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Luckily for me, this was an off-travel weekend, so I was able to hibernate in my house while it snowed here in New England. Seriously…I wore the same thing from Saturday at noon until Monday morning and didn’t see another human during that time. I’m not mad about either thing. I watched four football games, I ate reasonably healthy, and I finally put away all of the holiday crap scattered around my place. All in all, not a bad weekend for me. But these five people probably can’t say the same thing.
Martin Shkreli
There’s not a lot that we can agree on in this world but I think we all do on this: Martin Shkreli is a scumbag of a human being. In case you forgot who he is, Shkreli is the bottom feeder that raised the price of Daraprim (pyrimethamine), a 62-year-old drug used for protozoal infections, to $750 a tablet from $13.50 after his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, acquired it. He then was arrested in a securities fraud probe, weirdly asked random celebrities to listen to Wu-Tang with him, and dropped teases from Lil Wayne’s forthcoming album, “Tha Carter V,” without permission from Lil Wayne…because pissing off a guy that spent a year in Rikers is a good idea. But surprisingly, none of those are the reasons Shkreli’s weekend went to crap.
Instead, Shkreli’s weekend sucked because he managed to do one of the hardest things in the world: get himself kicked off Twitter. Apparently, Shkreli has developed an obsession with writer Lauren Duca, who has been blowing up lately due to her essay, “Trump is Gaslighting America” for Teen Vogue. Shkreli decided to slide into Duca’s DMs with an invite to Trump’s inauguration, which Duca posted publicly:
Well, apparently Shkreli doesn’t take rejection too well, because he then went all in on Duca (who is married), adding that he has “a small crush on @laurenduca” to his Twitter bio, changing his profile pic to a photo of Duca and her husband, with his own face photo-shopped onto her husband’s body, and his banner to a collage of photos of Duca. So, like straight up psycho shit.
Duca took to Twitter, appealing to Twitter’s Jack Dorsey:
And the result was Shkreli’s account being suspended. Now how will he ask people to listen to music with him? [Via CNBC]
Charles Brotman
Speaking of Trump’s inauguration…there’s one class of people that it really pisses me off to see mistreated, and that’s the elderly. Which is why I am exceedingly pissed off over what Mr. Trump did to Mr. Brotman.
Charles has announced every single inauguration parade since 1957. Meaning that he’s done it for eleven presidents, both Democrat and Republican. But Trump decided to unceremoniously dump the 89-year-old Brotman, who was the voice of the Washington Senators baseball team, replacing him with 58-year-old freelance announcer Steve Ray.
Brotman was not informed of the change until this week, after he had already begun his preparations for the parade. He told WJLA that he was “heartbroken” and “destroyed” when he learned via email he was not invited back this year.
In a statement, Presidential Inaugural Committee Director of Communications Boris Epshteyn said:
“Since 1957, millions of Americans and countless entertainers have come to recognize Charlie Brotman as the voice of the inaugural parade. The Presidential Inaugural Committee will be proud to honor Charlie as Announcer Chairman Emeritus on January 20th. We are thrilled for Steve Ray to be introducing a new generation of Americans to the grand traditions of the inaugural parade.”
Hey, Boris? FUCK YOU. You dumped at 89-year-old man via email. You are literally the worst.
For his part, it’s clear that new announcer Ray understands that what happened to Brotman is shitty and is trying to stay classy, saying, “I’m not replacing Charlie. I’m not filling his shoes. I’m really just the guy who’s next, because Charlie is irreplaceable. He’s an absolute legend.”
Brotman is staying classy as well, telling the station, “I want [Ray] to do good. As opposed to, boy, I hope he fouls up so they say, ‘We want Charlie back.’ No. I don’t want that at all. I’m saying, ‘You know what? Good luck, young man. I hope you do spectacular’,” adding, “And I’m thinking – you know what, Charlie Brotman? You are one lucky son of a gun!”
And that, Mr. Trump, is what class looks like. [Via WJLA]
Chris Brown
Brown has been a busy guy this week. Apparently Brown and Soulja Boy are having some kind of beef and they are going to have a Pay-Per-View boxing match to sort it all out, with Floyd Mayweather, Mike Tyson and 50 Cent getting involved for reasons I don’t understand. Well, whatever the hell is going on with that, there is one place Brown won’t be training for the main event: Life Time Fitness, because Breezy managed to get himself a lifetime ban from the gym chain.
According to TMZ, Brown got himself booted from the chain’s NYC location on Friday, after he got into it with a manager after he and his crew “were on the basketball courts playing loud music, cussing and hurling insults. Witnesses say a manager asked them to leave and Chris lost it … even spitting on the way out.” A rep for the chain later announced that Brown would be permanently banned from the gym’s more than 100 locations.
Well, at least he didn’t hit a woman this time. [Via TMZ]
Matt Moore
Yes, there were three other QBs that had a bad weekend – The Lions’ Matthew Stafford, The Raiders’ Connor Cook, and The Giants’ Eli Manning – but none of them got absolutely trucked in on their way to playoff elimination like Moore did. In case you missed it, here it is:
Watch it with your volume up, because I think you can actually hear the life get knocked out of Moore for a quick minute. Now, let’s give the guy credit: after that absolute obliteration on the illegal hit by the Steelers’ Bud Dupree, Moore only was out for one play. Of course, the tweets about the hit were hilarious (after Moore got up), but none was better than the one from our friend Dan Regester:
A football/Bachelor tweet? Does it get any better?! Dan may have won Twitter this weekend…but Moore didn’t win anything besides the concussion protocol.
Sonny Dykes
If you’re born with the last name Dykes, you really don’t have much choice but to do something exceedingly cool for work, so people will lay the hell off. Well, Sonny Dykes did have a cool job, as head coach of the football team at Cal…until he didn’t have it anymore.
Dykes was fired rather unceremoniously on Sunday, via an announcement from the school. Dykes did not even get the opportunity to tell his team himself. According to ESPN, Dykes sent out the following message to the team after his firing:
“I am as surprised as you all about the news today. I am sorry you all found out the way you did. All I can say is I am incredibly proud of each and every one of you; it has been an honor to be your coach. If you keep working hard and doing things the right way, you will have success in everything you do. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me any time. God Bless.”
Let’s not feel too bad for Mr. Dykes: under his contract, Dykes owed 70 percent of his remaining base salary and talent fee, which is $5.88 million. [Via ESPN]
Image via CBS / YouTube
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Jenna Crowley
Jenna used to be known as 2NOTBrokeGirls, but then one of the girls actually went broke, so she's struck out on her own. Jenna spends her free time saving the world, one sorority girl at a time (usually while wearing yoga pants), questioning why she decided to get a doctorate, documenting her love of all things cheese related, and hosting the new PGP podcast Don't Take It From Us. You can ask her anything you want about football, using your boobs to get what you want, and pizza at @JennaLCrowley on Twitter or via email at JennaLCrowley@gmail.com.
@JennaLCrowley
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Shkreli isn’t a total dirtbag for the price hike. R&D for drugs to go from an idea to market is billions, some people will spend a lifetime without a drug seeing market and that costs money. He said that if you can’t afford it then he’ll just send you the drug (those without insurance) and offered to keep a fresh bottle on the shelf of any pharmacy because its so rare of a disease, most expire before they actually get used.
Great internet troll and not the best guy ever but not the worst thing ever. Fuck the people who hiked epipens though, the drug is common they just have a patent on the injector.
Thank you. Glad someone understands economics and the thought process behind why he did what he did. Not saying it’s right but it’s been extremely miscalculated by the media (big surprise.)
I do R&D for big pharma and know the struggle.
Not really a fan of Shkreli but that interaction was pretty damn funny. He trolled the shit out of her and she flew off the (twitter) handle.
Dude is no doubt a weirdo and creep but I’ll be damned if he’s not entertaining.
What he did, was it fucking weird? Yes. But I’m not sure it’s worthy of a suspension. I know harassment and online bullying is a touchy subject, but I think anyone can tell he was just trolling and not serious.
I really hope Chris Brown and Soulja Boy manage to knock each other out to prove once for all that they’re both losers.
Nah, it’s going to be another mayweather paquaio fight. Neither want to be destroyed on-line if they get knocked out
No mention of Odell Beckham?
I feel worse for the wall that he punched than that crybaby
I’d say Joey Porter for honorable mention, but his team won so his weekend really wasn’t THAT bad
Who has the more punchable face, Martin Shkreli or Affluenza teen? I honestly can’t decide.
The dolphin community is still reeling/in mourning after that hit. Pretty sure I got a concussion just from watching.
I don’t feel the slightest bit bad about Charles Brotman. He’s just another example of an old guy that doesn’t know when to hang it up.