- Losing your lead singer to death has never been enough to keep a band down, not when it’s looking to make more money. The list of bands that have tried to plug in a new lead man and keep going is long, but Oct. 28 will mark a new age for Queen, the legendary British rock act that lost lead singer Freddie Mercury to AIDS and has Paul Rodgers now in his place. On that day, the band will release The Cosmos Rocks, its first new album since 1995 and also its first since Rodgers took over for Mercury in 2004. If you’ve been payig attention, the band has already debuted several new songs from the album on TV and at live shows. C-lebrity is the most popular one thus far, featuring a guest spot from Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins. Another song that hits close to home for the band and it’s fans is Say It’s Not True, a salute to Nelson Mandela’s AIDS initiative and one that honors Mercury’s memory. To promote the album, Queen will kick off a world tour on Sep. 15 in Moscow and the tour will wind its way through the U.S. in early 2009…..
- I hafta be honest, I just don’t get the uproar over Benjamin B. Terril, an Akron, Ohio man who happened to have a major stockpile of weapons in his home. Terril is a high school teacher who also apparently has a bit of a gun addiction, as evidenced by the twenty-plus shotguns, multiple handguns and collection of explosives police found when they responded to a call at his home. The call came because a neighbor saw two men point guns at each other and when the cops arrived, they found Terril with a 9mm handgun in his back pocket. He does have a previous arrest for carrying a concealed weapon, but like I said, I just don’t get the fuss. So dude has enough weapons stockpiled in his home to invade some Third World countries, so what? You all act like a guy having dozens of guns and materials to make explosives in his home makes him a bad guy. What high school science teacher doesn’t have a room full of shotguns, pistols and explosives at his or her home? Besides, what bad thing could possibly result from a guy with a house full of guns? Oh, that…..
- Guess Tatum Bell wasn’t too happy about being cut by the Detroit Lions. The oft-injured, fumble-prone running back found himself on the waiver wire when the team signed former All-Pro back Rudi Johnson, whom the Cincinnati Bengals had released late last week. Not long after signing, Johnson arrived at Lions’ team headquarters and went to meet with Matt Millen. When he came back, his bags were gone and he told a group of reporters he saw a surveillance video of Bell swiping two Gucci bags of his Monday. The bags were returned to Johnson on Tuesday, but they were empty. My man Rudi is now missing a couple hundred dollars, his credit cards, his identification and some undergarments, but he is refusing to press charges. The best part of it is that Bell is claiming that it was all a big misunderstanding. Uh huh, sure. According to Bell,
defensive end Victor DeGrate, whom the Lions released Saturday, asked him to pick up his bags for him. Bell says he picked them up took them to a friend of DeGrate’s, never opening them. “I ain’t no thief,” Bell said. “I ain’t never been one, and I ain’t never going to be one.” So just to clarify this, you’re not a thief, you’re just a clairvoyant and a butcher of the English language, gotcha. Again, Johnson’s contention is that he left his bags in the locker room while meeting with Millen and when he returned, they were gone. He didn’t know who had taken them or where until Tuesday night, when Ricky Sandoval, the Lions’ director of security, showed Johnson a surveillance video of Bell swiping his bags. When asked how Bell looked on the tape, Johnson succinctly replied, “Suspect.” Someone from the Lions got in touch with Bell and he brought the bags to a woman’s house, and she dropped the bags off at Lions headquarters – empty. Johnson doesn’t believe Bell’s explanation of the story - kinda hard to with firm video evidence otherwise - but said he won't press charges. In other words, the two will work out some sort of financial settlement and keep this from the cops, which is probably the best idea. What isn't a good idea is Bell pulling this kind of crap when he now needs to find another team. No one wants the next Ruben Rivera on their team. You may remember Rivera as the baseball player who stole items out of teammates’ lockers while with the Yankees. If only Bell was as good at possessing and holding onto the football and eluding those chasing him as he was with Rudi Johnson’s luggage, maybe he wouldn’t have been cut in the first place…..
- Speaking of crimes and Detroit…..the city’s erstwhile, criminally inclined mayor, the (dis)honorable Kwame Kilpatrick will not plead guilty Wednesday in connection with his text message scandal. Previous reports had indicated that he would end the charade and cop to his crimes, but Kilpatrick has apparently changed his mind. Early Wednesday afternoon a statement on behalf of prosecutor Kym L. Worthy declared that “a plea may be imminent in the Kilpatrick text scandal case. It is expected that defendant Kwame Kilpatrick will plea guilty today at 5:15 p.m.” Or not. Less than an hour after the statement was released, Worthy's office retracted it and said there would be no plea deal. Typical politician, you can’t count on them to freely admit the truth in any situations. Kilpatrick has been at the center of this three-ring circus since January, when it was reported that he had exchanged romantic text messages with his former chief of staff, Christine Beatty, and that the two had been involved in an affair. That would be a personal problem, not a work-related one, if not for the fact that at a police whistle-blower trial in 2007, the pair, under oath, denied they had an affair. You can see where Kilpatrick might be rethinking his decision to plead guilty, given that such a plea would provide additional firepower to Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who was hearing testimony Wednesday at the Cadillac Place state office building in Detroit to help her decide whether to remove Kilpatrick from office. The lesson here, as always, is that when romantically involved in an affair with a chief of staff, 1) don’t send text messages about the affair, 2) don’t lie about it in court and 3) don’t assault those who come to serve you with a warrant, as Kilpatrick allegedly did in this case. Hope that’s helpful to all you public officials out there…..
- Things are heating up a notch in Thailand, with anti-government protestors now clashing openly with police and supporters of Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej. The clashes between the two sides took place in the capital city of Bangkok and left one person dead and a dozen others injured. The impetus for this latest round of skirmishes was the stand taken by some government staffers who are sympathetic to the anti-government forces and threatened to cut essential services if the prime minister and his staff don’t capitulate to their demands. Now this is what I’m talking about, every good protest and social movement needs some scrapping, brawling and genuine bad blood. It’s not truly social dissidence until someone throws down with police and blood is spilt in the street. And again, I feel compelled to remind all of you that this is a prime minister who has only been in office for about three and a half months, yet he’s pissed off this many people, this quickly. Impressive, even by the standards of someone who has witnessed the most inept political leadership imaginable for the past seven-plus years…..
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