Operation Misery: Month 2, Week 2, Day 7.

On Friday (19/4/13) Rihanna's biggest fan - Dzhokhar Tsarnaev - decided to pay tribute to her in the town of Watertown, Massachusetts. Unfortunately Rihanna didn't seem to appreciate this sending out a Tweet confiming to him that she was playing a concert in Tampa, Florida that evening and appearing to urge him to kill himself before that concert began.

Fortunately Tsarnaev didn't appear to get this message so Rihanna was forced to board a private jet from Los Angles to Tampa while Tsarnaev was still unaccounted for. Realising that they'd been busted by paparazzi at the airport one on Rihanna's core social group (Leleboo246 apparently) posted an Instagram picture of Rihanna boarding the aircraft. Unfortunately that picture provided so little information that the aircraft was barely identifiable as an aircraft. However I suspect it is the Lear jet commonly leased by Chris Brown. I hope he's getting the bill for this particular trip. With Tsarnaev still in the wind and after some prodding Rihanna eventually posted a picture on Instagram/Twitter showing that the aircraft had arrived somewhere (we assume Florida). In the picture Rihanna was shown in the cockpit at the flight controls. This was supposed to look like an attempt to promote the upcoming documentary about her 777 Tour but also seemed like an attempt by Rihanna to show that she was in command and she was in control.

At roughly the time the doors opened for Rihanna's concert (18:30 local) Tsarnaev made himself known to local law enforcement and proceeded to have an armed stand-off with them. Fortunately due to events on the ground local law enforcement were forced to end that stand-off at roughly 21:00  - when Rihanna is supposed to go on stage. However if you have been following the tour you would know that Rihanna rarely appears on stage until roughly 22:00. On Friday Rihanna didn't actually appear on stage until around 22:15 in order to make way for the local press conference and the Presidential press statement on the capture of Tsarnaev. I think this was a thoroughly sensible idea and helped to explain why there was a tense and strange atmosphere throughout the concert.

I would like to say that Rihanna coped with this well but that would be stretching the truth. As she laboured her way through her usual set-list (Acts 2&3 switched) and costume changes Rihanna was clearly nervous constantly grabbing her, erm, 'fanbase.' She also made a lot of effort to appear tired and lethargic as if she was recovering from a bout of illness. She clearly wasn't ill though because although weighed down by smoking her voice was strong. Unfortunately she was either smoking marijuana between acts or the marijuana she'd smoked before the concert was wearing off so she proceed to visibly wilt as the concert progressed to the point she seemed barely present by the end of the show.

On Saturday (20/4/13) Rihanna moved onto Fort Lauderdale which is really close to Miami (it only sounds right when Gabrielle Anwar says it) in Florida. Very little information about the show is available with no official information, no local concert review and only a few YouTube videos available. However it is clear that while Rihanna's performance was much better then it was in Tampa it was still very, very weak with Rihanna working her way through her usual set-list (no idea of the running order) and costume changes. 

The reason for this was quite clear - it was April 20th. In the US the High School day ends around 16:00 so teenage marijuana users are normally stoned by 16:20. As stoned US teenagers can neither tell the time nor write the date properly they have adopted April 20th (4/20) as a day to honour marijuana in such a childish and imbecilic way as to make me ashamed to have ever smoked weed. Rihanna and her core social group clearly don't feel the same way as me and posted lots of pictures on Instagram/Twitter of them getting stoned along with pictures of lots of gifts sent by fans 'celebrating' Rihanna's love of the herb.

With the addition of alcohol this clearly led to the evening taking something of a militant turn. Not only did Rihanna and her core social group proceed to attend a strip-club they also posted a lot of Instagram/Twitter pictures of them visiting a strip-club. This was a not totally coherent attempt to push the issue of Melissa Forde's alleged homosexuality while promoting discussion about Rihanna's apparent love of money. I'm also arrogant enough to assume this was a way of telling me that they knew I'd been watching a "PlayboyTV" 'documentary' about the strip-club scene in Tampa, Florida. Based on patterns of life surveillance this could have just been a bluff but either way it clearly made Rihanna grumpy. However I think I've already explained why Rihanna has a certain affinity with strippers and strip-clubs.

One thing that probably contributed to Rihanna's general level of militancy was the realisation that the hashtag #LatinoAmericaNeedsDiamondsWorldTour trending worldwide on Twitter was not a compliment. Although Rihanna clearly has lots of fans in Latin America who would happily re-tweet this the trend seems to have been started as a South American reponse to the Boston bombings. The message clearly being; "If that's all you've got, Bring it On!"

However as local Boston law enforcement and my Internet connection are both clearly getting a bit stressy this seems an appropriate time to post my first draft of this while going off to have dinner.

20:30 on 21/4/13.

Edited at around 23:30 on 21/4/13 to possibly tidy up some of the above.

Edited again at around 23:45 on 21/4/13 to add: We don't want to spoil the integrity of the document too much so;

Anyway a large part of the reason that South America - not just the boys - is highly amused by Rihanna's current efforts is because that while I was being flippant about the Boston marathon bombings being a Venezuelan conspiracy the events of last Monday (15/4/13) certainly raised the level of violence involved in street level discussions about that nation's disputed election result. Personally I thought it best not to get involved in that situation until I've had the opportunity to read up on the election results or at least learn the names of the competitors.

However I must say that the reason I didn't bother to do that beforehand was because I was confident that Nicolas Maduro would win by a large margin. Therefore if there has been any vote rigging - I'm not saying there has been - the reasons why could be almost infinite. It could have been the CIA trying to help the other guy win, it could have been that small group of families trying to help the other guy win or it could have been the judicary registering a protest against the way Chavez did things. Hell it could even have been Maduro himself trying to raise pertinent questions about Kenya's recent election.

Another thing that could have contributed to Rihanna's current level of grumpy is concerns about how her tour will continue in the wake of the Boston marathon bombings. Here we've had a genuine bit of good luck.

The sole suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is currently in a serious but stable condition in Boston's Beth Israel hospital. I've heard that he tried to cut his own throat so local SWAT blasted him in the lower limbs with a shot-gun. If you know a bit about how shot-guns and explosives work considering the type of bombs Tsarnaev is accused of planting this is downright hilarious. Either way I don't see him being fit to be charged with any offence for the next 3-4 weeks. The 48 hour public safety exemption to Miranda has already expired.

The US leg of Rihanna's tour is scheduled to end in Brooklyn on May 5th (5/5/13) which is well within that 4 week limit. Therefore I think the rest of the tour should be able to go ahead without too much damage. However I think the already rescheduled Boston (6/5/13) concert should be cancelled at least a week in advance as a mark of respect. That's because the handlers have no chance of selling the threat of violence or protests ahead of the Morocco (24/5/13) concert. They do though have an excellent chance of selling a reality in which people just "tut" loudly whenever a Rihanna song comes on the radio and that level of mild annoyance gets translated into them never buying a Rihanna song/concert ticket/perfume/clothe ever again.

Obviously though people will be looking to Boston for a final answer even if I think I've just chanced on an excellent enhanced interrogation technique for DT.

00:15 on 22?4/13.