- Sometimes I need to make a point about how ridiculous and fraudulent things are, and sometimes those things make the point for me. Case in point would be the American Music Awards, which proved what a total joke they are based on the fact that the award for Breakthrough Performer went to a former American Karaoke contestant. Sorry, fans of that show, but anyone who gives an award to one of your beloved karaoke-ers instantly loses any and all musical legitimacy. Of course, the AMA’s were already a joke to me, so it’s not a big loss in credibility for them with me. Serious music fans don’t have much to do with the self-congratulatory award show circuit, especially its habit of parading the same tired, lame artists out year after year and paying little or no attention to the real talent on the scene. Of the top 100 artists in music today, maybe ten of them would get even a shred of recognition by the AMA’s. Yet the show has time for has-beens like Duran Duran to attempt to revive their career by performing their one hit song and the incredibly lame first single from their new album? Really? You have time for Duran Duran but you can’t carve out time for the New Pornographers, Thermals, Hold Steady, Death Cab for Cutie, Silversun Pickups or the Dandy Warhols? But oh wait, there’s performance time for those hack poseurs in Maroon 5, for Avril Lavigne and Mary J. Blige? Are you freaking kidding me? Why not just rename yourself the Shitty Worthless Past Our Prime Music Awards? Your best male artist, Justin Timberlake, doesn’t have a single idea he hasn’t ripped off from Michael Jackson, sounds like a weasel who just inhaled an industrial-sized tank of helium and is a former man-bander. Your best female artist, Fergie, draws from a deep well of musical inspiration to come up with an entire album of songs about how hot and cool she is, has zero actual singing ability and is a creation of the amazing wonders a studio full of editing equipment and effects can offer. I hate you, American Music Awards, I hate you. The only value you have for me is that I know any artist who wins one of your awards or performs on your show is one I never have to worry about listening to because I know they suck.
- I have a riddle for you: How many DUI arrests within the space of one year does it take to get kicked off the Purdue football team? The answer, as it turns out, is two. We know that thanks to now-former Boilermaker Selwyn Lymon, who got dinged with his second DUI charge of 2007 and now finds himself off the team courtesy of coach Joe Tiller and the athletic department administration. Lymon was pulled over Sunday morning at 3:15 a.m. (you know this is going downhill if for no other reason than the phrase “3:15 a.m.”) and a breath test revealed a blood-alcohol content of 0.15 percent, nearly twice the legal limit in Indiana and most other states. But Lymon wasn’t content with getting busted for driving drunk, so he got belligerent with the cops and got a charge of resisting arrest tacked on. Nothing like a belligerent drunk guy fighting with the cops in the early hours of a Sunday morning, eh? Dare I say that Selwyn Lymon is the Ricky Williams of Purdue? Williams missed most of the last three seasons from the NFL because he couldn’t stop smoking weed and clearly getting high was more important to him than playing football. Lymon will now miss out on his chance to play Big Ten football because he couldn’t stop drinking and driving, so clearly getting hammered and breaking the law by driving afterward is more important to him than school and football. Good decision making, S. You know what, I don’t think you even need that college degree. You obviously have great reasoning and decision-making skills, so why waste any more time in school. You’ve shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that you can handle your business like a man. Now go serve your jail time and meet your new probation officer.
- What is it that moviegoers want to see most? The answer, at least this past weekend, was Angelina Jolie in a skin-tight body suit. Jolie stars in Beowulf, a movie based on the book that nearly every one of us was forced to read and learned to despise in high school, hundreds of pages of out-of-date writing masquerading as classic literature. However, you mix in one of the five hottest women in Hollywood, some great CGI effects and a well-orchestrated soundtrack and you’ve got the weekend’s top box-office earner with $28.1 million in earnings. The next two movies on the earning toteboard were the top two from the past two weekend, Jerry Seinfeld’s Bee Movie and the crime thriller American Gangster starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. Personally, I don’t care how hot Angelina Jolie is or how much humanitarian work she does (and really, isn’t that what most guys care about anyhow), even she’s not enough for me to pay $8.50 to go see a Medieval battle-centric movie. Of course, I’m more likely to go see it than I am to see Fred Claus, but I’m more likely to pay money to stare at my own shoes than I am to go see Fred Claus……
- I’d like everyone to join in on a new cause I’ve just started: GPS for whales. I was inspired to establish this cause after reading about the story of one particular minke whale in Brazil that has found itself caught in sandbars twice in the past week and has necessitated major search and rescue efforts by the Brazilian government. The unnamed (I propose naming the whale Sandbar) 18-foot mammal entered the Amazon River at some point last week, swam more than 1,000 miles upstream and became trapped on a sandbar near the city of Santarem. After being freed Friday, Sandbar the whale became stranded on a sandbar for a second time early this week. The Brazilian Environmental Protection Agency had called off its search for the massive mammal before news of the second beaching occurred, so clearly someone needs to step in and help Sandbar the whale, and that someone is me. With your support, we can buy a GPS system made especially for our whale friend, equipping him with what he needs to avoid future beachings. We can teach him how to use the system and that way, he can avoid any further trouble. Maybe this will even vault him up to the top of his group of whale friends and he’ll be the cool one with the new GPS system that gets to decide where to go on the group’s next big trip. Yes, that’s me, saving the ecosystem one ginormous whale and one GPS system at a time.
- The ongoing writers’ strike isn’t the only divisive issue in the world of television right now. Another topic that’s a source of widespread anger and hostility, at least among football fans, is the availability (or lack thereof) of specialty networks like the NFL Network or Big Ten Network for the average cable subscriber. These two networks have sprung up in the past couple years because the NFL and Big Ten both decided that they needed new ways to make money, so they followed the lead of the New York Yankees are created their own cable networks. The problem is that getting most cable systems to carry these new channels has been tough because the people running them want the cable companies to pay high charges to do so, charges that would of course be passed on to consumers. Many cable companies have refused to do so, meaning that fans with cable have been shut out from seeing their favorite team play. It happened several times this season with Big Ten football, which had a rule that each team in the league had to play on the BTN at least once. The most notable situation was late in the year when Ohio State hosted Wisconsin and it was on BTN, meaning all across Ohio, Ohio State fans either had to find a friend who had satellite and thus got the BTN or go to a sports bar that had it if they wanted to see the game. The issue will carry over to basketball season as well, plus it gets more fuel added to the fire this week when NFL Network starts its customary Thursday night games that run for the last six weeks of the season. Starting with tomorrow’s Colts-Falcons tilt that looks much less appealing now that the Falcons’ star player is sitting in a federal prison, NFL Network will have one game on each Thursday night for the remainder of the season. That will become a huge issue next week when the two premier teams in the NFC this season, the Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers, square off on the NFL Network and only a miniscule fraction of football fans across America can see two 9-1 teams do battle. Even though I’m one of those who will get to see the game, I honestly think it’s bullsh*t that games are on networks that so few people have access to. Either find a way to get these channels on everywhere or you don’t get to broadcast games, period. You’re alienating a whole lot of people who are rabid and devoted to their teams and it needs to stop.
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