- What’s the only thing worse than putting out a crap-tacular new album that cements your status as one of the most overrated, un-listenable artists in R&B or any other genre? Putting out a crap-tacular new album that cements your status as one of the most overrated, un-listenable artists in R&B or any other genre and being sued by someone who alleges that you stole much of the material for said album from them. Yes kids, I’m talking about Mary J. Blige, one of my five least-favorite artists of all-time. Her Growing Pains album was painful for a variety of reasons, but the Drama Family Entertainment company is feeling its own kind of pain, suing Blige in a federal court in Manhattan for bogarting some of the songs on the album. According to the suit, among the songs Blige pirated was Work That, which appeared on an iPod commercial. Drama Family Entertainment claims it suffered copyright infringement because the tune was written by a producer working for the company at the time it was crafted, but that producer was not credited on Blige’s album. She passed the song off as her own original work, which I might overlook but DFE won't. I’d overlook it because it’s a garbage song that blows big time, so if someone else wants to take credit for it, let ‘em. However, since money was made off the song I can see why they might sue. As with any Mary J. Blige music, the true loser here is anyone with the misfortune to hear her raw sewage passed off as music……
- Anyone who reads this space on a regular basis knows how big a fan I am of all things pirate-y. It flat-out pisses me off when navies and law enforcement ‘round the world insist on hounding and harassing the remaining pirates of the world, flag bearers for a fictional theatrical time when fake pirates would deliver clever, witty dialogue, drink rum and sing pirate songs. So today I give a big slap of disapproval to the U.S. Navy for reporting that it stopped a pirate attack on a merchant vessel north of Somalia in the Gulf of Aden. The numb nuts on the USS Peleliu responded to a call for help from the Gem of Kilakari Friday morning and deployed three helicopters to attack the pirates, who were able to lob only one grenade at the Gem of Kilakari before fleeing. The grenade didn’t explode and the pirates left with no plunder, booty, treasure or wenches. Heck, they may not even have had any rum, they fled in such a hurry. If the navies of the world keep this up, we’re not going to have any more pirates in all of their pirate-y goodness…
- Maybe I’m missing the boat on this, but can someone explain to me how a 31-point bitch-slapping in a preliminary round men’s basketball game at the Olympics qualifies as a huge event? I’m referring, of course, to the contest Sunday morning between the United States and host China in a game that U.S. players and others around the event were hailing as some sort of historical landmark. Why? I don’t know. I understand that these games are big for China and that the U.S. men’s basketball team is easily the most recognizable and famous at the Olympics, but that doesn’t make this a significant contest. It wasn’t for a medal, it was a total mismatch going in and even though the Chinese have two NBA players on their team in Yi Jianlian and Yao Ming, they had no chance to win and everyone knew it. The end result was 101-70 U.S. victory, thanks in large part to an endless array of showtime dunks by LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant and Co. Just because the host country’s team opened the tournament against a team favored to win the gold doesn’t make it a major moment in history. If it was for a medal, maybe. If it was a competitive game, it might be different. But under these circumstances, it was nothing more than the first game of the Olympics for the Americans, a chance to shake off the rust, battle through opening-game jitters and get ready for teams that actually matter in this tournament After all, the Chinese lost a pre-Olympics tune-up game to Angola, so how big a contender can they really be……
- Where better to promote environmental idealism than on the campus of an expensive, liberal arts college? About a year ago, Emory University in Atlanta kicked off its $250,000 “Bike Emory’ initiative, designed to encourage students and faculty to leave their cars at home and use bicycles as their primary means of transportation to and specifically around campus. With fall semester quickly approaching, the school is kicking things up a notch by adding bike lanes to campus roads, selling discounted bikes to students and faculty members and stocking up with hundreds of bikes that can be borrowed for free. All good ideas, except that the bikes to be borrowed will be borrowed….and kept. This is a good concept and hopefully students will buy in, but the school is begging if it thinks that a lot of them will abandon driving in favor of bikes. First, when you’re running late and need to get to class in a hurry, cars are still the fastest. Second, in case you hadn’t noticed, most college students all but live out of their cars at times, dumping an amazing majority of their crap into their trunk, back seat, etc. Biking isn't feasible for them because there’s no way to carry all of that junk on a bike. But props to Emory University for the effort and looking out for the environment, every little bit helps……
- A melancholy happy trails to Isaac Hayes, the legendary soul singer and composer who passed away over the weekend. The man who is associated foremost (and rightfully so) with the words, “They say that Shaft, he’s a bad mother - shut your mouth!” was found unconscious next to a still-running treadmill at his Memphis, Tennessee home by relatives. Hayes, 65, won multiple Grammy awards in his lifetime and also scored the 1971 Oscar for best original theme song for the theme for Shaft, the iconic black detective that the Fresh Prince of Bel Air loved so much. Hayes was longtime writer for Stax Records in Memphis, working as a writer and arranged for great artists like Otis Redding. He also played in the studio’s backup band for years, showing a wide range of vocal talents and a love for music that will be sorely missed……
No comments:
Post a Comment