- Bill Corgan is not one of the more beloved figures in the music world. That’ll happen when you date a loud, belligerent lightning rod of a woman like Courtney Love, as Corgan did before Love married Kurt Cobain. The perception of arrogance and over-the-top showmanship that Corgan is tagged with doesn’t help either, so when Billy reforms Smashing Pumpkins for a new album after several years doing solo projects and albums with other project bands, some people are going to rip the album no matter what simply because they dislike Corgan. I’m not one of those people and even though I’m not the world’s biggest Pumpkins fan, Zeitgeist is a good (not great) album that I’d rank somewhere between 7 and 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. The first single off the album, “Tarantula”, showcases the arena rock, hard-charging style that has been visible on most of the Pumpkins’ popular songs over the past decade-plus, but the album overall suffers from Corgan’s superficial, no-thought-involved lyrical style that shows little to no creativity on most songs. Longtime Pumpkins fans will find enough on the disc to enjoy it and not completely regret buying it, but it’s not an album that’s going to win over any new converts. It will probably accomplish its goal; namely making Corgan and mates a lot more money in album sales and touring revenue, but beyond that it will go down as just another rock album that was good, not great.
- Actor Esai Morales, welcome to the Ron Mexico Club. Ron Mexico, you may remember, was the fake name used by Atlanta Falcons quarterback and accused dogfighter and dog murderer Michael Vick when he was traveling out of the country and had sex with a woman, infecting her with herpes (allegedly). Morales stands accused of doing the same - well, sans the fake name part of the equation - by former girlfriend Elizabeth Mazzocchi. She is suing Morales for $25,000 based on charges that he assaulted her and intentionally infected her with herpes, a charge that Morales disputes. Well, that would be the ultimate “screw you” to an ex-girlfriend who treated you like crap……..but here’s hoping that those charges aren't true. A question for Mazzocchi, though: How is it that if Morales had herpes you never got it while the two of your were dating and presumably sleeping together? Are you trying to tell me that he went out and got herpes after you two broke up (either intentionally or otherwise) and then came back to have sex with you so he could infect you? I’m going to go ahead and say that I highly doubt this claim, it sounds a lot more like a cash grab than a legitimate lawsuit.
- So a female president has finally been elected……in India. Pratibha Patil, a congresswoman, lawyer and former governor of the northern state of Rajasthan, was elected as the country’s first female president on Saturday. One caveat is that in India, president is a mostly ceremonial position, with the country’s prime minister shouldering more of the executive responsibility and wielding more power (oh, that president was such a hollow, powerless post in the United States right about now…….). I have to say, I hope America follows this trend…….just not in the upcoming election. That would be because the only female candidate in this election will be Sen. Hank Clinton, D-N.Y. and I don’t think any of us want to be subjected to the true horror that we would experience if that vitriolic, abrasive, venomous shrew were elected as our next president. But if Patil’s election leads to advances for women in India, then two thumbs up for it.
- Soccer, feel the excitement! Wait…..you don’t feel it? Damn, neither do I. However, according to ESPN and the cadre of celebrities who filed into the Home Depot Center last night, we should all be verrrry excited about soccer and more specifically about the alleged savior of the sport in America, David Beckham. One quick aside: In order to save something, doesn’t it have to have been alive and breathing at some point? But Becks arrived amid much self-serving, unwarranted hype from ESPN and the broadcast kicked off with a half-hour special on Beckham coming to America, with announcers Rob Stone and Julie Foud-a-stain or whatever her name is trying to draw parallels between Becks and other great athletes who have “saved” their respective sports…..with the only difference being those athletes weren't ten years past their prime and the sports they were saving were sports Americans actually gave a crap about. Even so, with notable celebs like Katie Holmes, Kevin Garnett and Wayne Gretzky on hand, this had to be a great evening, right? Umm, sure if you love lots of Euros running around on a big patch of grass, kicking a black and white ball in arbitrary directions and showing exactly zero proficiency for putting said ball into the goal. Becks played an uninspiring ten minutes, just enough to claim he actually made the effort to play but not enough to keep the new “fans” who had tuned in interested enough to come back for more next time Beckham and the L.A. Galaxy are on TV. Go back to your obscure, ignored spot in the corner of the sports world, soccer, and we’ll call you if we have any interest in hearing from you again.
- What does it take to work the World Anti-Doping Agency into a frenzy? Apparently a vague, unproven and hearsay allegation made by a former pro golfer about the prevalence of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs in professional golf will do the trick. After golf legend Gary Player claimed that some golfers take drugs, WADA President Dick Pound (save your jokes about his having a promising future in the adult film industry) says he supports Player’s allegations and criticized the PGA Tour for refusing to acknowledge there may be a problem. "That is certainly my suspicion, and Gary Player says he knows, so that's fairly powerful medicine from somebody who has only the integrity of the game at heart," Pound told BBC radio Sunday. Look, I’m not doubting that some golfers do ‘roid up, but Pound is clearly grasping at straws here. WADA and other anti-doping governing bodies are always one step behind the cheaters and they’re looking for any angle they can get to gain ground. Player saying he knows golfers are using because he was told so by a current golfer and then another one confirmed that allegation doesn’t definitively prove anything. Should the PGA Tour implement a testing program just as other sports are doing? Absolutely. But to insinuate that there is a major problem in golf without any substantiated proof is just wrong, and guys like Player and Pound should keep their opinions to themselves until they have names and data to back up their claims.
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