Sunday, May 29, 2016

Paying Ludacris in rubbers and Grey Goose, 100-mile yard sale headaches and Turkey in denial


- Step down the persecution complex, Turkey. Your country has an ugly, blood-stained history and the fact that you’re still overly sensitive about it decades later isn't an indication that you’re fighting against the villainization of your past or the twisting of the facts of history….it’s just an ugly reminder of the power of denial. So why are we here? Because the in-denial doofuses who run Turkey have decried d plans by Germany's parliament to recognize the World War I killings of Armenians as genocide. See, virtually everyone whose nation wasn’t responsible for the killings of 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks recognizes this situation as the first genocide of the 20th century, but Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide, insists that the toll was inflated and says those killed were the victims of civil war and unrest. That sort of refusal to admit the truth isn't even found in places that have been the scene of much bigger acts of genocide, so it really is jaw-dropping how far Turkey has its head in the sand on this one. The issue sprung back up as Germany's parliament is to hold a vote on a motion describing the deaths as genocide this week. Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus tried to puff out his government’s collective chest by warning that Germany — home to a large Turkish community — should "act with caution." Kurtulmus tried to spin it as parliaments not deciding on history and asking all countries to make documents available to historians so they can shed light on the killings, which is a convenient way of trying to duck this entire situation once more………


- He’s in every big movie hitting screens in the next two years - or so it seems - and thus, it was probably inevitable that Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson would confirm that he will be playing Clark 'Doc' Savage in an upcoming movie. The movie, for those who don’t know, is a precursor to much of the superhero culture gripping Hollywood to this day, as Savage is cited as the inspiration for Superman and appeared in  American pulp magazines throughout the ’30s and ’40s, where he fought evildoers as a physician, surgeon, scientist, adventurer, inventor, explorer, researcher and musician.  Johnson is the sort of ass-kicker who could pull off the necessary heroics and has been known to carry a tune from time to time. Johnson posted an image in Instagram with a caption in which he said he was "excited to become Doc Savage" because "HE'S A F*CKING HILARIOUS WEIRDO!" The Savage character was created by Lester Dent, Henry Ralston and John Nanovic and was also known as the Man of Bronze. The film will be directed by Shane Black, with Black co-writing the script alongside Anthony Bagarozzi and Chuck Mondry. Its star, Johnson, is currently appearing in “Central Intelligence” alongside Kevin Hart and has “Baywatch,” “Fast & Furious 8” and two “Journey to the Center of the Earth” sequels on the way, plus the movie “Shazam” for DC Films. Black is set to begin filming “The Predator” in October, so he’s busy right now too, but having The Rock on board guarantees that this train is going to keep rolling down the track and probably make a ton of money in the process……..


- Yard sales suck. They’re one person selling a chipped monkey lamp and an incomplete set of Superman-themed dinner plates to another loser and the two of them haggling over whether that sweet package deal is worth $4.75 or $5.10. That makes what happened over the holiday along Highway 25 in southeast Missouri an even bigger nightmare. It was the 31st-annual incarnation of the 100-mile headache masquerading as a yard sale, where people from around the country flock and according to the Dexter Chamber of Commerce, its occurrence was promoted by fliers sent out to people as far away as California. The yard sale stretches from Jackson, Mo. to Kennett, Mo. along Highway 25 and according to the chamber, it boosts business for companies all along the sale route as well as boosting the blood pressure of everyone JUST TRYING TO GET TO THE DAMN FAMILY BARBECUE SO THEY CAN PUT IN THEIR TIME AND NOT HAVE TO TOLERATE ANY MORE UNCLE TERRY FOR ANOTHER FEW MONTHS, DAMMIT! In other words, the constant sight of elderly, thrifty bargain seekers pulled halfway off the road to amble up someone’s driveway to look at that 500-pound, dented bird bath that they only want to pay $10 for is at the heart of this mess.  “It’s a fun weekend that people look forward to each year,” said traffic engineer Craig Compas of the Missouri Department of Transportation, “but we want people to remember that there’s more traffic and more congestion along Route 25 this weekend.” Say what you really want, C., that these yard sale saps are a major nuisance and you wish they’d just go the hell away………


- Why apologize for trying to be one of the cool kids, University of Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity? Just because you and your crew paid three-time Grammy winner Ludacris $65,000, plus premium liquors and prophylactics to perform at the school's spring football game for 15 minutes is no reason to apologize to your school’s athletic association's board of directors. Sure, buying top-end booze and condoms for a rapper to come in, sex some local ladies and get his drink on before and after a truncated set before 93,000 fans looks bad, but you were just trying to put on a show and get people to like you. Yet there was McGarity, falling on his sword at the board's quarterly meeting. "I do want to take this opportunity to apologize to our board for mistakes we made with certain aspects of the details of an entertainment agreement," McGarity said. "Few things in my professional life have bothered me more than this situation. There are no reruns in life so we need to turn the page, learn from our mistakes and do everything we can to make sure errors of this nature do not reoccur.” Really, few things? Because if giving $65,000, a few boxes of rubbers and some Grey Goose to a Grammy-winning rapper is the worst thing you do, then you clearly need to live more and experience the world. Then again, McGarity didn’t have much of a choice after University of Georgia President Jere Morehead ran him under the bus, saying the contract, revealed through open-records requests,  should have been more closely reviewed and some items should have been removed. Some of this could be due to the fact that Luda didn’t exactly give the crowd a full show and when people learned how well he was paid for that mail-in job of a performance, people were bound to get angry………

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