What Did You Think Was Going To Happen?

I've never worked in talent management, but I often think I could do it better than some of the people who have decided to do it for a living. All it requires is a little common sense to make sure that you are putting your talent in front of an audience that would actually be interested in seeing that person perform, because if you attempt to force someone who is a square peg into a crowd of round holes no one is going to walk away happy. Yet, talent managers are constantly trying to make that work, often with really bad results. Over the weekend, the Insane Clown Posse had their annual festival, which they call the "Gathering of the Juggalos." (For those of you who don't know who the Insane Clown Posse are, it's a sort of rap/rock group and their hook is that they dress like clowns and their songs are extremely vulgar and violent. They were mildly popular for about 10 minutes in the late-90s.) Anyway, this year the organizer's for some reason invited reality-star Tia Tequila to the festival and, in an even bigger mystery, Ms. Tequila accepted their offer. I can only imagine she needed the money. Tequila took about three steps on stage before the Juggalos (which is what the Posse has nicknamed their fans) started throwing things are her, tossing anything they could get their hands on. At one point Tequila was hit in the face with a rock and has now threatened to sue to organizers of the event, hoping to bankrupt them and thus ensure this was the last "Gathering of the Juggalos."

The person who I think needs to be sued here is whoever manages Tia Tequila. I don't know what he/she was thinking when they made this arrangement, but four seconds of research would have told them this was a bad idea. You remember those really quiet, anti-establishment kids in high school who no one really messed with because deep down everyone assumed they were kind of nuts? Those are the people that make up 90% of an Insane Clown Posse crowd. Putting a wannabe pop-starlet like Tia Tequila in front of them was like throwing a lamb to the wolves. I honestly can not think of any reason that her managers would expect a positive result out of her appearance there. I mean, really, did the her manager think that Tequila's album sales were going to spike and all the Juggalos would run out and buy her album because of this? These are not the people who listen to her music. (I actually don't know any kind of people who listen to her music, but that's another topic for another day.) It reminded me of the time that Ashlee Simpson's father (who was also her manager), scheduled her to perform at halftime of a bowl game. Putting a fake popstar in front of 95,000 football fans who are definitely not her demographic, hate her music and will probably violently react to her presence because they are drunk? What could possibly go wrong there? People like Tia Tequila and Ashlee Simpson should stick to appearances like mall openings and quasi-celebrity reality shows. Trust me, it'll be better for everyone involved.

-Speaking of things that are not going to end well, let me go on record now as saying the Denver Nuggets need to trade Carmelo Anthony as soon as they get a decent offer. Anthony will be a free agent following this season and even though he has has a lucrative contract offer on the table (with a lockout and restructured salary cap looming for the NBA, the contract is for more money than anyone thinks Anthony will be able to get in free agency), Anthony hasn't signed and actually went the other way, putting his Denver-area house on the market. NBA insiders think Carmelo wants to end up on the Knicks, but I don't think the Nuggets necessarily have to trade him there. They don't have any responsibility to get Anthony to the team of his choosing, they're only responsibility is making sure they get something for him, because if the Toronto Raptors have taught us anything over the past year it's that you can't change an NBA player's mind and you'd better get something in return for them. Don't get into a staring contest with interested teams and then watch as the trading deadline passes with Carmelo still in Nugget's uniform. While it would probably annoy the Nugget fans they'll be a lot more annoyed it Carmelo leaves after the season and they have a giant hole in their lineup. He wants out and it appears he is leaving one way or the other, so you have to get something in return or it could push the franchise back for years to come. Just ask the Cleveland Cavaliers.