Starting Five

Burn, Baby, Burn

Because we watched the final episode of this season’s Curb Your Enthusiasm this week, along with the most recent episode of Better Call Saul, we spotted a little theme. Businesses going up in flame. Set on fire by someone who works there. Both businesses, by the way, are side businesses.

Hasta la vista, Los Pollos Hermanos. Shalom, Latte Larry’s.

The final scene of the season from Curb, by the way? How brilliant was that. They built an entire season around that payoff. Spite House!

Cold Comfort

A story in The New York Times details how the USNS Comfort, which sailed to New York City under the auspices of relieving the toll on hospitals overwhelmed by the coronavirus pandemic, only has 20 patients. Twenty! The ship has 1,000 beds.

Apparently, the ship not only will not take coronavirus patients, but it lists 49 other conditions that, if a patient checks one of those boxes, would render a potential patient unqualified. If only it were that easy to be refused by the military during a draft.

How does this happen?

Doctors, Nurses And The Wedding Singer

A tune from Adam Sandler on the pandemic heroes…

REM-ember A Classic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN-Lb9SEyFs

Early REM is the best REM. This is from the spring of ’84, when the airwaves were being bombarded by Def Leppard and Madonna. Prince, Bruce and Night Ranger would own the summer. It would be another year before I began to discover the foursome from Athens.

Revisiting The Astros Scandal

Listen, it was already a crappy year before coronavirus happened. Kobe died. The Astros cheated (for three consecutive seasons, most likely). A Korean movie won all the Oscars (it’s been the year of Parasite and a pathogen, both from Asia).

But we could get one thing right. Rob Manfred could strip the Astros of their 2017 World Series championship. Remember, only about seven weeks ago as we were hearing Important People say that you can’t rewrite history? No, you can’t, but you can still punish people. And you can deal with unexpected hurdles when they arise.

There may not be a 2020 World Series champion and you know what? The Earth will continue spinning. So why not allow that there’s no 2017 World Series champion, either.

Then again, I just thought about this: the coronavirus has saved a lot of current Astros from being beaned in the past month, hasn’t it.

Starting Five

Save Dr. Fauci!

Don’t know if these reports are overblown, but CNN has a story posted this morning that reads “Dr. Anthony Fauci Forced To Beef Up Security As Death Threats Increase.”

To begin with, the “Anthony” in the hed is rather superfluous, no? Are there other Dr. Fauci types out there in the public realm? Second, “increase?!?” Why were there any in the first place?

Could it be that MAGA Nation loathes Dr. Fauci for making Donald Trump look bad (over… and over… and over again)? It’s one of the great rarely spoken truths about the Trump Virus: he has, for a large swath of this nation, legitimized ignorance. Made folks proud of their stupidity, or their inability to grasp grammar (while arguing on Twitter… don’t enter an auto race if you don’t know how to shift gears), or to understand how government works, etc.

MAGA really stands for Make Ignorance Great Again and I know that doesn’t work as an acronym, but that’s kind of the point with these people, now isn’t it? It doesn’t matter if it’s stupid as long as they believe in it.

Labor Pains

A record 6.6 MILLION Americans filed for unemployment insurance last week (we are not among them), which more than doubles what Department of Labor officials were expecting. There’s been a lot of that going around lately, hasn’t there?

A quick editorial (as if there’s ever anything more to this site): If times are tough, we get it. File for unemployment. Sadly, though, our experience, and this is anecdotal, we’re not saying EVERYONE (hoping this staves off a letter from a younger loyal reader), is that most younger adults view the government as its rich uncle. They’ll take a side job and still file for unemployment. Or earn enough in six-plus months and then file for unemployment as their five-month vacation plan.

To us, that’s sad. And wrong. WE are the government (I know… I’m SO naive). America is not only a melting pot, but it’s a pot-luck supper. If you don’t bring a dish, you shouldn’t be at the party.

Again, I know we are living in difficult times, perhaps the most difficult of our lives. And if you’ve looked for work and cannot find any, then by all means. All I can say is that, Me, I’ll work almost any job before sitting at home and waiting for a check from Uncle Sam. And yes, I know the government screws us ten ways to Sunday and that we all pay into unemployment in our pay checks. I just hold out this naive thought that that money is for the desperate and the needy, not for the “I’m-drinking-quarantinis-and-watching-Netflix-til-this-all-blows-over” crowd.

And people call me a liberal…

From Playoffs To Layoffs

This week Sports Illustrated announced that it would be laying off 9% of its staff. Senior writer Chris Ballard, who had been with SI for at least 20 years, was one of those let go. Dig, it’s difficult to gin up much interest in sports web sites and publications when there are no sports taking place (it’s the reason I let my subscription to Conductors of Classical Music For Kids run out).

It’ll be interesting to see when all the other feet begin to drop at other sites. On the one hand (which you should have washed), you have a captive audience as like no other time. On the other, I don’t care much about sports these days, do you?

And ESPN, well, their approach has been far from revolutionary, from what I’ve seen (David Faber on CNBC this morning: “They’re airing stone-skipping on ESPN.” Not sure if he was or wasn’t being facetious, but it wouldn’t surprise me; Faber’s just salty cuz he cannot get in his daily swim at NYAC; I feel you, David).

By the way, my boss at my new job tells our co-workers that “he writes for ESPN.” This is the second person I’ve met this year who, when being told I wrote for Sports Illustrated, automatically turns it around in his head that I write for ESPN. That, my friends, is solid branding.

And also a sign of the times.

Smithy!

This week the Medium Happy Book Club suggests Random Harvest, by James Hilton. Released in 1941, it’s a wonderful love story revolving around a World War I—known then as The Great War… hey, Star Wars wasn’t originally known as “A New Hope,” either— British soldier (played in the 1942 film by Ronald Coleman, above), who experiences shell shock and loses all memory of his life before the war.

Then, in a fascinating twist, he falls and hits his head again, which renders him able to remember who he was, but nothing about the previous two years from Armistice Day through a very affectionate courtship and marriage (the lass is played by MH dream girl Greer Garson).

Without spoiling it (too much), and while thanking our cousin M. for turning us on to the tome, we’ll note that most readers likely will find the last page or two the most affecting. For us, it was different. It happens earlier in the book when our British soldier, fearing that he has badly misbehaved and embarrassed himself (he hadn’t), runs away from the lass and her friends as far as he can (to a distant town, in an idyllic setting). She tracks him down, however.

“There’s only this between us, Smithy,” she says. “I remember when you needed me, and I’m sure I’m not going to hang around when you don’t need me any more. But I thought you might need me today—that’s why I’m here.”

We could all use someone like that in our lives, no? Or, better yet, be someone like that.

Radiation Vibe

You may have read that Adam Schlesinger, co-founder of the band Fountains of Wayne, died of complications due to the coronavirus. He was 52. Schlesinger and fellow co-founder Chris Collingwood met as freshmen at Williams College (the Harvard of non-Ivy League schools) but would not found the band until a few years after they graduated.

The Nineties Alternative Nation favorites are best known for “Stacy’s Mom,” but here’s the hit for true believers. Schlesinger, who played bass, was nominated for an Oscar for co-writing “That Thing You Do,” from the eponymous Tom Hanks film from 1997 (so there’s your circular coronavirus linkage).

Starting Five

Trump Was Right: I AM Tired Of All This Winning

Yesterday, at a marathon press conference that we missed, President Donald Trump announced that a “very, very painful two weeks” were ahead (it’s been an unbearable three-plus years already, Don, but whatevs) and then had his scientists warn that a conservative estimate of U.S. deaths was anywhere between 100,000 to 240,000. So, more than the Vietnam conflict and Korean wars combined.

By the way, how long until everyone begins referring to it as “the 2020 Virus?”

Donald Trump alone could not have prevented the 2020 Virus from raining death on Americans. But swift actions, advanced by so many people (such as Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington) probably would have cut the number at least in half. “He’ll kill us all” was not quite accurate (we hope) but he killed more than a professional would have is true beyond a doubt.

Cuomo Confined To Domo

CNN prime time anchor Chris Cuomo, younger brother of New York governor Andrew Cuomo, announces that he has tested positive for the coronavirus. He’ll be, at least for now, broadcasting from home. Cuomo, 49, obviously did this to steal viewers away from Sean Hannity. It’s a hoax.

Long Live Mock

We check the ESPN.com website every couple of days sort of for curiosity’s sake. It seems as if they’ve fixated on simply updating mock drafts every few days between Mel and McShay. Worse, they’re still refusing to unlock these selections unless you’re an ESPN Insider. While other publications, such as The New York Times, have made portions of their content free during this pandemic, Norby is still locking readers out.

Bad move. ESPN.com doesn’t have any pertinent content to provide (proof? I’m not making this up, Kevin Maas is on ESPN’s home page this morning; will this poor man never find peace?) because nothing is actually happening in the sports world. Besides the draft later this month. You’d think they’d be smart enough to give all visitors this content for free right now, if for no other reason than as a good faith gesture.

Tiger King Kong

You’re looking at the breakout star of the pandemic. On your right. That’s Joe Exotic, born Joseph Schreibvogel, who claimed to be the most prolific breeder of tigers in the U.S.A. We’ll admit, we have not seen the doc yet, but The Tiger King sure seems to be getting mentioned a lot. If you’ve watched it, feel free to provide a review below.

One More Reason I Fled Twitter

In the past two weeks I’ve found myself getting angry when people (often strangers I’ve never met) treat the pandemic as if it’s a football game where we’re trailing by two touchdowns and we can still win. It’s not that. It’s a disease that’s going to kill 100’s of thousands, perhaps millions, of people worldwide, thus altering the lives of themselves (obviously) and everyone who knew them. Examples:

–Let’s begin with the President, who only two days ago promised “a great victory” in the fight against the 2020 Virus. When your big brother pins you to the floor, thumps you in the chest 100 times and then lets a booger-filled loogie drop onto your face and then and only then gets off you, you don’t exactly get to refer to that as a victory.

–The Boston Globe writer who noted that, yes, this coronavirus seems awful and all, but he really would love to see the Boston Celtics and the NBA return soon. At the time the American death toll was probably still in the double digits and I tweeted something nasty about never reading him again, after which Trenni Kusnierek (a wonderful lady, Boston radio person, whom I’ve never actually met), who had posted the story on Twitter, told me to “Read it first before you behave like an ass (I had).” Sorry, it’s just kind of offensive. It’s like some German journalist writing in 1939 (Tell me he’s not going to make a Holocaust reference; he is, isn’t he? Oh well, at least it’s not Twitter) that while he appreciates the human tragedy that is the Holocaust, what he really misses is that he just can’t find a good schmear.

–Listening to a right-wing radio broadcast (don’t ask) yesterday and hearing the host note that he’s taking the president’s cue and he’s going to “focus on being positive.” The f***ing gaslighters who support Trump. I don’t remember any of these folks “focusing on the positive” when Obama was president, even though there was plenty to be positive about. But now, knowing there is absolutely no defense for the actions that their White Supremacist In Chief has taken the past month, they try out the tactic of calling anyone who gives the straight dope on the virus a Debbie Downer. They are truly without shame.

–Joe Kernen, on CNBC just this morning (and another MAGA pom pom waver), noting how America has the greatest minds and necessity is the mother of invention and how “I just know that we’re going to come out of this stronger.” Again, a tacit lack of acknowledgement of what’s actually taking place. Central Park has turned into a field hospital. A populace the size of Providence, R.I. (that’s a highly conservative estimate) is just going to vanish.

Yeah, sure, no one wants to be around a downer all day long. But you can’t help but feel that people either simply don’t grasp the gravity of what’s taking place, having lived so long inside their sports-entertainment-self gratification cocoon, or that they do but they’re averse to acknowledging it because they don’t want to do a thing to slow the momentum of this presidency. Can you imagine what Joe Kernen would be saying right now if President Obama had stood up in front of the country and announced that 240,000 Americans will die this year of a disease? I doubt he’d be talking the way he is talking right now (it almost makes me want to rejoin Twitter simply to make that point). But I’ll hold off.

Kurosawa Double Feature

Tonight, TCM asks us to forgo Netflix and Amazon Prime and to perhaps edjumicate ourselves in film history. Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s two masterpieces, Seven Samurai (at 8 p.m. EDT) an Rashomon (11:45 p.m. … as if you’ve got to get up for work) air this evening.

We’ve only seen the latter, so we’ll attempt to catch the former, from 1954. Wily Yanks would remake the film six years later as a Western, The Magnificent Seven, which starred Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Yul Brynner and James Coburn. So why can’t I just watch The Magnificent Seven, you ask, and I don’t have a good answer for that. Except that now you’ll know what Barenaked Ladies are talking about in that “One Week” song of theirs.

STARTING FIVE

YOU’RE SLIPPIN’, JIMMY

Justice Matters Most?

Nope.

Just Make Money.

It’s incredible what the writers of Better Call Saul do. Is it a master plan that they’ve had in place that allows them to come up with things such as they did in last night’s episode, for example, using Jimmy McGill’s initials on his briefcase to demonstrate his transformation to the dark side? Or, even better, to illustrate that metamorphosis by having him go off on Howard Hamlin in the episode’s final scene exactly like he did the very first time we saw them together, only that this time Jimmy’s not goofing when he goes all Ned Beatty in Network on Howard? This time he’s sincere?

And even that shot above, where we see him contemplating his total abandonment of scruples in favor of fame and fortune? Astounding. Seriously, how do the writers do it? Has it all been blocked out from before Season 1 or are they just very good at thinking on their feet and using what has come before? It looks so seamless.

As for Jimmy, we’ve finally lost him completely to Saul. As I wrote last week, there was always a Robin Hood aspect to him in the past. Sure, he took short cuts and flat-out committed fraud, but it was always to help the little guy, be it little old ladies in nursing homes or Kim Wexler. When he and Giselle would scam a d-bag at a bar, they never actually cashed the check.

That’s over now. Jimmy just committed fraud in a courtroom (not a single reporter in court for a high-profile murder in Albuquerque? I don’t think so) in order to get a cartel member out on bail. And Howard, who we told you wasn’t that dumb, just called him on his bullsh*t. And both Howard and Jimmy know that Howard didn’t kill Chuck; Jimmy killed Chuck, if anyone did.

S’all good? Hardly.

No Poop For You

We love the idea of Larry David’s spite store, “Latte Larry’s,” recusing itself from having defecation facilities. What we don’t understand is how Mr. David (unless he did so in the season finale, which we have yet to watch) failed to have some fun with arguably the most renowned catchphrase in Seinfeld history by making a “No poop for you!” reference. Maybe a sign outside the restrooms?

Bidet Day*

*The judges will also accept “Geyser Will Helm”

Wondering if the toilet paper shortage (Mike Huckabee suggests a corn cob, Susie B.) will persuade Americans to finally fall in love with the bidet. Invented in France in the 17th century—there is no known single inventor; no one wants to take credit for it—the torrent of water module has never caught on here in America. But maybe now? To paraphrase a line from scripture, “Love your enemas as yourself.”

Market Watching

We thought about some of the comments on Friday’s item, about how most people didn’t have capital available after 2008-2009 to invest in the stock market and pull themselves back up. Here’s what we think: most people, and this may just be intentional by the (mostly) men who populate Wall Street, are intimidated by the stock market and never bother to learn it.

In the past decade I’ve worked with dozens of people who are incredibly hard workers but don’t have an advanced degree. Many don’t have a college degree. And almost none of them are in the stock market. Now, I know plenty of them (and this applies particularly to sports writers) who know their way around a gambler’s den—parlays, over/unders, +300 or -220, or even how to play craps—but if I mention the stock market, it’s always either, “No” or “I have it in a mutual fund” or “I leave that to my 401K.”

The same people who gladly spend half an hour a day in the fall tracking their fantasy team(s) in a league where first prize will earn you $500 are scared off by, or uninterested in, the prospects of making themselves “a 36-bagger” as our Faithful Reader has with her Amazon stock.

It would be nice if everyone was given a rudimentary education in the stock market in high school. The basics aren’t hard to understand at all. The first step in making the field of play more even is to demystify the way the top 5% remain the top 5%.

Tall Tale

Learned an interesting fact yesterday that we thought we’d share. Only 4% of men in America are 6’2″ or taller. And yet 36% of American CEOs are 6’2″ or taller.

I’ll never forget a very intelligent and decent man I worked with at SI, who was closer to 5’6″, telling me, “If I were six-feet tall, I’d be running this place.” And he should have. By the way, when I was there are managing editors (de facto CEOs of the editorial side) were 6’4″ and 6’2″.

Reserves

Prine Time

Musician and songwriting legend John Prine is, as of this writing, in critical condition due to COVID-19. Here’s a clip from three years ago of he and Stephen Colbert performing “That’s The Way The World Goes ‘Round.” Best wishes to Prine, 73, that he can beat it.

What’s to tell? Who looked good in baseball’s opening weekend? How we’re looking at an all-Catholic Final Four (Gonzaga, Marquette, Seton Hall and Villanova)? Steph Curry’s return?

Today’s Deep Thought: Remembering watching NYFD workers by the dozens rushing into the World Trade Center as both towers were burning and thinking, All those brave men are sacrificing their lives for a (mostly) lost cause. Can’t help but wonder about all the doctors and nurses and PA’s in New York City right now who are tempting a similar fate. Check out this story in the NYT.

Up Next? 3,000

On Thursday we predicted 2,000 deaths in the USA by month’s end. It looks as if we’ll be touching 3,000 by April 1. New York alone has topped 1,000 deaths. And April’s going to be a spectacularly grisly month here.

April, Come She Will

In what has become a pattern, the President made a statement downplaying the severity of the virus (“America needs to reopen by Easter”) and then was bombarded with information and warnings by the few people on his staff who don’t have dollar signs in their eyes. Now he’s advising Americans to shelter in place and chill out for the entire month of April. Which, sure, better late than never.

Full-Court Press

This month has been an extended lesson in the value of a free press and why an authoritarian such as Donald Trump (and his administration) despises it. If the only information we ever received was from the White House, you’d think that COVID-19 was “under control” and that nothing more needed to be done. Restaurants, bars and gyms, etc., would likely be open. You’d be hearing anecdotal stories from health-care workers you know, or friends or family who know them, that something was askew.

The tallies we receive daily on deaths and cases? Would not exist. The challenges that President Trump receives from the media, as he did yesterday, when he contradicts himself over statements he’d previously made? That wouldn’t happen. Yamiche Alcindor would be working at a gulag somewhere in central Nevada.

Makes you wonder how many people really have died in China. And Russia.

Procter & Gamble Is No Gamble

MH Capital bought shares of Procter & Gamble (PG) as soon as this outbreak became a reality and we saw tweets of individual shoppers trying to corner the market on toilet paper. A quick glance at just some of the products P&G, based in Cincinnati, makes: Charmin, Bounty, Cascade, Comet, Dawn, Downy and the Swiffer!

It’s built for these times, and Jefferies, whose CFO died this weekend due to COVID-19, just gave it an upgrade this morning. P&G sunk to $96 last Monday, the worst day for stocks in I believe forever (but certainly for this month), but it’s now up around $115 this morning. Keep cleaning, and keep cleaning up with PG.*

*A reminder that most of the time we don’t know what we’re talking about.

Cancel College Football?

Apparently last week ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit, a respected and measured voice in college football (unless it comes to which schools should make the playoff, occasionally), said that he could not see the 2020 season happening under the current virus-related climate. Quoth Herbie to TMZ.com:

“I’ll be shocked if we have NFL football this fall, if we have college football. I’ll be so surprised if that happens. Just because from what I understand, people that I listen to, you’re 12 to 18 months from a [coronavirus] vaccine. I don’t know how you let these guys go into locker rooms and let stadiums be filled up and how you can play ball. I just don’t know how you can do it with the optics of it.”

He’s right, of course (which reminds me: Any of you folks who pay attention to what Clay Travis says/tweets have any update on how he’s treating the virus now). But I imagine Herbie’s words were not welcome inside the Mickey Mouse Club and elsewhere. If college football were to deem it unsafe to play come September, how reckless would the NFL look if it went ahead and played (newsflash: I doubt Roger Goodell cares).

Another consideration: if there’s no 2020 season, I can see the NCAA allowing players to retain the year of eligibility, but also I can see players who want to exit to the NFL going. So there’s a chance we’ve seen Trevor Lawrence’s final game in Clemson orange. Moreover, do all schedules just get pushed by a year or do the game from 2020 just vanish into thin air? I’d assume the latter.

Also, if there is no 2020 NFL season, how would draft order be determined?