In a development almost as terrifying as Rupert Murdoch’s brief ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the venerable Dodger Dog is now under the stewardship of the Hormel Corporation.
(bad news for everyone)
Though a company spokesperson claims that Hormel “will in no way change any recipe or the grilling and the whole nine yards up at Dodger Stadium”, I’m not about to find out firsthand, and you shouldn’t either.
Says Sam Frank, “insert Randy Johnson joke, here”. From The New York Times’ Andrew Jacobs.
In a quiet revolution sweeping the blue-collar precincts of metropolitan New York, mechanics, firemen and construction workers – most of them insistently heterosexual – are unapologetically doting on their eyebrows. Inspired by “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and the well-coiffed rap artists on BET, cowed by tweezers-wielding girlfriends and goaded by wisecracking co-workers, they are plucking and waxing as never before. And they don’t lie about it.
“Eyebrows were the last frontier,” said Louis DeJesus, a hair stylist whose Bronx salon, International Nails and Beauty, started seeing an influx of men about two years ago. “Everyone’s doing it now. And once a guy starts doing it, he gets addicted.”
From the immigrant enclaves of Queens to the minimalls of Long Island, modest salons that once catered to women find themselves inundated by primping, preening men, most of them young working-class guys who tend to spend their weekends at dance clubs. Even the Gotti brothers, the ones with their own reality television show, have embraced a minimalist approach to facial hair.
Carol Cedeno, a manicurist at Tom’s Scissorhands, a salon in Paterson, N.J., has seen the trend. “A lot of the guys used to be embarrassed, but now they just walk in and say it proudly: ‘I want my eyebrows done,’ ” she said, noting that her salon offers a wax job for $5. “Sometimes their eyebrows end up looking more dainty than their girlfriends’.”
When he first started tweezing last year, Al Bernal, a 31-year-old auto mechanic from Newark, said his friends called his sexuality into question. “They said I looked, you know, gay,” said Mr. Bernal, whose style is maintained by his fiancée. “Of course, these days they do it, too, and they love it because they get a lot more attention from chicks.”
(hard to believe this guy isn’t getting any action)
In the wake of his attempt to rearrange the face of LeBron James the other night, let us reflect on the long and storied career of Dikembe Mutumbo.
While not quite “The People’s Elbow”, Houston’s Mutumbo has dished out punishment to multiple generations of NBA stars, as ESPN’s research deparment helpfully reports :
April 20, 2004: Kenyon Martin, hit in the eye and retaliated by clubbing Mutombo across the arm. Received a technical foul
March 31, 2003: Yao Ming, hit in the throat. Mutombo assessed flagrant foul
Feb. 4, 2002: Vince Carter, hit in the gut
May 16, 2001: Vince Carter, hit in the head. Carter did not return to Game 6 of the Eastern Conference playoffs
May 6, 2001: Chris Childs, broken nose
Feb. 26, 2001: Ray Allen, broken nose
Jan. 13, 2001: Corey Maggette, eye trauma
Dec. 28, 2000: Chauncey Billups, hit in the mouth, four stitches, fractured front tooth
Feb. 6, 1999: Jayson Williams, broken nose
May 4, 1999: Mark Strickland, broken nose
May 8, 1999: Lindsey Hunter, left eye
May 8, 1999: Christian Laettner, cut on face
April 9, 1999: Chris Childs, lost a tooth; Marcus Camby, shot to throat; Larry Johnson, hit in the head; Patrick Ewing, hit in the head
March 4, 1999: Kevin Willis, injured shoulder. Missed several games
May 6, 1997: Dennis Rodman, retaliated and ejected with second technical foul
April 12, 1997: Tom Gugliotta, broken nose
Jan. 30, 1997: Antoine Carr, knocked senseless
Jan. 4, 1997: Charles Oakley, four stitches to the lip
Oct. 22, 1996: Michael Jordan, bloodied nose (preseason game)
April 10, 1994: Robert Horry, hit in the head, fell to the floor
Dec. 30, 1993: Chris Webber; Mutombo later ejected for taunting Chris Gatling
Dec. 28, 1991: Robert Parish, hit the floor
Nov. 29, 1991: Ricky Pierce, 12 stitches in forehead