- Thank
God that the release of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is over and
all of the nonsense can stop. No, not the incessant and overwhelming
promotional push for a movie that set all sorts of box office records in its
debut weekend, nor the slew of toys, clothing items and more being sold in
stores around the world to further cash in on the Star Wars name. All of those
things are fine, if not a bit overdone. No, the true ass-hattery that should
come to a close is the losers who try to gravy-train the Star Wars hype by
hijacking the movie, its characters and its ideas into everything from car
commercials to sports radio shows to what they wear to work on casual Friday.
Nowhere was it clearer that this awful trend had jumped, re-jumped and
re-re-jumped the shark than at the UFC Fight Night weigh-ins in Orlando prior
to Saturday night’s bouts. Featherweight fighters Cole Miller and Jim Alers,
former teammates, stepped on the scale and while both made weight for the
fight, neither made a good choice when it came to how they handled the
stereotypical weigh-in showdown, the one in which fighters mean mug, bump
chests, act as if they’re about to throw hands and wait for officials to
separate them and stop the fight that was never going to happen anyhow. Miller
and Alers went a different route, channeling their inner Star Wars dorks by
staging a brief lightsaber battle. Miller was wielding Anakin Skywalker's
original blue lightsaber, while Alers countered with the new broadsword lightsaber
belonging to Adam Driver's character, Kylo Ren. It was every bit as ridiculous
as it sounds, maybe even more so……….
- When
you book a trip to the Peruvian Amazon and that trip includes drinking a
hallucinogenic plant brew at a “spiritual retreat,” you have to accept the fact
that there’s a strong chance the whole experience is going to end disastrously.
It’s still sad that Briton Unais Gomes is dead because he was stabbed to death
by Canadian Joshua Andrew Freeman Stevens, but much like jumping into the
lion’s cage at the zoo while wearing Lady Gaga’s meat dress, the risks of
tripping out on a powerful hallucinogenic with weapons in the immediate
vicinity are pretty obvious. Stevens is in custody after killing Gomes in
apparent self-defense, with witnesses saying Gomes attacked Stevens with a
knife after suffering a bad trip. The two men had been hitting the ayahuasca at
a spiritual retreat near the jungle city of Iquitos before sh*t went south. Ayahuasca,
which is a combination of an Amazonian vine and dimethyltryptamine (DMT), gives
users a psychedelic experience that it seems neither man could handle. Accoring
to local police, Gomes used a knife from the kitchen of a nearby alternative
health center to attack Stevens, who foiled the attack and allegedly used the
same knife to kill Gomes, stabbing him in the chest and stomach. Ayahuasca,
also known as yage, is used by Amazonian tribes in Peru and Brazil as a
spiritual or medicinal tool and many jungle retreats offer the brew to tourists,
but much like a strong cocktail or an especially potent beer, it’s clearly not
for everyone and consuming it can lead to disastrous consequences…………
- Count
Metallica among the group of aging, past-their-prime rock bands from whose
cold, dead hands you’ll have to pry their instruments in order to get them to
walk away from the music industry. Alongside geezer rockers like The Who and
Rolling Stones, James Hetfield and his merry band of metal men don’t plan to
quit any time soon even though the frontman is somewhat wary of the various
vagaries of the modern music industry. "Look,
musicians never retire," Hetfield said. "They just become less
popular. People think you've retired, but no, I'm still writing. It's a part of
me. It's what I do on this planet. That's why I've been put here, I believe.
And if I stop that, part of me dies. There's no retirement. So we do what we do
until physically we can't do it." Yes, much like aging boxers who can't
defend themselves and are a danger to their own health in the ring, aging rock
stars find it hard to bid adieu to the limelight and walk away to life off
stage. "As
much as we've talked about the landscape of the music business not being what
it was, I'm excited about the fact that it's different,” Hetfield added. So
with all of that in mind, it won't be very long before Metallica cranks out the
follow-up to their most recent album, 2008’s “Death Magnetic,” right? Umm, no.
Hetfield is adamant that at the band won't be rushed into their next album,
although the fact that it has been nearly eight years without one - rapidly
creeping up on the interminable wait for Guns N’ Roses über-disappointing dud
“Chinese Democracy” - pretty much negates any notion of being rushed into
anything by this point……….
- Merry
F’ing Christmas, Birmingham, Alabama. If anyone had a doubt that your fine
city’s leadership would forget what the true spirit of the holiday season was,
consider those doubts erased by Mayor William Bell and councilman Marcus Lundy.
These pillars of civic pride put on the sort of display at a council meeting
that lights up the holidays with no electricity required, turning a closed-door
discussion in a room behind city council chambers into a closed-fist slugfest
that left both men hospitalized with minor injuries. A typical, boring meeting
was taking place when the brawl broke out for reasons that are still unclear,
leaving Bell with bruising on the right side of his neck and swelling in his
left knee, while photos of scrapes on the back of Lundy's left leg were on full
display when council president Johnathan Austin spoke at a news conference in
the wake of the incident. Who did what during the fight depends on who you ask,
as Bell accused Lundy of putting him in a chokehold and a warrant was issued
for his arrest. The mayor later withdrew his complaint and said he did so out
of concern about the overall good of the city, followed by both men publicly
apologizing at a news conference in which they were flanked by ministers at
city hall. In a totally lame and extremely cheesy display, these two elected
officials hugged it out twice in front of cameras and said they love each other
like brothers. "We're family and we're gonna start acting like
family," Lundy said. Lost in that statement is a key point, namely how
families treat each other and a key opportunity being missed here. Simply put,
families fight. Furthermore, council meetings are boring as hell. If residents
knew that a discussion over zoning ordinances or stormwater runoff could turn
into a WWE-style no-holds-barred brawl with chair shots, brass knuckles and
barbed-wire 2x4’s, meetings that typically attract single-digit attendance
would turn into standing-room-only affairs that would transform local government
into a national sensation……….
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