The economy sure is bad. How bad is it? Now, even conscious rappers have warrants out!
Mos Def, the Emmy-nominated actor and Brooklyn emcee who made a name for himself with Afrocentric songs about love and how stressful life in America can be, is being sought by Las Vegas police on an arrest warrant stemming from a fistfight with a photographer there in August.
Sometime Lindsay Lohan lady friend Courtenay Semel is the daughter of former Yahoo chief Terry Semel. She is also, as some have described her, a vicious fame-seeking lass. So it makes sense she's being sued by security guard Jaroslaw Jarczok, of Las Vegas' Pure nightclub, who alleges she punched him in the face while drunk, and screamed, "Do you even know who I am, fucking idiot?…Google me, you dumb fuck." Heh. She didn't even demand he "Yahoo" her.
The silver lining of this plot to kill Barack Obama and 102 black youths? That it was foiled, of course. But a quick perusal of the Stormfront boards, an Internet haven for white nationalists around the world, yields another consolatory fact: even a lot of white power shitheads believe it's insane to kill people for no reason at all.
For some reason today you're lucky enough to be treated to a list of famous people in NYC who will shoot first, ask questions later. Some unsurprising results: did anyone think Robert De Niro really left his Taxi Driver days behind him? And some truly stunning examples of homeowners who own more firearms than silverware.
Alexis Stewart, Martha's daughter, bought a gun for her $3 million Tribeca loft after 9/11. Not for potential burglars or rapists, mind you. But just in case she has to leave and go all Old Yeller on her pets:
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BODY FOUND; LIKELY HUDSON'S NEPHEW "The Cook County medical examiner's office is investigating reports on Monday of a child's body found in an SUV in Chicago, a spokesperson for the office told CNN. The Chicago Tribune — citing the medical examiner's office — reported that the body of a boy was found Monday morning in a white SUV connected with Julian King, the missing nephew of Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Hudson."
-Mollygood
Amy Winehouse is back! The more tragic (and British) version of Britney Spears has had an exciting past few days, including a bad move with London police and a trip to rehab, kinda. People are calling it rehab, but she's expected to be released within the week, so that doesn't make much sense.
Apparently police had summoned Amy to answer questions related to assault claims (she hit a female fan). Because she didn't show up, the authorities are threatening arrest — but we all know that's not going to happen. Instead, she did this:
What in the world happened since Friday? You got to Philly for two days and suddenly Jennifer Hudson's mother and brother die in a tragic shooting, and that Arkansas anchorwoman whose home was broken into last Monday dies of injuries related to the attack.
Anne Pressly was only 26 years old and working as an anchor for KATV in Arkansas, when her home was broken into and she was beaten and stabbed. She survived in critical condition until the weekend, and then passed away. Pressly had had a small part as an Ann Coulter-ish commentator in W. Police are questioning whether or not the break-in was random, or if the anchor was targeted for the attack because of her high-profile career.
Either way, it is a tragic way to start the week. At least Barack Obama got to give a heartfelt prayer for Jennifer Hudson during his interview with A.C. Slater on Saturday.
So! Heard about this Ashley Todd, the young white Texas woman who says she was mugged, beaten and mutilated by an angry black criminal/Obama nut in Pittsburgh Wednesday night? Todd, a volunteer for the McCain campaign in Pennsylvania, says a six foot four, 200 pound black guy approached her at an ATM, put a knife to her throat and demanded $60. After giving the robber the money, Todd says he then became enraged over a pro-McCain bumper sticker on her car, prompting him to kick and punch her to the ground and carve a B (for black king Barack Obama) into her face.
Strangely, the wild assailant cut the B into Todd's cheek backwards, the same way she might have if she had cut it herself while looking in a mirror. And what a gentle knife mutilation! Not only does Todd not have to bandage the wound, she refused medical attention from police.
Things get even more plausible from there.
One day after we questioned the lack of conservative media outrage about an attack on a McCain supporter in Manhattan, the flagging Matt Drudge is going ALL CAPS about the alleged "mutilation" of a McCain volunteer in Pennsylvania. THE KING MUCKRAKER IS BACK, BABY!!!!!
The rotund gent you see at right is being indicted in the city of New York for snatching a McCain campaign sign from the hands of a middle-aged woman, snapping it in half and then punching the GOP supporter, who's been described as "small" and "quiet," in the face. Witnesses to the assault said the man gave no indication as to why he was attacking the lady, to whom he said only, "You people are ridiculous!"
What a crazy man. But what's even crazier is this…
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Frat boys the world over need to put their meaty little heads together and come up with a new 40-Year-Old Virgin quote to use insultingly when their masculinity is threatened. "Y'know how I know you're gay? You listen to Coldplay!" is to be immediately abandoned, as Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin is on a rampage, and he is not going to stop until mean people quit saying mean things to him.
One British journalist discovered this the hard way. (Sorry for all the crappy British slang that follows.)
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Drunk off the power that comes with working for an airline that's not losing that much money, JetBlue employees are on a maniacal tear both in the air and on land.
While a New Jersey woman is going to court to allege that a JetBlue flight attendant sexually harassed her on a trip from Ft Lauderdale to Newark, grabbing himself and telling her he knew she "wanted" him, two JetBlue pilots have been arrested in Miami after stiffing a cabbie for nine dollars and then beating him bloody and breaking his ankle in a Subway restaurant parking lot.
So, yeah, the TVs are nice, but be safe up there.
The two police officers involved in the death of mentally unstable Brooklyn man Inman Morales have been stripped of their field duties following an investigation into the incident. Neither Officer Nicholas Marchesona, who Tasered the unarmed Morales off a 10-foot high ledge, causing him to fall to his death, or Lieutenant Michael Piggot, who ordered Morales Tasered, were fired.
After the jump, Piggot and Morales' slap on the wrist in the style of a 1950's sitcom, where it belongs.
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'YouTube has moved to ban videos that incite violence following criticism in the UK and US that it needed to toughen its policies. Google-owned YouTube has updated its community guidelines - specifically pointing out that a new addition is to make sure no videos "directly incite violence".' [Guardian]
So no more … of this?:
While reporting on the riots in Belgrade, Serbia, CNN spliced in footage of an entirely different riot: one in Budapest. Critics call this a Hollywood move, with CNN not having enough b-roll of Belgrade's unrest, so they pulled video of a neighboring country for a more complete package, hoping nobody would notice. But that would be like saying you can't use clips of violence in Afghanistan while reporting on a bombing in Iraq, and that's just CRAZY TALK.
As more and more details of the weekend arrest of actors Jeffrey Wright and Josh Brolin outside of a bar in Shreveport, La., where they are filming the G.W. Bush biopic W, come out, the story becomes more and more horrifying. The fight started when some “good ol’ boys” at the bar found out that the actors and crew were responsible for a Bush biopic with a liberal bent, and Wright joined in when racial slurs came into the mix. Apparently, once the police arrived, they also let loose with a racist tirade against Wright.
Rampant drug use. Rape. Negligent homicide. Those are just a few of the lovely job perks that are part of running in a magazine crew, one of those nefarious working environments that operates in the underbelly of the magazine industry. Magazine crews, often made up of troubled youth from broken homes, are the dark secret of publishers, who like to pretend minors and convicted felons aren't going door-to-door, hawking subscriptions based on fictitious stories about raising money to travel abroad or go to band camp, and then retreating to seedy motels to get high and have their wages withheld. This whole scenario works out quite lovely for magazine publishers, who score plausible deniability about how a slice of their paid subscriptions are secured.
If this whole things sounds familiar, it should. Last February, the Times devoted 3,200 words to the matter, exposing a shadowy ring of fly-by-night operations that suck in young people hoping for a cool summer gig, only to have their sanity played with as their managers used mental and physical abuse to keep them meeting their quotas. Now, the Houston Press takes the story one step further, and in its attempt to confront the industry about its sales practice, shows just how blind an eye everyone is turning. CONTINUED »
When news broke of "The Matthew McConaughey Paparazzi Surfing Scandal," heretofore referred to as the "incident," the story was shaped in a very particular way: It was the band of surfers on the beach, out to protect their sand and their celebrity leader, that taunted the paparazzi, leading to the skirmish that was caught on video. But what if it was the other way around — the paparazzi actually started the fight that caused a broken nose and $10k in damaged camera equipment? And because the photogs were the ones recording everything, they got to edit the video in such a way that made the beer-drinking surfer fellas look like the culprits? And that everybody who would report on this sort of thing, from mainstream entertainment press to blogs like this one, reported the "paparazzi as victims" version because we're so reliant on these agencies' photos for content?
To the conspiracy theories! CONTINUED »
Beach blanket belligerence!
A group of paparazzi and the Malibu surfers who attacked them last weekend – to protect the privacy of Matthew McConaughey, say the surfers – have taken to Web site comment boards to taunt and threaten one another with promises of future attacks. What began as just standard American race-bating has become promises of a photographer vs surfer beach rumble, set to go down this Saturday. Unfortunately, we don’t think there’s enough time between then and now to come up with a way to knock Southern California into the briny depths, so, if you’re in the area, go and watch these idiots smash each other’s hollow heads like so many tan jack-o’-lanterns. And take pictures!
After the jump, some of the really witty verbal jabs.
While paparazzo Josh Levine levies a $2.5 million lawsuit against Woody Harrelson for allegedly assaulting him and breaking his video camera two years ago, some other photogs might be heading to court over this weekend beach battle with a group of surfers, who were either intent on protecting their hidden beach enclave from overcrowding, or view Matthew McConaughey as their leader who must be protected at all costs. CONTINUED »
Editorial Director
