END OF THE WEEK:
Another week, another seven day period full of memorable stuff happening. Without further ado, here are those people and events that I thought was the epitome, the last full week of June and the last week to end the first half of 2011:
Tweet of the Week: "Dear Friends, I just launched http://t.co/fVHpS9y Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ! With my prayers and blessings, Benedictus XVI"
-Pope Benedict XVI in his very first 140 characters or less message on the popular social media site, Twitter. Nice to see the man find another way to use 21st Century technology to preach his church's 10th Century ideology.
Stories of the Week:
- The Actual Story of the Week: Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich Found Guilty on 17 Charges
Proving once again, as Jon Stewart pointed out on "The Daily Show," that you have a better chance of going to jail as an ex-Illinois governor than a murderer.
- The Tiger Woods Saga of '09 Memorial Story of the Week: "Dateline: To Catch a Predator" Host Chris Hansen Caught Cheating On Someone On Camera
Is this considered payback if the people that you hurt were proven pedophiles?
Bankruptcy of the Week: The Los Angeles Dodgers
The good news: this move makes Frank McCourt ever so close to selling this team. The bad news: it's kind of a sad state of affairs in this world of sport where the Clippers are more financially stable in Los Angeles than the Dodgers, and the former's owner just helped lead the NBA into a lockout!
Video of the Week: "Splitscreen: A Love Story"
This movie, directed by JW Griffiths, won the 2011 Nokia Shorts Competition for best short film done entirely with a Nokia N8 Mobile Phone. Plus it was much less racist than what I assume what his now deceased relative D.W. Griffith, so there's that!
Person of the Week: 34 Year Old Rapper Raymond Velazquez (stage name C.I. Joe)
for being both brave enough and insane enough to actually climb on top of a traffic light pole in a crowded New York street, and then singing and sitting their for a two hour period without the care of annoying drivers that he was responsible for stalling countless drivers from reaching their wanted destinations. Yes, dear reader, you have read that right! Continuing the theme of brazen New Yorkers this week that began with the state legislature legalizing gay marriage, the aspiring rapper who claimed that his dream was to one day meet singer Alicia Keys, decided to do one of the strangest acts of self-promotion this year by going to Times Square of all places (right after he was rejected out of the MTV building), climb up a 20 foot traffic light pole on a very busy street corner (44th & Broadway) and then proceed to rap and promote his CD in front of hundreds of onlookers from around 9:30 a.m. local time to around 11:30 a.m. local time. It wasn't until after a long period of rapping lyrics that I'm sure were nonsensical and around seven or so policemen (judging by the pictures) bargaining with him to come down that Velazquez decided that he had rubbed too many people's shoulders wrong and came down. So, it's safe to say that this was nothing more than a man trying to achieve some notorious attention.
But wait, there's more! Apparently, once Velazquez (who earlier in February had a similar incident on the "Today" show, saying things like "I'm God's gift to music!") was finally brought down (sent to a Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric evaluation) and the extremely backed up traffic in the area was finally starting to get cleared out, he still proceeded to continue his mini-tour of self promotion by passing out his rap albums to a small amount of bystanders. So, to recap: even after he had just completed an act that got some pretty good (and annoying) publicity in itself (it did happen in Times Square, after all!) and doing another memorable incident on another notable area in New York's downtown area (30 Rockefeller Plaza), Velazquez still felt that this wasn't enough! Now that's a man with some dedication to make his name known!
And yet the best part is that, despite being the bane of countless amounts of Times Square drivers that day, Velazquez did end up getting what he wanted: his name to be newsworthy. From newspapers to websites to major TV news programs, the Rapper in Red (that was the color of his shirt that day) probably became more known and talked about in that two hour span than in his previous 34 years of existence. Besides, as the old saying goes: any publicity is good publicity. Should be interesting to see if the so-called C.I. Joe (Coney Island) got enough publicity to get some kind of boost in his hip-hop career, or if his 15 Minutes of Fame will inspiring quickly enough to make him decide to do an act of similar nature in the future.
-Runner-ups: The Federal Election Commission for approving Stephen Colbert's "Super PAC" with a 5-1 vote Thursday morning, giving his organization the right to spend countless amounts of money towards making ads used to potentially influence voters in the 2012 election and for continuing his ingenious piece of satire/protest against any PAC organizations, and...oh, yeah, New York state politicians for granting gay marriage, putting the total number of states in the U.S. allowing such thing to seven. All right, gays, got the majority of the Northeast covered, people, now go spread your fabulous message across the prairie states why don't ya!
As mentioned earlier this week, this is the last post that I will be writing before I head off to vacation for the next 15 days. In other words, from now until Monday the 18th (of this month) you will not find me posting anything in this blog other than my 2nd annual Independence Day post (probably just a re-post of last year's installment). So...stay safe until then and enjoy a fun fortnight without my usual weekly doses of half-baked thoughts and look-backs of the past week. I hope you miss my writing just as much I will miss your readership (gulp)!
Sincerely,
Your pal: mj15
If you have any opinions on today's post, or if you just have any suggestions or tips for my next blog entry, e-mail me at: mj1599@aol.com. Your e-mails are greatly appreciated.
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