Movie news, Detroit Tigers' woes and weddings in prison

- Nothing says ghetto like getting married in prison. Remy Ma, whose real name is Remy Smith, isn’t going to let the fact that she’s incarcerated stand in the way of her impending nuptials. As she awaits sentencing for shooting a friend (yes, she shot her own friend) she suspected of stealing $3,000 from her, Smith will wed fellow rapper Papoose in a ceremony at New York’s famed Rikers Island jail on April 23. Way to be Remy, marrying a guy named after a baby-carrying apparatus. What the frak kind of rap name is Papoose anyhow? That’s supposed to be hardcore gangsta? But I digress. Smith was convicted last month of assault, weapon possession and coercion after busting a cap into a friend she had accused of ripping her off. Now, she’s being held without bail at Rikers Island as she awaits sentencing. The funny part of this is that about 200 weddings are performed at the jail annually, with Rikers Island offering chaplains and chapels for the ceremonies. Classing things up a bit for Remy Ma and Papoose will be strict guidelines allowing only two guests at their special ceremony and forbidding the bride and groom from exchanging wedding rings with protruding gems. Great, because who doesn’t like to have to select their wedding ring with the stipulation that it not have protruding gems so it can’t be used as a weapon in a possible jailhouse brawl. Classy event, Remy, classy event….

- R.E.M. have been around so long that it’s all too easy to forget that they were one of the very first bands to jump-start the college band genre. Michael Stipe’s voice has been a distinctive one in rock for a long time, but not everyone knows the band’s great history. If you’re one of those people, I’d definitely encourage you to listen to some of the group’s earlier efforts before delving into their newest one, the aptly titled Accelerate. In fact, this album not only recaptures the old spirit of R.E.M. before their critically panned albums of the late ‘90s, it adds an extra edge and fiery energy that I can't remember hearing on any previous effort from the group. From the album’s first track, Living Well is the Best Revenge, the guitars are loud, raw and angry. Stipe and his bandmates manage to consistently mix in a punk rock vibe that they’ve only shown flashes of in the past. Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills make that punk sound most evident on songs like Horse to Water and I’m Gonna DJ, but unlike a lot of punk rockers out there, they handle their instruments extremely well. Stipe has explained that his motivation for the album was the same as the motivation for many of my own rants, the interminable war in Iraq and the all-around incompetence of the W. administration. However, the lyrics aren’t all anti-war and vitriol, so don’t think that this is an overly political album. One of the absolute best lines on the entire album comes from the song Houston, which was inspired by the debacle that was our government’s response to Hurricane Katrina and its devastation on the Gulf Coast region. “If the storm doesn’t kill me, the government will,” Stipe pointedly sings. When you couple that very agreeable anti-W. sentiment with an album full of great music, Accelerate is a definite winner of an album and follows up on strong releases the previous two weeks from the Raconteurs and Black Keys to make for a strong spring of new music.

- The Major League Baseball season is just over a week old, but it’s safe to say that so far, the much-hyped Detroit Tigers are bombing out big time. The big trade of the MLB offseason brought slugging third baseman Miguel Cabrera and left-handed hurler Dontrelle Willis to the Motor City and the Tigers also brought in shortstop Edgar Renteria via trade to further bolster what was project to be baseball’s best offense. We’re now seven games into the season and although Mark Twain once said that there are lies, there are damn lies and then there are statistics, I’m going to made a rough guesstimate and say that the Tigers do not actually have the best offense in baseball. Averaging 2.1 runs per game and having four home runs, 24th in MLB, would not qualify as the best. Having your top slugger, Gary Sheffield, out with a torn finger tendon doesn’t help, nor does having Cabrera miss games due to hamstring troubles. On top of that, the one trouble spot everyone predicted for the Tigers was their bullpen and the bully has been every bit as bad as expected and then some. Detroit relievers have posted a sparkling 0-3 record, 4.62 ERA and have given away several games already even after the starting pitcher exited the game having turned in a solid effort. One week isn’t enough to draw definitive conclusions about the season as a whole and how it will play out, but if the Tigers don’t start playing better soon, the remainder of their season may be ruled irrelevant because they will have dug such a large hole that their hopes for a successful campaign will be dead.

- These are shaping up to be the best Olympics ever. After all, what says international event promoting unity, sportsmanship, cooperation and triumph of the human spirit quite like the stench of brutal oppression of basic human right and freedoms? Top that off with a worldwide outcry against the host nation and you’ve got a mighty delicious sports and cultural stew, my friend. That stew was at full simmer Sunday as police repeatedly scuffled with protesters as Olympians and celebrities carried the Olympic torch through snowy London. Pro-Tibet demonstrators actually tried to board a relay bus after five-time Olympic gold medalist rower Steve Redgrave launched the procession at Wembley Stadium -- the first of a number of clashes with police along the torch's 31-mile journey. The procession continued to be fraught with conflict in west London, where one protester tried to grab the torch out of the hands of a children's television presenter, forcing police to briefly stop the procession as officers detained the man. But it didn’t end there, oh no. Shortly after that incident, another demonstrator tried to snuff out the flame with what appeared to be a fire extinguisher. Ah, the prestige and dignity of the Olympics, protestors discharging fire extinguishers to put out the Olympic flame. Other less-resourceful demonstrators in the crowd threw themselves at torchbearers running past in official Beijing Olympics tracksuits. The unrest was so severe that Chinese Ambassador Fu Ying, who had been expected to carry the Olympic torch, was pulled from the mix because of a massive swell of demonstrators in the area. She was reassigned to a different part of the torch’s London trip, carrying the flame in the heart of London's Chinatown and managing to jog unhindered before handing over the torch to the next participant in the relay. Also in the protest spirit were anti-China protestors in London's historic Bloomsbury area, who were separated from some pro-Chinese supporters. Predictably, these dissidents weren’t happy with The Man trying to hold them down. “As an English person, I have a right to stand where I want to on the street,” pro-Tibet demonstrator Roger Moulland, 54, from Brighton, said as he was moved away by police. Ditto for hundreds of protesters along the route who chanted slogans including “Free Tibet!” “Stop killing in Tibet!” and “China, talk to Dalai Lama.” Even the torchbearers took notice of the zoo going on around them. “There was definitely a bit of an edge,” British tennis player Tim Henman, one of the torchbearers, admitted. So far, the fallout from the day includes upwards of 30 arrests according Metropolitan Police said. Olympic fever, catch it world!

- For one weekend at least, the top of the box office earnings list looks a lot like the preceding weekend. Remaining at the top of the heap is 21, the gambling-centric film based on Ben Mesrick’s best-selling novel. The movie’s take for it second weekend was a modest $15.1 million, edging out George Clooney’s new old-timey football flick Leatherheads, which raked in $13.5 million to finish second. The third-place finisher for the weekend was the fantasy kid’s movie Nim’s Island, starring Jodie Foster and Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine), with a take of $13.3 million. The animated flick Horton Hears a Who capped a good weekend for the family friendly movie by placing fourth, followed by a decidedly non-family friendly movie, The Ruins. The ironic thing is that while none of these movies may jump out at you as a major blockbuster or Oscar contender, this is a solid top five and with the possible exception of Nim’s Island if you’re over the age of 12, all of them are flicks you’d probably enjoy watching. So a good weekend for movies, which is truly a rare feat these days.

A new episode of Greek, an awful music video and a busy polygamist

- Being a scummy, dirty, talentless, leach loser is expensive work. Kevin Federline can’t go around looking like he lives in a trailer park and showers once a month on a few measly dollars of income, according to documents filed by his own lawyer in his custody battle with certified nut job and underwear avoider Britney Spears. Among the interesting figures in those papers are the following expenses between May 2007 and January 2008: $1,145 for clothing at Gianni Versace, $3,863 at TAO nightclub, $3,008 at the Hard Rock Beach Club in Las Vegas and $2,000 for a $365 meal at Scores strip club. All told, K-Dirt spent about $43,000 on hotels, dining and shopping over nine months - AND HE’S THE GOOD, RESPONSIBLE PARENT HERE! He’s out blowing money on strip club meals, where the food isn’t even edible, and yet he’s in need of child support payments from his ex-wife? What, did he take his kids with him to the strip club so they could eat? But he most egregious expense on K-Dirt’s ledger is the cash he wasted, er, spent trying to prop up his pathetic music career.  During the aforementioned time frame, K-Dirt spent $74,102 in “music production” expenses. But the best part is that for the same time frame, he raked in a whopping $9,849 in music-related income. Some quick math would tell us that for every $7.53 K-Dirt spent on his music, he earned $1. I’m not a certified accountant, but I will go on the record as saying that that is not a good return on investment.  That’s only slightly more productive than lighting your money on fire or using it to line the bottom of your bird’s cage. I’m not sure how these figures are supposed to help K-Dirt win custody of his kids, but to be fair he doesn’t need much proof other than the über-public meltdown of B. Spears. Best wishes for their two kids, I’m sure their decades in therapy will be a lot of fun.

 

- Who says polygamy is dead in America? Not Warren Jeffs, that’s for sure. You may know Jeffs as a polygamous religious leader who has been quite unpopular with the non-polygamous segments of our culture for his, um, perversion and unsavory corruption of young girls. Chief among those non-polygamous segments of this country are the law enforcement agencies in places Jeffs lives or has lived in the past. Count the police in Eldorado, Tex. as one of those groups not really on board with Mr. Jeffs and his act. State authorities took custody of at least 18 girls who had been living with Jeffs at a secretive religious compound near Eldorado. All told, 52 girls between the ages of 6 and 17 were put on buses and taken from the compound. Each girl was interviewed by the authorities, but contrary to what you might think, I’m glad I don’t know what was said in those interviews. I really am not down for hearing tales of sexual abuse and deviance, both of which most likely went on at that compound. When you have a polygamous leader and he’s got a lot of young girls sequestered like that, they aren’t playing hopscotch and playing with dolls, if you catch my drift. Warren Jeffs is a creep of the highest degree, so let’s all hope that the authorities in Texas are able to find crimes to pin on him that will send him to jail for a good, long time.

 

- On their own, Madonna and Justin Timberlake are forces for evil in the world of music on par with few we’ve ever seen. The Material Skank has been churning out crappy pop music for decades, an endless string of synthesized, dance-beat-laden, thematic garbage that could easily be used to torture terrorism suspects more effectively than waterboarding ever could. Timberlake has made a career out of frosting his tips and dancing in unison with four other dudes while wearing matching outfits. Actually, he stopped doing that a few years ago and began unapologetically ripping off that confirmed pedophile Michael Jackson’s act. Either way, he’s sounded like a weasel that’s just ingested an entire tank of helium for his entire career, either as a man bander or a solo hack, er, act. All of that being said, I’m not sure where I stand on JT and the Material Skank teaming up for a music video for the song “4 Minutes.” On one hand, combining two terrible artists into one video is guaranteed to produce an unwatchable piece of musical nuclear waste that could surpass anything Right Said Fred ever put out. On the other hand, if you are able to avoid ever having to see this video or hear the song, then this could turn into a tremendous positive. How? Look at it this way: if Timberlake and the MS were on their own, recording solo efforts, there would then be twice as much bad music coming from them. With the two of them together, that cuts the amount of horrible tunes in half. Ideally the FCC would condemn this entire project, seize and burn all copies of the video and song and we’d all pretend that it never happened, but in lieu of that I’ll settle for avoiding this thing like the plague.

 

- Welcome back to true piratey-ness, Somali pirates! If you remember back a couple of months, the pirates in Somalia were of particular concern to me because they were apparently going soft, surrendering, kowtowing to law enforcement and basically acting in very un-piratey fashion. If you’re going to call yourself a pirate, there had better be plenty of looting, pillaging, plundering and wenches in your daily schedule, no doubt about it. Thankfully, a group of pirates operating off the coast of Somalia have heeded my call and they’re looking to restore their kind’s flagging reputation. Best of all, they struck out at rich, privileged French people, which I love. Now attacking French people is a bit like lobbing medicine balls at a house made of wet toilet paper, but let’s look past that for now. These intrepid pirates seized control of a French luxury yacht on Friday, taking the 30-member crew hostage. Yes, the boat was big enough to have 30-member crew. If that isn’t the prime example of ostentatiousness and arrogance, I don’t know what is. You sail around a boat like that, you’re asking to be attacked by pirates. No sympathy for you, Frenchies. As for the Somali pirates, I salute you and I hope more Somali pirates show your intrepid, brave, entrepreneurial spirit…..

 

- With Greek once again the only show I have an interest in watching that is also airing new episodes this week, I can focus all of my attention on last night’s show. Thankfully it was a good episode, otherwise it would have been an abysmal week of TV that’s only just begun. This particular episode was all about challenges and rising above them, although it wasn’t as sappy as it sounds. Rusty found himself in a tough spot, on the outside looking in when it came to his pledge class at Kappa Tau. All of his fellow pledges had bonded together but he’d been left out because he was wrapped up in his drama with ex-girlfriend Jen K. and also because the other pledges perceived him as a teacher’s pet for frat president Cappie. When the pledges were assigned to come up with a special project designed to benefit the fraternity, the problems Rusty was having were exacerbated. The challenge for the project came from Cappie and an unexpected source….the mythical Egyptian Joe, inventor of Kappa Tau’s own mini volcano, Vesuvius. Egyptian Joe came back with words of wisdom to inspire the pledges, but as it turns out his words about unity and bonding weren’t really his own. Cappie asked him to talk about those things to inspire the pledges, but all they did was inspire the pledges to try and come up with the easiest possible project so they could be done with it. They built a lame tire swing that broke in its first use, leading to Cappie sending them back to the drawing board. Rusty wasn’t on board with any of the plan and wanted to design a Kappa Tau video game for the project, an idea that was rejected by his fellow pledges. When the tire swing failed, he sought advice from Egyptian Joe, who was temporarily living inside of Vesuvius, located in the Kappa Tau basement. While Egyptian Joe dispensed advice and made a grilled cheese sandwich using an iron, Rusty listened and was inspired to follow through on his video game idea. However, when he completed it and was ready to turn it in, his pledge brothers still wanted nothing to do with it. As they were about to walk out of the room, Rusty asked what he could do to be included as part of their group. hey all told him their beefs him and they then sat down and worked together for a truly great pledge project idea: Kappa Tau’s own brewery. The idea was a big hit with the brothers, even though the brewery isn’t exactly functional in terms of producing drinkable beer. Still, it allowed Rusty to get back in good with his fellow pledges, which is what he wanted all along. Over at the Zeta Beta house, life is still miserably Leave It to Beaver-like thanks to the annoying, wet-blanket Lizzie. The sorority’s national rep remains at the ZBZ house, enforcing rules to the letter and raining on everyone’s fun. Part of Lizzie’s reign of terror is shepherding the sisters into community service at the local animal shelter as part of national ZBZ Big Sister-Little Sister week. The “Littles” (pledges) got to spend much of the week with their “Bigs” (members), with Rusty’s sis Casey and nemesis Rebecca forced to hang out more than either would like. Things were further complicated when Cappie revealed to Casey that he and Rebecca are now dating. That lead to Casey “accidentally’ squirting Rebecca with a hose at the shelter, then asking a guy who works at the shelter out for ZBZ’s double-date night at the local bar, Dobler’s, as a way of dealing with her irritation over Cappie and Rebecca. Seeing them together still drove her crazy though, causing Casey to 1) get drunk, and 2) sleep with her date, which led to the horror of her waking up in his bed the following morning with his mom coming into the room and him revealing that he’s only 16 years old. Casey had her own walk of shame back to the ZBZ house, but later in the day she did another walk of shame for a meeting with Cappie at a local café. There, she tried to talk him out of dating Rebecca, but without success. Casey is forced to accept the pairing but she also threatens Rebecca that if she hurts Cappie, Casey will hurt her. Speaking of hurt….it is becoming painful to watch scenes with Clark Duke’s character, Dale in them. I hated it last season when the writers made Dale a one-dimensional, religious fanatic who basically embodied every negative stereotype people have about people who are religious. But that trend continues this season, this week in particular. Dale is set on “converting” Rusty’s homosexual buddy Calvin back to being straight, using all sorts of idiotic tactics and throwing around Bible verses in an attempt to “convert” Calvin. Calvin plays along, but only to prove a point to Dale that he believes being homosexual isn’t a choice. In the end, Dale agrees to accept that Calvin is gay and that he’s happy being that way. Next week should be a fun episode, if for no other reason than it’s going to involve lots of pranks between Kappa Tau and the pretentious Omega Chi fraternity, including but not limited to duct-taping guys to walls, water gun battles and letting farm animals loose in other people’s frat houses. It should be a good one, so don’t miss it….

I still hate Billy Packer, planes landing on freeways and an abundance of conspiracy theories

- Clearly there are a lot more conspiracies out there than I had previously believed to exist. Otherwise, how do you explain the fact that every time a well-known athlete, entertainer, executive or other public figure is caught in an embarrassing scandal, they point the finger at someone else for setting them up and insist that their own actions were not their fault? Count motor racing chief Max Mosley in that category of people who are victims of mysterious and amazing conspiracy theories. On Saturday, Mosley attempted to defend his involvement in a bizarre sex scandal involving five prostitutes, a torture chamber and Nazi-themed role playing by saying he was “the victim of a disgusting conspiracy.” According to Mosley, his actions were “harmless and completely legal.” Disgusting and morally bankrupt, too, but I’m nitpicking. The issue here isn’t whether you broke the law, my man. “Had I been caught driving excessively fast on a public road or over the alcohol limit [even in, say, Sweden where it is very low], I should have resigned the same day,” Mosley wrote. “As it is, a scandal paper obtained by illegal means pictures of something I did in private which, although unacceptable to some people, was harmless and completely legal.” Again, Max, the issue here isn’t how the pics were obtained or if what you did was legal. Those aren’t the criteria for you being fired, amigo. You embarrassed yourself and your organization by showing that you’re a degenerate freak with all sorts of freaky fetishes. It’s not just a few conservative prudes demanding that you resign, either. Formula One's German and Japanese carmakers and some national motorsport federations have called on him to step down. Germany's ADAC issued a statement on Friday advising Mosley “to carefully consider his position.” (Rough translation: Resign now, you sick freak.) But Mosley either doesn’t get it or he just refuses to admit the truth. “The offense seems to be not what I did but the fact that it became public," Mosley wrote in his letter. "But I played no role in this, indeed I did my utmost to ensure it remained private. I was the victim of a disgusting conspiracy. It goes without saying that the so-called Nazi element is pure fabrication. This will become crystal clear when the matter comes to trial. The newspaper invented this in order to spice up their story and introduce my family background. I don't think any of this should affect my work on motoring safety, the environment or the sport,” he continued. Right, other than everyone making jokes about you before you enter a room and after you leave, no one taking you seriously and everyone knowing F1 as the organization with a twisted freak who likes multi-hooker orgies with Nazi themes. You wanting these things to be true doesn’t make them true. There’s photographic evidence here, Max, and I don’t think this Nazi connotation is made up. Has it been magnified a little too much? Maybe. But let’s just say I wouldn’t want you as president of any organization I was a part of and I suspect most people would feel the same way. Spare yourself the time, expense and embarrassment and resign now, because you’re going to do it eventually.

- There are just some people you’re glad to not have living next door to you. Rosie O’Donnell, any current or former American Karaoke contestant, those types of individuals are the ones I’m talking about. Robert Bayliss of Viola, Wis. would also be one of those people, but for a slightly different reason. See, my man R. Bayliss had a bit of a problem with the police last week, which ordinarily wouldn’t be a problem for someone who despises authority figures and law enforcement as much as I do. But Robert Bayliss somehow managed to escalate matters, because when police showed up at his property, Bayliss didn’t just greet them with hostility and contempt. He also greeted them with gunfire. I probably should point out that Robert Bayliss has been known to have “strong anti-government attitudes” and makes no secret of his contempt for those leading our nation. In other words, he’s in the mold of the many separatist, militia groups out there who stockpile weapons, refuse to pay taxes and try to live on American soil without actually operating under the government that runs the United States of America. Unfortunately for Bayliss, he wasn’t nearly as well armed as the cops he engaged, because when he fired on them, they returned fire and dispersed tear gas. Advantage police. Bayliss was forced to surrender after a daylong standoff. Just be glad he doesn’t live in your neighborhood, folks…..

- Jack Bauer isn’t the only one who can land a plane on the freeway. After good ol’ J. Bauer did so in Season Six of 24, you may have thought there would be some imitators trying to mimic their favorite action hero, but alas those pesky FAA regulations and security measures have prevented much of anyone from duplicating the feat. That’s just part of what makes the actions of Matthew Edward Scott so amazing. Let’s start with the fact that Scott is a student pilot, so when his two-engine Cessna 150 ran out of gas while flying in the skies over Abingdon, Va., you had a relatively inexperienced pilot at the controls. The plane’s engines began sputtering and Scott was forced to make a quick decision on where to land. He chose Interstate 81, a highway in western Virginia, and brought his plane down successfully. Not only that, Scott landed right in the flow of traffic, pulled his plane over to the side of the road and called for help. No word on whether some ass-hat cop gave him a ticket for speeding when he touched down, but much respect to this guy for staying cool under pressure and diffusing what could have been a dangerous, deadly situation. Whomever gives out certifications for pilots in the state of Virginia, I think you can go ahead and allow Matthew Edward Scott to bypass any remaining prerequisites to get his license and award it to him right now.

- Why do I hate Billy Packer so much? In short, he’s a pompous, curmudgeon-y ass whose bitterness, grumpiness and bitterness seep through every freaking college basketball broadcast he does. He makes proclamations and decrees like he’s the f’ing emperor of college basketball and never, ever, ever attempts to be funny, entertaining or engaging to the audience. You’re not smarter than I am, Billy, so stop acting like it. A prime example of Emperor Packer’s condescension came Saturday night during the North Carolina-Kansas national semifinal game in San Antonio. Kansas was putting on an absolute clinic, leading by a whopping 38-12 margin just past the midway point of the first half. They were playing well, but with more than half of the game remaining, things were far from over….or were they? According to the Emperor, the game was over right then and there. In the end, Kansas did win, but the game was anything but over. North Carolina rallied in the second half, which is an all-but-guaranteed phenomenon in any basketball game featuring two reasonably competent teams. Many games, one team jumps out to a big lead and the other team always makes a rally, sometimes successful, sometimes not. Ultimately North Carolina fell to Kansas, but not before closing to 69-64 late in the game. An unapologetic Packer simply said North Carolina had made a nice rally, refusing to admit he’d been dead wrong by counting them out of it so early. I’m sure the producers were thrilled to hear him make that proclamation too, because that’s what you want in a massive, high-profile game, to have your announcer declare that it’s over in the first half. And exactly zero credit to Packer’s partner, Jim Nantz, for not having the testicular fortitude to call Packer out for his ludicrous statement. All Nantz could muster was, “Really.” Thanks for that, Jimbo. So I continue my campaign to convince the suits at CBS to quit sticking us with the running nightmare that is Billy Packer doing the Final Four every year. Pick Gus Johnson, Bill Raftery, Verne Lundquist…all great announcer who just happen to work for CBS. Just give Emperor Packer the heave-ho before I’m forced to storm press row at next year’s Final Four and take care of the Emperor myself….

- Know when a band really warms the hearts of music fans and makes us all feed good about the music they put out? When members of that band are still b*tch-fighting over song royalties nearly 40 years after the fact, that’s when. British band Procol Harem, a group most of us have never heard of because they broke up in the early 1970s, wrote one particular song that is still remember today, mostly because of it’s unique title A Whiter Shade of Pale. The song is big with oldies fans, so the record it appears on has sold more than 10 million copies. Of course, that has members of the band seeing one color: green. The band’s front man, Gary Brooker, has appealed a lower court ruling awarding 40 percent of the millions of dollars in royalties from the song to the band’s former organist (and what great rock band doesn’t have an organist in its lineup?) Matthew Fisher, who quit the group in 1969 and is now a computer programmer. Britain’s Court of Appeal agreed that Fisher should be granted co-authorship of the song, but also decided that he had exercised “excessive and inexcusable delay in asserting his claim” to a part of the royalties. Fisher filed suit last year, nearly 40 years after A Whiter Shade of Pale was recorded in 1969. Call me pessimistic, but I don’t see a Procol Harem reunion tour in the works any time soon.

Help for stoners, a spousal sex scandal and two awful new entertainment projects

- Stoners take heed: your ability to outrun the cops is significantly impaired when you’re so baked that you can’t even keep your eyes open. Cleveland Browns cornerback Kenny Wright found that out the hard way in Pearland, Tex. on Wednesday night. Wright was dumb enough to get into a fight in a police station parking lot and when the cops stepped outside for one of their easiest arrests in a long time, they found the argument taking in the station parking lot involving the 30-year-old football player and another man. At that point, Wright decided that it would be a good idea to try and run from the cops. It’s pretty much a 101 out of 100 thing that fleeing the cops on foot is a bad idea, mostly because they have cars, motorcycles, radios, traffic cameras, etc. to use in tracking fleeing criminals. There are lots of them, only one of you. However, Wright further lowered his odds for success by taking flight while stoned, meaning that it took officers only a few hundred yards to track him down and fell him with a horse collar tackle. They may be illegal in the NFL, but clearly not in Pearland. Kenny Wright may run a 4.5 40-yard dash, but he couldn’t elude the doughnut-loving, love-handled men in blue in this tiny Texas town. He was caught in a nearby subdivision of the Houston suburb in no time flat. On one hand, you can’t be too critical of Wright fleeing the cops because he was definitely high. Just look at his mug shot and you’ll see that he couldn’t even keep his eyes open. It’s one of the worst mug shots I’ve ever seen, a slam-dunk piece of proof that he’s guilty of exactly what he’s been charged with. Show that thing to a judge or jury and you won't need to waste time on a trial. On the other hand, even a stoner should be able to figure out that trying to outrun the cops when you’re on foot and they have access to cars, radio and weapons if need be is a bad idea. Keep this up and you could be the next Pacman Jones or Chris Henry in no time. Wright has been released from jail after posting $5,000 bail and has been charged with unlawful restraint, evading arrest and possessing marijuana. The lesson here, as always, if you have to get baked, make sure you aren’t hanging out in police station parking lot when you’re high.

 

- In the recent surge of politicians and executives being caught in sex scandals, one group in particular has been left out: spouses. While shamed, disgraced, high-profile politicians and execs have stood at podiums and confessed their indiscretions to the world, their spouses have been compelled to stand dutifully at their sides, watching as the person they promised to love, honor and cherish ‘til death admit that they’ve been getting after it with prostitutes, interns, etc., but no more. The spouses are taking a stand and they’re being led by Thomas Athans, wife of U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich. Athans, co-founder of the liberal TalkUSA Radio network, has taken a stand for spouses of public figures everywhere by engaging in a hooker-related sex scandal of his own. Athans didn’t exactly do so willingly, at least not the part of the equation where his hooker banging became public. He did willingly solicit a prostitute, as he admitted to police running a sting operation at a hotel in Troy, Mich. When he showed up to hit it with a lady of the night, the cops stopped him and he admitted to using the Internet to arrange a $150 session with Cinnamon, Ginger, Sadie or whatever the hooker’s name was. Clearly he’s not playing in the same ballpark at Eliot Spitzer, who shelled out $1,000 for the petite, brunette skank of his choice, but that doesn’t make Athans any less of a scumbag. Of course, he has shown that it’s not just the famous part of a power couple that can show terrible judgment and start a sex scandal. So despite you being an admitted adulterer and john, props for striking a blow for spouses of public figures everywhere, Tom.

 

- Memo to the creators of two upcoming entertainment entities: if your new project causes shudders of horror and revulsion just from viewing previews of your project, that’s a bad sign. If you’ve been paying any attention to your TV at all, you know the two new projects I’m talking about: the movie Baby Mama with Tina Fey and Amy Pohler, and the new CW reality hack job Farmer Wants a Wife.  It’s hard to say which of these two repulse me more, but right now I’m going with Baby Mama. Maybe the success of Will Ferrell movies has deluded other Saturday Night Live alums into thinking that they too should make feature films, but movies like Tim Meadows’ Ladies Man and pretty much any movie Jimmy Fallon has ever made should convince them otherwise. Yet here we have Fey and Pohler, foisting a lame, unfunny comedy on us about a woman who has to turn to a surrogate mother to carry her baby. Pohler would be that surrogate mom, and just from seeing the previews of the movie, which should theoretically be the best parts in order to interest potential viewers, the comedy in this train wreck is anything but comedic. Scenes that are supposed to be funny just fall flat because they’re so juvenile and poorly written, and those are the scenes the movie’s producers and execs want you to see so that you’ll be interested enough to buy a ticket to see the whole thing. As for Farmer Wants a Wife….even though this show is going to unequivocally blow, it’s a reality TV show so you expect a crappy network like the CW to come up with a show like this. Memo to CW execs: putting together ten skanks with bleached blond hair, nice racks and an IQ of approximately 80 and mixing in some marginally attractive dude that they’re supposed to fight over doesn’t mean you’ve come up with a great new idea for a show. What it means is that you’re an unoriginal, unimaginative bunch of tools who are looking for a space filler in your spring schedule. I no more want to see ten aspiring actresses, er, candidates for the affection of a “farmer” in various farm-themed challenges than I want to watch a wretched, half-baked “comedy” by two subpar actresses/Saturday Night Live alums. Everyone involved with both of these projects should be absolutely ashamed of themselves, no questions asked.

 

- Still doubting the low level of intelligence from the bulk of American Internet users? Allow me to present a figure provided by the FBI for the 2007 calendar year as further evidence that there are just a lot of morons out there on the ‘Net. A new report released by our very own FBI reveals that a record-high $240 million was lost in Internet crimes last year. The report states that although the actual number of scams dropped from previous years, the total money lost from those scams went up by nearly $40 million. So if the cadre of nitwits bumping around MySpace wasn’t enough to convince you that some of our dimmest and dumbest are online, this new statistic should push you over the edge. What I really want to know from the FBI is how much of that $240 million was lost in schemes involving a royal fortune inherited by an African prince who needs your help in the form of a $5,000 payment before he can access this multi-million-dollar inheritance that he will then share with those who help him. Take a good, hard look in the mirror, America, and if you’re one of the people who contributed to the $240 million lost in Internet scams in 2007, consider expatriating yourself and moving to Canada.

 

- Here’s hoping that rumors of contract talks between concert promoter Live Nation Inc. and rap legend/business mogul/NBA owner Jay-Z are true. One of the absolute icons of the hip-hop world, Jay-Z has bounced back and forth between retirement in recent years, but according to confidential sources, he’s negotiating with Live Nation on a deal in the range of 10 years and $150 million. The deal would reportedly give Live Nation a stake in nearly every aspect of Jigga’s career and cover three albums, which would be a great thing for hip-hop fans and for the music world as a whole. Terms of the potential deal are alleged to include $25 million up front, $25 million in advance for concert expenses and $10 million for each of at least three albums. In other words, another decade of tours and albums from Jay-Z, is that any good? I thought so. The deal may also have a provision whereby Live Nation would put up $50 million for a joint venture with Jay-Z called Roc Nation that would have the rapper signing artists and taking part in other entertainment projects. On top of all of this, Jay-Z (real name Sean Carter) still owns his own record label, Def Jam. For a guy who already lives a life of luxury and riches, who is reportedly on the verge of marrying Beyonce Knowles, life is about to get even better for Jay-Z, proving that the rich really do get richer.

Smallville news, lower Army standards and unique MLB happenings

- Now this is rich. The Chinese government is now grasping for straws in their pathetic effort to justify their continued oppression of Tibet. Their new lie, er, reasoning is based on the fact that they allegedly searched monasteries in Tibet’s capital city of Lhasa and found weapons. “As a result, they have branded the Dalai Lama “a wolf in monks clothing” and have accused the D. Lama and his followers of plotting suicide attacks against Chinese interests. Wu Heiping, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Public Security, used made-up facts and figures which show a stockpile consisting of 176 guns, 13,013 bullets, 7.725 pounds of explosives, 19,000 sticks of dynamite and 350 knives. Nice try, China. You were actually doing well on those first two figures, ending them in odd, unusual numbers, making it look like they were actual legit tallies. But those last three, ending them on much more traditional, round numbers like 5 and 0, that doesn’t work. It just look like you got lazy and jotted down the first number that came to mind. The Dalai Lama has continually opposed using violence in the resistance movement and as much as I wish he felt otherwise, I believe the man. Besides, there are two possible explanations here and neither of them favor the Chinese. One explanation is just as I’ve said, that this story is a total fabrication by the Chinese designed to bolster their own unjustified case against Tibet. A second possible elucidation is that there really were weapons in those monasteries and someone is planning attacks on the Chinese. If that’s true, then allow me to be the first to say that those attacks would be totally, 100 percent justified. The Chinese are a bunch of repressive, overbearing Communist douche bags and if Tibetans chose to attack them, the world would do well to stand up and applaud. So sorry, China, but there’s no way you win this battle, suckers….

 

- Thursday morning rolled in with a unique feat in Major League Baseball that likely won't ever happen again. Both the Washington Nationals and Kansas City Royals, two of MLB’s lowliest franchises, began the day undefeated and in first place in their respective divisions, the NL East and AL Central. The last time either of these teams finished higher than fourth in their division, the Nationals were still the Montreal Expos and the Royals were still playing on their nasty old Astroturf surface in their home stadium. So even though it’s early and the Nats are just 3-0, with the Royals 2-0, the optimistic among us can’t help but hope that this strong start will signal a better season for fans of these two downtrodden teams. Of course, by the end of the day on Friday, the Nats had suffered their first loss, albeit an 8-7, 10-inning loss in Philadelphia. Still, they ended the day in first place and the Royals won their game to move to 3-0, still atop the AL Central. Of course, the Royals built their now 3-0 start on the backs of the suddenly frazzled Detroit Tigers, a team that spent buttloads of cash in the offseason bringing in big-name players like Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera but were swept at home by the Royals, the AL Central’s perennial doormat. Worse yet, Cabrera missed the final game of the series with a leg injury and slugger Gary Sheffield left the game in the eighth inning with a torn tendon in his finger. In the span of three games, the Tigers managed as bad a start to their season as you can possibly have within the context of a single series. That horrible start continued Friday as the mediocre Chicago White Sox came into Detroit and handed the Tigers an 8-5 loss to drop the Motor City Kitties to 0-4. Four games in, already 3½ games behind Kansas City. Those big offseason acquisitions aren’t looking too good thus far, Detroit, but I can't say I feel bad for you.

 

- There’s good news and bad new abounding for Smallville fans like myself. We recently learned that the Superman-themed show about the early life of Clark Kent will be back for an eighth season, but yesterday we also learned that Smallville creators Al Gough and Miles Millar have announced their exit from the series, effective at the end of this season. In an open letter, the two outgoing executive producers reflected on their "seven amazing years,” and also "look back knowing that the show will continue into Season 8 without us.” I definitely extend a big thank you to both men, but I can’t say I’m too heartbroken about this one. In an era when TV shows are jerked around by networks, actors come and go all the time and shows are canceled inexplicably, two well-paid execs deciding to leave a show just isn’t a reason for concern. Other show execs, including executive producers Darren Swimmer, Todd Slavkin, Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson will guide the show next season, so familiar faces will be on hand. The show shouldn’t veer too much off course, so if you watched and hadn’t been told about the change at the top, it really wouldn’t have made much of a difference. Millar and Gough also praised the CW series' "remarkable" production team and "a wonderful cast who we have watched mature with admiration and affection," the duo say. "We have been rewarded with a fan base that is as loyal as it is vocal. We are incredibly proud of our work on this show. We achieved what we set out to do. We never compromised our vision. We leave knowing that Smallville is the longest-running comic-book-based series of all time [and] was featured on the covers of Rolling Stone, MAD Magazine, TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly. The pilot had the highest-rated premiere in the history of the WB [where it originated]. Even in its seventh year, it is still the No. 1 scripted show on the network." Some TV pundits and critics are debating what brought on Gough and Millar's abrupt exodus, but their letter offers no details. Honestly, as a fan of the show it doesn’t matter to me. What does matter is that Kristin Kreuk (the prettiest girl on TV if you ask me) and Michael Rosenbaum are going to be available for only small parts of the season. That will affect fans more than two EP’s leaving, so I wish Gough and Millar well but the ‘Ville will be fine without them.

 

- B.O. is gaining momentum in Pennsylvania, with my main man Barack Obama having nearly sliced Hank Clinton’s lead in the polls in half since mid-February. Not only that, but on Wednesday Obama gained the endorsement of two Democratic superdelegates and an affiliate of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal employees. Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal and former Montana Sen. John Melcher are the superdelegates jumping aboard the B.O. Express and I wholeheartedly welcome them onto the train. Pennsylvania’s primary is still more than two weeks off (April 22), so there is time for Obama to close the gap even more. It is key to remember that although a win in the state would be nice, Obama doesn’t need it to secure the nomination. He has enough of a lead that merely making things close in the Keystone State will be a major blow to Hank and thus a huge victory for all Americans. On behalf of all Americans, I thusly want to urge all Pennsylvanians to make sure they are registered to vote and that they vote for America on April 22 by choosing Barack Obama. Actually, it’s not so much choosing Obama that’s vital as it is not choosing Hank Clinton. Vote early, often and emphatically, Pa. residents. You have an important task here, so don’t find a way to f’up like voters in Ohio did last month.

 

- It had been my understanding that the new, more relaxed standards for acceptance in the U.S. Army had only been in effect for a few years. I’m going to have to do some research on that topic now in light of the case of Kevin Christopher Brown, an Army vet who decided that it would be a good idea to pack his suitcase full of materials to make a pipe bomb as he prepared to fly back to Jamaica from Orlando. According to Brown, he had served in Iraq and seen similar bombs made there, so he wanted to show his friends back home how to construct their very own pipe bomb. Right, because when you haven’t seen friends for a long time, what do you want more than to spend time together, crafting homemade incendiary devices? Whatever happened to catching up, shooting pool, having a beer and watching a game on TV? And oh, by the way, who the heck thinks they’re sneaking pipe bomb-building materials through airport security at a major airport like Orlando International Airport? Police are now looking into Brown’s claims of having served in Iraq as well as his mental health. I have to agree with the latter, largely because you have to be totally insane or just a complete moron to think you’re going to take bomb-building materials with you on a plane. Not since MIT student Star Simpson was arrested last year at Boston’s Logan International Airport after walking into the airport wearing a computer circuit board and wiring on her sweatshirt as an alleged fashion statement that authorities believed to be a bomb has someone been so clueless about airport security. I really feel good about the safety and security of America when we have people like Kevin Christopher Brown defending it, don’t you? Someone? Anyone?

Three athlete felonies, W. tramples the law and cocaine is a tough business

- I owe and apology to Adam “Pacman” Jones. I’ve been adamant for a long time that this guy is the single biggest moron in the National Football League, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe that title should be bestowed by now-former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry. You may remember that Henry was suspended without pay by the NFL for the first half of last season because of repeated run-ins with the law that had resulted in not one, not two, but four arrested during his three-year pro career. Henry was reinstated at midseason and almost immediately found himself in a small altercation with a parking lot attendant over and unpaid parking fee. No charges were filed and Henry tried to say all the right things about straightening his life out. Following his NFL suspension, Henry caught 21 passes for 343 yards and two touchdowns. Then the off-season came….and Henry revealed once again just how stupid he is. He has been accused of punching an 18-year-old man in the face and breaking his car window with a beer bottle, according to court documents filed Wednesday. The arrested took place Monday night and resulted in Henry, 24,being charged with misdemeanor assault and criminal damaging. The Bengals wasted no time in breaking him off, releasing him with a simple, terse statement declaring their efforts to help him become a productive, non-felonious member of society over. This isn’t Henry’s only legal trouble this offseason either. He was in court just last week after being ticketed for driving with expired Kentucky license plates and paid a $149 fine. According to an affidavit filed in Hamilton County, Henry was identified by Gregory Meyer, whose hometown was not listed, and an eyewitness. The eyewitness claimed Henry punched Meyer, causing "visible injury." Henry then threw a beer bottle at Meyer's car, breaking the rear passenger window, according to the affidavit. So let me get this straight, Chris: you’re on thin ice with the NFL and your team. You’ve been arrested four times and have spent more time at the police station than most of the cops who work there and you decide that the best way to spend your free time is getting into a bar brawl? My man, I don’t care if some dude spits in your face, cracks you over the head with a beer mug, blasts you in the package and gropes your girlfriend, you CANNOT react violently. As hard as it might for you (and clearly it’s a Herculean task for my boy C. Henry), you have to stay down. You can go to bars and clubs, but you have to do so with the realization that you’re putting yourself in a near-impossible situation. Odds are some sort of hostilities are going to happen at any bar or club, but you can't be part of them. See, this is why I don’t get at all the outrage people have about the photos of Matt Leinart having the beer-bong party at his house and hot-tubbing with some hot girls there. He’s at home, he’s not out in a club and he’s not putting himself in the same dangerous environment as tools like Henry. But I digress….back to Henry. He’s now without a team and likely facing another suspension from the NFL. If he’s actually convicted or pleads guilty to these new charges, commissioner Roger Goodell will probably drop a one-year suspension on him. Yes, Henry is a talented athlete and a big-play receiver, but don’t mistake him for Jerry Rice. He’s not a hall of famer, not even close. All I can figure is that Henry is sporting an IQ in Brick Tambland range, 48 or so, and is just too stupid to realize what he’s doing. Nice going, Chris, you really do deserve whatever you can get. I do wonder how you managed to break a car window with a beer bottle, though….pretty impressive.

- Prepare to be stunned, shocked and amazed, America. The W. administration, which has trampled the Constitution like no administration before it and pissed on more legal standards than anyone ever thought possible, is going to say “F**k you” to more than 30 laws and regulations all at once so it can forcibly finish its pet project of building 670 miles of fence along the southwest U.S. border by the end of 2008 so we can keep those pesky Mexicans out of our country. By cashing in two legal waivers passed by Congress, W. and his cadre of tools he calls advisors will be able to disregard all kinds of environmental laws designed to prevent the federal government or anyone else from totally f’ing up the environment and ecosystem in the name of some construction project. The fence will run along a portion of the border spanning California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Can’t say this is at all surprising, given that this administration has basically used the Constitution as toilet paper its entire time on office. Go out the way you’ve gone all along, eh idiots? How long until we can choose between Barack Obama and John McCain to replace the worst president in the history of this country?

- What to do on spring break if you’re a spoiled rich kid….what to do, what to do. Oooh, I know….a trip to Cabo! That’s a good spot for the privileged and wealthy to spend their break, right? But Cabo is getting a little clichéd, maybe not as fresh as it once was before it became an “it” place to go. So you need something to mix it up while you’re there, to make your spring break different than those of your fellow rich kids so you can have some good stories to tell once you get home. What to do…let’s see if Portland State University basketball players Jeremiah Dominguez and Scott Morrison can help us out. These two were on a spring break trip in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico when they hit a local bar and things got out of hand. Next thing you know, a guy named Kyle Meagher is laying in the hospital in serious condition after getting the crap kicked out of him and a witness is claiming that Dominguez and Morrison were overheard bragging about the fight by a witness in another bar the following night. Dominguez and Morrison are going w. the always-popular “we were set up” card, but Meagher's brother Dan told TV station KGW a different story on Wednesday. “Dominguez and Morrison were starting a fight,” after being denied entry to a club VIP room, Dan Meagher said. “Kyle said he was trying to break it up when he got struck.” Meagher, a community college student in Lansing, said he didn't have a chance to identify his assailants. He told police from his hospital bed in Cabo San Lucas that the only thing he remembers is being hit and then he lost consciousness. Dr. Alejandro Rojas, general manager of the Balboa World Class Clinic, a hospital where Meagher was taken, told KGW Meagher's jaw “was in multiple pieces” and doctors had to put eight screws and two titanium plates into his jaw. I have to say, I hope this isn’t true. I know athletes - even college athletes - like to think they’re the sh*t and that they’re entitled to special treatment, i.e. VIP rooms at clubs, but you can’t go from being denied entry to a VIP room to administering a violent beating that shattered a young man's jaw, period. Sadly, Meagher has decided not to press charges, a U.S. consular official in Tijuana said Wednesday. Dominguez and Morrison were set free late Tuesday night from the city jail in the Cabo after Meagher decided not to press charges. What’s funny about this is that the two PSU players have not only maintained their innocence, but they’re claiming that they were framed. “In brief conversations that the Athletics Department has had with Scott and Jeremiah, they have maintained their innocence," a statement from the PSU coach said. “However, there is cause to believe that the two student-athletes have acted outside the reasonable standards of behavior established by our athletics program and are therefore suspended at this time.” According to consulate spokesman Charles Smith, under Mexican law, since the aggrieved party didn't press charges, the two had to be released and that they were free to leave Mexico. Dominguez has headed home to Portland and Morrison to his home in Canada, with Portland State University officials saying the two would be suspended indefinitely during the investigation. They are still facing some charges from the incident, with Dominguez accused of resisting arrest when Mexican police responded to the fight. “Dominguez was the not the one who beat him up but he ran away from police and that's what got him in trouble ... Police threw him on the ground and punched him because he resisted arrest,” Lorena Blanco, a spokeswoman for the consulate told The Associated Press. Now that, my friends, is a good spring break story. Denied access to a VIP room, beat the sh*t out of some random dude who got in the way, tried to flee from the cops, got arrested, spent a night in jail and ended up being released when dude you assaulted didn’t press charges. See, now if you could guarantee me that kind of fun, memorable experience on a trip to Cabo, maybe I’d be more interested in visiting.

-Pimpin’ ain’t easy and clearly, being a drug kingpin ain’t easy either. Governments in a lot of countries seem very set on hunting down, prosecuting and jailing those who grow, harvest, process, ship or sell drugs of all shapes and sizes. A couple of weeks ago, Nicaraguan drug smuggles were forced to dump 3,300 pounds of cocaine overboard and into the waters of the Caribbean as they were being chased by the U.S. Coast Guard. Now, a Brazilian court has sentenced Juan Carlos Ramirez Albadia, the alleged leader of a Colombian drug cartel that has shipped hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States, to 30 years in jail for crimes committed on Brazilian soil. Great, just great. Another week, another horrific blow to the cocaine industry. Where do you all think we’re going to get our coke when you throw the leaders of drug cartels in jail and are running smugglers ragged on the high seas to the point that they have to dump their cargo in order to escape? Honestly, it’s like governments all around the world just don’t care about the well-being of the coke heads in their respective nations. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think these governments didn’t like the idea of their citizens being addicted to one of the most dangerous drugs in the world….

- If you’re at all squeamish or tend to be grossed out by really nasty, perverted stuff, go ahead and skip this next story. It involves a Penn State men’s basketball player who I suspect is mentally ill and suffering from some weird psychological problems, given what Penn State Police have charged him with. Police confirmed that they have filed charges against Nittany Lions basketball player Stanley Pringle in an incident involving public masturbation that occurred last Thursday in Pattee Library on the school’s State College, Pa. campus. According to a police report, Pringle, the team's point guard, sat behind the victim in the stacks section of the library, then attempted to start a conversation with the woman. Next comes the truly disgusting part of the situation….after beginning the conversation, Pringle allegedly began masturbating. I don’t know and don’t want to know how or why he went from talking to this woman to servicing himself in public, it’s just disturbing. Anyone who engages in that kind of activity in public clearly has something wrong with them mentally. That’s not even something you’d do on a dare from your boys; it’s just too bizarre, nasty and repulsive. Police have filed charges of public lewdness and disorderly conduct against him in connection to the incident, but because Centre County District Judge Jonathan Grine was out of the office, he was unable to sign the criminal complaint and as a result, Pringle was not immediately arrested. What makes this even more disturbing is that it may not have been the first time Pringle committed this sort of act. A similar incident occurred on March 21 on the PSU campus on the second-floor landing of McElwain Hall's main stairwell between 8 and 8:15 p.m, when police said a man entered the building behind the woman, followed her to the stairwell landing and began to masturbate. The physical description of the suspect given to police was similar in both situations, but no charges have been filed for the McElwain Hall incident. Honestly, I’m not going to reach for something clever, quippy or funny to say about this, I just can’t. Pringle or whoever the creep is committing these crimes needs help, a lot of counseling and probably medication. Let’s just hope this is the last time we hear about this kind of incident on the PSU campus, or any other campus for that matter…..

'Roids gone really bad, a dishonorable honor code and a Nazi-themed sex scandal

- As it turns out, there literally isn’t a single good thing in the world that you can’t get too much of. Even the will to win can be dangerous when taken to the extreme, as evidenced by the plight of former U.S. Olympic cyclist Tammy Thomas. This chick, and I use the term chick in the most liberal sense, damn near turned herself into a dude in order to satisfy her insatiable thirst to be the best in her/his sport. About six years ago, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency was becoming suspicious of Thomas for using steroids, mostly because she had strangely began to resemble a burly middle linebacker more than she resembled a sleek, svelte female cyclist. Seriously, if you Google pictures of Thomas in competition, her biceps muscles are bigger than most guys’ necks. When a U.S.A.D.A. investigator paid Thomas a visit at her/his home in 2002, the investigator was on the receiving end of a revolting image that I doubt he’s been able to erase from his mind yet. Thomas answered the door in the midst of a shave - of her face. Yup, T. Thomas was busy shaving her goatee when the investigator knocked on her door. Right, because that’s normal. No one would suspect a woman of doping and using scores of illegal steroids when she’s rocking a goatee, chest hair and sporting a deep, husky, mannish voice. Hard to argue that you’re not juicing when you’re a woman exhibiting male physical traits that miraculously appeared when you were already an adult. Stories like this one are truly disturbing because you wonder how the pressure to succeed in any sport, let alone a peripheral one like cycling, can be so intense as to drive a woman to literally wreck her body and start to look like a man in order to win. Chris Evert was a great female tennis player and she had a legendary will to win, but I don’t ever remember her showing up for a match with a soul patch and speaking in a deep baritone. Take a long, hard look at your life and see if maybe you don’t want to make a few chances, Tammy Thomas. The federal perjury charges you’re currently facing should be the least of your worries, given the long-term effects your mountains of ‘roids are going to have on your body.

 

- San Antonio, Texas: Irony lives here. Students at the University of Texas at San Antonio will be providing today’s helping of ironic goodness and clearly they’ve been buying in bulk. A group of students at the school was charged with creating an honor code for the entire student body designed to address issues such as cheating, plagiarism and other topics relating to integrity and honesty. The end result was, um, not exactly honorable. In seeking to create an honor code to discourage cheating and plagiarism, the students writing said code decided that the best course was to blatantly plagiarize the honor code from another school and attempt to pass it off as their own. A quick Google search turned up a solid choice for the rip-off and the students of UTSA seized the day without giving proper credit to their source material. Amazingly, these Mensas didn’t even alter their copied honor code enough to throw school officials off their tracks and eventually their dishonest deed was discovered. Perhaps they were trying to prove a point, using irony to show how prevalent cheating and plagiarism are on college campuses nowadays and how easy the Internet has made it to commit such acts in relative anonymity. Either that or these students are a lazy bunch of slugs who wanted to hurry up and get this project done so they could hit the beer bong and get to working on their keg stands. In another heavy dose of irony, these tools may have the chance to become the first ones disciplined under the new, non-plagiarized honor code that someone else, someone with actual honor, integrity and intelligence comes up with…..

 

- Speaking of fraud and dishonesty…how does a $350 million international fraud scam sound to you? Great, right? Domestic fraud scams are just so tired, but an international one adds flavor to the situation. Lehman Brothers, an American investment firm, is alleging just that kind of international scam-ifcation, fingering LLT Bio-Pharma, a Japanese company that received said $350 million from Lehman Bros. in the form of a loan. LLT Bio-Pharma received more than a third of a million dollars in loans, then turned around and filed for bankruptcy, leaving investors stuck with millions of dollars in outstanding loans (not quite as outstanding as they used to be…BA-dum-CHEE!). Apparently trying to defraud a company out of that kind of money doesn’t make them very happy, because Lehman Brothers is looking to sue LLT Bio-Pharma for hundreds of millions of dollars. Oops! If you really want to boil this down, it’s a situation many of us have been in before. In place of a Japanese trading company, simply insert the name of that one friend who’s always asking you to float them a small loan because they’re short on cash. When you finally do give them money, you never hear from them again and they don’t return your phone calls. LLT Bio-Pharma is that needy friend and Lehman Brothers is you when you give them money. Unfortunately for LLT Bio-Pharma, changing their phone number and getting a new apartment isn’t going to get them out of this one, nor can they pawn their furniture or a family heirloom for the cash to pay off what they borrowed. Better fortune next time, boys….

 

- Nobody loves a good theme party more than me. You find a good theme, not a lame, clichéd one, you’ve got yourself a great party. Dress up like characters from the ‘50s or a Quentin Tarrantino movie, whatever, it’s all good. However, the “Nazi concentration camp” theme is not among the acceptable choices, even if your “party” is really a sadomasochistic sex romp with five hookers. Because let’s face it, one, two, three or even four hookers is all right, but when you have five, that’s just tacky. So it pains me that I have to rip on Max Mosley, the British head of Formula One racing, for his creepy fetishes and sexual freakery. See, Mosley, whose father, Sir Oswald Mosley, was the founder of the British Union of Fascists and a friend of Adolf Hitler, was apparently caught on video with five women in an underground torture chamber engaging in Nazi-inspired sadomasochistic sex. Yes, the 67-year-old debonair lawyer is reported to have paid about $5,000 to play both guard and inmate in a Nazi-themed concentration camp scene. In the video, when the man believed to be Mosley enters the room, he’s greeted by a busty blond woman dressed as a prison guard who inspects his head for lice, strips off his clothes, bends him over and whips his bottom, while saying, “He's serving a life sentence now for crimes he committed before.” But does it end there? Oh no, that would be too tame and boring. After being whipped by a dominatrix, the man then dresses and speaks German with a woman in a Nazi uniform, helping her beat women dressed as prisoners. Later, he has sex with several of the women. Right, because who doesn’t have sex with women after beating them like prisoners of war? So now is it over? Of course not. After being whipped, beating women and hitting it with those same women, Mosley shares a cup of tea with the women afterward. That might actually be the most disturbing part of it, because while a lot of guys have sex with prostitutes, I’ve never heard of a john sitting down for a spot of team with those same hookers. Oddly, this development isn’t playing too well with many of the drivers in Formula One or with Jewish groups. Several F1 drivers and Jewish leaders have called for Mosley to resign as president of Federation International de l'Automobile. “I don't see how he can continue," former Formula One racing champion Stirling Moss said in an interview. “I suppose what goes on behind closed doors is his business, but when a thing comes out like this … it's an absolute shocker.” Either a shocker or the most disgusting mental image you can possibly have, one or the other. You never want to be the kind of person who restricts the freedom of others to pursue whatever may make them happy in life (provided it’s not harmful or detrimental to others), but this is a time when I’m making an exception. Dudes who are 67 years old and the president of major international organizations should not be taking part in Nazi-themed sadomasochistic orgies. That’s just a right you forfeit by calling yourself a human being, Max Mosley. But if you really are going to participate in those freak sessions, do yourself and the rest of us a favor and make sure the session isn’t caught on tape…..

 

- A duel on the high seas has ratcheted up the battle between Canada and the United States. Ok, so there’s really not a U.S.-Canada battle going on, but there is a showdown between the Canadian government and environmental activist groups looking to stand up against Canada’s annual seal hunt. A Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker literally had a run-in with a ship owned by the U.S.-based conservation group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. The two sides are offering different stories about the collision, but what is known is that the two boats made contact with each other in the waters off of Canada’s east coast. A spokesman for Canada’s Fisheries Department claimed that the two vessels “grazed” twice, both times after the ship owned by the environmentalists initiated the contact. Predictably, the tree huggers are contending that the coast guard icebreaker rammed their vessel twice in waters about 40 miles north of Cape Breton. On one hand, you have to admire the chutzpah of the environmentalists, taking on a much larger vessel, but it’s impossible to say exactly what happened unless you were there. I do have to agree, though, that hunting seals is barbaric and detestable, so props to the Sea Shepherd’s Conservation Society for standing up against it. What are Canadians doing out hunting seals anyhow? Isn’t the NHL season still going on? Doesn’t that mean you Canucks should all be glued to your TVs, watching toothless dudes on skates chase a tiny rubber puck around a frozen pond? Or maybe you all ran out of round bacon and need something to eat? Either way, lay off the seals, Canada.

Tough monks, why April Fool's Day sucks and so do the Kansas City Chiefs

- It wasn’t the resolution I was hoping for as the NFL considered a moronic rule change proposal to restrict the length of hair players are allowed to wear, but it’s better than said rule being adopted right now. At the NFL owners’ meetings in Palm Beach, Fla., the terrible proposal by the Kansas City Chiefs calling for all players to tuck or cut long hair so it doesn't hang below the nameplate on their uniform was tabled until the next NFL owners meeting in May. The rule is pathetic and a shameless attempt by the Chiefs to gain retribution for a personal foul penalty called against Chiefs’ running back Larry Johnson for a by-the-hair tackle of long-locked Pittsburgh safety Troy Polamalu back in 2006. By delaying a vote on the issue, the league will give the NFL Players Association, which has rightly vowed to fight the rule, a chance to speak out on the issue. A defender of the new rule is a guy I love as a coach and a person, Chiefs’ coach Herm Edwards. “We had a pretty good feeling it was going to get tabled,” Edwards said at the NFL owners meetings. “We have to take it to the union to consider. That's OK. I think as long as the players know they can discuss it. Basically what we're looking at is a discussion. In our opinion, it's a violation of the dress code.” Your opinion is wrong, Herm. I know we usually say that opinions can't be right or wrong, but yours is wrong. You may be a 50-something dude who doesn’t like long hair, but you need to back off. The Chiefs’ proposal was submitted in early March, and players had not had a chance to discuss the issue before this week's NFL meetings. “There is a certain way we feel the uniform should be portrayed," Edwards said. “That's why we brought it up. I think we are all naïve if we don't know who those guys are. We are talking about uniform violations in our opinions. There were a lot of years players didn't have names on the backs of their jerseys. All of a sudden, you get it, and you cover it up. When I was growing up playing football, you looked at pro football players and said, 'I can't wait to get my name on the jersey.' Now, you get it on the back and you cover it up.” Are you f’ing kidding me? That’s what you’re going with? With a straight face? The “guys need to have pride in having their names on their jerseys” card? No way. That’s just pathetic, period. You don’t know who guys are if their name isn’t on their uniform? You mean the large-print uniform numbers on the front and back and the endless supply of rosters and media guides don’t help you adequately identify players? Nice try, Herm. The real heart of your beef is in the sentence where you say that YOU have a certain way YOU feel the uniform should be worn. Well guess what? You don’t run the NFL and you shouldn’t be trying to impose rules restricting players’ freedom on the basis of needless, arbitrary reasons. Next!

 

- Thank God that’s over. April Fool’s Day, a.k.a. the day for morons with über-juvenile senses of humor to play moronic, lame pranks on others, has passed. Undoubtedly, you encountered someone during your day yesterday who has failed to progress past the age of six, maturity-wise, and thought it would be really fresh to glue your stapler to your desk, put a whoopee cushion on your chair or tell you that your car had been towed - only to hit you with “April Fool’s!” and laugh like they’re at a freaking Chris Rock concert. I say this without equivocation or hesitation: if you pulled even on April Fool’s prank or joke yesterday, you are a loser. You may drive a Ferrari, live in a $5 million home and be married to a supermodel, but if you took part in a single “hilarious” stunt centered around the April Fool’s theme, you’re a loser, no questions asked. People who are actually funny don’t need a lame, faux holiday to help prop up their humor. Those of us who have a sense of humor can be funny year-round, without the crutch of April Fool’s Day. Hopefully you aren’t one of the people I’m talking about and if you are, right the ship and circle April 1 on your calendar for next year so you can be sure not to repeat your mistake.

 

- Simmer down, people. That’s the message for all of the haters out there ripping Arizona Cardinals quarterback Matt Leinart for pictures posted on a celebrity gossip website show Leinart in a hot tub with four hot girls, holding a beer bong as a fellow partygoer chugs down some liquid courage and a third one show him hugging on another young chica. Of course, the fact that the party took place at Leinart’s own house doesn’t seem to be dissuading any of these self-righteous idiots, either. Yes, dude had a kegger at his own house, invited a bunch of hot girls and he’s getting criticized for it. Personally, I’d be ripping him if he weren’t doing this kind of thing. It’s the offseason, it’s his own house and it’s just a party. He’s old enough to drink and he has every right to invite whomever he wants into his house and his hot tub. The people ripping him for this are taking themselves and football too seriously acting like he’s committed some grave sin against a hallowed institution by throwing a party and hot tubbing with hot girls. The hypocrites who have a problem with this would be right there in the hot tub, beer in hand if given the chance. Who knows, maybe they’re jealous of Leinart because they’re married with two kids, a mortgage and a minivan in the driveway. If an alleged crime or sexual assault had taken place at the party, then it’s a different story. But from everything I’ve heard, no one was hurt, a good time was had by one and all and because he was at his own home, Leinart didn’t run the risk of drunk driving, the problem that plagues too many athletes who like to have a good time. Maybe if guys like Adam “Pacman” Jones threw more parties at their homes and went to strip (or “scrip,” as Pacman said recently on Michael Irvin’s radio show), the world would be a much safer place. So party on, drink on and hot tub on, Matty. As long as you’re getting your work in at the gym during the day most of the time and are ready for the season when it begins this fall, no one has any right to criticize you for this.

 

- Your weekend box office winner, 21. The gambling-themed movie based on author Ben Mesrick’s award-winning book Breaking Vegas hit big with moviegoers, bringing in $23.7 million for the weekend at earning about $9,000 per theater, a very good opening weekend for a movie that wasn’t considered a blockbuster in the traditional sense despite a cast that includes Laurence Fishburne, Kevin Spacey and Kate Bosworth. Last week’s box office champ Horton Hears A Who dropped to second with $17.4 million, but the animated flick’s take of $117 million so far ranks it as a definite success. The unfunny “comedy” Superhero Movie came in third at $9.5 million, about a dozen spaces higher than it should have finished on the list, with Meet the Browns fourth and Owen Wilson’s new cookie-cutter, dialogue-by-numbers flick Drillbit Taylor coming in fifth. As always, even on a good weekend, there about a couple of good movies to see and then the quality level drops off precipitously.

 

- Buddhist monks are bad-ass. Not that it’s any surprise, but I always marvel when these men of the cloth show their toughness and testicular fortitude in forceful, outward displays of anger and aggression. Over the weekend, a group of 200 Tibetan exiles and monks stormed the Chinese Embassy visa office in Katmandu, the capital city of Nepal. The monk-led band of rebels bum-rushed the office and were met with stiff resistance from police, who used bamboo batons to beat and subdue the dissidents. Approximately 130 protestors were arrested in the incident and several of them were also injured in the melee, as were a few police officers. Storming an office at the Chinese Embassy and clashing with cops, well done, Buddhist monks, well done. It’s a tad simplistic and basic, not really the sophisticated type of riot I like to see, but for making a statement, few things do the trick like brawling directly with The Man and injuring a few law enforcement personnel along the way. As I said yesterday, the Chinese government is begging if they think this resistance is going to die down or that the world is going to forget about the situation in Tibet just because the country doing the merciless oppressing in Tibet is also hosting the Summer Olympics. A big thumbs up to those 200 protestors in Nepal, you guys rock.

A great album, an episode of Greek and two rotten cops

- No, I’m not being partial to a hometown band when I tell you that you should absolutely pick up Attack & Release, the new album by the Black Keys. The Keys may hail from my hometown of Akron, Ohio, but fans of good blues-twinged garage rock everywhere know and love their music. Their four previous albums have all been awesome, so there’s no reason to be anything but pumped for No. 5. Previous albums have literally been recorded in basement studios set up in houses where drummer Patrick Carney resided, but Attack & Release represents the duo’s first foray into a traditional studio setting. Producer Brian Burton, a.k.a. Danger Mouse of the alt/hip-hop duo Gnarls Barkley, is at the controls for Carney and Dan Auerbach. The disc is only 11 songs long and covers a scant 39 minutes, but nearly all of those tracks and minutes are packed with awesome music. Depending on which track you’re listening to, you might catch a banjo riff, organ keys or any number of unexpected sounds that give the record texture and depth. All I Ever Wanted is one such song, featuring lengthy doses of banjo and a backwoods, bluesy rock feel that the Keys have become known for. One song that Keys fans have already heard from the album is Strange Times, an up-tempo tune that debuted at a show at Akron’s Civic Theatre back in December. It’s a catchy rock song and one that has a good chance of being one of the singles from the album that will get the most airplay. There are plenty of mellow, moody jams on the second half of the album, all of them infused with a uniquely gritty Black Keys feel. There isn’t a bad song on the entire album, not if you love great garage rock music with some depth and thought to it. I should also mention that last Tuesday, another favorite band of mine, Jack White’s secondary project the Raconteurs, released their second album and I’ve had a blast listening to it as well. Consoling the Lonely carries a lot of the unique, off-the-wall feel of Broken Boy Soldiers, the group’s debut album, and also features White’s strong songwriting and penchant for vivid lyrics. Back to back weeks with great albums is rare, so if you haven’t heard either Attack & Release or Consoling the Lonely, these are two of the best of 2008 and albums you need in your collection.

 

- There are some jobs you just don’t want a white supremacist in. Actually, the ideal solution would be educating all race supremacists to the point that they stop being total ignoramuses and start accepting people of all races and creeds as equal, but barring a miracle on the level of loaves and fishes, that ain’t happening. So a second option is keeping people with these out-of-touch, bigoted beliefs out of certain jobs and roles in society where their perverted views on the world could do serious damage. Police officer would be one occupation that a race supremacist should not be allowed in, what with cops being called upon to fairly and uniformly apply the laws of their city, country or state to everyone in their jurisdiction.  So you can see where it’s concerning when two white police officers working in a sensitive field such as narcotics have their lockers decorated with “White Power” bumper stickers. Such is the plight of two members of the Philadelphia police department’s Narcotics Strike Force, both of whom were transferred off the NSF and onto regular patrol and hit with 20-day unpaid suspensions after superiors discovered the racist stickers inside their police department lockers. Either give up the racist world view or leave it at home, fellas, because putting it out in public is going to have nothing but negative ramiprecussions. I’m just guessing, this is just me thinking out loud, but in a city like Philly, with a large police force, there are probably quite a few black, Asian, Hispanic and other minority cops on the force. You put that sticker in your locker, one of them is going to see it and regardless of how seriously you take it, they’re going to be offended. Use your 20 days off to pick up a new world view and see if you can’t manage to join the rest of us in the 21st century.

 

- China can't keep its head in the sand much longer, right? Their government has to realize that the entire world is watching and that no one is on their side when it comes to how they are handling the growing rebellion in Tibet, right? I’d say that much is obvious, but the Chinese just keep trying to plow ahead with their focus entirely on the Olympics, putting on a happy face as the uprising in the country they so wrongly oppress grows more violent and bloody by the day. Even as the Chinese government continues its attempted roundup of wanted protestors from earlier uprisings, fresh protests broke out over the weekend in the capital city of Lhasa. Even as foreign diplomats wrapped up a tightly guarded, restricted visit to the embattled nation over the weekend, citizens there continued to rally against their oppressors. A protest sprang up outside of Lhasa’s Ramoche monastery, with another major uprising at Jokhang Temple. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, China, but this isn’t going away. Placing your hands over your ears and yelling “LALALALALALALALALA!!!” doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. No one is going to forget that you are brutally repressing the Tibetans just because you also happen to be hosting the Olympics. You’re new to thise whole hosting of major international sporting events scene, but that ain’t the way it works.

 

- In a week when it was the only freaking show I watch that aired a new episode, last night’s Greek was really good, almost good enough to make up for the fact that all of my other fave shows are either done for the season already or on breaks because of the lingering effects of the damn writers’ strike. The black cloud hanging over the Greek system at Cyprus Rhodes University remains the theme for the season, with the kibosh supposedly being put on any good parties and other general hijinks the CRU Greek system has become known for. At the heart of it all, who would it be other than Kappa Tau and Zeta Beta (they are the frat and sorority housing the show’s protagonists, people)? With Lizzie, the Zeta Beta national rep, still living in the ZBZ house and making life miserable for everyone, Casey Cartwright is losing members left and right. She needs to boost morale, but with wet blanket Lizzie on hand, the usual morale boosters (booze and boys) aren’t an option - or are they? When Lizzie wants to boost morale with lame ideas like a book club and a no-alcohol party, Casey sees a chance to spice things up. She reaches out to her old flame Cappie at Kappa Tau to host a party, a secret gathering taking place in the KT basement while Lizzie’s lame “Great Gatsby” party goes on upstairs. Of course, Cappie has to find a way to work in his sex-capades with new girl Rebecca Logan, Casey’s rival at ZBZ, along with the party, but who better to juggle the two? Also in the mix is Rusty, who is trying to convince his pal Calvin to jump from the stuffy, pretentious Omega Chi fraternity to Kappa Tau because the Omegas continue to be slow in accepting a gay guy into their midst. Rusty presses Calvin to join Kappa Tau, but even after witnessing a raging KT party firsthand, Calvin decides to accept Omega Chi president Evan’s offer to come back. That doesn’t stop Evan from accusing Cappie of trying to steal his pledge away and subsequently turning in Cappie and his frat for having an illegal party. Of course, experience party throwers like the boys of Kappa Tau have contingency plans. Even after soundproofing their basement so they could throw the party in the first place without anyone knowing, they had a backup plan that allowed them to deal with the fact that Lizzie invited the devil himself, Dean Bowman, to the party so he could see the good, clean fun for himself. With Lizzie and the dean on hand, things became dicey. occupying the dean and keeping him from going down to the basement to see the real party become top priority. When the dean finally did poke around and got close, only a phone call diverted him in time. Of course, that phone call was from the campus police, letting him know about the tip that came in from an anonymous source about alcohol at the party. Plan B went into effect for the Kappa Taus when the campus pigs, er, police showed up. Cappie hijacked their golf cart and led a few off on a chase while his brothers hid the booze and turned the basement into an impromptu reading group meeting. The girls of ZBZ pretended to be helping some of the less intelligent Kappa Tau brothers with their reading troubles, which narrowly averted disaster. Casey had promised to resign as ZBZ president if the party went astray, but that was averted. Cappie spent the night in CRU jail, got 100 hours of community service and had a showdown with Evan outside the police station after being released. Threats were made, ultimatums thrown down, so be ware….also woven throughout the episode were close encounters of the Cappie-Casey kind, enough to remind us that it’s still a Rebecca-Cappie-Casey love triangle. Cappie claimed to want to have a real, official relationship with Rebecca instead of just a fling, but she doesn’t seem to buy into what he’s selling. AWOL from this episode was Rusty’s former flame, Jen K. Not AWOL was his prudish roomie Dale, who continues to push his Purity Pledge group on Rusty and anyone whole will listen. I said this last season and I’ll say it now: Dale is such a one-dimensional, clichéd character that he’s extremely annoying any doesn’t add much to the show. At the end of last season, he started to get some depth, but this year it’s back to the same old, same old. Well, that pretty much wraps this episode, so until next week, kiddos….