Every time a professional sports team calls upon a city or state for tax money to help fund a new stadium, we get the same old song and dance – why should the taxpayer money help billionaires pay for new facilities that will just make them more money? And then other people fire back that the cities and counties should have to kick in cash because the venues help the economies by boosting sales for bars and restaurants, as well as hotels and strip clubs. It’s the circle of life or something like that.

Now Florida state Sen. Michael Bennett is putting his foot down (after the fact) over the $300 million in taxpayer cash that Florida has paid to help the Miami Marlins build their new stadium, despite being outdrawn in attendance by most college baseball teams. Bennett has argued that stadiums and arenas don’t do anything for the economies as they’re promised and the poor just get poorer, so it’s time to make the billionaires do their parts.

A bill to force taxpayer-funded sports stadiums to double as homeless shelters is making its way through the Florida legislature this week. The bill, introduced by Republican state Sen. Michael Bennett of Florida, seeks the enforcement of a dormant 1988 law that said sports teams that accept public dollars to build their venues must shelter indigent people on off nights.

If teams can’t prove that they’re already complying with the law, Bennett wants them to repay the more than $300 million that Floridians have forked over for facilities such as the Miami Dolphins’ Sun Life Stadium and the Miami Marlins’ new baseball stadium. (Via the Huffington Post)

Check out the big balls on Bennett. Too bad there’s probably no way that this passes, despite the fact that it’s already a law that nobody enforces. As a Florida resident of 31 years, I can say with confidence that rich people will always get what they want. However, that’s why this state is lucky to have my brain at its disposal.

Read the rest of this entry »

“BEWARE LEST YE BECOME THE CURTIS PAINTED” – Jon Bois

Links

Fetushead Cannibalism Creates Possibility For Perfect Fat Hump Story - Headlines like this make me want to write for KSK so bad. The Colts keep getting better, and the only thing funnier than Brett Favre showing up to right the ship would be Curtis Painter continuing to exist. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]

UFC 135: Jones Vs. Rampage Aftermath - Jon Jones “Bones” “Jones” is awesome, if only for the parade of weirdly racist comments that accompany him wherever he goes. You’d think racist people wouldn’t get upset at a black guy having confidence and being good at fighting, but here we are. We are a nation of Jeffs Dunham. [Cage Potato]

She Got Her Nails Did: The Finger Nail Retrogame Art Of Maya Pixelskaya - As long as nobody grows her nails out to 10 feet long and takes pictures for a This Week In WTF World Records, I’m cool with this. [UPROXX]

Blinky In Ink: ‘The Simpsons’ Famous Mutant Fish In The Flesh - For the longest time I wanted to get a Worker and Parasite tattoo. Still might. [Gamma Squad]

Confession: I Didn’t Hate ‘Whitney’ - Matt, I don’t think we can be friends anymore. /laughtrack [Warming Glow]

Black Star & Common Perform “Respiration” Live In Chicago - Look at this brutish thug, Common! I hope nobody ever lets him visit the White House! He’s a thug! [Smoking Section]

Lewis Black Killed On The Chaz Bono/DWTS Controversy - I don’t normally like Lewis Black a lot (outside of doing a pretty funny impression of him), but he absolutely murdered this. I still think the controversy around Chaz Bono being on Dancing With The Stars should be that Chaz Bono is not a f**king star. [UPROXX]

Simon Pegg Continues To Be Awesome - His best performance is still as a guard in the Maths episode of “Look Around You”. Best show ever. [Film Drunk]

Alex Morgan, Hope Solo And Women’s Soccer Still Being A Thing - Tossing this in here in case you missed it on Friday. These women are good at sports and attractive in important ways and you should support them. By, uh, looking at my gallery. [With Leather]

Porkins Finally Gets His Due In These Totally Real Star Wars Blu-ray Deleted Scenes - I hope there are some scenes where Boba Fett takes off his helmet and sounds like Charles Nelson Reilly so I can forget about Star Wars forever. [Gamma Squad]

10 Things You Didn’t Know About “Dazed and Confused” - Did you know? Milla Jovovich made out with me during the production of the film and I convinced her not to appear in 2,000 action movies between the years of 2000 and 2011. Three Musketeers never happened. [Buzzfeed]

Sly Stone Is Living in a Van - Now, Sly Stone is probably asking himself, “Hey, Matt, how can we get back on the right track?!” [FARK]

Sports

The Drew League Vs. Goodman League Game: Only The Highlights - I feel like sub-NBA basketball leagues (or “directly-to-the-right-of the NBA leagues”, I don’t really know how they’re organized) might be the most fun thing ever. It’s just guys dunking and people going OHHHHHHHH. It’s like how video games want basketball to be. [The Smoking Section]

Knockout Of The Week: Flying Switch Kick - The only way this could be better is if Marcus Lelo Aurelios had set his leg on fire before doing it. I want to start knocking out strangers like this. Just yell FLYING SWITCH KICK BOOM and lay them out. [Cage Potato]

Vegetarian Pig Slop And Heat Wave Rasslin - In case you missed it yesterday, here’s my recap of Anarchy Championship Wrestling’s Sunday show featuring the Portia Perez reference you didn’t get in the Best and Worst of Raw. If you like Best and Worst, read this, because it is almost exclusively “best”. [The Wrestling Blog]

This Is The Trailer For The Postmortal - Drew Magary is doing it right. I published a novel a few years ago and it was a weird little aside to growing up in religious central Virginia. Drew writes something and it’s a “frightening population-bomb dystopia”. Holy sh**, how do I get somebody to call my writing that? [KSK]

With Leather

The Best And Worst Of WWE Raw 8/22 - Quick version: John Cena might actually be gay, Kelly Kelly is wandering around out here for no reason and WWE is exactly like Dragonball Z. Okay, that version is actually way more confusing than the long one. Anyway, go read this and comment, would you? [With Spandex]

Gallery: The Homeless World Cup - I’m with Burnsy, the Homeless World Cup doesn’t look very homeless. I want to be homeless in Paris, that sounds awesome. Look at me, I’m a romanticized young white adult! [With Leather]

The Dugout: SFinal Destination - Yesterday we finished up Bill Hanstock’s special guest writer Dugout series about the San Francisco Giants and their penchant for going on the DL, so give the strip a re-read in its entirety. Yes, Jorge Posada’s screen name is pretty awesome. [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

Gallery: Wet Cheerleaders - I’m just going to stop putting “Joe Namath” in the title so you’ll go look at it. There are wet volleyball cheerleader butts in this, in case you haven’t looked. [With Leather]

Not Sports

This Is A Triumph: Live-Action Portal Short Film - I’m making a note here: huge success. It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction. Although if this was a REAL Portal movie, Chell would be played by an orange, blonde 40-year old and GLaDOS would be a manipulative dude in a suit. [Gamma Squad]

Will And Jada Are Getting Divorced - When reached for comment, Will Smith asked “why she ain’t want me, man”. [Film Drunk]

Bret Michaels And Donald Trump May Team Up For Reality Show - It’s like going to your comic book store and finding out there’s a new Marvel Team-Up, but it’s like Cloak and Dagger and one of the New Warriors. And not even Nova, I’m talking Night Thrasher. [Warming Glow]

OK Go Cover “The Muppet Show” Theme - OK Go is a cool website that adds forgettable music to wacky viral videos. Wait, that’s not what this is? [UPROXX]

More than 500 bums, hobos, transients, tramps, and the “socially marginalized” from 48 countries have gathered in Paris, France for the 9th annual Homeless Cup games. Yes, it is exactly what you think – homeless people playing soccer. However, these aren’t the meth-addled, schizophrenic dumpster-divers that you and I have grown to loathe and avoid eye contact with. These are down-on-their-luck men and women with a collective goal of ending global homelessness. You know, low aspirations.

I have to admit, when I first read about this yesterday while eating diamond-encrusted lobster and wiping my mouth with hundred dollar bills, I pictured a more barbaric, Thunderdome-esque competition, with discarded food being thrown into the arena to encourage violence. But it’s actually a pretty nice looking event.

In fact, it reminds me of a similar idea that I had last year. *cue wavy dream flashback sequence*

Read the rest of this entry »

The Cleveland Cavaliers offered Ted Williams (the other one) an announcing gig when he shot to fame with a viral YouTube video, and now that a little bit of time has passed and everyone has forgotten it, they can take it back. The story of Williams’ God-given gift of voice broke earlier this year, and in Internet time it might as well have happened in the 1700s alongside the birth of our nation, the invention of the cotton gin, and What What In The Butt.

It turns out the Cavs made an offer to a homeless stranger without realizing he was, uh, homeless. From the News-Herald:

The bum turned star isn’t working for the Cleveland Cavaliers. They famously offered him a deal after his YouTube video went viral, without realizing the long resume of drug abuse and criminal activity he’s provided society over the years as a derelict.

I guess somebody being homeless is only okay if you don’t know why they’re homeless. To the Cavs’ credit, Williams did sort of shoot himself in the foot by doing a bunch of drugs, getting detained by police for shouting at his daughter in a hotel, and getting talked down to by Dr. Phil in minute maybe two-and-a-half of his fame. He lost his macaroni commercial, he lost a few teeth, and now this.

In a related story, the Cavs also took back the organ player offer they made to Keyboard Cat after finding out he’s a real cat and can’t actually play the keyboard.

Thanks to golden-voiced hobo sensation Ted Williams, the media has been locked in on vagrant diamonds in the rough. And while it doesn’t quite match the brilliance of sending a reporter out to make homeless people sing, AOL News recently discovered that Debbie Clark is homeless. If you’re like me, you’re fluent in every romantic language, but you also just asked, “Who is Debbie Clark?” She was Storm on “American Gladiators” from 1991-93 and an Olympic handball competitor. And don’t say, “Ohhhh…” because you didn’t know that.

Storm has been homeless in San Diego for over 2 years, after she left South Carolina due to a situation of domestic violence. She describes how things were great during her 3-year run on the original “Gladiators”, as she made $1,500 per episode and rubbed elbows with celebrities. But that all came to an end when she blew out her ACL and she never recovered properly…

Read the rest of this entry »