Crisis averted. Tyler the Creator, winner of the MTV VMA best new artist for 2011, won't be killing himself Sunday (Aug. 28).
Let's back up: During the pre-show, when Tyler realized he was at the bottom of MTV's gimmicky Tweet Tracker while Bruno Mars was up top, he told MTV host Sway that that Mars' music "sucked." Not only that, but that if he lost the best new artist award to Mars, Tyler said, "I might kill myself."
The Twitterverse was quick to point out that Tyler's winning single, "Yonkers," contains potentially homophobic lyrics.
"140 characters is but a fraction of what is required to express my contempt for the misogynist, homophobic mess that is Tyler 'the Creator," tweeted @planethitthesun.
Others noted that most of his acceptance speech was indecipherable since it was mostly bleeped out:
Cobra Starship And Sabi Perform 'You Make Me Feel' At The 2011 VMA Pre-Show.
Cobra Starship And Sabi Perform 'You Make Me Feel' At The 2011 VMA Pre-Show.
Then on Saturday, Cobra Starship, Joe Jonas and Miguel are set to perform at mtvU's VMA Concert to Benefit Lifebeat – Music Fights HIV. Cobra Starship, along with special guest Sabi, will perform their track "You Make Me Feel" during the black carpet
Then on Saturday, Cobra Starship, Joe Jonas and Miguel are set to perform at mtvU's VMA Concert to Benefit Lifebeat – Music Fights HIV. Cobra Starship, along with special guest Sabi, will perform their track "You Make Me Feel" during the black carpet
Cobra Starship with Sabi performed You Make Me Feel on the MTV VMAs preshow. Watch it below:
onah Hill is directing his first music video with Sara Bareilles, the singer/songwriter behind the radio-dominating singles “Love Song” and “King of Anything.”
Hill tweeted a picture of himself at a shoot today, which shows the actor in what looks like a grocery store. The actor is directing the video for Bareilles’ next single “Gonna Get Over You,” which has a guest spot from Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic. The video doesn’t have a release date yet.
For Hill, the decision to direct the pop-friendly Bareilles seems weird, considering his on-screen apparel (Pixies and Beirut t-shirts) and enthusiasm for the Mars Volta in Get Him to the Greek. But time will have to tell what the potty-mouthed comedian will bring to Bareilles’ video.
NEW YORK (AP) — Corporations are people. The fundamentals of the economy are strong. I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it.
From Mitt Romney this month to John McCain in 2008 and John Kerry four years earlier, presidential candidates have created problems for themselves by blurting out words that are at once factual but politically ill-advised.
Voters say they want straight-talking candidates. But voters also tend to punish candidates who veer too far off script or who make assertions that, while true, cause people to cringe and question whether these politicians are out of touch with those they seek to represent.
Consider Romney who recently confronted a heckler demanding higher taxes on corporations.
"Corporations are people, my friend," the GOP presidential hopeful and former Massachusetts governor shot back. "Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people."
Corporations are made up of the people who work for them and stockholders who benefit from their profits. The Supreme Court said as much last year when it eased restrictions on campaign spending by corporations.
But was it smart for Romney to say, given the nation's mood? Probably not.
Massachusetts Sen. Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee, learned a hard lesson about reinforcing an existing story line. He opposed money for the war in Iraq and voted against the legislation when it came up for final consideration. But he had gone along with an earlier version.
At one point, he told supporters: "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it." He was trying to explain that he wanted to ensure troops had the necessary equipment, but at the same time hoped to convey a message of opposition to the war.
The result was that Republicans cast Kerry as a flip-flopper.
McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in 2008, created some problems for his campaign after the collapse of Lehman Brothers investment bank at the outset of the global finance meltdown.
"The fundamentals of the economy are strong," McCain said, trying to reassure a jittery nation. Few probably would disagree with that explanation, but as the stock market tanked his sound bite sounded jarringly off base.
It was a searing misstatement for the Arizona senator who'd never seemed comfortable discussing the economy.
Local forecasters said the path of Irene was shifting westward, putting the city squarely on the wrong side of the storm and raising the prospect of 10-foot storm surges. By 1 a.m. ET the city's Central Park had already gotten two inches of rain, with much more expected.
If the forecasts bear out, it would lend some support to Mayor Michael Bloomberg's order for the evacuation of low-lying areas such as Manhattan's financial district. Just across the Hudson River from the district in Hoboken, New Jersey, an evacuation shelter had to be evacuated itself due to flooding.
"Conditions are expected to deteriorate rapidly," a tired-looking Bloomberg told a news conference late on Saturday, urging people to stay indoors. "The storm is now finally hitting New York City. The winds will increase, the rain will increase and the tidal surge will increase."
By all accounts, most heeded his plea to shelter in place, but Times Square still proved irresistible to some tourists who had nothing better to do.
"We just came to see how few people are in Times Square and then we're going back," said Cheryl Gibson, an Edmonton, Canada, resident who has been on vacation in the city for a week and had been planning to go to the other side of the Hudson River on Sunday.
"We can't get to New Jersey and I'm not sure it's any better there," she said.
Further up the street, on a pedestrian mall, a group of firefighters from Vancouver in town for the World Police and Fire Games played an impromptu game of street hockey.
Despite the pouring rain, many played bare-chested, but the game did not last -- approximately 20 New York police officers broke up the game with no arrests.
NO SHELTER
By mid-evening, one of the many umbrella sellers who pop up all over New York whenever it rains was sold out -- he said it had been a good day for sales, but he was not planning to take shelter from the storm.
"My shelter used to be on the trains but now they stopped that," said the man, who declined to give his real name but said "Call me Motown."
"This is what keeps me going," he added, pointing to the small portable radio playing music in his cart. "Hey, listen, it's 'Walking in the rain,'" he said with a laugh.
While Motown was in good cheer despite the storm, the situation grew increasingly serious overnight. At least 8,000 customers were already without electricity in the city, hours before the worst of the wind and rain hit. Most were in Staten Island though at least one was also out in Manhattan.
Both the Henry Hudson Parkway on Manhattan's west side and FDR Drive to the island's east were starting to flood, with heavy pooling and tow trucks strategically idling on the sides of the road. The city's mass transit system, including subways, was shut down from the middle of Saturday.
After Bloomberg ordered the unprecedented evacuation of 370,000 people living in neighborhoods near the water's edge, more than 3,700 took refuge in the city's shelters, thousands more fled to the homes of friends or relatives and others defiantly stayed behind.
A smattering of food and liquor stores stayed open while the public transit system that moves 8.5 million people each weekday halted operations, also a first.
The giant 580-mile (930-km)-wide storm unleashed 8O miles per hour (130 km per hour) winds, grounding aircraft all along the heavily populated eastern seaboard.
While shelters were mostly empty, others such as the John Adams High School in Queens overflowed.
At the Brooklyn Tech High School shelter, evacuees watched weather reports on a large television screen in the auditorium while others dined on mozzarella sticks, string beans, milk and apple sauce.
"I didn't want to leave (home), I wanted to stay, but I feared for my life. I didn't want to get stuck in the dark and in the flood," said Margie Robledo, 58, of Coney Island, who just arrived in New York from Puerto Rico, where the storm had hit days earlier.
CALM IN THE DANGER ZONE
Others defied the evacuation order after Bloomberg announced police would not enforce it. Despite the persistent warnings and ominous skies, the neighborhood around Brooklyn's Coney Island -- within the danger zone -- was calm. Parked cars lined the streets, and there was no sign of a mass exodus.
"They are right, we should be evacuating, but we are not," said John Visconti, 47, who owns an auto repair business and lives on the ground floor of his building in the nearby Brighton Beach area of Brooklyn. "We just want to stay home and hope for the best. We should be OK."
The evacuation zones included shiny apartment buildings in Manhattan's wealthy Battery Park City, working class Red Hook in Brooklyn and run-down public housing in Coney Island -- all neighborhoods at the water's edge.
"If the neighborhood is eventually legitimately flooded, I have food and books and whiskey," said attorney Neal D'Amato, 31, sipping a beer at the Red Hook Bait and Tackle shop bar.
He said he would ride out the storm in his fourth-floor apartment.
Hundreds of supporters have started descending at the historic Ram Lila Maidan in New Delhi, where anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare will break his 12 day-long fast at 10am on Sunday. After 12 days that had India on the edge, Anna Hazare is poised to end his fast, capping a day of highs and lows that saw a historic Parliament debate a possible anti-corruption legislation that ended with the broad acceptance of key demands of the social reformer.
The eight-hour debate, called on a weekend, saw parliamentarians pack both houses to dissect an issue that has held the nation in thrall since Aug 16, when 74-year-old Hazare began his fast for a strong bill to have a Lokpal institution to tackle pervasive corruption, prompting tens of thousands of people across the country take to the streets and bringing the government virtually to its knees.
Around 4,000 people stayed overnight at the protest venue while hundreds of others have started arriving early in the morning.
"I started at around 5 am as I wanted to ensure that I could be in the front row, so that I could witness Anna breaking his fast," said 37-year-old Ramesh Kumar, a resident of Ghaziabad who claims to be a die-hard Anna supporter.
There is a festive atmosphere at the ground, as people are singing and dancing to the tune of drums and celebrating "victory" of Hazare.
Another supporter Vijay Gupta, who had come along with his family from Lucknow said, he was "happy to be part of history in making."
"I am extremely happy that the government has conceded to the demand of Anna Hazare, the corruption is affecting everybody in the society and we want a very strong Lokpal Bill," he said amid chanting of slogans.
Meanwhile, heavy deployment of police personnel have been made in and around the venue.
People are hoisting flags and chanting slogans making the atmosphere festive and jubilant.
Demanding passing of Janlokpal Bill by the Parliament, Hazare went on fast from August 16.
BALTIMORE — The Chesapeake Bay Bridge (US 50/301) was sealed about 7:35 p.m. Saturday as a outcome of serious winds and vulnerable pushing conditions due to Hurricane Irene.
The overpass is experiencing postulated winds of more than 62 mph and breeze gusts of 72-80 mph and will sojourn sealed until conditions are deemed protected for vehicles to cross.Citizens are speedy not to transport unless positively necessary. For motorists roving from the Eastern Shore toward Baltimore or other points west, an swap track for the Bay Bridge is northbound US 113, US thirteen or DE 1 through Delaware, to southbound I-95 in Maryland.MDTA’s 4 one more bridges together with the Harry W. Nice Memorial Bridge (US 301), the Francis Scott Key Bridge (I-695), the Tydings Memorial Bridge (I-95) and the Thomas J. Hatem Memorial Bridge (US 40) are handling underneath breeze warnings.
Gov. Martin O’Malley pronounced Hurricane Irene will be nearing in the beach review locale of Ocean City progressing than officials had expected.O’Malley pronounced at a headlines discussion Saturday at the Maryland Emergency Management group in Reisterstown that authorities expect that the eye of the storm will pass “pretty well directly over Ocean City” about midnight Saturday, a integrate hours progressing than had been predicted.Stay with WBALTV.com and WBAL-TV eleven News for updates.
