IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

Donald Trump at his 2nd inauguration

Invasion From Within

It’s funny how red-staters ramble on about terrorists from ISIS or the Taliban, or about “GYY-na” as threats to our democracy. I’m not sure most of us understand how close we came to losing our democracy two weeks ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vEyHfhq8jg

We were watching a documentary on PBS (we’re such elitists) last night about the rise of the Nazis, and there were three important components (besides men such as Hitler, Goehring and Himmler). First, the destruction of the free press. Second, the elimination of an independent judiciary. Third, the eradication of meaningful elections.

How we doing?

Do you think scenes such as what happened above in Washington, D.C., would be less plentiful if Trump had won? It’s a sad thing when 70 million Americans are able to brain-wash themselves into believing that their righteousness makes everything alright.

Graham, Cracker

Lindsey Graham, asked yesterday why a Senator from the state of South Carolina was phoning election officials in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Nevada. “I’m trying to preserve our democracy,” said Graham.

Exactly the opposite.

A Hero In Michigan

Everyone who has ears and a mind needs to listen to this…

So What Next?

I’ve been saying since forever (this is a blog, after all; bloviate, repeat, bloviate some more…) that Donald Trump will not depart with grace or willingly.

As long as Moscow Mitch, Graham Cracker and the rest of the Senate GOP refuse to accept the election results (even Brian Kilmeade of “Fox & Friends” suggested the Trumpeters help the Biden transition this morning), as long as Brett Kavanaugh is still out there doing Fireball shots in his black robe, and as long as the Duck Dynasty doppelgΓ€ngers are taking out journalists with sucker punches, he’ll continue to grasp at his eddying power.

We’ll see if I’m wrong, but I still think it’s going to take an act of some combination of the Secret Service, National Guard, the A-Team, Jason Bourne and perhaps even the Irish Guard to physically removed Trump from the White House. I just want to see the look on his face when this happens.

Hipster Headed To Brooklyn?

Just what Brooklyn needs: another 30ish bro with a hipster beard thinking he’s about to conquer the world.

Actually, TMZ, which pays for information but is almost always on target, reports that 2018 NBA MVP James Harden no longer wants to play for an owner who is a Trump fan.

Been waiting for this. When enough NBA and NFL players of enough stature begin refusing to play for owners, or in leagues, where Trump is supported by that league’s power structure, we will begin to have meaningful change. Now, you say, what right is it of theirs to force owners to change or mask their political opinions?

It isn’t, of course. But it is their right not to help these rich old white men get richer from their labor. Go play in Europe. Or Australia. If you are a ‘baller. And if you are an NFL player, gather ’round with others and create an alternate league. The NFL would wither on the vine without African-Americans. Put them out of business.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 4 Comments

by John Walters

Deadliest Hoax

If you visit Twitter, you’ll find nurses from South Dakota to El Paso sharing personal stories of patients who refuse, up to the point of being intubated, to believe that they have COVID-19. Anything but, including lung cancer, is acceptable in their minds.

Thousands of Americans dying while, with their final gasps, still refusing to accept that the coronavirus is more than a Donald Trump punchline. Of course, it’s not the reality of the virus that they’re actually refusing to accept. It’s the reality that Trump was a con all along, that their paradigm of American-ism was never quite in keeping with the values of liberty and justice for all.

So they’d rather just fool themselves into believing they died of a hoax.

Look What’s Up: Bitcoin*

*Hate to tell you, Susie B., but it’s true

Lots of stocks have had banner 2020 years: Peloton, Moderna, Tesla and Zoom to name just a few, are all up more than 100% since February (Why didn’t someone tell us?!?). But then there’s Bitcoin, or as we trade it, GBTC.

On March 16 GBTC was at a year-low of $5.01. This morning it’s at $19.59. I don’t understand it, either. But it’s like they always say, “The first rule of investing is ‘buy low, sell high.’ The second rule of investing? Never listen to me.

If you’re curious, the actual price of a Bitcoin from then to now is about 1,000 times what the price of a share of GBTC is.

By the way, my good friend A.J., armed with a high school education and a ton of moxie, phoned in early July and recommended we buy The Gap (GPS). It was at less than $12 a share then. Today it is above $24. Thanks, A.J.

Plant A Tree

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeMcVT5RTCY

This is an original tune crafted by our old friend, Sorp. We’re hoping he sees this and files suit for unauthorized usage, as he has gone Howard Hughes on those of us who care about him. If you want to help, please click on it and give him some YouTube views and maybe even write a comment such as, “Is that the same bass line Led Zeppelin used in ‘Whole Lotta Love?’

There is a valuable message in this tune, by the way. Hope you listen.

The First Thanksgiving

So I was thinking about Thanksgiving and its origins. And, sure, you can visit the Wikipedia page and talk about Canadia in the 16th century or the Jamestown settlers in 1619 and I won’t fight you on that. The larger principle to remember is that the settlers were THANKFUL and to be thankful requires, I dunno, a little humility and grace perhaps?

Anyway, I don’t see a lot of that in the good ol’ USA anymore. What’s more, isn’t it funny how the Native Americans welcomed these uninvited settlers to their land and actually helped them to survive? And here were are, 400 years later, separating families from one another who are simply attempting to do the same thing? Interesting.

Higher Ground


I love Van Morrison. You’ll never encounter a more curmudgeonly, cranky live performer, and yet he writes songs such as this. That’s Cliff Richard, who just turned 80, sharing vocals with Van the Man.

Richard may be the most under-appreciated of all British artists on this side of the pond. Only two artists sold more singles in the history of the UK: the Beatles and Elvis Presley.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 5 Comments

by John Walters

Lollapaloser

If your local Home Depot or Ford dealership seemed somewhat vacant Saturday, here’s why: thousands of C U Last Tuesday (i.e. C.U.L.T. 45) denizens showed up in our nation’s capital to protest the results of the November 3rd election.

If you hadn’t heard, Joe Biden won with 306 electoral votes to Donald Trump’s 232. When Trump won by the same number of electoral votes in 2016, he referred to it as a “massive landslide.” Of course, in both 2016 and 2020, Trump received far fewer actual (popular) votes.

With an era that has seen a surfeit of symbolic moments, Saturday provided another one. The march was interfered with by an elderly white man in the back of a limousine who wanted to cut through the protesters so that he could play golf. That man? Donald Trump.

Welcome to TrumpWorld.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghhB9Xg781o

True Detective foresaw this years ago.

Fail! Fail! To Michigan

Playing in Ann Arbor against a Wisconsin team that had not played in three weeks and had literally had its program shut down for 10 days in the interregnum due to COVID-19, Michigan got walloped on a rainy Saturday night on national television, 49-11.

Ouch.

Less than 13 months ago, on a rainier night in Ann Arbor against No. 8 Notre Dame, the Wolverines pasted the Irish 45-14. In the interim Notre Dame has gone 14-0 while Michigan is 4-5. The Wolverines are 1-6 in their past six games and are the only team in FBS not to have won as an underdog in the past five years. The only one.

As natural a fit as Jim Harbaugh seemed six years ago, his tenure has devolved into an unmitigated failure. The Wolverines have not beaten Ohio State, are 3-3 versus Michigan State and are 6-14 versus opponents in the Top 15. What’s worse, the talent level appears to be dropping off and Michigan doesn’t bully anyone on either side of the ball. They’re not intellectual and they do not impose brutality.

Unless Harbaugh wins in Columbus on December 12, we don’t see Harbaugh remaining in Ann Arbor. There’s nothing about these Wolverines that suggest they are well-coached or enthusiastic. We did like the snippet of QB Cade McNamara we saw late in the second half, but how far can he take a squad this soft? And yes, the Victors were without defensive studs Qwity Paye and Aidan Hutchinson on Saturday night. Still…

…The Buckeyes have slapped 62 and 59 on the Wolverines the past two years, both 20-plus point wins, and we don’t see it being any prettier this season. Count us among many who thought this was a perfect marriage when it began but have seen it disintegrate beyond repair.

Hoops Headliners

Above, that’s 6’9″ Emoni Bates of Ypsilanti (Mich.) Prep. Bates, a junior, is considered the top recruit in the Class of ’22. If he attends college.

Below, that’s 7’1″ Chet Holmgren of Minnehaha (Minn.) High and also AAU team Sizzle. Holmgren is considered the top recruit of the Class of ’21.

Last Thursday, in a televised ESPN exhibition game that received little fanfare, Holmgren’s Team Sizzle out-dueled Bates’ Ypsilanti squad, 78-71. Bates outscored Holmgren, 36 to 31, but Holmgren, who has trimmed his list of schools down to seven, also grabbed 12 boards and blocked six shots. Someone get him a protein shake.

Stay In Your Lane


Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin was once our least-favorite college football coach. Now he may be our most favorite. Look at this play from Saturday night. It’s glorious.

That clipboard soaring to the heavens? That’s Lane’s as he realizes his Rebels are about to score on a 91-yard pass play (that USC forgot to cover). The player who made the grab, Elijah Moore, also knows something about redemption. He’s the one who made the peeing gesture during the Egg Bowl last year that cost Ole Miss the footbaw game.

Vax Populi

Just one week after Pfizer says that it has a vaccine that is 90% effective (a solid “B”), Moderna announces that it has a vaccine that is 94% effective (probably a low “A”). Can’t any of these pharmaceutical companies give 110%?

Might be worth noting that Pfizer’s CEO sold nearly $6 million in PFE stock the day after the announcement lat week. And that Moderna’s executives initiated their own huge sell-off on good news months earlier. But maybe we’re just bitter because we bought a &%$-load of MRNA back in late February at $22 and sold it at the tiniest of profits.

That’s showbiz.

Meanwhile, 2,321 Americans died from COVID-19 between Friday and Sunday. That’s a lot of plane crashes, Mr. President. Though, one must agree with Dave Chappelle that the coronavirus has brought a virtual halt to mass shootings. So thank God for the small favors.

Hail Murray Pass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rEOlSzxrhM

The Cardinals win, 32-26. Kyle Murray’s commercial with Tim Tebow just got more airplay.

By the way, that negates a terrific comeback by the Buffalo Bills that included tremendous catches by both Cole Beasley and Stefon Diggs.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

Case Load

November 12: 161,541

What is it they always say? “Lead, follow, or get the f**k out of the way.

Get the f**k out of the way, Donald. Because lead or follow are not options for you.

That’s your leader. THAT’s your leader. What kind of man does this? Let’s his friends suffer while only thinking of himself?

The Combover Presidency

Has a hairstyle ever better defined a presidency? The color is fake and it’s covering up a lot of bald(-faced lies). There will always be Trump loyalists who’ll attempt to persuade Americans to see what they pretend to see: Mike Pompeo, William Barr, Peter Navarro, the Trumpkins.

But when even China and Fox News have bailed on him as well as Arizona (you’re welcome, Susie B.), it’s time to intubate this presidency: shut him up and wait for the inevitable end.

Love The Drake

Before this week I, like most of you who have never spent much time in Lincoln, Neb. (Hi, Jacob), had no idea who Leta Powell Drake was. But then this Twitter clip of her celebrity interviews was posted and, for good reason, went viral:

https://twitter.com/JFrankensteiner/status/1326748637603516417?s=20

So here’s Vulture, who landed an interview with Drake, an 82 year-old living legend who still resides in the Cornhusker State.

You Tackle Him

This is Howard Brown. He’s a senior quarterback at Lincoln Prep Academy in Kansas City, Missouri. Brown carries three bills and change on his 6’2″ frame.

Brown has accepted a scholarship offer to Iowa State, which plans to put him at defensive tackle. Is there any good reason for him to change positions?

Heedless Horseman

You’ve probably read about how Steve Bannon, on Facebook, suggested that both Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Chris Wray be “decapitated,” and you’ve probably further heard that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, in a staff meeting, explained to Facebook employees why Bannon’s account was not suspended:

β€œWe have specific rules around how many times you need to violate certain policies before we will deactivate your account completely. While the offenses here, I think, came close to crossing that line, they clearly did not cross the line.”

You have to wonder how many times the Winklevi wonder why they didn’t plant Zuckerberg at the bottom of the Charles River when they had the chance.

This always rings true about Mark Zuckerberg. One of the greatest opening scenes ever written.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 6 Comments

by John Walters

Kicking And Scheming

On the same day that the U.S. set a new record for coronavirus cases (142,000-plus) and 1,478 Americans died from the virus, there was a report that “Donald Trump does not seem to be interested in his work.”

Has he ever been?

In an interview with Anderson Cooper of CNN, the NYT’s Maggie Haberman, who would rent space in Trump’s soul if he had one, noted that the president doesn’t really have a grand strategy to defeat Joe Biden (problem 1 being that Biden just defeated him), but that he’s willing to keep pushing the envelope, i.e., keep grabbing America by the pussy, to see just how far he can go. When you’re famous, after all, people let you get away with it.

Truly, I’m flummoxed that anyone with a brain is taken in by him. And yet so many are.

A Trump campaign advisor said, ” ‘Concede’ is not in our vocabulary.” Neither are grace, humility, honesty or integrity. But we already knew that. Trump will eventually back down but he’ll act as if he were robbed (he loves playing the aggrieved billionaire and, again, dumbasses buy it) and attempt to make a comeback in 2024. We’re thinking the obesity and the virus and the high blood pressure will do him in by them. We can hope.

The Upside Down

https://twitter.com/marceldirsus/status/1325822934502543360?s=20

So there it was, Veterans Day, and certainly countless Americans were thinking of their fathers, their uncles, their grandfathers who had fought in World War II. Who had sacrificed their lives or at least put them on the line in order to fight Germany, to fight fascism.

And here we are, 75 or so years later, and the leader of Germany, currently the world’s most stable and economically viable democracy (you read that right), is reaching across the Atlantic to help rescue America from fascism.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.

80 From ’80

If only Peter Gabriel had saved “Games Without Frontiers” and “Biko” for his former band, Genesis’ Duke album of the same year would be an all-time classic.

Rolling Stone has compiled a list of “The 80 Greatest Albums From 1980” while making the claim that there may have never been a single better year in terms of worthy albums. As someone who was in his 8th grade/freshman year at the time and experiencing my first real crush with pop and rock music, I cannot disagree. As I went through the list, here are just a few of the songs that stick with me to this day:

“Kiss On My List,” (I’m not kidding), “Against The Wind,” “Turn It On Again,”
“Games Without Frontiers,” “Oh Yeah”, “Pulling Mussels,” “The Spirit of Radio,” “Girl U Want,” “She’s So Cold,” “Crazy Train,” “I Will Follow,” “Private Idaho,” “Brass In Pocket,” “You Shook Me All Night Long,” “Once In A Lifetime” and “Death or Glory.”

If I had to pick a Top 3 that was representative of what my Brophy classmates cranked up most often that year, a Phoenix faves list, I’d go with “Crazy Train,” “You Shook Me All Night Long,” and anything off Zenyatta Mondatta. If I had to make my own, I’d go with “Once In A Lifetime,” “Oh Yeah” and “Turn It On Again.”

But five minutes from now I’d probably give you a completely different list. Suffice it to say that back then the hardest part of picking 13 albums for a penny from the Columbia Record & Tape Club was winnowing it down to 13.

A Christmas For Christmas

Don’t you hate when a couple this good-looking (Penn and Kim Holderness are married in real life with a cute son and cute daughter) is also this witty (they wrote this)? They’ve set a new, er, Hallmark for holiday film parody.

A Whale of A Story

This feels as if it should’ve happened on WKRP In Cincinnati, or perhaps it inspired the famous WKRP Thanksgiving episode.Whatever. Today is the 50th anniversary of this event that will leave you blubbering with mirth. Enjoy.

MAC-tion is BACK-tion

The MAC returned to November week night viewing (as it does annually) and last night’s finish between Toledo and Western Michigan did not disappoint.