Archive

Author Archives: Dan Gartland

An Index Of The Worst Players to Appear For the Yankees This Season

By
July 23, 2013
Baseball, Sports
Leave a comment

Image

The Yankees have used 45 different players this season. Many of them are awful, like Jayson Nix and Chris Stewart. But at least those guys are career backups who are good enough defensively to justify a spot on the roster. The guys listed below are the worst of the worst. They’re just awful, awful baseball players. “Baseball players” might be too generous. They are average citizens in baseball uniforms, masquerading as baseball players. I would welcome them with open arms to my intramural softball team, but they have no right being anywhere near a Major League Baseball field.  Read More

Advertisement

Magna Carta… Holy Grail: The Rapper Versus the Businessman

By
July 12, 2013
Hip-Hop, Music, Pop Culture
Leave a comment

Image

When I think about Jay-Z’s Magna Carta… Holy Grail, there’s one lyric that won’t stop bouncing around my brain. It’s eight years old: “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man.” I mean, how else could Jay sell a million records before anyone even knew the album existed?

MCHG was announced in conjunction with a $5 million deal with Samsung that allowed one million of its smartphone users to download the album for free five days before its official release. It’s a testament to Jay-Z The Musician’s immense popularity that Jay-Z The Businessman (or Business, Man) could even make such a deal, but it’s also the epitome of “selling out.” And therein lies the problem with Jay-Z: I love him as a musician. I’m impressed by the way he has progressed from the gangster braggadocio of Reasonable Doubt to the King of the Rap Game braggadocio of Watch the Throne, and everything he’s done in between. I love how he proves you don’t need an MBA to be a brilliant business man. But can he continue play both roles?

Read More