Starbucks has plans to close around 600 stores that don’t perform to their standards. This will eliminate 12,000 full and part time employees. The store closures will happen at the end of the first half of the fiscal year; aka September 2009. Severence costs could be up to $348 million. Only 200 new U.S. stores are set to open in 2009. Better start digging out your best local coffee shops or switch to Peet’s. It might be nice not to see that green Starbucks symbol every block. Kick the expensive habit or get angry?

Madonna has an estimated fortune of 600 million so she’s looking for the best divorce lawyer on earth. She recently contacted Fiona Shackleton, used by Sir Paul McCartney in his case against that bitch Heather Mills. The 49-year-old pop star and international icon is getting legal advice about divorcing Guy Ritchie, her husband of seven years. She has been sighted without her wedding ring as well. Guess the tabloid rumors were true after all.

Shackleton is supposed to be the best celebrity lawyer one can find and after the McCartney trial she was so successful, Heather Mills got pissed and poured a jug of water over her head.

There is said to be no pre-nuptial agreement so the starting point would be to split everything 50-50. Ritchie is movin’ on up!

Just got a message from my pal and venerable indie-folk touring champion Drew Danburry about the fate of Village Green Records, an independent music store in Muncie, Indiana. It seems someone broke in and stole their rent money. As if it wasn’t hard enough to operate an independent record store/tour stop when poeple are caring less and less about buying albums and seeing live music…

If you have $5 to spare (and a paypal account), you can help keep this musical institution alive.

In Muncie, Indiana there is a locally run independent record store run by some of my friends called Village Green Records. They have been providing excellent independent music for a few years now and have done countless shows for local and touring bands including myself.

Unfortunately, on Thursday, someone had the audacity to search through private rooms, and discovered the location of the rent money and stole it. Now the record store is $500 short for their June rent, which is already overdue, and is in danger of being shut down/evicted.

Village Green Records and a band (ITFOW) are asking for your help through small donations to the record store in order to keep it open. If 100 people donate $5 each, then VGR will be able to stay open and provide support to the independent music scene.

If you have paypal, and would be willing to donate to this cause, please send your donations to

endperfecto@hotmail.com

Thanks guys. It would be a good thing to do. Definitely.

With news that the current mortgage crisis has gotten so out of control in America that even millionaires such as Ed McMahon and Evander Holyfield have both recently had their homes foreclosed on is a total fucking farce. The mortgage crisis is affecting the middle class home owners that got an adjustable rate loan they could barely afford to make the payment on during the housing boom, and now REALLY can’t afford it. That was during the time when I saw homes that should have been worth about 150 grand selling for almost 3 times that amount for no reason.

But I digress. The Holyfield and McMahon situations are simply a case of those two being dumb fucks. Those two getting foreclosed on is happening for two reasons: A) they are both stupid. And B) they are both REALLY stupid. First of all, the Holyfield mansion had 17 BATHROOMS!! Who has to shit that much?! Who even knows 17 people that all have to shit at the same time?! Are you telling me he couldn’t have got by with an 8 to 10 bathroom mansion without having people complain they had to wait to take a dump? And when McMahon was asked about how this happened to him he replied “Well, if you spend more money than you make, you know what happens. And it can happen. You know, a couple of divorces thrown in, a few things like that. And, you know, things happen.” No, I don’t know Ed. After I lock my keys in the car while it’s still running I say “things happen”. Not after going $644,000 behind on a $4.8 million dollar home because I can’t figure it the fuck out!

It’s crazy how rich people forget what it’s like not to be rich. Holyfield had better start the rematch with Tyson talks like ASAP, and Ed McMahon better be on the horn to Conan O’brien offering to suck his freckled cock to be his sidekick when he takes Leno’s spot faster you can say “and our defending champion recieves…..two and three quarters stars!”. Fucking morons.

[The following article, written by Bob Howard for Synthesis Weekly, was originally published in the print version of Synthesis on Monday, May 19th, 2008. He can be reached at bob@madbob.com]

Keep on Drinking
By Bob Howard

“Be it destiny or free will, there are those amongst us who might do the rest of society a favor by staying on the couch, taking bong rips and playing the latest version of Grand Theft Auto.”

A Long History of Stupid: I’ve just started reading a biography of long-time FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, and as a result, I’m learning quite a lot about the history of this country and the tradition of our government cracking down on dissent. This latest episode of our history is far from the first time the Bill of Rights has been superseded and suspended in the name of “security.” I have yet to grasp the logic of suspending freedoms to ensure security when I thought that the whole thing we are trying to secure in the first place is freedom; but I digress.
Anyway, here are some interesting factoids I’ve picked up thus far: Remember when in protest of the French dissent against the “War on Terror” our Congress made the brilliant move of re-naming French Fries “Freedom Fries?” Seems like a pretty creative manifestation of nationalistic stupidity, right? Wrong. During World War I, our Congress re-named Sauerkraut “Liberty Cabbage.” Our current stupidity isn’t even original! How do you like that?

Think the threat of terrorism is a new thing? Wrong. Just prior to and then after World War I, the Red Scare developed. Anarchists and Communists were on the rise and there were actually a series of letter bombs and bomb attacks that riddled the nation’s capitol and industrial power figures.
These attacks lead to a complete abridgment of the freedoms granted in the Bill of Rights. Anyone suspected of being a communist, a socialist, or a sympathizer — essentially any Russian factory worker — was rounded up in mass arrests and many were unceremoniously deported so quickly that there wasn’t even time for an appeal.

More heartwarming thoughts after the jump. (more…)

The question above is a good one. On this hand, you have Barry Zito; a season into a seven year, $126 million contract, Zito has established himself as one of baseball’s bottom of the barrel starting pitchers. On the other, you’ve got Mike Hampton; at the tail end of receiving millions upon millions of dollars for 100+ missed starts over the past seven seasons. ESPN analyst Jayson Stark has a nice contrast and comparison here.