Friday, October 21, 2011

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

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-

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Film Recommendation of the Week...

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.

Friday, October 14, 2011

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

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...

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.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Film Recommendation of the Week...

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.

Friday, October 7, 2011

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

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...

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.