Wednesday, December 24, 2014

German pigeon theft, Dave Grohl has another new band and gun-toting Delta baggage handlers


- The pool of candidates was deep and their abilities immense, so it’s fortunate for new Wisconsin Badgers football coach Paul Chryst that he was able to elbow past the pack and get this chance. Sure, he was the mildly successful head coach for another Division I program and had a past history with Wisconsin, but beating out the luminaries against whom he was competing…that ain't easy. Take, for example, the likes of Jarrad Dann, Arturo Bonomie and Greg Miller. Hardcore college football fans might take a long look at those names and ask, “Who the hell are these guys?” It’s good that you asked. Dann is the icon who glossed himself "The Man, The Myth, The Legend," on his application for the job and the native of Chandler, Arizona also claimed that being "ridiculously good" at NCAA football for XBOX 360 qualified him to be the man best qualified to lead the Badgers into a new era. Somehow, that made him qualified to replace Gary Andersen, who surprisingly left the Badgers to become the head coach at Oregon State. Yet when Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez stacked Dann up against local product Miller, a Racine, Wisconsin, resident who cited his skills in Madden '92, Bill Walsh '93, and NCAA Football '96 and '97 as the primary reason his candidacy was valid. My man, why don’t you master a video game that was released this century before you angle for a gig walking the sidelines for a Big Ten program? That $2.3 million annual salary demands better, perhaps even the services of Bonomie, who noted that his wife who "makes a mean Gatorade." Among the 46 applicants, salary requests ranged from "maybe an autograph?" to $10 million, with the $10 million demand coming from Wisconsin native Justin Dodge, who listed looking great in sideline attire, believing in #karma and superb yeller among his qualifications for the job. It’s amazing Chryst was able to fight through that minefield to earn the job………


- When traveling, many people feel like they are under the gun. Delays, missed connections and baggage issues put immense pressure on vacationers and business travelers alike, but rarely is an actual gun involved – unless there’s the occasional absent-minded idiot who forgets they left their loaded pistol in their carry-on. Toss all of that out the window – not the ones on the side of the plane that don’t actually open – with now-former Delta Air Lines baggage handler Eugene Harvey, who toiled for the airline at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. According to authorities, Harvey moved much more than baggage, helping to smuggle various firearms and weapons through the airport. One of his suspected accomplices managed to board a flight with 18 guns and ammunition in his carry-on bag, an affidavit states, with the help of his inside helper. Harvey is now charged with trafficking firearms and entering an airport area in violation of security requirements. The affidavit states that Harvey used his security clearance to help provide guns to a passenger named Mark Quentin Henry after Henry cleared security and that Henry allegedly brought the firearms in his carry-on luggage on at least five flights from Atlanta to New York between May 1 and December 10. In that span, the duo moved a total of 129 handguns and two assault rifles to co-conspirators in New York, with their plan unraveling when one of those co-conspirators ended up selling the firearms to an undercover New York police officer. Henry flew his final gun-toting mission on December 10, when he landed at JFK International with 18 handguns in his bag -- seven of which were loaded, the affidavit says. "During the post-arrest interview, Henry informed the investigating agents that he had flown from Atlanta to New York with the 18 firearms and associated ammunition in his carry-on bag," FBI task force agent George Taylor wrote. Quite a criminal crew, these two………..


- Seriously, Dave Grohl? The busiest man in rock and roll, he of the Foo Fighters frontman gig, Nirvana legacy, documentary films, dozens of producer credits, guest drummer for up-and-coming acts he stumbles across and too many other endeavors to name, is adding another entry on his ledger. Grohl and Slipknot's Corey Taylor are members of a new super group called Teenage Time Killer. TTK have signed to Rise Records and will release an album in 2015 and given the prodigious nature of the band’s lineup, it’s safe to imagine that their built-in fan base and name recognition will give them a chance to sell a lot of music in their first go at it as a unit. Along with Grohl and Taylor, TTK also includes ex-Queen's Of The Stone Age bassis Nick Oliveri and Lamb Of God's Randy Blythe among its large list of members and collaborators. The new band has a direct tie to Grohl’s past projects, including his documentary about Sound City Studios, as they recorded their album at Grohl's 606 Studio in California using the Sound City mixing board. Mullin noted that when they first formed, Teenage Time Killer was intended to be a smaller project, but it kept growing and growing as more people wanted in on the effort. "We had all these other folks that want to participate. It’s a very good mixture of old hardcore punk, punk and metal stuff,” Mullin said. “People are going to be pleasantly surprised. It’s pretty cool." The album itself won't be conventional, as Dead Kennedys vocalist Jello Biafra will sing comedian John Cleese's poem “Ode to Hannity” and other famous punk faces like Black Flag's Keith Morris, Max Cavalera of Soulfly, Neil Fallon, members of The Misfits, Municipal Waste, Red Fang, Goatsnake, Brujeria, My Ruin and Prong also participate in various ways. At the center of it all will be Grohl, playing with yet another band and proving that dude really likes making music and has a tough time meeting rockers with whom he doesn’t want to collaborate………


- Serious crimes occur daily in countries around the globe. This is not one of them.  Instead, police in Germany are looking for a missing pigeon and there is a $12,250 reward dangling out there for anyone who can provide information or assistance in the bird’s safe return home. According to police in Dusseldorf, the 6-year-old male homing pigeon, named AS 969, was stolen at some point on Saturday night from a locked aviary in the city's suburbs. Why anyone would break in and steal one damn pigeon is unclear, but what’s ever more stunning is that police say the light gray bird is valued by its owner at $184,000. Read that again. One freaking hundred, eighty freaking four thousand dollars. There has never been a bird in the history of the world worth that much, but in light of that number, how is the owner offering less than 6 percent of the bird’s worth as a reward? Anyone who can afford nearly a fifth of a million dollars in feathers and beak can certainly afford to be more generous with their reward money, perhaps pushing the total up near $25,000 or so. Because of the specific nature of the theft, investigators suspect the thief or thieves were "connoisseurs" as this particular bird was the most valuable in an aviary full of other homing pigeons. That kind of theft right in the middle of the holiday season is a truly douchey endeavor, not to mention a really despicable way to get a Christmas gift for someone without having to pay for it……….

No comments: