Not long ago, The Hollywood Reporter posted this short excerpt from a video deposition of Wesley Snipes, taken in 2008 when he was defending a lawsuit by his former agency seeking unpaid commissions. In the excerpt, Snipes responds to a question about "the usual talent-agency/client relationship" with an extended analogy comparing agents to pimps, and actors to the "hos" that said pimps "represent":
The case later settled.
Snipes, who has been in over 40 films including "Jungle Fever" and the "Blade" trilogy, is currently appearing in McKean Federal Correctional Institution, in which he plays a man wrongly convicted of failure to file tax returns. His three-year run in the role of Inmate #43355-018 is scheduled to come to an end on July 19, 2013.
So said Shepard Smith of FOX News back in May (doing some catch-up today). Newt Gingrich had just withdrawn from the race, and although the primary had been vicious ("[Gingrich] was a failed leader and he had to resign in disgrace"; "You're calling Mitt Romney a liar?" "Yes"), Romney's statement on Gingrich's withdrawal suggested they were the bestest friends ever. That drew this priceless reaction from Smith:
There's probably an event almost every day to which this is the only appropriate reaction.
As you may or may not recall, Smith also once dropped an F-bomb during a segment about whether torture had been "effective," which, again, is just about the only appropriate reaction to that argument.
I don't think the reference to Exodus here is really on point, but I'm willing to cut this guy a fair amount of slack.
Reportedly, what he's yelling about (and he is yelling, so watch the volume if you're at work) is having been handed a 200-page pension-reform bill and told that the Illinois House leadership had scheduled a vote on the bill in 15 minutes. Obviously, that's barely enough time to read the table of contents, if there was one, let alone make any sort of thoughtful decision about how to vote. Certainly he's also frustrated that his side currently has no power in that legislature, but he's still got a point when he suggests (loudly) that it might be nice if the people's representatives actually bothered to read what they were voting on.
As I've said before, I suppose it's good that our legislative sessions usually don't degenerate into all-out brawls like they do in some other countries, but on the other hand a brawl every now and then would at least show they care. (It'd help C-SPAN's ratings, that's for sure.) In that sense, at least, a furious tantrum seems like a step in the right direction.
"Rex Velvet" describes himself as a "supervillain," but I'd probably be rooting for him if there were ever actually a showdown with Jones and his crew.
Given the excellent production values, this is probably just a gag (and a good one), but on the other hand at least some supervillains did have some pretty decent technology.
Specifically, have you seen the musical version performed by the all-female cast of the Takarazuka Revue?
Well, you should have.
Takarazuka is Japan's answer to the Ziegfeld Follies, the Folies-Bergere, Las Vegas floor shows, and the [Radio City] Music Hall's own spectaculars all rolled into one glittering unwieldy package [said the NYT's theater critic]. There is something intrinsically awesome in the sight of rows of showgirls, decked out like floats, descending a grand staircase in formation.
Not sure how they work that sort of thing into a musical based on a video game about Japanese lawyers, but I have no doubt it's intrinsically awesome.
This was performed back in 2009, but maybe there'll be a revival. You can still get the DVD (shown above), or there is what looks like sort of a highlights clip here on YouTube. I have no idea at all what's going on in these clips, but they're entertainingly odd.
The gang at Abnormal Use dug up this old comic featuring one of DC Comics' duller superhero characters:
As they point out, this D.A. is apparently dull in more than one way, because he seems to think that the suspect he's collared, who's not really even shaped like a human being, is a tiny "man in a martian suit." Even if that were true, it doesn't seem very likely that he'd have the right guy here, given that criminals tend to be interested in keeping a lower profile than dressing up as a Martian might allow. From the expression on the suspect's face, though, I take it that he's tried to explain all this a couple dozen times already, and at this point is resigned to just sitting around until these geniuses figure it out.
There was a radio and TV drama also called "Mr. District Attorney" (Wikipedia) that ran in one form or another between 1939 and 1952, and then for a while in syndication. The show was half an hour long but this YouTube clip more or less compresses an episode into two minutes and 14 seconds.
There was a movie of the same name in 1947, although it's not clear to me whether it was connected to the series or if either one was connected to the comic. Probably they're all related, although you can't copyright titles, so that doesn't tell us anything. I imagine that once somebody's come up with a title as exciting as "Mr. District Attorney," there's a lot of competition to use it every chance you get. I haven't seen the movie, but the title of one of the reviews on IMDB is "I just frisked your monkey out there and picked myself up a souvenir," and if that's a line from the movie it might be worth renting for that reason alone.
Anyway, the reason this resonated with me in the first place is that it reminded me of the report a while back that the Santa Barbara D.A. had said he was standing by a star witness for the prosecution although his deposition hadn't gone so well. Specifically, the report said defense counsel "focused much of their questioning on his claims that alienlike creatures emerge from his closet and put pinholes into his chest and those of his family members." See "D.A. Sticks With Witness Who Says He Sees Horned Aliens," Lowering the Bar (Oct. 20, 2006). I assume that didn't come up during the prep session? Still hoping to get the actual transcript of that deposition, which I'm sure somebody must have saved.
First, the case clearly is not properly before the Court, unless they're suggesting Baby Bear filed a cert petition, and there's no constitutional issue here anyway, and no quorum. Second, Justice Sotomayor should be limiting her review to the record below, not hearing testimony from a couple of Muppets who just walk in off the street. Worse, she was apparently about to hear the bear's argument ex parte, if Goldilocks hadn't shown up when she did. Third, what law is she applying? Any? What jurisdiction is Sesame Street in, anyway?
Coming up: Justice Scalia refuses to stay Elmo's execution despite newly discovered evidence that he is innocent.
I guess if they aren't going to allow cameras in the courtroom -- and sketches are just too boring -- the only alternative is to reenact the day's testimony using hand puppets.
That's what Channel 19 in Akron, Ohio, is doing, in connection with the corruption trial of a former county commissioner. Here's an example from the second day of trial, featuring puppets talking about subjects like bribery and prostitution:
I think that all court proceedings should be reported in this way, but would settle for either puppet coverage of arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court or a full reenactment of the Rod Blagojevich trial.
Here we go again. This time, it's Orthodox v. Armenian priests in a cage match at the Church of the Nativity:
According to multiple sources (I'm citing the BBC because the British narrator makes the clip seem even more like a Monty Python sketch), this fight broke out Wednesday morning while the two groups of Christians were cleaning the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, traditionally held to be the birthplace of Jesus. The church is cleaned between the Christmas celebrations on December 25 (Catholic, Orthodox, etc.) and those during the first week of January (the Armenians and others still on the Julian calendar). It's not entirely clear what started the brawl, but one report said it was believed that "a clergyman of one order ... accidentally pushed his broom into space 'controlled' by the other group." That makes sense, because that's just the kind of border aggression that can spark a full-on monkfight.
As I wrote in 2009 when these same two groups went at it in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, tensions are always high in super-holy places like this because each Christian denomination claims jurisdiction over the whole thing, and they don't like sharing. They do share, under arrangements that go back hundreds of years and give each group control over a particular zone, but they don't like it one bit. And they guard their jurisdiction so jealously that no group will allow any other group even to walk unsupervised through its zone for fear of weakening its claim to exclusivity, and this has often led to conflict.
So it's not surprising that an unauthorized broom incursion ("accidental" or not) could spark violence, as seen above. And you really should watch the clip, not only to witness the spectacle of priests and monks beating the crap out of each other with broomsticks over who owns the birthplace of the Prince of Peace, but also to see the monk recording the whole thing with his smartphone.
Dude, this is so going on Facebook
I guess that shouldn't have surprised me either, but it did.
According to one report, "Brooms, fists and vicious insults flew in all directions" between the 100 or so holy men involved in the rumble, but no one seems to have been seriously injured, and no arrests were made this time around. So, not that big a deal, as religious warfare goes. "It was a trivial problem," said Police Lt.-Col. Khaled al-Tamimi, the kind that "occurs every year."
In what may be the most ironic part of all, the fight between the two Christian groups was broken up by Palestinian police, most if not all of whom, presumably, are Muslim. I don't know that for sure, but Bethlehem is controlled by the Palestinian Authority, and I'm guessing that when the monks need police, they don't especially care whether the cops are Muslim or Christian and aren't checking ID. (Nor do I have a reason to think Muslims are not allowed into the place -- as I learned in 2009, two Muslim families have had responsibility for the front door of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for the last eight hundred years or so, and that still seems to be going okay.) Anyway, I'm going to believe that unless shown otherwise, because that would mean this story involved Muslim cops having to keep the peace between two groups of Christians trying to kill each other due to religious fanaticism. Seems to help put things in perspective.
The LSU Compliance Office has issued cease-and-desist notices telling people to stop selling merchandise bearing the name, likeness, image or nickname of Tyrann Mathieu, LSU's Heisman-nominated cornerback. As it reminded everyone, NCAA rules forbid the use of the name or picture of a student-athlete (I guess some of them do go to class) on commercial products, and that person or institution is required to take steps to stop the activity. So that's what LSU is doing.
Apparently, people have been trying to get around this rule (or maybe unknowingly violating it) by using not Mathieu's picture or actual name, but rather his nickname, "The Honey Badger." The nickname, of course, refers to the utterly great YouTube video by "Randall" in which he discusses how badass the honey badger is, since it eats bees, cobras, and so forth, and basically just "takes what it wants" because the "honey badger don't care."
Fantastic nickname for a cornerback, but LSU says it has become so closely associated with Mathieu that using it is effectively the same as using his name, and since T-shirts like this one (right) clearly associate it with him personally (they tend to use his initials and/or jersey number as well), that seems entirely valid.
LSU has released this podcast in which it tries to address questions it's been receiving, and it sounds like some have been complaining that LSU may be trying to keep all the profit for itself. As they point out here, neither LSU nor Mathieu is allowed to profit from this because of the rule (some would use the word "illusion") that NCAA football is an amateur activity. So LSU is only doing what the NCAA rules require it to do in this situation, namely take some action to stop the activity.
The crazy nastyass honey badger itself, of course, don't care about any of this. But LSU properly do.
