Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Beastie Boys + Walking Dead, Greenpeace v. Shell and Turks v. nuclear power plants


- The rage is real today and if you weren't feeling the heat of direct dissident disdain for The Man, then you were either drunk and passed out or locked under the mind control of the machine because it’s clear that folks around the globe were intent on making their outrage felt. One such instance came in Turkey, where a ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of parts of the Mediterranean nation’s first nuclear reactor was hijacked by activists who staged an angry protest – and really, is there any other kind – because the plant is forging ahead despite ongoing court cases against the nuclear plant being built by Russia in Akkuyu. This was part riot, part protest and all awesome as demonstrators blocked a gate leading to the ceremony area, briefly preventing officials from leaving the site. Holding high-ranking officials hostage is a solid play regardless of what sort of weapons or threats you use to make it happen and the show of force was so effective that security forces had to use water canons to drive the demonstrators back and allow the suits attending the event to escape. Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said the plant was designed to withstand powerful earthquakes and tried to argue that it was necessary in order for the country to move forward and solidify its place on the world scene. "There cannot be a developed Turkey without nuclear energy,” Yildiz said. The good news for anyone who couldn’t make it out for this riot is that plans for Turkey’s second nuclear plant are already in the works and the government has chosen a French-Japanese consortium to build the plant on the Black Sea coast. There is even a rumor of a third place to reduce the nation's energy dependence, suggesting a brawl between the opposition and The Man that will only get nastier from here……..


- Score another one for a shameless cash grab disguised as a transparent attempt to “give a new identity” to a perpetually disappointing franchise. The Cleveland Browns absolutely NAILED IT when they went from that one shade of orange in their logo to a slightly different shade of orange, knocking the world on its ass in the process. It’s clear the Browns will win a Super Bowl next season with their new motif and that logo will be the reason, so of course the rebuilding Milwaukee Bucks want to gravy train the phenomenon and they did exactly that to begin the week as they unveiled new logos that the team will start using after this season. The Bucks picked a perfect night for the unveiling, as they trotted three new logos out right before they b*tch-slapped one of the most hapless teams in the Association, the Philadelphia 76ers. The forward-facing buck on the current primary logo has been scrapped in favor of what the Bucks are trying desperately to sell as a "fiercer and more aggressive" look. It's an older, 12-point buck instead of an eight-pointer, which clearly makes a difference to anyone who both follows the team and likes spending eight hours in a tree stand on a frigid winter day, waiting like a loser for an antlered quadruped to wander by so they can shoot it. Green is still the dominant color in the primary logo and secondary logo (which is basketball-based and features a stylized "M"), but red – which could represent the blood spilled by those deer hunters – is out in favor of ream, a color with roots in the region's history for a shade of brick found in older Milwaukee buildings. A third logo includes a blue accent and the geographic outline of Wisconsin, a nod to the importance of the Great Lakes in the region, the team said. "How do we create three logos that not only honor our past but also thrust us into a new era and new future of Bucks basketball," Alex Lasry, the team's vice president of strategy and operations, said of the new designs. Look for the Bucks hoisting the Larry O’Brien trophy next June………..


- So you thought the rage against The Man was over? Didn’t you hear the first time we said it? This is a day of rage and it extended all the way to the normally chill city of Seattle, where protesters opposed to offshore drilling in the Arctic are fighting the good fight against exploiting Mother Earth. These tree huggers oppose Arctic offshore drilling and say oil companies have not demonstrated they can clean up a major spill, so they plan use kayaks to meet the 400-foot Polar Pioneer and the heavy-lift vessel called the Blue Marlin that is carrying it when the vessel comes to Seattle for staging. Not so, says the Coast Guard. According to the branch of the military of which no one is afraid, the enviro-kooks will have to stay in safety zones when the drill rig arrives in Seattle. Chief Petty Officer Sara Mooers said a Seattle-bound drill rig and a heavy-lift vessel are expected to arrive in Port Angeles later this week and when they do, protesters will have to stay 500 yards away from a moving vessel and 100 yards from one that is anchored. "We fully support people exercising their First Amendment rights, but there's a lot of activity in Elliott Bay," Mooers said. Uh-huh, sure thing S. It might be your job to lie and cover for The Man, but in this case some honesty about not giving a damn about the planet in favor of exploiting it as severely as possible. Royal Dutch Shell intends to use the rig for exploratory drilling during the summer open-water season in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's northwest coast if it can obtain the necessary permits and it already won one victory in the case when a U.S. District Court judge granted the company a restraining order against the protesters. The order forbids Greenpeace activists from entering any safety zone around the rig and the Blue Marlin and on Saturday, six Greenpeace activists opposed to offshore drilling in the Arctic abandoned the Seattle-bound drill rig they boarded in the Pacific Ocean on April 6. Expecting these maniacs to actually give up is a stretch, but their fight is only getting tougher……….


- There is life after the Beastie Boys and it has much more to do with the silver screen than slick rhymes and sick beats for at least one member of the iconic rap crew. Ad-Rock, real name Adam Horovitz, recently said that he and fellow surviving member Mike D may collaborate again musically some day without using the Beastie Boys moniker, but for now Horovitz seems to be focusing on thespian endeavors more than finding a studio and a mic to spit rhymes into. He recently acted in Noah Baumbach's acclaimed movie 'While We're Young,' starring alongside Ben Stiller, and seems to have caught the acting bug in a big way. The good news when you’re a well-known public figure who has a massive fan crush on a TV series is that you can probably leverage some or all of your famous person freindships into a guest spot on that show and that’s what Horovitz’s is angling to do with one of his favorite shows, “The Walking Dead.” "I f*cking love that show. Every moment of that show... I would love to be in 'The Walking Dead,'” he said of the show. Not only would he want to appear in the hit AMC series, but Horovitz would also like to have some say in his role. "I don't want to be a zombie. I want to be like [Daryl's] friend from the city. Like a distant relative – 'He's my uncle's friend from New York,'” he added. “They're not going to have that are they? I'd show up with like a PBS tote bad and something from Zabar's - be like, 'Hey, I got lox! Who wants bagels?'" Zombies love bagels too, bro, and with the sixth season of the show set to premiere in October and a spinoff titled “Fear the Walking Dead” also in the works, there should be a spot for an enterprising Beastie Boy at some point……….

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