- Maybe the New York Mets aren’t collapsing as much as the putrid National League is finally reaching some sort of equilibrium as the Major League Baseball season nears its end. You could look at the Mets’ come-from-ahead-to-lose act and insistence on giving away a 6½ game lead over the second-place Philadelphia Phillies as a team collapsing and choking. Right now the Mets and Phillies are one game apart in the NL East standings even though the Mets had that massive aforementioned lead just two weeks ago. However, I don’t think it’s so much the Mets choking as it is the National League evening out and congealing into one massive heap of mediocrity as the season comes to a close. The National League is clearly inferior to the American League this year, with the top five teams in the AL markedly better than any NL team. So it’s fitting that the team that possessed the NL’s best record for much of the season is now slipping back toward the pack, with the last three games of that slide courtesy of one of the NL’s worst teams, the Washington Nationals. The bottom teams in the NL are surging during this final week of the regular season and several of the top teams (Mets, Cubs, Brewers) are stalling out and seeing their winning percentages plummet. Ideally you would take the top four American League teams and let them play it out to determine baseball’s champion, but since MLB’s governing rules mandate that both leagues get to participate in the playoffs, can four National League teams please get their act together, clinch playoff berths and end this erratic lurch toward mediocrity? Thanks guys…..
- A quick note to all my peeps at the CW: You all can re-air Reaper as many times as you want, it’s still going to suck. The network put the most abysmal new show on TV back on for a second straight night to fill and empty spot in this week’s lineup after the sensational season premiere of Smallville, with its normal sidekick show, Supernatural, not premiering until next week. I had the good sense to slam my finger on the power button on my remote and run in sheer horr-a from the TV the second I saw that Reaper was coming on after I’d watched Smallville, so I was able to avoid reliving quite possibly the most painful hour of television I’ve ever watched when I gave the Reaper pilot a try Wednesday night. And no, you IQ-deprived fans of this abomination of a show, I don’t care that the network managed to make up, er, um, find some positive comments on the show from TV critics, because every single show that has ever aired a single episode (with the possible exception of Rules of Engagement) has scrounged up a few positive quotes and managed to cut and edit them in a way that makes it look like there are people out there who love their show. Reaper is the worst show on the CW right now, and with a network that has an über-crappy schedule, that’s really saying something.
- Either we need to change the name of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or we need to stop inducting no-musical-talent hacks whose “contributions” to music include changing their sound every two weeks, having a set of teeth so bad they rival Austin Powers’ Chiclets, being a total skank who writes sexually explicit books and creating most of her music with the help of a synthesizer and drum machine. Yes, I’m looking right at you, Madonna, because your Britney Spears-in-twenty-years a** has been nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and I can’t be the only one who’s disgusted by this. There is nothing rock about Madonna, other than the fact that she’s probably had sex with as many dudes as most rock groupies from the ‘80s. Has she affected the world of music with her antics and awful music? Yes, but that doesn’t mean she belongs in the Rock H.O.F. Of course, Donna Summer is also nominated, which might be a bigger affront to true rock fans than Madonna because although she’s not an über-skank pop singer like Madge, Summer is a prominent member of the single most offensive musical movement in the history of music: disco. Having hacks like these two on their way to induction only makes me sadder than I already was that a legendary, amazing band like the Ramones placed so much importance on getting into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Why would you be so intent on being a part of something that’s turning into such a joke? Jimi Hendrix’s lunchbox from the third grade is looking like a shining monument by comparison when you consider the other crappy displays that will be in this museum to recognize jokes like Madonna and Summer.
- It was only a matter of time before the conflict in Myanmar turned bloody, and so it has happened. The country’s military took the fight to protestors without weapons by firing automatic rifles into crowds gathered to demonstrate against the government, killing nine innocent people and wounding many more. As they fled, many protestors shouted, “Give us freedom! Give us freedom!” Who knows, maybe those cries for freedom were misunderstood by the soldiers as a request to be shot with automatic rifles…..or not. Not content with this brutal display of excessive force, the military also hopped in their trucks and rode around the outskirts of Yangon, raiding monasteries and administering beatdowns and arrests to dozens of Buddhist monks for the role monks have played in advocating democracy in the country. Always a good play, government of Myanmar, when someone criticizes you, instead of countering their argument with valid points, just massacre them, beat them and arrest them to shut them up. Going to the lethal force card is the surest sign that a government is losing its grip and is afraid of those opposing it, because it ignores the governing part of the equation and goes right to the brutal oppression part. I would ask if the government and military intend to continue killing civilians until all 70,000 demonstrators are dead, but judging from the way the Myanmar government is doing business, the answer to that is probably yes. Even the United Nations has publicly plead for the violence to stop, and the United States has imposed economic sanctions on 12 of the country’s top officials. With the images now coming out from this conflict and the killing of a Japanese photographer in the latest round of protests, this is becoming a global issue and one that Myanmar’s government is going to lose eventually. The question now is how long the opposition groups can keep up the fight and how many casualties will be incurred in the process. Stay strong, dissidents in Myanmar, you all are doing the right thing, so keep on doing it.
- I never cease to be amazed at people who are famous for no reason at all yet keep on showing up on TV, in magazines, etc. For example…..why does anyone need Us magazine to run a feature story on Heidi Montag, the ditzy blonde whose sole claim to fame is as the girl most people loved to hate on MTV’s tired reality series The Hills? Yet there Us is, telling us how Heidi has a surgically-enhanced rack and got a nose job because she’s insecure about her body. Umm, so what? This girl has contributed exactly nothing of note to anyone or anything in the world, yet we need to hear what’s going on inside her head? Even Paris Hilton, the pioneer of being famous for being famous, gave the world numerous sex tapes and is filthy rich. Montag…..well, she’s….screw it. I can’t think of a single thing of note she’s done, so stop giving her space in national magazines.
- You canceled the wrong music-centric reality show, FOX. The network has pulled the plug on Nashville after its paltry ratings, although by virtue of not being American Karaoke, it was far from the worst reality music show on the network. I always love the early-season carnage in the television world, at least when it doesn’t involve shows I like. Nashville might be the first to go, but judging from the extremely low level of programming I’ve seen thus far, it will soon have lots of company in the trash bin of TV. The hole in FOX’s sked will be filled by another “Ville” show, K-Ville, which is kind of like replacing your oil-leaking 1970 Ford Pinto with a rusted, no-transmission-having 1978 VW Mini Bus. Ah, the FOX network, where the motto is: “Prison Break and pretty much nothing else worth watching,” ain’t it grand?
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