- Has any former professional athlete turned into more of a freak show than Jose Canseco? When writing a book that casts steroid-using aspersions on nearly everyone who has ever played the game is the high point for you, that’s a bad sign. Of course, Canseco wrote that book to make money and not out of any sort of sense of obligation to help clean up the game of baseball. The same financial motives are also at the heart of his recent “career” moves, which apparently including turning himself into the world’s biggest circus freak. First, he ventured into the world of celebrity boxing and was summarily pummeled by former Philadelphia Eagle Vai Sikahema in his first fight. That defeat clearly hasn’t a) made Jose any smarter or b) dulled his enthusiasm for stepping into the ring. He’s now preparing to try mixed martial arts and his first opponent wil be a ginormous challenge - literally. Canseco is set to make his mixed martial arts debut on May 26 in Japan against 7-foot-2, 330-pound South Korean super heavyweight Hong Man Choi. The bout will be a part of the Dream 9 card in Yokohama Arena, an eight-man open-weight tournament and is being called the Super Hulk Tournament. Choi is a and has a 1-2 record in MMA, but don’t allow that record to deceive you into thinking that ol’ Jose has a snowball in hell’s chance. “I have no idea if I can do it," Canseco said Thursday night. "It's a tough sport.” I have an idea, Jose: you can’t do it, unless it is getting your face caved in and your carcass scraped off the canvas after a very quick loss. This isn’t celebrity boxing against Vai Sikahema or former "Partridge Family" child star Danny Bonaduce, who you fought to a majority draw in a match in January. Not sure what Jose will be weighing in at for this next bout, but Canseco was listed at 6-4 and 260 pounds for the fight against Bonaduce. However, this isn’t the only fight on the horizon for Canseco. No, for a fee of only $50, any random loser around the world can file an application on his Web site to fight Canseco. Yes, he’s ripping off clueless idiots who are desperate to throw away a $50 spot just to FILE AN APPLICATION to fight him. Why do I think that this will soon be revealed as a huge scam in which no one is ever actually approved for a fight? Sadly, writing dirt sheet, tell-all steroids books is beginning to look like the smartest and most honorable thing Jose Canseco will ever do……
- Well at least people aren’t totally overreacting to this whole swine flu thing. Showing that people of all ethnicities and nationalities can panic over the swine flu/ H1N1 influenza A virus, the Egyptian government on Thursday ordered the slaughter of all of the nation's pigs - all 350,000 of them. Mind you, no cases of the virus have been confirmed in Egypt and the proposed slaughter threatens their livelihood of many families. Pig farmers are desperately pleading with the government to reconsider their decision, claiming such an action will leave them with no means of supporting their families. Government officials say that swine owners will be offered about $180 per pig in compensation, but many farmers doubt they will ever see that money. Then there’s the religious and social factors in the decision: most Egyptians are Muslim and because it is forbidden in Islam to consume pork, the majority of these farmers are Coptic Christians. There has been growing criticism that the government's decision heavily affects this minority population. Those critics are rightly suggesting that the Egyptian government should not carry out the slaughter until cases of swine flu are confirmed in Egypt. Unfortunately, this appears to be one government that doesn’t drag its feet when it comes to putting its decisions into action. The slaughter has already begun and the government plans to slaughter all of the country's pigs by this weekend. But the panic in Egypt is being matched nicely by the many hypochondriac fools around the United States who are currently clogging their local emergency rooms up and wasting doctors’ valuable time when they have no need of medical care. These idiots don’t have swine flu, they’re just so paranoid that at the first sign of a sniffle, they run to the emergency room. Hey tools, back away from the car keys, keep the SUV in the garage and leave the emergency rooms to people who actually have need of them……
- Dear FAT Americans: You’re going to want to back away from those Hydroxycut products in your cabinet. The popular dietary supplements used for weight loss have been linked to liver damage and are being recalled, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Friday. The FDA said it has received 23 reports of serious liver injuries linked to Hydroxycut products, which are also used as energy enhancers and as fat burners. So while it might be important to you (and anyone who has to look at your flabby self) to lose those lbs, you’re going to want to find a different weight loss option. If you don’t, you could end up like the 19-year-old man living in the Southwest whose 2007 death was officially linked to Hydroxycut products by the FDA in March. Other serious liver problems reported included liver damage that resulted in a transplant in 2002, liver failure, jaundice, seizures and cardiovascular problems - just all-around good times. The FDA isn’t f’ing around, warning consumers to immediately stop using 14 Hydroxycut products manufactured by Iovate Health Sciences Inc. of Oakville, Ontario, and distributed by Iovate Health Sciences USA Inc. of Blasdell, New York. The company is voluntarily recalling the following products: Hydroxycut Regular Rapid Release Caplets, Hydroxycut Caffeine-Free Rapid Release Caplets, Hydroxycut Hardcore Liquid Caplets, Hydroxycut Max Liquid Caplets, Hydroxycut Regular Drink Packets, Hydroxycut Caffeine-Free Drink Packets, Hydroxycut Hardcore Drink Packets (Ignition Stix), Hydroxycut Max Drink Packets, Hydroxycut Liquid Shots, Hydroxycut Hardcore RTDs (Ready-to-Drink), Hydroxycut Max Aqua Shed, Hydroxycut 24, Hydroxycut Carb Control and Hydroxycut Natural. According to the FDA, Iovate sold more than 9 million units of Hydroxycut products last year. For a dangerous, potentially deadly product, these items sure were available in a lot of places: grocery stores, health food stores and pharmacies. While the liver damage that has been reported by users is rare, the FDA is still advising the immediate discontinuation of all Hydroxycut products. What’s scary is that so far, the FDA has not been able to determine what specific ingredients are responsible for the problems. Fortunately for me, I’m not one of the tens of millions of FAT Americans who need these sorts of products, but if I were I’d have stopped taking anything from Hydroxycut and flushed any remaining product down the crapper…….
- We may need to go back and retroactively declare that all Guns ‘N’ Roses music absolutely sucks. It’s not that the music has changed, it’s that one of the chief makers of that music is absolutely murdering any musical credibility he may have by doing the single most offensive thing any musician can ever do: making a guest appearance on American Karaoke. This week, AK is having what it is calling Rock Week (pardon me while I laugh, vomit, punch something and then vomit again), and as such legendary GNR guitarist Slash has been invited “as the contestants' mentor.” Slash isn’t the only well-known artist appearing this week, but he’s the only one with any musical cred. Also appearing will be Chris Daughtry and faux rockers No Doubt. Daughtry makes sense because he was once a karaoke-er on AK, so when he’s recording a new album you know he’s coming on to try to drum up interest. As for No Doubt…..Gwen Stefani is a hack and has as much rock credibility as the Wiggles at this point. She should just focus on her fashion line and her pop career, period. But let me get back to Slash, a man who was a freaking rock god during his time with GNR and now is willing to sell his musical soul to the tools on AK. For who? For what? I realize that he’s no longer a member of GNR, but I assume Slash still wants people to view him as a viable rocker and not some karaoke show lackey. If so, he needs to push the eject button on this appearance immediately and get out of it no matter what it costs him. Don’t do it, Slash! Don’t murder your musical legacy by having any part of the single biggest abomination in musical history…………
- Blink-182 frontman Mark Hoppus is a busy guy these days, and that’s not just because of the band’s reunion. Yes, Hoppus says the band has already written a number of new songs, but they’re not planning to release the follow-up to 2003's self-titled album before the big reunion tour this summer. “We started writing a few months ago and got well into the writing process, but now we've kind of put the recording of the next album on hold and are doing rehearsals for the upcoming tour,” Hoppus said. On top of the tour this summer, Hoppus is also hard at work in the studio with Motion City Soundtrack, producing the band's fourth album - and major-label debut - for Columbia Records. If you’ve ever heard MCS, you know that they have some great punk rock sounds and some solid lyrics as well, especially on their 2005 release, 2005's "Commit This to Memory,” which Hoppus worked with the group on. He says that fans will hear a heavier, more experimental side of the group. "There's an edge on this record that I'm really excited about getting into," he said. "But it still has all the catchiness of everything that I personally love about Motion City Soundtrack. As a fan, it's really exciting to get to work with them again and help them flesh out this new vision of themselves." Also, the friendship between the two groups could well lead to a slot on Blink’s tour this summer for MCS. "We're still booking the Blink tour for this summer, so we'll see how that all ends up working out," Hoppus said. "I would love to tour with Motion City. They're a really cool band to tour with and they're great live, so I wouldn't be angry at that." Still, I have to think that it’s the Blink-182 reunion that most fans will be excited about. It’s been four-plus years since Hoppus, Travis Barker and Tom DeLonge performed together and when the trio appeared on stage at the 2009 Grammy Awards (I still hate self-congratulatory, self-important awards shows) and announced their reformation as Blink-182. All of this should make for a hectic, busy summer for Hoppus, but somehow I don’t think he’ll mind much…….
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