- It’s
the immovable object stuck in last place due to ineptitude and fire sale
tendencies versus the unstoppable force of arrogance and greed demanding
outrageous contracts and preferential treatment for his prized clients. In
other words, the Miami Marlins' feud with agent Scott Boras kicked up a notch
this week when team president David Samson - i.e. the loser voted off the
island first in his season of “Survivor” - threw down the gauntlet by saying
the team will exclude agent Scott “Blowhard” Boras from any future talks
regarding ace Jose Fernandez's workload after Boras b*tched about the Marlins'
handling of another one of his clients, outfielder Marcell Ozuna. Most
observers expected their was little chance the Marlins would sign Fernandez to
a long-term contract, but pissing off the most powerful agent in baseball
further dims those chances. This all stems from the Marlins demoting Ozuna to
Triple-A last season when he was in a 1-for-36 slump and Boras complaining
about the move. Samson, who works for a team steeped in dubious business
practices by gutting its roster on a semi-annual basis and failing to put a
competitive product on the field after getting taxpayers to build them a
stadium/party palace costing hundreds of millions of dollars, was having none
of Boras’ ‘tude. "My strong
suggestion to Mr. Boras is that instead of resting on his 5 percent that he
collects from his stable of players, he write a check and buy a team,"
Samson said. "Then he would have the opportunity to run a team that he
claims to be so able to do. Until that time, he is in no position to comment
how any Major League Baseball team is operated." Bam. Straight fire,
Dave-O. Fernandez, who came back from Tommy John surgery this season, just
happens to be a pawn in this power struggle and he’ll still get a ton of money
when he becomes a free agent………..
- Third
World nations are rife for smugglers looking for lax security and a lack of law
enforcement resources who want an easier way to get their illicit product to
the rest of the world. Those products are often white, powdery and highly
illegal… and very rarely can they be used to sweeten up that batch of brownies
your grandma is making for her neighbors for watering her plants while she was
on vacation. That’s not the case in Kenya, where a local
watchdog group claims Kenyan troops in Somalia are heavily involved in the
smuggling of about 150,000 tons of sugar a year into Kenya. Yes, smuggling
sugar. We’re not talking just a few packets of Sweet N’ Low, either. The group
has released a report which says pro-government militia make $13 million a year
from taxing the illegal sugar imports, completing a circle of shady dealings
that could actually have a further and far more sinister implication than one
might think. Sugar smuggling is also financing activities of Islamic extremist
group al-Shabab that the Kenya military went to fight in Somalia and if this
report is accurate, the Kenyan military is also illegally selling charcoal in
Somalia. It sounds like a recipe for one hell of a barbecue, all of this
illegal sugar and grill filler being thrown around, and this all matters
because Al-Shabab has launched attacks in Kenya, killing hundreds, in
retaliation to the Kenyan military presence in Somalia. Granulated sugar has
never been such a point of contention, at least not since New York City
attempted to ban oversized sugary drinks……….
- It’s
time for the latest instance of a beloved, deceased recording artist who has been
gone for years amazingly having left behind a treasure trove of unreleased
music that his label can cash in on, er, share with his or her adoring fans by
releasing. Usually, it’s a hip-hop artist, but this time it’s singer/songwriter
Jeff Buckley, who passed way in 1997 but will nonetheless have an album of his
unreleased material released on March 11 next year.
The official story is that the tracks on
'You and I' were discovered in the Sony Music archives while staff at the label
researched the 20th anniversary edition of Buckley's iconic album “Grace.” The
majority of the tracks were recorded in February 1993 at Steve Addabbo's
Shelter Island Sound studio and among their number are several covers,
including songs by The Smiths, Led Zeppelin and Bob Marley. And as with bands
who release greatest hits albums but expect their fans to still buy them
despite owning 98 percent of the songs on them, this one will feature two pieces of original music: the first-ever studio
recording of “Grace” and “Dream of You and I,” the latter described as
"mysterious and haunting" by the label. The rest of the 10-track
album includes Buckley's take on 'Just Like A Woman' by Bob Dylan and 'I Know It's Over' and 'The Boy with the Thorn
in His Side' by The Smiths. Buckley’s haunting ballads, especially
“Hallelujah,” have been staples of TV and movie soundtracks for years and he
was clearly a skilled artist, so this project - shameless cash grab it might be
- still has the potential to be pretty damn cool…….
- Game
on, New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton.
You want to talk about the homeless, itinerant people who sleep on your city’s
streets and live under its bridges and overpasses as if they’re stray dogs
begging for food at the back door, then prepare to have a spotlight shone on
those vagrants with results that probably weren't what you were hoping for. A
day after Bratton’s comments, stories of just who is on the streets and how
they’re doing with the panhandling operations began circulating. There’s the
heartwarming tale of a panhandler outside Grand Central Terminal who claims to
pull in up to $200 an hour from tourists and bleeding heart locals, a man who
goes by the name Will Andersen. Anderson, a former theater stagehand, hangs out
in the area around East 42nd Street between Vanderbilt and Madison avenues with
his dog, Rizzo, and said that on especially busy mornings, he takes in as much
as $400 in two hours. That’s barely enough for a decent hotel room in
Manhattan, but one of his beggar buddies boasted of being given three meat-filled
breakfast sammitches in a single morning. These are the kinds of tales that
undoubtedly make Bratton’s stomach turn and his cold-hearted comments clearly
ignore the fact that even if the homeless aren’t fed or funded, they’re still
people who will be alive and in need of help. Guess the commish doesn’t have
any great solutions for how to get the down-and-out back on track, but a police
leader can't possibly do everything when his officers are busy illegally
stopping and frisking minorities all the time……..
No comments:
Post a Comment