- The Los Angles Dodgers are paying more than $200 million
in salary this season to chase a World Series title, so you’d think they could
splurge to pay for mental health exams for all of their players as well. Specifically,
Magic Johnson’s crew might want to provide some counseling and possibly a
Hannibal Lecter-esque gimp mask for Albuquerque
Isotopes catcher Miguel Olivo. One or both of the above might help prevent
Olivo from taking any more meaty bites out of top Dodgers prospects. That’s
what happened Tuesday when Alex Guerrero, the Cuban infielder the Los Angeles
Dodgers gave $28 million this past winter, lost a chunk of one of his ears
because Olvio went Mike Tyson on the appendage. Guerrero’s agent, Scott Boras,
confirmed that Olivo bit off part of Guerrero's ear and Guerrero was having
plastic surgery on his ear following the Isotopes’ 7-4 loss to Salt Lake. Guerrero could reportedly miss as much
as five weeks and Olivo could find himself in court after Salt Lake City police
visited Guerrero in the hospital and he elected to hold off on filing a report
until after talking to a lawyer. The sh*t went south during an Albuquerque
pitching change in the bottom of the seventh inning and the two men continued
their beef in the dugout in the top of the eighth, at which point the
altercation became physical. Olivo was reportedly irate with Guerrero for
failing to tag out a runner after Olivo made what he thought to be a good throw
to second base. Both players were removed from the game and the Dodgers
released a statement saying they were aware and investigating the incident. "We
don't condone it, and we don't think it's constructive," Dodgers general manager
Ned Colletti said at Citi Field, where the Dodgers were to play the New York
Mets on Tuesday night. "People can have disagreements. When it gets
beyond that level, it's over the limit." Wait….cannibalizing a teammate’s is over the limit? Wow........
- Quincy Jones is a brilliant man. No, it has
nothing to do with being an über-producer and record executive who has churned
out hundreds of acclaimed projects and artists over the years. Those feats are
all swell, but Jones’ proudest moment came this week when he wisely denounced
the posthumous
Michael Jackson album “Xscape” as the ginormous and blatant cash grab that it
is. Jones blasted the release as being all about the money and said an album
featuring eight unreleased Michael Jackson tracks re-tooled by producers
including LA Reid and Timbaland is an embarrassment for all involved. The album
dropped last week and it was a bitter pill to swallow for Jones, who made
several classic albums with the late and allegedly great pop singer, including
“Off the Wall,” “Thriller” and “Bad.” It’s safe to say Jones doesn’t believe
“Xscape” lives up to the standard set by those celebrated releases. "They're
trying to make money. And I understand it. Everybody's after money, the estate,
the lawyers. It's about money,” Jones said. “But it’s not my business anymore. They're
not our business." This train wreck does continue the awesome tradition of
those left behind when an artist passes away at a young age amazingly finding
every unreleased scrap of a song and producing the hell out of each and every
one for posthumous releases that squeeze every last bit of cash possible out of
the deceased. Jones was joined in condemning the new album by the most willing
critic of all things music currently walking the planet, Black Keys drummer
Patrick Carney, who glossed “Xscape” as “bullsh*t” that only happened because
Reid needed a new boat……..
- Seventeen year-old Newington (Conn.) resident Talia Maselli
is not one of the cool kids. This is not an indictment of Maselli as a person
or to suggest that she awaits a life of reading comic books and watching “Sex
and the City” reruns on her couch with her many cats. It’s merely an
observation that anyone whose idea of a fun date to their high school prom is
the doddering dullard is Vice Present Joe Biden. Maselli was debating whether
or not she wanted to attend the prom, which is not uncommon and always a
worthwhile debate to have, but her conclusion was one that no one in the
history of humanity has ever reached for any reason. She decided that the only
way she was going to show up at A Night Under the Stars/Under the Sea/A Night
in Paris/Stairway to Heaven/whatever the hell the actual theme of the prom was
without the noted man candy that is Biden on her arm. With that in mind, she
put a plan in motion to get the vice president’s attention. “She said ‘I’m
going to write him a letter,’” her mother Dawn Maselli said. “So for her it was
like a joke.” In her letter, which even Biden shouldn’t have been dumb enough
to actually take seriously, Talia Maselli dubbed the vice president “the most
delightful man in all of America,” but jokingly noted that if he said no, she
might have to invite the world’s most famous tanning bed accident in motion, Speaker
of the House John Boehner. Talia Maselli did not expect an actual response from
Biden, but a knock on her door the day before the prom changed her mind. “I
thought it was a practical joke because the guy gave me a corsage and that
letter and said that the Secret Service told him to bring it to me,” she said. Biden
allegedly picked the corsage himself and sent a handwritten letter of his own
in response. “I’m flattered but my schedule will not permit me to be in
Connecticut on Friday evening … but I hope you will accept this corsage and
enjoy your prom as much as I did mine,” Biden wrote. When Talia Maselli called
a phone number on the letter, she was connected to the White House and knew the
message as legit. She ultimately decided not to attend prom, but did receive an
invitation to the White House and plans to visit in July……..
- The Colorado River has been reunited and it
feels so good….for both the river and its old friend, the Sea of Cortez in
northwestern Mexico. Thanks to an agreement struck between the United States
and Mexico, the two bodies of water are back together for the first time in a
long time. Depending upon whom you ask, this is the first time that has
happened since either 1993 or 1998 and regardless of the exact time frame,
nature lovers are fired up about the occurrence of something rarer than any
government agency actually accomplishing anything positive. In this case, the
water in question was released in March from the Morelos Dam near the U.S.-Mexico
border and it took its sweet time winding its way to the sea, taking a full
eight weeks to complete its meandering journey. The underlying philosophy is to
restore life to the Colorado River delta, which has pretty much dried up since
the advent of the big dam era. And yes, you’re damn right that there is a big
dam era. This particular experiment is the first time water from the river has
been diverted solely for environmental purposes and altering nature to benefit
the environment is certainly something new. The initial pulse flow of water has
been shut off, but smaller amounts of liquid refreshment will be released to
the delta over the next few years in the hopes of revitalizing the dormant
habitat. Conservationists have been plating trees timed to germinate with the
water's release. "It is sort of overwhelming, and I think it sheds light
on a sort of global interest in the Colorado River completing that journey
again," said Jennifer Pitt of the Environmental Defense Fund's Colorado
River Project. Keep up the good work, enviro-nuts………
- Crash and burn, France, crash and burn. Literally, if the
country’s new trains for its national railway network were used without serious
modifications, they literally would have crashed and burned. See, French
railway and government officials ordered 341 shiny new trains that were to be
introduced between now and 2016. The problem is that engineers at the French
railway network forgot to go and measure the actual distance between tracks and
platforms. That ended up being a problem because a mere 1,300 stations are just
a few inches too narrow for the new trains to fit and when it comes to fitting
a train between the various platforms that comprise your average French train
station, that’s an issue. When reports surfaced in various media outlets, it
seemed like perhaps the stories had to be some sort of joke because no
government agency would be so foolish as to…..bahaha, just kidding. There isn't
a government in the world incapable of f*cking up in such a colossal – and
colossally expensive – fashion. This particular mistake will cost a robust $68
million to fix and sadly, that is no joke. Jacques Rapoport, president of rail
infrastructure organization RFF, acknowledged the problem was "discovered
a little late" and yet, the average Frenchman cutting a slice off his
baguette and wondering what kind of tasty cheese to have with his breakfast
croissant is not going to feel any better knowing that his government finally
owned a massive blunder. Just to be safe, before the trains are retrofitted,
maybe you want to send someone out with a tape measure and a laser level to
make sure you get it right this time, French government……….
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