I'm a Spalding Gray in a Rick Dees world.
Say hi to your mother for me, okay?
“I’m not sure I can think of any scenario more enjoyable than making 55,000 people from New York shut up.”
- Curt Schilling
That’s my man right there. Never there was a more accountable "gamer." Good on you, sir, and Thanks for your time in my hometown. May you enter the Hall of Fame with a Red Sox cap on your head, as we who were born and raised there will not be the same but for how you've spent your time since 2003. Thanks again.
At the risk of turning this excuse of a blog into a celebrity happenings site, I am compelled to share this news item regarding the previously covered "ShamWow / Slap Chop" guy. I guess he got in trouble for having an altercation with a hooker in 
Miami. Wait... After nailing all the unsuspecting female victims in his hometown of Nowhere, Nebraska, a D- grade "celebrity" can only get action from a pro? I'm shocked. The funny part is, this skinny wannabe actor f**k didn't beat the hooker up. The hooker beat him up. In the words of Jeff Spicoli... Awesome! Totally Awesome!
Here's the story, as reported on The Smoking Gun:
MARCH 27--Meet Vince Shlomi. He's probably better known to you as the ShamWow Guy, the ubiquitous television pitchman who has been phenomenally successful peddling absorbent towels and food choppers. Shlomi, 44, was arrested last month on a felony battery charge following a violent confrontation with a prostitute in his South Beach hotel room. According to an arrest affidavit, Shlomi met Sasha Harris, 26, at a Miami Beach nightclub on February 7 and subsequently retired with her to his $750 room at the lavish Setai hotel. Shlomi told cops he paid Harris about $1000 in cash after she "propositioned him for straight sex." Shlomi said that when he kissed Harris, she suddenly "bit his tongue and would not let go." Shlomi then punched Harris several times until she released his tongue. The affidavit, a copy of which you'll find here, notes that during the 4 AM fight Harris sustained facial fractures and lacerations all over her face (she is pictured here in mug shots snapped following busts in 2008 and 2005). After freeing his tongue, a bleeding Shlomi ran to the Setai lobby, where security summoned cops. Harris refused to cooperate with officers, who recovered $930 from her purse. "Both parties had a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage emitting from their persons," police reported. In a brief telephone interview, Harris declined to answer TSG questions about her run-in with Shlomi, though she did say she is considering a lawsuit against the pitchman. Asked if she worked as a hooker, Harris declined comment. As seen in the below mug shot, Shlomi was also injured during the fracas and, court records show, was treated at Mount Sinai Medical Center. While Shlomi and Harris were both arrested for felony aggravated battery, prosecutors this month declined to file formal charges against the combatants. Police records list Shlomi's occupation as "Marketing," but make no mention of his affiliation with the ShamWow or the Slap Chop, both of which sell for $19.95 (plus shipping and handling).
The blog is sleeping... hoping to awake when the bailout insanity stops. Helping prop up the economy by staking failed corporate giants in exchange for nationalized interest and control is one thing. I'm for nationalization in cases like these, as long as the government exerts a control that's at least commensurate with its fiscal stake in the organization(s), and as long as there is an exit schedule to re-privatize the business with profitability thresholds, and lofty standards for the ownership parties replacing the government once the organization has grown a fresh set of sea legs. It's not fair, throwing financial flotation devices to large companies whose greed and irresponsibility got them (and us) here, when so many small and medium size businesses are operating above-board but don't get the same hook-up. But in the name of keeping most of us out of the bread line, perhaps it's necessary. This AIG business, however, is completely out of control.
Gov't: "Hey guys, you shamelessly bet it all on red 34 and lost. Thanks to you, the size of you, the unregulated irresponsibility of you, and how much the economy depends on you not screwing up this badly, we're in the HOV lane to Depressionville with the gas pedal glued to the floor. Here's $170 billion. Now we own 80% your ass. Don't spend it all in one place."
AIG: "Thanks, Uncle Sam! You don't mind if we give $165 million of it to our executives, you know, as a bonus for their, 2008, um, performance..."
Gov't: "Oh no you don't!"
AIG: "Well, um, we sort of already did. I mean, we promised that bonus money last year, before the economy crumbled. So these guys are, like, entitled to it? Maybe we can ask them to give half the money back?"
Gov't: [changing its underwear] "Uh, we're gonna have to get some rules in place here. Maybe we shoulda thought of that before giving you more money than the residents of an average U.S. town will collectively earn in a lifetime..."
What a clusterf**k. AIG's execs are the people who sent the whole s**thouse up in flames. Not only should they not be paid bonuses, their salaries should be rolled back and their compensation plan should be restructured into a more profit-based schedule. When you're at the helm, your financial success should rise and fall with that of your organization. Sure, a healthy base salary is in order. We all need a guaranteed income in exchange for showing up to work. But at the high levels of a large organization, compensation should be a back-end intensive deal. At my Fortune 500 company, not a single person was paid a bonus for 2008, all base salaries of $100g and up are frozen indefinitely, there's an indefinite moratorium on overnight travel expenses, and merit increases based on 2008 performance won't kick in until August. And we didn't lose much money, just a few million. We're just being fiscally conservative. And we're not a particularly wise organization. We're just not completely f***ing retarded.
When the blog awakes from this topsy-turvy nightmare, have a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios ready for me, okay?