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As unbelievable as it may sound, Paul McCartney has been traveling America’s most iconic stretch of road in a Ford Bronco with girlfriend Nancy Shevell. Over the course of his trip, the cute Beatle has been spotted strolling an Illinois museum, asking for a map from a Missouri convenience store, shopping for antiques and snapping pictures in New Mexico, just like a tourist. Except this tourist wrote “Hey Jude” and “Yesterday.”
Sometimes I lie in bed and think about words (sometimes I think of other stuff as well). Happened just the other day. I was rummaging through my memories to come up with some of our favorite slang phrases during my adolescence in the early-to-mid-’70s.
I grew up in suburban New York, and having subsequently met folks in my age group from all around the States, it’s clear that we did not all share the same vernacular.
When I first came to Florida after finishing college in upstate New York, I didn’t fit in too well with the social cliques in St. Pete. Some of it was a language barrier. I couldn’t stand to hear someone say “y’all,” let alone say it myself. “Y’all” was pretty common down here at the time; I don’t hear it as much anymore.
One word I brought down from up north was “pisser,” or, more accurately, “pissa.”
Gotvmail.com has paid ex-coked-out actor Gary Busey to star in 40 (yes, that’s four-zero) ads hawking their business phone services. The ads, which I ran across on Gawker, feature Mr. Joshua speaking directly into the camera, pitching his can’t-miss business ideas. Gawkers highlights include Agt. Pappas’ brilliant idea for hair dye marketed to black bears, allowing the threatened species to look more like polar bears and sneak onto the endangered list. I prefer his stirring rendition of Gotvmail’s theme song:
You have to hand it to Gotvmail; these are sure to get a ton of play across the Web in the next few days. And for all that publicity, I’m sure they only had to shell out an 8-ball or two.
She’s Helen Wheels: Helen Mirren caught in a red bikini on a beach in Italy. Yeah, Wade Tatangelo would hit that!
Well, they’re sure acting like Canadians: Paul McCartney to give free concert; apparently “free” isn’t good enough for Quebec sovereigntists.
Time heals all wounds? Former Beatles drummer Pete Best to release first solo album, chronicling his dismissal from the band over 40 years ago.
Just know this, Benny: Pierce Brosnan was never in ABBA.
They’ve got an Axl to grind: Chinese Democracy track to be featured in Rock Band 2
While the start of Bucs training camp is still 11 days away, it’s never too early to begin strategerizing for Fantasy Football season. This year, a few good sports from CL’s editorial department are itching to take on you, the reader, in our first annual Fantasy Football Challenge. Do you have what it takes to do statistical gridiron battle with us this fall? I doubt it. (Let’s face it: you’re weak and you don’t know your football from your pinball.) But if you are one of the brave souls ready to face the virtual ass-whoopin’ of a lifetime, let me know. Send an e-mail with the subject line “Fantasy Football” to joe.bardi@creativeloafing.com, and I’ll forward you all the details.
There are no prizes, of course. That would be gambling, and we all know gambling is very wrong. (Except when done on sacred Native-American land, cruise ships, foreign countries, or in Nevada, New Jersey, Connecticut, Mississippi, etc.) However, we will be featuring breathless coverage of the league on the CL Blogs and at tampa.creativeloafing.com. This is your chance at fantasy gridiron greatness. Don’t screw it up rookie!
(Photo Credit: Nightthree)
Last week I laid some groundwork for this year’s World Series of Poker Main Event, how Harrah’s planned to halt play once they got down to the final table of nine people until November in order to jack up mainstream media interest and let ESPN’s not-so-live TV coverage catch up. Let the media frenzy begin.
The WSOP Main Event started July 3, with 6,844 people ponying up the $10,000 to participate, resulting in a prize pool of $64,333,600. Anyone who managed to beat out more than ten percent of the field managed to take home some dough, starting at $21,230 at 666th place. At 3:30 a.m. this morning, Michigan pro Dean Hamrick was in the uncomfortable position of being knocked out at 10th place, resulting in a booby prize of almost $600k.
The final nine received a payout of $900k — the minimum they will be winning once play resumes — and a 117 day vacation that they’ll likely spend negotiating endorsement deals, studying opponents and training, training, training. $900k is a lot, but 1st place will take home over $9 million, along with an easy, almost-guaranteed lifetime income as a sponsored pro. There are a few amateurs, a few pros, a mix of ages, and five different countries represented among the surviving few. All men, though, as the final female player was eliminated in 17th place.
Locally, our own former CL columnist (and current traitor) Jaden Hair got a little windfall from the WSOP. Her husband Scott (that’s him looking stern in the pic) — a good online poker player — managed to ride a short stack into the money for a cool $27k, finishing 466th when his pocket aces got two-outed by pocket queens. Bad beat, Scott. And Jaden, out of respect for you, I refrained from making a joke about “riding the short stack”.
Art Garfunkel has a ravenous appetite for literature and apparently he also has way too much time on his hands as he’s been keeping track of every single book he’s read for the past 40 years. Ego demands that he share this with the rest of us, so he’s set up a library listing of all these books, including a special section featuring all 135 of his favorites, and all are sorted by date.
That’s the doomsday message in a current Time magazine article entitled, ominously, “Is Florida the Sunset State?” (sunshine, sunset, ha) and subheaded with a litany of the state’s troubles: “Water Crisis, Mortgage Fraud, Political Dysfunction, Algae Polluted Beaches, Declining Crops, Failing Public Schools, Foreclosures.”
We’re the state that has it all!
Author Michael Grunwald allows that the winters are nice, and has a conversation with Gov. Crist that brightens his outlook a bit, comparing the guv to “human Prozac.” But the overall tone is grim, ending with the point that Florida may know how to grow, but has yet to learn how to grow up.
We have ourselves some weather action, folks! Tropical Storm Bertha has formed in the Atlantic, approximately 4 gagillion miles away from Florida — but moving west. If the forecast track is to be believed, Massachusetts could be wiped off the map as early as July 20th.
For the moment, those of us manning the CL 4000 Weather Center advise you to stay out of the Home Depot, as we have not yet issued our “Buy plywood or die!” advisory notice. However, you should stay tuned to this blog for extremely late-breaking weather news and last rites.
And run for you lives!
(Sorry, the excitement of hurricane season is already getting the better of us.)
Careful where you put the wasabi: The St. Pete Times reveals The Dirty Martini’s naked sushi night.
In keeping with the nautical theme, Beach Theatre is screening Jaws twice today as part of its 1970s weekend.
So that’s why John Kerry lost in 2004: A New York Times op-ed explains why we’re so gullible.
Because you love profanity-laced video-game reviews: It’s the latest Zero Punctuation!
Are you Baracktose Intolerant?
The New York Times waxes nostalgic about the Beatles in light of their rumored entry into the world of Guitar Hero.
Are Slate and The Daily Show sharing writers? Both get similarly snarky on Obama’s first campaign commercial of the general election. Check out the Slate’s vid here and The Daily Show’s here.
The U.S. Supreme Court slashes the punitive damages relating to the Exxon-Valdez oil spill.
I’m moving this weekend, so yesterday afternoon I took some time to call and schedule my cable and power services to be transferred to my new address.
I started by calling Bright House Networks first, only because it was at the top of the list of customer service phone numbers I compiled a few days ago. The process of scheduling a technician to come out early next week to plug me into the World Wide Web and my digital cable only took about 10 minutes. Sweet. Moving on.
Next up, I called Progress Energy Florida. That call started out fine but ended really weird.
After going through the menu options to ensure that my call was transferred to the proper department, I placed the order with Kyle (a real person as far as could tell). Kyle took only a few minutes to set up the order and then he transferred me to Allconnect, a trusted Progress Energy partner, to confirm and complete my order.
Instead of speaking to an actual person, as I was foolishly expecting, I was assisted by a computer cleverly disguised as a real man who went over my order with me and took down my email address to send my confirmation number and some “valuable” coupons.
I was struck by how life-like he (it??) seemed. It was like talking to a real person who wasn’t reading from a script. It’s a very sophisticated system.
When I gave him (it) my email address I didn’t spell it out as instructed, but first spoke it out of habit. Nonetheless, he (it) got it right the first time. He (it) actually spelled it correctly when he (it) read it back to me, which was impressive because I have an underscore in my email address and when I give it to an actual person I usually have to explain what an underscore is and how to make one using a keyboard. This fellow (thing) was on top of it, which is more impressive from a voice-recognition aspect than a keyboard-using aspect since he (it) is a computer and likely has a keyboard as a part of his (its) body (plus, I heard typing as I was talking to him/it).
Then things got awkward.
When I heard the news this morning that comedian George Carlin had died yesterday at the age of 71 (not bad for a guy with long-term heart problems and a love of cocaine), I was immediately overcome by the urge to stage my own all-day Carlin Comedy Festival. Alas, Carlin’s death has not yet been made a national holiday, so I am instead at my desk attemp
