BUSTING CHOPS

The Walking Dead Season 2 Recap...

2012-02-11T01:25:00.001-05:00

I was an unabashed fan of this show when during Season 1. It started off great, but I admit to preferring the faster moving zombies heralded in with the 2004 remake of "Dawn of the Dead". Season 1 was fast-paced, action-packed and the storyline hummed along beautifully, the plot line heightening the dense of claustrophobia, dread and hysteria that only a zombie apocalypse can bring. I expected more of the same going forward but the show has clearly changed for many reasons, and none of it has been for the better.

Season 2 was absolute garbage, and some of these characters are turning into the same, tired, old clichés that Hollywood just LOVES to chuck up on screen due to a serious lack of imagination. When I say this I'm talking about Rick, the "Dudley Do-Right" of the crew, who plays "Mr. Integrity" to a fault, regardless of what's on the line. He'll do anything for the best of the whole crew involved, and his dedication to his overbearing wife and snot-nosed punk of a kid would be admirable if it wasn't so fucking annoying.

Then you have his shrill harpy of a wife, whose constant stomping towards and immediately away from anyone when she has to have the last word in any conversation made me want to substitute some of those poor chickens that were fed to Old McDonald's walkers in the enclosed barn for the opportunity to throw her dumb ass in head-first just to listen to her grating voice for the last time calling out for help that will never arrive.

Then we have another annoying, one-dimensional pillar of integrity, the farm owner, a prototypical white-trash Evangelical Christian whose "My Way or the Highway" ethos is in direct contrast to the very ethics he spends so much time studying. He spends half his time reminding Rick that he and his people have to go, yet he is secretly keeping a barnful of the undead because he has sympathy for their plight, and is keeping them around because they are family members and neighbors who one day may be "cured of their "disease". This philosophically twisted fuckhead doesn't show half as much sympathy for the living human beings, and must constantly be cajoled by his hoochie younger daughter, another emotionally distant and crippled twat who loves fucking her Asian paramour Glenn but shows as much tenderness and warmth towards him as a Nazi camp guard, to cut Rick and his obnoxious crew some fucking slack.

Another problem is how this farmer is living in relative tranquility without the least amount of security. There are guns, but he's rather not see them and makes the crew of lost souls give them up if they were going to stay on "his property", a fairly overly-used phrase that makes this dickhead that much easier to dislike.

(under construction)

Babes of the Week for February 10, 2012...

2012-02-10T23:24:00.005-05:00

Stephanie Sigman!!!

This captivating young lady has absolutely no internet presence whatsoever. I tried to get some information on her and found nothing. I ran into her while watching the Mexican film "Miss Bala", which I will highlight in my next film recommendation installment, so I won't go into it here.

All I know is she loooks mahvelous, dahling-absolutely mahvelous!!! And I'm hoping she has a long career in film because she can act. Aside from being a stunning Latina beauty, she also has talent. She is a young actress on the rise, so expand your horizons and get your collective heads out of your collective asses and start checking these women out. The anorexic, bleach blonde, sinewy, thin-lipped pterodactyls that are worshiped by the corny, doofy, empty suits who rule Madison Avenue are officially a thing of the past. When dating, take this mantra to heart-"Go Latina, or go home!!!" YES!!!

On the Red Carpet of the 64th Annual Cannes Film Festival-

Here is the scoop from an Italian Law Enforcement Insider...

2012-02-09T12:18:00.006-05:00

The USADA, WADA, or any other cycling/anti-doping governing body isn't going to do the job some would like to see going forward on the Armstrong investigation due to lack of money and absolutely no political will whatsoever.

One of the issues that encouraged the European authorities when they first met with the Feds at Interpol was the amount of investigative power they brought to the table, with the requisite matching budget to put into the investigation. They took heart from this, and as the investigation progressed they uncovered much more than they hoped for. Once the US Feds shuttered the idea at what turned out to be the final hour, everyone on the other side of the pond threw up their hands in despair and are, one by one, giving up the ghost in frustration.

Suddenly the investigation coordinators that convened at Interpol are looking at the money spent up to this point and are refusing to allocate any more time and resources to what has been referred to as "some stupid old man and his bag of potions" (this is in reference to Dr. Ferrari by an understandably irate Italian prosecutor). They are extremely upset with the US Feds for encouraging the investigation and then dropping it for seemingly political reasons, leaving some law-enforcement budgets in a bit of the red with nothing to show for the time and money invested. Expect cooperation going forward in other international cases, regardless of import, to be strained. The US has taken a beating over this, and the seemingly lack of transparency over how this could happen, or why it fell to the decision of one man to kill the whole thing, has the word "corruption" being bandied about.

The evidence/testimony taken from people like Hamilton, Landis, etc. was nothing but icing on the cake. They were just stories to solidify the truly disturbing aspects of what Dr. Ferrari was up to in cahoots with Armstrong and then-US Postal director sportif Johan Bruyneel. But the good doctor lawyered up as soon the Swiss accounts were frozen. The pressure has been relentless from his side, and he is not talking about anything to anyone. He is maintaining his innocence to the very end, which has become much easier now that he won't get indicted for money laundering and assisting in a continuing criminal enterprise to solicit and acquire doping products for use in professional sports.

With the budget woes the European community is experiencing, expect Dr. Ferrari to quietly settle out of court with a bit of a fine and nothing more. This is the current word out on the street. The Italians have their hands full with their constant battles against the Mafia and the corruption it breeds-they are currently up to their necks in drug trafficking, extortion and human bondage/forced prostitution to really see anything positive out of chasing Dr. Ferrari, a man who has eluded them for so many years and will continue to act with impunity, thanks to the asshole who shuttered the case in the United States.

So unless unforeseen events overtake what is an obviously cynical and politically motivated episode and the Armstrong investigation is miraculously re-opened, this case is pretty much closed. The pimps have won and the whores continue walking the streets.

The PED Conundrum...

2012-02-09T02:23:00.005-05:00

Reading and participating in various cycling internet forums over the course of these last few years, but especially after the reactions to the Armstrong case were made public, I have come to the conclusion that debates over athletes taking performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) is somewhat akin to the lack of civility and absence of intellectual discourse that has overcome the political arena in the United States.

We have people looking to attack each other, to dissect one another's motives, and the perpetuation of various agendas for the sake of trolling and derailing the topic at hand. Then there are the loudest and shrillest voices of all-those who cackle the same tired clichés about the now-defunct Federal investigation into Lance Armstrong. "It was a waste of taxpayer money" is the first one that gets thrown out, but there are other comments reserved for anyone who is deemed a "hater", of which I am an unabashed charter member of this exclusive club and damn proud of it.

Anyone who exibits the slightest interest in this topic is deemed an obsessed loser with no life. The prescription is always the same-"Why don't you go ride your bike?" As if discussing this is so polarizing and paralyzing that it would keep relatively normal and sane human beings from living their respective lives. These internet Nazis do what they can to shout this debate down to it's lowest common denominator, the personal attack.

I have been called a hypocrite due to the fact that my screen name happens to be one of a former Soviet-era cyclist, a man who (to me) was one of the most charismatic and stylish on-the-bike athletes I've seen in all my years as a fan of the sport. Unfortunately he was also a client of the infamous Italian doctor Michele Ferrari, who was the guru behind the doping renaissance of one Lance Armstrong. For this sin I have been labeled an incorrigible hypocrite, despite the fact that I've explained my choice of username ad nauseum, and it has nothing to do with this particular gentleman's doping history.

For those looking to dilute the argument at hand, the personal attack is their last refuge. They attack the opinion holder because the matter being discussed is beyond their intellectual capabilities to grasp without their brains going into overload. What you see on the internet as a whole are a bunch of people incapable of holding a discussion without resorting to name-calling and childish threats. And is there anything more stupid than someone voluntarily accessing a web page and denouncing the topic at hand when all they have to do is not click on said topic? And I'm the loser here?

I've never been threatened more times with bodily harm, to the point where people have actually volunteered to meet me in person for the sole purpose of beating me up, than when I began chatting it up on various internet forums. Never have I encountered such vitriol against my physical person than while interacting on the internet. And I live in the Bronx. Go figure.

One thing the internet has done is given a voice and a platform to the socially and emotionally retarded and mentally unstable. There is also the disturbing trend on cycling forums where anything remotely controversial is either minimized or shouted down. If you aren't talking about retro-grouch crap like some bullshit $300 steel frame from 1985 that someone saw posted on Ebay or the value of downtube shifters over STI's then it's beyond the collective grasp of the forum members to engage in civil conversation.

Whether anyone likes it or not, sports isn't just frivolous entertainment meant to waste time on while you're waiting to die. Sports everywhere is big-business, with even bigger passions involved. Sports leak into our daily lives not only as entertainment but to offset the monotony and drudgery of everyday life. And it gets dangerous to the point of lunacy, as witnessed by the outrageous behavior at the Egyptian soccer match last week where more than 70 people lost their lives. I'm sure there were British soccer hooligans watching the lowlights of that incredibly unwarranted loss of life and wondered "Why the fuck wasn't I there? Look what I missed!!!"

I tire of having so-called experts chime in about crap they know nothing about. On the internet, the less some asshole knows about a particular subject the more they are convinced they are right. Steroids is one of those subjects where people think they know, but in reality do not.

Steroids has changed the landscape of athletics from the top professional ranks all the way down to your average weekend warrior. Type-A personality yuppies, who spend their workdays competing over who gets promoted Vice President by the time they're 30 or fighting over that corner office have taken their obnoxious sense of entitlement to the gym. Not satisfied with success at stealing money from old ladies' pensions, they have taken to ingesting PED's for the sheer sake of vanity. And this attitude has permeated all walks of life.

I've been in police precincts where I've heard officers bragging about "throwing up mad plates" (a euphemism for bench-pressing multiple 45-pound plates on either side of bar). Why does a cop walking a beat feel the need to brag to his co-workers about his bench press? Because that's how we as a society compete against each other. We compare looks, physiques, money, and the type of women we can "bag and tag" because we aren't happy unless someone is jealous of us. Envy from our peer group is what drives us as a society, and it is at the crux of the rotten underbelly of the "American Dream".

This was the driving force behind Barry Bonds' decision to take steroids "despues de viejo" (this is a Spanish phrase denoting someone doing something or engaging in a particular activity when it is clearly age-inappropriate to do so). It certainly wasn't for the home run record. By the time he was approaching it, he knew hardly anyone in baseball would consider the feat legitimate given his physical transformation from slender yet powerful athlete to "Mr. Superfreak". He decided to take 'roids because he was jealous of the attention Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa got not only for their historic and massively drug-fueled home run chase of Roger Maris, but for the unprecedented credit they received for "saving" baseball after the disastrous lockout a few years previous.

Bonds began juicing out of jealousy. And don't kid yourself-the steroids available today can help an athlete do things that are impossible, regardless of natural talent and work ethic. Manny Ramirez was busted twice for juicing. A respected and accomplished gentleman who I know for a fact is not given to fits of gossip and hyperbole told me that Ramirez's marital strife was caused in part by the fact that his body no longer produces testosterone naturally, so he can't get it up. The story goes that his darling wife decided it was a good idea to ridicule him over it to the point where it got physical. Being Brazilian, she must know that Latin men are among the most machista in the world and you do not do that unless you want to get stomped out, to which Ramirez obliged.

He has recently and conveniently found religion and wants back into baseball, promising to be a good citizen and a role model for the youth of America. Lovely. But the bottom line is, without the steroids, he can no longer hit a baseball. Assholes who read this will say "Yeah, but steroids don't help you with hand-eye coordination. If that were true, you'd be playing in the major leagues instead of talking shit on the internet".

Not true. There is nothing that would stop me from talking shit on the internet, even if I played professional baseball. But I digress. No one is doubting that Ramirez was one of the best and naturally gifted hitters at one point in his career. But this is where it gets fuzzy. At a certain point, the natural aging process puts paid to those natural gifts. It does so for every professional athlete. When does that occur? We don't know in this particular case, because Ramirez's steroid use has obscured that fine line that all athletes cross when they can't hack it anymore.

Steroids can change all that. There is testosterone and it's many derivatives. There are cortico-steroids. There is HgH. There is EPO, the wonder drug for any type of endurance sport. An article written by some clown for "Outside" magazine claimed that HgH use caused his eyesight to improve to the point where he could drive at night without glasses. This improvement disappeared the second he stopped with his steroid regimen, but the point was made.

People have a tendency of thinking that simply taking steroids is not enough to make someone a great athlete. This is not the issue. The point is steroids act as a fountain of youth for aging players looking to prolong their diminishing physical talents and in other respects improves on the talent they already have by tremendous leaps and bounds. How the fuck else do you explain Barry Bonds hitting 74 fucking home runs after the age of 40, a feat no other major league slugger has ever achieved?

People act as if steroids do nothing for hand-eye coordination, as if this is such a precious gift from the baseball Gods that somehow it is an aspect of a player's talent that is beyond the influence of 'roids. Oh yeah? Just ask the guys who took steroids for years and then tried to play without them. Look at the players named in the Mitchell Report whose production suddenly began to lag from one season to the next without explanation.

This is the kind of crap I'm talking about. Riders like Lance Armstrong were always going to be better than a regular guy off the street, or someone talking shit on a blog. But was he so talented that he was able to win the Tour de France 7 times in a row after it was pretty much set in stone that he was nothing but a stocky Classics rider who clearly lacked the time trialing and climbing ability to contend for a grand Tour?

Well, steroids and blood transfusions answered that question. It also let Barry Bonds hit 256 home runs AFTER the age of 36 and a half. It is also the reason why Manny Ramirez can no longer play. During his last stint with the Florida Marlins, a fellow player said Ramirez looked like his grandmother swinging the bat. That damning testimonial is a far cry from the Ramirez who inhabited "Manny-Land" when he was with the Los Angeles Dodgers. And it was also before he was busted twice in the span of two years for doping.

Let's get back to the ham-and-eggers, who need to be addressed. PED abuse is everywhere, to the point where even your local amateur athletic competitions are corrupted by this crap. I will tell you this-most of the bike riders I know (some who don't even race) the only thing keeping them from taking drugs is their inability to crack the loop. The majority of cats I know would dope if they had access to a steady and reliable steroid pipeline, and would do so without any hint of guilt or remorse.

This is far from being an individual indictment on their morals-this is also a collective, societal issue. This is the rot that has permeated our thinking, that cheating is OK as long as we can perform better at whatever it is we are doing. And let's face it-cycling lends itself to this type of behavior moreso than others by its' very nature.

Cycling is the saddest of all the sports out there. It is brutal and unforgiving. You can ride for years and years and never come close to winning a race even on the lowest amateur rungs. The quest to stay in shape affects one's life every waking second of every day. For every week you don't ride, you lose approximately two weeks of fitness. And every training ride involves pain and the Kafka-esque quest of trying to recover while maintaining a full-time job and other responsibilities.

Who wouldn't want to juice up, just to make it more fun, just to be able to ride hard and not feel as much pain as cycling usually administers to it's devotees? Out of all the rides I've done in my life, I recall two where everything came together and I was proud of myself. I felt like a rider, going strong over every hill I encountered, really hammering it on the flats without having my lungs burst out of my torso. That is twice in about 14 years. The rest were a series of humiliations large and small, aided and abetted by dickheads who never ceased to criticize my commitment and work ethic-guys who I later found out rode so well because they were on steroids of one sort or another.

The very nature of cycling makes it more amenable to PED abuse than just about any other sport besides running. Cycling is a sport for "brutos" (that's Spanish for uncoordinated dork). You don't need a whole lot of grace or technical proficiency to ride a bike. It is all about brute strength, power and endurance. Unlike say, basketball, a sport I excelled at with much more proficiency (without ever being in what one would call "tip-top" shape-the fact that I could play always got me over), in cycling there is very little skill involved. Unless you suffer from chronic Vertigo, as long as you can manage to stay upright and pedal you can ride a bike. The rest? Not so easy. You can spend years and years developing your form, watching your diet and keeping a meticulous training schedule and you'll STILL suck, even if you're not riding with others who are juicing.

So where does this leave this particular discussion? It is complicated one to say the least, but it should not be attempted on the internet. There are just too many idiots who think they have a right to idiotic opinions or think time spent on this subject is time taken away from riding one's bike. There is no talking to assholes like this, and unfortunately they are the ones clogging up the forums, wearing their contempt and stupidity like a badge of honor.

Alberto Contador Suspended for two Years...

2012-02-07T18:42:00.008-05:00

Well, not quite. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) decided to strip him of all his wins since he supposedly tested positive for clenbuterol almost 18 months ago, thereby allowing him to ride again this year beginning in August of 2012. He will be eligible to ride the Vuelta a España, the World Championships and the Giro D'Lombardia, three races which he can definitely do well in if not win outright.

What galls me are the haters who never forgave Contador for not lying down and letting the PED-ridden Lance Armstrong win the Tour in 2009. He was also taken to task for daring to attack Andy Schleck in 2010 when he had a mechanical failure during a crucial moment of a stage where Contador was able to take just enough time to garner a winning overall margin of victory. These things along with his annoying "Pistolero" salute made him a reviled figure amongst the Armstrong Branch Davidians, who continue to gloat about how Saint Lance walks on water, does no wrong and continues to cure cancer throughout the world by telling victims of the disease to don his yellow plastic bracelet and dare to "Livestrong".

The overall attitude in cycling is that Contador got hosed. Even the great Eddy Merckx felt the ban was excessive. Here is the man in his own words-

"It's very sad for him and for cycling in general. It's as if somebody wanted to kill cycling," Merckx told Eurosport. "I'm very surprised and disgusted. It's bad for everyone, for the reputation of cycling, for the sponsors."

He continued by insinuating that cycling's efforts to combat doping were excessive and that other sports did not apply the rules in the same way. "I think it's going too far - when a test result is like this one, 0.0000... it's only in cycling that this sort of thing happens.

"I'm the first to say that we need controls, but I think that we are going too far in cycling."

What this does is effectively protects Lance Armstrong's tainted record of 7 Tour de France wins. The gangster thug of pro cycling wins yet again, and everyone is the lesser for it. What is funny is that the court decided that the contamination more than likely came from something he ingested, not from what all the anti-Contador yahoos were convinced was a blood transfusion during one of the Tour's rest days. Funny how all of a sudden so many of these Armstrong doping deniers morph into human physiology and hematology experts when the target is someone they despise.

Regardless, Saxo Bank team boos Bjarne Riis, he no stranger to doping controversies, will try to maintain his composure now that he has no team to take to either the Giro or the Tour with a snowball's chance of winning. We'll all have to wait until August for Contador to come back strong and right this egregious wrong. Even though a doping positive eliminates his contract with the team, I highly doubt Saxo Bank will let him ride for another team once he gets back from his suspension.

And while this is going on, we'll have to be subjected to one of the dirtiest teams ever to ride in the pro peloton, directed by the dirtiest and dishonest director sportifs that ever got behind the wheel of a team car in Johan Bruyneel. No doubt the legion of Armstrong zombie fanboys will be cheering on the Schleck Brothers as they ride unhindered by a more talented rider there to challenge them.
Enjoy it while it lasts, you cocksuckers-if there is any justice in this world Bruyneel will be behind bars if the European authorities continue their look into what the US Feds were kept from completing.

Superbowl XLVI...

2012-02-06T21:13:00.008-05:00

It was a great game, and as a Giants fan I was happy for Eli Manning, Tom Coughlin ans especially that ferocious defensive front line of theirs. But special kudos must go out to coach Tom Coughlin, who was a half a sandwich away from getting canned (yet again) as recently as last November and managed to save his job the only way he could-by taking the first 9-7 team in history all the way to a Superbowl victory.

The other thing I love about Coughlin is he is the polar opposite of his loudmouth neighbor, Jets coach Rex Ryan, who guarantees victories his teams cannot win and instills discipline like a public school substitute teacher. Neither Coughlin nor Manning are glitzy, New York celebrities. In fact, I think Eli has turned into more of a hick while in New York than when he was in college, but that's the beauty of his country-ass demeanor. He doesn't get caught up in the hoopla and never loses his composure. Sometimes you need a good ol' boy to set things straight in the big city.

Bizarre play of the game belongs to Giants running back Ahmad Bradshaw. His was the first time I've ever seen a touchdown scored where almost no one on the team congratulated the scorer. How could this be a BAD thing? Because it gave the Patriots an opportunity in the waning moments of the fourth quarter to get the ball back with around a minute or so left, as opposed to falling down before the line and wasting time with a field goal. Bradshaw looked dismayed on the bench, and I must admit I felt a little bit bad for him. But he was vindicated, and all is good in Giants Land.

Much was made of Tom Brady's wife Michelle whateverthefuck her last name is, some Brazilian "super" model (what constitutes a supermodel I'll never know) who apparently knows so much about football she had the audacity to criticize Brady's receivers. True there were more than a few dropped passes in the game, but that last one by Wes Welker was unfair. He makes catches like that all the time, but therein lies the problem. He makes tough catches look routine, and in all fairness that was a difficult one. And if Gronkowski were healthy, maybe he would have made this catch, but the reality is it was a poorly thrown Brady interception under extreme pressure-

But of course being a supermodel gives this dumb, entitled, spoiled, never-worked-a-day-in-her-life bitch the right to critique real work besides taking pictures, sucking cock and snorting cocaine out of her famous husband's jockstrap. Wes Welker, Rob Gronkowski (with a name like that your career path is pretty much set, ain't it?) and Aaron Hernandez-two tight ends and a white slot receiver who no one in the NFL could stop-cannot be faulted for anything. Sure, they dropped some passes and "Gronk" wasn't 100% with an ill-timed high ankle sprain, but it's not like they were playing the Jets. These Giants were dialed in defensively and played a hell of a game.

And Eli Manning, who is 8-0 on the road during his last two Superbowl runs and was again voted MVP of the game. What makes this performance legendary? Just watch his pass to Mario Manningham. Without that catch, there is no Superbowl for the Giants. This is what all great quarterbacks have in common-transcendent plays when it matters most.

GO GIANTS!!!

Requiem for a Hater...

2012-02-03T23:12:00.009-05:00

Regardless of whether you are a fanboy or a hater, cycling lost today. The details are brief. The news was announced that the case against Lance Armstrong was being terminated by US Attorney Andre Birotte Jr., who has a history of backing out of large-scale investigations involving wealthy and well-connected individuals, like when he dropped the case against Countrywide and Angelo Mozilo. Here is the line from the Los Angeles Times from February 18, 2011-

"Federal prosecutors have shelved a criminal investigation of Angelo R. Mozilo after determining that his actions in the mortgage meltdown — which led to $67.5-million settlement against him — did not amount to criminal wrongdoing.

As the former chairman of Countrywide Financial Corp., Mozilo helped fuel the boom in risky subprime loans that led to the crippling of the banking industry and the near-collapse of the financial system."

Given this tidbit of information, it is obvious that Birotte is the ultimate whore who gets paid with taxpayer money to protect the rich and powerful. How this guy sleeps at night we'll never know, but HE is the reason why this almost two-year investigation got derailed at the last minute. It was solely his decision to have the Armstrong investigation terminated, and for the life of me I have no idea how one man at the California US District Attorney's office can wield such arbitrary power.

This is what we are left with in pro cycling. Entrenched Mafia-style tactics, complete with bribery of officials at the highest levels of the sport and the bullying/marginalizing of opponents and whistle blowers has become the template for success in cycling's highest ranks. This is Lance Armstrong's legacy. He gets to keep all 7 of his stained piss-yellow jerseys, his millions of ill-gotten dollars, and the opportunity to smugly continue lying about how he achieved his success on the bike clean. And now nothing can stop him. I'm so disgusted I'm at a loss for words.

This is vindication for one of the biggest assholes to ever pollute the world of cycling. While people piled on Ricardo Ricco and his pathetic attempt at being cycling's bad boy, his career lasted only a few years until he wound up marginalizing himself into oblivion. Yes, he is a liar, threw his then-girlfriend and mother of his child under the bus when she herself got caught doping (proof that a family that dopes together does not necessarily stay together) and almost died while attempting to self-administer a rancid blood transfusion that he kept in his refrigerator right next to the romaine lettuce. This was AFTER he was given the all-clear to come back to the sport after serving a hefty suspension.

But he was a one-off, a lunatic rogue who didn't care one bit about cycling's doping decorum. He did not have a whole apparatus of supporters in high places who looked out for him because he didn't have the money nor the influence to perpetuate such a scheme. He went rogue and paid the price. Not so for Armstrong. He did it like the old time Mustache Petes of Mafia lore, and came out smelling like roses. Santo Trafficante would be applauding this spectacle if he were alive to witness it.

Don't kid yourselves for one minute that this is a victory for anyone but the cynical and conniving cheats who have ruined the sport at the highest levels. Johan Bruyneel, Fat Pat McQuaid and Dr. Michele Ferrari must be very proud of the legacy they leave behind. And they continue working in the sport-

1) Bruyneel is now the Director Sportif of a new super-team (Radio Shack-Nissan) who are staffed with some of the dirtiest, rottenest scoundrels this side of "La Cosa Nostra"-Chris Horner, Andreas Kloden and recent additions Andy and Frank Schleck. Watch as they doped-up hooligans prance parade around France all July with no one to stop them.

And believe me when I tell you there was no joy in Mudville last week when Levi Leipheimer, the 38-year old wonderboy who should have retired YEARS ago, pounded out a time-trial best 32 mph average over 19.5 kilometers on his way to overall victory in the Tour De San Luis in Argentina. Leipheimer, a devoted ex-lieutenant to Armstrong, is like the previously mentioned riders as dirty as they come. He's a disgrace to US Cycling, but he'll ride out what's left of his career as a hero, along with George Hincapie, David Zabriskie and all the rest of those drug-addled goons.

And yes, blame must be shared by Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton, who only spoke out after it was clear they would never make a living in the sport like they used to before they received their initial bans. Neither were wanted back in the European peloton, and so they had to make do riding around on two-bit US domestic teams for bullshit money. If they had come out and spoke when the time called for it, their credibility and mental states would not have become such an issue in their own self-inflicted marginalization.

2) UCI President Pat McQuaid has joined forces with ex-UCI chief Hein Verbruggen to sue Irish journalist Paul Kimmage in a defamation suit to the tune of 6,000 Euros. The amount is symbolic-what these two assholes are looking for is vindication of their reputations, which they claim has been sullied by the reporting of Kimmage. Yet they make no mention of their involvement in this fiasco as active participants in the perpetuation of the Armstrong myth for personal financial gain.

The financial ties between McQuaid, Verbruggen and Armstrong run deep, from a business relationship involving a hotel in Switzerland (Verbruggen and Armstrong) to the hundreds of thousands of dollars taken by McQuaid from Armstrong, ostensibly for the fight against doping. All of this is public knowledge, and the putrid taste it leaves is disgraceful beyond anything I've ever seen.

3) Last but not least there is Dr. Michele Ferrari, who for the last 30 years has been at the vanguard of organized individual and team doping in cycling and has never been brought to justice, and more than likely never will. He has been able to dodge the authorities for years, and in the twilight of his career remains as cynically unrepentant and seemingly above the law as ever.

The trickle-down effect is even worse. More riders I know than ever are clearing their own individual paths to cycling glory with PED's on the amateur level, and the arrogant attitude displayed by these guys will continue unabated. Yes, they ruin the sport for the hapless and unwitting riders who futilely struggle against them when they declare that guys who can't keep up must "work harder", and say so without a tinge of hypocrisy or irony, all the while jacking themselves up on anything they can get their hands on.

I will go down in flames as an unrepentant hater, and I don't care. My one wish was always to get to the bottom of the whole doping apparatus-how Armstrong did it, who facilitated his reign of terror in the pro peloton, and how he was able to get away with it for so long. Now we'll probably never know.

All we'll hear going forward is how a super-determined, super-talented athlete with laser-like focus the likes cycling has never seen before or since beat the flaccid, flabby Euros at their own game on their home turf and profited like no other cyclist ever has because he simply outworked his rivals, and rose from his deathbed to do so.

He hijacked the cancer community and lined his pockets with exorbitant speaking engagement fees that were double and many times triple what other famous celebrities charged. And people lined up at the trough and slopped up his lies like rotting chum thrown at starving zombies, because that's just how it is in a cult.

Don't let the ineffectual rantings over at the USADA fool anyone. If Armstrong was able to get his lawyers to derail the Federal probe, cycling's governing body in the US doesn't stand as chance. So goodnight to all those assholes who never came out and demanded justice because they wanted to consolidate their positions and job statuses within cycling-George Hincapie, Jonathan Vaughters, and yes, even Frankie Andreu, who had to be pulled by the ears by his wife (whose got bigger balls than he ever will) to say anything at all.

In the end, Andreu decided to hedge his bets when admitting his own use of EPO without ever going into details about team-orchestrated doping. He still wound up getting fired from every single job he was able to procure in cycling, no doubt the machinations of a vindictive and vengeful Armstrong. Let this be a lesson to anyone who wants to come forward with information on systematic team-wide doping-keep your mouth shut or you'll be marginalized into the grave and beyond.

Cycling has officially become a clown show. The process has come full circle, and the bad guys won. The biggest sporting fraud in modern-day history has been successfully perpetrated, and regardless of what side of the fence you're on there is no one who can claim victory going forward. Both sides lost today.

And what a shame it is.

So if you want to know, this is how you do it-become a corporate darling, make tons of money for the companies that sponsor you, insulate yourself with lowlife yes-men and pathetic hacks like Chris Carmichael who won't ever have the balls to rat you out, and spread out the bribe money in a manner that doesn't look like a bribe.

From now on, at all sporting events and government swearing-in ceremonies, instead of having to pay tribute to the flag by singing the Star Spangled Banner, we should all do like Lance and don one of those stupid "Livestrong" yellow bracelets while chanting the country's unofficial anthem-

Kobe Bryant's divorce and the fall of "The Black Mamba"...

2011-12-19T17:14:00.029-05:00

*Disclaimer-please be advised that we here at 'Busting Chops" are not casting aspersions on Vanessa Bryant for the hell of it. She is, arguably, one of the hottest broads we've ever seen married to any pro athlete (if you doubt this, please refer to the reality TV series called "Basketball Wives". Nowhere except on the barren sand dunes of the Serengeti will you ever see such a miserable collection of cloven-hoofed Wildebeests in all your life).

The girl is an incredible-looking young lady, and for the life of me I do not understand why she never made it into our "Babe of the Week" series. Maybe it's because she's so abhorrently despicable. Still in all are merely speaking the truth about her situation as we see it.

Kobe's wife Vanessa Bryant is filing divorce papers in L.A. County District Court. Citing the usual bullshit excuse of "irreconcilable differences", she is in the process of backing up the Brink's truck and making out with not only half his net worth and one (at the very least) of his mansions, but is claiming spousal AND child support. Bryant is on the hook to keep her in the elevated lifestyle she's accustomed to until she remarries, which will only happen once Kobe retires and no longer commands a 25-plus million dollar a year NBA contract.

It won't matter by then, because she would have successfully milked every dime she could out of her 10-year marriage to one of basketball's biggest and most relentless pricks. Suddenly, all those millions he's earned over the course of his career don't seem sufficient to placate the bottomless greed of this abominable cunt of a woman. The madness never ends!!!

But this isn't all her doing. Kobe created this monster a looooong time ago. Bryant, who was 20 at the time he married this two-bit video hoochie, thought it was a good idea to estrange himself from his family and marry this little twat while she was still in high school. The relationship caused such a distraction whenever he came to pick her up after school that the administration decided it would be best for her to spend her senior year at home. None of Kobe's family members or teammates were invited to attend the ceremony, and neither did he go to his parents seeking advice about such a life-altering event. He will be regretting this act of hubris very shortly, when the presiding judge rules on the allocation of assets.

He was so in love with this skank that he decided against a pre-nup in a state (California) that is infamous for it's brutal divorce settlements. There is a chance she winds up with more money than he, even though Kobe was the one who earned it all. Not that he'll be in the poor house by any stretch of the imagination (a guy who gets picked up and dropped off from work in a helicopter isn't going to be applying for a Section-8 rent subsidy voucher anytime soon) but he is going to be taken to the cleaners so hard he should hire George Jefferson as his legal counsel.

There have been a myriad of tales depicting Vanessa as an entitled, spoiled brat with delusions of grandeur. But when store clerks in Beverly Hills rant how she is one of the most obnoxious customers they've ever had to deal with in a place that counts snotty, entitled, and insecure celebrities as it's core clientele, these comments really stand out. "Do you know who I am?" she allegedly screamed at one hapless store clerk who happened not to have recognized the then recently wedded wife of Kobe Bryant. How the fuck were they supposed to know who this dumb bitch was? Had she ever done anything to warrant fame besides deepthroating cocks backstage at rap video shoots?

I find it distressing how people who become wealthy and famous-especially ones like Vanessa, who fell into her situation solely on the merits of having fucked someone's brains out-act like such ginormous pricks to anyone they feel are beneath them. Once you hit the lottery in whatever form, whether it's through birth, inheritance, marriage or hard work, aren't you supposed to be happier than the rest of the schlemiels who live from paycheck to paycheck? Do they really have to go around rubbing it in people's faces that they have it better than them in such a graceless fashion?

Here's the thing about money-financial windfalls amongst family members from humble backgrounds usually cause rifts that tear the fabric of said relationships apart. Vanessa's step-father and mother, who were happily married until she married Kobe, divorced over this very reason. Her ex-stepfather was quoted as saying the thing that ruined his marriage was he could not compete with the gifts Kobe and Vanessa were lavishing on his wife, leaving him emasculated and out in the cold. Kobe should have been aware of this, but apparently didn't care. This same disease has infected his current relationship, and here is where he could have used a bit of the fatherly advice he blatantly shunned during his courtship of Vanessa.

Don't get me wrong-I don't feel sorry for Kobe Bryant one bit. He exhibited a narcissistic mean streak that belied his exalted station in life when he raped that female hotel employee in Colorado. That incident wasn't about sex, it was about power, and exerting exerting it over someone he felt entitled to humiliate, not only because of who HE was but because of who SHE wasn't. And damn if the bitch wasn't grateful for having the great Kobe Bryant's dick up her ass. She was a nobody, and he wanted to remind her of it regardless of how googly-eyed she was in his presence. So whatever Vanessa morphed into after their marriage, she learned it from him. And what does it say about their relationship that Kobe had to run out and buy her a $4 million dollar multi-karat ring just to appease her ego after he got hit with rape charges?

Then there was the issue with their Peruvian housekeeper, who dropped her lawsuit alleging abuse at the hands of Vanessa when the matter was settled out of court. Here is a little snippet of one of the allegations made by ex-housekeeper Maria Jimenez-

"Jimenez also alleges that Vanessa Bryant screamed at her for putting a $690 blouse in the washing machine, and demanded that Jimenez put her hand in a bag of dog feces to retrieve the price tag for the blouse. Jimenez refused and said she would quit, but Vanessa Bryant allegedly demanded that she pay for the blouse first, the suit states. Jimenez says she stayed on the job to work off the cost of the blouse."

Ah, the lifestyles of the rich and famous. By the way, here is a video Vanessa appeared in before she struck paydirt, just so you can get a taste of what she was like when Kobe met her. She is the one in the tight, glittery outfit who mouths some of the words Snoop Dogg rhymes while provocatively gesticulating in the Chevy convertible.

Goodnight and good luck, Kobe. No high-priced attorney is going to save you from the rape of your assets you will be subjected to by your former darling sweetheart of an ex-wife. Happy New Year, asshole!!!

NBA News and Notes...

2011-12-19T16:43:00.026-05:00

Now that the lockout is over, after the pathetic machinations of the bumbling David Stern/Billy Williams/Derek Fisher "trifecta of stupid" almost plunged the league into a year-long lockout after its' most successful season in years, it seems as if we have some issues to address going forward-

1) Chris Paul mentioning the storied "history" of the L.A. Clippers franchise was as over the top as it was patently untrue. Chris, I understand you're happy to get out of New Orleans, but you're layin' the disingenuous hyperbole a bit too thick there, buddy. The Clippers HAVE no storied history, unless having exactly two winning seasons in the last twenty years counts for something. Paul must also keep in mind he's playing for an Donald Sterling, an owner whose infamous for sitting on the sidelines while heckling HIS OWN PLAYERS.

And he's racist on top of that. He has a history of being sued by tenants of some of his real estate properties, and the comments attributed to him about them over the years are straight out of Bull Connor's Alabama. Sterling is an absolute riot. I'll give anyone 2 to 1 odds that both Chris Paul AND Blake Griffin are outta there in two years. This is the Clippers we're talking about, and they are doomed to fuck things up. But they can have fun now as they are on the upside and the Lakers are going in the exact opposite direction.

2) The biggest move that will affect The Lakers this year won't be the decimation of their entire front line to make room for Dwight Howard. Sure, Howard will help, but giving away a versatile big man like Lamar Odom for nothing is something that will come back to haunt them. Now they have aging, demoralized Pau Gasol and the increasingly irrelevant Andrew Bynam, who is basically a slow-burn version of Greg Oden. Bynam will play all 66 games this year in the truncated span of 120 days injury-free like I'll replace Hugh Hefner at the mansion. Not happening.

No, the biggest move that will resonate in Lakerland is Kobe Bryant's impending divorce from his wife Vanessa. Bryant, who's played through some serious distractions before during his rape trial in Colorado (settled out of court, so the consensus is "Yes, he was guilty"), can summon his laser-like focus like no other. But this is different. This newest fiasco involves the deterioration of his home life, which will not only cost him his family but tons of money. TONS. The Colorado incident happened when he was a younger man, and he is an old 36 this year at a time when the team will be depending on his diminishing skills more than ever. If he was the Kobe of yesteryear, I wouldn't bet against him. But the combination of father time, aching knees, impending trade rumors involving their two other best players and the divorce will be too much for even the Black Mamba himself to overcome. Welcome to the beginning of the end for the Lakers as they are currently constructed. Stay tuned. It's going to get ugly.

And Dwight Howard will not make the situation any better, because they still desperately need a point guard and have no bench whatsoever. Besides, is Howard so desperate to get out of Orlando he is willing to throw more of his formative years down the drain playing second fiddle to an aging nutbox in Kobe Bryant and guards Derek Fisher and Steve Blake, the worst backcourt tandem since Sacco and Vanzetti? I see the Oklahoma Thunder running these cats out of the gym. If the Lakers see a light at the end of the tunnel, it's the Thunder coming at them like a runaway train. As an aside, their second unit consists of the artist formerly known as Ron Artest...and four white guys. I rest my case.

3) The Knicks mightily overpaid for Tyson Chandler, both in money and in years. They are stuck with him until 2015. Giving up Chauncey Billups was a good move, because he is no longer "Mr. Big Shot". They have a serviceable front line, but Stoudemire's knees will have to hold up (highly unlikely) and Carmelo Anthony is going to have to play some semblance of defense, another improbability that may see the Knicks bounced out of the NBA Playoffs again in the first round.

Then you have their "point guard by committee" situation with an overwhelmed Tony Douglas, a clearly running-on-fumes Mike Bibby, who left his best years back in Sacramento 8 years ago, and Baron Davis, who will miss at least one month due to a back ailment he conveniently forgot to address during the NBA's protracted summer vacation. They inexplicably went after shooting guard Jamal Crawford, as if they need another chucker who refuses to play defense. Remember, Crawford was the guy Lance Stephenson scored 40-plus points on in a summer league tournament. Lance was FIFTEEN YEARS OLD at the time, and Crawford already a seasoned professional.

You'll be surprised by who I mention here as a possible fit for the Knicks backcourt-Sebastian Telfair. Yes, he is undersized, cannot shoot and is for all intent and purposes an NBA drifter destined to forever sit on the bench of whatever team needs to fill a roster spot. But he is fast, can handle the ball better than most and his mentality is pass-first. He has been in the league seven years, but four of those don't really count because he should have been in college. His knees and back aren't messed up and he still has remnants of the youthful bounce in his stride that has abandoned aging veterans Bibby and Davis years ago.

A player like Telfair is what this run-and-gun team needs, because there is no way Chris Paul or Deron Williams will sign with a team that can't sign them to a max contract. All that talk about these guys wanting to play for a championship is all well and good, but not too many of these cats are willing to leave millions of dollars on the table just to play in New York. If this were true, why have the Knicks NEVER been able to attract any All-Star caliber free agents until recently?

The last time the Knicks won a championship, John Shaft was trolling the gritty streets of Harlem and Frank Lucas was wearing his matching chinchilla coat/fur hat to Madison Square Garden prize fights. That is a long time to be irrelevant. Sure, those Patrick Ewing-led teams of the 1990's put up a good fight, but Patrick never got to play with another All-Star caliber player the whole time he was in New York.

But they do get style points for finally putting an end to the Eddy Curry Era, and that right there is reason enough to give owner James Dolan a pass for doubling ticket prices from one day to the next. There are plenty of New Yorkers who can afford it in a town where some Eurotrash Russian mail-order whore recently purchased an apartment for $88 million dollars with daddy's Russian trust fund cash so she can have a place to crash during college semesters.

4) We don't need any more evidence to affirm the obvious-what the league needs more than anything else is contraction. New Orleans, Sacramento, Minnesota, and Charlotte are bogus, irrelevant franchises that have to go. Here is why-

A) The grand city of New Orleans rallies around five things-police corruption, political scandals, hedonism, entrenched poverty, and the Saints. And don't blame Hurricane Katrina for the lack of support. The hurricane washed away a large majority of poor folks in places like the Ninth Ward who cannot afford to go to any type of anything, much less an NBA basketball team. The Hornets don't need to relocate to a larger market-they need to be scrapped because they suck.

B) The Maloof Brothers, the Las Vegas casino owners who were awash in cash only a few years ago, are now crying poor, hijacking the municipality of Sacramento to build them a new stadium or they'll leave. Not happening. They've been irrelevant for so long the league forgot to include their games during the initial first draft of the season schedule. DeMarcus Cousins and Tyreke Evans are two me-first dickheads who will do nothing to make people forget the guard/center tandem of Magic and Kareem, so forget about them. We can't wait for the San Andreas Fault to unleash it's fury and wash half of California into the sea. The Kings need to go RIGHT NOW.

C) Michael Jordan has been an unmitigated disaster as a husband, golfer, general manager and now owner of the woe begotten Charlotte whatever-the-fuck they're called. One of the best players to ever walk the Earth is responsible for two of the worst first-round draft picks in NBA history-Qwame Brown and Adam Morrison. He was also one of the owners vociferously fighting for a basketball-related revenue split with the players of 47%. As if this hard-line stance is going to win him any favors with potential free agents down the road. He could have had the commissioner set his team's player split of BRI set at 4.7%, and the Bobcats would STILL lose money. That's because they suck, and will continue to suck until Jordan either leaves or the team is shut down, preferably both. There is better basketball in the state of North Carolina on the college level, so the Bobcats are doomed and deserve to get whacked.

D) Minnesota just signed another point guard, JJ Barea, for $19 million over four years. They drafted three in the first round a couple of years ago, and are married to Ricky Rubio, who plays well only on Youtube España. This is a perfect example of what is really hurting small-market teams; dumb-ass owners and general managers. Minnesota is so stupid they have their best player, Kevin Love, on the trading block. And for what, to rebuild? Isn't a 20-something, overachieving rebounding machine supposed to be the type of player you build a franchise around? Not in Minnesota, whose starting five this year will consist of five point guards, all under 6'3".

*The Toronto Raptors get honorable mention here, but they are so irrelevant I heard the US is planning to invade Canada just to keep them from playing any more games.

5) If there is any evidence that Danny Ainge is one of the worst GM's in the league, just look at what he's done ever since the Celtics won the title and you'll realize if it wasn't for the team and the coach he has now, he'd be doing play-by-play commentary on ESPN and playing golf with Charles Barkley. Having to be subjected to that man's horrible swing is enough for anyone to want to check out and go straight to Hell, but Ainge has earned a spot right next to Sir Charles on the putting green for his abominable moves.

Forget about the deals he pulled off to bring in Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. The Garnett deal was the doing of Kevin McKale in his attempt to rebuild a franchise going nowhere with Garnett at center. Allen was thrown at them by a desperate Seattle team looking to rebuild and unload his mammoth contract. Going forward, they had no use for an aging shooting guard who played absolutely no defense whatsoever. His metamorphosis was due to three things-his commitment to physical fitness during the off-season, Doc Rivers' emphasis on team defense, and having Pierce and Garnett on hand to put a foot up anyone's ass that wasn't on the same page.

Having gone to two straight NBA Finals with basically the same crew intact, Ainge decides to get cute. First, he trades big man Kendrick Perkins, who if he hadn't gotten hurt during the Finals in 2009, the Celtics would have won another title. He tries to replace Perkins with the biggest array of cast-offs and bums this side of the Bowery. Jermaine O'Neil, always a favorite of mine, is woefully past his prime. He's so past his sell-by date his fumes are running on fumes. Shaquille O'Neil was a joke with no punchline ever since he decided he was too cool to stay his fat ass in shape, which is the main reason he was shuttled out of Los Angeles. Neither player could fill the shoes of Perkins, who this year has come back in the best shape of his career and will thankfully miss the decline of the Celtics as teams like Miami and Chicago run roughshod over what was once a proud franchise.

Ainge then trades the combo of Glen "Big Baby" Davis and Nate Robinson. These two guys are professional basketball oddities would have ended as journeymen if not for the roles they played while at Boston. Both these guys are high-energy characters who play with passion and feed off the cheers of the crowd. They gave the Celts a much needed boost while the starters rested. They too are gone. And now, one of their supposed key players, Jeff Green, is out for the season due to a heart ailment.

And Ainge had the audacity to put Rajon Rondo, their best player, on the trading block recently, hoping to land Chris Paul, which in perspective is even more stupid than anything Ainge has ever done as a GM. Paul is a great player but has a bad knee which can go any minute now. Rondo has no knee issues, was the main reason they won a championship in 2008 and last year played through extraordinary pain when his elbow was bent in what motorcycle riders call "an angle of no return" during a freak accident on the court. He's been through the wars with these guys and never has received the full credit he deserves. There would be no "Big Three" without Rajon Rondo. And this is the thanks he gets. Don't get rid of Rondo-get rid of Ainge. HE'S the one who sucks.

The Final Word on Hero Worship...

2011-12-18T18:55:00.018-05:00

"Faith is the surrender of the mind; it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It's our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated."-Christopher Hitchens

The above quote by the recently departed Hitchens, noted author, social critic and infamous contrarian, says it all about the worship and unquestioning loyalty that envelops your average major college football program. Penn State suffered an inordinate amount of this due to the all-encompassing aura of ex-football coach Joe Paterno, who sucked the air out of the Penn State campus for over 45 years until he was given the bum's rush for not only failing to report Sandusky to the authorities but also for exhibiting monumental hubris when the situation called for exactly the opposite.

This isn't exclusive to sausage factories like Penn State. It happens at places like Duke University, where basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski is deified and worshiped like a Greek God. The fanbases of these programs are nothing but cults driven by a snide, cynical clique of worshipers who brook no criticism and resoundingly defend their programs at all costs. One must have faith, and being a true believer is the cost of admission, to the detriment of one's individual sense of self. Any rational sense of right and wrong goes out the window when defending "the program". Just ask ex-Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel.

You see the worst of it with assholes like Bobby Knight, but he is merely a symptom of a much greater disease. Sportscaster Dick Vitale, who has spent a lifetime licking the boots of coaches from his pulpit as a college basketball commentator, recently stated that Indiana University should erect a statue for Knight because of all he's done for the school. Vitale seems to have either forgotten or blatantly disregards the reasons why Bobby Knight was fired in the first place. During a public gathering almost 30 years ago, we have a very astute and pragmatic assessment of coach Knight's influence on the most talented player to ever play at Indiana, Isiah Thomas-

Notice how Knight is glaring at Thomas. Underneath the forced smile, you can literally feel the visceral, scalding-hot fury emanating from his eyes. And you have to love the way Thomas turned his head and glared right back at coach Knight as if to say, "Yup. I'm sayin' this because it's true, and you know it, motherfucker". Whatever his motivations, Isiah was right. What could any coach teach such a talented player besides swearing, cursing and variations of the word "cunt"? Absolutely nothing. Thomas was at Indiana University long enough to win a championship for Knight, not the other way around. But coach Knight is the one that receives most if not all of the credit.

The type of misguided hero worship we've seen at Penn State invariably and inevitably leads to monsters like Jerry Sandusky feeling they can act with impunity. Sandusky, who was affiliated with Penn State in an important enough capacity to profit from it's notoriety, had acquired the desired amount of clout where he was able to pull children out of class in the middle of a school day to molest them right on the premises. And no one at this school batted an eye.

The poisonous affects of this is evident every day on college campuses all over the country. Entitled jocks walking around saying and doing anything they want-never going to class, always having someone else do their homework, and screwing every girl in sight. One minute they're living in abject poverty, the next they are driving fancy cars, rocking mad jewelery and shopping at Lord & Taylor. Girls losing their self-respect just to be close to these low-IQ, overgrown pituitary cases. Boosters paying tons and tons of money for exclusive "access" to the programs. Everything corrupt you can possibly think of goes on in this environment. And the average student, who goes to college for an education, is supposed to make what, exactly, of all this madness swirling around them?

What lessons are we to learn from all this? What is most disheartening is some of the people who Sandusky actually helped find themselves feeling sorry-not for the victims of his heinous crimes, but for the program and for themselves. They feel good ol' coach let 'em down, and now what blue-chip steroid freak is going to want to play for their illustrious alma mater? Who's going to uphold the traditions that resound from sea to shining sea?

Let's attempt to recalibrate our priorities and realize this ain't about the disenchanted ex-players of Penn State who feel disappointed their gridiron heroes let them down. It's about the victims whose lives have been scarred forever, and it's about the obscene and undeserved hero worship of coaches like Paterno. Coaches should stay away from any grandiose and overreaching status of power and respect that is out of proportion to their chosen profession. They should coach and nothing more.

If you need some hulking, yellow-toothed greaseball like Jerry Sandusky to teach you life lessons, you are not fit to wear the jockstrap necessary to protect your testicles from the kick in the nuts you deserve for worshiping people like him. The reasons why this system is out of whack begins with the screwed-up priorities of fans and the over-reliance of sports to fill the empty void that exists in the
personal lives of the fools you see in the stands every Saturday with their school colors painted on their torsos.

The overriding issue is the average fan's need to be a part of something "bigger than themselves". This is cult-speak, except these cults don't need to recruit. They have a built-in fanbase of worshipers, groupies and boosters who pass on the love of their teams from one generation to the next. Their particular allegiance becomes the defining characteristic in their lives. I can't possibly think of anything more corrosive to a person's sense of self-worth than this. Which is exactly the type of environment makes the Sanduskys of the world possible.

Jerry Sandusky and the Penn State Football Scandal Pt. III...

2011-12-18T14:40:00.001-05:00

In the third and final installemtn of our groundbreaking investigative series on the Penn State football scandal, we finally get to the man in the middle of this shitstorm, Jerry Sandusky. We are going to cut through the clutter, hoopla and hyperbole and head straight to the facts, which, gruesome as they are, must be told.

First off, Sandusky gets arrested and makes bail. Aided in his quest to raise funds are former Penn State alumni who send him money for his defense. Now, I understand all about standing by your friends, but even friendship has it's limits, and charges of pedophilia fall into this category. That didn't stop these asshole from stepping up and helping Sandusky remain free. And it doesn't matter whether it's a dollar or $5,000. Any amount is too much. Then come the revelations in a bizarre and self-destructive interview with Bob Costas where Sandusky admits to showering with young boys and engaging them in "HORESPLAY", that vague, undefined term that can mean anything from slapping someone with a towel on the backside to, in Sandusky parlance, repeated anal rape of 10-year old boys.

So for the sake of clarity, we need to define this term for the court of public opinion. From the research done by our crack staff here at "Busting Chops", if horseplay doesn't involve an actual horse, it can only mean one other thing-rape. I had a friend who engaged in horseplay all the time. In fact, it was her passion. Know why? BECAUSE SHE WAS AN EQUESTRIAN!!! That's hoseplay, not what Sandusky was doing!!! Now, before you ask what type of idiot would agree to an interview on national television, keep in mind Sandusky wasn't actually in the studio. He was interviewed by phone and his lawyer was the one sitting next to Costas, as we were subjected to what for all intent and purposes was some of the most damning testimony we've heard to date.

Just picture this-a grown man, an older gentleman if you will, showering with a 10-year old boy BY THEMSELVES. Some of the "horseplay" involved both of them skating from side to side, naked, genitalia and butt cheeks flailing all over the place. The inappropriateness of this type of activity beggars belief. What sort of lawyer would agree to have their client admit to something like this? The type of lawyer who impregnates one of his clients, then a 17-year old girl and marries her to quell public sentiment going against him.

When Bob Costas asked Sandusky's lawyer Joseph Amedola if he would trust Sandusky with his own children, he said "Yes" with a straight face.What the fuck.

(under construction)

Jerry Sandusky and the Penn State Football Scandal Pt. II...

2011-12-17T19:12:00.017-05:00

Part Two of our investigative series on the Penn State football scandal focuses on the sub-culture of major college football. Football coaches, for the most part, are frustrated ex-jocks who couldn't cut the mustard at the highest levels, or at any level. And as Woody Allen famously stated in his film "Radio Days", "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. And those who can't teach, teach gym". We can rephrase it for our purposes as "Those who can't coach, coach football".

Yes, football coaches. Those beady-eyed, granite-jawed orangutans with the thousand-yard stare who spend their emotionally stunted adulthoods screaming at the top of their lungs at teenagers while stalking the gridiron dressed in unseemly, tight-ass polyester shorts with breath so bad it could whittle the grass they walk on, while ranting and raving about how the next game is going to be a "war" they must win.They love their war euphemisms, and it is a glaring example of how fucked in the head these idiots are by constantly referencing war rhetoric to a bunch of impressionable young kids playing a game. Football isn't war, it's a sport, unless you've been the unfortunate lad to have been caught in the Cobra Clutch of a slimeball like Jerry Sandusky, who used his position of authority to live out his disgusting sexual perversions by abusing boys he was entrusted to supervise and protect.

Supposedly, football coaches are molders of young men who, according to the jackasses who worship them, teach invaluable lessons about life, competition and camaraderie. Apparently, these lessons can only be taught by frustrated, mentally-stunted neanderthals who've been concussed so many times during their own playing days most can't remember to take their whistles off when they go home to their grandmother's double-wide trailer. Many of these crackers would be distilling moonshine or biting the heads off chickens in traveling circuses if it wasn't for coaching, such is the genetic gene pool this profession attracts.

These lessons, according to one Jerry Sandusky, extend to personal hygiene, which is the reason he gave a few days ago via his crackhead attorney about why he showered with the young boys under his supervision. Newsflash for you, Jerry-you don't need to jump into a shower butt-ass naked with a 10-year old child to show him how to soap up. This line of reasoning borders on the insane, and is the main reason why I waited a while from the moment this sordid story broke out before commenting on it. These nuggets of self-incrimination are the desperate pleas of a vile and grotesque human being, whose sickness metastasized in the petri dish that is big-time college football.

The insulated world of D-I football promotes loyalty over talent, which is why the same type of white-bred, redneck goon gets recycled from the benches of such programs right into the coaching ranks all over the country.This is why assistant coach Mike McQueary saw Sandusky slamming a poor underage child in the ass as he strolled past the showers one fine day and decided he'd better call his dad to see how best to cover his own behind instead of calling the fucking police, which would have been the second reaction of anyone not indoctrinated by the assholes who run college football. The first instinct of any normal human being would have been to make an attempt to save the child from this perverse sexual attack. Instead, he stated he "slammed a locker door really hard" to let Sandusky know someone was in close proximity. That he walked away without ever once checking on the child after the fact speaks volumes not only of McQueary's own morals but of the cult-like atmosphere that pervades the universe of big-time college sports.

Here is the thing-I'm all for young boys bonding over athletics. It sure beats them joining gangs and participating in the preferred activities of gang bangers, like drive-by shootings, drug dealing and gang-rapes. But the whole jock culture within football has to change. First of all, no adult should shower in the presence of other naked boys. I liked the football coaches I played for, but would draw the line at seeing them naked in the shower next to me while waiting for them to pass me the soap as they generously lathered their rear ends. I would refrain from accepting a bar of Lever 2000 in such an instance.

There is no reason why the rituals of athletics have to involve the gratuitous exhibition of fellow teammate's genitalia. Showers should be private. Now one would argue that private showering facilities cost too much money to install. Well, you can ask the Penn State administration which would be more economically feasible-private showers or the untold millions they will inevitably be sued for because of the situation that just blew up in their face.I don't need to see anyone showering naked next to me, and neither do I want to be ogled while in the same vulnerable position. Under such circumstances, you may want to just shower up and get the fuck out of there, but you never know what's on the mind of the cat next to you. Or what's on the mind of your coach, who shouldn't be in there in the fucking first place.

Sandusky was protected by McQueary, Paterno, and the school administrators, who instead of going to the police with the information they had about a sexual assault witnessed first-hand, they passed the buck and ignored the fact they had a sexual predator in their midst, a pedophile who set up a foundation for at-risk youth so he could have a henhouse full of emotionally disturbed boys from broken homes to feast on like a homosexual Nosferatu. They had the situation well in hand, where potential crimes or other malfeasances are to be reported to campus police, who conveniently work for Penn State and not the state of Pennsylvania.

What we've witnessed in the aftermath of these heinous allegations is the culture of college football when a program becomes bigger than the towns they inhabit. This is what happens when diehard football fans pledge their allegiances to these programs to the point where sweeping shit like this under the rug is their first reaction to such a crisis. This is a monumental crisis of character that speaks volumes about the type of lessons football coaches like Paterno preach. Underneath it all, the character-building bullshit spewed by football coaches is nothing but an exercise in cult worship. And as in any cult, the cult and its' leader must be protected at all costs.

There is another dynamic at play here. Irresponsible parenting is at the root of this madness. If more parents were to take responsibility for their children, they wouldn't have to look to some jive-ass coach to take care of their young boys. The responsibility of being surrogate dads to wayward children should not fall into the hands of coaches. Coaches should fucking coach and that's it, and parents should be parents. Unfortunately, kids from impoverished, broken homes are susceptible to this type of abuse just like the proverbial runaway girl is susceptible to landing in the hands of a pimp. It is natural for a hapless, overburdened, single mother trying to raise her children under increasingly difficult circumstances to look for help, especially if the father is either not there or is a useless piece of shit. But society needs to recalibrate its' priorities so that responsible parenting takes precedence over the stalking image of a coach who is a father figure to no one when his intentions are similar to those of a creep like Sandusky.

And don't think for one second Sandusky is the ONLY pedophile/sexual predator roaming college campuses and athletic youth leagues. No, No, No. Just like almost every major athletic program has players taking money under the table from boosters and wanna-be agents, so too do college campuses have freaks masquerading as coaches preying on the very young people they are entrusted to coach. Just ask Jim Boeheim of Syracuse University, whose long-time friend and trusted assistant coach was recently fired over allegations that he too molested young kids over the course of many years. And let's not forget the resignation of the head of the AAU for the same exact reasons.

McQueary had one thing in mind when he encountered what must have been a blood-curdling scenario in the shower of the campus of Penn State, and it wasn't the welfare of the child. It was the idea of getting out of this situation without putting his career in jeopardy. Joe Paterno, it turns out, didn't immediately go directly to his superiors with the information because he didn't want to ruin the kids' weekend at Sandusky's camp. Well, this one particular child's weekend was ruined, and so was the rest of his life. Meanwhile, the brain dead student body of Penn State felt enough outrage to stage a candlelight vigil for Joe Pa as if he were the victim in all this, without thinking once that this out-of-touch buffoon needed to be fired and his statue taken down and hung upside down like Mussolini's bloated corpse after Italy was freed from the bondage of Fascism.

These are the so-called "values" at the core of this diseased system. Whenever you see some fat slob of a fan with his school colors painted on his gelatinous torso during the airing of a college football game, you can blame him too. It's losers like this, who live to cheer for their favorite college football team to the exclusion of say, a gym membership or anything remotely resembling a real life, you know that what matters to these cocksuckers is the game every Saturday and nothing else. If they have children or a wife, they are summarily ignored. If not, they cannot comprehend that what Sandusky did was horrible and wrong because they cannot relate. To them, their family constitutes the players they see on their big-screen TVs, and the head of this family is the coach. Slinking into the fantasy world of sports gives your average college football fan a respite from having to think too hard about anything, and gives their pent-up passions an orgiastic release they could never experience within the challenging confines of a real relationship with real human beings.

Jerry Sandusky and the Penn State Football Scandal Pt. I...

2011-12-13T17:37:00.020-05:00

Well, what can I add to this quagmire of bullshit that is the Penn State Football scandal that hasn't been said already? Plenty, as a matter of fact. Here goes-

We are going to begin this three part investigative series with a close look at Queen Bee "Joe Pa" Paterno. Yes, he of the paternal nickname, always there for his flock of nimrod steroid freaks in their time of need with sage advice and a firm grip on the type of family-oriented values cherished by the "real" Americans that inhabit the euphemistic world of "Middle America". Middle America, that vast intellectual and sartorial wasteland that exists between the liberal, left-wing, pot-smoking East and West coasts exemplified by New York City and Los Angeles respectively. Middle America, where flannel is a fashion statement. Where plastic forks, spoons and paper plates are considered silverware. Middle America, where Spam and Chef Boyardi beef pillows (ravioli to you and me) is considered fine dining.

This is supposed to be where small-town family values and personal integrity are of such importance that jive-ass politicians pander to these assholes as if the rest of us are nothing more than heathenish baboons who do nothing but gang-bang, have out-of-wedlock children while intermingling with drug dealers, disease-ridden prostitutes and all manner of human garbage. Middle America is where you'll find the strict moral codes and rock-solid integrity that define this country. Nothing but honest-to-goodness, wholesome Americans, by golly. And if you think otherwise you'd be darn tootin'.

Rural Pennsylvania isn't exactly where I would recommend sending young men and women to receive a college education. The reasoning behind attaining a degree is to expand one's intellectual horizons through a combination of classroom study, research, lectures and interaction with fellow students from diverse backgrounds. But Penn State is a football factory masquerading as an academic institution, renown more for it's party school atmosphere and athletic programs than anything remotely resembling academia. Penn State is where the beer flows from the kegs of Anheuser-Busch straight into the gullets of its' brain dead student body. In many state universities perpetual toxic inebriation is a major. For the students at Penn State it qualifies as a double-major.

On any given weeknight most if not all the dorms on the venerable Penn State campus reek of beer farts and vomit from underage, lard-ass redneck losers who can't get laid because-you guessed it-most of the cute girls are getting fucked by the football players. The rest are standing in line waiting their turn (if you think I'm joking, then you've never been to one of these schools). These young ladies are pretty much your standard, run-of-the-mill white trash hoochies who've been administering blowjobs to jocks since they were in the seventh grade. Think I'm kidding? The most prevalent sexually transmitted diseases in suburban high schools among young girls are syphilis and gonorrhea...of the throat.

By the time they get to college, they would have honed their craft to the point that drinking beer, smoking pot and blowing football players is all they're good at. And what better place to accomplish these feats of daring-do while earning a sham of a degree than at an academic shithole like Penn State, where no one gives a fuck as long as Paterno gets his beloved Nittany Lions into a high-ranking bowl game every year?

Paterno was, for at least the last 15-20 years, a football coach like I'm the head of Virgin Airlines. This is a man who doesn't know where he is half the fucking time due to a case of undiagnosed dementia that belies his hyper-aggressive sense of entitlement. This is the only reason I can come up with for his abhorrent and clearly irrational behavior following the Sandusky revelations, which lead to his rightful dismissal. But his behavior isn't the result of some mental disorder. It's the result of being treated like a deity who always thought he was bigger than the school.

In fact, he thought he WAS the school, and the thinking around the intellectually hermetically sealed world of the Athletic Office was the place would crumble to the ground if "Joe Fucking Pa" wasn't running out of the tunnel on his reconstructed hip replacements with his team every Saturday. Let's be real-he hasn't coached in years, letting his assistants do the heavy lifting of running the program while he sits in a booth high above the field trying not to choke on his false teeth as he nods in and out of consciousness during practices and games like a heroin addict.

During the time Penn State football fell into a bit of disarray during the early 2000's, the school realized it needed to recruit more athletically talented players, players who usually aren't what one would call model citizens. This of course lead to more on-campus rioting and general mayhem on the part of the players during their off-time, when students are usually either in class, sleeping, or shitting all over themselves from a night of epic alcohol poisoning. Paterno continuously interfered with school officials whose job it was to look into violations of the school code of conduct, bullying his way through the process while gaining favorable sentences for his athletes, who almost always wound up receiving lighter sentences than your average Penn State dickwad undergrad. Ah, those small-town values...rock solid and a shining example of virtuousness that is the envy of all the land.

Wanna know how big Paterno's juevos are? A few years ago, when it was way past uncomfortably obvious that this dickhead had to go once and for all, the school administration asked him to graciously step down for the sake of the program and he told the school President "No"-and wasn't fired. Can you imagine the balls on this fucking guy? They make the boulder that chased Indiana Jones through the Temple of Doom look like marbles.

This was during a time when Penn States' biggest highlight was Paterno running off the field in the middle of a game because his diarrhea was so egregious his bowels were going to explode all over the gridiron like a Hydrogen bomb. The lenses of his glasses are so thick he's been advised by NASA not to look directly into a solar eclipse for fear the reflection from his manhole-sized spectacles would knock both the sun and the moon completely out of orbit.

And while we're at it, let's also take into account his disgusting man-boobs-those sagging, drooping bags of octogenarian flab that are so hideous they leave even me at a loss for superlatives. You can actually see the silhouette of his Frisbee-sized nipples through his dingy, Chunky Soup-stained team-issue sweatshirt whenever he appears on camera. They are a monstrosity that insults even the lowbrow sensitivities of a rural bumble-fuck campus like University Park.

When the Sandusky storm was brewing over campus, the student body decided to hold a candlelight vigil-not for this beast's victims, but for Paterno. I wondered if Sandusky had actually victimized Joe Pa, such was the pity party thrown for this clearly out-of-touch jackass who again showed mammoth-sized testicles when he told school administrators when HE was going to step down. This graceless goon didn't show any type of contrition or remorse for the victims until he was told to by one of his PR hacks. It turned out to be too little too late for this career football neanderthal, and now he's gone down in a flame of infamy that will forever sully any good he's done while employed at Penn State. Only Bobby Knight's departure from Indiana University rivals Paterno's ignominious exit from the school he basically put on the map.

And that's just too fucking bad. Good-bye and good riddance, you piece of shit. You went from head coach of a powerhouse football program beloved the world over to drooling all over your Bingo card at the nearest retirement home in record time. You deserve nothing less. Let's have a moment of silence-not for Paterno, but for the hapless victims of Jerry Sandusky. Paterno can eat my ass for all I care. I hope he gets sued so fucking hard he won't have enough money left over to pay for his badly needed mastectomies. Maybe he can raise the funds by soliciting money from the same douchebags that sent Sandusky cash to help pay for his defense.

Babes of the Week for October 21, 2011...

2011-10-21T23:57:00.027-04:00

We are doing something different this week. I usually post photos and a mini-biography of one stunning and beautiful woman, but today I will be featuring three Latina artists that I've recently discovered and find interesting enough to present here on "Busting Chops".

1)Ana Tijoux

A recent episode of "Breaking Bad" featured a song by Ana that immediately stuck in my head. It was so cool it piqued my interest in the artist. Her parents were Chilean expats who fled to France due to the political oppression and state-sponsored terrorism of dictator Augusto Pinoche (yes, Muammar Gaddafi was a worse dresser as far as despots go, but Pinoche wasn't far behind with his ridiculous uniforms that made him look like the Latin American version of Captain Crunch, complete with sashes that made him look like a cross-dressing, geriatric home coming queen).

Her parents moved back to Chile when homeboy broke out, and she began her career rapping in French and then Spanish with a group called Makiza in the late 1990's. She is now a solo act and her album "1977" has garnered very good critical reviews.

Tijoux is the first Chilean artist to have been nominated for a Grammy award. Her music is definitely worth checking out, so for the uninitiated, here is a taste-

2) Liliana Saumet

Liliana is the vocalist for the group Bomba Estéreo, a band from Bogotá, Colombia. They play a self-described styled called "Electro Vacilón", an interesting blend of electronic music, Cumbia and Latin hip hop-

Here is their hit single from the album "Blow Up"-

3) Julieta Venegas

Julieta is an American-born singer/songwrtier of Mexican descent who performs in Spanish. Not only does she loook mahvelous, dahling-absolutely mahvelous!!!, she is also a wonderfully talented artist. March 2006 saw her blow up with the release of the album "Limon y Sal", which sold 100,00 copies in just one week in Mexico. Latin artists are discovering that they do not have to sing in English to find success, nor do they have to copy the style of your typical North American pop hoochie to make it big in the music business.

Here is a song from the multi-million selling album called "Eres Para Mi", with Ana Tijoux, making a guest vocalist appearance-

Film Recommendation of the Week...

2011-10-16T23:59:00.005-04:00

Tape
Release date November 2, 2001.
Running time 1 hour 26 minutes.

This independent film works well as a three-person, one act play. It is engaging, interesting and very well-acted. Two high school buddies meet up in Michigan. Vince, the hard-partying slacker and sometimes volunteer fireman (played with slithering, greasy brilliance by Ethan Hawke) is in town to support his buddy on his entry into the Lansing Film Festival, but with a catch. He just so happens to be in pursuit of a confession from Jon (played by the ever-reliable Robert Sean Leonard), who allegedly raped an ex-girlfriend of his back in the day.

Amy (Uma Thurman) also happens to be in town, and just so happens to be an assistant district attorney. She joins in the psychological mind-fuck and plays along in this game long enough to fuck both characters in the end. Great flick and is highly recommended.

Babe of the Week for October 14, 2011...

2011-10-14T23:59:00.012-04:00

Lauren Caitlin Upton!!!

Ah, Lauren-you stoopid good-loooking, you!!! You shot to national prominence for displaying stupidity beyond the call of duty in 2007. While running for the Miss Teen USA pageant you were tripped up by a question that no one in their right mind should ask a beauty contestant. Here is the clip just in case any of you out there forgot-

It's alright, because she managed to bounce back from this to become...I don't really know. All I know is her youtube video became an overnight sensation, garnering over 51 million hits. That's people from all over the world, even ones who don't have maps!!! Regardless of what she's doing now, she loooks mahvelous, dahling-absolutely mahvelous!!!

I would personally like to thank the good state of South Carolina, where they make their inbred, white trash look sooooooooo good!!! Here is Lauren right after the Miss Teen Universe debacle, making an epic comeback on the "Today" show-

People reading this need to understand how seriously fine this woman is. She is 5'9" tall barefoot, which means in heels she towers over most of us, and that is a good thing. If you have the opportunity (and the luck, which is required in mass quantities unless you are a celebrity, a big-time jock or have tons of Mexican narco-trafficker money lying around your house) to lasso a woman like this to be your girl, make sure you parade her around for all to see, because no one will believe you otherwise.

AY, MAMI!!!

Must-See TV...

2011-10-14T21:58:00.006-04:00

1) The HBO series Boardwalk Empire is heating up big-time after three episodes. Not only that, it has been renewed for a third season. That is great news. Will Enoch "Nucky" Thompson hold on to power in Atlantic City now that The Commodore has decided to rally the troops and give him the bum's rush via a Federal election-rigging indictment and a hostile takeover of his bootlegging network? Inquiring minds want to know...

2) AMC's Breaking Bad keeps getting better and better. This season ended last Sunday with a literal "bang" and will continue for one more season next year. If anyone missed it you can catch it on reruns or download from any site that has it. I for one am happy to see Gus get his comeuppance-he was truly one of the biggest and most bizarre creeps ever to have been showcased in a serial drama, played with icy aplomb by Giancarlo Esposito. I'm glad he's gone, but the question remains-now that the meth lab has been effectively put out of commission, who will Walt and Jesse cook for now that the Juarez cartel has been killed off and they have no connections to move the drugs if they begin cooking again?

3) Season Two of AMC's The Walking Dead kicks off this coming Sunday. There is a lot of buzz about this coming season, and the cast have all said that it will be more exciting and riveting than the first year. From the trailer it seems as if they are correct. After the Atlanta CDC (Center for Disease Control) blew up once the one remaining doctor realized he could not come up with a cure for the virus that has decimated all of mankind, the gang are back on the road and have no idea where they're headed or when there will be even a small respite from the incessant running from the marauding hordes of undead who have destroyed civilization as we know it.

Film Recommendation of the Week...

2011-10-09T23:51:00.007-04:00

Taxi To The Dark Side
Release date April 30, 2007.
Running time 1 hour 46 minutes.

If you're wondering how the Bush administration sold it's soul to the Devil and compromised everything the United States is supposed to stand for, this is a documentary that must not be missed. The premise begins with an Afghan taxi driver who is taken into custody by US armed forces and dies in custody. The autopsy ruled that he was a victim of homicide, and is seemingly ignored.

What was the US policy on torture? Who was getting arrested and why? What intelligence were the arresting officials acting on when making arrests? What is the difference between a POW and an "enemy combatant" in regards to the Geneva Convention? All of these questions and more are answered by this brilliantly researched film by master documentary film maker Alex Gibney.

The reprehensible acts at Abu Ghraib had a precedent, and that was the goings on at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, where taxi driver Dilawar was taken and turned up dead five days later at the hands of his captors, leaving behind a young daughter and wife. Was anyone made to pay for this crime? You'll be disappointed with the results of the investigation and the people who literally got away with murder.

Here is a write-up on the arrest of Dilawar with his arrest photo (from The Washington Post)-

In 2002, a young Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar, who'd never spent a night away from his dusty little village, got lost in the fog of war and took a wrong turn into an abyss from which he would never return. It was a detention center at Bagram Air Base, where he was grilled on suspicion of being a Taliban fighter. Military interrogators hung him from a cage in chains, kept him up all night and kicked him senseless, turning his legs into pulp.

He lasted only five days. The Army initially attributed his death to natural causes, even though coroners had ruled it a homicide. Low-level soldiers were punished. It turned out that Dilawar (who, like many Afghans, used only one name) was not an enemy fighter, had no terrorist connections and had committed no crime at all.

Babe of the Week for October 7, 2011 is...

2011-10-07T23:33:00.020-04:00

Camila Pitanga!!!

Here is another beautiful babe from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil!!! She is a former fashion model who parlayed her incredible looks into an acting career. I first saw her in a Brazilian movie whose title escapes me right now simply because the second she flashed onto the screen I forgot what the movie was all about.

As you can see, she looks mahvelous, dahling-absolutely mahvelous!!! So next time you are looking for a decent foreign flick to rent, look up Camila and check her out-you will NOT be disappointed!!!

Feel free to thank me for scouring the universe for the finest broads you've probably never heard of. Your welcome.

The End of an A-Rod...

2011-10-07T19:23:00.019-04:00

There are two glaring issues the New York Yankees must address going forward-overpaying for talent and a sense of entitlement that success in the post-season is their birthright. Both they and the Red Sox proved that spending more than any other team in the majors does NOT guarantee anything except an immense amount of criticism if they fall short, and a jaded response if they DO win.

Here is the gigantic albatross hanging around the neck of the Yankees-the contracts of their star players. Rodriguez is owed $143 million dollars over the next six years. Jeter is owed $51 million over three years with a (get this) player option for a fourth year at $8 million that goes down to $3 mil if he decides not to re-sign, which works out to potentially $60 mil for 4 years. The Yankees can afford it, but one can only say this for so long. Without the rampant steroid use that was par for the course, the players signing contracts of 6 years or longer are getting paid for increasingly diminishing production. Just because a team can afford to overpay players doesn't mean it makes proper business sense.

Now they have C.C. Sabathia, arguably one of the best pitchers in the game, signed to a 7-year, $161 million dollar contract with an opt-out clause after three, meaning this season he is pretty much a free agent all over again and will be looking for either the same years at more money or the same money with more years added on. So far the Yankees owe Sabathia $92 million over the next four years. At age 31, do the Yankees really want to throw more money at this guy or worse, add more years to his contract just to keep him?

Sabathia's not exactly a slave to off-season conditioning and regardless of how tall he is, all that excess lard will become a hindrance the older he gets. And as we've seen lately, baseball players do not age gracefully. Their performance usually takes a precipitous fall sometime in their early to mid thirties and then the free-fall is quick and irreversible, which is what we are witnessing from Alex Rodriguez.

A-Rod is a player from the infamous Steroids Era in baseball. All the other prime movers have either retired (Bonds, Sosa, McGuire) or have been marginalized out of existence (Manny Ramirez, Roger Clemens). All have had their legacies tarnished seemingly beyond repair, but it is A-Rod who plays on. We will no longer see the A-Rod of old. Gone are the 50-home run, 130-plus RBI seasons. Gone are all those towering home runs. Gone is his bat speed. All he has left is a guaranteed contract that is more a lottery payout than a salary.

So when people make the argument that steroids don't help you hit a baseball, check out the stats from Rodriguez's 2007 season as opposed to what he's done the last couple of years. I'll gladly tell you to go and fuck yourself if you think 'roids hasn't played a tremendous part in A-Rod's career, because now that he's presumably off the juice, he's just another aging athlete with little left in that depleted steroid tank of his. And don't expect him to rebound next year either, unless he sends his cousin back to the DR to get him some more primobolan.

Striking out against the Red Sox in the playoffs back in the days, proof that ain't a damn thing changed-

Here are the pertinent details-putting aside his performance in the 2009 MLB Playoffs, Rodriguez has batted .222 and hit 4 homers in 38 playoff games. That is absolutely pedestrian in the rarefied world of baseball's elite. This year, he had only two hits in 18 plate appearances (both singles) in game 4's 10-1 rout of the Detroit Tigers. But in the crucial game 5, he strikes out with the bases loaded with the score 3-2, which is how the game ended.

There are no more excuses. He has had his time in pinstripes to carve out his legacy as one of the best players to ever stick a needle full of 'roids in his ass. He hit 54 homers in 2007. From then on, it's been 35, 30, 30, and this year 16. Six-fucking-teen. Games played-again, in 2007, 158. This year? A grand total of 99. What about total hits, you ask? In 2007, he had 183 hits. This year it was 103. Come on, man. What the fuck is this fucking guy getting paid for?

The Yankees extended A-Rod's contract when he opted out of his previous deal and gave him 4 more years than any other team would have given him. They were willing to pay him even more money per year than that idiot owner from Texas gave him when he first signed him to the 10-year, 252 million dollar contract that changed the face of modern-day sports forever. The Yankees are counting on A-Rod to break the home run record while helping to put more World Series banners up during the length of his current deal. That plan isn't looking too good right now.

Fans will point to the abysmal pitching staff. To that I respond sarcastically with these three words-The Philadelphia Phillies. They had arguably the best starting rotation in either league and got bounced in the first round by a St. Louis team that was submerged in the standings deeper than Captain Nemo not too long ago. Why did they collapse? Because their number 4, 5 and 6 hitters didn't hit, that's why. And as much as baseball pundits will have you think that good pitching will always beat good hitting, you need to score runs to win.

As for the injuries, I find it a bit ironic that once his steroid use became public knowledge and his buffoon of a cousin (who A-Rod so elegantly threw under the bus as nothing more than an inconsequential flunky) was ousted from the Yankee clubhouse, he can't stay healthy. Maybe, just maybe, all those steroids were the reason why he was so good in the first place. He has been rumored to have been on a regimen ever since high school, let's not forget. So...no more Primobolan, no more production. All while the injuries pile up and the stats go south.

Since no other club in their right mind (especially given the economic climate we're currently in, where though the poor are getting hosed the rich are the ones whining and bitching up a storm) would trade for A-Rod because of his monstrous contract and diminished offensive skills, the Yankees are stuck with him. What to do now? I'm glad it's not for me to decide, that's for sure.

The Yankees are stuck with the last remaining relic of the Steroids Era, a bloated dinosaur whose clubhouse nickname is "bitch titties" due to the effects the 'roids had on his physique. They'll have to keep paying more and more money for ever-diminishing production over the next six years, when he turns 42. He may eventually limp into the career home run record, but it will not be the parade Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa experienced. My guess is the Yankees will be relieved given that if and when he reaches that milestone, they would be that much closer to striking his contract off the books.

How did this one get past me?

2011-09-18T09:49:00.007-04:00

Sometime in May of this year Sebastian Telfair's little brother, Ethan, who plays guard for the Lincoln High School Railsplitters, was arrested. The Brooklyn District Attorney’s office said it was charging Telfair with criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree and bribery in the third degree, both felony charges. He was arrested not while running around with gang bangers, but with a couple of members of his own basketball team. Police found three loaded hand guns in an open backpack in a courtyard behind the O'Dwyer Gardens Houses on West 33rd St. near Surf Ave. in Brooklyn with the culprits somewhere in the vicinity and acting suspiciously.

When taken in to the 60th Precinct, Telfair made a bad situation worse by allegedly offering one of the officers a bribe in exchange for letting him go, which if true, makes it seem that he was indeed involved in this sordid mess. These are the details we have so far. I scoured the internet and various newspapers and the incident has been kept very low-key considering the players involved and the history of the Telfair family and their apparent love of guns.

Let's get to the facts-Ethan Telfair plays for the same coach, Dwayne "Tiny" Morton, who cascaded onto the scene during his tenure as Sebastian Telfair's high school coach during what was a whirlwind tour of egomania and unfettered greed by all involved. Sebastian's senior year was eloquently captured in the documentary "Through the Fire", where little brother Ethan was seen as a nine-year old prospect who would assume the mantle of "Coney Island's Next Basketball King". Except that it didn't happen. Ethan is a 5'10" junior who averaged a whopping 1.8 points and 1.6 assists in very limited playing time last season for the PSAL Brooklyn AA regular-season champions. The Railsplitters won the borough crown and reached the PSAL Class AA title game, where they lost to rival Boys & Girls High School.

At this stage of the game both Sebastian and cousin Stephon Marbury were already players who garnered national attention through their participation in various cutthroat AAU summer leagues. Ethan has not. There hasn't been any breakout performances on any stage for him, no cover stories in magazines like SLAM! or Sports Illustrated, just mediocrity as a role player on a very good NYC public high school team. But this isn't what irks me about the situation. What should concern everyone involved is how Ethan Telfair found himself anywhere near a bag full of guns in a Coney Island housing project in the first place.

This raises some very basic questions about wealth, fame, and the self-destructive hold street culture has over inner-city families. First of all, Ethan should be living in some leafy suburb surrounded by trees and cul-de-sacs. Instead, he is still in the same ghetto-ass apartment his family swore they would leave the second Sebastian was drafted into the NBA in the summer of 2004. Armed with a shiny new multi-million dollar sneaker deal and on the verge of becoming the 13th overall pick by Portland, Sebastian finally hit the big-time. So why did his family stay in Brooklyn?

There are better places to live in the borough. Why stay in the very place where during Sebastian's senior year a couple of cats were gunned down practically on the Telfair's doorstep? Is the intoxicating smell of urine, fecal matter and weed whenever they open their front door so transfixing that they just can't live without it? Can they not live without being within sight of ghetto losers with nothing to do with their lives but cause trouble until they either get shot or arrested?

Ethan spent his freshman year at a boarding school in Albany, New York but decided it wasn't for him. I have no idea what he missed about being in Brooklyn, but one can assume it wasn't the broken crack vials and used condoms that one encounters upon entering the staircase of his building. Or the graffiti that greets you when you enter the lobby imploring all and sundry to "suck my fucking dick".

If it was to play for Morton at Lincoln High due to the strong bond between the coach and the family, fair enough. But the family has enough money to move elsewhere, given the fact that a stray bullet shot in "da 'hood" rarely finds its' intended mark. It's always an innocent bystander or a person misidentified as the actual target who gets it. So why take the risk?

It also needs to be said that during Telfair's senior year at Lincoln, he had an older brother who was jailed on homicide charges. He was released when no one came forward to identify the actual shooter. His father also did time years ago for manslaughter, again for using s gun to settle a dispute. And Sebastian himself has been plagued by misfortunes due to carrying weapons, once while attempting to board a team plane and another time when he was caught speeding in the Bronx where officers found a pistol in the car.

Unless Ethan gets taller, finds a jump shot (something that has eluded older brother Sebastian for all of his seven years in the NBA) and miraculously steals playing time from the much more heralded Isaiah Whitehead (a 6'4" sophomore who is looking to be the next Coney Island prospect to garner big-time publicity) this kid is shooting towards basketball irrelevance faster than you can say "you have the right to remain silent".

Film Recommendation of the Week...

2011-08-29T16:40:00.009-04:00

Fog Over Frisco
Release date June 2, 1934.
Running time 1 hour 8 minutes.

Betty Davis stars in one of her earliest roles as a conniving, double-crossing heiress fascinated by the world of gangsters. Only problem is, gangsters have a way of settling beefs that is, let us say, a bit more "permanent" than how squares do it out in the real world. Davis finds this out the hard way, of course. With all the plot twists it's hard to keep up, but in the end we are treated to what is a very influential and underrated piece of film making.

The film noir genre of the '40s and '50s owes a lot to this flick. Given that the year was 1934 and it's had its' share of critics for rushing the plot, "Fog Over Frisco" is an underrated classic that spawned a great deal of gangster/femme fatale classics. Any true fan of cinema will not want to miss this one.

FOG OVER FRISCO: Movie Trailer.

Babe of the Week for August 26, 2011 is...

2011-08-26T22:37:00.009-04:00

Pink!!!

Yes, this beautiful young lady loooks mahvelous, dahling-absolutely mahvelous!!! And she's got talent, too, like most of our "Babe of the Week" candidates. I don't really listen to her music, but I've seen a few of her videos and she's always on maximum hotness. There are those that think she's a bit homely, but what do they know?

According to Billboard Magazine, she was rated the #1 pop singer of the last decade (2000-2009) so must be have been doing something right, selling 40 million albums and 65 million singles worldwide. She's also garnered 3 Grammys, 5 MTV video awards and 2 Brit awards. Not bad at all, I would say.

Unfortunately for us she's got terrible taste in men, marring some white trash motocross dildo who has more tattoos than Dennis Rodman. But our loss is definitely his gain. At least we have these wonderful photos of her to gaze upon while we wait for her to regain her senses and dump his retarded, monkey ass.

Film Recommendation of the Week...

2011-08-21T20:22:00.025-04:00

Fast and Furious 5
Release date April 29, 2011.
Running time 2 hours 10 minutes.

"We do one last job, and then we disappear-forever."-Dominic Toretto

Mindless action films with bad scripts and even worse acting don't really have a place here on "Busting Chops", but this particular rendition of the genre is an exception. I've always felt Vin Diesel sold himself short as an actor, displaying the mentality that being a "star" takes precedence over quality roles. But it's made him rich and famous, which is more than enough for people who don't give a shit about acting as a craft. Fair enough-how many people would sell their soul to have his life?

Dominic Toretto (played with sublime charisma by Diesel himself) is being chased by Special Agent Luke Hobbs (played by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson), who is looking to bring Toretto back to prison after his sister and her boyfriend bust him out on his way to Lompoc Penitentiary. The gang hits Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to pull off the ultimate heist of a lifetime-to rob the biggest drug dealer in the city, who has become so paranoid he's decided to hide his money in a state-of-the-art safe in a Rio police station. So Toretto puts together an international crew to pull the audacious caper off.

Um, not exactly the cat you want chasing you through the favelas of Rio, ay Vin?

This movie contains an all-star cast of mediocre actors, but I must say it's cool to see guys like homeboys Tego Calderon and Don Omar from Puerto Rico getting a chance to shine on the big screen. Tyrese Gibson and Ludacris are also part of the crew, and even though they didn't have many speaking parts were thoroughly enjoyable. Watching cats like this trying to act is much better than having a bunch of no-name jackasses trying to make Shakespeare out of what is essentially a Keystone Cops mash-up.

The details aren't important. This is an action flick , and action is what you get, right up the ass. Of all the "Fast and Furious" flicks, this is by far the best one by a mile. If this film doesn't make you feel like robbing a bank and taking off with the loot after watching it, you were dead the whole time. The car chases are incredible and the atmosphere electric throughout the whole flick-not a dull moment ever. If you wanna have some fun and forget about that boring, miserable, pathetic, loser life of yours for a couple of hours, put down the crack pipe and check out this film-you won't regret it.

*Ah, I almost forgot-if all that isn't enough, at the end of the film we come to find out our little pal and former "Babe of the Week" Michelle Rodriguez is back. She was supposedly killed off in the previous film, but she is now in Europe robbing banks with her own crew. Her file comes across the desk of Special Agent Hobbs, making way for a future installment in the "Fast and Furious" franchise. GET PSYCHED!!!

Babe of the Week for August 19, 2011 is...

2011-08-19T21:17:00.009-04:00

Krysten Ritter!!!

A native of Pennsylvania, where her family stills owns and operates a farm, this beautiful young lady came to our attention here at the home office of "Busting Chops" through a chance encounter while marathon-viewing all 4 seasons of the the absolutely insane and over-the-top cable TV drama from AMC called "Breaking Bad". She played Jane Margolis, the girlfriend of one of the methamphetamine cookers on this show who accidentally overdoses.

She was discovered at the age of fifteen and began taking trips to NYC and Philadelphia on weekends while still in high school in search of modeling gigs. It didn't take her long to find success, signing for the Elite and Wilhelmina modeling agencies.

She then segued into acting, where she's done nothing spectacular but gets regular work in small films and and various television series like "Breaking Bad". Too bad her character was rubbed out, she absolutely captured the screen with her beauty and charm. Whatever she does, she loooks mahvelous, doing it, dahling-absolutely mahvelous!!!

Please End the Hypocrisy...

2011-08-17T14:15:00.039-04:00

No one should be shocked by the latest allegations stemming from the University of Miami football program. If anyone watched the incredible ESPN documentary "The U", it wasn't difficult to ascertain what the program was all about. But like Ohio State and their recently disgraced ex-football coach Jim Tressel, who was fired on the heels of a scandal that morphed into a scathing indictment of his and the school's clear and persistent lack of ethical scruples, it has become painfully apparent that to run a major college powerhouse, such issues will always take a back seat to the hypocrisy with which the NCAA administers the rules governing big-time college athletics with regards to the student-athletes who are exploited to the max and thus look for compensation elsewhere, outside the rules.

It's OK for rich businessmen to attend games in their luxury corporate suites, pay for the privilege of being a team booster, gain access to the elite players of said school and enjoy all the trappings of being close to a high-level Division I program. It's fine for individual schools to re-align themselves to better exploit the massive TV revenues that are changing the landscape of college sports, whose boundaries are no longer dictated by geography but by big-money television deals. It's justified that coaches at major college campuses rake in millions of dollars in salary and endorsements. The powers that be see no contradiction in selling the likeness of college athletes in the form of jock apparel and video games. Yet these same athletes cannot cash in on their own images and see not one dime of any of the revenue they generate.

This ass-backwards equation makes sense only to those who control the levers of power, akin to Southern slave owners who made enormous sums of generational wealth for their families while those who toiled in the fields got absolutely nothing, some whose families are still mired in poverty to this very day. And the NCAA would love to keep it that way, so long as they can continue to rake in money the players will never benefit from.

And this isn't even the most hypocritical aspect of the situation. One of the defenses that gets thrown around is that revenue-making sports pay for other campus activities that do not, like water polo, swimming, volleyball and archery. So on top of everything else, poor inner-city kids from deprived backgrounds get the insulting pleasure of funding sports for their rich, white suburban undergrad brethren.

The University of Texas recently signed a 20-year, $300 million dollar TV deal with ESPN that will make their sports programs available to cable subscribers all over the country, all on their very own channel. No other team in the Big 12 Conference can compete with the type of exposure, money and influence this contract will buy Texas. The TV deal also includes the rights to televise Texas high school football games. How's that for a potential recruiting tool? Juxtapose these circumstances against the glaring discrepancy of the backgrounds of the student-athletes we are talking about, the majority of whom are poor and black, and you'll understand why the sense of outrage over the Miami accusations is muted here on "Busting Chops".

Texas coach Mac Brown finds religion in the guise of a fat cable TV contract...

The man at the center of the controversy is Nevin Shapiro, an ex-Miami Hurricanes booster who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for his role in a $930 million dollar Ponzi scheme. He lived in a $6.1 million, 6,432-square foot mansion on North Bay Road in Miami Beach overlooking the water and threw parties for players on his $1.6 million dollar yacht. He lavished players with gifts, money, jewelery, prostitutes, free meals at fancy restaurants, and nights of utter debauchery at various Miami strip clubs. One story goes that a Miami player impregnated a stripper during a rendezvous in one of the club's Champagne Rooms. Shapiro then gave money to help fund an abortion without telling the player because according to him, the player probably would have wanted to keep the child.

It's all about "The U", baby!!!

Miami had as an unofficial booster Luther Campbell of the infamous 2 Live Crew rap group, who became known around the Miami campus as "Uncle Luke". Campbell was the money man from the late 80's to early 90's, funneling cash, gifts, and entertainment opportunities to football players. Unlike Shapiro, Campbell was never an official booster of the program and never gave money directly to the school, as opposed to Shapiro, who paid the university $12,000 for the privilege of becoming a booster. Another difference was Campbell was and still is a supporter of football from the grass-roots level, funding pee wee leagues all over the South Florida region. According to various reports, Shapiro was considered nothing but a "jock sniffer" who exchanged money for access and celebrity.

I find this description pretty convenient and self-serving, seeing as he is being painted exclusively as the bad guy in this filthy, sordid affair. The reality is, in a place like Miami, money and flash gets you into places normal people could never access. So his behavior, though extreme, was par for the course. If you don't believe me, just ask Nevin's twin brother, from what is apparently another mother-

Shapiro with a famous Miami celebrity...

What Campbell did over the years he was involved with the Miami football program pales in comparison to the transgressions of Shapiro. The details have been duly researched by the good people at Yahoo Sports and have been vehemently denied by all and sundry. Unfortunately for this merry band of degenerate liars, Mr. Shapiro has kept meticulous records of phone calls, receipts and thousands of photos documenting his life as a high-rolling booster and surrogate pimpmeister to the "impressionable and innocent" (yeah, right) young men who were the recipients of his corrupting largesse.

The corruption involved 72 players, 7 coaches and three support staff members from the years 2002 until 2010, when Shapiro was finally carted off to jail. And don't think he was just doing this because he loved being around impoverished inner-city football players. He was part-owner of a sports management company that signed two first-round NFL picks who just so happened to have attended Miami while Shapiro was there handing out dough like an Italian baker.

Shapiro partying it up with Kellen Winslow, Jr.-

The apotheosis of this institutionalized corruption and greed was uncovered when a photo of university president Donna Shalala surfaced accepting a check from Shapiro for $50,000 at a bowling event. She looked to all the world like a crackhead scrambling on the floor for a hit and coming up trumps, her eyes practically bulging out of her fat, hairy, porcine face. Shapiro was handing out money to anyone involved who would take it, and take it they did.

University of Miami President Donna Shalala accepting the now infamous $50,000 check from Shapiro-

Shapiro also has photos of coaches partying it up. All were either in on the take or knew of it and did nothing, including other university staff and personnel. When SMU received the death penalty for similar infractions, their program, one of the best in the country at the time, never recovered. And that was twenty-four years ago. Miami deserves nothing less, but it will be hit only with forced job resignations and terminations, scholarship reductions and bans from lucrative Bowl appearances for a year or two. Then it will be back to the same ol' bullshit of under-the-table graft, greed and corruption. Because major college football is a B-U-S-I-N-E-S-S, and that business is too lucrative for this type of corruption not to continue to thrive.

It's a business whose currency is all about access, schmoozing, influence pedaling and corruption. It has nothing to do with hard world and sacrifice. That bullshit is sold to the players, the ones who actually do the work and receive no compensation for their efforts from the schools they play for. Far be it for some pasty-white administrator to actually get his hands dirty when it is far easier to make friends and influence people with the whoremongers who grease the wheels of this system to their benefit.

I have a simple solution to all of this, which will absolve these colleges of having to lie about not having the money to pay their big-time athletes. Just let the corruption roll without penalties or infractions. Let the players get paid from whoever wants to pay them, and let these ciphers have access to the players they so desperately crave. And legalize it. The NCAA can then step away from this enormous problem it neither has the competence nor the expertise to combat or control. And the world of Division I college sports will finally breathe in a hypocrisy-free zone that's been mutilated by notions of fake contrition and rules that were meant to be broken.

The $1.6 million dollar yacht that saw so much action-

ASS, baby!!! ASS!!! Get it while you can!!!

The big question remains-why did Nevin Shapiro decide to come forward with all this? Exposing his relationship with the Miami football program will not get him a lighter sentence. He felt the players he helped should have supported him during his troubled times, yet they abandoned him in his time of need. Well, it goes to show you this man learned absolutely nothing during his high-rolling days when he was cavorting with these people. Whores are takers, not givers. They will love you only as long as times are good and they can get something from you.

Any of you out there reading this who have wallowed in the mud of the lowlife know exactly what I'm talking about. Strippers are paid to give you attention in exchange for your loot. Same goes with prostitutes and the type of college athletes Shapiro was sponsoring. You cannot buy their love or affection. What they offer is a good time and access to their presence as long as you're willing to foot the bill.

Shapiro thought playing big man was going to net him a network of influential people who would consider him family when times got rough. This was his big mistake. I don't know what he thought he was paying for, but loyalty was not what he got in exchange. He reminds me of Sam Rothstein from the film "Casino", who spent tons of cash attempting to get some sleazebag loser to love him and it turned his personal life into a living hell. Here is the lesson for all you wanna-be boosters out there who think money buys you love-learn from Nevin Shapiro and save your cash. It will come in handy when you get in trouble, as opposed to the people you attempt to help who will run out on you faster than Deion Sanders doing a 4.2 forty-yard dash while a student at Florida State. And it doesn't get any faster than that, ladies and gents.

Film Recommendation of the Week...

2011-08-15T00:05:00.013-04:00

Sweet Smell of Success
Release Date June 27, 1957.
Running Time 1 hour 36 minutes.

The infamous world of talent agents and the entertainers they represent receives a scathing review in this remarkable film about the sleaze that makes this particular world go 'round. Tony Curtis stars as New York City press agent Sydney Falco, whose career depends on getting his clients mentioned positively in J.J. Hunsecker's nationally syndicated gossip column.

Falco is having major problems getting his clients publicity in Hunsecker's column due to a promise he made to Hunsecker (played with magnificent iciness by Burt Lancaster, clearly on top of his game) to break up the relationship Hunsecker's sister is having with an up-and-coming jazz guitarist. The only way to do this is to smear the boyfriend with veiled accusations of recreational drug use that drags in other press agents and a set-up involving an arrest for marijuana.

The slime is everywhere and ensnares everyone involved. Everyone in this film played excellent roles, and the dynamics between Curtis and Lancaster is a performance for the ages. You will not see better acting in any film I've recommended. Check out the Criterion version which includes an extra DVD with added bonus features, you will not regret it.

I Am NOT a Role Model...

2011-08-14T08:25:00.014-04:00

Charles Barkley was right all those years ago when he made that Nike commercial stating why he isn't a role model. For every professional athlete that does the right thing, we always get one or two that live down to the expectations we have of them here on "Busting Chops". Unfortunately, these are the ones that get the most publicity for all the wrong reasons. But even in the annals of athletes behaving badly, some stories always have a twist that make even their transgressions out of the ordinary.

Take for example Kendrick Perkins, center for the Oklahoma Thunder. He gets arrested for causing a ruckus at "The Ticket" nightclub in Beaumont, Texas at 2 a.m. Saturday morning. According to witness testimony, he for whatever reason wanted to fight the manager of the club. As he was summarily escorted from said club, he kept on while outside and decided he wanted to fight some of the people who shoved him out, yelling obscenities galore. After some healthy doses of pepper spray, the cops booked him on misdemeanor charges that carry no potential jail time.

First of all, let's be thankful that no one was hurt, because Perkins is the type of guy who is the biggest and strongest dude by far wherever he goes, and it could have gotten ugly. Fifty drunk and high Lilliputians were not going to stop him if he really wanted to let loose and fuck some people up.

Second of all, there is the irony of it all. Perkins was in the area hosting a camp that raises money for his foundation, which helps children learn "life skills". LIFE SKILLS!!! HAHAHA!!! Skills like the ones he displayed while out partying. Someone somewhere has video of this, I know it. These days everyone has a cell phone with video capability, so expect an update on this very soon.

Straight Cash Homey, or I'm OUT!!!

Randy Moss, after his agent declared that his client was in the best shape of his career, decides to file papers for retirement. Apparently he wasn't too thrilled with the lack of offers he was getting, while other receivers like Plaxico Burress and Chad "Ocho Cinco" Johnson were signed with no problems whatsoever.

There is no denying Moss is/was one of the most talented receivers that ever played the game. You're talking about a cat who was "Mr. Basketball" in high school two years straight while playing alongside Jason Williams, Mr. "White Chocolate" himself. His list of athletic feats are too numerous to list here, and besides it's not the point. No one is denying this guy doesn't have plenty left in the tank. What NFL coaches are loathe to admit is that it's his attitude that's adversely affected their willingness to sign him.

This is nothing new. He was kicked out of his high school during his senior year for participating in a racially-motivated brawl. While on probation he was kicked out of Division-I Florida State for testing positive for marijuana. To avoid losing a year of eligibility, he signed with Division-I AA Marshall, a short ride from his home so he could resume playing football immediately. While at Marshall, the school who was kind enough to give this surly freak of nature a second chance, he did nothing but make friends and influence people. Let's just say that talent aside, no one on campus was sad to see him go to the NFL, where despite his production Moss played for three different teams last year and was as motivated to give it 100% as a tired, old stripper on Tuesday 2-for-1 Lapdance Night.

This is what America sees when they think of Moss-not the spectacular athleticism, not the catches and the touchdowns, but the type of epic buffoonery that someone recorded and immediately uploaded to Youtube. If this is his legacy, it will go down as one of the stupidest comments ever caught on video, akin to the "Practice? We're talkin' about practice?" diatribe by another supremely talented athlete who also played himself out of his chosen profession, Allen Iverson-

Streetball Antics Gone Too Far...
Everyone knows Michael Beasley, the former number 2 NBA draft pick, had issues galore before he entered the league. He has a camp of enablers who only see him as a meal ticket, from irresponsible coaches to his close relatives who constantly made excuses for his idiotic behavior, which stem back to the first grade (when he actually attended school). He's been busted for marijuana more times than Cheech and Chong and went through 6 different high schools in I-don't-know-how-many different states. Judging from this clip, it's also apparent he doesn't have the temperament to deal with the type of inner-city hecklers that live for moments like this-

Message to cats like Beasley-there are plenty of pro-am leagues around the country that do not have the same environment as places like the Dyckman Tournament in Upper Manhattan. The crowd, as you can see from the video (shot in glorious high definition) doesn't respect the court. They are on top of the players like an avalanche of sheer antagonism. They smoke weed and drink cheap malt liquor before, during and after the games and are hostile as hell. Some are local drug dealers, others just your basic run-of-the-mill ghetto thugs. The rest are just assholes who come out to ruin the game for participants and spectators alike. Imagine one of Michael Vick's dog fighting extravaganzas and you'll get a sense of the environment at parks like Dyckman-

*Disclaimer-the language in this video is offensive, moreso than what you'd find here on this blog. We do not in any way, shape or form condone the use of such language, which absolutely crosses the line. But I feel this type of rude behavior needs to be exposed for the world to see, so people know the level of abuse these players have to put up with for the sake of 'reppin the game in the 'hood. This is the thanks they get-

I have to say the heckler got the better of Beasley, but I'm glad Michael retaliated. Now everyone in the 'hood knows this anonymous, loud-mouth heckler got exactly what he deserved. He'll never be able to live that one down, and there won't be one person who won't remind him of the time he got his grill mushed by an NBA player.

Still in all, not a good idea on Beasley's part. But would anyone expect any less from this pot-smoking, tattooed, underachieving cartoon character?

Carlos Zambrano Implodes...

This cat isn't running on fumes, he's running on empty big-time. After signing a mega-deal worth $91.5 million dollars in 2007, he's been a pathetic shell of his former self. My personal opinion is, like what we witnessed at the 2010 Tour de France from Lance Armstrong, after a while the steroids stop working. And no, it's not the testing protocols instituted by MLB that has become a deterrent. An amateur PED expert administering a half-assed steroid regimen can get his client to test clean for those tests, which are announced so far in advance you'd have to be a Category-5 moron like Manny Ramirez to fail one, much less two.

So, after giving up FIVE homers to the Atlanta Braves the other day (which begs the question-why didn't the manager pull Zambrano out of the game in the first place?) he then goes after Chipper Jones not once, but twice with pitches close enough to shave a coconut. He did this to purposely get thrown out of the game, because we all know Zambrano is a class act all the way. After he gets ejected and while his team is still playing, he cleans out his locker and leaves the ballpark, announcing later that he is retiring from baseball.

So not only does he quit on his team while out on the mound, he then proceeds to quit on them before the game even ends. Excellent. This has all the markings of uncontrollable 'roid rage. No, it's not his infamous temperament, as is always brought up whenever any Latin player or idiot manager like the soon-to-be-fired Ozzie Guillen goes ballistic. Venezuela, aside from President Hugo Chavez and his fits of lunacy, is known primarily for two other things-gang violence/street crime and for the ease in which steroids can be procured without a prescription at any local pharmacy. And their baseball academies (run and administered by Major League Baseball, by the way) are absolutely marinating in PED's. Zambrano is a product of this environment, so his latest antics speak to his obvious ongoing use. the problem is he can't get anyone out anymore, and he is getting paid top-notch money as if he still can.

I always say if you're going to go down, go down in flames. Zambrano, if it's true he did retire, did the Cubs a tremendous favor. One because he sucks. Two because one of the unforgivable sins in the archaic and stupid baseball book of unwritten rules states clearly that you never give up on your team, which Carlos did not once, but twice in the span of one inning. Good-bye, asshole. And good riddance. America, next time one of these athletes lets you down, watch this commercial and put your sorry-ass life into perspective-

Babe of the Week for August 12, 2011 is...

2011-08-12T18:26:00.011-04:00

Cat Osterman!!!

Believe me when I say that the best looking young women in the United States play college sports. Not only are many of them beautiful, but they are also smart and athletic. Who in their right mind would waste time chasing some stupid, jive-ass ghetto hoe with the IQ of a paint brush who's been sexually active since the age of 12 when you can go out with a lovely, talented thoroughbred?

Ghetto hoes are all alike. You meet a pretty one and chances are she's wistfully waiting for some thugged-out loser boyfriend to get out of prison so they can resume their going-nowhere-fast relationship. And when he gets out he'll be dripping with all types of venereal diseases and Hepatitis A through Z. Don't believe the lies, either. Every prisoner that does time in a maximum security prison either fucks or gets fucked by other dudes, no exception. And when they get out the first thing they do is give those diseases to their girlfriends, and if you're stupid enough to mess with these types of broads, you'll catch something too. Know what else is funny? I've spoken to a couple of these losers and they've always been puzzled at their boyfriend's sudden predilection for anal sex after spending time in the joint. Gee, I wonder where they could have picked THAT up from?

So why not look somewhere else? Plenty of healthy, farm-fresh young ladies out there who are strong as oxen and live a clean life. Cat Osterman fits the bill. She is a beautiful and accomplished college athlete and stands at a whopping 6' 2". If that's too much woman for you, there are shorter ones out there. But be careful-they're liable to fuck you up if you get out of pocket with that ol' bullshit.

The Houston native broke many college records while playing at the University of Texas girls' softball team as a pitcher from 2002-2006. The most important thing was that she loooked mahvelous doing it, dahling-absolutely mahvelous!!! She helped the USA women's softball team capture gold in 2004 and silver in 2008. If I were to get married, it would be to someone like this. They say everything is bigger in Texas, and that includes beautiful women like Cat Osterman. Yes, indeed.

"We Shall Overcome" an obnoxious sense of entitlement...

2011-08-10T09:31:00.008-04:00

*Editor's Note-this entry was dated soon after the incident transpired. Having finished writing it today, it now appears as a late entry and not an edited, back-dated version.

Let me get this out of the way NOW-in no way did I want to comment on this issue. There are three topics that are just too polarizing to debate in a civil manner-race, politics and religion. All three cause people to lose their otherwise sane minds, and then it turns into right wing vs. left wing, liberal vs. bigot, asshole vs. douchebag. Once you voice a particular stance on any of these particular issues you are labeled for the rest of your life.

To categorize someone because of a particular belief is beyond ignorant, but that is what discourse in this country has devolved into. This particular incident, and the mock outrage it has stirred up, speaks volumes about the level of stupidity on both sides of the issue. Was what occurred driven by race, abuse of power, or a sense of entitlement on both sides?

The answer isn't the point.

When Harvard Professor and eminent Black Studies scholar Henry Louis Gates was arrested in his own home for "disorderly conduct", he was not invoking the voices of those who have been truly oppressed in this country when he yelled from his porch, "This is what happens to a black man in America!!". He was not asking to join hands in some Freedom March over the trampling of anyone's civil rights. He was invoking an obnoxious sense of entitlement that comes from arrogance, stemming from an inflated sense of self-importance. He was not invoking the call to justice of the Freedom Riders of the Civil Rights Movement. He was invoking the voice of Eazy-E, the now-deceased rapper who was one of the founding fathers of the un-civil rights movement called "Gangsta Rap".

Gates' tone was all about "Fuck Da Police", NWA's seminal hit, where the members of the rap group serenade the LAPD with verses of venom and disrespect never heard before, which is exactly how Gates dealt with the situation. Now there is a third player in this whole drama, the neighbor who called the alleged break-in to the police. This moron doesn't know the difference between a couple of no-good thugs and the Harvard professor who lives next door?

For those of you who aren't familiar with the events that transpired, here is the short of it. Gates had arrived from a trip to China and found his front door jammed. He and his driver forced their way in, and while this was going on someone called the cops about a possible break-in. When the cops arrived, Gates apparently did not appreciate the tone of the officer in question, Sgt. James Crowley, who then overreacted and arrested him. Granted, there isn't much street crime in such an affluent neighborhood (Cambridge, Mass. isn't exactly the birthplace of the Crips and Bloods) but the arrest was what any right-minded person would call a waste of taxpayer's money. Gates was arrested, processed and had his mug shot taken, capturing for posterity the pathetic and ridiculous lack of judgment displayed by this officer. Gates isn't exactly the Pablo Escobar of the academic world, and he should have known better.

The Arrest Report (click to enlarge)-

Gates is also to blame. He is an academic, and lives an incredibly comfortable life in which he never gets into such confrontations. He doesn't live in a neighborhood where there is rampant street crime and cries from the community of police harassment. So why would he make this a racial issue? Sense of entitlement, that's why. The revered Harvard professor had no business getting testy with police officers. When approached by the Fuzz, you answer their questions regardless of their attitude, especially if you were doing nothing wrong. After 5-10 minutes, they will then leave you alone and go about their day. If provoked with attitude, then whatever happens is YOUR fault. People who live in the 'hood know this. Gates apparently does not.

Obama tried to interject with comments about how the police reacted, which then got the Cambridge Police Department upset. He then tried to calm things by having a "Beer Summit" in which he and both parties sat down at pub near the Harvard campus for some suds and conversation, what he referred to as "a teachable moment". The only thing this taught anyone is despite Gates' reputation and standing in the community, this will stop a police officer with a chip on his shoulder from making his life miserable, simply because in Cambridge there is nothing better to do.

The Infamous Mug Shot-

Then again, even more disgraceful was the incident involving a Boston police officer shortly after the incident. An officer Barrett of the Boston Police Department sent an email to someone calling Professor Gates a "banana-eating jungle bunny". I didn't know you were supposed to feed bunnies bananas. I thought they ate carrots. This goes to show you that however the incident was perceived, we still have racist crap like this from the very people who get payed with public tax dollars to defend us.

The NBA Lockout...

2011-08-06T21:27:00.020-04:00

The NBA Lockout is of interest to me only by how it affects the New York Knicks. The Knicks need a defensive-minded center (Tyson Chandler of the Dallas Mavericks comes to mind) and a point guard that is not running on fumes. Chauncey Billups has been playing like an embalmed corpse for the last couple of seasons. He doesn't have what it takes to run a fast break or an effective pick-and-roll. Not anymore. The Knicks should have cut their losses and sent him packing, but they picked up his option for this coming year at a whopping $14.2 million. They also need a point guard who can pass AND create his own shot. Only Chris Paul or Deron Williams can fill this role. They won't get any of these players because they probably won't have the cap space, and the owners are to blame.

The most successful teams in the NBA are being held hostage by a group of owners who want to turn the NBA into a league of indentured servitude. They want players to stop conspiring to go to one specific team and they want to control free agent movement. Lesser-performing teams who struggle to pull in revenue are willing to take the league down and drown it in mediocrity with an inflexible hard cap. This is about as anti-capitalist as you can get. These very same owners, who made their wealth in the so-called "free market", now want to institute a type of economic policy that ensures profit margins for franchises that suck.

Player rep Derrick Fisher with union chief Billy Hunter-

As far as franchises losing money, here is how it really goes-if a team payed it's operating costs and salaries and pulled in a certain percentage as profit last year, and that percentage goes down a bit the next year (still pulling a profit, but not like the year before) they can claim they lost money. This is Bullshit Economic 101. What these owners want is protection from their own bad decisions to still rake in profits regardless of how they go about putting their teams together. Case in point-the Los Angeles Clippers. This is a franchise that has swallowed up more high first round picks than just about any other team in the last 25 years and have never built a championship-caliber team. That's because owner Donald Sterling is about the worst owner in all of sports.

Real Estate mogual and LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling-

Sterling's antics have been well-documented. He heckles his own players from the stands, refuses to modernize their facilities and has the reputation of being a cheapskate and a racist at his real job, that of real estate owner/developer.This year Blake Griffin, the 2011 NBA Rookie of the Year, is in the unenviable position of playing for this pathetic franchise. He probably won't re-sign with them once his contract is up, and I don't blame him.

Blake Griffin-Clipper for life?

But if the owners have their way, Griffin will somehow be stuck there, unable to move to a team of his choice. So a team that really wants to build a winner will lose out on his prodigious skills (a once-in-a-generation talent similar to the late, great Len Bias) and his movements will be constricted. The owners want to make it so that the most lucrative contracts players can sign will be with the teams they want to leave. Elitist economic terrorism at it's worst.

The one thing I do agree with is that long-term contracts should be restricted to three years maximum. For every Kobe Bryant, who, despite his personality issues is one of the fiercest competitors in the game while also being it's highest paid player, you have way too many others who purposely under-perform because they're lazy and/or they stopped caring the second the signed that lucrative max contract. We cannot have teams held hostage by guys like Stephon Marbury or Gilbert Arenas, whose insane contracts seriously imperiled the teams they were playing for. Those types of bad contracts hinder the forward progress of a team, and without the ability to extricate themselves from them it hurts a franchise for years to come. That is not fair.

Hoochies love franchise killers, as long as their contracts are guaranteed-

Revenue sharing is another anti-capitalist proposition the owners want to initiate. Owners who cannot put a winning product on the court through sheer incompetence want to share in the TV revenues of more successful teams like the Lakers and the Knicks.Baseball has a version of revenue sharing that also doesn't work. It's supposed to make smaller market teams more competitive because it infuses their franchises with money that should go to sign players. Funny thing is, the owners wind up pocketing the cash and do not utilize the funds to better their product.

What the league really needs is contraction. Get rid of teams that cannot pull in a fanbase or have a history of losing year-in and year-out and either move them to markets that can support them or shut them down. The Toronto Raptors, the New Orleans Hornets, the Sacramento Kings, the Charlotte Bobcats, the New Jersey Nets and the Minnesota Timberwolves all fit this description.

NBA Commissioner David Stern, not knowing when this lockout will end-

New Jersey struggled to fill its' arena when they had one of the best and most exiting teams out there a few years ago with Kenyon Martin, Richard Jefferson and Jason Kidd, so what will change when the move to Brooklyn when they are currently one of the worst teams in the NBA?

Contraction will increase competition for on-court employment, and maybe players will take their chosen profession more seriously when the alternative would be dodging heated coinage chucked from the cheap seats in places like Istanbul and the Ukraine, where many games are played in high school gymnasiums and the fans are about as friendly as a bunch of drunken skinhead louts at a Neo-Nazi rally. Or like a friend of mine who went to play overseas in Holland and management decided to motivate him by shutting off his utilities for two weeks straight despite the fact that his housing bills were part of his contract. Nice, eh?

Finally, let us not forget that it's the games that matter, not the owners and certainly not any one individual player. This was painfully evident when Lebron James came up so monumentally small in this year's NBA Finals. When Dwight Howard is forced to play with a team that was practically dismantled for no apparent reason (a crew that went to the NBA Finals a few years ago), why should he be stuck there for the duration of his career?

Instead of building on the momentum they had going, Orlando decided to sign bums like Vince Carter, also-rans like Gilbert Arenas, journeymen underachievers like Jason Richardson and out-of-work bozos like Jason "White Chocolate" Williams. That is just bad management, and they should rightfully suffer the economic consequences for such incompetence.

What about you, Mr. Hunter? You know anything? Didn't think so...

But the owners have another idea. Take money from more successful franchises, lock players up in small-market, mediocre teams and let the owners divvy up money from revenue sharing directly into their pockets as opposed to using those funds for player development. This type of self-inflicted parity will make the games even worse to watch than they are right now. The owners are thinking that fans will show up and watch regardless, but I got news for them-they may get what they want in the end, but if a franchise like the New York Knicks are not at liberty to build a winner however they can, the league and the game itself will suffer for it.

How boring is parity? Just watch college basketball, where individual talent and imagination has given way to hyper-athletic weight room freaks who just so happen to play a little ball on the side. When was the last time anyone sat and watched a college basketball game to watch a coach implement his system? Only twice, when coaches like Paul Westhead and Jerry Tarkanian had teams that would run every single one of their opponents out of the gym.

A Domed Stadium in NYC...

2011-08-04T07:43:00.029-04:00

New York City just witnessed a stadium building boom not seen anywhere else in the United States. We have the new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, Citi Field in Queens for those pathetic Mets and, oddly enough, the new football stadium that houses the Jets and Giants, built in New Jersey of all fucking places. Yes, we now have three shrines to athletic greatness that yell out to fans-"Bring me your bloated, your flatulent, your hapless, doofy football/baseball-loving asswipes and I will entertain thee".

That's three gargantuan concrete/steel behemoths to house our professional teams, built in the span of only a couple of years. Even Madison square Garden is undergoing a multi-jillion dollar face-lift that is sure to raise ticket prices even higher than when Carmelo Anthony was signed to a ridiculous $65 million dollar contract extension. Ticket prices were summarily raised a whopping 50% practically from one day to the next, with no forewarning whatsoever. This happened courtesy of James Dolan, the cocksucking, crack smoking tool bag who had MSG, the Knicks and the Rangers fall into his incompetent lap because of his father's cable empire. Way to earn yours, motherfucker.

Despite the cost of these shiny new palaces, not one is equipped with a dome. This may not matter to the causal numb nut sports fanatic who doesn't mind tailgating while the winds of Jersey whip around at 45 miles an hour and the temperature doesn't rise about 20 below during football season, but it should. A dome isn't necessary to keep fans warm while they drink overpriced beer and belch and fart to their heart's content in stadium seats that can barely hold their corpulent, Hitchcockian whale carcasses, but it is necessary as a revenue producer in this modern age of sports.

The Einsteins who designed these monuments to the steroid freaks who play professional baseball and football didn't consider once that New York City, the greatest city in the world, will be unable to host a college basketball Final Four or any other such sporting spectacle. When was the last time a Superbowl was played outdoors? Yes, there are plans in the works to have one in the Jersey stadium very soon, but the people who sponsor these orgies of corporate excess want three things-

1) Amenities like sky boxes and private restaurants so they won't have to subject themselves to mingling with the yeoman slobs who occupy the cheap seats. Who would want to rub elbows with a bunch of ill-mannered working class losers? C'mon, man, this is America!!! Get with the fucking program!!!

2) Corporate sponsors want these events to be held in as big an arena as possible to sell as many tickets as possible, despite the fact that when you host a basketball tournament in a domed stadium, 90% of the seats are so bad you might as well watch the game from the fucking Moon. Some seats are so far away from the action you couldn't tell who was playing with a Hubble telescope.

3) Warmth. Football is a man's sport played by men in all weather conditions. The corporate bitch-asses who write off their weekend bacchanals on their expense accounts want none of this. They want to watch football in an indoor, temperature-controlled sarcophagus with all the amenities of home, with the exception of the wife and kids. You can't have a cocaine and hooker Superbowl party with Blanche screaming at you to watch the fucking meatloaf before it burns.

New York City is the perfect place to host such festivals of avarice, greed and gratuitous gluttony. Plenty of fancy hotels, an eclectic nightlife, prostitutes galore and more importantly, plenty of dark alleys to vomit and shit on yourself in public after a night of binge drinking. A sports fans' dream come true.

This costume won't work if he was outside freezing-

New York City could have done themselves a favor by having a multi-purpose stadium built in Queens so the Jets and Giants can play in the city they are named after. I believe we are the only sports town that has half its' professional sports teams playing outside it's jurisdiction. Mayor Bloomberg fucked up big-time. If lack of cash was the issue, he should have taken the money out of the public school budget and given it to the dickwads who fucked this project up.

Chicks dig the long ball, especially indoors!!!

The days of trying (and failing miserably) to educate lazy, shiftless, illiterate baboons are over. You want to see what a real-life "Planet of the Apes" looks like up close? Don't go to the movies, and don't go to the zoo. Just pass by Taft High School in the Bronx. The only difference between the students who attend that gang-infested shithole and real apes is that apes are more intelligent and better behaved.

Let's put that money to better use, like feeding it to corporate fat cats who deserve the best we can provide them, which in this case should be a publicly financed domed stadium. They deserve it, and so does the great city of New York, especially in these harsh economic times with so many assholes out of work. We really should be providing more for the corporate elites to make sure their comfort level never stoops to unacceptable levels. We owe them that much. The rest of us can do what we always do and just watch our teams on television-that's if we can afford cable TV by the time this happens.

Film Recommendation of the Week...

2011-07-31T12:51:00.019-04:00

KOJAK
Television series
Aired October 24, 1973 to March 18, 1978
Number of episodes-118

The consummate television detective of the 1970's was Theo Kojak. The wise-cracking, ball-busting, dapper lieutenant of the Manhattan South precinct broke the mold before there even was a mold. Sure, there were "The Rockford Files", "The Streets of San Fransisco", "Colombo" and a couple of other bullshit cop/private detective shows on TV, but never before and never again was there an actor who played a cop with such charisma, wit, sarcasm and integrity as Telly Savalas.

His squad room consisted of detectives Crocker, Saperstein, Stavros (Savalas' real-life brother), and Rizzo. Kojak tackled all manner of crime from homicide to organized crime to Wall Street embezzlement, and he did it in style with those fly-ass tailored Botany 500 suits and his ubiquitous hats. He combed the gritty streets of New York City with unbridled panache, streets that were never grittier than in the 1970's. He could charm a sweet-looking babe off a barstool, sweet-talk a witness until they ate out of his hands, and bust some punk junkie or hardened career criminal without breaking a sweat. He was one cool motherfucker. And when that black 4-door Buick pulls out of the station house with the siren blaring, you know it's on.

Kojak and Crocker on the case-

Kojak was the template for his genre, the detective who sometimes bent the rules just far enough to get his man but not far enough that he'd get busted by Internal Affairs. He always played it smooth and was never overwhelmed despite the odds against him. He always cracked the case. The only characters who came remotely close to matching his intensity, grit and authenticity were the officers who worked the Baltimore scene in the HBO crime series "The Wire". Those cats could hold their own against the best of them, but no one has come close to doing it like Telly Savalas, with his trademark cigarillos (which he chain-smoked on and off the screen), Tootsie Roll lollipops and his world-famous catchphrase "Who loves ya, baby!!!".

What set this series apart was the neo-noir authenticity of the plot lines. The stories were, incredibly for a TV series, extremely well-written. There were moments of brevity and comedy that never sunk to childish buffoonery. The viewing audience were never going to be subjected to a jive-ass turkey like Huggy Bear from "Starsky and Hutch" written into any of the scripts. The setting itself became a central character, with the constant shots of New York City at all hours of the day and night permeating the atmosphere and setting the tone for each individual episode.

One underrated aspect of the series was the manner in which Lieutenant Kojak busted the balls of his own detectives. Though he maintained an air of authority that for the most part went unquestioned (one could feel the undercurrent of unquestioning respect everyone had for him in the station house, denoting Kojak's years of experience and unflinching integrity), he was still the boss at a very difficult job and expected his men to rise to the occasion.

You can catch the episodes from the first three seasons on Hulu.com. Don't miss what is hands-down the best detective show ever produced for television. Kojak was the fucking man, and no one has done it better. Fuck "Law and Order". That show can't hold a candle to my man Telly Savalas. Word up.

And what TV drama had the best opening theme music? You guessed it-

Babe of the Week for July 29, 2011 is...

2011-07-29T22:19:00.015-04:00

Eva Mendes!!!

You know what I'm sayin'? This broad is too fine to have passed under the radar of our producers here at "Busting Chops" for so long. She acts. She models. She's a beautiful Latina who has just enough talent (barely, I must admit) to not have to resort to doing porno movies. What more could you ask for out of a woman?

This stunning Cuban-American beauty began her career as a music video whore for the likes of jackasses like will Smith. She then graduated to the always pathetic soap opera circuit before getting "noticed" (code word for she fucked the right producer/director and finally made it to the big time) embarking on a career in Hollywood. She's starred in crappy, bullshit movies that will never make anyone's top 100 list of greatest movies of all time, but who cares? She loooks mahvelous, dahling-absolutely mahvelous!!! and that's all that counts.

She is also an international spokeswoman for Revlon cosmetics, as if she needs any to look stunning. Maybe all those fat, horsed-faced, perpetually pms-ing losers who buy make-up and slather that crap on their grills hope to wake up looking like her need it, but hey, Eva's selling a fantasy, and we all know fantasies NEVER fucking come true.

Retards on Parade...

2011-07-24T19:27:00.036-04:00

Casey Anthony takes Amy Fisher one step further...

Remember Amy Fisher, the so called "Long Island Lolita" who shocked the world after shooting her Guido douchebag boyfriend's wife in the face? Well, we have another contestant in the "White Trash Hoochie" category, but with a twist. At least Fisher did time in prison for her crime. This latest entry into the Lowlife Cuntbag Hall of Fame was acquitted by a fucking jury of her "peers", meaning, they were just as mentally retarded as she most certainly is.

Everyone is upset over the fact that our little dysfunctional darling of the week, the maniacal Casey Anthony, was released from prison with time served for what appears to be the intentional and premeditated murder of her adorable 3-year old daughter, Caylee. In Casey's courtroom drama, she truly was judged by a jury of her peers. Everyone was asking how and why a jury could possibly find her not guilty. I'll tell you why-because the jury was comprised of totally brain-dead redneck assholes from (where else?) Florida. How could they possibly find this whore not guilty of killing her little child? Well, "rednecks from Florida" should suffice as to why this travesty of justice took place.

Casey wrapped in the red(neck) white and blue, having a grand ol' time while her daughter lies dead in a Florida field...

This bitch was photographed partying like a sorority house tramp weeks after the disappearance of her child, who let us not forget she never bothered to report to the police. Nor did she report her car missing, which was found in a police tow yard with the stench of a dead body emanating from the trunk.

Stupidity does not adequately explain the jury's verdict. If Casey was, to paraphrase the noxious Don Imus, a nappy-headed ho, the jury would have taken exactly 5 seconds to reel off a unanimous guilty verdict and she would have been sent straight to the electric chair. Because those crackers down South love themselves a good ol' fashioned lynching. This is the same state that tried some black kid eleven or twelve years old as an adult for some gang-related crime that would have put him in jail (with adults) for life. Go figure that one out. Some cracker on the prosecution decided that a young ghetto kid who probably grew up immersed in all manner of social dysfunction has the capacity of an adult to commit a crime, and the jury gleefully ran with it.

Let's get back to Casey. This twat doesn't feel one bit of remorse. She is now on her way to earning millions of dollars from the talk-show circuit, book deals, and whatever else the world has to offer an amoral rat of a human being for killing her daughter and getting away with it. She was found not guilty for three reasons-her looks, her youth and more importantly, her skin color. That is an unbeatable combination that only a terrorist attack perpetrated by the likes of Timothy McVeigh could compensate for.

This cunt just so happened to be a cutey, the type of gorgeous woman you'd see dancing in a South Florida strip club like Porky's before the Colombianas chased most of the white trash away. Usually, a colossal bitch of such inconsequential worth would be sweating up a storm in some nameless trailer park chomping down on some possum pie and living her loser life in abject anonymity. But she has been thrust into the spotlight because of this heinous crime, and she stands to profit handsomely for it.

The sordid details of the trial are all over the internet. This post isn't about that. This is about the form of justice in ass-backwards places like Florida, where inbred good ol' boys and gals rule the roost. The jury was probably thinking "no way could someone who either looks like their daughter, sister, or sex partner be guilty of something like this". A young, cute white girl was all the jury saw. They saw themselves in her. This is why she was acquitted. They related to her story of sexual abuse at the hands of a family member because that's how they roll down South. If someone has a pretty daughter, all the assholes from the family line up to take turns sodomizing her. That's southern hospitality for you.

Casey the uber-cunt, inconsolable after the the loss of her child...

She's said she feels no remorse and is happy that the burden of having to raise a child has been lifted off her shoulders. She is an unrepentant murderer and will, guaranteed, be involved in killing someone again somewhere down the road. And she has been let free to profit from this. This is the America we live in, and it says more about us and the good people of Florida than it does about this creepy, psychotic hoochie who, like other girls with looks and no brains who just want to have fun.

Casey, I say this from the bottom of my heart-I hope you fry in Hell, and I hope you go there very, very soon.

UPDATE-The judge who heard the case has delayed releasing the names of the jurors for a couple of months until the initial outrage boils over. Meanwhile, no one has seen Casey Anthony since she's been released. Word out on the street is that she's out in Hollywood, California cutting deals to cash in on her ill-gotten fame, that fucking bitch.

Amy Winehouse found dead, to no one's surprise...

Unfortunately for all of us, she is gone. Amy "Crack House" was found dead in her West London apartment on July 23rd, and all her fans are mourning her death. Like Layne Staley, former lead singer of the grunge rock group "Alice in Chains", Winehouse became a public drug addict; meaning, everyone knew it as they were seeing it and did nothing substantial to save her.

The assholes that stepped to the side to watch the train wreck happen are all guilty, because they found it amusing. No one cared about her talent, they just enjoyed the liquored, speedball-induced show she put on, which wasn't on stage but via the lens of the paparazzi out on the streets of London.

She has appeared so dreadfully unprepared to sing this summer that a spokesperson put out a press release stating she would not continue working for the foreseeable future. That future certainly was foreseeable to everyone except her useless enablers and drug dealers, who should receive the death penalty for what they did.

Winehouse, below left, B.C. (Before Crack) and below right, A.D. (After Drugs)

She put out two great albums-her 2003 debut called "Frank" and the even more successful 2006 release called "Back To Black". The enthralling chanteuse killed it with her bluesy, sexy and melody-infused blend of pop music and jazzy, cool r&b/hip-hop flavored beats. She was also quite beautiful. That ended once she started dating crackhead deluxe Blake Fielder-Civil, and what was a bad marijuana habit spun quickly out of control. She was suffering from early onset emphysema from all the cigarettes and crack she was smoking while getting arrested so many times she was denied a visa to the United States to work.

Her voice suffered, her skeletal, tattooed physical appearance became the object of media ridicule, and she never recorded another album after 2006. From then on she was nothing more than a Charlie Sheen-esque cartoon character the London tabloids feasted on until she passed away. She left her latest rehab stint early to do a 12-gig European tour that ended after the first concert, getting booed off the stage in Serbia of all places (haven't the hapless Eastern Europeans suffered enough?) for singing so poorly and incoherently she could not finish the show.

Amy Winehouse as a school girl, her youth and beauty still intact-

And now, after all the negative media attention, public lunacy and failed rehab stints, this extremely talented and severely troubled recording artist is gone. Her ex-husband is to blame. This ass clown found the world payed attention to him due to his toxic buffoonery and decided it was a god idea to drag her down with him. Her clueless mother saw her the day before she died and stated "she looked out of it". Ya think? Her dealers kept selling her drugs after personally witnessing her physical downward spiral. And yet these people live on, talentless, boorish tabloid chum who will surely find a way to cash in on Winehouses' pathetic life story for a fistful of dollars, whores to the very end.

R.I.P. mi amor-you were one terrifically talented and bad-ass looking young lady.

Babe of the Week for July 22, 2011 is...

2011-07-22T21:18:00.013-04:00

Dayana Mendoza!!!

She is the former 2007 Miss Venezuela and former 2008 Miss Universe. So if aliens land and want to know who one of the most beautiful women on Earth is, we should all collectively point to this incredible young woman, who is so beautiful it hurts just looking at her.

Latin America is renown for it's plastic surgery. Chicas in these countries can finance nose jobs, boob jobs and all other manner of surgical enhancements. All they need is a steady job and the willingness to have the money deducted from their paychecks. Sometimes for their "Quinceañera" (the Latin version of a "Sweet Sixteen" celebration, but done a year earlier at the age of fifteen, coincidentally when many Mexican chicas become grandmothers) the families of the young teenager all kick in money to purchase the cosmetic procedure of her choice.

This is why Latin soap operas are full of actresses who've been carved up like a Thanksgiving Day turkey. On some it is noticeable, on the more naturally beautiful ones and/or those with the loot to afford the very best, it is very subtle. But they all have work done. This isn't to say that it's a bad thing, because the Miss Venezuela contest is full of women who get procedures done almost without question, so in this case Dayana is no exception. But she still loooks mahvelous, dahling-absolutely mahvelous!!! And for this she garners an award more prestigious than any internationally recognized beauty pageant like Miss Universe-she is our "Babe of the Week".

ESPN Does It Again...

2011-07-13T19:26:00.014-04:00

ESPN has the reputation of having dickhead commentators say stupid, insensitive and insulting things all the time and they as a network usually do nothing about it. They have the biggest assortment of useless, neanderthal, fuckface sports writers television has ever seen. This time, the offending asshole du jour is eminent columnist and Twitter twat Michael Smith. I only know this cat from his occasional appearances on "Around The Horn", a half-hour show hosted by Tony Reali. Smith appears on this program with fellow obnoxious windbag Woody Paige. Judging by their attitude towards professional cycling I would give almost anything to see these pricks getting slammed by a car into a barbed-wire fence while doing 30-plus on a bike just so they can see how it tastes.

During a stage of the Tour, an as-yet-to-be identified driver of a car attempted to screech past the day's breakaway and sideswiped a couple of riders, causing some terrible injuries. The riders who were taken out miraculously rejoined the race and finished the day's stage. Their heroism should not go unnoticed. As a cycling enthusiast who has endured three crashes resulting from driver negligence, I cannot tell you how angry I was when a few days ago Michael Smith had the audacity to find this horrific crash funny, and said so on the air.

He then went on Twitter and reiterated his Cro Magnon stance. After the comments against his statements became a flood of vitriol, he offered a half-assed apology that seemed forced, sort of like when the school bully gets pulled into the principal's office to say sorry to the parents of one of the nerdy geeks people like that love terrorizing.

Does Smith deserve to get fired? Yes. Will he? No. Because his comments were actually a step above the usual sports talk blather, and no one at ESPN gives a flying fuck about cycling. They don't consider it s sport, not like basketball, football, hockey or golf. These guys are all the same-they try to make a name for themselves by cozying up to the jocks that America loves to curry favor from them in the form of interviews and access into their gilded lives. They can say what they want about cycling because to them cycling never fit in to the arrogant-jock template these cocksuckers worship.

Team Radio Shack rider Janez Brajkovic crashing out of the Tour-

This year's Tour happened to be extraordinarily brutal for many riders, domestiques and top-10 contenders alike. Quite a few teams lost their leading horses to terrible injuries. Astana's Alexandre Vinokourov broke his femur and pelvis and will retire this season. Radio Shack lost Chris Horner, Andreas Kloden and their young Slovenian hopeful Janez Brajkovic. Alberto Contador crashed four times, badly hurt his knee and was unable to fight back form all the time he lost in the first week.

But it was the sensational crash of lesser-known rider Johnny Hoogerland during a breakaway in stage 9 that made worldwide headlines, for no other reason than pure sensationalism. This poor guy was ridden completely off the road by a car carrying some idiot who isn't even part of the Tour organization. Supposedly the driver was trying to avoid a tree and swerved into a 5-man breakaway, clipped Spanish rider Juan Antonio Flecha into Hoogerland and then sped off without so much as an apology afterwards. Here is the dreadful video of this crackhead maneuver-

This is the accident Michael Smith of ES-fucking-PN thought was so hilarious-

And here are the gruesome photos of the hapless Hoogerland and the damage done to him. Keep in mind he flew into a barbed wire fence wearing nothing but his lycra cycling uniform while hauling ass at 30-plus miles an hour-

The above photo is of Hoogerland trying to extricate himself from the barbed wire fence. The middle photo is the rider patched up by Tour medical personnel who managed to get him back on his bike to finish the stage, albeit 17 minutes down. The photo directly below is Hoogerland, 33 stitches later, on his way to start the next day's stage. Truly heroic. This is what Michael Smith got such a huge guffaw out of. Not only that, his cohort on "Around the Horn", the stumbling, bumbling career alcoholic and serial groper Wood Paige (yes, he was accused of inappropriate behavior towards a female staff member at some stupid morning show called "Cold Pizza" a few years ago) had the audacity to say these types of crashes aren't all that serious because the riders always get up and finish the stage.

Paige is only halfway right. Many cats get up from these types of horrific crashes not because their injuries aren't terrible, but because these so-called skinny geeks clad in tight lycra are some of the toughest motherfucking athletes on the face of the Earth. And as for the injuries they suffer on crashes not being all that serious, Woody, you hyper-inebriated dingleberry, this isn't always the case.

We had one rider die at this year's Giro D'Italia, Belgian Wouter Weylandt of Team Leopard. How many of this poor rider's friends and loved ones wish he could have walked away from his crash? Colombian cyclist Juan Mauricio Soler sustained severe brain injuries at this year's Tour of Switzerland, and has been hospitalized ever since. The poor guy may never live a normal life ever again, yet this is what these assholes at ESPN ridicule whenever pro cycling is brought up in the North American press.

Fuck you, ESPN. And as for Michael Smith, may a thousand camels with fully erect penises pay oral, vaginal and rectal homage to your wife, who defended your statements, further perpetrating the belief that it's OK to laugh at people in a sport you consider a joke.

Film Recommendation of the Week...

2011-06-26T23:32:00.018-04:00

Falling Skies
Release date June 19th, 2011 on TNT.
Running time-45 minutes per episode.

This is a sci-fi adventure series that focuses on the aftermath of an alien invasion. From the little we know so far, 90% of the Earth's humans have been killed, all armies have been destroyed and the aliens have set up camps where humans are used as slave labor to collect scrap metal, seemingly to build some sort of craft. Reports from all over the country state the aliens have set up theses massive mother ships in every major city of the United States.

We are left with roving bands of survivors, a mixture of civilians with nowhere to go and the remnants of the US armed forces, who are doing battle in small insurgent groups while trying to figure out how to defeat the alien invaders. The main character is a US history professor looking for his captured son, played by Noah Wyle of the television hospital drama "E.R.".

He plays the typically earnest, Huckleberry Finn-type character who tries to exemplify the best in all of us. I can do without the All-American do-goodism, it's a cheap cliché that requires no thought, and quite frankly it's downright tiresome. Other than that, some of the babes are pretty hot and the three episodes so far have been quite entertaining. In other words, it is a nice addition to what will turn out to be one of the most boring summers in sports, television and film I've witnessed in years.

Let's be real-if the most pressing and urgent situations in pro football and basketball are those stupid work stoppages, then it's time to ignore the issue until the idiots in charge resolve it, because we all know it will be beaten to death on sports talk radio. So tune them out and watch something more entertaining than another pathetic episode of "Mob Wives" or "16 and Pregnant". We have the producers of last year's killer series "The Walking Dead" to thank for this. We should have had more episodes of this show by now, but they will not air until October or November of this year. Fucking sucks.

UPDATE-we are now heading towards the season-ending two-hour finale on Sunday, August 7th. All the episodes have been extremely good, and I'm glad the writers steered clear of overexposing the main character. His "Honest John of America" bullshit was seriously getting on my fucking nerves. Stay tuned, because I have a feeling it's going to be excellent.

The aliens have been in cahoots with some of the survivors who, in exchange for their lives, have been giving them information on where to find and kidnap the young humans they need for their mission. They control the humans by setting up harnesses along their spinal columns. These harnesses have been used against the aliens themselves. they are controlled by some super-tall and thin human-like aliens who look nothing like the multi-legged creeps that have been out in the streets doing their dirty work.

Just as it seemed completely hopeless for humanity, the gang are planning an attack on the alien's spaceships with explosives conjured by by a rogue ex-con anarchist who'se been giving everyone fits but seems interested in helping out. This cat has managed to figure out the type of bullets necessary to pierce the alien attacker's up-to-then bullet-proof armor, which has been a major hindrance in the army's ability to put up any sort of resistance.

Babe of the Week for June 24, 2011 is...

2011-06-25T00:37:00.023-04:00

Bruna Schmitz!!!

This stunningly beautiful blond is comin' at you straight from Brazil. Anyone who doesn't agree Brazil has the best looking women of all skin tones and hair color must report to the nearest anti-doping tent for a drug test, because you are obviously on crack. Why surfer chicks are so incredibly fine I do not know, I'm just glad they are. It must be the care-free, easy-going lifestyle that makes gorgeous young women want to go out and hit the waves-

Here is her official bio from Sports Illustrated-
Bruna Schmitz, 20, is a professional surfer who hails from Salto do Lontra, Brazil. She began surfing at age 9, and in 2003 she won the Billabong Pro Junior title, making her the youngest athlete to win a professional event in Brazil. Bruna is sponsored by Roxy and Lui Lui shoes and currently surfs on the ASP Women's World Tour.

In my next life I wanna become the son of a rich couple with primo beach-front property, so I won't have a care in the word besides surfing and hooking up with some of the finest babes on planet Earth. Bruna, you loook mahvelous, dahling-absolutely mahvelous!!! Thank you Brazil for producing such outstanding babes in such mass quantities!!!

Lebron James...

2011-06-17T16:09:00.034-04:00

This photo says it all. "Mr. Sense of Entitlement" from the age of what, eleven? Twelve? Riding to a game in a limousine with a bar rack full of candy? Uh-huh. Anyone else spot the irony of this man-child exploiting and being exploited by the same hyper-drive fame machine that's eviscerating him now? Lebron James has the tattoos "The Chosen One" and "King James" scribbled on his body. There is no greater affirmation of these monumentally arrogant and hollow statements than what we witnessed during this year's NBA Finals against the Dallas Mavericks.

Coming up small isn't the only thing he accomplished-he exhibited his true character, that of a clueless over-hyped con man who can only lead from the front, a pathetic shell of the player he keeps telling us he is. The most physically talented basketball player of his generation (a slight notch above cats like Dwight Howard, Blake Griffin and Derrick Rose) is a Tin Man with no heart. All flash, no substance.

Stephen A. Smith of ESPN stated that James is going through some personal issues that are apparently none of our business. I say it IS our business, because when you crown yourself King while still in high school, when your stated purpose is to become a global icon, when your ambition is to become the first billionaire athlete (sorry, but I think Tiger Woods beat you to it, oh Chosen One) you have to explain why you sucked massive horse cock in practically every fourth quarter of the Finals series, coming up short and small just when the lights are brightest and your team needs you the most.

Funny how Jason Terry had no problems talking shit after having a terrible game 3 performance and then going out and backing it up by lighting the Heat up. He was even called out by Dirk Nowitzki. Yes, Jason Terry, a 6-2 reserve shooting guard who I've seen dunk during a game maybe twice in his career. Lebron is 6 inches and about 70 pounds of pure muscle bigger, yet Terry absolutely killed him and the rest of the Heat team when it mattered-in the fourth quarter. Why did this happen? That's the question, isn't it? That should have been James lighting the Mavs up in those critical fourth quarters, but it wasn't.

If James is having personal problems, it must stem from the antics of his mother. Here on "Busting Chops" not too many things are sacred. Mothers and children are usually off-limits depending on the role they play in whichever particular tragic-comedy they happen to star in. This lady does not fall into the category of "saint", so she will get no mercy. This is a woman who was known to storm the sidelines of the Cleveland Cavaliers arena, loudly and publicly berating then-coach Mike Brown to anyone who would listen, disrespecting him whenever things went wrong. And no one would or could say anything because she was Lebron's mother. Who would dare?

She once went up to NBA broadcaster Mike Fratello while he was working a game and yelled out "Hey!! You wanna come and coach this team? Come on down!!!" Her latest fit of stupidity occurred in April 2011 with a parking attendant in a Miami hotel. She was arrested for a some type of assault (emphasis on ASS) even though it was clear the parking attendant hit her first. But he probably did this because she was drunk off her ass and said something stupid and demeaning to him. I could definitely see him hauling off and slapping her to the floor if this was indeed the case. But her crowning achievement had to be her rumored affair with her son's then-Cleveland Cavalier teammate Delonte West-

Imagine walking into the locker room knowing one of your teammates is fucking your mother in the ass and coming all over her face like Ron Jeremy after every game. That would be a tad bit disconcerting to say the least. I know it would throw my equilibrium off definitely. And not only a teammate, but the one who is by appearance and behavior the most thugged-out hoodlum-looking motherfucker this side of a Pelican Bay inmate. He has the most tattoos and has logged the most visits to a police station and psychiatric in-patient clinic than anyone else Lebron knows. His mom had to pick the most special special-ed NBA player outside of Ron Artest, and rumor also has it he ain't the only motherfucker she's fucked with (and continues to fuck with) in the league.

Apparently, she cannot be stopped. Thus the existential angst that seemingly attacks Lebron James only in the fourth quarter of really important basketball games. Then again, I too would freeze in moments like this knowing that Delonte West is horsing my mother like a thoroughbred, and probably videotaping it too. Here is a photo of her getting involved in an altercation between the Celtics and the Cavaliers, where Lebron had to tell his own mother to sit the fuck down and stay out of it. What type of asshole would do something like this? Lebron's mom, that's fucking who.

I felt a bit sorry for him until his diatribe after The Heat were eliminated in game six of the Finals. James was asked about what he thought of "The Haters", those who wanted to see Miami lose in general and see him fuck up in particular. Here is what he said-

"All the people that was rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today," James said Sunday.

"They have the same personal problems they had today. I'm going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that. They can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal, but they have to get back to the real world at some point."-Lebron James

The losers James is referring to are the very same ones he counts on to make his jersey the #1 seller in the NBA, the same losers who buy the magazines he's featured in and watch his every move on the basketball court when they watch him on TV. Basically he's saying whatever we do his life is awesome and ours suck. If our lives didn't suck, we wouldn't take so much pleasure in watching him lose.

As one of those people he is referring to, let me just say that I'm glad my mother isn't like his. I have no respect for some uneducated, hyper-promiscuous, ghetto trash hoochie who instead of giving birth to a crack baby like she would have under normal circumstances, wins the lottery by having one of the most gifted athletes the world has ever seen. So instead of going about her business with some semblance of dignity, she goes out of her way to embarrass him at every turn. DUI indictments, assault charges and acting out every groupie's fantasies by fucking not only NBA players, but players on her own son's fucking team!!!

I'm not a Lebron James fan at all. He has surrounded himself with yes-men and pathetic sycophants from his high school days who do nothing but blow smoke up his ass instead of giving him pragmatic life advice that could see him through such hard times. From the apotheosis of hubris with "The Decision", the televised ego-fest that someone told him would increase his national exposure (it did, but for all the wrong reasons) to the even more ridiculous celebration with fellow dickwads Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, complete with fireworks, smoke machines and the announcement that they would win not one, not two, not three...but seven championships.

We don't hate Lebron because he's unlikeable. There are plenty of athletes who do and say much worse things. We hate him because he seems devoid of what fans would gravitate towards-humility. He's never known it, never felt it, and is clueless as to how to approach any semblance of it. He has a whorehouse full of no-talent cocksuckers whose major purpose in life is telling him how great he is and how all that matters are the endorsement dollars he's raking in regardless of the haters.

I hope he never wins a championship ever in his career. He'll be rich and have a fabulous life, no doubt he'll remind us. And he'll be the owner of a legacy he truly deserves-karmic justice at its' finest. And for all the asholes who are projecting the Miami Heat to be the favorites next year to win it all, there might not even BE season next year due to the impending NBA lockout.

The other thing is, Dallas still will look good; and so will the Lakers, the Memphis Grizzlies and the Oklahoma City Thunder. And the teams in the East are hell-bent on improving, whereas the Heat are already more than maxed out salary-wise. All they'll be able to do is put together another bunch of bums past their sell-by date who would play for a bullshit one-year league minimum contract for the chance at possibly winning a ring.

Just ask Mike Bibby how giving up $6 million dollars next year just to play for the Heat this year worked out for him. No one is going to sign him for anything near that amount next year, and believe me other players have seen this and will stay where they are than leave money on the table to take a gamble that will more than likely fail. The Heat as constituted presently will never beat any of those teams I just mentioned. Never. And we'll be back the same time next year wondering how Lebron's mother sabotaged his efforts to win a ring with her antics.

Here's what Cleveland thinks about "The Decision"-

The Fall of the House of Armstrong Pt. III...

2011-05-24T07:01:00.018-04:00

Ah, the Lance Armstrong fanboys. Those semi-literate hyenas who troll the internet looking to pitch their tents, hoist their flags and stand tall against anyone who dares to say disparaging word about their homosexual man-crush. The fits of internet goonery this cocksucker incites (moreso now that he is that much closer to being indicted) has been a sight to behold. But it's all about to end, and end badly, and the fan-boys are up in arms. Just read the comments left on Tyler Hamilton's Facebook page right after the 60 Minutes interview and it's easy to see the violent reactions to his allegations that border on the insane.

These internet zombies are all over the place, on every cycling forum and any other place where their hero is discussed. Public Strategies is a company that has been accused of sending paid trolls to infiltrate these sites to infect the world with their drivel, and all one has to do is check out a site called facts4lance.com to see that these vermin do not intend to go quietly into that good night (the site was taken down shortly after it was painfully obvious that it had the opposite effect of it's intention, which was to muddy the waters with the most inane set of half-truths and downright lies this side of the Watergate investigation. G. Gordon Liddy would have been proud...).

As for the direction the investigation has taken, it is clear that Armstrong will once and for all be exposed as not only a fraud and a cheat, but the biggest fraud and cheat we've seen in the history of pro cycling. No other cyclist has enriched himself the way he has via his relationships with corporate sponsors, paid speaking engagements, and race appearance fees that have netted him untold millions of dollars. He's done this all on the backs of the cancer community, whom he supposedly champions but cynically uses as a ruse to perpetrate a world-wide iconic status that is in direct conflict with the asshole he's been his whole life.

The cancer community doesn't need as it's hero a fake, steroid-engorged, vindictive, bitter prick who lies, cheats, holds grudges, executes petty vendettas and uses the disease to operate some bullshit cancer advocacy group that rakes in millions in donations and produces nothing but vaporware that emanates straight out of Armstrong's rear end. Anyone who makes apologies for this scheming turdball is as pathetic as they come, the equivalent of the cheerleader who still wants to be invited to the prom by the captain of the football team even after infecting her with herpes.

This is the best way I can describe his fanbase. Their collective retardation boggles the mind. I always thought groupie behavior was the sole confine of disgustingly insecure and vacuous females looking for attention and validation, but it seems as if the men have gotten in on the act. For Armstrong isn't just a sporting figure to his fans, he is their messiah.And lets' not forget these aren't teenagers screeching over their latest celebrity crush. These motherfuckers are grown-ass men with families and jobs.

The pagan God of worship in America isn't money or success, it's fame. Because in a land where there is supposedly no rigid class structure, the dividing line is fame. Armstrong has been a corporate Juggernaut ever since he's sold the cancer community the notion that he was out to achieve sporting success at the Tour "for them", and the idiots bought it. He is revered by the Wall Street yuppies who despite having it all wish they were young and talented enough to be revered as a sporting deity. The private jets aren't enough. The lavish lifestyles and $5,000-a-night hookers aren't enough.They all wanted to be like Lance.

So do the aging yuppies for whom cycling isn't just a sport but a way to remind themselves they don't already have one foot in the grave, these frustrated tiny-dick bastards who harbor a deep-seated resentment towards society because they didn't turn out to be as awesome as they were told they could be in this great land of opportunity. You can have money, but what fun is it if no one recognizes you walking down the street?

Suddenly the floodgates opened and there he was, a beacon of light in a world of perpetual mediocrity for the babbling minions to devour-the Caucasian boy wonder, the most determined, hardest-working AND most physically gifted cyclist since the great Eddy Merckx. At least that's what Chris Carmichael kept telling everyone. Carmichael, another whore of epic proportions, a man who's made a career out of trimming the follicles from Lance's one remaining testicle, who should not be training anyone much less profiting from cycling after his involvement with the US National Cycling team of the early 1990's.

So the trolls work their magic, spewing venom and vitriol at anyone who dares to question "the myth", and a myth it is. During the Dateline interview with Floyd Landis, Betsy Andreu was interviewed about the infamous hospital incident, where Armstrong was asked by one of the doctors in attendance whether he had used PEDs before he got sick. he rattled of this list-

1) EPO

2) Testosterone

3) Steroids

4) Growth Hormone

5) Cortisone

This is the crap he was polluting his body with BEFORE he got cancer. He is also alleged to have researched an unapproved drug called HemAssist that never made it to the final stages for approval, thus never came to market, but was able to purchase the remaining stock and use it during his comeback. What kind of colossal asshole researches doping products while he's receiving chemo for cancer? His fanboys and apologists will go to extreme lengths to justify his behavior, and there is a reason for this besides blind hero worship.

Herein lies the eternal hypocrisy-average, everyday people fueling a multi-billion dollar PED industry in the United States, ingesting tons of steroids for the sheer sake of vanity, meanwhile demonizing sports figures who use these same drugs because it goes against the concepts of "fair play" and "level playing field", two of the most bullshit phrases in the English language. And the hypocrisy extends only to their favorite sports heroes, who they "identify" with-

The above photos say itall. For those of ou who aren't rabid cycling fans and cannot make the connection, the two Italian cats in the first picture (Leonardo Piepoli and the reviled Ricardo Ricco) were busted for using CERA, a third or fourth generation blood oxygen booster, in 2008. Their feats of strength during that year's Giro D'Italia and Tour de France, until they got busted, was a drug-induced sight to behold. The next photo are two of the oldest riders in the pro peloton shredding the field at this year's Tour of California, Chris Horner and Levi Leipheimer. These two superannuated career dopers were actually favored as dark horse contenders coming into the Tour de France this year, whilst riding against riders 12-17 years YOUNGER. And do you know why hardly anyone batted an eye to their performances? Because in in this sport, two guys who come across as "All-American" (insert implied reference HERE) will always get the benefit of the doubt, regardless of how ridiculous their feats are especially when compared to their age.

If you take a close look at the pharmaceutical steroid industry in the United States, it is driven by anti-aging clinics writing prescriptions to aging yuppies who want to stay young and corporate type-A personalities who want to have an "edge" on their cohorts and the rest of society. These are the same jag-offs of who show up at master's category races with muscles bulging from HgH and testosterone and tell the world they've achieved their fitness through hard work and a healthy lifestyle-any lie is worth telling as long as it makes them feel superior to the next man. So it makes sense that they refuse to admit that steroid use bothers them because it doesn't. So what Armstrong doped? Apparently he doped better than the rest of the field, so their justification is the best athlete still won fair and square.

This is the Livestrong Hero in a nutshell. One nutshell, to be exact. This is the man for whom all manner of other-worldy qualities are attached simply because he is the Caucasian Superman every pathetic, anonymous yuppie in the United States wants to be but isn't. It turns out that Armstrong isn't either. So they are out in full force defending their man, with all manner of tactics-attacking fellow posters, feigning righteous indignation that the haters are so obsessed, that the investigation is a waste of taxpayer money, that anyone who has spoken out against him is nothing but a jealous loser with an axe to grind or an agenda to execute, the list is endless.

The Armstrong Myth will not die. It has to be taken out with the truth, which hopefully will fill the void from all the lies he's been spewing for years and years. I imagine the scene will be reminiscent of the death of former Colombian cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar, who despite his obscene wealth wound up hunted like a rat bastard and died on a rooftop of a nondescript neighborhood in Medellín. Except it will be the Feds posing over the dead, bloated carcass of the remains of the House of Armstrong, built on stilts made of fraud, deceit, arrogance and a hubris that rivals the biggest crooks that ever walked the Earth. My hope is that his fawning legion of rabid fanboys jump into the abyss along with him. It will be a welcome relief, and one that is long overdue.

The Fall of the House of Armstrong Pt. II...

2011-05-24T03:38:00.013-04:00

Now that the 60 Minutes report has aired, we know a bit more than we knew before. Here is the most damning piece of evidence revealed-

"The Swiss lab director has since given a sworn statement to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). "60 Minutes" has learned that the lab director testified that a representative of the UCI wanted the matter of the suspicious test to go no further. The lab director also testified that the meeting between himself, Bruyneel and Armstrong was arranged by the UCI."

So, in response to a positive dope test in the 2001 Tour de Suisse, which automatically would have kept Armstrong out of the 2001 and 2002 Tours de France, Bruyneel and Armstrong have a face-to-face meeting with the lab director, something that is unheard of. A member of the UCI interfered with lab protocol and made it clear this situation was to be remedied in Armstrong's favor by having the whole matter simply disappear.

This is what we have so far-

1) Institutionalized corruption that favored Armstrong and his teammates within not only cycling's governing body, the UCI, but also with the labs that carry out the anti-doping tests.

2) An exclusive non-compete contract during the Tour de France with the most infamous doping doctor of modern times, Italian Michele Ferrari, with money exchanging hands until as recently as 2010. Armstrong has stated publicly he cut ties with this doctor back in 2004.

3) Four ex-teammates giving evidence that they saw Armstrong dope with their own eyes and also partook in doping alongside him, either through procurement or ingesting.

4) Armstrong played a role in the trafficking of PEDs when he sent Hamilton a package containing EPO through the mail.

Aside from all the residual drama and posturing, this is what we know for sure. We do not know who else has testified or what they said. We do not know how the Italian authorities are dealing with Dr. Ferrari, who has had some of his bank accounts frozen and is currently under investigation. Ferrari has taken, at least in public, a pro-active approach by seeking the authorities so he can clear up any misunderstandings. The twisted guru to the the most successful cyclists of our times seemingly has nothing to hide, but he is the linchpin to the whole case.

He has managed to elude Italian authorities up to now. He was convicted of doping crimes a few years ago yet served no jail time and his license to practice as a doctor was never suspended. He still counsels cyclists as the pre-eminent quack of the cycling world though he has been told not to. He just does it discreetly in another country where apparently the Italians have no authority to chase him. His clientele protect him like a fugitive Nazi war criminal. But with Interpol now involved, this may be the beginning of the end for his career as a "cycling coach".

If the Italian and North American authorities can manage to get this vile slug to flip, then the whole house of cards will come tumbling down. He is the man who has the keys to it all-the doping calendars for Armstrong and the other riders on the team he worked with, the procurement of PEDs, and the amount of money that exchanged hands for his services. Then you have other quacks that worked with US Postal/Discovery/Astana such as Spanish doctor del Moral, who now runs an athletic clinic in Valencia, Spain.

There is much more to this tale but I'm keeping it short due to the speculation that has run rampant on the internet. Everyone has their "take", but until we know what the Feds are charging people with, there is no point in going further. All we can do now is wait. Any more commentary on this matter is nothing but an exercise in conjecture until more concrete details become public. But in part three of this series, the fanboys will be addressed.

The Fall of the House of Armstrong Pt. I...

2011-05-21T06:46:00.023-04:00

Last Thursday, ex-US Postal rider Tyler Hamilton went public with details of the organized in-house doping program that elevated Lance Armstrong to 7-time Tour de France champion during the years 1999-2005. Hamilton is the rider who was banned twice in his career for testing positive, once for an autogolous blood transfusion in 2004 and the last year for DHEA, which effectively put paid to his career forever.

Hamilton riding for his last European squad, Tinkoff Credit Systems-

He will be interviewed by Scott Pelley on the venerable news program 60 Minutes on Sunday, May 22nd. This in and of itself is enough of a bombshell, but what followed was unexpected. It turns out George Hincapie gave testimony to the Federal grand jury overseeing the investigation of the allegations initially brought to light by Floyd Landis. Hincapie has corroborated the rampant drug use by Armstrong and others that rode for his teams during this time.

Hamilton during his 60 Minutes interview with Scott Pelley-

Hamilton is an easy person to vilify. Like Landis, he too took public money in the form of a campaign dubbed "IBelieveTyler.org" to finance the legal defense against his first positive test,, incorporating the ridiculous strategy based on the ludicrous notion that he had another blood type in his system due to a "chimera", or disappearing twin, while he was still in his mother's womb.

And like Landis, he has lied about his drug use for years despite unequivocal evidence to the contrary. It wasn't just the initial positive dope test, it was also his association with the infamous Spanish gynecologist/sports doctor Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes, which came to light after Operation Puerto revealed a client list that included some of pro cycling's leading stars, including Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso. Ullrich retired in disgrace and Basso received a two-year ban, though neither had ever tested positive for an illegal substance ever in their careers.

Hamilton, at the time riding for a Russian team, vehemently denied any association with Dr. Fuentes, but evidence later revealed payments to the doctor from his then-wife Haven Hamilton to the tune of many thousands of Euros and a detailed doping diary that beggars belief. With all the doping Hamilton was doing, it's a miracle he's still alive to tell the tale, so comprehensive was the doping regimen he was on at the time.

Spain's Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes of "Operation Puerto" fame-

Armstrong's defense remains unshaken. His people have put out statement after statement refuting all charges by attempting to assassinate the flawed characters of Landis and Hamilton, an easy thing to do given the circumstances. But the Hincapie situation is not one that can be swept under the rug as the rantings of a bitter and jealous ex-teammate looking for publicity. This tactic will not work this time because Hincapie is one of the few from that particular era that has kept his reputation intact while never coming under suspicion as a doper.

Up until now, Hincapie's reputation has been that of the grand gentleman of the peloton. He's had a long career that spanned seven years spent as Armstrong's lieutenant during his Tour wins and was never mired in any type of controversy of any kind. But his admission of steroid use will cast a shadow over his career that will never wash off. He is currently racing in the Tour of California and has made no public statements to the press other than the usual pathetic attempts at obfuscating. Here are three of his quotes taken directly from his Twitter feed-

"I can confirm to you I never spoke with '60 Minutes'. I have no idea where they got their information."

"As I've said in the past, I continue to be disappointed that people are talking about the past in cycling instead of the future."

"As for the substance of anything in the '60 Minutes' story, I cannot comment on anything relating to the ongoing investigation."

Right now we do not know how any of Hincapie's testimony was leaked, but 60 Minutes got a hold of it. We won't know anything else until the program airs tomorrow. I could have waited until then to write this column, but I felt this information was too important to wait.But it begs the question-we now have three of Armstrong's ex-teammates ratting him out. Hincapie is the most surprising. Not only because of his supposed undying loyalty to Armstrong but because as one of the "good guys" of the peloton, he was thought by many moronic fanboys to be ethically above reproach. But just like Chris Horner and Levi Leipheimer, nice guys also dope.

Funny about Hincapie. Rumors about him go all the way back to when he was lapping the field in Central Park in New York City. He's been alleged to have been shooting up with vitamin B, cortisone and testosterone before he began riding for the infamous US national team. If anyone is familiar with the cats in this photo, no further explanation is necessary. Here is Hincapie repping the US national jersey alongside Mengoni riders the Pineda Brothers (the middle two) and sprinter Wilson Vasquez(far right)-

Hamilton, to his credit, has given back his 2004 Olympic gold medal. At the time he got off on a technicality because his B-sample was inadvertently frozen, so the testers could not corroborate the A-sample findings, but weeks later dropped out of the Vuelta a España citing an illness and was caught out along with another teammate for an illegal blood transfusion. They both showed traces of someone elses' blood in their systems, meaning someone on the team's medical staff got the blood bags mixed up.

Whatever else the 60 Minutes report unveils, it is becoming clear that unlike the Federal investigation into Barry Bonds and his use of steroids, the Feds are thoroughly doing their homework and coming up with witnesses that unlike in Bonds' case, are not willing to go to jail just for the sake of defending Armstrong.

We shall see.

Film Recommendation of the Week...

2011-05-16T01:49:00.014-04:00

Hoop Dreams
Release date October 14, 1994.
Running time 2 hours 50 minutes.

People say, 'When you make it to the NBA, don't forget about me.' I feel like telling them, 'Well, if I don't make it, make sure you don't forget about me.' "

-William Gates, in the final scene of "Hoop Dreams".

Anyone who is a basketball fan should watch this documentary, which, not surprisingly given the track record of giving bad films and bad actors accolades they don't deserve did not win the Academy Award for Best Documentary the ear of it's initial release. Not to get too far off the subject, but the snub it received from the Academy makes the whole process an absolute fraud. Here is an aspect of how films were considered for nomination as told by renown film critic Roger Ebert-"

"According to Roger Ebert, reliable sources said members of the Academy's documentary nomination committee had a system in which one would wave a flashlight on screen when they gave up on the film. When a majority of the lights flashed, the film was turned off. Hoop Dreams didn’t even make it to 20 minutes."

Nice, huh? Despite all that, this film will go down as one of the best documentaries of the 20th Century. Initially, it was meant to be a 30-minute piece on some kids playing playground basketball, but it morphed into a five-year project that captured the lives of two young African American boys and their families in inner-city Chicago with a sensitivity and a disdain for the type of annoying and condescending platitudes that is the hallmark of lesser works that deal with this subject. Here is another quote from the "Hoop Dreams" Wiki page-

"The film raises a number of issues concerning race, class, economic division, education and values in contemporary America. It also offers one of the most intimate views of inner-city life to be captured on film. Yet it is also the human story of two young men, their two families and their community, and the joys and struggles they live through over a period of five years."

The scenarios portrayed in this film are still being played out in every inner-city in the country. Absolutely nothing has changed, except the money and exposure has pushed the recruiting of these kids well past the point of it being a system that is healthy for anyone involved. It turns basketball coaches into whoremongers and poor, desperate families into hapless saps who will believe anyone willing to take a gamble on their kid (for a price, of course).

Sadly, both Arthur Agee and William Gates suffered tragedies years after filming had stopped. Arthur's father, a man featured in the film who struggled with the usual litany of ghetto issues, was gunned down in 2004 on the streets of Chicago. Gates' brother Curtis, portrayed prominently in the film, was also murdered in 2001.

One of the most funniest cats in the film is Saint Joseph's High School basketball coach Gene Pingatore. What a character this guy is. He popped up a few years ago in Sebastian Telfair's documentary "Into The Fire", still living in the past and still talking about Isaiah Thomas, the most famous player he ever coached.

He comes across as a typical white, suburban basketball coach who is out of touch with the ghetto kids he looks for to help him win basketball games. He means well, he just doesn't speak the language and isn't very empathetic. He is an anachronism very much like Chuck Taylors and skimpy, tight-assed shorts. One of the most pathetic scenes involving Pingatore was when he approaches Agee years after he was asked to leave Saint Joe's and tells him with a straight face "I could have used you this year". What a prick. But then again, I expected nothing less from him, knowing his type.

(under construction)

Babe of the Week for May 13, 2011 is...

2011-05-15T23:11:00.014-04:00

Fiona Apple!!!

Fiona Apple burst onto the music scene in 1996, winning a Grammy Award for her single "Criminal". Her cutey-pie looks were a contrast to her deep, velvety and soulful voice, which made her all the more alluring. She released her debut album called "Tidal" when she was nineteen years old. It's hard to fathom that during the last sixteen years she's only released three albums, but when you loook mahvelous, dahling, absolutely mahvelous like Fiona does, who cares?

I've just begun to get into her music. Since I'm not a fan of artists who get more press coverage for their looks than their talent (hence my dislike of twats like Lady GaGa) it's taken a while for me to come around on Fiona. Unfortunately we have to keep going back in time to re-discover artists like her because the music that's coming out now is homogenized crap meant for idiots with the attention span of a crackhead on crystal meth.

Here is the video to her hit single "Criminal"-

The Apotheosis of Celebrity Bullshit...

2011-05-14T05:55:00.016-04:00

One of the finest babes on planet Earth, the half Dominican-half Puerto Rican beauty Michelle Rodriguez, was recently overheard bitching about being "bothered" by fans. She said (and I'm paraphrasing here) that she would like to live in France because "stuff like that doesn't happen there". I'm assuming she's talking about autograph seekers and the everyday schlubs that approach her because she's a "star", when the reality is she's a bullshit C-list Hollywood actress who is such a twat she can't keep a steady job from the myriad of DUI's on her rap sheet, and only gets film roles where she plays another in a long line of stereotypical tough-as-nails Latina army grunts who takes no shit from anyone. She should have graduated from roles like this a long time ago, but toady she can't manage a cameo appearance on garbage like the "Fast and Furious" franchise, which she once starred in.

That's "NOT" the way you dress for a court date-

Talk about type-casting. There's something wrong with the roles she's getting because there is something wrong with HER. Her attitude sucks, she has problems on every set she works on, and when convicted of a DUI while working in Hawaii while filming the incredibly successful TV series "Lost". She preferred to do five days in jail than do community service and was, unsurprisingly, the first character killed off the series. She's been typecast, alright-for being an asshole, and rightfully so. Just check out this quote-

"Oh baby, I was typecast the minute I did a film called Girlfight years ago. That has nothing to do with anything, it just has to do with… you allow yourself to be typecast. If I decided I didn’t want to be typecast tomorrow I’d just go do an indie film where I play some poor girl who goes through some excruciating experience and win myself an award for crying or being raped [breaks into laughter] or playing someone with mental illness. But at the end of the day I’m not in it for the acting. If I were in it for the acting then I would be worried about people not giving me the opportunity to express my vast array of emotions on the screen.

I could give two shits. I only wanna be someone I respect or someone that I consider interesting or fun. I’m here to entertain people and make a statement about female empowerment and strength and that’s what I’ve done for the last 10 years, and people can call it typecast, but I pigeonholed myself and I put myself in that box for saying no to everything else that came on my plate. Saying no to the girlfriend, saying no to the girl that gets captured, no to this, no to that. and eventually I just got left with the strong chick that’s always being killed and there’s nothing wrong with that."

So, despite putting up with her metal disorders and her blatant disregard for the law, her fans continue to support her. Darling, let me tell you right now-it's because of those annoying fans that you're even capable of considering moving to France, because they are the ones that put the money in your pocket to live so well that relocating halfway around the world is a viable option.

Couldn't dodge that community service forever, ay sweetheart?

Let me now get to one of my personal heroes, Neil Peart, drummer of the prog-rock supergroup "Rush", who also suffers form this dilemma. Apparently being around other people bothers him so much that he shuns totally, without excuse or even a hint of remorse, the meet-and-greets before and after concerts that his two other band mates are more than happy to participate in. His interviews during their latest documentary gave us a disturbing look into this man's irrational and totally unwarranted outlook on his fans.

I've always noticed that Peart, as soon as the last song is over, waves dismissively at the fans and runs offstage. He does this at every show. I have never known him to stroll to the front of the stage and take a few bows for the benefit of his adoring fans. He is loathe to give them anything more than a cursory wave of acknowledgment and off he goes. It struck me while he was speaking of the tragedies that befell him one after another, losing his young daughter and then months later his wife to a terminal illness that his issues run very deep. I couldn't think of the unimaginable grief this would have caused, yet he took this time to reiterate his visceral antagonism towards the rest of humanity by saying he just wanted to get on his motorbike, keep riding, and avoid being recognized by anyone at all costs. Sounds soothing, doesn't it?

How dare you photograph me, you cretin?

Let's get a few things straight. I love his drum set, which is so huge he has to mechanically rotate it a full 180 degrees just to play it all. It is an absolute marvel that anyone can put something like that together and make it all work, much less play it with such incredible proficiency. But what he forgets is the money that makes it possible for him to pay for the myriad of drum sets he's had over the course of his career is because of his fans.

That cross-continent motorcycle trip he took without having to worry about the cash to finance it came from the fans who have supported the group over the years. His lifestyle was made possible by us, the fans who purchase Rush's albums regardless of whether there are only one or two good songs, which has been the case for a good many years now (I love Rush but the truth is the truth). We do this because we believe in the band and are fans for life. His discomfort with paying his fans back with the relatively small gestures of signing autographs and taking pictures with us schlubs speaks to more than just a discomfort with adulation.

I understand his motivation was more about becoming an excellent musician than of being a "rock star", but at some point he has lost all perspective on what exactly he owes his fans, but how many people wish their biggest problem is being approached by fans wanting an autograph and a handshake? I've been told by other surly celebrities that we common folk have no idea what it's like having idiots follow them around and bothering them in public when all they want to do is walk down the street to get a paper and a coffee. This is true, we don't. It certainly does sound a hell of a lot better than how regular everyday people live out their pathetic lives in total and complete anonymity, that's for sure. How many of us for once would love to go somewhere where someone other than our dogs are happy to see us? How many of us never get a thank-you from ANYONE for a job well done?

Neil Peart, loving the Limelight while despising the people that put him there-

Even Michael Jackson, a man who lost the ability to walk down any street in the world before he was able to vote, would find it in his heart to occasionally wave at the clearly mentally unstable people that would mob him everywhere he went. But I seriously doubt Michelle and Neil have ever had to deal with this. So my question is, why the hate?

Yes, it is hate, a disdain for the hoi polloi that put them on the map in the first place, without whom they would be where, exactly? It has to be said that Rodriguez is in a different situation than Peart, simply because she is young, beautiful and female. So I know the kooks that pester her are on a different level. Neil's biggest fans are drum geeks, and I highly doubt they are as collectively obnoxious as the assholes that chase Michelle around. She is also more highly recognizable because she's been in movies and television.

These are indeed two different levels of fame, and I can see one being much more annoying to deal with than the other. That doesn't excuse their behavior. Michelle would get pestered regardless because of her looks. Her fame just makes it worse. But it must be said that without her looks no one would hire her to do a commercial for tampons. The same cannot be said of Peart, who on the other hand, is talented at something where looks don't matter. His fans are for the most part respectful of his prodigious talents and aren't looking to take it any further than to tell him what his music has meant to them over the years. Is that too much to ask? No, it's not. especially when his other band mates manage to take time to do exactly what makes Peart cringe, and they do so with no problems whatsoever.

The drumset WE FANS made possible-

I remember vividly the very first time I heard the drum solo on "YYZ" from Rush's live album "Exit...Stage Left". I can say unequivocally that there will never be a more succinct and technically proficient drum solo in the annals of rock music. I could not believe anyone could play that fast and that well. the precision he displayed was surgical. It was enough to make a young person believe in the impossible. The feat of this drum solo may be equaled (I highly doubt it), but never will it be surpassed. The inspiration many draw from listening to Rush's seminal album "Moving Pictures" give Rush fans hope that one day they too could grow up and be as good at anything as the guys from this group play their instruments. With all due respect to bassist/keyboardist/singer Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson, it is Peart who is the divine inspiration bar none.

I know for a fact many of his fans feel the same way. To be considered an annoyance simply because some would love to have the opportunity to express their sincere gratitude in person is a disappointment that is hard to describe. I went to his Wikipedia page and found out he is a keen fanboy of the Libertarian political and social school of thought, and is a fan of the Libertarian manifesto "Atlas Shrugged", written by social elitist douchebag Ayn Rand. It is difficult not to come to the conclusion that, after putting all these pieces together, Peart is the way he is because he despises the very people that made his life possible, and is unapproachable because he thinks he's better than his fans. And like all Libertarians that I've had the displeasure of meeting, it's always the ones that got it good in life who are the most angry, frustrated and bitter.

Rodriguez and Peart need to get a fucking grip with their bullshit. You'll never catch me out there approaching any celebrity after having done it one time and being humiliated for daring to ask for an autograph. But that's OK. My feelings were hurt, but then I went on youtube and caught the asshole in a moment he'll never be able to live down, and I went home feeling vindicated. Too bad it had to be like this, but that's life. Good night, Mark Jackson-I threw away your worthless autograph because I'd rather remember you THIS way-

Good-Bye and Good Riddance...

2011-05-10T03:13:00.007-04:00

Goodbye Phil Jackson, the one coach in all the NBA who perpetually managed to suck the air out of every room he entered these last few years. The haughty arrogance, the insufferable hubris, the contrived pseudo-Zen Master bullshit, the geeky, uncoordinated Frankenstein-esque physique is now a thing of the past. No more we will marvel at his sheer and utter genius sitting on the sidelines in his specially made orthopedic chair that kept his hips from popping out of their sockets after all the surgeries made hm a virtual cripple.

Sportscasters on ESPN cannot come up with enough superlatives for him. He is the greatest coach of ALL sports. He is the greatest motivator of great athletes the world has ever seen. He is the greatest living man not on Mount Rushmore. Believe me, his head is so big they won't need to carve it alongside the other cats who are up there. All they have to do is make a plaster cast of it, shrink it to fit, and just set it right beside the others.

In the jock-sniffing, testicle-slurping world of TV and radio sports talk, there is never room to criticize the sacred cows of modern-day athletics. That's why their collective lack of perspective must be balanced by blogs like this. Phil Jackson is an overrated front runner who couldn't coach his way out of a paper bag when things got tough. Never has one man received more accolades for being responsible for so little. He is the NBA equivalent of the asshole corporate CEO's who get paid to do absolutely nothing and live only to take credit for what others have accomplished.

His last game during this year's NBA Playoffs is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. The Lakers were, for whatever reason, clearly under-achieving and absolutely unmotivated. When a 6-7 athlete like Ron Artest slams the ball on the bottom of the rim on a breakaway dunk attempt (that's called "catching a spasm" in inner-city parlance, due to how one's back curls into itself like an accordion when this maneuver is accomplished) clearly the Lakers were not ready for prime time. But isn't it not the job of the coach to gauge the collective mood of the team and then make the necessary tweaks to make sure they are prepared to go out and compete?

Phil Jackson didn't so this because he couldn't. His strength was never about his steely resolve or his cynical, sarcastic wit. It was his ability to be at the right place at the right time coaching some of the best basketball players that ever walked the Earth. Someone please explain to me how hard it could possibly be to win 11 championships with players like Shaquille O'Neil, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and a whole host of other great players that complimented their teams beautifully. But game 4 against Dallas exposed Jackson for what he truly is. As for the Lakers, old they are not. The best players on the team are all younger than it's star, Kobe Bryant. Their two pivotal bench players, Steve Blake and Matt Barnes, were injured most of the year and were probably still not 100%. Here is where and why they failed-

1) Ron Artest, the NBA's Special Education poster boy, was a shell of his former self this year. No longer was he the dominating defensive presence capable of shutting down the opposing team's most talented athletic perimeter players. All he can do now is shoot inadvertent threes and make stupid, punk-ass fouls against players running rings around him like my man J.J. Barea. He needs to go, but who will want to pick up his contract? No one, that's who. The problem with Artest is that he's not a winner. He was happy with the one ring and you'll never see him play like last season ever again.

2) Another cat running on fumes is Derrick Fisher. Enough with this guy already. Yes, he's a great team leader and excellent family man, but he's benefited from being surrounded by Hall of Fame players most of his career. An overachiever deluxe, it's time for him to move on to the front office or the coaching staff. He can't play anymore. Not for this team, he can't.The Lakers need a point guard with speed who can do more than hit shots only because someone else on the floor is being double and triple-teamed. The league is getting faster at the point guard position, and Fisher can no longer keep up.

3) How did Pau Gasol become Jackson's whipping boy this series with how terrible everyone else was playing? Gasol is probably the only player I've ever seen Jackson physically confront in a game with such vitriol. No way he goes from being the real MVP of the NBA Finals last year and the main reason the Lakers win the championship two years in a row to a Skid Row bum without a plausible explanation. Yes, he played like shit, but there is a reason for it that we don't know about. There has to be an explanation for why he's gone from so good to so bad so fast. Age cannot be the reason for his drop in production. He's still relatively young to have an age-induced fall-off of this magnitude.

I would have respected Jackson a lot more if he got in Bryant's face the way he got in Gasol's during that last game. He certainly wasn't the the only player to blame for this monumental breakdown. Here is my conjecture on this matter-

The Lakers are an extension of their star. There have been selfish, me-first players all through the history of sports but Bryant takes the cake. He sets the tone, and he is the one who is a direct reflexion of how they collectively gave up.
The Lakers organization got the most out of this team. They were fortunate to win last year, especially given the fact that if it wasn't for Gasol doing so well and Boston's center Kendrick Perkins getting hurt we wouldn't be having this conversation. But it's time to break this team up or get as coach who can reign in assholes like Andrew Bynam, who takes losing as well as Woody Hayes, the Alabama football coach who went out onto the field and assaulted an opposing player after catching an interception against his team.

The insufferably bush league flagrant foul by Andrew Bynam on J.J. Barea encapsulates the collective psyche of the team. Outplayed throughout the whole series and utterly embarrassed during the deciding game 4 blowout, Bynam decides to go out like the asshole sore loser Bryant and coach Jackson have been throughout their whole careers by elbowing the Dallas guard in mid-air. Barea then crashes to the ground in a heap. Bynam walks off the court after being ejected while removing his jersey, exposing the whole world to his disgusting man-boobs. Son, next time make sure you're in shape enough to pull such a stunt. No one wanted to witness such a repulsive spectacle. C'mon, Andrew-there are kids watching.

It has been revealed by Brian Shaw that the Lakers organization treated their assistant coaching staff poorly and never gave them a chance to interact harmoniously with the players Phil Jackson could no longer motivate. His coaching style is best described as a man showing up for a game and simply stating. "I'm Phil Jackson". That's it. His hubris and monumental sense of self was always at the heart of his coaching technique. When that no longer worked, his teams caved in from the weight of their own arrogance. We've seen this type of collapse three times in the NBA Finals-once when he had Gary Peyton and Karl Malone, another was when the Celtics blew them out to win the championship a few years ago and again this season. And each time Jackson could not find a way to motivate his teams to make it look respectable. All three times they just fell apart with no sense of pride whatsoever.

Why? Because Jackson, coaching the best talent in the league, is a front runner. He only shines when he has a bomb squad motivated to win. He could never be considered a master tactician when the fact is his players carried him for every single one of his NBA championships. Now that his noxious, putrid and arthritic schtick has finally run its' course, he leaves. Good-bye, you asshole. No longer will we have to be subjected to watching you on the sideline falling asleep, drooling out of the side of your mouth.

(under construction)

Film Recommendation of the Week...

2011-05-08T16:41:00.001-04:00

Tropa de Elite 2
Release Date October 8, 2010.
Running Time 1 hour 55 minutes.
Portuguese w/English subtitles.

This brilliant Brazilian film takes us forward thirteen years after the first film, and we find that not only have things not changed in Rio de Janeiro, but they've gotten worse. Now we get a look into the type of institutionalized corruption that makes the crime and drug-dealing in the "favelas" (slums) possible, and how efforts to clean things up are thwarted at every turn by a society that is more concerned with presenting a false image to the world than actual police work.

(under construction)

Babe of the Week for May 6, 2011 is...

2011-05-07T00:01:00.017-04:00

Parminder Nagra!!!

This beautiful young lady first came on the scene in the delightful and heartwarming film "Bend it like Beckham". She went on to star as a doctor in the television series "ER" and I have no idea what she did after that. But it doesn't matter, because she loooks mahvelous, dahling-absolutely mahvelous!!!

Not only do I love her looks and personality, which brightens up any scene she's in, but she has opened doors for talented actresses who do not fit the tiresome stereotype of the anorexic, thin-lipped bleached blonde bimbo. We need more cultural variety in life and onscreen. Let's hope there are more women like her being given a chance to prove that they are wonderful actresses and lovely young women.

As for her history, she was raised in England after her family emigrated from India. Her exotic looks and wonderful accent make her unique in Hollywood, but it's her talent that wins the day. I haven't seen her in much after her stint on "ER", but that's because she's married and is raising a family. Too bad, she needs to be out there more definitely and judging from these pictures I'm sure you'll agree-

You weren't expecting this, were you?

2011-05-05T23:48:00.006-04:00

Neither was I. The Boston Celtics losing their first two second-round playoff games in Miami and the LA Lakers losing their first two HOME GAMES against the Dallas Mavericks. I've been listening to all the pundits (a ghastly chore, since 99.9% of all sportswriters don't have the requisite intelligence to piece together some halfway decent analysis on anything they cover) and none of them have a fucking clue.

I hear guys go on and on talking about the stupidest shit imaginable, looking into all the minutiae of why this could possibly be happening, all the while missing the most obvious and salient points. Here they are-

The Boston Celtics made three huge mistakes during the years they set up "The Big Three" (an ironic little nickname for a bunch of guys who wouldn't have won shit without the one player they always leave out of this trifecta, Rajon Rondo). They traded Kendrick Perkins, Tony Allen and Nate Robinson. They were replaced by Shaquille O'Neil, Jermaine O'Neil, Nenad Krstic and Jeff Green.

Out of these current players, the Celtics have only gotten decent output from Jermaine O'Neil, despite being well past his sell-by date. All the others have either been injured or just don't fit in. Guess what Miami thought of the Perkins trade when word of it got out-

Perkins was a center whose importance was just as valuable in the locker room as well as on the court. He was an asset in every conceivable sense. Tony Allen was an athletic wing player who causes fits to opposing players on defense. True, they both suffered terrible knee injuries during their career, but they were established cogs in the rotation. And was there a better combo coming off the bench to give the Celts that much-needed spark of energy than Glen "Gig Baby" Davis and his sidekick Nate Robinson?

Robinson wasn't just a circus freak. The little man with the huge heart got the crowd rockin' with his enthusiasm and pretty damn decent play in the playoffs (where it counts). Speculate all you want about why they were traded, but it doesn't matter now. All three are gone, and they are hurting because of it. If it's true that Perkins was traded because the Celts didn't have the money to re-sign him, the question should be asked why the fuck did the overpay aging veterans Ray Allen and Paul Pierce to those ridiculous contract expectations last year.

Watching the first two games of the second round so far, it's obvious that Allen nor Pierce can fuck with the Cock Diesel Twins, Dwayne Wade and Lebron James. Better to have someone like Tony Allen coming off the bench to give Wade fits (or at least make him work harder for his shots) and someone like Perkins who would foul the shit out of these guys going to the basket than what we are witnessing right now.

Conventional wisdom dictates that Wade cannot go the rest of the series chasing Ray Allen all over the court on defense without tiring himself out, but he won't have to if they sweep the series. Besides, thanks to the current playoff system, Miami and Boston get so many rest days between games fatigue will not be a factor, especially with what's at stake. Besides, Wade is one of the top-five physical specimens in the league. And one of the others just so happens to play forward on his team.

Boston GM Danny Ainge really outsmarted himself by thinking he could replace Perkins by committee. The two O'Neils and Krstic do not make up for what they lost when they traded him. Delonte West does not make up for Robinson, for a myriad of reasons that have nothing to do with the discrepancy in height. Tony Allen was the athletic and defensive spark plug Jeff Green will never be. And with the aging core of veteran players, the Celtics needed this influx of youth.

It is difficult to believe that for all the money the organization spent over the last three years, they will only have one championship to show for it when they really should be heading towards their third, if Perkins hadn't gotten hurt last year and was out for the last game of the Championship series and if Rasheed Wallace was even a shadow of his former self (even though he did have an outstanding game when having to play for the injured Perkins. But he too was running on fumes, retiring the second the season was over due to a chronically bad back that had plagued him for years).

Good night, Boston. It was an OK run that was ruined by front office dipshit Danny Ainge. Too smart for your own good, Danny boy-enjoy the second-round salad tossing Miami is going to make you give them, you deserve it.

Onto the Lakers. There really isn't anything wrong with them that a shrapnel enema can't cure. They got beat by Dallas because they look old, tired and disinterested. Such is the genius of Phil Jackson that he fucked up a pivotal call in Game 1 due to the fact that he didn't know he couldn't substitute a player during a time-out. This is what he gets paid millions of dollars a year? Yes, read a previous blog entry where I lambaste this asshole for being overrated, and this boneheaded move was just another example of why he's nowhere near as good a coach as people make him out to be.

And now that he actually HAS to coach, he can't. Because he never could. All the Zen Master bullshit isn't going to work on players like Pau Gasol, who cannot guard Dirk Nowitzki and is clearly losing moral having to do so. So why not play Lamar Odom on him, you dumbass? Why not play Odom, Bynum and Gasol in the front court as starters, huh Phil? Are you even awake?

I have nothing good to say about Kobe Bryant. This is the first NBA Playoffs where I'm interested more in who loses than who wins, and I want LA to get knocked out ASAP. Since the Celtics are also going down this round, I really don't give a shit who wins it all. But Bryant has never been a good team leader. His teams have always suffered from one type of malaise or another, and it's because of him, the only player on the team who doesn't have to practice like everyone else and who gets picked up and dropped off by a fucking helicopter to each and every home game.

If he were more concerned with winning than of taking credit for the Sun revolving around him, he would have put his foot up the rear ends of Odom and Special Ed poster child Ron Artest by now. Jordan is probably the biggest dickhead to ever play organized sports, but rest assured those two guys would be perennial All-Stars if they played with Jordan instead of Bryant.

Bryant is his own species of asshole. There really is no describing him in detail right now, so I'll leave that for another time. But it's the reason his team is playing so terribly and the reason why, unless Dallas has another one of their patented playoff meltdowns, they will get knocked out along with the Celtics by the end of this week. The Lakers have played like shit and deserve to get swept. Nothing would make me happier than seeing "The Black Mamba" walk the fucking plank like a bitch-ass trick, with Mark Cuban holding the sword.

The Celtics, on the other hand, are victims of bad front office moves and the inevitable consequence of old, high-mileage players growing old right before our very eyes. This is what happens-players get old at exactly the wrong time, and the decline isn't gradual-it's sudden and irreversible. Don't believe me? Just watch Derek Jeter. He's gone downhill faster than that downhill ski jumper featured in the old Wide World of Sports introduction who crashes out in a most spectacular fashion.

Danny Ainge decided that the great mixture of youth and experience they had wasn't enough, and decided that going after beached whale Shaquille O'Neil was the answer to their front line deficiencies. "The Big Blotation Device" played about 20-something games this year, and the last time he practiced with the team he had to be dragged off the court on a golf cart. This 450-pound ground hog should never be allowed to put on an NBA uniform ever again. The moment he decided he could play fat and out of shape was the day NBA general managers should have ignored him and gone in another direction. But he always wound up getting work. As it is, Perkin is playing well for the Oklahoma City Thunder and O'Neil is a pathetic shell of his former self. Too bad he decided being a fat, injury-plagued buffoon was the way to end his once-wonderful career. Too bad indeed, he used to be fun to watch.

(under construction)

Film Recommendation of the Week...

2011-04-24T21:47:00.013-04:00

The Fab Five
ESPN Films
Release Date March 13, 2011.
Running Time 1 hour 38 minutes.

"Deep within the archives of the University of Michigan lie the remnants of a revolution."
—Opening line of film

This documentary gives us an in-depth look into one of the most heralded and overrated recruiting classes in Division-I college basketball history. One could say the view is a bit one-sided, seeing as it's Jalen Rose who is the executive producer, but nothing in life is seen or heard within the context of pure impartiality, the great myth of our times.

Anyone who tells a story has either an axe to grind, an agenda to execute or a point of view to get across. That is human nature, and here Rose is no different. Though he did get the facts straight in terms of the goings on, he clearly has overstated, and this is putting it mildly, the importance of their accomplishments and their impact on college basketball and the prevailing culture of the times.

There are a few points made in the film that have been exaggerated or misunderstood. First of all, Jalen sees the team's collective style choices as "a revolution" that molded inner-city hip-hop culture and college basketball in a way the world had never seen before. Sorry, but this is patently untrue. Yes, they were the first team that started five freshmen and yes, they were exciting to watch. but revolutionary they were not.

what they did do was revel in a "style over substance" fog that ignores their true legacy-the fact that they never beat Duke University during their two years together, never won a Big Ten championship and their abject failures during both NCAA tournaments they participated in before Chris Webber headed for the NBA after his infamous time-out call against North Carolina.

Rose seems to be very impressed with a sense of having changed the sport, when the reality is he and his team did nothing of the sort. We get an in-depth view of how the recruiting process took place, and how coach Mike Fisher melded together these five freshman into a coherent team. But the brashness was nothing new. The swagger certainly wasn't, either, nor was the collective talent level of the team.

So Rose uses, to its' detriment, to relentlessly hammer home the point of inner-city strife between the team and the rest of America, again another point that was nothing new in college basketball and highly exaggerated on his part. I don't see how their on-court style musings had such a profound effect, or the fact that they listened to rap music. They certainly had a cult following and were oozing with charisma and talent, but let's not forget the predominantly white media that covered them, who always seem threatened by anything unfamiliar to their suburban sensibilities. No way can we adequately judge this team through the eyes of people who did not understand where they were coming from.

What they had was an exaggerated sense of importance and a severe chip on their shoulders over what they saw as exploitation due to the fact that the marketing of their team, their image and their attire was fueling a financial windfall for the university and their sponsors at Nike that they personally weren't cashing in on.

The other sticking point was their loathing of Duke University, the "Uncle Tom" statement by Rose-comments directed at Duke's black players, and how they considered Christian Laettner and Grant hill "bitches". Yes, until they got on the court with them and were patently outclassed by these so-called Uncle Tom "bitches".

In the end, these cats won nothing and left a legacy of shame and disgrace due to the rampant cheating and money changing hands between certain players and a University of Michigan booster and convicted gambler named "Big Money Ed" Martin. The player who allegedly got paid the most was Chris Webber, who received something in the neighborhood of 280,000 dollars yet complained all through his tenure at Michigan that he was broke. Don't we all wish we were that broke while attending college.

Chris Webber, Asshole Deluxe-

Herein lies their legacy-their banners were removed from Crisler Arena, coach Fisher was fired a few years after the last of the Fab Five left campus in a hail of accusations that the program was out of control, and Michigan never regained their vaunted status as a national basketball powerhouse. Their very existence has been stricken from the record books, and Webber is not allowed as an official on-campus guest until 2014. Jalen can look at his time as a Michigan Wolverine through Rose-colored glasses all he wants, but the reality of their legacy will never change.

Other than that, the one letdown of this film is the non-participation of Chris Webber himself in the telling of this story. Bombast, trash-talking and an inflated sense of legacy notwithstanding, this is an excellent documentary that is worth viewing for fans and non-fans alike. Yes, the long, baggy shorts, black socks, black sneakers and bald heads were cool for a hot minute, and they were a good team. But win they did not, and that is the mark they have left on college basketball, like it or not.

Babe of the Week for April 22, 2011 is...

2011-04-23T23:47:00.016-04:00

Emanuela de Paula!!!

This Brazilian beauty is a self-described "mulata", meaning she is of mixed Caucasian and African descent. She has been modeling since she was 9 years old and has worked the runways of Europe and New York City.

She was born in April 25, 1989 in Cabo de Santo Agostinho, Pernambuco, a Northeast province of Brazil that is close to some of the most beautiful beaches in the whole country, and whose major city is Recife. Regardless of where she was born, it goes without saying that this woman was born to be a supermodel.

The best thing about Brazil is the eclectic beauty of their models. Emanuela is a perfect example of this. She loooks mahvelous, dahling-absolutely mahvelous!!! Let's hope they keep producing these exotic beauties for the world to enjoy.

Gotta love those NBA referees...

2011-04-19T19:49:00.009-04:00

There are NBA refs who are making calls to influence the outcomes of games. It's obvious to everyone except NBA Commissioner David Stern and the idiot sports writers who say these guys are doing a good job, or are blaming extensive technology for catching blown calls.

Advanced technology cannot explain nor should it excuse the terrible calls that were either made or missed this past weekend. These refs are betting big-time money on these playoff games, there is no other explanation for what we've been witnessing.

Here is an example-the NBA was supposedly clamping down on flopping, yet Paul Pierce gets a call against Carmelo Anthony that was an astounding example of this very practice. This happened during a critical point in the fourth quarter when the Knicks were fighting for the game. It's absolutely outrageous to make such a bullshit call at such a crucial juncture in a playoff game. Here's the Paul Pierce bitch foul-

Then we have an even more egregious call the refs didn't make, when Ray Allen got free for the game-winning three pointer. Kevin Garnett knocks the fuck out of Toney Douglas on a switch-off screen, tripping him onto the floor. Just check this bullshit out in slow motion-

Portland Trailblazers coach Nate McMillan got fined $35,000 for pointing out the obvious-the referees cheated his team out of a win. Nothing else explains the discrepancy in fourth quarter foul calls during last Saturday's Game 1 contest between the Blazers and the Dallas Mavericks. Nineteen fouls called against them versus only two against the Mavs, thirteen of those fouls sent Dirk Nowitzki straight to the line, where he shot a perfect 13-for-13.

The Blazers outscored the Mavericks 48 to 16 in the paint. That's a margin of almost three-to-one, yet the Mavs had an advantage at the line of over two to one. So the Mav defense didn't touch any of the Blazers even though they spent half the night horsing them in the low post.

And don't get me started on the goal tending non-call on Kendrick Perkins that put the Oklahoma Thunder up by a point with a minute to go against the Denver Nuggets-

What utter and complete bullshit. The referees are making a killing, and I know they are working in cahoots with organized crime to rig these games. This has been going on for years, and if you think Tim Donaghy was the lone rogue referee engaging in this practice, the evidence is clear to anyone who isn't smoking crack that he wasn't alone. Fuck you, NBA refs. You guys are the worst. They are ruining the game and will continue to do so as long as Commissioner Stern remains hell-bent on protecting these assholes.

Film Recommendation of the Week...

2011-04-17T17:47:00.012-04:00

Road to the Big Leagues
Release date April 7, 2009.
Running time 54 minutes.
Spanish w/English subtitles.

Since we are on the subject of baseball in the Dominican Republic, here is an interesting look into that very world. The first film is a documentary that gives the viewer a glimpse into almost every aspect of the game as a business-

1) Interviews with successful major league players Vladamir Guerrero and David Ortiz.

2) An up-and-coming prospect excited about finally signing with a major league club.

3) An aspiring young player on the streets of San Pedro de Macoris, the town that has sent more players to the major leagues than any other in the DR.

4) A look at the myriad of baseball academies set up by major leagues that dot the Dominican landscape.

5) A player forced out of the game due to fraud committed by his handlers who now has to make it through life without baseball.

Sugar
Release date April 3, 2009.
Running time 2 hours.
English and Spanish w/English subtitles.

The second film is a fictional yet realistic account of a young Dominican pitcher from the town of San Pedro de Macoris who receives a contract to try out for a fictional major league franchise. Things don't go as planned, as they don't for over 99% of all players who sign contracts to play in the the league, but the character, named Miguel "Sugar" Santos, shows a resiliency that is true to form for many of these cats whose dreams don't come true.

We go from the poverty-stricken streets of the DR to a small Midwestern town with a bunch of Dominican hopefuls looking to emulate their heroes, having to navigate a world they don't understand and who doesn't understand them.

One of the most heart-breaking episodes occurs when the character's girlfriend refuses to take any more of his calls when she finds out he's left the team, and he is now left by himself to re-direct his focus after doing nothing his whole life but play baseball. Both films offer unsentimental looks at the cut-throat world of professional sports as it's practiced in Latin America, and they are highly recommended. Both are excellent, entertaining and well-done films.

Babe of the Week for April 15, 2011 is...

2011-04-15T13:14:00.008-04:00

Eva Angelina!!!

Eva is one of the most beautiful Latina adult film actresses to ever grace the world of erotic film. From selected interviews, it is obvious this amazing looking woman had a fucked-up childhood, which many believe is what leads these lost souls into the business in the first place. She began making her own home-made porno movies at age fourteen and has stated her ambition to be in adult films since she was very young. She supposedly retired in 2010 with somewhere around 160 movies to her credit, which is a lot of work in such a short time. I have no idea what she could be doing for a living right now, but if this is true, she has left a body of work that will keep her fans happy for a very long time.

She started in the industry at the ripe old age of eighteen, which means that she was a whore long before she began working in films. She won the AVN award for best actress in 2008, and it sure wasn't for the way she read her lines. If Congress were to pass any type of comprehensive immigration reform, there will have to be a corollary in the bill to allow women like this immediate passage straight to US citizenship. Sí, señor, she loooks mahvelous, dahling-absolutely mahvelous!!!