Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Michal Cera: rock star, Germany still mistreats Jews and drunk + late-night tarmac driving


- We need more assholes. Very few people ever utter that sentence in their life, but when your NBA team has just been swept out of th playoffs after setting a franchise win for regular-season wins, the thought does cross your mind. It definitely crossed the mind of Toronto Raptors point guard Greivis Vasquez, whose squad exited the playoffs feebly after a 49-33 regular season in which they won the Atlantic Division. They were swept and humiliated by the Washington Wizards, led by the cagey and irascible veteran forward/wheelchair-user Paul Pierce. Pierce talked junk from the start of the series and even said in a pre-series interview that the Raptors didn't have "it" and didn't worry him as an opponent. That comment precipitated a profane response by Raptors GM Masai Ujiri at a fan rally, but not much of a response on the court from Canada’s only NBA team. Vasquez believes that while he was sick and tired of Pierce's trash talk during the series, a smack talker like Pierce is exactly what Toronto needs. “We need somebody to speak up and be like, this is how it is and challenge everybody else. Basically, we need a Paul Pierce that's going to talk that trash,” Vasquez said. “We don't have that. We're all good guys that just don't want to [talk trash].” He might have a point, given that Pierce – at the age of 37 no less - averaged 15.5 points and converted 58 percent of his 3-point attempts (14-for-24) in the sweep of the Raptors. oint guard said Monday. The 37-year-old Pierce, who. Vasquez gave Pierce credit for backing up his talk. "He knew what he was doing because he's done it for so long, but it works. You need to have that spiciness, you need to be a little bit like an a--h--- like he is, saying the things he say and back it up," Vasquez added. Well said, G……….


- So….70 years later and Germany still doesn’t quite know how to properly respond in the presence of Jews. At least these days the atrocities of the Holocaust are a painful relic of the past, but Deutschland is still having issues when it comes to Jewish folks, as evidenced by the actions of Berlin police during a soccer game in the German capital. A second division game between Berlin's 1 FC Union and FC Ingolstadt somehow managed to attract a crowd despite being a second-division German soccer game in a city full of life, culture and plenty of better things to do and some of those fans in attendance unfurled an Israeli flag in support of Amog Cohen, an Israeli player with the Ingolstadt team. It should have been a wholly acceptable gesture and one that would serve as a solid counterpoint to the anti-Semitic views that are all too often spewed by the hateful and ignorant neo-Nazis who call Germany home, but instead the long arm of the law wrapped itself around the fans trying to support their favorite player and forced them to remove the flag. Less than 24 hours later, police president Klaus Kandt was trotted out for a public apology in which he said that ordering the fans to put the flag away was a mistake by the police officer on the scene who interpreted the display of the flag as a prohibited political statement. "It's the police's job to protect the freedom of expression. The demand to roll up the flag was the incorrect decision for which I apologize to those concerned,” Kandt said. It’s another instance of people’s right to be heard in the simplest of ways being taken away from them, but soccer is rarely known as an arena of enlightenment………..


- Actor Michael Cera annoys the hell out of some people. His burgeoning musical career probably isn't going to help in that respect. Cera released his debut LP 'True That' last year and because he’s a big-time actor with major films to his credit, people paid attention to it. "It’s surprising to me that people are aware of it now, and are listening to it,” Cera said at the time. “I guess I’ll just see what that’s like [to adjust to]. I’m always trying to play music with friends. So I don’t know that I’d add anything to this or just leave that alone." A year later, adding to it is exactly what he’s doing – just not as a solo act. No, Cera will appear on the new EP from The Unicorns' Alden Penner and if you’re not excited about that….join the rest of us. Penner will his 'Canada In Space' EP on June 29 and when he does, he’ll have the sonic stylings of Cera on the track “Meditate.” : "There are more Canadians than any other nationality represented in the planned Mars colony,” Penner said, alluding to the Mars One project of anti-social ass hats vying for the right to die in space, billions of miles from humanity. “The ‘Canada in Space’ EP is an imagining of the dreams, reveries, phantasms, hallucinations, psycho-spiritual projections, naïve mythologies, actions, visions and experiences of an abandoned crew before, during and after its permanent journey to Mars; the compression of time; dispersion, fragmentation of states and generations in space; ultimate detachment & wormholes.” How very high-minded and intellectual of you, A.P. Not only will Cera be a part of the new release, but he will also join Penner on tour in the United Kingdom this June, playing shows in London, Bristol, Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Brighton and Dublin. There, he’ll both play with Unicorns and perform his own songs. Sounds like something to miss………


- Any drunk driving incident is terrible for all involved. But there are some that are decidedly more impactful than others for the molared-up lush behind the wheel and that’s what we have here. Specifically what we have is Salt Lake City resident Leo “Liquor Lover” Greene getting his drunk ass arrested after crashing through a fence and sprinting from police onto a runway at the Salt Lake City airport early Monday. This smashing arrival on the world stage began with an 8-minute chase on a public road near Salt Lake City International at 3 a.m. An airport police officer spotted Greene’s car with its bumper dragging and seeing a possible safety concern, he attempted to stop the vehicle. For some unknown reason – cough, Jack Daniels, cough – Greene didn’t stop and instead took off, crashing through the fence lines and onto the tarmac area. Not content with the damage he had already caused, Green smashed into a second fence before jumping out of his vehicle and making like an intoxicated Usain Bolt attempting a .10 BAC sprint across the tarmac before the cops tracked him down and cuffed his ass. He now faces multiple charges, including driving under the influence, fleeing and resisting arrest. Because of the time the incident occurred, no flights or passengers were affected and the powers that be don’t sound overly concerned. "It doesn't sound very nefarious," said Dave Korzep, the airport's superintendent of operations. "Just a lack of common sense, driving under the influence, making wrong choices." Then again, an investigation this month found eight other security perimeter breaches at the airport in the last decade, so a man facing charges that include property damage and driving onto the loading area of an airport, with an open container and on a license suspended for an alcohol-related offense is another entry on a growing list………

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