- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Yes, it’s back and back with a vengeance. Any time I’m bringing you news about The Man busting out tear gas and water cannons to subdue angry mobs, you know it’s a good day. So I am ecstatic to bring news that overbearing, oppressive Turkish police near Istanbul used tear gas and water cannons on Sunday to disperse thousands of Kurdish protesters demonstrating against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. All these protestors were doing was making their voice heard as Erdogan visited Turkey's largely Kurdish southeast region, attempting to build support for his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) as nationwide local elections approach. This is a major issue for Turks, as the country’s southwestern region is largely controlled by the Kurdish nationalist Democratic Society Party (DTP) which may not be allowed to participate in the upcoming local elections in March, which will decide local councils and mayorships across Turkey. Right now, the country's public prosecutor is asking the constitutional court to shut down the Kurdish party on charges of fomenting separatism -- which could lead to the expulsion of eight DTP ministers, thus leading to the riot/protest and clash with police. This was a solid riot on the Riot-O-Meter, taking place in the remote town of Yuksekova, in Hakkari province along Turkey's border with Iran and Iraq. Members of the DTP gathered in front of their party’s local headquarters, in the second straight day of protests against Erdogan in the region. The details of these clashes over the weekend are very encouraging, with an explosion striking AKP's provincial headquarters in the town of Hakkari on Saturday, then police clashing with stone-throwing demonstrators in Van. Additionally, there have been sit-down protests in the center of Diyarbakir -- the main city in Turkey's Kurdish region. Big thumbs up for whoever set off that explosion, blowing things up is a great way to kick it up a notch in any anti-establisment efforts. Props on the rock throwing as well - a little rudimentary, but still a good way to show your dissent and do some damage in the process, even if it is a tad caveman-esque for my tastes. As for the sit-ins……I guess if you’re going the pacifist route or don’t have the strength to throw a rock of the know-how to rig a bomb….i can let that one slide, as long as the spirit of rebellion is there. So a solid weekend for you, Turkish Kurds, I’m proud of you all…….
- Goodbye to you as well, Joaquin Phoenix. The actor is apparently bidding farewell to the film world, driving home that message in Do the Right Thing style, putting it on his knuckles at the Saturday premiere for his latest film, “Two Lovers.” Phoenix arrived on the red carpet with the words “Good Bye” inked on the his knuckles and he confirmed a surprise announcement he made last week, that he's giving up movies. “I think it's just moving on. It's rediscovering something else,” Phoenix said. He says that “Two Lovers” is and that he intends to focus on music. This comes after Phoenix learned to play guitar and did his own singing to play country legend Johnny Cash in "Walk the Line," which earned him an Academy Award nomination. Additionally, he has quietly been directing a few music videos in recent years, so this is clearly something he’s been turning over in his mind for a while now. “It's like greener pastures, you know what I mean?” Phoenix said. “And so, I'm just going to try and like, I'll just be doing the other thing. ... Hopefully, I will emotionally impact you with that, as well.” I know some people out there will hail this as pure insanity, giving up an acting career that is going strong, along with the millions and millions that go with it, to take up something else. And maybe it is crazy - but only from the financial standpoint, which is wildly overrated anyhow. Fact is, at this point Phoenix has made more than enough money acting to sustain himself and his family for years to come, so why should he keep doing something if he doesn’t have a passion for it? Why not go chase another dream, one that he might enjoy even more? Just because you look at his lifestyle funded by acting and envy him doesn’t mean that once one achieves this lifestyle, it’s going to continue to be what he or she wants for the rest of their life. So good for Joaquin Phoenix for being willing to take the road less traveled and go after what makes him happy, regardless of how others see it…..
- Am I the only one who sees the absolute absurdity of this? Hostess, makers of the jacked-up, totally unhealthy, preservative-laden product known as Twinkies, are attempting to pump new life into their most recognizable product by putting it into smaller portions, slamming it into a new package and charging way too much money for it. The Milwaukee-based company has announced that Twinkies are becoming the latest product repackaged into 100-calorie snack packs, which is basically just a sham way of trying to convince people that what they’re eating isn’t a bunch of unhealthy crap even though they know it is. Even so, “Twinkie Bites” hit stores nationwide today and they will soon be followed by a snack pack featuring strawberry cupcakes. Analysts seem to feel that the “Twinkie Bites” will do well, as overall some 500 million Twinkies are sold every year. You have to wonder why there is a real demand for this “new” product at all, what with the original Twinkie coming in at 150 calories. Memo to all of you out there who were asking for lightened version of the Twinkie: if you want to eat healthy, don’t eat a damn Twinkie to begin with. If you are at all concerned with your health, find something else to eat, say a small, homemade sugar cookie. Hostess says it is hoping to make more of the 100-calorie products, a product it already produces more than 15 million boxes of annually. The irony is that if you look at what consumers pay for the “convenience” and alleged increased nutritional benefits of these snack packs, you are paying a higher ratio of cost to actual food and not getting a sizeable health benefit in return. However, if the new mini-Twinkies provide a sales boost, it would come at an opportune time for Interstate Bakeries, as it seeks creditor approval of a plan that would allow the Kansas City-based company to exit more than four years of bankruptcy. Do with this what you will, America, just prove that you’re smarter than I think you are and won't leap at this new offering like it’s some kind of miracle food……
- I’m a huge John Daly fan for the same reasons many golf fans love the guy - he’s a loveable, oversized, outlandish personality who has a lot of demons but generally seems like a good guy that you want to see do well. Heck, he’s won two majors on the PGA Tour during his troubled career, so you know dude has talent. Unfortunately, he also has a lot of issues, including alcohol, drugs, marrying the wrong women and a smoking vice he can’t kick. Every time he picks himself up off the ground, something else is waiting to knock him down and you get the distinct impression that this is not going to end well for him. The latest development to reinforce that thinking happened on a recent trip to North Carolina, a trip JD says he went on to have fun with some friends. Whatever else he did on the trip, Daly somehow ended up outside a Hooters restaurant early Oct. 27, appearing “extremely intoxicated and uncooperative”' when police confronted him. Because he had no other means of transportation, he was taken to the drunk tank at the Forsyth County jail for 24 hours to sober up. The night also produced a memorably bad photo of Daly in orange prison coveralls with his eyes half-open. He insists that nothing is amiss in his life, which I’m hoping is true, even if his history gives every indication that it isn’t. “Nothing is going right in my life right now,'” Daly said Sunday. “I'm going through a hell of a divorce. I haven't seen my son. It was an unfortunate incident, but it's a joke what people are saying. I take full responsibility for what happened, but it wasn't that big of a deal.” Had Long John stopped there, I might have been able to side with him on this one. But he kept going and started sounding crazier by the word. He said that the whole mess could have been avoided if his friends had realized he tends to sleep with his eyes open when he's tired, stressed and has been drinking. John, this isn’t fourth period American history where you sleep with your eyes open because you’re bored to death. This is you getting hammered and stumbling around outside Hooters, causing a scene. Clearly you were in bad shape, otherwise the driver of your private bus, parked near Hooters, wouldn’t have panicked when he saw Daly and called the paramedics. If you were truly okay, you wouldn’t have been ambling around outside Hooters after the restaurant had been closed more than an hour. You may say that you wanted to go to a hotel to sleep it off, but in the state of North Carolina, there is a law called “Assistance to Intoxicated Persons.” The law stipulates that someone sober had to be with a person in Daly’s situation, otherwise the person is taken into police custody for their own welfare due to impairment or intoxication. It's not a criminal offense, even though it does land them in the drunk tank. So JD, whether you did anything wrong or not, this is not a good development for you. You haven’t had your PGA Tour card since his 2006, when your two-year exemption expired from his last victory, the Buick Invitational in 2004. You’ve only made five cuts in 17 starts on the PGA Tour and your best finish was a tie for 40th in the Viking Classic. That came after rib surgery, so clearly it hasn’t been your year, my man. You need to find a way to vanquish your demons before this whole thing meets a tragic end, amigo, because that’s something none of us wants to see…..
- From a critical, objective outsider’s point of view, this season of Heroes may not be a rousing success so far, with an average of 9 million-plus viewers this season, down from last year's 11.6 million average. Still, I’ve enjoyed this season for the most part, even if it has been a little complicated and always keeps you guessing - that tends to make for good TV. But one thing that can’t help the show is the departure of co-executive producers Jeph Loeb (left) and Jesse Alexander, two of the show's most influential writer/producers. Their departure comes at a critical time for Heroes, which has been under fire from some directions as whiny losers have opined that the series has lost its edgy, push-the-envelope feel and direction.
These two defections could hurt the series in the eyes of comic book dorks who are huge fans of Loeb, who is an author of many comic books, including Batman, The Hulk, and Superman For All Seasons, which inspired the creation of Smallville. At this point, Heroes creator/executive producer Tim Kring has given no indication as to whether he plans to replace Loeb and Alexander, but the fact that they are leaving leads you to believe that something is amiss in the Heroes universe and as a fan of the show, you have to hope that it’s nothing too substantial……
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