Thursday, May 18, 2017

Sticking it to The Man in Russia, NFL squatters sidetracked on the road to L.A. and "T-Wanye" finally drops


- It never rains in Southern California, so when the freak rain storm blows through town, the whole world comes crashing down. People start driving their cars into one another, many Los Angelinos are afraid to go outside and even the billions and billions of dollars the NFL is pouring into the City of Angels to bring two teams to the city can’t overcome nature. That means the highly anticipated, $2.6 billion stadium in Inglewood, California, destined to be the home of the Rams and Chargers won't open in 2019 and will now open in 2020 instead. Uncommonly heavy rainfall in Los Angeles means the new facility will take longer to complete and as a result, the Rams will remain squatters at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for an additional year and the Chargers will do the same in a soccer stadium, the 30,000-seat StubHub Center in Carson, California. Come 2020, the Chargers can then crash on the couch at the Rams’ new stadium, which it will be because the new venue is funded by Rams owner Stan Kroenke. Assuming that 2020 date stands, the new stadium will still be able to host Super Bowl LV in February 2021 - as long as the NFL waives its rule that a team cannot host a Super Bowl at the end of a stadium's inaugural season. Waiving rules in the name of big paydays is something the league has done before, including when commissioner Roger Goodell previously waived the NFL's rule on minimum temperatures at the Super Bowl so that MetLife Stadium in New Jersey could host Super Bowl XLVIII. Thus, even though the Rams and Chargers’ stadium developers "lost the better part of two months from early January into the beginning of March," this show will go on……


- Nothing says classy, wealthy business magnate quite like a YouTube attack on one of your rivals. Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov knows that and it’s why he launched a video  attack on opposition leader Alexei Navalny just days before the trial in a Usmanov vs. Navalny defamation case was to begin. If it seems like you’d want to root for Navalny here, it’s because a) he’s not a billionaire asshole in the Kremlin’s pocket and b) he’s the driving force behind massive anti-corruption protests that swept through Russia in March and has released a documentary about the alleged secret wealth of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. In other words, he’s looking to stick it to The Man and Usmanov is the über-wealthy prick you’d hate unless he gave you one of his spare billions. He was embarrassed after Navalny published legal documents showing that Usmanov along with several other Russian billionaires transferred lucrative assets to a charity foundation run by Medvedev's former classmate. Medvedev insists he has no ties to the property, while Usmanov claimed that the transfer of the ownership of the mansion to the charity foundation was a legit business deal. In his YouTube assault, Usmanov denounced Navalny as a "loser" and a "failed businessman,” which is the most lame an unimaginative insult possible. "I spit on you. You will have to answer to me for this anyway, Lyosha," Usmanov said, using the short form of Navalny's first name, in the video. "You should have apologized and lived in peace because someone like you would never ever be able to prove that I'm a criminal, that I'm a thief." Not exactly helping your case, A. Saying he couldn’t prove that you’re a criminal and a thief isn't exactly denying that you’re either……..


- Rap’s “Chinese Democracy” it ain’t. After teasing the not-really-awaited collaboration between the Overly Auto-Tuned One, a.k.a. T-Pain, and Lil Wayne nearly a decade ago, the rap buddies have finally dropped “T-Wayne,” a long-awaited and probably forgotten mixtape that could be amazing … or an unmitigated disaster. Unlike Guns N’ Roses oft-postponed dumpster fire of a project, “Chinese Democracy,” was pushed back for a decade and finally released, this one wasn’t delayed because its asshole frontman (hey there, Axl Rose!) couldn’t find anyone willing to work with him long enough to make the album happen. This one has drifted along aimlessly since T-Pain actually recorded and teased it back in 2009. He didn’t really go into detail about how they’d just lingered on the scrap heap for the better part of a decade, but tweeted out an announcement about the project. “These the lost files from ’09 and I’m tired of em just sitting on my hard drive,” he wrote. Shortly after that post, the mixtape popped up on Soundcloud, serving as something of a sonic time capsule of a bygone era, one that brings more of two popular artists to the masses but doesn’t offer fans any hope that either of them will be releasing any new material any time soon. Even so, this is a rap rarity because it’s lost, forgotten or never-released music from rappers who were still alive when their unknown recordings went public, so that’s certainly a nice change of pace…….


- And the daredevils are getting exactly what they want: views and likes. When a video shot by a pair of thrill seekers who want out on the Golden Gate Bridge, doing flips and walking hundreds of feet in the air on walkways, went online two weeks ago, it was bound to get some attention, but not nearly the eyeballs it’s not drawing after the video became the source of a large-scale security review at the iconic structure by officials who want to know how Peter Teatime and his partner, Tommy Rector, were so easily able to sprint up the bridge at night and find both time and unfettered space to do a backflip and somersault atop the main towers of the span. The video started on YouTube and is now licensed to Caters Clips and it shows the dynamic duo dangling their bodies over the edge of one of the bridge's towers, putting them in a position where a fall would almost certainly mean death. The hilarious part of all of this is that according to Golden Gate Bridge general manager Dennis Mulligan, officials were not aware of the incident until it was posted online and someone shot them a link. "The Golden Gate Bridge is not an amusement park ride," Mulligan dryly noted, adding that the two men climbed the structure's vertical suspender ropes without any harnesses or fall protection. To those two, it clearly was, taking advantage of the fact that the hundreds of security cameras set up around the bridge are largely to protect against terrorist attacks and vandalism. That means no alarms go off for what Mulligan deemed “reckless behavior,” but he promised officials will “be taking steps to make sure they will not be able to do that again.” That’s what the uptight squares always say, Denny……..

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