Sunday, August 12, 2007

Bad news for Sharapova fans, good news for a summer music sales and why I'm heading to Canada (hint, it involves W.)

- Congrats to NBC on its new series, Blatant Rip-Off. Actually, the name of the series is Life, but it’s such a blatant rip-off of another popular, current show that a copyright lawsuit is almost assuredly in order. Let me describe the premise of Life and see if you can figure out which show it’s copycatting. A guy is framed for a murder, goes to prison but eventually gets out. On the outside, he has millions of dollars waiting for him and he’s on a mission to prove his innocence with the help of a huge chart/collage on his wall detailing the facts, dates and events in his case. Yes, good guess…..this is a clear, obvious rip-off of Prison Break. Now the creators of Life might have rolled the Michael Scofield/Lincoln Burroughs characters into a singular entity for their series, but make no mistake, this is a rip job, period. In PB, Michael Scofield’s brother is wrongly convicted of a murder (Commonality #1), Scofield erects a wall collage laying out the facts of the case (Commonality #2), the person wrongly convicted of murder gets out of prison (despite being by different means on each show, Commonality #3), once outside prison, the character has millions of dollars waiting for him, (D.B. Cooper’s mythical Utah fortune in PB, Commonality #4) and once on the outside, the character who has been wrongly convicted tries to prove that he’s been set up for the murder in question (Commonality #5). Call the television police, get Law & Order and CSI on the phone, we’ve got a slam-dunk case of creative property rights violation here, with NBC as the culprit.

- Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, congratulations, you’ve won my “Ginormous Tool of the Week” award! Lute, in the unfortunate role of the new war advisor to W., told an NPR audience that frequent tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan have stressed our military to the extent that it’s worthwhile to consider re-instituting a military draft. “I certainly think it makes sense to consider it,” Lt. Moron Lute said, presumably with a straight face. Can I ask who appointed this ass hat as a presidential advisor? This is worse than the blind leading the blind, it’s the deaf, dumb, mute, lame and blind leading a drunken, brain-damaged sewer rat with cataracts. Hey Lute, I’ve got a great strategy to reduce the stress and burden on our troops: Stop fighting an f’ing war in Iraq that we have no business being involved with in the first place! That would correct a lot of problems, actually. If anyone cares to respond to any of this, you all know where to find me: hiding in the remote wilderness of Canada. I’ll see you all when this whole war in Iraq/draft revival mess dies down, probably around 2014 or so.

- The music industry is suffering through a summer of lackluster album sales, and using my keen musical insight, I think I’ve managed to figure out why. I could be way off base here, but when your industry’s hopes are pinned on new albums from the following artists, you’re what I like to call “screwed”: Kelly Clarkson, Avril Lavigne, Fergie and Shakira. I hate to be the bearer of bad news (not really), but combined, those four don’t have the musical ability of the late John Lennon’s shoestrings. Blaming the sagging album sales figures on the rise of digital music and piracy explains only a small portion of the problem. If you take a serious look at the quality of music being put out right now, you’ll find that an alarming percentage of it is totally unlistenable bullsh*t. To compound the problem, most of the best music is from artists receiving little or not attention or backing from the promotional arm of the music industry. The newest album from Someone Still Loves You Boris Yelstin is a dozen times better than any offering from Nickelback, but guess who gets more promotional backing and radio play? Hopefully this rant has been enlightening to you, music industry, I do what I can.

- I wish someone would have called me, because this is one situation I would have been more than happy to help with. Maria Sharapova withdrew from her match at the East West Bank Classic in Carson, Calif. against Nadia Petrova 20 minutes before it was scheduled to start, citing a lower leg strain as the reason for her decision. The withdrawal advanced Petrova to the finals while simultaneously ending any interest I had in watching the finals. Had someone called me, I would have been on the first plane out to L.A., ready to administer a deep tissue massage or whatever other treatment was necessary to get Sharapova on the court. Watching her matches ups the interest in women’s tennis of most any guy over the age of 12, so having her bow out of a tournament with an injury is the worst possible outcome. Perhaps if she spent a little less time filming commercials and campaigning for a role as the next Bond girl……….nah. Who am I kidding, I can’t be angry with her about that stuff. The more we see of her, the better.

- Thomas Leyshon III of Mountain Top, Pa., you are officially a piece of crap. How else do you describe a person who bursts into a beauty salon, robs the place for less than $90 and in the process assaults four grannies with a hammer, fracturing the skull of one victim? Dude, you might be hard up for cash, but can’t you rob a convenience store or a liquor store? Do you have to go to a place frequented by elderly women and bludgeon them with a hammer so you can make off with less than a C-note? The scumbags who bilk old people out of their Social Security money with confidence schemes think that you’re a bad guy. Oh, did I mention that the four women Leyshon assaulted didn’t even offer any resistance but were beaten anyway? The victims ranged in age from 56 to 76 and all were taken to the hospital for treatment, with one requiring surgery. Leyshon has been arrested after a prolonged manhunt, and something tells me he’s not going to evoke much sympathy from the judge or jury who hear his case.

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