- Scott Boras needs to stick to what he does best, namely being an objectionable, arrogant ass of an agent and negotiating insanely over-inflated contracts for his clients. Unfortunately, when someone with a ginormous ego like Boras has is around the game of baseball, he is always going to think that he has a ton of brilliant ideas that could make the game sooooo much better. Witness the letter that Boras sent to MLB commissioner Bud Selig, which contains among other things an absolutely horrific idea for jacking up the World Series. The World Series is currently in a 2-2-1-1-1, best-of-seven format, meaning the first team to win four games is the victor and the team with home field advantage (stupidly determined by which league, American or National, wins the All-Star Game) plays the first two games on its home turf, the opposing team gets the next two on its home field and then games alternate back and forth until the seventh game, which is played (if it’s needed) on the field of the team with the home field advantage. Boras, in his infinitely finite wisdom, wants to expand the series to a best-of-nine have the two additional games be played on a neutral site prior to the current seven games that exist in the World Series. His hope is to turn the World Series into an event like the Super Bowl, with all of the MLB season awards (Most Valuable Player, Manager of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Cy Young, etc.) announced at a big gala event the night before the first World Series game, with the top five candidates for each award present at a big awards ceremony, a la the MTV Movie Awards. I could spend days dissecting why this is such a terrible idea, but I’ll restrict my rant to two points: 1) The World Series already starts and ends too late in the year, meaning games are often played in frigid, awful weather not conducive to anyone actually enjoying them and this proposal would mean going even later into the year, closer to winter, and 2) The World Series is what it is largely because all games are played at the home stadium of one of the teams involved. That generates all sorts of passion, excitement and the potential for amazing memories for fans of that team to see in their own stadium in person. Moving even two games to a neutral site would ruin that, period. Again, my advice to S. Boras is to go back to being a pompous prick of an agent and leave these matters to people who are much more capable than you.
- Not much revs me up like the news that a former American Karaoke contestant is coming out with a new album. I don’t have nearly enough crappy karaoke music in my collection, so I’m usually lined up outside the door of my local record store the day the album comes out. Either that or I laugh uncontrollably at yet another feeble attempt to prolong a career by one of these losers and run the other direction, lest I listen to even a second of the garbage they call music. Thus, I really can’t find anything positive to say about the new album from Kelly Clarkson, even though it’s clear she’s trying to move more towards the rock end of the spectrum (albeit with a mix of depression and deep-seated bitterness) and away from the pop-tartiness that she’s embodied up to this point. It’s similar to those times in school when a teacher let you turn in an assignment a day late, but penalized you a letter grade for your tardiness. No matter what, you were working with a handicap and couldn’t do better than a B. Or for those of you long removed from school, it would be like having a girl who once ruthlessly broke up with your best friend, cheated on him, threw a rock through his car windshield and set his house on fire, and now that girl has decided she wants to go out with you. No matter how nice she is or how hot she looks, she’s behind the 8-ball and you’re not going to have anything to do with her. That’s more or less what being associated with the farce that is American Karaoke has done for Clarkson. Being on that show has forever tainted her, and I don’t care if her future albums contain collaborations with Aerosmith, AC/DC, Nine Inch Nails, Velvet Revolver and KISS, she’s not going to ever lose the AK stench in my view. Nice try, though, K., I’ll begrudgingly admit that of all the albums released by former AK contestants, this one just might suck the least.
- It’s becoming less and less of a mystery why the New York Knicks have been the absolute laughingstock of the NBA the past three or four years. With an organization this “well” run……….let’s just say that allegations of executives ordering cheerleaders to flirt with referees before games, star players calling front office personnel derogatory names and having drunken sex with marketing staffers after hitting up a strip club doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in your ability to run a functional pro basketball franchise. Those allegations come from former team marketing executive Anucha Brown Sanders, who filed a sexual harassment suit against the Knicks and team president Isaiah Thomas what now seems like an eternity ago and issued these detailed accusations in reply to a request from the Knicks to have the courts dismiss Sanders’ initial lawsuit. The star player in question for sexing it up and shouting obscenities at Sanders is Stephon Marbury, the shoot-first, shoot-second, shoot-third, pass only if forced to at gun point guard who has brought an enormous contract, an enormous ego and little else to the team in his time with them. Thomas and the team have denied that Sanders was ever sexually harassed, although Marbury did admit to shouting the obscenity in question. If even a small part of what Sanders alleges turns out to be true, it could make the disastrously bad and salary-cap wrecking roster Thomas crafted and the dysfunctional team he’s put on the court these past few years make a lot more sense. After all, if the guy conducts himself with such little class, self-control and intelligence in the office, why would he be any better or more successful running basketball operations. Well done, Zeke, at least you’ve given me an amusing visual of a guy with one of the highest, most effeminate voices in sports committing a crime like sexual harassment………
- She can have a top single, a top-selling album and appear on as many late night shows to perform as she wants, but I’m just not down with Amy Winehouse. The whole dirty, slightly slutty, Goth-version-of-Joss-Stone vibe just doesn’t get it done, nor does the fact that the lyrics to Winehouse’s most popular song are about someone making her go to rehab for her alcohol problem. You could probably guess as much because the title of the song is Rehab (bonus points for subtlety, Winehouse) and you could guess that Winehouse appears to have an affinity for the dark and Goth-like, what with the album title being Back to Black. Still, I just don’t buy into the image and it feels like she’s trying too hard and selling the badass routine too much. Winehouse has a decent voice, but the self-loathing and continual melancholy don’t draw me in; they actually make me wonder why she’s so depressed and why I should care. At least Joss Stone manages to seem mildly happy from time to time in her music, even if it isn't all that great to listen to.
- Some things I understand the urge to bootleg and counterfeit: money, DVDs, CDs, jewelry…….but toothpaste? F’ing toothpaste? Who the heck counterfeits Colgate toothpaste? I wouldn’t have believed it, but some yahoos somewhere have done just that, because loads of bootleg Colgate have shown up in Canada. And as with any bootlegged or pirated goods, there are inherent flaws in the product and it’s of less than stellar quality. The toothpaste that has been confiscated contains dangerous bacteria, although it is not the same poisonous toxin that was found in toothpaste distributed in four states last month, including to prisons and mental hospitals in Georgia. Shipments of this new bogus toothpaste also made their way south of the U.S.-Canada border and were sold to stores in Michigan and Virginia. But let’s look on the bright side and be thankful that this time around, the offending hygiene product doesn’t contain diethylene glycol, a chemical typically found in antifreeze. The lesson for all you kids out there, as always, is that when buying black market toothpaste, always get it from a semi-reputable dealer, not some guy with his product stashed inside a giant raincoat, stationed in a back alley somewhere in the seedy part of town.
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