Real TV Critics

You think Dodger Stadium is bad, right?  Well it is.  I call it “Thug Stadium” because it is one of what’s becoming a trend in watching live sports which is the reason I don’t go to Thug Stadium to see the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Too many thugs.  Just way too many thugs.  And this is the way they think.

Ready?

They think they own the team.  Listen, I have a simple philosophy.  If my last name isn’t on the papers filed with the great state of California as owner and operator of the Los Angeles Dodgers, I ain’t getting in to a fight with some thug at Thug Stadium that drank one too many Bud Lights and sees himself as the owner of the team.

No way!

I remember one time I was shopping at Ralph’s Grocery store and I was wearing my Indiana Pacers Reggie Miller throwback jersey and some thug with Lakers swag walked up to me and said “the Pacers suck!”

Now I’ve been and Indiana Pacers fan for most of my life, all the way back to when they played in the American Basketball Association and Pacers forward Darnell Hillman was wearing a ‘bush’ hairstyle look.  Back to Fairgrounds Coliseum, Market Square Arena, the building that Reggie Miller and Rik Smits built.  To Conseco Fieldhouse and now Bankers Life Fieldhouse, I am a huge Pacers fan.

I looked at that kid after he said “the Pacers suck” and said to him “you know I agree with your assessment on the producttivity of the Indiana Pacers this year.  They suck.”

See, um, my last name is not Simon, I don’t own all of the Westfield Malls or the Mall of America in Minneapolis and I don’t own the Indiana Pacers so I’m not going to get in to a battle at a Ralphs with some kid half my age about the value of the Indiana Pacers or what they suck.

“You’re right, pal, you’re right,” is my attitude.

So here’s a group of new thugs.  Now in San Antonio, yes San Antonio has the sports thugs at San Antonio Spurs games.  You would have thought these people would be happy but nope, let’s rumble.

Next time I go to any sports event to watch live it had better be tennis.  Though some of those fans are getting rowdy these days too!

Well Jessica Sanchez started off strong last night, then Philip Phillips came on strong as last night’s American Idol and you could tell by the audience reaction that he was going to win this year’s entry for the reality show.

Phillip Phillips performs on 'AMERICAN IDOL'

You could feel it in the room.  Jessica Sanchez kicked it off in fine fashion with a Whitney Houston classic and it all declined from there.  Philip Phillips just tore up the rest of his sets after a week start on American Idol and it was a tell tale story for tonight’s big win on American Idol.

Jessica Sanchez on 'MERICAN IDOL'

Philip Phillips took home the final goal of winner on American Idol in the show’s 11th season.  Phillips is the 5th male singer to take home the final prize on American Idoland sitting next to several southern fans who really seemed to be his biggest fans, you could tell he was favored to win it all. 

American Idoljudge Steven Tyler was called Philip Phillips the next Bruce Springsteen during tonight’s finale.

Oh now I’m definitely glad I did a complete physical a few weeks ago to ensure that at 55 years of age I have a few more years left on this body.  Except for a high cholesterol count, all is looking pretty good so I figure I’m good but I’m getting  concerned.  When you reach my age more of those celebrity types who I grew up with start to die off and this past week was a pretty difficult one for those of us who love disco music.

It also is the reason why getting that annual physical is a real good idea.  Man did we party like it was 1999 back in the 1970’s and early 80’s during and after the demise of disco.  Today we lost another talented artist following last week’s passing the Queen of Disco Donna Summer.   Word comes today that Bee Gees singer Robin Gibb has left the disco world dying after a long battle with cancer.

He, as was Donna Summer, was only 62 years of age.

I mention the party days and years during that time.  Damn it was a lot of fun.  But we partied 24/7/365 meaning that it was non-stop.  For those in the hippie era who experienced the so called free love era, the disco days for those of us in the 50’s was a time where no bad behavior was off the table.

And I mean nothing.

And we are all paying for it these days.  Strangely enough most of us had real jobs and not like those party people in the music business especially those in the performance arena.  People like Donna Summer and Robin Gibb, well they really knew how to party just like everyone in the music business.

A lot of them are paying the price today.

Back to the doc in a year.  Thanks for the great memories Robin Gibb.  It was fun listening to disco as I wrote this story.  Your contribution to the disco days and to music will never be, at least for this writer, forgotten

Rick Thomas

Well at least we know this.  Will Smith is heterosexual, no question.  And certainly knows how to bitch slap a Russian male reporter who just became a bit too touch feely or should we say a bit too kissy after planting a couple of lip locks on the cheeks of the superstar actor in that country promoting the release of Men In Black 3.

Will Smith Slaps Russian Reporter - TMZ.com Photo

After the second kiss, Will Smith back slapped the goofy looking reporter while Will Smith was walking the red carpet at the premiere.  He took the love initially fine when the reporter grabbed him but the lips on the actor’s cheeks near his mouth were not expected.  And certainly not from someone that Will Smith would have liked to have hugged him while he was in the Ukraine far from his on and off wife who was in France.

“C’mon  man, what the hell is your problem buddy,” said Will Smith after the incident speaking toward the reporter who just kept smiling.  In clear earshot of some microphones Smith also said “he kissed me on my mouth…the joker is lucky I didn’t sucker punch him.”

Smith continued on down the red carpet in humorous style but certainly after the back slap made it clear to the reporter that he was not amused by the goofball’s activities.

Must have had an Ali flashback because if you watch the video from TMZ.com Will Smith can still pack a punch.  Or a slap.

You will laugh…it was pretty funny.

In other Will Smith stuff, this time he didn’t slap Graham Norton on The Graham Norton Show on the BBC.  And it shows those Brits can rock the mike right as they jam on cue when Will and Gary Barlow do their version of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air rap.   Check it out below.

You know you gotta love YouTube.  Cause you can find just about anything, any kind of video on YouTube.  But some of them are so dumb.  Really dumb.

Every once in a while we use YouTube videos as content on our site.  It’s TV as far as we’re concerned so we look around the web on other sites just to find some interesting content that we can upload to make you laugh.

This one is why the irascible Judge Judy who rolls through life with one of the most popular court shows on daytime television tells her plaintiffs and defendants to stay in school.

This blonde really needs to listen to Judge Judy.

Now I like blonds.  As a regular member with an annual subscription to Match.com I tend to spend a lot of time surfing for them in the Orange County region of Southern California.  But this one blond is the type I like to avoid and the title of this video “Downtown Disney” tells me that I could run in to her when I see my clients in that area but now that I see her face I will do my best to avoid this woman.  But my luck is my luck so I have a chance of seeing her sometime soon since Match.com is so much fun.

Probably after writing this story I will have less and less chance of meeting anyone down there but what the hell I like uploading content of my sick, twisted life so here we go.

A couple of clowns who call themselves Prank Versus Prank decided to ask this blond to do whatever they tell her to do on what seems like the boardwalk of any beach community in Orange County Cali.  And she proceeds to do just that.  Seems this one must not have a father because he would be changing his name and move to another area of the world if his sweet daughter is doing such craziness.  But it’s Prank Versus Prank so here she goes.

Yes the title in the video is “Public Embarrassment” which this clearly is.  Stay in school, honey.  Stay in school.

Gotta love Orange County.

Rick Thomas

For some of us there’s never been the demise of the disco era.  When we are wheeling around in our chairs, at the old folks home, gumming down our crushed peaches, playing checkers, speaking too loud because we can’t hear and overcompensate by yelling, we will know part of the reason for our condition.

It was disco.  Plain and pure disco.

It was a time like no other.  I can remember being a producer of talk radio shows in Philadelphia working the nighttime shift, getting done at midnight.  If it was a Wednesday, Thursday or Friday work night, getting off at midnight was not a time to go home.  It was a time to head to what they termed the “fabulous Second Story Night Club” in Center City Philly. Or to the Library on City Avenue.  Or to Club Elan in the Warwick Hotel downtown.

It was time to dance, dance, dance.  To the sound of disco.

The genre got a bad rap after a while.  They tried to re-term the 140 beats per minute music as purely dance music, not disco.  Disco became a four letter word.  What the hell, who cared.  It for a lot of us will always be known as disco.

So let’s get back to the physical conditioning at the beginning of this story.  Loud music.  Reason for hearing loss.  Even now.  Wheeling around in a chair?  Too much bouncing around on the dance floor.  Osteoporosis is setting in which affects the bones.  Playing checkers…the only thing we can remember to do with the amount of illegal substances place in the body during those party years.  Gumming of the peaches…well back to those illegal substance.

And it was a party.  Non-stop.

For those of you that thought you killed off disco a few years after it birth in to the music world, well you didn’t.  Disco officially died yesterday with the passing of the great Donna Summer.  The original “bad girl” has left this earth at 63 years of age taking a significant amount of memories with her.

I was in my car when a business associate told me that Donna Summer died.  And it was shocking because she was so young and this passing was not expected.  But I guess it was more shocking because what was a short period of time for the era of disco.  Yet a big part of many of the important years of lives of many of us growing up is still with most of us today.  And Donna Summer, the disco legend, the Queen of Disco…well just check out the videos in this story.  Remember the music.  Yeah, disco is like a cat.  It had many lives.  But now officially the woman known as Donna Summer who created and paved the way for a plethora of music talent, has left us with her passing from cancer.

What a great era, the era of disco!

Rick Thomas

OK so I grew up with a lot of dogs.  A lot of them in what we called Mitch and Pearline’s ‘House of Horrors’ in West Philly.  We call it that because this was a home where there was this thing called discipline in the physical way when parents back then made sure their kids grew up straight.  When parents made sure their kids got out and got some exercise by playing Fox in the Den, Dodge Ball or Box Ball.

Not like these little fat fuckers today who terrorize neighborhoods in packs of gangs rummaging through the local CVS and taking the phrase “flash mob” and turning it in to a felony.

Nor, as stated, like these fat bastards who sit at home pricking their fingers up and down on cell phones, eating Oreo Cookies and Lay Potato Chips working their way to the cover of Diabetes Weekly or the Obesity Journal.

So things were different and dogs were different.

Our family dogs were really stupid back then.  Not like Pudsey seen on Britain’s Got Talent, the UK version of America’s Got Talent.  The dogs we had couldn’t even be house trained.  A few pissed all over the house, a couple humped every human person that came for a visit to the home and most were so fucking dumb that chewing the electrical cord of a plugged in light was a weekly occurrence.

Some dogs got lit up pretty good on the chew.

None of these dogs could do what Pudsey did with Ashleigh on Britain’s Got Talent.  Damn Pudsey, making all of that money and I still have to by lottery tickets.

Watch this dog.  Damn dog.

Rick Thomas

What a dance song!  I can remember playing this song under one of my many names as a mobile deejay.  Was it Mobile One Disc Jockeys?  Or when I was called Magic Music Deejays and received a cease and desist from the attorneys for Greater Media’s WMGK.  Seems at 20 something years of age I was clearly unaware of infringement issues so that’s when I changed the name to the Mobile One Deejay thing.

Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers hit song Bustin’ Loose was one of those dance tunes, a 12 inch record that you could just put on and easily get those at any party to get up no the floor and shake your ass.

Today the name of Chuck Brown will only be heard as a member of the past.  At 75 years of age, the man who we can’t call a legend on a worldwide basis but we can term Chuck Brown that in the Washington DC black neighborhoods, has passed away.

“His songs connected the city,” said Chris Richards writer for the Washington Post.  Chuck Brown termed his music “go-go” because if you listen to Chuck Brown’s Bustin’ Loose, that’s all the song did when you played it.  It just kept going and going.

After listening to Chuck Brown’s Bustin’ Loose, I can easily say I really feel like busting loose.

RIP Chuck Brown.

 Rick Thomas

His entrance was what we all expected from the King of All Media, Howard Stern.  He comments like he would on his radio show except for the profanity and references to the body parts of strippers on that morning show on Sirius/XM Radio.  A show that has helped in a lot of ways to get that satellite radio company in better shape than it was before he joined the network.

America's Got Talent - Season 7 - Howard Stern

But Howard Stern is back.  Howard Stern is back big time.  His new seat at the judge’s table on NBC’s America’s Got Talent went off with a bang.  Only one reference to the “rather small package” he mentioned to a male stripper but Howard Stern seems in his groove as one of America’s either most love or hated celebrity in the world.

Then there was the contestant with “man boobs” whom Howard Stern referenced his own issues with what becomes part of some men over 50 years of age saying “don’t feel bad…I’m in the same boat my friend.

AMERICA'S GOT TALENT - Season 7 - Nick Cannon, Sharon Osbourne, Howard Stern and Howie Mandel

So Howard Stern is back in the national spotlight.  And quite frankly with America’s Got Talent and NBC in need of a little boost…OK a big boost and a big boost real soon and fast, it was a brilliant move bringing the radio shock jock to be names as judge on the reality show.

No matter what anyone thinks about the reasons for bringing in Howard Stern, no matter what they are paying him to be the new judge on America’s Got Talent, no matter how you feel about Howard Stern, he still is a great asset to any television show.

But you can bet there’s a lot more to come from Howard Stern on America’s Got Talent.

You have to say a Mother’s Day prayer for NBC.  The network that has more problems than an evangelical Christian has with Mitt Romney.  But sometimes you get a network that even with new owners in Comcast still just have issues releasing great content to watch during many of the past seasons.

NBC has some programming problems to address and this set of trailers from their new set of shows set to launch in the fall will not alleviate the issues this network has with their programming.  But anyway I would say enjoy the following trailers but you may have a smell you don’t like once you get to what they call in the movie business “The End” after viewing what you see below.

This is pretty bad.  Not good at all.