- I knew there was something I didn’t like about Calvin Johnson. It had a lot to do with the fact that he kept trying and busting his ass to play well as his team, the Detroit Lions, were bearing down on achieving my dream of an 0-16 NFL season. They clinched the dream season anyhow, no thanks to CJ, but recently he said something that really concerns me and would have sent me into a terror-stricken panic if he’d said it prior to the 16th miraculous loss, to Green Bay in the final week of the regular season. With the dream season hanging in the balance, Johnson estimates that only half of his teammates had mentally checked out and begun their offseason before the game against the Packers. Johnson states that those players’ minds were elsewhere even before kickoff, having resigned themselves to their 16th loss. Only half? That means half of those idiots were out there trying, playing hard and expecting to win. No wonder it was a close game late into the fourth quarter! Just inexcusable that a team with a shot at the dream season of all dream seasons can’t get everyone together and quit. Why was anyone still focused? It’s not as if they’d bothered to bust their balls for the first 15 games, otherwise they wouldn’t have been 0-15. No need to suddenly develop a competitive spirit in the last game of the year, not when you have a shot to become the first 0-16 team in NFL history. Johnson was one of the chief culprits in nearly snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, catching a late touchdown pass to nearly draw his team even and sending me into a total panic. Fortunately, the Lions sucked enough and Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers manned up enough to come right back with a long touchdown pass to seal the win and the realization of the dream. Y’know, initially I’d been against the firing of coach Rod Marinelli after the season, believing that a good man like Marinelli shouldn’t be the primary fall guy for the team going 0-16, but hearing Johnson’s comments, I’ve changed my mind. He put the dream season in grave danger with whatever crap he pulled during the week of the game, somehow managing to motivate half of his team to show up and try. I’m glad you got fired, Rod, and you’d better be thankful you didn’t ruin the shot at 0-16, because then you would have not only been canned, but you would’ve had to spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder, knowing I was coming to take you out……
- A melancholy happy trails to Dewey Martin, best known as drummer for Buffalo Springfield, who passed away Saturday the age of 68. Buffalo Springfield was, of course, the supergroup that never really lived up to the hype but did crank out the iconic Top 10 hit, “For What It’s Worth,” about the 1970 shootings of four students at Kent State University during an anti-Vietnam War protest. In reflecting on Martin’s life and passing, Buffalo Springfield front man Neil Young praised him as “a sensitive drummer. … He could feel the music — you didn’t have to tell him.” Martin actually sang lead on “Good Time Boy” (from Springfield’s second album, “Buffalo Springfield Again”) and background vocals on “For What It’s Worth.” He is believed the have passed away from natural causes, which hopefully means that he wasn’t suffering or in great pain. Even for someone like myself, born many years after Buffalo Springfield was notable on the music scene, a song like “For What It’s Worth” still stands out and has actually been sampled and covered by a few bands since. So happy trials to Dewey Martin, he’ll be missed…….
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! You never like to see good people die, but if someone is going to die, they may as well do so battling for a good cause, like the 23 people who died Saturday when a protest rally turned violent outside Madagascar's Presidential Palace. All told, at least 83 people were injured during the demonstration in the capital city of Antananarivo, with the Red Cross helping at least 18 injured people. Witnesses near the scene reported hearing cheering from the crowd, gun shots and shooting noises that may have been tear gas canisters. The protestors were there to make their voice heard in opposition to the unveiling of Andry Rajoelina’s new government, a government that a high number of Madagascarans don’t seem to be down with. The result has been a government that is in flux, best by regular protests and acts of social dissidence, which of course I’m down with. Fact is, I don’t care what part of your government you don’t like or why, if you want to riot, I’m on your side. Don’t like the tax plan the government is pushing? Riot. Feel the most recent elect wasn’t fairly run? Riot. Think your government is treating the poor in your country unfairly? Riot. Don’t like the suit your president wore at his most recent public appearance? Riot. Break out the rocks, signs, flares, Molotov cocktails and anything else you can muster and bring da riot noise. So props to you, rioters in Madagascar, forcing The Man to break out tear gas and causing a major national incident……
- It’s one thing to put out toxic peanut products that cause a nationwide salmonella outbreak, but it’s quite another to put out those products even though they had tested positive for the salmonella bacteria and no other tests indicated they were safe. According to the Food and Drug Administration, that’s exactly what Georgia-based Peanut Corporation of America did when it shipped out some products whose safety they had reason to question. The FDA confirmed Friday the company’s Blakely, Georgia, plant shipped tainted product without retesting it. Up ‘til now, Peanut Corporation of America had been trying to sell us on the fact that it shipped products only after subsequent tests on them came back negative following the discovery of the salmonella bacteria in previous tests. So far, items made with its peanut products have been linked to more than 500 cases of illness, including eight deaths. Yeah, you might want to run an extra test or two, help avoid that sort of minor snafu. Making matters much worse is that last month, the company's management told FDA inspectors during an inspection of the plant that they shipped products that first had tested positive for salmonella which had later tested negative. Oddly enough, when hundreds of people began getting sick from peanut products and eight (and counting) died, the FDA was no longer buying those claims. The agency determined that “certain information provided by PCA management during the inspection was not consistent with the subsequent analysis of the company's records.” Uh-oh. Me thinks that Peanut Corp. could be really, really f***ed here, because the FDA doesn’t look to kindly on companies lying to it to avoid taking responsibility for foisting toxic food products on the public. If the allegations are true and Peanut Corp. shipped products which had already tested positive before it had received the results of the second test, or even did no additional testing before shipping products that tested positive once, they need to be hit with a fine in the tens of millions of dollars at a minimum………
- Dear God, this freaking recession has gone too far. When it was just costing millions of Americans their jobs and crippling the banking and automobile industries, I was fine with it. But now that the nation’s economic woes are hitting those who can least afford it, I have a serious beef. By this point, you’ve undoubtedly heard of the grave injustice that is being done to the poor, poor on-air talent for the majority of the dramas and comedies on CBS is being asked to forgo their annual raises and keep their salaries flat next season. Yes, the economic woes of America have stricken the actors, and I think we can all agree that when that happens, it’s gone too far. CBS Paramount made the request because the multiyear contracts actors on these shows are signed to typically have standard yearly increases built in. It’s an unprecedented move, part the CBS’ efforts to keep budgets down at CSI, NCIS, Numb3rs, and their fellow primetime series. A fortunate few will escape the missed raise, those being actors on CBS dramas produced by outside studios -- i.e., Ghost Whisperer, The Mentalist, and Without a Trace. Now all CBS has to do is sit back and hope that dozens of prima donna actors and actresses with big egos and who have grown accustomed to the luxuries that these raises provide all agree to accept this move. Lead actors and actresses will have to sawllow their pride, forego that extra trip to Cabo and accept the pay freeze. If not, they may have to see how much guilt they can handle on their conscience if they demand their raise and are subsequently forced to "The leverage watch many of their coworkers lose their jobs. At least one executive on a CBS drama is already bracing for the worst, preparing to let multiple supporting actors go if and when the show’s leads won't accept the pay freeze. Now it remains to be seen if other networks will follows CBS’ lead and if so, which and how many spoiled actors will refuse to play along and cause drama………
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