Thursday, May 19, 2016

Honoring Odor with booze, bribing science dorks and RZA + Interpol


- Riot Watch! Riot Wat- wait a second, what’s going on here? Typically, an enraged, disenfranchised group of citizens is taking to the streets, looking to burn down builds, destroy police vehicles and create mayhem to get its point across and John Q. Law is standing in their way, looking to abuse his power, er, restore order in the face of chaos. But the world is backwards and upside-down in France, where police are taking to the streets to protest against what they describe as hatred directed at them. Pretty much every officer in every police force in the world has some degree of hate directed their way, but the situation is more tense in France, where officers gathered during their lunch breaks in about 60 cities across France, including on the Republic Plaza in Paris, to denounce the almost daily violent clashes at protests against a labor reform in recent weeks. How very French/government employee of them to confine their protest to their lunch hour/smoke break and not extend it out further to truly cause a disruption that would grab the attention of their countrymen. According to French president Francois Hollande, more than 350 police officers have been injured in clashes and 60 people have been convicted, while Jean-Marc Falcone, general director of the police, said "anti-cop hatred comes from a small portion of the population... but these 10 percent that are very violent." It’s all in the name of change and stoking a revolution, J., but the process can be a painful one for all involved……….


- The list of bizarre musical collaborations between seemingly mismatched artists continues. Artists swerving across genre lines definitely creates buzz and sometimes, it yields great music. That determination is still to be made when it comes to the partnership between Wu-Tang Clan founder RZA and Interpol frontman Paul Banks, who have formed a side project together that they’re calling Banks & Steelz. This unusual and seemingly randomly paired released their first track together on Zane Lowe's Beats 1 show, putting an official spin on a collaboration that has been on the cards for three years, first surfacing in 2013 RZA confirmed in an interview that they were working together. "My manager came to me and said, 'Who do you want to do an album with?' I said, "Well, Paul just has an energy about him. I think if we put our sandwich together it will be great." RZA noted that he and Banks play chess together and just out, making an indie rock lead singer and an edgy rap pioneer playing chess one of the more peculiar musical happenings in recent memory. According to RZA, the two went to the studio and started writing songs that “sound very, very different than what I do, but very unique and very peculiar.” Together, the two have launched a website, which is sparse and cryptic when it comes to delivering much real information outside of the fact that New York, the birthplace of RZA and Interpol's spiritual home, is incorporated into their band logo. They also have an official Twitter feed and release events scheduled, so this is definitely a thing, even if it makes very little sense at this point………


- Nothing brings out the kooks quite like the promise of fast, easy money. The Maine Mineral and Gem Museum knows this all to well and that’s why museum officials are offering a $20,000 reward for meteorites from the fireball seen streaking through the Maine sky early Tuesday morning. Much of the Northeast and Canada saw this rare sight and the museum believes the fireball was a meteoroid that entered the atmosphere over Maine and exploded west of Rangeley, in Franklin County. Because it’s a small-time, small-town museum in freaking Maine, the Maine Mineral and Gem Museum doesn’t have the manpower to go out and search for these small pieces of the flaming rock, but it does have some spare cash to dole out and that’s why it’s trying to spark a science dork brawl by offering $20,000 for the first one-kilogram meteorite recovered. After buying this meteorite, the museum plans to put its newly purchased find on display for the ones and ones of people who come to visit each day to see. "This is an exciting opportunity, and we need the public's help," museum director Barbra Barrett said. Inspired by all of this, the museum said it plans to set up special cameras across the state to track future fireballs and wants to have that network of cameras fully operational some time next year. In the interim, happy hunting and seeking to profit off science to everyone in the area who’s out there looking for new car money in the form of a tiny chunk of space rock……..


- Rougned Odor is a man who enjoys a little bit of baseball with his bar fight every now and then. Odor, who’s been looking to cave in opponents’ faces on baseball fields since he was a rising prospect in the minors, is in the spotlight now because this week, Major League Baseball suspended the Texas Rangers second baseman eight games for punching the Toronto Blue Jays' Jose Bautista in the jaw. To make a long story short, the Rangers intentionally hit Bautista with a pitch because he did a combination caber toss/bat flip against them in the playoffs last season, so Bautista responded to the HBP with a hard slide into second base on the next play, upending Odor and sparking a legit basebrawl in which Odor turned his rings around and delivered a legitimate fist to his foe’s face. Having done that in the minor leagues, it makes perfect sense that one of Odor's former minor league teams has introduced an alcoholic energy drink in his honor. The Double-A Frisco RoughRiders introduced Rougie's Red PUNCH this week and club officials say the drink will be available for a limited time after the team returns home this weekend. This overpriced concoction, consisting of fruit punch, an energy drink and a secret ingredient from Odor's native Venezuela, presumably the alcohol, and it will be mixed in a punch bowl and served in limited-edition 12-ounce souvenir cups, a tribute to Odor's No. 12 jersey. It will be conveniently priced at $5.15, commemorating the date of Sunday's brawl and hopefully in the process, also helping people forget that they are spending their free time at a minor league baseball game in a place called Frisco……….

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