Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Stealing Holocaust shoes, Phil Jackson Twitter wisdom and $35,000 Thanksgiving meals


- This isn't the way a music career is supposed to work, right? As an artist progresses, releases one great album after another and wins award on top of award, the crowds that show up for their concerts should get bigger. That’s not the current trajectory of folk icon Bob Dylan, who is both a musical legend and a pop culture figure at his late stage in life, yet recently played a concert for just one person at Philadelphia's Academy Of Music. The concert was for self-proclaimed “superfan” and Swedish song lover Fredrik Wikingsson, who sat alone in the second row – because the first row would have just made things uncomfortable for everyone – and enjoyed the concert as part of a Swedish film series called Experiment Ensam (Experiment Alone), in which one person is able to take part in an experience normally only open to large groups of people. The series has also made stops at comedy clubs and karaoke nights, but this was one of the few involving a musical legend. Dylan performed with his band and spun some of his own tunes as well as covers of Buddy Holly’s “Heartbeat” and Fats Domino’s “Blueberry Hill.” The night was a resounding success from Wikingsson’s point of view and really, he’s the only one who matters here. "I was smiling so much it was like I was on ecstasy. My jaw hurt for hours afterwards because I couldn't stop smiling,” he said. And how would you know what it’s like to be on X, bro? The bigger question is what happened when Wikingsson needed a restroom break or if he decided to return a few text messages mid-show. Did the entire concert stop because, ya know, there was no one listening? Quite the concept……….


- New York is not a place where food for the masses is a prevailing theme. There are a few select locations where affordable grub is on the menu, but there can't be a hot dog cart on every corner. Wait….there is a hot dog cart on every corner? Even so, vastly overpriced food outweighs cheap eats and nowhere is that more apparent than a trendy joint known as the Old Homestead restaurant. Old Homestead is looking forward to Thanksgiving tomorrow and in the spirit of the holiday, it will be serving up a truly cheap meal that retails for a modest $35,000 for a party of four – just $8,750 a person. Marc Sherry, co-owner of the restaurant for 40 years, said the traditional Thanksgiving meal was a "dinner without any personality." That reeks of condescension and dismissive thinking, but let’s give Sherry a chance to explain. "So, what we've accomplished is to give the most outrageous, over-the-top Thanksgiving experience for a party of four that we could think up,” Sherry said. What does $35,000 – or about $34,980 too much – buy? A nine-course meal that includes an appetizer of squab stuffed with rich foie gras soaked in a 5,000 bottle of Courvoisier L'Esprit Cognac, roasted farm-raised organic turkey over a stuffed dressing of seven pounds of $200/lb. imported ground Japanese Wagyu filet mignon, mashed potatoes with $200/lb. Swedish moose cheese, whipped sweet potatoes topped with $1,600/oz. Royal Osetra 000 caviar and much more. There’s also grandstand seating at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, a $6,000 gift card for a shopping spree at Bloomingdale's, limousine service and dance lessons to learn the Turkey Trot at Fred Astair Dance Studios. Amazingly, two of the dinners have already sold and for the schmucks who don’t have that kind of cash, the restaurant will also serve a traditional Thanksgiving meal for $65 per person………


- The New York Knicks are a dumpster fire of basketball awfulness. They are one of the worst teams in the NBA, they have a first-year head coach who probably wouldn’t be having any more success with his sh*t-pie recipe of a roster if he were an 11-time NBA champion head coach like, say, his boss, an actual 11-time NBA champion head coach. Yes, Derek Fisher is struggling in his first stint coaching an NBA team and his team is winning at a 25-percent clip that is a huge surprise to exactly no one outside the Knicks’ team offices and probably to very few people inside of them or within the locker room. So with the team limping along, star forward Carmelo Anthony currently out of commission thanks to a balky back and a brutal road trip going on, what would that aforementioned 11-time NBA champion head coach and current team president have for his squad as they try to get their season turned around? How about an eight-word tweet in which he dispenses the sort of wisdom you can only get from a pot-smoking, teepee-dwelling, peyote-dropping, Native American philosophy-embracing, Harley-riding hippie who is currently making $12 million a season to….um….do something presidential for one of the NBA’s most iconic franchises. Take it away Big Chief Triangle, a.k.a. Basketball Hall of Famer Phil Jackson. Jackson delivered this message to his troops this week: “@nyknicks go get some road wins this week.” Annnnd end tweet. Really, really well done and truly motivational words. This will clearly be the moment when it all turns around and life becomes but a dream for the Knickerbockers……….


- Seriously, unidentified thief/all-around scumbag who recently made a visit to a Polish Holocaust museum and came away with eight unauthorized souvenirs that should land him or her in prison for sheer d-baggery at a minimum. Give it up for a grade-A ass hat who stolen eight shoes that once belonged to Holocaust victims from the former concentration camp Majdanek in Poland, now a state-run museum. According to Polish authorities, the theft occurred between Nov. 18 and Nov. 20, when a museum employee discovered that a metal net that protected an exhibit of shoes had been cut and the shoes were missing. In other words, this wasn’t some crime of opportunity where a person stumbled across some artifacts that were being moved from one location to another and were temporarily left unattended. This person brought tools to the camp with the intention of breaking into the exhibit and thieving items that belonged to people who lost their lives at a camp where scores of Jews were murdered by the Nazis. Maybe the thief thought no one would notice their chicanery, as the exhibit consists of 56,000 shoes that belonged to Jews killed at the death camp, which was operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. Or maybe this a-hole thought very little of the exhibit, similar to those found at Auschwitz and other Holocaust memorial sites, and their mission to give viewers a sense of the huge proportion of the Nazi crimes. All in all, a moment for all of humanity to feel truly horrible about its collective self…………

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