Thursday, March 02, 2017

Impersonating Nickelhack, "The Wire" would have loved this story and Suns + a goon


- How very French artist of you, Abraham Poincheval. Way to try to channel your inner David Blaine and mix it with a heavy dash of street performer, resulting in you spending a week camping out inside a 12-ton limestone boulder at a Paris art gallery. The Louvre it ain’t, but the French artist spent seven days entombed in a body-shaped hole large enough to sit in, with workers hollowing out the rock and drilling several air holes to make sure that Poincheval could breather during his week in seclusion. He didn’t even go full-on Blaine, i.e. have no food or liquids, as Poincheval was supplied with water, soup and dried meat for the ordeal. What, no exquisite French pastries, macaroons or croissants to keep him well-fed? After spending a week avoiding the world and calling it art, workmen pulled apart the two halves of the rock and Poincheval climbed out in the most ginger, milking-it fashion possible, looking disheveled and ridiculously flashing a V-for-victory sign as two men helped him to a chair at the Palais de Tokyo gallery. This sort of stunt is Poincheval’s thing, as he’s carved out a niche in the very small, limited field of endurance-testing solitary performances, a.k.a. having no friends. Dude once spent 13 days inside a hollowed-out bear, so living inside a rock for a week had to at least smell less. His next publicity stunt disguised as art will involve sitting on eggs in an attempt to hatch them, so here’s hoping he finds a place easily ignored to make that happen……..


- Goons wanted. The Phoenix Suns, currently holding down last place in the Western Conference, have lots of problems and lots of holes throughout their lackluster roster. They drafted too non-complementary big men in last year’s draft, have little depth on their bench and according to head coach Earl Watson, they need to import some muscle. Following the Suns' 130-112 loss to the Grizzlies in Memphis, a defeat in which the Grizzlies' Vince Carter punked Suns guard Devin Booker with an elbow to the head that knocked the second-year guard to the floor. Carter retaliated after Booker appeared to strike the 19-year-veteran and eight-time All-Star in the face as Carter drove to the hoop and when the veteran battled back, no one on the Suns roster stepped to him. "Carter's elbow changed the momentum of the game and sent a message," Watson said. "Who's going to protect our young guys? It's the situation we're in. We have to find a guy who can come in and make another team think twice about doing that. That should be a top priority for us moving forward." Watson waxed poetic about Kobe Bryant being protected by Ron Artest and Matt Barnes during his career and speculated that even though his young star is nowhere near Bryant’s level, unless the Suns “find someone in free agency or the first chance we get who can protect our top offensive players,” Booker is going to see a lot more opponents go upside his head. There have been other such incidents, but a quick look suggests that Phoenix’s issues could lie mostly with one team. On Feb. 8, Memphis guard Troy Daniels jawed with several Suns players, which led to pushing, three players being assessed technical fouls and three players being ejected. Booker ripped Daniels after the game and this game, Carter floored him. Line up now, goons, and have those references handy…….


- Oh, “The Wire” ended a few years too soon. If David Simon’s prized television creation were still around, it could do work with this one. The fact that seven Baltimore City Police officers are being federally indicted for a racketeering conspiracy, according to the Justice Department, is too good to ignore. This massive investigative case was secretly conducted and kept quiet about even from the city's state’s attorney, but now everyone knows after the arrests of the officers allegedly involved in racketeering were announced in the U.S. Attorney’s Office. These seven (alleged) scumbags were reportedly robbing victims ranging from $200,000 to a 'couple hundred dollars,' filing false affidavits, and making fraudulent overtime claims while they were living a life of modest, old-person-on-a-pension luxury by vacationing in Myrtle Beach and gambling at casinos. One of the seven went above and beyond the call of illegal duty, getting himself charged in a separate drug distribution indictment. As part of their long con, the officers are accused of sometimes seizing narcotics and weapons addition to money without bothering to file those pesky police reports. "These seven police officers betrayed the trust" of not only the police department but also the public, said Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis, during a time when the city was "under scrutiny" in a post-Freddie Gray world. These seven law enforcement anti-heroes have been identified as Momodu Bondeva Kenton Gondo a.k.a 'GMoney' and 'Mike,' Wayne Earl Jenkins, Evodio Calles Hendrix, Maurice Kilpatrick Ward, Jemell Lamar Rayam, Daniel Thomas Hersl and Marcus Roosevelt Taylor. They’ve all been suspended without pay and are in custody of the FBI while police search for more victims. All in all, the sort of story that will only fuel the growing distrust of police in America……


- Is the shame really worth some free drum gear? For one Florida man, the answer is inexplicably yes and that’s why Lee Howard Koenig of Port St Lucie, Florida is now staring down multiple criminal charges for allegedly impersonating Nickelback drummer Daniel Adair when trying to order $25,000 worth of microphones and other music equipment in an oddly international crime. According to police, Koenig used Adair’s identity “to fraudulently order drum parts from a company in Vienna, Austria,” potentially under the theory that maybe Europe is further from the general suck-itude of the ‘Hack and therefore less likely to ignore the order out of sheer musical principle. The order included several microphones, but the real mystery here is how Koenig knew Adair’s personal information. The sellers, figuring the chance to talk to a real, live member of the world’s worst band was one they couldn’t pass up, called the real Adair to confirm the order. When the Nickelhack team searched out the Florida area listed in the billing address, they found Koenig and has the creepy realization that he has the same drum set-up as Adair. Koenig is also believed to run the Mr, Wooky Facebook page, which claims that he is a “SONY/Epic session touring and Multi-Platinum award winning drummer” who has “toured with artists such as Beach Boys, Bertie Higgins, Rick Derringer, Billy Joel, Tito Puente, SNL Band, and many others.” Of course, the page also lists his birth year as 1771 and lists his interests as “people that are not trying to get a piece of me,” so sanity is apparently not one of Koenig’s strongest assets. After police arrested him, Koenig told them “he wanted to send Adair an apology letter,” which ironically is what Nickelhack should do for anyone who’s ever had the misfortune of hearing one of their songs……..

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