Thursday, November 01, 2007

Les Miles has no cahones, Bill Callahan is toast and bad news for TV fans

- Way to crack the whip and rule with authority, Les Miles. The LSU football coach wont officially suspend backup quarterback Ryan Perrilloux and backup linebacker Derrick Odom for Saturday’s game at Alabama even after both were arrested for their roles in a brawl at a Baton Rouge club over the weekend. Perrilloux reportedly shoved a bouncer, always a smart move by the way, and as always happens in these situations, Odom couldn’t resist getting involved. Miles will only say that the team is “prepared to go into this game” without both players. Their opponent is an important one; former LSU coach Nick “The Traitor” Saban, who famously left LSU for the NFL only to return two years later to coach Alabama, a conference rival. Translated, Miles’ comments can be taken to mean that he knows everyone is watching him to see what he’ll do next and that he has to discipline these two somehow He’ll probably suspend them for the first quarter or first half, something lame like that. Do the right thing, Les, suspend them for the entire game…..

 

- Does it even matter for Bill Callahan at this point? Like Wile E. Coyote after being run over by a train, having a boulder fall on his head and then being blown up by dynamite, Callahan just keeps having bad things happen to him to make an already awful season that much worse. His team is 4-5 and in real danger of missing a bowl game for the first time in forever, which would be an egregious and unforgivable sin at Nebraska, where football is king. The new athletic director is a Tom Osborne, a guy Callahan once cracked as “a crusty old guy trying to run things from Washington.” That quote appeared in a tell-all book and referred to Osborne, a legendary coach at NU, and his time as a senator representing Nebraska in our nation’s capital. Now, Callahan’s starting senior quarterback, Sam Keller, is out for the rest of the season with a shoulder injury. Honestly, I think it’s time for Callahan to just go totally nuts with this and start openly tanking, screwing around and trying to get fired, because it’s going to happen anyhow. He needs to show up for games in shorts and a wife beater, stop shaving, begin drinking from a big bottle of Jack Daniels on the sideline during games, hitting on cheerleaders in the middle of the game and making personal calls on his cell phone while the action is going on. Also, he might as well go into that last game with his office cleaned out, his car and a U-Haul truck parked outside the stadium and running, because he’ll need to make a quick getaway. Also, Bill, for your sake hope you don’t make a bowl game, because that would only prolong the agony for another 3-4 weeks before you get axed.

 

- Bad news for TV fans: writers for many popular shows like HeroesGrey’s Anatomy, etc., are poised to go on strike because their current contract has run out and a new agreement hasn’t been reached with  the TV networks and movie studios that employ them. This is bad for two reasons: 1) Obviously, there wouldn’t be any new episodes of all of our favorite shows, and 2) Once networks run out of new episodes that have been filmed but not yet aired, there could be an onslaught of the worst blight in the history of television – reality shows. Members of the Writers Guild of America and representatives from the TV networks and film producers met with a federal mediator Tuesday, but talks between the sides have made little to no progress since July. Their current agreement expired Wednesday at midnight, meaning they are now in big trouble. The issues they are having trouble resolving include raising payments for profits on DVD sales and shows offered digitally on the Internet, cell phones and other devices. More than 5,000 members of the Writers Guild voted and more than 90 percent of them authorized the union’s first strike since 1988. The other side is holding firm as well, with CBS President Les Moonves promising that his network will not buckle. “CBS is not going to go blank,” Moonves said. Well Les, looking at your current slate of shows and projecting what it would look like if you removed all your shows that have professional writers, you might actually be better off going blank. Most networks have enough new epsidoes of their shows already in the can to last through February, so don’t lose hope entirely. A strike could affect series after that point and also impact next season, because many pilots for next fall are in the process of being written right now.

- Students looking to drift and meander aimlessly through a few more years of life while getting baked on a daily basis, I have just the school for you. The Invincible Donovan University will soon be opened in Edinburgh, Scotland by ‘60s hippie mellow rocker Donovan with help from film director David Lynch. While I have reservations about trying to achieve peace and enlightenment through transcendental meditation at a university founded by a man who directed graphically violent, sexually explicit movies like Blue Velvet and Mullholland Drive, I applaud the effort. “I know it sounds like an airy-fairy hippie dream to go on about ‘60s peace and love,” Donovan admitted. “But the world is ready for this now, it is clear this is the time.
 He also claims he was told by Buddhist guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1968 that he should found a university in Edinburgh. Yogi was a guru to many celebrities in the ‘60s, including the Beatles and especially George Harrison. Donovan is currently on tour along with David Lynch to promote transcendental meditation as a means for reducing violence, crimes and stress in schools and colleges. Best wishes for you and your school, D., smoke a joint or two for me at orientation, will ya…..

 

- With knobs like Hank Clinton and Fred Thompson campaigning for their respective parties’ presidential nominations for the 2008 election, Stephen Colbert’s tongue-in-cheek “campaign” is exactly what America needs right now. He may only be running in the primary of his native state, South Carolina, but that doesn’t mean he’s not giving it his all. Speaking at the University of South Carolina in the city of Columbia, he proclaimed that, “I promise if elected, I will crush the state of Georgia,” a reference to South Carolina’s neighbor to the south. Colbert was also given a key to the city by Mayor Bob Coble, who proclaimed it Stephen Colbert Day in Columbia. It may only be for the South Carolina primary, but I an many Americans are behind you 105.4 percent, Stephen, all the way to the White House.

 

- Wow. I’ve always said nd believed that O.J. Simpson is the worst guy ever and he still might be, but only because the central character in this next story is such a freak job and so out there that he has to be mentally ill or somehow less than human. Former grocery clerk-turned-serial-killer Alexander Pichuskin has been sentenced to life in a hard labor colony after being convicted of murdering not one, not ten, but 48 people in a bizarre quest to fill all 64 spots on his weird serial-killer chess board (his words, not mine). He lured his elderly, alcoholic victims with vodka, then killed them and dumped their bodies in a Moscow park when he was done with them. Pichuskin actually claims to have killed 60 people total, although this conviction is for the 48 that are known. By the way, that’s not something you really want to be doing, correcting the judge and prosecutor in your murder case to let them know that they are short changing you by 12 murders, you probably want to keep that to yourself, although when you’re up that high in numbers, what difference does it make? Also, it was nice to see Pichuskin sentenced while standing inside a reinforced glass cage while in shackles, a la Dr. Evil in Austin Powers or Magneto in X-Men. The penalty is the harshest allowable under Russian law, and I for one am glad that this whacko is no longer a free man.

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