- Best wishes for a full and speedy recovery for my main man, ESPN college basketball announcer Dickie V, Dick Vitale. Dickie V has been one of, if not the, most recognizable voice in all of sports in the past few decades ever since he moved from the coaching ranks to the broadcast booth. Now, he’s recovering from surgery on Tuesday to treat ulcers on his left vocal cord and is expected to be off the airwaves until at least February. What’s amazing is that before now Vitale, 68, had never missed an assignment since joining ESPN in 1979. “The past six weeks have been very emotional [for] me and for my family as we've visited some of the most outstanding throat specialists,” Vitale said in a letter posted on ESPN.com. “Visiting college campuses and interacting with the fans has kept me so young and energized. I can't wait to get back out there, having a blast with all of you, who are so vital to our game.” Vitale’s coaching career included stops at the University of Detroit and for less than a season, the NBA's Detroit Pistons. He was a finalist for the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame in 2004, 2006 and 2007. Aside from coaching and broadcasting, Vitale has become an avid fundraiser and has raised millions of dollars for the V Foundation, a cancer research foundation named for his close friend, Jim Valvano, who passed away in 1985. I sincerely hope that you have a full and speedy recovery, Dick, because college basketball won't be the same without you this season. If you want to read Vitale’s letter to the fans, go here: http://espn.go.com/dickvitale/071218lettertofans.html.
- Good to see the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie duo adopt something that doesn’t come from a Third World country and wear a diaper. While the couple, especially Jolie, has become well-known for adopting kids from various foreign countries, Pitt has decided to adopt something a whole lot bigger – the city of New Orleans. While nearly all of America has all but forgotten about the Big Easy and assumed that things in the city are basically back to normal (that could not be farther from the truth), Pitt has thrown himself into helping the citizens of New Orleans rebuild their homes and lives. He’s put his acting career on hold, he and Jolie have bought a home in the city and he’s made a major financial commitment to helping rebuild storm-ravaged neighborhoods all around New Orleans. He’s kicked in more than $5 million already and spent many hours talking to resident about their needs and problems. I guess it’s just nice, one, to see a celebrity pick up a charitable cause that isn’t foreign and exotic while overlooking needs in their own country, and two, instead of asking average citizens to give to a cause when they themselves had millions of times more money and aren’t giving much of anything, to see a celebrity giving from their own pocket. Hopefully Pitt’s visible face in and around New Orleans will continue bringing attention to the ongoing rebuilding process there, because the W. administration has screwed things up and failed the people of the region continually and they still aren’t nearly back to where they were before the storm. Keep it up, Brad.
- For those of you who think I missed this one, here we go: I didn’t overlook the massive riot over the weekend in Srinagar, India, I was just working on channeling my rage properly so that when I did talk about it, I could properly rip the police in Srinagar for their total overreaction that resulted in the death of one protestor and the injuring of at least nine others. Things went horribly wrong after thousands of angry citizens did what all good, angry citizens do when they’re pissed off; they took to the streets to protest en masse. They were demonstrating to demand a college in their region (in the town of Magam, actually, which is in the Indian region of Kashmir), which is actually one of the better reasons to riot that I’ve heard. People demanding better access to higher education is great, and if they have to turn slightly violent and destructive to get their message across, so be it. As always, I love a good riot and this one is no exception. Policemen fired into the crowd, always a good option when you have thousands of people in a group, morons. In a nice turn of the tables for all us anti-establishment folks out there, four policemen were injured in the riot as well after protestors beat them with wooden sticks. Nice to see that somewhere in the world, the police aren’t the only ones delivering beatdowns with blunt objects. Kudos to the citizens in Srinagar for standing up and speaking out in spectacular fashion, and thumbs down to the police in the city for their poor handling of this whole mess.
- New York City, you have some competition when it comes to being the capital city of giant rats. We’ve long known that NYC is home to scores of ginormous, filthy rats and that Manhattan’s subway stations are chock full of the vermin, but in a remote Indonesian jungle near the city of Jakarta, scientists have discovered a new species being called a giant rat. The critters were found in the Foja mountains rain forest in eastern Paqua province, and if you’ve seen the pictures, you’re probably as grossed out as I am right now. These giant rats are about five times the size of a normal city rat, so do the mental imagery and you’ll get the picture, No word yet on whether George Mitchell has asked for permission to interview the giant rats about possible steroid or HGH use or if any of the rats were actually named in the recently released Mitchell Report, but one of them did have a suspiciously fast recovery from a shoulder injury last year, so you never know. Either way, if you’re doing any traveling in the Foja mountains rain forest any time soon, you’ll need to pack the biggest rat trap you can find and also avoid packing any cheese in your backpack…..
- Need yet another reason to side with striking writers in their battle against stingy, uncaring TV networks, studios and producers? If so, here’s one for you: the upcoming Golden Globes are in limbo after the Writers Guild of America refused a special request by the show to allow writers to stop striking temporarily just for the purpose of working on the show. The ceremony is set for Jan. 13, and without the writers there to script lame jokes for the host, you never know what might happen. Although it’s unrealistic, I’m holding out hope that a lack of writers might force the postponement or cancellation of at least one self-congratulatory, self-important awards show. Unlikely, I know, but a person can dream. If the strike is still going on when Feb. 24 rolls around, the Oscars will be impacted as well. The WGA won't allow any clips from movies or previous Academy Awards shows to be used during this year’s show if the strike is still going on. Bearing that in mind, I say we just pass out the trophies at a nice half-hour luncheon with no speeches or ship them out UPS. That way, actors can still congratulate themselves for their greatness and we don’t have to be subjected to an uber-long broadcast that will seem even longer because of the gaps left by the prohibition on using movie clips. Thanks for that, Writers Guild of America, for once something about this strike will be positive for me!
No comments:
Post a Comment