Fun with Tasers, Jay-Z for free and the magical power of leaving the Boston Red Sox

- I’m not sure what it is about veteran pitchers leaving the Boston Red Sox this season, but there’s no denying that an interesting trend is unfolding in the cases of hurlers Brad Penny and John Smoltz. Penny spent the entire season on Boston’s roster up until two weeks ago, making 24 starts and posting a crap-tacular 7-8 record and 5.61 ERA with the Sox before being jettisoned and signing on with San Francisco. He’s made two great starts with the Giants, going 2-0 with a 1.20 ERA with Frisco. Smoltz wasn’t on the active roster in Boston nearly as long, making only a third as many starts as Penny (eight) after offseason arm surgery forced him into a lengthy minor league rehab stint. But when he did take the hill for the BoSox, Smoltz was almost always awful, going 2-5 with a 8.33 ERA in those eight starts. Boston did the only thing it could do, being a team fighting for its playoff life and with a struggling, aging pitcher on its hands - they cut the future hall of famer loose. He caught on in St. Louis after 12 days and has looked like a totally different pitcher ever since. In four starts with the Cardinals, Smoltz is 1-1 with a 3.27 ERA, including five shutout innings in his St. Louis debut. In an interview shortly after his first start in St. Louis, Smoltz said the 12 days off helped him get his head right and I don’t doubt that, but there’s no denying the start of a curious trend here. Maybe these two guys just didn’t mesh well with Boston’s coaching staff and perhaps they needed a fresh start, I don’t know. Heck, maybe Smoltz and Penny merely channeled their anger from being cut, caught lightning in a bottle and are experiencing a temporary surge of success in their respective new homes. Or maybe, just maybe, the staff in Boston isn't capable of getting the best out of its pitchers and/or handling veteran guys who have a few miles on their odometer. Tim Wakfield’s success as the longest-tenured member of the pitching staff would seem to indicate otherwise, but then again, he’s a knuckleballer and something of an anomaly. So maybe there’s something more here than it would appear or maybe this is all one big, goofy coincidence, but either way, it’s good to see a class guy like John Smoltz experience success once again for a team that is one of the leading contenders for the championship in 2009…….

- Annie Leibovitz always seems to be at the center of some sort of controversy - i.e. taking creepy, borderline-lewd pictures of teen pop stars reclining in seductive poses between the legs of their mullet-wearing, honky-tonk singing dads - but this is a new one for the famed celebrity photographer. Leibovitz is in danger of losing her entire portfolio of world-famous photographs if she doesn't meet a deadline to pay back a $24 million loan she is alleged to owe. Consider that she has photographed everyone from the Rolling Stones to Queen Elizabeth II and you begin to understand just how big a loss this would be for her. But then again, Leibovitz can’t blame anyone but herself for this because it was she who put her art, intellectual property and even real estate assets up for collateral last year when she consolidated her massive debts. She worked that deal withArt Capital Group and was thus able to restructure the debts. However, putting up her portfolio was a dicey move and when Leibovitz agreed "to make Art Capital her 'irrevocable exclusive agent'" of the assets "in exchange for a reduced interest rate on the loan,” losing them was a distinct possibility. Now the company is suing Leibovitz for breach of contract, saying she has "refused to cooperate in the sale of those assets." Art Capital also says she has "refused to pay to Art Capital hundreds of thousands of dollars she owed as part of the same agreement.” Through her attorney, Leibovitz declined comment on the lawsuit, but she is clearly in no hurry to give up assets that include photos is of John Lennon with his wife, Yoko Ono, shortly before the Beatles star was assassinated in 1980, pics of a nude and extremely pregnant Demi Moore for the cover of Vanity Fair and the images of Disney star Miley Cyrus I alluded to at the start of this story. Back in July, Art Capital filed a complaint with the New York Supreme Court, asking it to uphold the sales agreement it signed with Leibovitz because she wasn’t holding up her end of the deal. The company is angry enough that it is also asking for an unspecified amount of damages in addition to the money it says the photographer originally borrowed. Bottom line here is that things don’t look good at all for Leibovitz and although people will still associate her iconic pictures with her, Art Capital is about to make a whole lot of money off of her and there’s not much she can do about it………

- Hopefully someone reading this was fortunate enough to attend a freaking free concert by the legendary Jay-Z at New York's Blender Theater tonight, just one day after his eleventh studio album, "The Blueprint 3," dropped. The concert, presented by DJ Hero, came just two days before H.O.V.A.’s highly-anticipated Madison Square Garden charity concert. Yesterday, along with the release of “Blueprint 3,” Jay-Z also announced a fall tour of college basketball arenas, which will no doubt be filled with sellout shows. On top of all that, he’ll be making an appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in coming weeks and also has an interview set to appear in the October 2009 issue of Winfrey’s magazine "O." For a Brooklyn-born and bred guy, being a part of so much going on in his hometown has to be great for Jay-Z and I know for damn sure that having this dude give a free concert should basically start a riot with people brawling to get in the door. Heck, people line up hundreds deep when anyone gives away something crappy for free, so how much more pumped should everyone be when something great is available for free? I wish I was in NYC today, no doubt, and I’d drive there for the show, but driving six-plus hours and using all of that gas would kind of defeat the purpose of a free concert. For anyone who hasn’t yet heard “Blueprint 3,” I’d encourage you to pick up a copy, even if you’re not a huge hip-hop fan. I’m not a big rap fan either, but Jay-Z is simply the best in the game and his rhymes are always worth listening to………

- Get ready for a flip-flop, resident of Samoa. And yes, this flip-flop does involve politicians, but not in the way you might think. The government of Samoa has dropped new driving laws in place switching motorists from driving on the right side of the road to the left. Heck, the government even gave everyone a two-day holiday to allow people to get accustomed to the change. In spite of this, there were still protests, which you know I love. Also, there were plenty of gawkers to come out and watch for any possible carnage as drivers began adjusting to the change, which became effective at 6 a.m. local time on Monday. Spectators lined the roads to see what sort of havoc would happen when their fellow Samoans had to make what had to be a bizarre and difficult adjustment. Why is the change being enacted? Well, the government says it will allow consumers to get cheaper, more fuel-efficient vehicles from nearby Australia and New Zealand, rather than the United States. A YouTube video of some Samoan streets was up the day the change went into place and in it, you can see a strong police presence standing by. Those who have most vociferously opposed the new road rules are bus drivers and people for whom driving comprises a large part of their business and together, these dissenting souls have formed a group called People Against Switching Sides, or PASS. A bit simplistic and lacking in flair, but a solid acronym and on short notice, it will do, I suppose. The group's president, Papali'i Dr. Viopapa Atherton, said the group fears the arrival of imports from New Zealand that he characterized as "rust buckets emitting foul smoke which will be dumped in three to four years." Those on the other side of the issue contend that many Samoan auto dealers will be getting right-hand-drive vehicles from Singapore rather than New Zealand. Bus drivers are irate about the change largely because buses will be required to have doors that open on the left side before they can operate on roads under the new rules. The cost of that change, which a bus drivers' group says could cost them as much as $50,000, is something that PASS wants the government to compensate them for. The government did agree to compensation, but only offered $2,360 per bus. That has led to angry complaints from bus owners, who have not yet announced what they will do in response but had earlier threatened to strike. Now that’s what I like to hear, if The Man is trying to stick it to you, you stick it right back to The Man by going on strike! Never mind that Third World countries like Nigeria and Ghana were able to accomplish the switch from driving on one side of the road to driving on the other way back in the early 1970s, dammit. If you don’t like the idea, take it to the streets and make your voice heard……..

- Who doesn’t have fun with Tasers? Other than the person being Tased, the answer is clearly no one. Bearing that in mind, I cannot for the life of me fathom why Volusia County (Fla.) Sheriff Ben Johnson is so angry with officer Mathew Tremblay for allegedly using his Taser on a friend for fun. We wouldn’t even be talking about this if the video hadn’t popped up on MySpace, so chalk another one up to the list of problems and dangers posed by that site. Basically, someone saw the video on MySpace, alerted a local television station (because who else would you call, right?) and that station alerted Sheriff Johnson. In the video, a man identified as Tommy kneels willingly, then a man behind him fires the Taser gun. As with anyone hit with a Taser blast, “Tommy” yelps in pain and twitches, clearly in agony. At the end of the video, you finally see the face of the person responsible for inflicting that pain and it’s none other than Tremblay. Now, he’s the subject of an internal investigation even though Johnson concedes both participants in the video were not acting out of any sort of malice. “It's obvious that they were doing it together, but that doesn't matter. It's our deputy with our equipment. He's the one that's responsible, and he should know better than to do that," Johnson said. Really? No sense of humor, sheriff? A guy can’t have a little fun Tasering his buddies on his off time? “It's not for personal use. It's not for entertainment. It's for police work, and in this instance it appears as though it was misused," Johnson said. Okay, okay, I get it. You’re pissed, you think this guy was misusing police equipment and now he has to pay. So what type of punishment might Tremblay face? It could be anything from being ordered to get counseling to dismissal, although Johnson has already stated that he doubts the punishment would be as significant as dismissal because in his estimation, Tremblay is a good officer who made an error in judgment. And assuming that by “error in judgment” you mean “likes to have a good time blasting his buddies with a Taser and doing something we’d all like to do,” then I agree……..