Category Archives: entertainment news

entertainment news

I’d rather listen to Lennon’s music tonight

John-Lennon-1

I’m proud of myself.

I had a chance tonight to watch three Democrats debate each other over which of them should be their party’s presidential nominee.

Instead, I turned away. I’m watching an American Movie Classics musical tribute to someone who means more to me at this moment than any presidential candidate in either party.

I’ll get back to you folks in a few days. I promise.

The late John Lennon would have turned 75 on Oct. 9. AMC aired a special tonight with some damn good musicians playing many of the songs John made famous — as a solo artist and when he played in that pretty good rock band, The Beatles.

I’ll read about the Democrats’ debate in the morning. Tonight, I’m chillin’ out to some music from a guy who helped raise me.

I still miss him.

Rest in peace, John.

 

entertainment news, Sports news, State news

Is this a form of socialism?

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Greg Abbott, the candidate for Texas governor in 2014, spoke differently about subsidizing sports and entertainment events than when he became the actual governor.

Back when he was running for the office — and on his way to trouncing Democratic opponent Wendy Davis — Abbott frowned on the state pouring public money into private ventures.

Hey, but what happened? He’s governor now and he’s just committed $2.7 million in public money to help support a World Wrestling Entertainment event next spring at AT&T Stadium in Arlington … aka Jerry World.

WWE, for those who’ve been living under a rock since the beginning of time, produces fake wrestling events. However, it’s huge, man!

Gov. Abbott signed off on a plan to bolster the Events Trust Fund, which the state set up to help defray the cost of these extravaganzas.

If you want to know the truth, I kind of like Candidate Abbott’s view better than Gov. Abbott’s idea.

According to the Texas Tribune: “The Events Trust Fund is designed to defray the costs of some large events by paying state taxes collected during the events, such as those levied on hotel reservations and car rentals, back to event organizers. Local governments or nonprofits they authorize must approve the events, and the cities that host them are required to chip in some of their local tax receipts, too. State officials only calculate the size of the payment from the fund after an event is held and the economic activity has been documented, according to the governor’s office. ”

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/12/11/texas-spending-27-million-wrestlemania/

OK, I get that WWE’s big shows produce a lot of economic activity to any community that hosts them.

Then again, this also seem to smack a bit of what some have called “sports socialism.” Public money gets kicked in to support a private enterprise event. Granted, the $2.7 million that Abbott authorized is veritable chump change when compared to the entire state budget, if not the entire amount of money set aside in the Events Trust Fund.

These events ought to be able to stand on their own. It’s not as if the venue that’s going to play host to WrestleMania is a dump. It’s a state-art-of-the-art stadium where the Dallas Cowboys play professional football under the ownership and management of Jerry Jones, who — last I heard — wasn’t worried about where he’d get his next meal.

What’s more, the money going to this event is public money. Meaning, it’s my money, and yours.

With the price of oil plummeting and the state perhaps looking for ways to recover from the revenue shortfall that’s coming, let’s hope we don’t come up short because we’ve contributed money to help pay for a fake wrestling show.

 

entertainment news, media news, national news, political news

Knock off the vulgarity, talking heads

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I’ll give Fox News credit for exhibiting a low tolerance for what poured out of the mouths of two of its contributors.

Lt. Col. Ralph Peters and Stacey Dash decided to get downright filthy when referring to President Obama. I won’t repeat what they said here, but let’s just say that Peters’s comment included a profane reference to a certain private body part, while Dash referred to fecal matter when describing what the president thinks about the war on terrorism.

Fox suspended both of them.

This is important to note for a simple reason. Other notable Americans have used hideous language when discussing public figures and politicians. Yet no sanctions were leveled against them.

The most notable example involves comedian Bill Maher, who fancies himself as a political commentator, who once used an equally disgusting term to describe former Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin. He’s still on the air, to the lasting shame of the network — HBO — that carries his show.

The political debate is overheated enough already. The tone has been set by at least one of the Republicans running for the presidency.

As for the comments of the likes of Dash and Peters, well, suffice to say that their employer — the Fox News Channel — is known as a magnet for conservative television news viewers. Perhaps their vile commentary comports with the views held — if not expressed — by many of those viewers.

The issues are serious and they deserve equally serious analysis. Dropping vulgar bombs on the air only distracts us from the importance of the matters under discussion.

I’m just glad to see that the network has established that such language isn’t appropriate when referencing candidates for the presidency, let alone the man who’s already holding the most important office in the land.

A once-respected comedian — Bill Cosby — once decried fellow comedians’ use of filthy language. He would say that those comics who resort to f-bombs and other profane terms do so because they don’t have anything clever or interesting to say.

The same can be said for political commentary.

 

business news, entertainment news, local news, State news

Start thinking creatively about MPEV uses

MPEV

The cockamamie decision to merge the Amarillo minor league baseball team with the team in Grand Prairie seems to have gummed up the works in Amarillo’s planning to develop its downtown event venue.

It shouldn’t.

By definition, the place would be home to multiple uses. Hence, the name “multipurpose event venue.”

The City Council has ratified the voters’ decision to proceed with the MPEV. The ball — so to speak — is now in the hands of the Local Government Corporation, which the council created to carry out council policy.

The baseball franchise merger was announced as being for the 2016 season. The Thunderheads and the AirHogs will play 50 “home” games, with 25 of them in Amarillo and 25 in Grand Prairie. The league where the teams play said in a statement that it expects the teams to return to their home fields perhaps by 2017. We’ll see about that.

Does this mean the MPEV is a non-starter, that the ballpark element no longer will be applicable? Not in the least.

Multipurpose, remember?

The $32 million venue will have 4,500 or so permanent seats. That’s enough to accommodate a well-run Class AA baseball team. Once they break ground on the venue, my hope would be that the Chamber of Commerce, the Convention and Visitors Council, Center City, Downtown Amarillo Inc., City Hall’s senior administrative staff and anyone else with a bright idea or two start a coordinated marketing effort to bring that franchise to Amarillo.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of other opportunities to use that complex. There has been talk of “family nights,” of church-related events, downtown-related parties and perhaps even outdoor concerts occurring at the MPEV.

Are any of these out of the question? Not by a long shot.

Like a lot of other Amarillo resident, I also am scratching my head over this franchise-combo idea. On the surface it looks for all the world like a loser for both cities. To be candid, I don’t know how this is going to work well.

The goofiness of this decision, though, need not preclude the attractiveness of a new sports/entertainment venue in downtown Amarillo. If it means doing business with another league and another baseball franchise, then that’s fine.

The task, though, rests with the marketing experts who can make it work.

 

 

entertainment news, national news, political news

Sen. Thompson made his mark early

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There will be tributes a-plenty in the next few days and weeks as politicians — and actors — remember one of their own: former U.S. senator and former TV and film actor Fred Dalton Thompson.

The Tennessee Republican was a larger-than-life guy who died today at his home after battling a recurrence of lymphoma.

He ran for president once. Served in the Senate. Acted in some pretty good films and had a good run as the district attorney in the hit TV show “Law and Order.”

I want to remember this man in another fashion.

R.I.P., Sen. Thompson

The first time I saw him was in 1973. It was on TV. I was a college student majoring in political science at Portland State University in Oregon and Thompson was serving as chief counsel for the Republican senators serving on the Select Senate Committee on Watergate.

Its chairman was the late Democrat Sam Ervin, the self-described “country lawyer” from North Carolina.

Thompson’s role in that committee was to provide legal advice for the Republicans on the committee. The panel was investigating the Watergate scandal that was beginning to metastasize and eventually would result in the resignation of President Nixon.

Fred Thompson had really bad hair, as I recall. But appearances aside, he was a tough interrogator, as was the Democrats’ chief counsel, Sam Dash.

My memory of Thompson was jogged a bit the other day by MSNBC commentator Lawrence O’Donnell who opined — after the daylong hearing of Hillary Clinton before the Select House Benghazi Committee — that senators and House members shouldn’t be allowed to question witnesses. O’Donnell cited the work that Thompson and Dash did in pursuing the truth behind the Watergate scandal.

Leave the questioning of these witnesses to the pros, O’Donnell said. The Benghazi committee congressmen and women, he said, made spectacles of themselves.

Thompson, indeed, was a tough lawyer. My memory of him at the time was that he questioned anti-Nixon witnesses quite hard and didn’t let up very much on those who supported the embattled president.

He did his job well.

That is what I remember today as the nation marks Sen. Thompson’s passing.

May he rest in peace.

 

entertainment news

‘Friends’ can become ‘foes’ on Facebook

1 Comment

facebook-banned

This is no big flash to most of you, I’m sure … but Facebook can be a pain in the backside.

Here’s what I mean.

I have a longtime friend who recently “unfriended” me from Facebook. I noticed his absence, so I asked him: Was it something I said?

No, not all, he responded. The issue, he said, was with some of my Facebook “friends.”

You see, my friend — and he’s a real friend, not a Facebook “friend” — and I have differing political slants. I tilt left, he tilts right. I distribute this blog through several social media outlets; Facebook is one of them.

My friend — who I’ve known for more than 20 years — occasionally would respond to my essays with a negative comment. I’m all wet, he would say. I don’t know what I’m talking about, he would declare. He’d lecture me on occasion about where I’m wrong and how he knows better.

That’s all well and good. Then some of my other friends and “friends” would challenge my pal. He’d respond to them. They’d fire back. He’d return another volley.

Back and forth they would go.

Finally, my friend said, he’d had enough. He said his inability to refrain from responding to the critics made him feel “like a crackhead.” He became addicted to the need to answer them all.

So, he quit cold turkey.

I have no answer for that.

Occasionally, I engage in exchanges with individuals who read this blog regularly. I appreciate their interest and I appreciate their passion in speaking out on issues that push their hot button.

However, some of ’em do get a little too personal for my taste — particularly when they go after each other. It doesn’t bother my sensibilities if they aim their fire at my direction. I’ve been taken down by the best. After spending most of my nearly 37 years in daily journalism writing opinions, well, you kind of get used to it.

It does make me feel badly, though, for my friends — namely my actual friends — who get run off by what they perceive to be rude behavior.

 

entertainment news

Odom: ‘a colossal dumbass’

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Unlike my friend Bill Perkins, a journalist in Dothan, Ala., I actually had heard of Lamar Odom before he passed out in that Nevada brothel.

But this social media post from my friend is just too good not to share:

“Never heard of Lamar Odom before he whorehoused himself into a coma. Now it’s all you hear about.

“It might be different if what we heard was ‘Boy, what a dumbass that guy must be.’ Instead, it’s all, ‘Omigod, he opened an eye!’ As if he won’t still be a colossal dumbass when he fully recovers.

“How many homeless people could have been fed with the $75,000 he spent on prostitutes and whatnot over three days?

“A helluva lot, that’s how many.”

I happen to want Odom to recover. I’m guessing my pal Bill does, too.

My other hope is that this near-death experience teaches the young man a valuable life lesson. And that he learns from it and changes his life for the better.

Hey, sometimes miracles do occur.

entertainment news

Odom saga … amazing in the extreme

1 Comment

odom

Allow me this brief comment on the saga of Lamar Odom.

He’s married — in a fashion — to Khloe Kardashian, yes, one of those Kardashians.

He once played pro basketball. He was quite good at it. He made millions of dollars. He married the young reality TV “star.” Got his face plastered on tabloids all over the country. He was a fixture on that E! network TV show featuring his in-laws.

Then the marriage hit the skids. He and his wife split up, sort of. Then he goes on his way.

Odom this past week was found unconscious in a Nevada brothel. I presume he went there to pay for a good time with one — or more — of the hookers. He took some illegal drugs and passed out.

The reaction from his still-wife? She’s at his bedside, telling the media how much she supports him.

Maybe there’s something I don’t get. If I had done that while married to my wife … hmmm. Let me think. She’d wait for my recovery — probably from some distance — and then file divorce papers on my sorry behind.

There’s something really and truly amiss with today’s popular culture.

Don’t misunderstand me. I want Odom to recover. I just don’t get the family reaction to what this guy was caught doing.

Your thoughts?

 

entertainment news, local news

Let’s think big about the MPEV

Amarillo MPEV

Let us take a moment — or maybe two — to consider some possibilities for a venue that Amarillo officials want built in the city’s downtown district.

It’s called a multipurpose event venue, but “MPEV” has become its signature.

The MPEV is on the Nov. 3 ballot. The ballot language gives voters a narrow choice: whether to allow it to proceed with a “ballpark” included in it design. We will be asked to vote “yes” or “no.”

Critics of the MPEV, estimated to cost about $32 million, say the ballpark element restricts its use. I believe that’s nonsense.

So, we could move the baseball activity that’s been occurring at the Potter County Memorial rat hole, er. stadium for the past few years into a gleaming new downtown stadium.

That’s it? That’s all we can see for this venue? Hardly.

The weather, contrary to many other naysayers, shouldn’t detract from other activities. Why, for example, can’t we have outdoor concerts? Don’t other communities welcome acts to perform outdoors? Aren’t there sufficient numbers of entertainers who would like to play outdoors in downtown Amarillo on a cool autumn evening?

And let’s get real here. We all have appreciated the pleasant temperatures we see even during the summer when the sun goes down along the High Plains. Our altitude — nearly 3,700 feet above sea level — helps make those evenings a reality.

OK, so the winters get chilly around here. And yes, spring can be a bit unpredictable — weather-wise.

The planners who’ve proposed this project haven’t re-invented the wheel. Other communities have enjoyed success with downtown ballparks that have been used for various other activities when they aren’t hawking hot dogs, peanuts and cold beer at ballgames.

What they’re pitching, though, is a new concept for this city. The MPEV will work if it’s given the chance — and if we start thinking expansively about the many uses available to it.

 

entertainment news

Young man pays the price for his fame

duggar

Josh Duggar has admitted to cheating on his wife.

Why is that a big deal?

The young man is part of a very large and very over-exposed family. They were the center of a reality TV show, “19 Kids and Counting.” They espoused their deep Christian faith and thrust that belief into the homes of millions of TV viewers regularly.

They presented themselves as the perfect family. What’s more, they became active politically off the screen. Duggar, particularly, became a voice for “traditional family values” while working for the Family Research Council.

Then Josh was revealed to have touched young girls inappropriately while he was a teenager. Some of his victims were his own sisters.

TLC, the network that broadcast the TV show featuring the Duggar clan, ended the series. Duggar no longer works for the Family Research Council.

Now we hear that Josh Duggar has cheated on his wife using a website — AshleyMadison.com — that was created for those who want to break their sacred marital vow.

It’s all tawdry and quite sickening.

I am not going to condemn Josh Duggar today. He’s begging for forgiveness. His statement of contrition sound quite sincere. It included this: “I have been the biggest hypocrite ever. While espousing faith and family values, I have secretly over the last several years been viewing pornography on theIinternet and this became a secret addiction and I became unfaithful to my wife.”

I guess one of the tragedies of this bizarre story, though, is watching a young man being revealed as being someone quite different from the “reality” he presented on a TV show.

And I suppose it’s fair to ask: How much “reality” on the plethora of these shows is as fake as what’s been revealed about Josh Duggar?