Fully Corked Sosa

There has been a lot of talk in baseball about performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) and whether or not players who used PEDs should be allowed in the baseball Hall of Fame. Some of the greatest players of all-time are suspected or known to have used PEDs including, Alex Rodriguez, Mark Mcgwire, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds. The last four were recently denied enshrinement into the baseball Hall of Fame by a long shot.

This debate will go on for quite some time as more baseball players are admitting to using PEDs, and I'm glad I don't have to make the decision whether they get in or not. Sammy Sosa received the least amount of votes in the latest Hall of Fame voting and I agree with this. Other than probably/possibly using PEDs, Sammy Sosa is the only guy on that list that has been caught using a corked bat.

In 2003 in a game against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Sosa broke his bat on a routine ground ball and was thrown out at first. The umpires noticed that the bat had cork in it and immediately began examining it. Sosa was ejected from the game and was suspended for 7 games after that.

You can see the cork in the middle of Sosa's broken bat.

Sosa's Hall of Fame bats and the rest of his regular bats were checked and none were found to have cork in them. Sosa claimed that he used the bat for batting practice and he accidentally used it in the game although the Cubs have never allowed corked bats in batting practice. The interesting thing is after Sosa is thrown out at first he hustles over to pick up his bat. Isn't that the bat boys job? What superstar picks up the pieces to their broken bat? And is in some sort of hurry to do so? Sosa obviously knew that he was using the bat, otherwise he would not have made a concerted attempt to quickly pick up the pieces. Not to mention Sosa was in a 2 for 15 slump and struck out 5 times a few days earlier. He was obviously looking for a pick me up. 

Baseball will eventually make a decision about whether or not to vote in PED and steroid users to the Hall of Fame. If they do start letting them in, they have to take into consideration that Sammy Sosa purposely used a corked bat to gain an advantage on the field, which is flat out cheating. Keep Sosa out for good. 

The Perks of Being a Psychopath

I was looking at the movie poster for the Colin Farrell film "Seven Psychopaths" and noticed that it was very bright green as you can see below.

It's a pretty straightforward and simple movie poster as the title is pretty straightforward as well. As I continued browsing through various movie sites (mostly IMDB), I came across a variation of the poster online. Or did I?

The movie poster for the Emma Watson film "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" shares almost the exact same tint of green, shows the main characters standing casually together and uses black font for the writing. I looked both movies up wondering if they were produced or distributed by the same company, but I couldn't find any connection between the two.

But interestingly enough they were both released on the same day, October 12, 2012 and the two movies performed about the same at the box office. "Seven Psychopaths" had a $15 million budget and grossed $15 million while "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" had a $13 million budget and grossed $17 million. The similarities probably end there, but they exist for what it's worth. 

Vanilla Ice and Queen

I recently watched the movie "Cool as Ice" featuring Vanilla Ice. It currently has a 2.4 on IMDB.com which puts it at #91 on the bottom 100 list. If you want a good laugh, I would recommend watching it. Otherwise, I would pick just about anything else.

This movie got me to thinking about Vanilla Ice the rapper and his song "Ice Ice Baby". That was easily the most popular Vanilla Ice song there ever was, but it also led to the most scrutiny of his career. "Ice Ice Baby" uses the same baseline as the Queen song "Under Pressure". It was fitting because that baseline is what put Vanilla Ice under pressure with Queen and David Bowie.

Ice sampled the baseline from "Under Pressure" without giving Queen or Bowie credit for the song or any royalties. Ice initially said that he added an additional note to the baseline and therefore didn't need to give any credit, but later admitted to the sampling and paid both Queen and David Bowie for the sampling rights. Even though the hatchet is buried, there is still a black eye on Vanilla Ice's career because of it.

A lesser-known case involved the sampling of the Rick James song "Super Freak. "Can't Touch This", MC Hammer's most popular song, used the baseline from "Super Freak". Like Queen and David Bowie, James sued MC Hammer for use of the song and it was eventually settled out of court.

I often wondered why other artists are allowed to sample other artist's work. It all comes down to money. It's just a matter of paying the previous artist now, or later through the court system. 

Cheap Music Downloads

I recently had a friend on Facebook ask if anybody was interested in buying her $10 iTunes gift card. She didn't have a lot of takers and I definitely was not one of them.
After reading the Steve Jobs biography, it was clear that Jobs legitimized the music download industry.

Before iTunes, people would go to an illegal site to download the music for free. It's not that these were bad people, but these people really wanted their music. A lot of times people only want one or two songs off an album instead of the whole CD in a store. iTunes provided a way for people to legally download individual songs that they'd like at a good price.

But, just as in any industry, cheaper is always better. So whenever people ask me for good legal music download sites, I always tell them to go to www.gomusicnow.com. Each song is $.09 and new or featured music is $.15 per song. It's a legally run, American site.

What I love about gomusicnow is that it combines the two things people look for: A place for legal music downloading, and the cheapest music. You can get a new album for just over a dollar. I don't think the site has as large of a selection as iTunes, but most of the popular music should be on there. They've also got previews for each song to see if it's the right version you're looking for. Check it out the next time you're in the market for some new tunes. 

Keep Calm and Say Goodbye

During a season 7 episode of The Office, Michael Scott has a cold sore on his lip and the office tells him that it is a form of herpes. Upon hearing this he takes it upon himself to call all of his old girlfriends telling them to get checked for herpes.

While talking to each of his past girlfriends, they reminisce for a bit and Michael is told that he made more of the relationship than what was really there. After leaving a long voicemail to his ex, Holly, he says "And I don't know why you downgraded what we had, but I did not make us up. Ok...Oh, and you might-you should talk to a doctor because you might have herpes. Bye."

After watching this I was reminded of theses three songs that follow the same theme of guys making more of the relationship than women. Both perspectives of each relationship are represented by male and female singers. And each song follows the same general song structure: Guy sings first verse and chorus, girl sings second verse countering what the guy just said, in effect, setting him straight.

At any rate, it's a highly successful song structure since "Don't You Want Me Baby" and "Somebody That I Used To Know" were both number 1 hits, and The Postal Service is one of the most popular indie bands ever. 

The Human League - Don't You Want Me

The Postal Service - Nothing Better

Gotye - Somebody That I Used to Know

To Shyamalan, or not to Shyamalan?

In 1999, The Sixth Sense came out and everyone fell in love with it. It's one of those classic "you've gotta see it" movies. It was also the first big hit for director M. Night Shyamalan. Movie lovers were eager to see what else this promising new director could come up with, and well, he's not exactly living up to his earlier greatness. Here is a graph of his movie's IMDB ratings in chronological order:

The Provo Music Scene

"Did you know I'm in a band? Well, we haven't played for a while, but I play a bunch of different instruments and we have a really cool sound. Like, I can't even describe our sound, you just have to hear it. We're going to start recording soon. I'll let you know."

"Uh huh."