Monday, October 12, 2015

College yacht club drama, the Lance Armstrong movie and witchcraft kooks in Britain


- How are the Backstreet Men still a thing? Did no one tell the BSM that the man-band era, arguably the second-darkest in music history behind disco, is mercifully over and that the likes of One Direction are merely ugly aberrations that will eventually fade away? Yet here is Backstreet Man A.J. McLean - you know, one of those other dudes in the group that no one ever really cared about but who was just there to fill out the lineup - announcing that his merry band of musical miscreants will return to the studio this week and might even unleash the unholy hell of touring with one of their fellow mid-‘90s pop disasters, The Spice Girls. McLean confirmed that after being involved with the zombie movie “Dead 7,” written by fellow BSM member Nick Carter, the group are energized to make what they try to pass off as music again. "The Spice Girls tour has been this idea bouncing around for the past year and a half, and it's something we're still talking about," McLean said. "But we're going back in on the 12th to dust off the cobwebs. We're working with a new producer, Jay Cash, who wrote 'Sugar' for Maroon 5. This is just the beginning phase, but we're hoping to have the album done before our cruise in May." Yes, another man band cruise. Because merely living in a world where this awful brand of hot pop music garbage exists isn't enough and some people need to willingly trap themselves on a boat at sea with it and have no means of escape. The last BSM album, “In a World Like This,” was a totally irrelevant 2013 release that the world has managed to forget, so by all means, record another one to be ignored as well………..


- Way to keep it weird, Britain. Not a good kind of weird, by the way. No, it’s definitely the bad kind of weird when the British Metropolitan Police report a significant increase in the number of child abuse cases that involve allegations of witchcraft and exorcism. Yes, you read that correctly. Children are being abused, sometimes to the point of putting their lives in danger, because their parents are kooks who believe that either they or their child is being harassed by, possessed by or otherwise maliced by evil spirits. According to police, a special unit received 46 such cases in 2014, more than twice as many as the year before. The Project Violet unit deals with these unusual cases and not only did the number skyrocket in 2014, but 60 incidents have been reported so far this year, continuing the upward trend. Detective Sergeant Terry Sharpe admitted that while the total number of incidents remains "small in number, "there has been a significant increase." Sharpe pointed to one heinous incident in which a 9-year-old boy was called a "devil child" and thrown out of his home by his parents. Oh, and there was also a mentally unstable mother who believed her son was a witch and tried to bite and smother him. Britain is far from alone in having an unnerving number of ass hats whose connection to reality is tenuous at best and deadly at worst, but it would still be nice to know why this ugly trend is picking up speed so quickly in the British Isles……….


- The sports world has largely forgotten about disgraced former Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, but his scandalous career is still making waves in certain corners of the globe. Mostly that’s because of people who are still trying to make a name for themselves - and maybe a few dollars along with it - by releasing a movie about Cheat-strong that will detail his systematic doping regimen that allowed him to battle back from nearly being killed by cancer to win seven Tour de France titles. “The Program” is due out this week in Italy, prompting Armstrong's former physician to file a lawsuit aiming to halt distribution of the film in Italy. Lawyers for Dr. Michele Ferrari have requested that the "The Program” be sequestered from distributor Videa and that the producers pay damagers. Those legal eagles claim Ferrari never administered EPO to Armstrong Tour de France victories and banned for life from professional cycling in 2012 after  a U.S. Anti-Doping Agency investigation found that he had used PEDs during his cycling career. In the movie, French actor Guillaume Canet portrays Ferrari, so perhaps having a Frenchman play you on the big screen is even more infuriating for an Italian. Either way, director Stephen Frears and everyone involved with the film can't be too worried about this lawsuit, largely because it appears to have little merit and also because it’s creating a ton of free publicity for their movie. It’s an all-around win for a film that probably won't be garnering any Oscars any time soon……


- Who doesn’t love a good yacht club?  Other than the 99.75 percent of us who don’t know and could never afford a yacht and are therefore infused with a lifetime of resentment for those arrogant pricks who believe that spending $100,000 for a boat they use a few times a year and stock with premium liquor and food to consume while cruising the high seas with their fellow rich friends, of course. So what’s the problem if exclusive (i.e. irrationally expensive) Pitzer College in Claremont, California wants to have itself a student yacht club? Sure, the arrogant young a-holes in this club didn’t actually earn their wealth and are merely coasting off the fortunes mommy and daddy have amassed, but that’s no reason for the student senate at Pitzer to vote to deny instating a yacht club at the school because a majority of these fake educational legislators “found the name 'yacht club' to have a particularly offensive association with yacht clubs and a recreation known for being exclusive," according to Taylor Novick-Finder, a Pitzer College senator. When you’re school’s cost of tuition is reportedly $64,000 per year, exclusivity is implied and there is zero chance of anyone getting into Pitzer without a firm knowledge of the fact that they’re living in a small, pricy bubble with little connection to reality or to the filthy, unwashed masses for whom they possess such a healthy disdain. Since the controversy sparked up, the school issued an obligatory statement explaining that the school "respects the diverse views of our student body," but believes that "discussions, and sometimes debate, on opposing views, are part of the educational process." Whatever you feel is going to keep the poor, ugly undesirables from lighting their torches, sharpening their pitchforks and attempting to storm the gilded gates of your prestigious institution…….

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