Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Renaissance fair wench takedowns, Lauryn Hill's international woes and a much-needed MLB All-Star break


- Some teams need Major League Baseball’s All-Star break more than others. The Cincinnati Reds may be hosting this year’s All-Star Game, but most of the team will use the four days off to get away from the game and relax with friends and family. That’s definitely a good thing given how the team’s final game before the All-Star break transpired, with its best pitcher going MMA on a water cooler and its manager dubbing the last two games of the first half of the season “disastrous.” On Sunday, the Reds were b*tch-slapped by the terrible Miami Marlins for the second day in a row by a count of 8-1 and they turned in a gem by going 1 for 11 with runners in scoring position, committing two errors that led to three unearned runs and suffering a severe defensive lapse that saw them fail to cover third base. To top that off, ace Johnny Cueto threw a temper tantrum when he was pulled for a pinch hitter in the sixth inning and attacked a water cooler in an unprovoked hit job that sent ice scattering across the dugout floor. After the ugly loss, manager Bryan Price held a 30-minute clubhouse meeting. His team lost three of four games in the series and was outscored 22-4 in the final two games before he sent his team shuffling off into their four-day break. "The last two games were disastrous," Price said. "It was just not good baseball, and not the way we want to go into the All-Star break." Cueto, who was apologetic about his tirade after the game, has been the subject of constant trade rumors and even his manager didn’t have his back on this one. "It was not the right way to handle it," Price said. "We've discussed that, and he knows that.” Use the time off wisely, guys………


- Thieves with a conscience are either a great sign that the world isn't a total lost cause or a sad reminder that the corrupt among us don’t even have the courage to stick to their convictions…your call. It’s a debate woth having after an anonymous Israeli robber left two 2,000-year-old Roman sling stones at a museum with a typed note saying the stolen artifacts "brought me lots of troubles,” leaving Israel's Antiquities Authority to wonder who this person is and how this all went down.  An employee of the Museum of Islamic and Near Eastern Cultures in Beersheva, Israel, found the artifacts in a bag in the museum courtyard last week and the tale behind them should definitely add to the legacy of what were otherwise uninteresting relics of a distant past. According to the note left by the robber, he or she stole the artifacts 20 years ago from ancient Gamla, a Jewish town in the Golan Heights that was the site of a Roman siege in the first century, but made the decision to return them because of the ill fortune the items brought. The robber ended the note with the message, "Do not steal antiquities!" This person also thoughtfully included a map of the site in the bag with an "X'' marked on it, possibly marking where the stones were stolen. The fact that this individual had these stones for two decades and didn’t manage to monetize them at all is sad, so maybe it’s best that he or she gave them back because being a criminal isn't for everyone……….


- International concerts don’t seem to agree with Lauryn Hill of late. First, the pop singer canceled a concert in Israel due to her inability to book a corresponding gig in Palestine and while entering that part of the world successfully and uneventfully is difficult for anyone, getting into the United Kingdom really isn't tough for anyone. Getting boots on the ground at Heathrow isn't exactly invading Antarctica, yet Hill has been forced to cancel an upcoming gig in London because she claims she is unable to enter the United Kingdom for legal reasons. Hill was to perform at London's O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire on July 15, but the show will not go on and in a post on her Facebook page, Hill wrote that t her "past legal situation" prohibits her from entering England. "I’ve been informed that I won’t be able to enter the UK for a period of time due to my past legal situation,” Hill wrote. "For this reason I have to cancel my concert on July 15th. Know that I was looking forward to performing in London this summer, and that I appreciate all of my fans and supporters both in London, and throughout the UK. I look forward to seeing you again as soon as I'm able to." Back in 2013, hill spent three months in prison for failing to pay taxes on more than $1.4 million in earnings, but she then performed a series of shows in London last September following her release from prison. The former Fugees member hasn't released a studio album since 1998 and hasn’t been reliable as a live performer in recent years, including biting social media criticism for her London shows last year. She was nearly an hour and a half late to the stage and performed barely recognizable takes on her best-known songs, so maybe it’s best that this new show isn't going to happen………..


- Another hell of a weekend at the ye old renaissance fair, y’all. Any time you get a bunch of giant dorks of losers whose idea of fun is voluntarily transporting themselves back in time a couple of centuries to a time when the king’s English was the language of the land, electricity was still years away and corsets were just part of the wardrobe for ladies and jam them into the middle of some rural field where they try in vain to recreate the past - all while slamming massive amounts of mead and other vintage alcohol - things are going to get interesting. Think of it as Medieval Times only everyone is dressed in a ridiculous outfit and acting like they live in the shire and are under the protection of their local lord, making it a great setting for a drunken ass hat to face theft and assault charges for allegedly crashing  a jousting performance and trying to steal a sword. Meet Connor Ward, an attendee at the Colorado Renaissance Festival in Larkspur who slammed one too many mugs of mead and apparently became inspired to abscond with some kind of replica sword, at which point - no kidding at all - he was chased down by a woman dressed as a wench. Only at the ren fair does a woman unironically dressed as a wench serve as a de facto cop making a citizens arrest and holding a would-be thief in a headlock until Douglas County sheriff's deputies can arrive. Sheriff's office spokeswoman Deborah Sherman said that witnesses told deputies that one of Ward's friends tried to stop him from leaving with the sword, but it was the wench who made the save. Now it’s off to the stockade for Ward, who has officially found the most effective way to quadruple the normal shame a person would feel for attending a renaissance fair………..

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