- Curt Schilling has an opinion on everything, baseball and non-baseball, so most of the time I read a comment of his on a particular topic and go on my way, nonplussed. However, his recent comments about the idea that he could sign with the New York Yankees caught my attention because they highlight something that’s been bothering me recently. Schilling said he could never play for the Yankees because doing so would be “phony and disingenuous” and would invalidate his years playing with the Yankees’ archrival Boston Red Sox. Left unsaid by Schill but clearly seen in the subtext of his comments is a scathing condemnation of former teammate Johnny Damon, who did the very thing that Schilling says would make him phony and disingenuous. Damon bolted the Red Sox for the Yankees following Boston’s 2004 World Series title, choosing a 4-year, $60 million contract over staying with a team where he was a cult hero. Seeing Damon with the Yankees now is one of the most disheartening, pathetic things I’ve experienced as a baseball fan lately. He went from being one of the self-proclaimed “Idiots” with the 2004 Red Sox to a cleaned-up corporate sellout with the Yankees. Gone are the Idiot trademarks of long, flowing hair, a scraggly beard and a general goofy demeanor; in their place are a neat, tight, heavily-producted ‘do, no beard and a buttoned-up, boardroom persona that are just detestable. Damon is a shell of his former self on the field as well, mostly reduced to being a designated hitter and almost never playing center field where he made a name for himself with a reckless, all-out style in Boston and Oakland. For once I agree with Schilling, because no matter how much money Big Stein gives you, signing with the Yankees will always be selling out and selling a piece of your baseball soul in the process.
- Welcome to Venezuela, where you can keep your freakin’ mouth shut or you can leave. That alluring, inviting new slogan for tourism that I am so generously bequeathing to the Venezuelan board of tourism comes courtesy of inspiration provided by President Hugo Chavez, who says that any foreigners who publicly criticize him or the country’s government while in Venezuela will be expelled from its borders. Chavez, ever the overbearing dictator and oppressor, ordered Venezuelan officials to closely monitor international figures on visits to the South American nation and boot them out if they speak out against Chavez and his administration. “How long are we going to allow a person - from any country in the world - to come to our own house and say there’s a dictatorship here, that the president is a tyrant and nobody does anything about it?” Chavez whined. Points for going to the “Protect this house!” card, Hugo, I can see someone has been brushing up on his Under Armour commercials. But you’re right, what better way to show that you’re not an oppressive, fascist dictator than to take away the rights of visitors to your country to speak out against your oppressive, fascist, dictatorial ways? Nothing says free and easy, relaxed and friendly ruler of a nation quite like putting a gag order on anyone who dares dissent with your political views. Should I go ahead and assume that I am not welcome in Venezuela? This is quite frankly a very disappointing development because a while ago, I had thought Mr. Chavez and I were on the same page. He went to the U.N. and openly denounced W. for a variety of political reasons and I said to myself, “Now there is a smart, thoughtful guy!” But now H. Chavez goes and does something like this and he and I are once again at odds. Thanks for ruining what could have been a truly beautiful friendship, Hugo.
- So there weren't any good movie released over this past weekend…….and how do I know this, you ask? Did I go and see all of the new releases in theaters and use that firsthand knowledge to formulate an informed opinion? No, I simply looked at the top of the box office earnings list for the weekend, saw that I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry was the top-grossing movie and correctly deduced that if such an abysmal, clichéd, canned hack job of a movie was the one that the most people went to see, then there must not have been any good flicks hitting theaters the past few days. This movie has accurately been described as what you’d get if you rounded up all of the worst, lamest gay jokes you and your friends have ever told and threw them all into one script, mixed with a pathetic plot and not much else. Sorry to the producers of this movie, but as hot as Jessica Biel is, she’s not hot enough for me to pay ten bucks to go and watch your crappy movie for two hours just to see her. I knew that the lull between Ocean’s Thirteen, Transformers and the rest of the early-summer blockbusters and The Bourne Ultimatum on August 3 was going to be a down time for movies, I just didn’t know it was going to be this bad…………
- Would you have guessed that there would be a major recall of canned meat products in America and Spam wouldn’t be involved? It’s true, the long-running butt of canned meat-related jokes is clear of this story, which involves Georgia-based meat processing company Castleberry Food Co. recalling more than 80 brands of stew, chili, corned beef hash and other meat products in connection with a botulism outbreak. This is in addition to ten other brands of meat products the company had already recalled after consumers reported illnesses coming after consuming them. This would be yet another illustration of the truth in the old saying, “Never eat any meat that comes out of a can.”
- Wow…..I may openly and continually ridicule the dorky, loser-ish actions of Harry Potter fans as they dress up in costumes despite being middle-aged adults, but it’s still amazing to note that the last installment of the popular children’s book series sold 8.3 million copies in its first day on store shelves. Even great books by well-known and accomplished authors like Tom Clancy, John Feinstein and John Grisham don’t reach that type of lofty number in their entire run in stores and online, yet J.K. Rowling has sold that many books in one day. Thankfully, from pictures I have seen, many of the buyers are children or at least adults dressed normally, so it could be worse. Also worth noting is the fact that at $290 million in sales, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows brought in more than three times as much as the last Harry Potter movie did in theaters. Still, I am proud to say that I am one of the select few, someone who has never read a single word of any of these books or seen even a second of one of the movies in the series. For those of you who have, I do wonder what will fill the empty void in your lives now that no new Harry Potter books are on the horizon………..
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