Sunday, March 20, 2016

American political violence traditions, why the Chicago White Sox aren't good and Michael Jackson's chimp gets a movie


- What does the creator of an extremely funny, very successful and now-defunct sitcom do when his show ends and he needs something to fill his time? “Community” creator Dan Harmon has a need to fill that void in his life and in perhaps the epitome of the ridiculous, Hollywood vanity project, he is hard at work on an animated film telling the story of Michael Jackson's pet chimpanzee, Bubbles. Yes, the chimp of a wildly overrated pop star who died in 2009 and was accused of being a pedophile is the subject of an actual stop-motion film based on Isaac Adamson's script. The script appeared on the Black List, an industry list of the best scripts of each year that haven't yet been made into movies, and its synopsis is … well, it’s something. “A baby chimp is adopted by the pop star Michael Jackson. Narrating his own story, Bubbles the Chimp details his life within The King of Pop's inner circle through the scandals that later rocked Jackson's life and eventually led to Bubbles' release,” the synopsis explains. Jackson purchased Bubbles in the 1980s and the animal lived with the singer at his fabled, financially troubled Neverland Ranch until 2003. In many ways, Bubbles embodied the peculiarity and sheer weirdness that came to define Jackson late in his life and career as he went from talented, strong-voiced singer to high-profile weirdo with all manner of personal and legal troubles topped with a healthy dose of paranoia. Thank God Bubbles can finally have his story told for all to enjoy……….


- Don’t get between Canadians and their round bacon for breakfast. Canucks have a reputation for being polite to a fault as long as you don’t mess with the things they hold dear, i.e. denim, mullets, the music of Bryan Adams and Rush, hockey and 10-month winters, but stepping between them and something they love is clearly a reason to go. As evidence, take the case of  a man who hijacked a city bus and demanded he be taken to Tim Hortons, a popular coffee and doughnut chain stocked with calories and cholesterol. According to investigators, the suspect boarded the bus just before midnight in York Region, north of Toronto, and forced the driver at knifepoint to bypass several stops before eventually demanding to be dropped off at a Tim Hortons. It’s unclear whether the restaurant was his original destination, but given the time of day and where this guy wanted to go, the odds of him being either drunk or high seem fairly large. Were he American, he would have demanded to be dropped off at a Waffle House or Taco Bell, but Tim Hortons was not his final destination of the night. Officers arrested the man at the restaurant a short time later, hauling him off to jail for the night and leaving behind a bus driver whom the Toronto Transit Commission described as "shaken" by what it called a "brazen crime." Give that driver a Molson, a freshly cut mullet and repeat viewings of “Cuts Like a Knife” and he’ll be just fine……….


- So why haven't the Chicago White Sox won their division in eight years or finished higher than fourth place in the AL Central since 2012? Lots of reasons, likely, but much of the causality can be found in the current drama surrounding the team. For those paying all of their sports attention to the NCAA tournament, the White Sox have a totally pointless scandal centering on the team limiting first baseman Adam LaRoche’s  14-year-old Drake LaRoche's access to the clubhouse, prompting his father to leave the team and a contract that would have paid him $13 million this season. Yes, a grown man left an eight-figure paycheck on the table because his team insisted his teenage son not be in the workplace every day. There’s overbearing parenting and then there’s being unwilling to separate from your kid for even a day. Maybe the kid should, you know, hang out with his friends, go to the mall, play video games or go to a school dance on occasion rather than hang out in a smelly locker room with grown men. Yet LaRoche’s now-former teammates are acting like the team had he and his son dropped on an ice floe and floated out to sea to meet their inevitable demise, with White Sox ace Chris Sale hanging two Adam LaRoche jerseys in his spring training locker, one signed by Drake LaRoche. Sale is acting like someone died and he’s talking like he wants to fight someone, claiming he and his teammates were lied to by executive vice president Kenny Williams. "Somebody walked out of those doors the other day and it was the wrong guy," Sale said, suggesting that Williams has contradicted himself with differing stories about the decision to reduce Drake LaRoche’s clubhouse access. Objecting to how the situation was handled is fine, but treating it like a death in the family is not. Way to keep perspective, bro……..


- Ah, politics. It’s a beautiful thing when Americans embrace the great traditions of our political system and honor those who came before them in seeking elected office. No one understands this better - allegedly 0 than two campaign workers for incumbent 4th District Representative Cynthia Soto, currently seeking another term in the Illinois state legislature. Soto is facing a stiff challenge from Bob Zwolinski and in the true tradition of Chicago politics and all the violence and fisticuffs they have featured over the years, it seems Rep. Soto decided to channel her inner Tonya Harding and employ a goon squad to intimidate her opponent. According to Zwolinski, two of Soto’s campaign workers jumped him, held him on the ground and blasted him in the head with a beer bottle before finishing off their assault with a staple gun shot to the forehead for good measure. According to the challenger, he ended up with a broken nose and a cut that required six stitches, not to mention bruises. There’s a familial slant to this one as well, as one of the two campaign workers/hitmen against whom felony assault charges were filed is Soto’s adult daughter.  “You expect these kinds of things out of Trump supporters but not a 16-year sitting representative," Zwolinski said. His problems began when he confronted a man and woman who were hanging campaign posters for Soto, a fellow Democrat, outside his campaign office on March 6. One man challenging two people he didn’t know was an unwise move and while Zwolinksi’s campaign has put up a solid, grassroots effort with few resources, maybe it’s time to sign the candidate up for a self-defense class with some of the campaign’s funds. He ordered the two workers to take down the posters, but instead the male worker held him down while both workers pummeled Zwolinski. Soto’s daughter went upside his head with the bottle and ended the night with a well-placed staple to the forehead………..

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