Monday, September 07, 2015

Riot Watch! Moldova, HWH (Hunting While High) and Matt Harvey v. the Mets


- Fat Joe is a man who lives large in more ways than one. You don’t rock the nickname Fat Joe without having an outsized life, but even for a man who has sold lot of music, tons of concert tickets and enjoyed plenty of after parties and the, um, well-enhanced women who attend them, but even Fat Joe has regrets in life and it seems that one of them is not signing one of the best rap lyricists of the past 25 years and a man who has become his own massive hip-hope brand in many ways. Yes, Fat Joe had numerous chances to sign Eminem, but passed on each of them. "Man, I got so many regrets. The biggest is that Eminem gave me so many demos – six different times he approached me and I didn’t sign him,” he said. “Shame on me." For a man who is the CEO of Terror Squad Entertainment, a label that largely released his own material, but also had successes with DJ Khaled and others, that big of a swing and miss on talent evaluation is a bit discomfiting. Missing out on a talent like Eminem, even though he’s become something of a second-tier old head in the rap game as younger stars blow by him and he seems incapable of keeping up with them, would haunt most men, but Fat Joe is not most men. “I'm so blessed to have a career,” he replied when asked if the missed brush with glory haunts him. “You’ve got to understand this: there are 10 million people trying to rap and only one makes it, and the fact that even when someone makes it, most of the time, 99 percent, they are a one-hit wonder." Yes, but this one wasn’t and you could’ve gotten a nice ride on that gravy train……..


- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! While many people in this geographically ignorant world of ours may have no idea where Moldova is or whether it’s even a real country, anyone who saw what went down this weekend in its capital city of Chișinău knows full well that you don’t sleep on Moldova. Ironically, sleeping on the government of Moldova is a large part of the reason why there were tens of thousands of people angrily gathered in the streets of the capital city, calling on the government to properly investigate the up to $1.5 billion that disappeared from three banks last year. That it took a year for this uprising to happen is a good indicator that Moldovans are a) trying to find a way to support themselves and their families in an extremely poor economy and b) like other nations, most people will let greater societal and governmental problems go if it’s not f*cking with their everyday lives. Protestors shouted, “We want the one billion back!" as their primary rally cry and demanded that the central bank governor, the general prosecutor and other key officials resign. Several non-governmental organizations organized the protest and threatened to stage non-stop demonstrations until the problem of the missing money is resolved. Conveniently, the missing money came from the state-owned Savings Bank, the Social Bank and Unibank, where the cash just happened to go missing before November 2014 parliamentary elections. The banks were put under the National Bank of Moldova's administration in December, the losses were covered by state reserves and all three banks will be liquidated by October. One unpublished parliamentary report said some of the money was transferred to Russian banks, but at this point no one knows and that’s kind of a problem………


- What should be a time of celebration and anticipation for the New York Mets is quickly turning into a bizarre clusterf*ck of infighting and drama. With a four-game lead in the National League East to begin the week, the surprising Metropolitans have stayed ahead of the heavily favored Washington Nationals and have the inside track on a division title and playoff berth. But despite their unexpected success, much of the talk around the team right now is the  the innings-cap debate between the Mets, right-hander Matt Harvey and his agent, Scott Boras. Boras, one of baseball’s most-detested agents and a noted egomaniac, is looking to protect one of his major money makers because Harvey had Tommy John surgery last year and has come back this season in great form. He’s 12-7 with a 2.60 ERA and yet, his agent wants his season to end very soon. Boras claimed the right-hander not exceed 180 innings in his first season back from Tommy John surgery because doctors have advised against exceeding that number. Harvey currently stands at 166⅓ innings and Boras is lobbying for about two more starts and then a nice rest, even if he has a chance to pitch in the postseason. In response, the Mets have insisted they are being cautious with their young ace and believe he can make four more regular-season starts, plus log a "reasonable" number of innings in the postseason if they qualify Ask Harvey and…. well, he’s dodging the question like a political candidate ducking a controversial query. Harvey said he is focused on Tuesday's scheduled start against the Washington Nationals and declined to assure the world that he will pitch in the playoffs. He went to the, “I’m focused on Tuesday” card multiple times, but left the situation as much in doubt as ever……….


- Hunting is often a totally boring pursuit. You sit in the middle of nowhere for hours on end, trying to stay awake while waiting for a dumb, wild animal with enough free will to walk through the other 2,500 acres of wilderness available to them rather than the one you’ve chosen, and you have to be deathly quiet lest you scare off any critters unfortunate enough to wander near you. So what if you could a) find a way to make that time less boring and b) do so while partaking in an activity that makes sitting around doing nothing much more appealing? That appears to be the mentality of three dove poachers in a hunting blind in Ringwood, Oklahoma. These three innovators crafted a blind to conceal themselves both from their prey and from the desire to get up and have any real motivation to get ahead in life. Yes, their hunting blind was made of marijuana plants and Oklahoma game wardens just couldn’t allow this revolutionary thinking to stand. Instead, wildlife officers for Garfield County and Major County were called last week to a field near Ringwood because of a dove poaching complaint. When they arrived, they found three men in hunting gear hiding in a dove blind built out of ganja. “I’ve never found it before,” Major County Game Warden Lt. Frank Huebert said. “And around the state no one has ever heard of a marijuana blind before.” That’s because not everyone is innovative enough to come up with ideas that change the world, Frankie. The three men may or may not be the ones who planted the pot, but when they were arrested, they were issued summonses for hunting violations and could face other charges after needles, meth and an ice chest with pot were found in the home of one of them, so there’s a high chance they were involved in some way. The men were caught hunting doves two days before the dove hunting season opened and much to the surprise of no one given their location and collective possessions inside their cooler, they never saw law enforcement approaching. Who knows, maybe these three alleged criminals are just early adopters in what will soon become Oklahoma becoming the latest state to adopt the legalization of pot for recreational use……….

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