IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

How can we be sure this is just not a very tiny human?

Starting Five

Hutchings: no mas

For Whom The Taco Bell Tolls

Holy mole! When we wake up and the most intriguing headline we see is “Man Dies During Taco Eating Contest,” we feel that, in these times, we should be grateful. Dana Hutchings, 41, was partaking in a taco eating contest during a minor league baseball game in Fresno and apparently you best leave accelerated mastication to the pros.

Cell Shock

Well, at least the autopsy of Jeffrey Epstein appears to be on the up and up. Coroners found multiple broken bones in Epstein’s neck, including in the hyoid bone. According to The Washington Post, citing experts, “Such breaks can occur in those who hang themselves, particularly if they are older, according to forensics experts and studies on the subject. But they are more common in victims of homicide by strangulation.”

Just out for a friendly chat with the warden

Oh. Put that piece of information side by side with the shrieks emanating from Epstein’s cell, the news that TWO guards fell asleep while on duty and, I’m sorry, is there not any video even from the hallway outside Epstein’s room? None? Where is it?

Blurred Lines

This, above, represents why Wall Street was in such a panic yesterday. It’s a Yield Curve Inversion and it apparently is a reliable omen that a recession is on the way?

You don’t even know what a yield curve inversion is, do you? No, but Wall Street does and they’re the ones panicking! Or maybe it’s just because the Mets now have Joe Panik. I dunno.

Here’s what we know: an inverted yield curve means that the long-term rates on bonds have now become lower than the short-term rates. You’d get a higher rate of return holding a bond that matures in a shorter rate of time. According to the first thing we Googled (so it must be correct), “An inverted yield curve, or a situation in which long-term rates are lower than short-term rates, may suggest that markets expect a recession and thus lower interest rates in the future.”

The bad news is that the Dow dropped 801 points yesterday, its worst day of 2019. The good news is that this should not impact your Fantasy Football Draft and, really, what else matters?

How’s It Gonna Be?

Third Eye Blind toured this summer with Jimmy Eat World, which means there were at least five to eight turn-of-the-millennium era songs you’d really love to hear at the show. At least we would. Apparently, the bands themselves did not love one another. The following tweet is from JEW drummer Zach Lind, tweeted out just after the tour finished, regarding TEB lead singer Stephan Jenkins:

There were probably worse transgressions Lind witnessed, but what he did choose to tweet about was TEB’s insistence that they, and only they, be excused from having to wear backstage laminates for security purposes (Guys, you’re not Freddie Mercury).

Keyboard Cubicle Cowardice

I’m old enough to remember when Will Leitch wrote a piece for his main employer, New York Magazine, titled “The Era Of The Old Athlete Is Over.”

This appeared on April 3, close enough to the date to be considered an April Fool’s joke, but he actually meant it. If you’re scoring at home, this story was released two months after 41 year-old Tom Brady led the New England Patriots to yet another Super Bowl victory and less than two weeks before Tiger Woods, 43, won the Masters. Soon after Rafael Nadal, 33, won the French Open and Serena Williams, 37, advanced to the Wimbledon final. Justin Verlander, 36, is arguably the most dominant pitcher in baseball this season.

But, yes, Will, your point is well-taken. What was it based on again?

So when it comes to Leitch, I’m pretty much in the H.G. “Buzz” Bissinger camp, who once told him to his face on TV, “I gotta be honest with you, I think you’re full of shit.”

The beauty of that moment is that Bissinger had the balls to tell Leitch what he thought of him face to face. Leitch, as he does with yesterday’s hit piece on Dabo Swinney, has fashioned a career of hiding behind his laptop and ripping people, occasionally, without even speaking to them. On the few times he has been called out by his subjects, he usually acts somewhat contrite (See: Roger Ebert hit piece) or attempts to equivocate, post facto.

There’s certainly a point to be made that the beatification of Dabo by College GameDay, in particular, and many college football writers is way overdone. He’s made plenty of gaffes (“Osama bin Dabo”) and some of his opinions (being paid $9 million per year but then being outraged at the idea of college players being paid) display a total lack of self-awareness, not to mention of irony. Leitch uses Dabo’s latest affaire du controverse, a stupid dispute over whether a player who quit the team after four games deserves a national championship ring, as his launchpad to character-assassinate Swinney.

Here’s the thing: Leitch has discovered that he can write columns like this for a magazine based in New York City whose editors don’t consider sports a main course. My guess is that most of them are more familiar with the latest Bluestone Coffee (rip-off) to open up in Park Slope or Carroll Gardens than they are with who’s leading the National League East (Atlanta). And they’ve invested in Leitch as their sports guru because he’s made himself into a brand and apparently they feel as if he’s an expert.

But this, this Dabo piece, is what he is truly expert at: cherry-picking the facts or anecdotes that suit his polemic so that he can produce a piece that gets plenty of attention and/or clicks even when the totality of the argument, i.e., the truth, is usually something very different. If this were his first time doing it, I’d give him a pass. But it’s really the pattern of his entire career.

Even Leitch has acknowledged he does this. And while you may think, well, that shows some character that he was willing to make this confession, what comes across to me is 1) that he ever did something so low and 2) it feels as if he’s appealing for our, the readers’, sympathy as to why he behaved like such a jackass.

But NY Mag (and SI.com) will continue to provide him a platform.

Reserves

Pardon my retweeting myself–it’s online onanism–but this had to be inserted somewhere today:

https://twitter.com/jdubs88/status/1162000244248338433?s=20

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 11 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

https://twitter.com/InactionNever/status/1161347759825457155?s=20

Nature: The Greatest Show On Earth.

Starting Five

A Second Chernobyl?

What’s that old Russian saying? Those that whitewash history are condemned to repeat it?

Apparently, no one at the Kremlin gets HBO or none of them watched Chernobyl, because Russia appears to be sliding down the same radioactive path that it did back in 1986. Here’s what we know: a failed missile test on an offshore platform in the White Sea in northwest Russia, near the small city of Nenoska, took place last Thursday. The above explosion is the result. That much is for certain.

At the time the Russians announced that two military members died in the blast and that there was no spike in radiation (that you even need to announce that sets off bells and whistles). Now, four to five days later, we know that an additional five people, all of them nuclear scientists, also perished in the blast (word to the wise: whenever you get five nuclear scientists together and it isn’t a scholarly symposium, chances are it’s not for a softball game, if you know what I mean). We know that even Russia is admitting that radiation spiked four to 16 times in the aftermath (and this is just what we’re admitting; who knows if it’s the truth?). We know that the Russians ordered Nenoska to be evacuated and then suddenly said, “Naw, don’t worry about it.” We know that doctors and nurses who treated some of the injured have since been transferred to a hospital in Moscow.

That last one is a big UH-OH.

The best onscreen buddies of 2019 may need to reprise their roles (they’ll appear as their bastard sons that no one knew about)

Seriously, Vlad. Please go back and watch Chernobyl. But don’t watch the “Killing All The Pets” episode. That’s excruciating. Anyway, they’re making all the same mistakes all over again.

Tiger Beat

For all the negative pub the Orioles receive for being so bad this season—losing 15 straight to the Yankees and falling by the score of 23-2 to the Astros on Saturday don’t help—the Detroit Tigers actually have baseball’s worst record (35-81) this season.

The above outfielder-assisted home run for Seattle’s Kyle Seager is the 10-second byte that tells you the story of Detroit’s season.

Poetry Emotion

I’d advise you to watch this entire clip before coming to a Twitter-ian judgment as to whether Ken Cuccinelli is a monster or not. A couple weeks ago I saw a Ricky Gervais tweet, not sure how old it is, in which the British comedian (he’s so much more than that, but okay) wrote, and I’m paraphrasing, “Civilization began to go downhill when feelings replaced facts.”

Exactly.

The Extreme Left is wrong on this one because, I’m sorry, no one gets to enter my country or my home without at least doing a fair share of the chores. If they expect that, then they are a GUEST and not a MEMBER. So, yeah, no one should expect to come here from another country and suck the teat of the hard work of their neighbors.

Of course, the Extreme Right is even more wrong on this one for two reasons: 1) because those of us who work with immigrants know first-hand that they’re the humblest, hardest-working people around (I don’t think the eye roll at a boss’ or customer’s request becomes a thing until at least the second or third generation) and 2) countless immigrants come here exactly because they are in search of work and a better life. But they may come here with almost no money and prospects. If they had money and prospects in their native countries, they’d probably not be very prone to leave.

I work with a Mexican busser named Janet. We all love her. She’s ALWAYS smiling. She’s always happy to do whatever needs to be done. On Saturdays she brings the entire staff tamales from a joint in her Harlem neighborhood. This week Janet and six family members are all driving down to Florida to visit Disney World which, for countless immigrants, represents the very best of what America is supposed to be about (I’d have told her to go hiking in the Adirondacks, but that’s me). They’re taking one vehicle. They’re SOOO excited.

We were joking at work yesterday that Disney World, the “happiest place on Earth,” is about to greet the happiest person on Earth. I can only go off my own experiences, but man, give me a thousand Janets. I also work with a white woman Janet’s age (early 20s) who earlier this summer skipped out on us as we were all doing our mandatory duty of cleaning up after bartending a party for 500. When one of our co-workers, a Haitian immigrant, asked this native Manhattanite if she was not sticking around (at that moment she was clocking out; we all had an hour’s work ahead of us), her response was, “Fuck that sh*t.” Then she headed out to a bar. If I were the manager I would have fired her on the spot.

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

But please, let’s make a trade. You take our entitled and spoiled masses yearning to piggyback off their parents’ and grandparents’ efforts.

Friends and Neighbors

We saw Once Upon A Time In Hollywood last night, and while these next two items won’t have any plot spoilers, if you are yet to see it and want to enter completely blind, then stop reading now. This is why we put the final two items, both of which deal with the film, at the end of today’s IAH!.

On to the thoughts…

–Of the few reviews we’ve read, the one that for us is the most spot-on comes from Owen Glieberman in Variety. He writes:

 It’s been a decade since Quentin Tarantino gave us an unambiguously great Quentin Tarantino movie (Inglourious Basterds).

You know the difference as well as I do, because it’s one that you can feel in your heart, gut, nerves, and soul. It’s the difference between a Quentin movie that’s got dazzle and brilliance and a number of hypnotic sequences, and is every inch the work of his fevered movie candy brain, and a Quentin film that enters your bloodstream like a drug and stays there, inviting (compelling!) you to watch it again and again, because it’s a virtuoso piece of the imagination from first shot to last, and every moment is marked by a certain ineffable something, the Tarantino X Factor that made “Pulp Fiction” the indie touchstone of its time.

Gliebermann’s verdict is that Once Upon… falls short of the Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds standard. Agreed. It is a film that is far less than the sum of its parts, and while a number of those parts are delightful, the 2 hour, 39-minute film is proof positive that everyone needs an editor. No director should have total final cut on a film he’s written.

Plenty of scenes like this that, while fun, were far from necessary and left us feeling bloated.

Tarantino has made a 159-minute film in an era in which audiences fill up on 32- to 40-ounce sodas during the movies. Human kidneys were simply not built for this. I gave myself a pat on the back for having sat through this film without having taken a pee break, but I wonder how many fans will be able to do the same.

–If this is not Brad Pitt‘s best performance, it’s my favorite of his since Thelma & Louise. These are the roles he was born to play. Also, I can see that Champion spark plugs shirt becoming a popular item.

–Whoever did the makeup on Damian Lewis to become Steve McQueen deserves a raise. In the scene where McQueen is talking to a blonde actor I suppose to be either to Goldie Hawn or Joey Heatherton or Connie Stevens (which is what IMDB seems to be suggesting), he’s absolutely convincing. Now I want to see a Steve McQueen biopic with Lewis starring.

–There are a plethora of auto and L.A. traffic scenes in the film, and like me you’ll probably scan them to see if all the vehicles are authentic to the period. Tarantino knows that we live in the digitalized world of screen grabs, so he can’t hope to think he could avoid fans Zapruder-ing such scenes. From my cursory inspection, all of the cars and trucks were of the era, which must have been a herculean feat to pull off.

–For as much of a pretty boy as he can be, you have to admire Leo for going in such a different direction in this film. There’s a scene in which, at the end of it, his young co-star whispers a kind word to him. And we couldn’t agree more.

–Burt Reynolds was slated to play George Spahn but died a month before production began. Bruce Dern stepped in for him. Luke Perry does appear in the movie in a small role.

–Of course it was a satisfying scene, but nobody but nobody beats Bruce Lee in hand-to-hand combat. C’mon, Q.

–Was the Spahn Ranch scene the most compelling one in the movie? For me it was.

–The dialogue lacked the snap, crackle and pop of the best Tarantino efforts. For me the freshest line, the most classic Q moment, was the opening scene that involved the TV interview. Pitt gets off a funny line that invites you to think there are plenty more such moments to follow. There aren’t.

–Props to Tarantino for getting the little details of the history correct (you can Google Map Cielo Drive to see what I’m talking about), right down to where Sharon Tate and friends ate their final meal and also that her sister visited her on the afternoon of August 8th.

–So much I’d love to say about the climax, but any words are spoilers. So I’ll leave it alone and perhaps we’ll revisit next month. What did you think of the film, without giving anything away?

Pussycat Doll

For me, the biggest revelation of Once Upon A Time… was the big-screen debut of Margaret Qualley, who is enchanting as Manson family member Pussycat (not based on an actual person). The easiest way for me to quantify her screen presence is 50% Elizabeth Taylor (in Giant) and 50% Krysten Ritter (from Gilmore Girls).

Qualley, who trained as a ballerina and it shows, dances across the screen in every scene she has (note her footwork on the railing during the dumpster dive scene). I had no idea until after the film that she’s the daughter of Andie MacDowell and, oh my, is she everything as an actress actor that her mom never was. Mom was always a model trying to persuade us, unconvincingly, that she was her character. Qualley, 24, absolutely inhabits Pussycat (as does Margot Robbie inhabit Sharon Tate, for that matter; her performance, though short on lines, is terrific. Tate was a joyful and unself-conscious beam of sunshine, and Robbie nails it).

It must have tickled Brad Pitt, who entered the lives of filmgoers as a young, lanky and mischievous hitchhiker in Thelma & Louise, to play the person behind the wheel as Qualley portrayed the distaff version of the same. By the time she steps up to the Cadillac to utter her first line, she’s already won us–and Pitt’s Cliff Booth–over.

Qualley had a role in Showtime’s Fosse/Verdon, but this is her big-screen intro. And she was electric. We’ll all be seeing more of her.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 5 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

https://twitter.com/BillyDomineau/status/1161263724528840704?s=20

Starting Five

Hang Time*

*The judges respect the New York Post’s “Caught Off Guard” headline, too.

On the one hand, maybe a guy who lived in a metropolitan Shangri La-type mansion, only flew private jets, and had his very own “Bachelor In Paradise” island, couldn’t take any sort of confinement and wanted to off himself. And maybe the guards were either incompetent or for whatever reason ($$$…?), complicit.

On the other, what better time to off a dude then early Saturday morning, in terms of the news cycle? What more expedient time than after a giant document dump (unsealed depositions, allegations) and hours after a six-figure fundraiser in the Hamptons in which potentially some of the malefactors would have opportunity to converse and conspire, in a non-digital, non-traceable fashion? If you were building a Manchurian Candidate-type plot, all the pieces fit.

The current White House administration, in quite the Orwellian manner, is attempting to make truth extinct in our country (thanks to Richard M. Nixon for getting the ball rolling on that one). At least in terms of government and justice. So who the hell knows? You’ve heard by now that there were shrieks coming from the vicinity of the 66 year-old Epstein’s cell last Saturday morning: were they from him or from the non-trained officer who was supposed to be guarding him?

Other questions: what type of cell and bedding was it that Epstein could still have an opportunity to hang himself? Why would officers responding to the scene not KNOW that he had hanged himself, as opposed to “thought to have?” Is that just incomplete reporting or another weird twist to the saga?

Middle Age Crazy

Thinking of the Epstein-Barr (Jeffrey, William) virus, and all of the powerful and moneyed men potentially entangled in it, it led me to think of two films and, particularly scenes from those films.

The first is The Philadelphia Story. A true American classic from 1940 that is 98% romantic comedy, its other 2% is rather a record scratch when it attempts to mansplain middle-aged philandering. There’s a scene where Tracy Lord’s (Katharine Hepburn’s) wealthy but wayward father, Seth (John Halliday), returns to the family after a heavily implied adulterous relationship in New York City. And his wife takes him back, no questions asked.

Tracy is appalled (irony of Hepburn’s arguably greatest film character being named Tracy) and her father, with her mother approving of him, scolds her prudish ways. I don’t have the quote directly in front of me, but Seth Lord explains that a wife understands that her middle-aged philandering husband isn’t doing it as an affront to her, but that he is simply seeking the glory of his youth. And that makes him feel more alive. He tells Tracy that she has everything in the world except one main ingredient: an understanding heart.

The second film is Moonstruck, which 47 years later again brings us around to an adoring daughter (Cher), a philandering father (Vincent Gardenia), and an understanding, to a lesser degree, wife (Olympia Dukakis). After the husband is caught having an affair with a much younger woman, the wife sagely explains to him the misbegotten intent behind his adultery and the lost cause stirring it. Again, not verbatim, but she says something to the effect of, “No matter how many nubile young women you sleep with, it won’t prevent you from getting old.”

Which brings us to Jeffrey Epstein and his “friends.” Who knows how many of these powerful men had the opportunity in the bloom of their youth to, um, take advantage of their masculinity? Maybe some did, maybe others were nobodies or too busy working their way up the corporate or political ladder. Then here they are, middle-aged and wealthy and used to getting what they want. And what they really want is to have the allure of that 21 year-old lifeguard, Baywatch-type. But they never will. What they do have, however, is money and power. And Jeffrey Epstein was just the sort of man who could make their sexual and sinister dreams come true (as these young women and often underage teens) were procured for their wants.

And let’s not forget that it was only seven months ago that Robert Kraft was taking advantage of just such a relationship when, as a 77 year-old billionaire (or near to it), he was getting pleasured by someone for pay. On a Sunday morning. Before flying to watch his Patriots play the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC title game. Kraft IS exactly the type of man who thrived in Epstein’s circle.

Finally, if it ever comes out just how Epstein acquired all of this wealth…if it turns out he was the ultimate pimp in terms of procuring underage girls for the wealthy and powerful, if that is demonstrated to be true, well, it’s only too bad that Stanley Kubrick is not around to make a sequel to Eyes Wide Shut.

Tatis All, Folks

https://twitter.com/dieter/status/1161117531060371457?s=20

As rookies go, Padres shortstop Fernando Tatis, Jr., was somewhat overlooked in the season’s opening third. After all, San Diego had a lights-out rookie phenom pitcher named Chris Paddack who had a 1.93 ERA after two months—until he visited Yankee Stadium.

Paddack has since shuttled back and forth between AAA Lake Elsinore. Tatis, who does not have enough official at-bats to qualify for official stats, has played 83 games (about 2/3) and is batting .316 with 22 home runs. The 20 year-old is a star in the making.

Kong Blockers

This is a photo of yesterday’s massive and peaceful protest at the Hong Kong Airport that caused all flights to be suspended. Oddly enough, the Wolfgang Puck’s in Terminal 2 still had plenty of available seating.

We’re with the protesters, 100%. China tried to sneak through extradition legislation that in effect would give BIG BROTHER the power to extradite any independent Hong Kong citizen to the mainland and thus render these free people unto the totalitarian state. That’s when these people (Hong Kongers?) recognized their freedom was at stake and moved into action.

What’s the next move on the chess board, we wonder? And would Iron Mike Pompeo just mansplain a massive Chinese attack by saying, “Look, every government gets its hands dirty, but what truly matters is that the U.S. is still independent and our oil barons and other business tycoons are sated.”

Who’s A Fredo Whom?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqb5H5iF7lU

Some dumb Moe Greene type (Moe Greene wasn’t actually dumb. He was “a great man!”) made the mistake of referring to CNN’s Chris Cuomo as “Fredo” and Cuomo almost went full Sonny Corleone on him. Love it. And if you’ve met Cuomo, he’s pretty jacked and I think this would have gone very poorly for the dope.

WENDELL’S WISDOM

by John Walters | 3 Comments

Now batting for JW, Wendell Barnhouse (“Now batting for Manny Mota, Pedro Borbon”…a funny joke from Airplane! even though Borbon was a pitcher and would have never pinch-hit for Mota), with some words on this weekend’s assault to the senses.

by Wendell Barnhouse

Truth. Justice. The American Way. Remember that? Sound familiar? Anyone? Bueller? Yeah, those were the good old days, huh?

One week after 31 people were killed in two mass shootings, the death of one man Saturday further rendered what this country once stood for. Perhaps most citizens had not paid much attention to Jeffery Epstein’s sordid story. The batshit crazy news cycle requires full attention and its twists and turns can be confusing and exhausting; trust me on that.

Epstein was a billionaire, but nobody knows where or how he got his money. He received a sweetheart deal in 2007 for being a pedophile who peddled underage girls for sex. That should have landed him in prison for life. He was arrested just over a month ago after returning from France on his private jet. This time, the charges were similar, but the outcome figured to be far different. 

A Pulitzer-worthy investigative story, mostly reported by Julie K. Brown of the Miami Herald, had uncovered more victims, more evidence and exposed his previous “sentence” as a sham.  Epstein allegedly had pimped young girls to his rich and powerful friends.

Saturday, three weeks after a possible suicide attempt, Epstein was found dead in his cell. (Lucy, you got some ‘splainin’ to do.)

Epstein was being held at Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in New York City, a Federal facility. Reports are that he was not on suicide watch. If he indeed hung himself, how did he do the deed? Were there cameras monitoring his cell?

Dead men tell no tales. Many of the secrets of Epstein’s relationships went with him. Perhaps it was a pipe dream that he would have testified and sold out the rich and powerful men who possibly shared and benefitted from his perverse lifestyle. 

Reports are that Attorney General William Barr is angry. He has ordered an investigation, declaring in a press release that he “was appalled to learn that Jeffrey Epstein was found dead early this morning from an apparent suicide while in federal custody. Mr. Epstein’s death raises serious questions that must be answered.”

And Captain Renault was “shocked, shocked” to find gambling going on at Rick’s.

Epstein, who in his early 20s and with no college degree, was hired to teach math at an exclusive private school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Dalton Prep. The man who hired him was William Barr’s father. Coincidence? The federal prosecutor who signed off on Epstein’s deal was Alexander Acosta. With no background in the field, Acosta was appointed as Labor Secretary by Donald Trump. Coincidence? Again?

Perhaps. But even those with a passing interest can research and find that Epstein was like Zelig when it comes to coincidences. He was seemingly everywhere with everybody.

Let’s pause and consider the darkest side of the Epstein Affair. 

He didn’t hang with merely athletes or stars. His acquaintances were the crème de la crème. Names like Bill Clinton, Prince William, Alan Dershowitz along with several politicians are thought to have partied with Epstein and his squad of underage girls. Clinton, for one, is thought to be a philanderer. But the thought that he and other rich and powerful men not only cheated on their wives they did so with girls who could be their granddaughters is vomit-inducing.

The news of Epstein’s death probably shouldn’t have been a surprise. He was a dead man walking once he was arrested. But speculation that he would die before trial has now been replaced by conspiracy theories. In particular, the Far Right has fomented the theory that the Clintons – aka Murder Inc. – made the suicide happen. After all, remember Vince Foster and Seth Rich? (If the Clintons are so nefarious, how the hell did Hillary lose to that idiot Trump? … Oh, right. Three million more votes.)

Speaking of Donald John Trump, he was once best bros with Epstein. Upon Epstein’s arrest, Trump immediately distanced himself from the perp. However, at least one of Epstein’s harem accuses our 45th President of raping her, when she was 13, at an Epstein-hosted orgy in 1994.

The Twitter-in-Chief, spending the weekend in the Hamptons telling racist jokes at $250,000-a-plate fund raisers, had time to use his stubby fingers to retweet to his 63 million followers a Tweet by an “actor, comedian, commentator” promoting the “Clinton Conspiracy.”

So, there’s the alleged leader of the Free World (another term headed for the dustbin) amplifying the theory that the Clintons had Epstein killed. As David Frum of The Atlantic wrote Saturday, What if Richard Nixon, once he was elected President, had accused Lyndon Johnson of masterminding JFK’s assassination?

Our system elected a President who averages about 10 lies a day and has committed a laundry list of alleged crimes; the use of “alleged” is a journalistic practice however it seems obscene to give a venal, narcissistic con man the courtesy.

If the system doesn’t self-correct and Trump is never convicted, does our democracy, our rule of law matter? Trump losing in 2020 would be the “voice of the people” but justice would not be served.

We’ve been told “the truth shall set you free” and to “have faith.” Truth and faith are in short supply. Your Humble Correspondent’s generation has lived with JFK’s assassination and the grassy knoll, Vietnam (and a lying government}, Watergate, Iran-Contra, a presidential election decided by hanging chads, 9/11 and Iraq/Afghanistan (and a lying government).

Now, we have the highly suspicious death of a man whose testimony might have incriminated dozens of men in whom we placed our trust and faith. 

William Barr oversees the Department of Justice, but will he allow a full investigation of Epstein’s death? So far, Barr has acted like Trump’s consigliere, not the lawyer representing America’s citizens. If Epstein were murdered, no doubt the conspirators have made sure the tracks are covered and the evidence destroyed. 

Perhaps it was a “clerical error” that removed Epstein from suicide watch. Maybe there is/was a malfunction that blacked out the video surveillance at the time he killed himself. Nothing to see here, citizens. Move along. 

Disgusted that men with money and power (allegedly) decided it was okay to have sex with girls? If you’ve been paying attention for the last 50 years, why are you surprised that your disgust is duly noted while the perverts board another private jet?

Truth. Justice. The American Way. Those were words credited to/uttered by Superman. Silly us thinking a comic book character with superpowers was aspirational.

****

Postscript, editor’s note: We’ll have more on this tomorrow. The timing of Epstein’s death, during the slowest news hours of the week, and shortly after both a giant document dump less than 24 hours earlier the big Trump fundraiser in the Hamptons Friday night, is curious but it may be just another coincidence. We’d not be surprised if Epstein wanted to take his own life and we’d not be surprised if a few employees at the MCC were paid off to not do their jobs for an hour or two or however long it took.

Whatever happened, this was the most important inmate awaiting trial in America, in a federal prison, being neglected in one way or another. And as a federal prison it falls under William Barr’s purview, which means the buck stops there. So, for the umpteenth time, imagine if this had happened under the Obama administration and just how nasty Fox News would have gotten over their incompetence and/or corruption. Instead, you have Kellyanne appearing with Bill Hemmer on Sunday mansplaining why Trump’s tweet was responsible because he just wants everything to be investigated. Shameless.


IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

We had a brief and beautiful thunderstorm in Gotham City last night, shortly before 8 p.m. I was happily pedaling my bicycle in Central Park when it hit and took cover at the Boathouse Cafe.

Starting Five

Bo Peeps*

*The judges will lukewarmly accept Doubles Your Pleasure.

Rule No. 7 states that “the beauty of baseball is that every game offers a chance to see something that’s never happened before.” Case in point, Yankees at Blue Jays last night. Rookie Bo Bichette, playing in only his 11th career game—and his first in Toronto—became the first player in the modern era (since 1900) to hit a double in nine straight games.

Bichette, the progeny of four-time All-Star and mullet hall-of-famer Dante Bichette, also has an 11-game hitting streak to begin his career. Aaaaand, he’s the first rookie to have an extra-base hit in nine straight games in 80 years, dating back to 1939.

The last guy to do it? Ted Williams.

Bichette, 21 years of age, is batting .408 in his young career.

Soul-less Cycle

Here’s the thing, Libs: If you’re so disgusted by Stephen Ross hosting a fundraiser for Donald Trump that you’re threatening to boycott a business where you pay $42 to ride a stationary bike for 45 minutes, I think you’re kind of making Middle America’s point for them. And that is, you’re a booshie elitist twit.

Last week, on absolutely sublime summer day in Montauk, I pedaled past a gaggle of people who had been bussed over (in a mini-van, presumably from the local resort, Gurney’s, though I’m not sure) who were marching into a SoulCycle. To ride bicycles indoors. On the most loveliest day of the summer. And they were paying an exorbitant price for the privilege.

The only thing that would’ve made this moment better is if behind these people I saw Tom Sawyer persuading his friends to paint a fence.

So if you want to boycott SoulCycle, go right ahead. Meanwhile, why are you patronizing them in the first place? It’s not the workout; it’s the brand. It’s the same reason you pay three times as much for Starbucks coffee when McDonald’s is actually better and only $1.

The Man Without Empathy

The president came to El Paso, where four days earlier 22 people, nearly all of Mexican heritage, were gunned down by an avowed white supremacist. According to a hospital spokesman at one of the two hospitals where patients recovering from bullet wounds were being treated, “None of the eight patients still being treated at University Medical Center in El Paso agreed to meet with Trump when he visited the hospital.”

So someone within the administration asked if the president and first lady might pose with the baby who was orphaned in the massacre, as both his parents were shot dead while attempting to shield the baby (This is so awful I’m not even Veep would have used this as a plot point). So they actually had to drive the baby over to the hospital, where this photo was taken. Notice that the president is both smiling and giving a thumbs up sign (above).

As CNN’s Anderson Cooper noted, “Even pretending to care was too much for Trump.”

On Air Force One, during the El Paso trip, the president flashed the white supremacy sign. He’ got your back, Tucker Carlson.

I don’t mean this in an angry, temper-tantrum way, but rather as a clinical diagnosis: I’m firmly convinced that Donald Trump is a creature without empathy. He lacks the capacity. There is an emptiness where a soul should be.

Does Trump love anything? He loves Donald Trump.

But outside of that?

His wives have been nothing more than sexual acquisitions, like new sports cars that you tire of after a few years and if you’re rich enough, you buy a different model with a sportier chassis. His kids? He comes closest to adoring Ivanka, but even then openly ruminates about the idea that he would’ve dated her if circumstances were different (life can’t always be the way it was on Jeffrey Epstein’s island).

Joe Biden, who said something very, very stupid on Wednesday (more below), did say something very insightful the day before: “His low-energy, vacant-eyed mouthing of the words written for him condemning white supremacists this week I don’t believe fooled anyone, at home or abroad.”

Trump can sound empathetic when the words are written for him on a Tele-prompter. And he can act as if he’s listening with empathy, occasionally, as he did during the Parkland shootings White House confab with families who were impacted. But what most interests Donald Trump are the interests of Donald Trump. He can pretend to listen like he cares, but notice how he perks up as soon as someone begins talking about him. After all, Donald Trump is Donald Trump’s favorite subject.

But beyond that, is an absence of empathy a form of mental illness. Look, the White House forbade press from accompanying the press to the hospitals in Dayton and El Paso. Every photo produced from those visits was released by the White House. And it shows a president grinning from ear to ear, or putting a thumbs up, as if he’s doing a ribbon-cutting ceremony at a Ford dealership opening. And of course, in his mind, none of this is even remotely his fault.

I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever come across another high-profile American (only Douglas MacArthur comes to mind) who is so oblivious to the pain or suffering or anxiety of others and so casually negligent in how his actions impact them.

Donald Trump went on a unify-the-country pilgrimage on Tuesday and instead made someone drive a recently orphaned child back to the hospital it was discharged from just so he could SMILE and give a THUMBS UP as his wife held the orphan. In a quadrennial of What The F___? moments dating back to June of 2015 when he announced, this one must definitely make the coffee table book. It’s evil.

Love Field

Imagine how it must have felt to be Bryan Knight yesterday. Fifty-two years ago Bryan was a five year-old who said goodbye to his, father, Roy, as he left for duty in the Vietnam War. Major Roy Knight was an Air Force pilot.

On May 19, 1967 Roy Knight’s plane was shot down during a mission over northern Laos (not Vietnam, but let’s not get into that now). Knight, 36, was declared missing in action. Though his remains were never found, he was finally declared dead in 1974. Flash forward 45 years to 2019, as government officials inform Bryan Knight that his father’s remains were identified.

Roy Knight was just 36 when he died in action

And so more than half a century later, Roy Knight’s remains are flown back to Love Field. And the man piloting the Southwest Airlines flight who returned them was…Bryan Knight.

That’s the kind of story that Paul Harvey needs to be reincarnated for, just for five minutes, just to share it the way only Paul Harvey could.

Say It Ain’t So, Joe

Democratic frontrunner—for now—Joe Biden, speaking at the Iowa State Fair yesterday, was trying to be inclusive when he said, “Poor kids are just as bright and talented as white kids.”

Oh, Joe. The difficult part of this is that Biden did not mean it in a malicious sense. Rather, it’s a window to his subconscious and let’s face it, many of ours. It’s like that old riddle where you are told a physician and his son get in a car crash and the physician dies. The son is taken to the emergency room where the doctor takes one look at him and says, “I can’t operate on this boy; he’s my son.”

And many of us were stumped the first time we heard that one. So, yeah, Biden is 76 and white and while he didn’t mean anything by it, it’s great fodder for those elements who want to illuminate the fact that he’s just another old white dinosaur.

Now if only Biden had said, “Poor kids are just as bright and talented as Indian kids,” that would have been much better.

Music 101

Helter Skelter

The reason Vincent Bugliosi, the assistant D.A. who prosecuted the Manson Family, titled his book after this cacophonic Beatles song was that Charles Manson thought the white album was the Beatles speaking directly to him, inciting him to start a race war (the idea was that the murders would be blamed on black Americans). Today is the 50th anniversary of the morning the police found the bodies on the lawn and in the house at 10050 Cielo Drive. As you may know, a house caretaker who had his own cabin out back slept through the entire massacre and was woken up by some angry and anxious cops on this morning 50 years ago.

Remote Patrol

Saturday

West Side Story

10 p.m. TCM

Reader take note: this film does not air tonight (tonight), but tomorrow night.

To those people who say they don’t like musicals, watch this one. An updated and musical version of Romeo & Juliet, taking place in my future neighborhood. The 1961 film, adapted from a play that did NOT win the Tony Award for Best Musical (The Music Man did; tough company), would win 10 Oscars, including Best Picture. All were richly deserved.

It’s funny to think, nearly 60 years later, that I now work with a lot more Bernardos than I do Tony’s. And I love them.