Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,
So… I kinda hafta get this out first & foremost because… well, you’ll see…
RETURN OF DMX – Yes… the multi-platinum rap GOD, star of Season 1 of “Couples Therapy”, and occasion Christmas carol enthusiast is returning to the limelight… and it’s even better than you think. This time, he'll be stepping into a boxing ring… against everybody’s favorite neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman. Yes… Hate Crime will be coming to your TV set in the near future… with commercials. Although no contract has been signed, a promoter is negotiating the bout as we speak. "DMX has promised to 'beat his ass,' but no contract or paperwork has been signed or agreed to yet," DMX spokesman Domenick Nati told CNN Wednesday. Best part: Zimmerman said the celebrity boxing match was HIS IDEA!!! Boxing was his hobby, he told Radar Online last month, even prior to the "incident." The incident, of course, is the February 2012 encounter in which he shot dead an unarmed 17-year old Trayvon Martin. He stood trial for murder but was acquitted last year. "Prior to the incident, I was actually going to the gym for weight loss and doing boxing-type training for weight loss," he told Radar. "A mutual friend put me in contact with Damon and provided me with an opportunity and motivation to get back in shape and continue with my weight loss goals and also be able to help a charity out." Damon is Damon Feldman, owner of Celebrity Boxing and a self-described opportunist whose claim to fame is putting together bizarre matchups. Think Tonya Harding, Michael Lohan. He said last week that he was accepting offers for someone to step into the ring for a three-round, pay-per-view fight with Zimmerman. "The news has been out for an hour and my e-mail is overloaded with 8,000 people wanting to fight George," Feldman told CNN on Thursday. Early Wednesday morning, he said he'd picked the contender. Out of more than 15,000 e-mailed requests, he's going with DMX. Praise Jesus! "The match will be one of the Biggest Celebrity Boxing matches of all time," his news release said (uppercase emphasis his). But in order to find out where and when it will take place, we'll have to wait until next week. Feldman said Wednesday he was shooting for March 15th. Of course… if you’re looking for a fair fight… DMX is who you want in the ring. He's out for blood, he told TMZ. Not only will he break every rule in boxing, he said, he'll "beat the living (expletive)" out of Zimmerman. Not everyone welcomes the chance to see Zimmerman taking punches… even if it’s HIS IDEA!!! Rev. Al Sharpton told a Los Angeles group Wednesday that he was concerned "about the precedent that it sets." Yes… Rev. Al Sharpton doesn’t like the idea of grown men getting paid money to fight. I wonder how he feels about boxing in general… or the predominant denomination of athletes who make their living at it professionally. You know, Tommy Morrison and such. Too soon? "We must be very careful not to glorify or in any way sidestep the implications of making someone whose only claim to fame was killing an unarmed young man named Trayvon Martin into a cultural celebrity or hero," Sharpton said. A petition has been launched on Change.org calling for the planned boxing event to be canceled. "This is a blatant show of disrespect and nothing positive or righteous would come from such a stunt," it reads. Yes… it’s horrible… but George Zimmerman wants to do it… Earl Simmons wants to do it (DMX)… they’ll both be compensated… whatever. Let it be, Reverend. Besides… who doesn’t want to watch a man who’s overcome everything from child abuse… to crack addiction… to a top rapper… to a Hollywood leading man… in & outta jail… and now, he’s going in the ring against a guy who’s famous for doing stupid sh*t that the laws in Florida condone. THERE WILL BE BLOOD!!! And I want to see it spilt. More to come…
Tuesday night, I watched “You’re Next” starring… well, it’s a horror flick so you may recognize a few faces… but the only I did was a guy I knew from a few Farrelly Brothers flicks in the mid-90’s. The story revolves around a very well-to-do family who meet at their isolated summer home in the woods to celebrate their parents’ wedding anniversary… but then some unexpected visitors start picking off family members with crossbows… and machetes… and it goes from there. That’s really the whole story… and yes, it’s VERY predictable, even the “twists” that they throw in… but overall, not horrible for a horror flick… just that it’s been done over & over again. Better than most I’d say though. There are a couple parts that are just really cheesy… but hey, that’s half the reason that you watch, right? Yeah… pretty standard… that’s about all I gotta say about that.
Wednesday night, I was invited to a special screening of “The Monuments Men” starring George Clooney (also directed & co-wrote), Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchette and a host of others. This tells the true story (by Hollywood standards) of a group of art professors, architects, etc. who braved WWII to find & return countless pieces of incredible art during the final days of WWII. See, as the History Channel will confirm, Hitler’s plans were to take almost all of the art in Europe (and eventually the world) and move it to his epicly massive Fuhrer Museum that we planned to build in his hometown of Linz, Austria as a symbol of his Third Reich being the epicenter of all culture in the world. So while he was invading & taking over countries… he would then send in specialists (similar to the Monuments Men) in to get the art and send it back to Germany for storage until construction was completed. Well, then they ended up losing ground… and so then they started storing the works of art in secret locations… and then when their defeat seemed imminent, the orders were to simply destroy the art and wipe away a very large part of European culture along with it. Literally MILLIONS of pieces of art were involved in this epic snatch-and-grab job. So that’s where these Monuments Men come in… and try to find & take back all of the art before it’s destroyed. The problem is not only the Germans burning the art… but the Russian have their own team doing the exact same thing, looking for the art in order to start paying reparations for the 20 million people who died in the war. So then it’s a race against the clock… and by the way, it’s a bunch of middle aged art nerds in the middle of WWII.
I really enjoyed this movie… but it’s exactly what you would expect. There’s a few surprises but no real major twists. Americans & Brits are the good guys… the Germans& Russians are bad… the French are arrogant & so on. Some of the jokes may be a little high brow than I’m used to… and others were just… not that funny… but you know, it didn’t really drag on until a little towards the end. It’s a full two hours… you’ll have a few laughs… you’ll see a great historical story… it’s what you want it to be. No more, no less. Another special treat of this screening was that it was hosted or something by The Legion of Honor Museum (they have a few of the recovered pieces by the way) and one of the actual Monuments Men was able to attend… which by my calculations would’ve made him like… 95 to 125 years old. They presented him… and I’m pretty sure that he had no idea what was going on… but still, kinda cool. I’d recommend checking the movie out… but not necessarily in a theatre where they’re going to charge you $15 a pop… unless maybe you’re a well-to-do art student. I think Dizzy would really like it… and maybe get some of the jokes that missed with me.
Thursday night, Dizzy, Jackie D & I went to Brainstormer Trivia Night at Rogue Ales Public House in North Beach. It’s exactly what it sounds like… drunk people form teams (some are veterans there every week) and compete with trivial knowledge & offensive team names. Our team name of “Harry Seaward” was tame considered to some others… like “Philip Seymour Hoffman – Five Days Sober” and “Putin, Eat My P**sy Riot”. Anyway, six rounds of questions running the gamut of popular culture… and basically rounds of beers to accompany them in order to win fabulous prizes. Well, despite my suspicions that some of the teams were blatantly cheating by using their phones… we finished 4th on our first time staying until the end. I’m proud of us… and I feel like we can do better in the future… but we’ll see if I can afford it. We were there for about four hours so that we’d have a table so… drinks were had.
That’ll do it for tonight… join us next time when we’ll share all the adventures of SF Beer Week, starting today & running until next Sunday. It should be quite interesting… or at least I’ll try to make it seem interesting. Have a great weekend everybody!!!
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