- The Jon Bon Jovi empire continues to expand. The
man who began his rise to fame as an ‘80s hair rocker and has morphed into a
mainstream, commercialized pop music artist also owning an Arena Football
League team is branching out once more as the executive producer of a new reality TV
show that follows famous musicians as they return to their hometowns to delve
into what their life could be like if they went from being a recording artist to
a normal, boring person with a regular job. “If I Wasn’t a Rock Star” will be developed by The Weinstein
Company, Prototype Entertainment and 3 Ball Entertainment and according to
co-producer Bob Weinstein, the series will give fans "a chance to see
their favorite stars as they’ve never imagined them before. We can’t wait to
see what other amazing talent comes on board.” As for Bon Jovi, who has long
portrayed himself as a champion of the everyman in his music, the project is
being pushed as all about the common man as opposed to the real stars of the
show. "I was drawn to this project simply because it will be a celebration
of the working men and women of this country. They are the real rock
stars," Bon Jovi said in a statement. The musicians who will get people to
watch the show have yet to be announced, but while Bon Jovi is waiting for the
lineup to take shape he is reportedly contributing vocals to the next album by
Swedish dance musician Avicii. Credit to him for taking the resources and
opportunities afforded to him by cranking out years of arena rock and using
them to build a major brand for himself, even if he’s nowhere close to the
working class hero he likes to fancy himself as………
- It sounds like a bad joke, but it’s actually anything but.
Take 73 Syrians and 1 Iranian, aged between 12 and 41, jam them into
the back of a truck driven by a Turk and send them on a dark, bumpy ride from
Turkey to France. Mix in an abrupt stop at the Romanian-Hungarian border
crossing of Nadlac late in the night and it sound very much like an endeavor
that had far too much ambition – and possibly some alcohol-fueled thinking –
and not nearly enough intelligence in the execution. Romanian border police discovered
the 74 immigrants, most Syrians, hidden in the back of a truck that was meant
to transport furniture. They stopped the truck because a guard noticed that the
back of the truck was slightly open. Buttoning up key details like closing the
rear doors of a truck when you get close to the border because getting oxygen
to those inside needs to take a backseat to them staying concealed from border
guards is something that gets done if you have smart people in charge, but that
doesn’t seem to be the case here. The immigrants did not have identity
documents, police said in a statement, and the plan was to transport them to
France. France is a place that is already teeming with parasitic gypsies who
travel there via such treks and land in a new country with no ability to speak
the local language and no means of supporting themselves. The Syrians and
Iranian could face charges of illegally crossing a border, while the driver is
being questioned on suspicion of trafficking migrants. All in all, it’s a bad
joke with an even worse punch line and no happy ending for anyone involved…….
- As the scorpion said to the frog in the famous parable
about knowing who someone is when you decide to get involved with them, “It’s
who I am.” The scorpion delivered that message to the frog after delivering a
sting that would kill them both as the latter gave the scorpion a ride across a
river because the scorpion could not cross on its own. On Saturday night, the
New York Knicks and Orlando Magic were the scorpion and the fans who showed up
for fan
appreciation night at Amway Center were the frog. The Knicks and Magic entered
the night with two of the six worst scoring offenses in the NBA this season,
with the Knicks sporting the league’s worst record and the Magic scarcely
better at 25-55. Anyone who showed up to see two lottery-bound teams a) had
nothing else of worth going on in their life or b) is a glutton for
self-inflicted punishment, even if they didn’t know they were going to see an
unforgettable, retina-scarring exhibition of historic offensive ineptitude. The
two teams combined to score a whopping 15 points in the second quarter, a
number that represents the fewest points in a quarter in the shot clock era
(since 1954-55), which spans 209,888 quarters played. Furthermore, it was only
the third time that both teams scored fewer than 10 points each in a quarter
and for the 18 players who saw court time in the fateful second stanza, it’s a
moment they will attempt for the rest of their lives to deny that they were a
part of. Those 18 ballers are combining to make $31.7 million this season and
in the period, Orlando was 3-for-19 from the field and 0-for-4 from 3-point
range, while the Knicks were 3-for-20 in the period and 0-for-5 from 3. Mix in
nine turnovers and….well, take it away, Knicks guard Tim Hardaway Jr. "It
was 8-7 in the second quarter so our defense did a great job of withstanding
that quarter,'' Hardaway said. "Even though we didn't score, they didn't
score as well so we just had an all-around great game.'' No Tim, you did
not………..
- Youth sports so often bring us heartwarming tales of boys
and girls whose lives are a better
place because of the lessons they’ve learned and the people they’ve met on the
field, court or diamond. But even more often, they bring us tales of a-holes,
ass hats and morons who take what should be a simple, fun opportunity to play a
game and spend time with friends into a giant case of heartburn for us all.
That’s where the tale of one of the country's richest towns and its
Little League Baseball system comes in. On one side of the battle is a man who
proposed building more accessible housing for low-income families and on the
opposite side is a town full of people with multiple BMWs and Land Rovers in
their five-car garages. Christopher Stefanoni is the developer who has filed a
federal lawsuit in which he claims that residents of Darien, Connecticut are
essentially classist, racist pricks who fear that affordable housing will draw
black people to town. "Darien is a little white enclave, sort of a holdout
segregated town," said Stefanoni. The Harvard-educated father of five who has
lived in town since 2000 sees the place he calls home as a town where the
attitudes of the locals are “very exclusionary, demeaning.” He also claims his
push for affordable housing in a place that consistently appears in Top 10
lists of America's wealthiest towns has caused fallout filtering down to his
9-year-old son, who was demoted to a lower-level Little League team in what
Stefanoni calls an act of blatant retribution. “When they go after your kids,
they've crossed the line,” he added. For the record, about 94 percent of
Darien’s population is white, with about 620 Hispanics and 70 blacks,
according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates. Mix in a per-capita
income of $95,000 and you have a place that doesn’t scream diversity or
inclusion. Stefanoni and his wife, Margaret, filed the lawsuit against the
Darien Little League and its leaders over the demotion of their son two years
ago and several months later, Stefanoni was banned indefinitely from coaching
in the league. League officials have since claimed they made a mistake placing
the Stefanonis' son on a higher-level team and simply corrected the error by
moving him to another team. As for the affordable housing, plans for a 16-apartment
complex with five affordable units and a 30-apartment development with nine
affordable units were both sent back to the town's planning and zoning
commission for review………..
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