Rum Punch

One look at Lindsay in those jeans and they would have had to call me "Woody" too.

Since we are all into equality, might I point out that Speedo Ninja, and indeed, many of the men, run the course completely topless. Shall we have Flex, and Jessie, and Barclay do that? Fair is fair.

Here is a little bit of a double standard. Read this passage from Wesley Morris' review of Aquaman from the New York Times. "The novelty of Momoa in this part isn’t unexciting. He’s an inspired left-field choice for Aquaman, who in the DC comic books, and the cartoons they inspired, tended to be a slab of Eagle Scout-y blondness. In another age, Paul Walker would have played him. Now he’s this imposingly big, impenetrably chill, multiracial, biker type, sheathed in tribal tattoos, with a long, dark mane. (Now, only the highlights are blond.) That physique is a draw. You could make a taco with the crease in his back, and his pecs almost whisper for a pillow case. This is to say that Momoa might be the last person you’d pick for somebody named Arthur but the first for a movie in need of a star to plow shirtless from one wet location to another. But the people responsible for “Aquaman” seem a little embarrassed to lavish Momoa with even a lick of lust. The camera doesn’t manage to take him all the way in until closing time. And after an introduction in which he fights crime in only a pair of dark jeans, he endures a sequence in the desert (please, don’t make me explain) wearing a long-sleeved Henley and linen slacks. (With all due respect to SpongeBob, those are square pants.) The people who made three “Thor” films never seemed to have this problem. The people who made three “Thor” films also had Chris Hemsworth, an actor eventually allowed to find his hunkiness kind of funny. Momoa, for now, seems stuck. Should he give this part some personality? Should he give an actual performance, as an Adonis or even as an Arthur?" Now, imagine if you will if some reviewer from a major newspaper had opined that "Wonder Woman" did not focus enough attention on Gal Gadot's ass, that she should have spent more time in skimpy outfits, and underscored that opinion with some salacious descriptions of her various body parts. I dare say there would have been a firestorm of criticism, and that reviewer would have been lucky to retain his job. But here, nothing. It is the sort of thing that people always say never happens to men, but in fact it does. It's just that when it happens to a man, nobody notices.

Not to come off like a conspiracy theorist, but has anyone else noticed that when they go from the prerecorded shows to the live shows, the vocal performances of the contestants show a very noticeable drop off in quality? Not just this season, but every season I have watched. I mean, in the Battles they are practically flawless, but on the live shows not so much. It makes me wonder if they are doing a little pitch correction on the shows where only the coaches will be picking the people who advance, figuring, hey, let's get a little buzz going about how great these singers are, and no harm done, because no one is voting. Once the public gets involved however, there might be some legal issues if they were messing with the performances.

I think there is a lot of circumstantial evidence pointing to corruption. First, she set up a private server, which to me is a strong indicator that she was trying to keep whatever dirty dealings she was up to out of the public record. Her excuse that it was for "convenience" is utterly unconvincing. Then, she had that server wiped with the most powerful scrubbing software known to humankind, all, I'm sure, to keep 30,000 plus e-mails pertaining solely to yoga classes and wedding plans from getting out. Also, she and Bill, after leaving the White House "dead broke", have amassed a 100 million dollar fortune by giving a few speeches and running a charity. To me, that doesn't add up. I think an important person could make a nice living giving speeches to Wall Street types, but 100 million dollars? Finally, she lies and lies and lies. She lied about Benghazi being incited by a video. She lied straight to Chris Wallace's face, saying that Comey had backed up all her statements about the e-mails, when actually he did the exact opposite. As for documented evidence, I guess she's pretty good at covering her tracks, but don't forget it took a long time to nail Capone, too. "You can't prove nothin' Copper, I'll be out on the street in an hour."

I know I'm being judgmental here, but I think that there are many overweight people who, though they may claim to be disheartened, are actually relieved by the New York Times article. Most folks don't like to diet or exercise, so when they see something that suggests, wrongly I think, that losing weight in the long term is impossible, say, "Whew, now I don't need to try. Nothing works, anyway." Since I think the article is largely bogus, I think publishing such an article is reprehensible.

In this day and age my motto has gone from "Don't believe everything you read", to "Don't believe anything you read". That NY Times article left me with a couple of questions. First, how did they know what the contestant's metabolic rate was before they were on the show? Did BL supply them with that information or are they just assuming that it was normal as compared to what it is now? Second, if all these contestant's metabolic rates were rocking so hard before they were on BL, why did they weigh 430 lbs? I also couldn't help but notice that, although most had gained back some weight, almost all were still significantly lighter than before they were on the show. I think this NY Times article might be an example of "Morgan Spurlock Syndrome". Spurlock, in the movie "Supersize Me", ate nothing but McDonalds for a time, and suffered weight gain and other health difficulties. But, if he ate nothing but Mcdonalds and nothing happened, Spurlock's got no movie, so you can be sure he's going to do everything possible to obtain the results he wanted. I question the validity of the conclusions in this article on the same grounds, no headline material, no story.

Breaking away for a minute from playoff results talk, I had an idea that I would be curious to hear reaction to from NBA fans, such as the people who post here. Much discussion has been given on what to do to prevent "hack-a-whoever" strategies, and it got me to thinking. First, if you just want to stop intentional fouling, the answer is simple, give coaches the authority to decline fouls, like they do in the NFL, and just retain possession of the ball, with a reset of the shot clock. But I would like to go further. Most would agree, I think, that the fewer free throws, the better the game. Free throws just slow things down. So, here is my proposal. Until the penalty is reached, things remain as they are on common fouls, side out, reset the shot clock. But, once the penalty is reached, a common foul results in one penalty point being awarded to the offended team, and we go the other way. A shooting foul where the FG is missed results in a penalty point awarded and two free throws. If the FG is successful, count the bucket and automatically award the one penalty point. Again, the coach has the authority to decline the foul, as described above. Free throws are not completely eliminated, but they are greatly reduced, and we spend our time free flowing instead of free throwing. What do you think, am I a mad genius or just an idiot?

With all apologies to Kevin Bacon, I would like to make a couple of points about the supposed imbalance of female nudity and male nudity in the mainstream media. First, I presume that most people who are upset by this also feel that it is unjust that males may appear shirtless in public while females may not, but using that standard we must either count all shirtless scenes as male nudity, or not count topless scenes as female nudity. If we do the former, men have been called upon to appear nude onscreen since the days of Clark Gable and before. Heck, even on a family show like ABC's "Dancing with the Stars". the male participants are frequently shirtless, while I don't recall Peta Murgatroyd or Witney Carson ever dancing completely topless, though if it ever happens you can be assured it will stay on my DVR for quite some time. If we do the latter, and not count toplessness as female nudity, I suspect that that would close the male to female nudity ratio considerably. As far as full frontal nudity is concerned, since male genitals are external and female genitals are internal, I would suggest that the only female equivalent of an actor displaying his penis would be a complete spread eagle, and I haven't seen too many of those, not even on "Game of Thrones". To summarize, I am calling for more topless female dancers on "Dancing with the Stars", and more vajayjay on "Game of Thrones". It's only fair.

I can't say I think the new four team playoff system is going to make too much of a difference. We will still have the usual suspects playing for the national championship, while other teams, the TCU's, Boise St.'s and the like, will continue to be frozen out, no matter how well they play. I'm tired of hearing people say that in college football every game is a playoff game. That might be true for Alabama and LSU, but for many teams the season is over before its begun, because even if they beat everyone on their schedule by 50 points, they'll still be overlooked in the Final Four in favor of some two loss SEC team.

This is my problem with "Shawshank Redemption", where Tim Robbins ends up in a maximum security prison with a bunch of swell guys who just happen to be serving life sentences. Oh, sure, they're a little rough around the edges, but great guys just the same.

I used to live in Las Vegas, where water is always an issue, and while listening to the radio one early Sunday morning on my way to work I heard a guy from the city water department say that any water that goes down a drain is not wasted. He said anything that goes into a pipe is collected and eventually ends up at the reclamation plant where it is processed and returned to the water supply. He said the only truly wasted water is lost to evaporation or run off, such as when people water their lawns. Now, I'm not an expert on the subject, but presumably he was, and what he said makes sense. If it is true I wonder why officials continue to tell us we are wasting water by showering, and flushing our toilets, and letting the faucet run while we brush our teeth. If it's not true I wonder why it isn't, and why this guy would say what he said.

The problem is, you just can't make everyone happy. You depict Mindy as just a "normal" American who just happens to be of Indian heritage, and the outrage merchants howl about her being a white character in brown skin. Put her in a sari and they bemoan stereotyping. Usually it's the same people who complain about both. I call it the "Cosby Conumdrum". In his 80's sitcom, Bill Cosby played Cliff Huxtable, who was a doctor, while his wife Claire was a lawyer. And there were people who beefed that characters who were doctors and lawyers did not portray the true black experience. At the same time you had people who asked, "Why are black characters always pimps and drug pushers and gang members? Why can't they be doctors and lawyers?" So you can't win with people who are determined to be offended.

I'm going to go ahead and speculate, I think Serena might have been faking it. I've seen a couple of occasions when she started limping around between points when she fell behind, but it never seemed to affect her play. She's either trying to psych out her opponent, or to give herself an excuse if she loses. I remember the 2004 WTA championship when she fell behind to Sharapova, and her back suddenly started hurting so bad she couldn't stand straight. Of course, that didn't stop her from winning four consecutive games and almost the match. Venus certainly didn't seem as concerned as everyone else. I think Serena told her before the match, "I don't want to play this stupid doubles match, so I'm going to dump it, and make people say, "See, I knew Serena was hurt, or she wouldn't have lost so early." We know she is no stranger to excuse making, we saw that in her press conference following her loss to Cornet. "Everyone plays the match of their life against me! It's so hard being me!" I remember a loss against Justine Henin in the U.S. Open, where the score in the last set was, I think, 6-2, which Serena chalked up to Henin hitting, "A lot of lucky shots." Naturally, if she drops dead tomorrow I'll feel bad, and will come back here and post an apology. But until I hear a credible explanation for what happened, I will continue to hold my suspicions.

Marisa Tomei completely deserved the Oscar she won for "My Cousin Vinny".

Some action must be taken to eliminate the incentive to lose. I have been an NBA fan since 1969, but if there is one thing that would cause me to lose interest in the league it is tanking. It has gotten to the point where if you are not one of the three or four teams with a real chance at the championship, the goal is to lose often enough and long enough to stockpile a bunch of high draft picks so that sometime in the future you could have a shot. That's more than 80% of the teams that are not really trying to win. The competition is no longer legitimate. And the worst part is, now the fans are getting on board, actively rooting for their own teams to lose. It's sickening. Given the way the rules are set up I can't really blame them, but that is why the rules have to change. For most of the history of the league, the biggest fear was a gambling scandal, causing the fans to lose faith in the integrity of the competition. Well, now it is the teams themselves that are fixing games, and I am losing faith.

I think there is more to it than ego, although I'm certain that also plays a part. Primarily, I think Jillian stays with the show because she has a lot of weight loss products on the market, and being on Biggest Loser gives her more noteriety than a thousand late night infomercials could give.

I'm an AI watcher from way back, so I have a sentimental attachment to it that I don't have with The Voice, but I also have some specific issues with the way The Voice goes about it's business as compared to American Idol. First, I think the blind auditions are a gimmick. Sure, the coaches don't know what the artists look like during the initial audition, but as soon as the chair spins they know, and with the coaches unilaterally making the decision on who advances for an extended period of time, there is ample opportunity for them to get rid of the physically unappealing during the Battle and Knockout rounds. Also, to pretend that the only factor in stardom is vocal ability is unrealistic. Just ask Shakira. To that same point, I don't like the coaches having the final say for so long. What is the point of even televising the first five or six rounds if the viewing public has no imput? Why not just let the coaches whittle their teams down to three members in private, until they are ready to let us vote. Often I think the coaches already know who they want, and the performances are immaterial. Whenever I hear a coach say to an artist, "Going forward", or, "looking to the future", I know it means, "It really doesn't matter how well you sang, you were never making it out of this Battle Round." At least in AI's Hollywood Week, where we the public also has no influence, there is some drama, real or manufactured, to keep us entertained. With The Voice it's like, I really like Dawn and Hawkes, but Adam doesn't like Dawn and Hawkes, so, goodbye Dawn and Hawkes. Very frustrating. Lastly, I have a problem with the coaches cutting members of their own team. Just a few weeks ago they were pleading with an artist, begging them to join their team, "I love you, I have to have you, we'll win this thing together!", and now they're saying, "See that door, don't let it hit you in the ass on the way out." Just wrong. And then the poor kid has to stand there and thank the coach for giving them a chance. Just once I'd like to see the artist go, "You son of a bitch, you said you loved me!" Better to let the voters do all the cutting.