Johnny Utah’s Day Off

Finally, Some Truth In Advertising

It took a while, but the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas can say they delivered on their promise.

While eating  a "triple bypass burger", man at the restaurant actually had a cardiac infarction. "He was having the sweats and shaking," said "Nurse" Bridgett, who is not a nurse  but was working at the restaurant at the time of the incident.  "I actually felt horrible for the gentleman because the tourists were taking photos of him as if it were some type of stunt. Even with our own morbid sense of humor, we would never pull a stunt like that." Yes, this from the place with a website that proudly proclaims the menu offers "taste worth dying for!"

It was the first actual known cardiac incident at the Heart Attack Grill, where menu items include a butterfat milkshake, non-filtered cigarettes, "flatliner" fries and four different burgers, each rated on an ascending scale of one bypass to the quadruple bypass burger. Owner "Doctor" Jon Basso said the man's name is being kept private and that he is recovering from the heart attack. It is unclear if the man will ever return to the restaurant , but since anyone "over 350 pounds eats free" according to the establishment, it may be worth the risk. 

How To Replace Your IMAX Screen For Only $250,000

Semper Badass

Marines from Camp Pendleton (by San Diego) are currently in Thailand for Cobra Gold, which is not a topless club, but a training exercise with military personnel from Thailand and five other regional countries.

The 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment are taking part in the annual exercise with the Japan-based 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit. The training covers amphibious assault, humanitarian relief, evacuation of friendly forces and jungle survival, which includes learning to eat insects and to drink the blood from cobras.  Let me repeat that last part: Jungle survival, which includes learning to eat insects and to drink the blood from cobras.

These colors don't run because snake mana flows in our soldier's veins.  Damn.

Blowing It With The Lowest Lying Fruit

You may get spoils from your father's garden, but that does not make you worthy to tend his fields.

Clairissa Irene Riccio, aka Claire Sinclair, the 2011 Playmate of the Year, sought a temporary restraining order against boyfirend Marston Hefner (21, son of Playboy founder Hugh, and not the monster Grendel as his picture would suggest). He was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence Sunday by Pasadena police.  Sinclair's minor injuries were consistent with an assault, but she does not appear to be determined to send her meal ticket boyfriend to jail.

"I will not press charges against Marston Hefner if he keeps his word to give a public apology for physically abusing me on several occasions, and seeks psychiatric help for his anger issues. I don't condone domestic violence, but if one ounce of good can come from this bad experience, then I can live with it and move on."

Not surprisingly, Sinclair does not know that it's not up to her - the state of California can prosecute Marston with or without her consent or assistance.  Besides being frightfully ugly, Marston is also a dumb son-of-a-bitch.  You've got the keys to the girl next door empire and you've gone and fucked it up because you can't deal with how dumb nude models are and you get angry?  Unworthy.

Biz Marquee

I'm happy that one of my former improv buddies as not olly generated a career in film and television, but also has gone behind the scenes to find success.  Battleground premieres today on Hulu and is it's first scripted series. JD Walsh (and producer Marc Webb) talk about it here, and these clips may make him a little more recognizable.

I Will Always Love Money

It was no surprise to me when Whitney Houston died over the weekend, because she's spent the last 15 years on a bender in lieu of having a music career.  Nor was it a shock  that her death was going to generate some serious money.

It only took until the next morning for Sony Music to have raised the price of  Houston's "The Ultimate Collection", and by this morning, it was the second top-selling album on iTunes.  the body may have been cold, but the sales are getting hot! Sony Music owns the rights to much of Houston's back catalog, including the aforementioned 1997 album, and increased the wholesale price. This automatically boosted the retail price, and although Apple is responsible for setting the price paid, they are apparently in agreement with Sony's assessment of the higher value of Houston's songs. 

Both "The Ultimate Collection" and "Whitney – The Greatest Hits" are in the top three albums on iTunes right now.  And if she can pull a Tupac and release some new albums, she can really start clocking more money.

The Fleecing Off Figueroa

The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum has a bigger problem than not attracting a professional football team to play there.

Employees for the Coliseum Commission vigilantly brave illness to report to work...and then cash in those giant chunks of unused sick leave. And we're not talking a few bucks, but thousands of dollars.  Interim General Manager John Sandbrook used the sick leave allotment from his University of California administrator career to boost his annual pension by $655 a month for life - and he's who they hired to curtail sending abuses at the stadium!  He replaced Patrick Lynch, who left with more than nine years of accrued sick time, adding $1,630 annually to his retirement benefits.  But it doesn't stop there.

Sandbrook, Lynch and other managers are tied to an array of what can best be summarized as  financial irregularities in how the stadium has been run, which according to an LA Times report include "lucrative side dealings, suitcases of cash for a union agent and perks such as luxury cars, massages and golf outings for select staff".  I'm surprised they haven't been on the mayor's boat.  Many of these "managers' perks" were kept in place for months after he took the helm, and why not?  With his padded sick days, raises and stipends, Sandbrook gets close to $390,000 a year, so he's got no concept of managing the city and county's money responsibly.

And don't look to Coliseum Finance Director Ronald Lederkramer to help - he had amassed sick time valued at close to $11,000 (over 20 weeks worth) when he left last year.  And beyond that, he received thousands of dollars in payments from the Coliseum in recent years for medical costs that he said were not covered by insurance.  So outside of actual insurance, having a city job that syphons off taxpayers is the best insurance.  City Controller Wendy Greuel has withheld that sick time check pending an inquiry.  Sandbrook's office listed Lederkramer's status as "retired/pensioned," but  if he quit or was fired it would make him ineligible for a sick-leave check. 

This is just another small piece of a larger picture of financial mismanagement for the city and state.  Its only going to get uglier as more of these come to light.

The NBA Goes Semi-Pro

Buffy The Fetus Slayer

You know what more comic books need?  Abortion debates!

In the latest issue of Dark Horse Comics' Buffy The Vampire Slayer series - yes, that show which hasn't been on the air for almost a decade, has had what would have been it's eight and ninth "seasons" as comic books.  And in the new issue, Buffy decides to have an abortion. Hooray for the television equivalent of a very special episode!  Considering the generally undersexed idea of geeks and fanboys, isn't figuring out about what to do about having a baby getting ahead of what it takes to make one?

Show creator and executive producer Joss Whedon, who also develops the plot arcs for the comic, said, "Buffy was always about the arc of a life, and it wasn't ever going to be one of those shows where they were perpetually in high school and never asked why...It was about change. So there's never a time when Buffy's life isn't relevant." And what's more relevant than giving a character an unwanted pregnancy?

Andrew Chambliss, the comic's writer, adds that Buffy's choice was something that grew organically out of the story...like a baby that organically grows inside you. "Given the specifics of Buffy's life at this point in the season - facing a new kind of vampire threat, barely able to keep a job - it seemed like it would be dishonest for Buffy to not at least entertain the question of whether she should keep or end the pregnancy." Hold up there, buddy...it's not a real person, and they don't have to entertain shit.  You're writing them, so they can do whatever you want - just like you could have not written her as irresponsibly getting drunk and pregnant at her own party.


If you create obstacles for characters, then they obviously have to deal with them, but think about what you're really saying.  Here's a strong female character that's often referred to as part of the "Chosen Ones" who protect mankind, who has fought otherworldly forces for years, and now they're no better than some older version of 16 and Pregnant?  So, is Superman suddenly going to have a fear of heights?  Or the Punisher wakes up and becomes a pacifist?

I like Whedon and his other forays in television (Firefly, Dollhouse), and am looking forward to his film treatment of The Avengers, but I never cared at all for the Buffy show, mostly because everything on the WB is aimed for 13 year old girls. And as far as Buffy and her abortion, I don't really care if she wants to kill it or keep it, because...well, it's Buffy The Vampire Slayer.  It's the ridiculousness of the whole thing that bothers me, because something based on teenage vampire killers, lesbian witches, and fighting demons and werewolves seems suspect suddenly switching to serious subjects.  This isn't the happy-go-lucky 50s and 60s Batman losing his campy kitsch to become the dark knight of the 80s and beyond, which is the evolution of a character.  I think this is more a deliberate act to stay relevant by being edgy.  And I've seen this before, with the same unimpressive results...

Bin Undead

Still City

Mark Jenkins and his mannequins are street installation art.

High Times In Los Angeles

If you look up in my town, you'll find some odd things.

Last night, a man climbed to the top of a radio tower. Naked.  The 45-year-old Arizona resident removed his clothing after he began scaling the tower about 4pm.  It was unclear why he went atop his perch, but he was hungry.  He asked police for hamburgers from McDonald's and he agreed to come down after eating his meal.

And today, a suspected car thief spent five hours on the rooftops of Westwood. The pursuit began shortly before 8 a.m. when the LAPD attempted to pull over the suspect after his license plates flagged as belonging to a stolen car.  He fled and went hopping from roof to roof, at times, looking as though he would come down, and then suddenly move away. But he found a way to get down, shouting, "If I could get to my gun, I would kill all of you", and taking at least two bean bag rounds the SWAT team fired at him.

I'm not sure what tomorrow will bring, but looking skyward should prove entertaining...

Televised Inception

The Dancing Plague Of 1518

Man Without A Heart

Billy Cohn and Bud Frazier are doctors from the Texas Heart Institute, though their work may require them to change the name.

The short film Heart Stop Beating by Jeremiah Zagar shows you can live without a heart or a pulse.  The turbine-like device implanted in Craig Lewis does not beat like a heart, but rather provides a continuous flow like a garden hose.  Lewis was a 55-year-old, dying from amyloidosis -  build-up of abnormal proteins. The proteins clog the organs so much that they stop working, but after the operation, his replacement, "heart" machine keeps blood flowing through his body.

If you put a stethoscope to his chest, no heartbeat or pulse can be heard - there's just a humming sound.  "By all criteria that we conventionally use to analyze patients”, Doctor Cohn said, "he is dead". Yet even without the telltale signs of regular human physiology, there is life.

What's In Spock's Scanner? (The Complete Trilogy)

The S.S. Tony Villar

Our state is in a financial crisis, and the city is is trying not to go broke, so why would Los Angelinos be looking at hundreds of thousand of their tax dollars going to renovating a million dollar yacht?

The 73 foot long Angelena II is in drydock, and has not been on the water since September, but once it gets nearly $750,000 in upgrades, it will be back taking the city manager and his "guests" and "public relations tours".  Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa Tony Villar says, “It’s not a yacht. It’s a boat,” but regardless of what you call it, it's going to be a taxpayer's nightmare.

Last year $147,000 was spent for two captains primarily assigned to the Angelina, $106,000 for a pair of deck hands, and more than $32,000 for fuel and maintenance. And to make matters worse, the engines have been removed because they no longer meet California emissions standards. They need to be replaced by low-emission hybrid motors, so $489,000 in federal taxpayer stimulus money that was supposed to go create jobs, plus another $200,000 coming from the Port of Los Angeles is going towards that upgrade.

“It’s not a perk to get them out on the water,” Villar said, trying to claim it is all business. But of the more than 4,000 took the cruise last year, very few and anything to do with the business of the port. Members of the Morongo Indian Tribe, screenwriters from Universal Studios, a YWCA cruise, people from the exclusive Jonathan Club, UCLA students and dozens of the mayor’s interns were in the ship's logs.

Last week, the final go ahead from the Coast Guard for the new engines came thought, so when the Angelena II hits the high seas in about 90 days, expect another chapter to this story...and not necessarily a happy ending.

We Must All Support Local Business

Unelectable

Meme, The Movie

You can see 20 others, and the background on each...

613 Skaters Have Done This Year What He Can't

Yesterday was a big deal for football, but it was also memorable for hockey fans. It was one year ago that Montreal Canadiens' center Scott Gomez scored his last NHL goal.

Players have had slumps, but none as profound as the one for Gomez, who's last lamp-lighter was the game winner against the New York Rangers. He hasn't been injured or missing games - he's just suckedAs this season has progressed, the lack of scoring has become a phenomenon. A Quebec bar has been offering free drinks when and if Gomez scores.  Songs have been popping up on the interweb.  And DidGomezScore.com provides the cold, hard numbers.

With almost eight minutes before the anniversary, the clock almost got reset.  It was on a power play in the second period the then puck edged past Winnipeg Jets goalie Ondrej Pavelec.  Gomez was a presence at the net, and after a lengthy review, the officials awarded the goal to his teammate Tomas Plekanec. Yeah, it's getting onboard the bad karma wagon to join in the mockery, but for a skater making $7.5 million, a full calendar year without scoring a goal is embarrassing.  That's no better than me, and I'm not even playing...where's my millions?

Bad Girl Or Baddest Girl?

M.I.A. is a bad ass.