchise, thanked him and we started right away with some creative reproductions of old toy ads (footage we ended up mostly discarding).

So, to make it short—we were going to make a doc for fans, make it for a few thousand bucks, sell it to that hardcore audience and make a few extra thousand for our efforts.

Of course, within even a few months it all got so much bigger.

You spoke with a wide variety of peoplethe TMNT’s creators, the actors, stunt workers, puppeteers. How long were you making this film?

We started shooting in the drama room of Goderich District Collegiate Institute (where I taught English and Media) over the Christmas holidays in 2008, shot, cut, planned, and shot some more off and on right up until May 2014, after we'd already started delivering pieces of the doc to Paramount.

The final elements of delivery were nailed down this summer, right before San Diego Comic-Con. Right down to the wire, I might add.

And you're right, we did travel a fair bit. There were somewhere between 80 and 90 interviews, but we didn't use everything we shot, of course. We've got a remote interview with Steve Barron from London, U.K., some assorted stuff in Toronto and area, and a lot of footage from the Northeastern U.S. and Southern California.

Of course, there are more people we still wish we could have interviewed,
but what can you do?

In terms of editing, well, I really couldn't guess how long it took. We were cutting off and on for years. Five and half, actually…

What was the response from your friends and family when you unveiled this project?

Our wives were amazingly supportive in general, but I can't speak as much for Mark and Isaac. I can tell you that my wife Nisa says that she always knew we'd sell it and that it would be released, something that is nice to hear when things aren't going so well.

Some of our friends thought it was awesome, particularly those friends who were young enough to have grown up in the heat in the TMNT craze. They thought it was straight up amazing that we were meeting these people, talking to them, and, eventually, becoming friends with them.

Other friends would shake their heads at the Sisyphean nature of the project… In my case, I was deeply engaged in the process of trying to negotiate for permissions and interviews and basically trying to bend the world to suit our needs, which is stressful and demanding at best.

Imagine doing something so uncertain and so protracted, then imagine doing it while you have a full-time job and a bunch of other commitments, other projects, growing families, responsibilities, World of Warcraft characters to level, whatever else you're trying to do in whatever field… It's natural that some people would we skeptical.

And, of course, some people would find the whole idea of focusing on a piece of pop-culture like that to be ridiculous in and of itself.

Once it looked like there was going to be a distributor for the doc, and once people saw the quality, there were some changing attitudes, which is no surprise. It's hard to believe that a little team of small town filmmakers can just go out do something like this, right?

I had no idea that James Avery, who passed away rather recently, was the voice of the Shredder in the original cartoon series. Around when did you film your interview with him?

We shot with him in March of 2009.

He drove to the big, empty house in the Hollywood Hills that Kevin Eastman had up for sale (where we were literally camping for that week of shooting) and he was clearly not impressed with the size of our team, which I know he took to be too small to be pro—and our craft services were pretty dire, I will admit. Not one donut to be found.

However, once he saw his old friends from the animated series, and once he interacted with us and saw us at work, he was delightful. Oh, and when he found out I was an English teacher who knew my Shakespeare, then it was a straight-up lovefest.

What are some things you learned about the TMNT you didn’t know before filming?

Since I wasn't one of the hardcore fans, everything I learned about the TMNT was new, except for the original comic book series, which was on my radar when it first came out in 1984 (and I was skeptical about it, as usual).

But there were a few tidbits that were shocking to me.

1) Everyone we met and interviewed was a good person. There was no attitude, no ego, no trouble in dealing with all these different personalities and we had a good time at every turn. This is pretty surprising to me. Either we were able to work our Canadian Nice Magic on everyone, or it just so happens that this franchise has attracted a certain kind of energy over the years.

2) Michael Ian Black and Robert Ben Garant! I am a huge comedy nerd, and finding out that they two members of The State got their start in show biz in Turtle costumes, well, that was ridiculous. It's still ridiculous and amazing. I love it.

3) The odds were stacked against it at every turn. When you look back at the story, everything makes sense, lines up, and it seems inevitable that TMNT is what it is. But it was anything but inevitable. Getting things made in any medium is hard and look how deeply this franchise has penetrated pop-culture! It's astounding.

Was the timing of your film’s release, being so close to the new Hollywood picture, just a coincidence?

That would seem pretty amazing if it was, right?

I might suggest to you that there was a fair bit of strategy and planning and careful tooth grinding as we waited, waited, and waited for things to line up. And then, once they did, you can bet that the smart folks at Paramount knew exactly what made the best sense in terms of having people care about a nice little documentary like ours.

Which Ninja Turtle are you?

Easy. I'd say Splinter, actually—remember, I'm a teacher—but I'm
constantly told I'm Raphael. Which fills me with rage and—wait a minute…

You can visit the Turtle Power website to see Lobb’s film or learn more about it. 

Screengrabs via Turtle Power

Beyoncé's VMA performance was good, but Blue Ivy's was flawless

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It’s Beyoncé’s world and we’re just here to watch it.

Sure, the rest of the VMAs might be worth catching up with the next morning, but it all came down to Beyoncé taking the stage in the final performance of the night. Before the show, she was one of the most buzzed-about people attending, even after arriving late, and she was to receive the 2014 Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award.

The entire setlist might’ve leaked early, but everyone watching still became instantly glued to their TVs as Beyoncé took the stage and performed a 16-minute medley of her self-titled album

And viewers were treated to 16 minutes of near flawlessness with the one person who could take away the spotlight from the Queen.

When it came to Beyoncé accepting her award after the medley, she was joined by a surprise guest, as teased by MTV. And that guest happened to be none other than Blue Ivy, held by Jay Z in a display of love and affection that may quench some of the divorce rumors for now.

You can watch Beyoncé’s entire performance here.

 

H/T Jezebel | Screengrab via MTV

Taylor Swift haters hate on her isolated VMA vocal track

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Taylor Swift’s had a big week, what with the release of new single “Shake It Off” and announcement, via livestream, of her upcoming ’80s pop album, 1989. Then there was the inevitable backlash to her video, which sustained the haters for a week or so. 

She bookended this branding tour with a performance at last night’s VMAs, and the fact that her isolated vocal from “Shake It Off,” a song about giving the gas face to haters, is now making the hater rounds is the sort of meta-irony the Internet loves. This is Swift’s awkward girl brand writ large.

Of course, this is a live performance with choreography, so perhaps she can be forgiven for sounding a little out of breath, but if we don't have something to hate the day after the VMAs, did they even happen?

This still doesn’t come close to David Lee Roth’s isolated vocal from “Runnin' With the Devil,” and nothing ever will.

H/T Deadspin | Photo via Eva Rinaldi/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

'The Newsroom' tackles Edward Snowden drama in its final season

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The Newsroom is one of those shows you either love, hate, or love to hate. Aaron Sorkin’s HBO drama about a cable news channel and its perpetually righteously indignant anchor has polarized journalists and viewers alike. It’s only fitting, therefore, that Sorkin has decided to tackle the Edward Snowden story in the series’ final season.

HBO released the first teaser trailer last night for The Newsroom season 3, which premieres in November. The 40-second video gives us glimpses of Sorkin’s script pages, hinting at a turbulent ride for news anchor Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) as the Snowden story unfolds—and, apparently, draws him into it. Judging from phrases like “Contempt of Court” and “sent to jail” in the teaser, season 3 won’t be any easier on McAvoy and his team at Atlantis Cable News than season 2.

When we last saw our heroes at ACN, they were just beginning to emerge from the wreckage of an Operation Tailwind-like coverage scandal. The Edward Snowden drama, which seemed to be made for television from the get-go, will evidently raise the stakes even higher as the series concludes.

Screenshot via HBO/YouTube


Conservative Twitter throws shade at Beyoncé's 'feminist' backdrop

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Beyoncé stole the show at last night’s MTV Video Music Awards in more ways than one. While her performance had everybody dancing along—even little Blue Ivy Carter—it was one word that flashed on the screen behind her as she struck a pose that lit up the Internet.

With her dramatic, unannounced declaration of support for feminism in front of a live television audience of millions, Queen Bey instantly made herself a target for conservatives on Twitter who were determined to police the meaning of the phrase.

There were the snide remarks:

There were the comparisons to a violent revolution:

And there were the critiques of her outfit and dance moves:

One user had the insanely cleverly idea to try to contrast word with deed:

It led, predictably, to some uncomfortable responses:

Conservative Twitter was very concerned about her leg posture.

But perhaps no tweet better sums up the right’s concern-trolling over Beyoncé’s support for a concept that they regularly deride than this one:

H/T Twitchy | Screenshot via IndyMusic/Twitter

Facebook's giant Mentions Box debuts at tonight's Emmys

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The 2014 Emmys are tonight, and in addition to fielding questions on the red carpet, celebrities will now be asked to interact with Facebook via a giant “Mentions Box.”

Facebook and Access Hollywood have paired up to accost nominees with the tablet, which celebs have to shake like a Magic 8 Ball to access and answer fan-submitted questions, and their responses will be recorded. A post on Access Hollywood’s Facebook page explains host Billy Bush will be the one stalking celebs with the giant tablet, and on Friday they asked for questions for stars like Lena Dunham, Woody Harrelson, and Bryan Cranston.

The tablet’s design comes courtesy of iStrategy Labs, and it’s explained on the website that the box is making its debut at the Emmys. So why do celebs have to shake the thing? The reasoning is a little hazy:

After many discussions, brainstorms, and rapid prototyping efforts focused on how to best represent the Facebook platform in physical space, we landed on something between a Magic 8-Ball in function and an Etch-A-Sketch in form. Ultimately, we settled on a tablet encased in a polycarbonate form factor finished off with a luxury car finish.

Twitter has been doing something similar with its Twitter Mirror, which allows celebs to take selfies backstage at awards shows. It's taking its physical marketing presence a step further tonight and will debut a zip-line red carpet camera, so celebs will now be dodging giant tablets and airborne cameras. Thankfully, Parks and Recreation’s Retta will be Twitter’s livetweet host, so there’s that to look forward to.

But wait, there’s more: Vine is debuting a 360-degree video station to record the red carpet, Instagram is giving backstage access to a handful of “influencers,” and for the first time, a Pinterest page will document the event in real time. All of this is no doubt an effort to document every single moment of the event, in case another Oscar selfie moment happens. Who will "accidentally" drop the Facebook Mentions Box first? 

H/T Wall Street Journal | Photos via iStrategy Labs 

Here's a beautiful supercut of celebs on their phones at the VMAs

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While everyone’s talking about Queen Bey and Blue Ivy’s performance, there was another star at last night’s MTV Video Music Awards: phones. And celebs couldn’t take their eyes off them.

Thanks to MTV’s audience cams, nearly every moment of the show was broadcast to the world, so Rolling Stone helpfully compiled this supercut of every star caught looking at his or her phone during the awards. They did it in the audience, they did it in the green room. Taylor Swift took a bunch of selfies. Katy Perry took a photo of Jennifer Lopez’s butt.

Riff Raff seemed to be the only one not looking at his—oh wait, nevermind. 

H/T Rolling Stone | Screengrab via Rolling Stone 

 

The Kardashians were texting during a moment of silence for Michael Brown

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Our nation’s first family, the Kardashians, are usually touted as bastions of respect, mindfulness, and sensitivity. In times of great strife, the brood are always ready to comfort a forlorn nation by Instagramming a selfie and a motivational quote. Yet Sunday night, during the MTV Video Music Awards, something was markedly off with Kim and younger sisters Kendall and Kylie.

Moments after Common took to the stage to call attention to the happenings in Ferguson and ask for a moment of silence for the late Michael Brown, MTV cut to a shot of the threesome screwing around on their phones and looking rather blasé. 

What could possibly have demanded the Kardashians’ attention over the memory of a slain 18-year-old? Some Twitter users hypothesized that the Kardashians were fervently Googling Ferguson, yet it’s more likely that the group was too focused playing Kim Kardashian: Hollywood to turn their attention to a lost life. 

Kardashian apologists at BuzzFeed suppose that the footage could have come from a poorly chosen delay in tape instead of the live shot it appeared to be. MTV has yet to comment. 

H/T Gawker | Photo via David Shankbone/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Sarah Silverman shows off her liquid pot at the Emmys

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E! host Giuliana Rancic got more than she bargained for when she interviewed comedian Sarah Silverman on the Emmys red carpet.

During the interview, Silverman handed Rancic her clutch. “I can’t believe you’re letting me look in it,” Rancic responded.

The producers in the E! control room might now wish she hadn’t: Rancic watched as Silverman took a slim vial out of the clutch, held it up, and said, “This is my pot. It’s liquid, uh, pot.”


 

“OK,” Rancic said, bemused. “Moving on.”

Silverman went on to show off her money and her driver’s license.

The camera didn’t stay on the vape pen long enough to allow a clear identification of which model it was.

Photo via Gage Skidmore/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Billy Eichner berates Emmy viewers with a special edition of his game show

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Billy Eichner's aggressive man-on-the-street-style reporting and boisterous outbursts of pop culture profanity are part of what makes the modern age of television so glorious. So naturally, it wouldn’t be a proper celebration of the medium without some unique coverage from the man himself.

Eichner took to the streets of New York City with the evening's host Seth Meyers to play a special Emmys edition of one of his signature games, "For a Dollar." Eichner solicited advice for the host, covered opinions on the nominees, but most importantly did some very important charity fundraising for the cast of The Big Bang Theory

Twitter quickly came to a consesus that Eichner's antics were far more entertaining than Seth Meyers's, with some even lobbying for him to liven up the ceremony by taking over hosting duties. 

Could we see Eichner on stage next year as master of ceremonies yelling at Maggie Smith as she accepts her award? One can only hope. 

Screenshot via Funny or Die 

Emmy-nominated television shows get Weird Al theme songs

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Television theme songs got the Weird Al Yankovic treatment at the Primetime Emmy Awards tonight, as the parody singer performed theme music from nominated shows.

Yankovic had a stream of viral hits this summer as he released videos from multiple songs on his album in a weeklong effort across multiple websites. At the 66th Annual Emmy Awards he reimagined theme songs from hits like Mad Men, Homeland, and Game of Thrones.

Response to the bit was mixed, with some users praising the parody king's take, and others doubting the bit's relevance in the evening.

One thing we can all agree on, though? The Game of Thrones chorus: "Type, George, type as fast as you can / We need more scripts."

Screengrab via Hollywood Reporter


12 of the best GIFs from the 2014 Emmy Awards

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While the 2014 Emmy Awards seemed to come out of nowhere, they’ve left a lasting impression.

Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston couldn’t keep his lips off people, Weird Al remixed your favorite TV show theme songs, and George R.R. Martin got Game of Thrones fans excited with the sight of a typewriter.

One of the most touching moments of the night came courtesy of comedian Billy Crystal, who paid tribute to his late friend Robin Williams.

The following are 13 GIFs capturing the best moments of the night. Catch the rest of the GIF-worthy moments on our Tumblr.

1) Breaking Bad took home all the gold. Aaron Paul took home his third Emmy for his role as Jesse Pinkman. He is one of five people to win this award more than once. Anna Gunn took home Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her role as Skyler White. Cranston took home his fourth statue for Best Actor for the notorious Walter White. The show itself took home the Emmy for Best Drama Series.


2) George R.R. Martin worked on the rest of the famed series A Song of Ice and Fire.


3) Bryan Cranston was all about giving and receiving kisses. Cranston planted the biggest of all on third-time Best Actress in a Comedy winner Julia Louis-Dreyfus.


4) Sarah Silverman ran to accept the award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special while allegedly high.


5) Louis C.K. took home the award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series.


6) Billy Crystal paid tribute to his late friend Robin Williams.


7) Mindy Kaling kept it classy despite being snubbed for a nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy.


8) Cranston’s Clark Gable-inspired mustache.


9) Weird Al remixes all the theme songs for Mad Men, Homeland, and Game of Thrones.


Main photo via Wikipedia | Remix by Jason Reed | GIFs by Jason Reed, Fernando Alfonso III, Allyson Holley | Additional reporting by Eric Geller

Watch Billy Crystal's moving Robin Williams tribute

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Hands-down the biggest tearjerker moment of the Emmys this year was not any award-winners' speech, but Billy Crystal's moving tribute to Robin Williams.

Williams was found dead in his California home earlier this month at the age of 63.

While many luminaries of the television industry passed away this year, including Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Walker, Williams's death caused waves online at incomprable levels. Crystal memorialized him during the ceremony in a moving speech that highlighted Williams's ability to be comedic anywhere and everywhere.

"He made us laugh, big time," Crystal said. "It's so hard to talk about him in the past, because he was so present in all of our lives." He continued:

For almost 40 years he was the brightest in the comedy galaxy. But while some of the brightest of our celestial bodies are actually exinct now, their energy long since cooled. But miraculously, because they float in the heavens so far away from us now, their beautiful light will continue to shine on us forever. And the glow will be so bright, and it will warm your heart and make your eyes glisten, and you'll think to yourselves, 'Robin Williams, what a concept.'

Screengrab via The Emmys

Behind the fractured folk tales of MC Frontalot’s ‘Question Bedtime’

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Since coining the term “nerdcore” in 2000 to describe his corner of the hip-hop universe, MC Frontalot has come to be defined by his Comic-Con-friendly subject matter. Over the years, the Brooklyn-based MC has touched on certain familiar topics: video games, comic books, technology, and science fiction. 

His latest album, Question Bedtime, however, contains not a single reference to code-writing or cosplay. Instead, it’s a collection of rap tracks based on folk tales from around the world that “sort of is and isn’t a children’s record.” 

“It’s this weird, liminal thing,” says the rapper born Damian Hess. “I’m not sure who’s going to understand it completely right out the gate. I guess I’ll find out.”

The inspiration for Question Bedtime stretches back to Hess’s own childhood, when he obsessively read through a multivolume collection of folk tales in his middle school library. 

“It was a series of maybe a dozen of these cloth-covered, hardbound books” from the early 20th century, he remembers. “They were mostly not the recognizable European ‘greatest hits’ of fairy tales. They were weirder, stranger stories with less distinct morals, and always with monsters and fairies and magic. I ate those things up.”

When he started collecting stories for Question Bedtime, he looked for those old volumes, but their titles had long since faded from memory: “I can’t for the life of me figure out what they were.” So instead, he cast a wider net, mining folklore from around the world for source material. “Two Dreamers” is a Middle Eastern folk tale from One Thousand and One Nights about a formerly rich man seeking a fortune he sees in a dream. “Wakjakaga” is based on a Native American story that explains why we have wrinkly anuses.

Suffice to say, he steered clear of certain well-worn stories. “The whole princess as femme in danger, passively receiving the benefits of some heroic male—that shit’s pretty played out,” he explains. “And then there’s everything that Disney’s ever done… I don’t want anyone to get this record and be like, ‘Oh, he’s making songs out of Disney movies.’”

For many of his folk stories, Hess turned to another book from his childhood, an illustrated copy of World Tales by the Sufi author and scholar Idries Shah, who prefaced each tale in his book with a brief account of its many variants from cultures all over the world. “Folk tales as these things that exist in multiple brains and not in the imagination of some master artist—[as] kind of living, breathing, evolving pieces of culture—I got into that idea, too.”

Hess plays with this concept on Question Bedtime’s opening track, “Start Over,” one of the album’s few tunes based on a tale familiar to American audiences, Little Red Riding Hood. Telling three different versions of the story from three different perspectives—the wolf, grandma, and Little Red—Front is admonished after each telling by a sing-song children’s chorus: “That ain’t how it happened!”

Despite the fairytale subject matter, MC Frontalot’s trademark rapid-fire flow and love of narrative complexity remain in full effect. Many songs, like “Two Dreamers,” fly by so fast that they require multiple listens to decipher their meaning. 

“It’s not like I’m opposed to creating stuff that’s easy for children to understand,” Hess says, almost apologetically. “It’s just that for some reason, I didn’t want to make an album like that.”

“I’m fantasizing that it’ll be possible for children to grow into it over time,” he adds. “I remember how thankful I was for The Muppet Show as I became a teenager and realized I’d had this one piece of children’s entertainment that didn’t talk down to me.”

Question Bedtime features its share of Muppet-like moments, especially when guest rappers bring some of the fairy tales’ most vivid characters to life. Jean Grae portrays a hilariously modernized Goldilocks on “Gold Locks”; Open Mike Eagle growls through his verses as a hungry troll on “Much Chubbier,” a retelling of the Three Billy Goats Gruff tale.

As befits its title, Question Bedtime also features a series of improvised skits on which Frontalot “babysits” various comedians, including Paul F. Tompkins and Kyle Kinane, haggling with them over the rules for their bedtime (which the comedians all do in adult personas; “Can I just do this one last W2?” Negin Farsad protests). Hess laughs as he remembers railroading Tompkins into recording his skit on short notice: “I asked him, ‘Do you want to do a skit on a rap album sometime?’ He’s like, ‘Anytime. Say the word. Anytime!’ ‘Do you mean that? Anytime?’ ‘Absolutely.’ ‘Well, how about tomorrow morning at 10:45?’ You could see the ashen look on his face. But he was extremely gracious and kind.”

Hess himself has nothing but fond memories of childhood bedtime. “I was so into being read to by my mom that I think I was pretty anxious to get into bed and start on story time. I was into Narnia.”

Ultimately, despite the departure from his usual subject matter, Hess still feels that Question Bedtime comes from a pretty nerdcore place. 

“Just the fact that I think of this album as having been born 29 years ago in a middle school library, because I didn’t like going out there and playing kickball,” he says. “I think in a way that maybe makes it a nerdcore record.”

MC Frontalot photo by Ben Trivett

Chris Bosh becomes a photobombing legend at the Emmys

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Chris Bosh is a nine-time all-star and two-time NBA champion who’s averaged 19.2 points-per-game through his 11 seasons in the NBA, but the skill he’s perhaps best known for these days is photobombing people. In fact, you could say he's rather unrivaled.

This is something that’s been going on for years. Since Bosh first bombed his more famous friend and former teammate Lebron James during a 2012 playoff game against the New York Knicks, his stuff’s become that of Internet legend. He has slideshowscompilation videos, and his own Memebase page

Last night at the Emmy’s, however, Bosh ended up outdoing himself completely. 

Dressed in a white tuxedo outside on the red carpet, the forward somehow found his way into the focus of a camera transfixed on Matthew McConaughey. 

Dude looks like something out of the secret service. 

It’s only a matter of time before the Internet hivemind takes control of this one. In fact, we can see the Tumblr now. ChrisBoshinHistoricalPlaces. Someone get it going.

Photo via SedanoESPN/Twitter, ht Washington Post

Matt Damon just took the ice bucket challenge with toilet water

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Even drenched with toilet water, Matt Damon is still charming.

He’s the latest celebrity to take the ALS ice bucket challenge, but unlike the videos from Benedict Cumberbatch and Bill Gates, his comes with a purposeful message. 

In a simple video, the actor, who was challenged by both Ben Affleck and Jimmy Kimmel, reminds viewers that he is a cofounder of the water.org foundation, which aims to provide water to the 800 million people around the world who do not have adequate access. Then, in a true form of recycling, he completes the challenge with water scooped out of several toilets in his house.

The only thing wrong with the video? He shot it vertically. What a rookie mistake. 

Photo via Siebbi/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

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