- The Portland Trail Blazers are quite angry right now and I can’t say that I blame them. The Blazers felt they had a deal with free agent forward Hedo Turkoglu and there were numerous reports that the two sides had agreed in principle on a contract. Although NBA free agents can’t officially sign contracts until July 8, Turkoglu and Portland were all but a sure thing – until my man Hedo decided to pull the rug out from under the Blazers and sign with Toronto. After opting out of his deal with Orlando, which reached the NBA Finals this past season, Turkoglu was clearly looking to get paid and wasn’t all that concerned with winning a championship. If he were, he would have signed with a team that made the playoffs last season and has a shot to make them this coming season, neither of which pertains to the Toronto Raptors. Had he gone through with that deal to play in Portland, he would have joined a team that won 54 games last season and is stocked with a lot of young, developing talent. Instead, he strung Portland along long enough to convince them he was coming and then make a U-turn to a Toronto team that won all of 33 games and was the third-worst in the Eastern Conference. Recent reports had Turkoglu seeking a long-term deal worth at least $10 million annually, so I’m guessing he squeezed something in that range out of the Raptors. For their part, the Blazers are reportedly livid and that’s completely understandable. They felt that they had locked up a key addition that could help push them into the upper echelon of the Western Conference, only to have him change his mind/make a cash grab at the last minute. Teams target players they want in free agency and once they’ve locked in on a target, they tend to focus all of their energy and efforts on that player. In other words, once they began recruiting Turkoglu and believed that they had agreed to a deal, they didn’t spend time chasing other free agents. That means they likely fell behind or missed out on other guys they would have pursued if the 6-foot-10 free agent greed bag they had targeted had been honest and up front about his intention. I am certain that when Toronto hosts Turkoglu’s introductory press conference, he’ll say all the right things about this not being about the money and how he feels that he can be that final piece of the puzzle to make the Raptors a contender. All of that will be a lie and for that, Turkoglu deserves all of the ire and contempt that the Trail Blazers and their fans can muster……..
- Here’s an invitation I wouldn’t be too eager to accept if I were a head of state of a major world power. When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he wants to sit down and talk with you, there are many reasons to be skeptical and cautious. According to Ahmadinejad, he wants to engage President Obama in "negotiations" before international media. He made those comments while speaking to a meeting of medical school deans in Iran. He phrased it in very political fashion, declaring that his government “will soon pursue a new round of diplomatic activity” now that he has stolen, er, rigged, er, won Iran’s presidential election. “I will go to the United Nations and will invite Obama to negotiations,” Ahmadinejad said. Actually, the Obama administration has already sought dialogue with Iran, so maybe this will actually happen. The fact that Obama has been among those openly criticizing the Iranian government for its brutal crackdown in the wake of its rigged/disputed presidential elections may not help matters, but don’t expect a few critical comments to stand in the way of these meetings. Perhaps such talks would help silence loud-mouthed idiots like Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who have ripped Obama for taking a "timid and passive" tone in speaking out against the fashion in which Iran has trampled all over pro-democracy and opposition groups. Unsurprisingly, Ahmadinejad has made it clear that he wants others to stop "meddling" in the internal affairs of Iran. My man Mahmoud, I completely get where you’re coming from. If I were the fraudulently elected dictator of a rogue nation looking to develop serious nuclear capabilities, I’d want other nations to stay out of the way too so I could continue ruling with an iron fist of terror and consistently oppressing the most basic human rights of my people. You don’t want “outsiders” getting in the way as you look to work your way to the top of the list of the world’s worst dictators. Chasing down established names in the dictator game like Kim Jong Il and Hugo Chavez isn't easy and you don’t need other nations piping in with their take on how you’re running your own country. So maybe I’ve done a 180 on these possible talks between Obama and Ahmadinejad. Now I think I’ve talked myself into them and am pumped to see them happen. Let the diplomatic and political fireworks flow……
- If I’ve heard this story once, I’ve heard it hundreds of times. The residents of a less-than-upper-class neighborhood in a large, East Coast city fight the good fight against transgendered prostitutes. This particular case takes place in the Old Goucher neighborhood of Baltimore, where residents say trannie hookers flock every night. The problem of prostitution is a citywide one in Baltimore, but only in Old Goucher are residents citing the influx of trannie hookers as a huge concern. Old Goucher is just north of North Avenue and near Baltimore's main north-south streets -- Charles and St. Paul – which run right through the area. That makes the neighborhood a hot spot in terms of drawing potential customers for the trannie hooker trade. Residents say that police do next to nothing to address the problem and that the area is suffering economically as a result. “We believe that it's a network,’ said Peter Duvall, vice-president of the Old Goucher Community Association. ‘They have several vehicles and phone connections.” Duvall and fellow members of the OGCA believe that those running the trannie hooker operations in their area have a fairly sophisticated organization, including handlers listening to police scanners. Worse still, the area’s reputation as a trannie hooker hotbed draws in men travel from Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia to work there. Having a glut of trannie hookers can also pose problems for clueless johns who think they are picking up a female hooker and are less than thrilled when they find out that the she is a he. “There have been several incidents of people thinking they've hired a woman and then finding out it was a man and the customer beating the prostitute up,’ Duvall said. To be fair to the police, they have conducted sting operations, catching hookers and their customers in the act. However, residents feel that the police presence needs to be more overt and visible in order to scare off their unwanted ladies/dudes of the night. Security cameras are one idea the OGCA has proposed, with additional ideas pitched by members of the community association when they met with police and members of City Council last week to discuss their concerns. On Saturday, the group also hosted a block party and fund-raiser to try to establish what they're calling a prostitution-free zone in the neighborhood. On the one hand, I do sympathize with these people and wouldn’t be cool with trannike hookers infesting the area where I live. On the other hand, trannie hookers need somewhere to call home too, so it’s a tough situation either way……..
- Here’s how you know that you are officially a) incredibly lazy and b) perilously close to running out of creative juices as an artist: you officially open up the naming process for your upcoming album to your followers on Twitter. And yes, I’m talking directly to you, Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry. As he wraps up the follow-up to 2005's Grammy Award-nominated "Joe Perry" (also a very creative, imaginative album title), Perry is looking to the losers with nothing better to do than follow the inane, mundane thoughts of others via what amounts to a mass text message for help in naming the new project. Perry is he's holding a contest via Twitter, letting fans make suggestions. If one of the fans’ suggestions is chosen, the winner will receive a guitar. "It's tough, obviously, without having heard the record for people to name it," Perry explains, "but we may find something really good. There've already been a bunch that are possibilities.” Yes, there are lots of possibilities, including the possibility that you’re a lazy bum who doesn’t want to put the effort into naming his own album. Hard to see why Aerosmith's next album is "on the bench, in pieces," according to Perry, what with the sort of hard-grinding, attention to detail effort Perry is showing here. As for the to-be-named-on-Twitter album, expects it to be mastered this week and to release a single in late July or early August, with the album coming out this fall. Better still, he states that the album will be a departure from the straightforward rock style of his debut. “It's a lot different than the last one," Perry admits. "The last one was a straight-ahead rocker. This one's got some different things on it.” In other words, I’m Joe F’ing Perry and I can do any sort of bizarre, off-the-wall sh*t I want at this point in my career. And when I say bizarre, I mean bizarre. On the album, recorded in about seven weeks at Perry's home studio, he shares lead vocal duties with a German singer his wife discovered on the Internet. I have no idea what the album will sound like, but factoring in everything I’ve heard and outlined here, I’m not holding out a lot of hope that it’s going to be “Abbey Road,” “Nevermind” or “Dark Side of the Moon”……..
- Prepare to be stunned. I’ll give you a minute to get yourself in the right frame of mind because what I’m about to share will send shockwaves through your world. Ready? Okay, here goes. A carnival in Ashville, Ohio has fired one of its carneys because he is a convicted sex offender. I know, it’s a lot to take in and completely unexpected, but try to breathe and I’ll continue. See, hired Clyde Reed, a Tier 2 sex offender, had been hired to work during the 4th of July Celebration in Ashville, a festival that lasts for an entire week. It includes carnival rides and games that attract children from throughout Pickaway County. A festival goer snapped a picture of Reed and somehow recognized him. That individual contacted a local television station’s investigative unit, which dug into the matter and found out the truth about Reed. The station confronted the festival’s organizers and he was summarily fired. Triple Treat, the amusements company that hired Reed, claims that it does background checks on all employees. However, because his employment at the fair was scheduled to last fewer than 14 days, that Reed was not legally required to reveal his status as a Tier 2 sex offender. Still, I can’t imagine that any of the parents taking their kids for a ride on the carnival's fun slide would have been willing to place their child under the supervision of a convicted perv like Reed, even for a few short minutes. What I can’t get over is the fact that a carney would also be a convicted sex offender. Those guys are always such clean, upstanding and law-abiding members of society. Never in my worst nightmares would I have imagine that someone who works for minimum wage at a dirty, ramshackle town fair would also be a sex offender……
No comments:
Post a Comment