IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 7 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Starting Five

THIS IS THE WORST ITEM OF ALL TIME, UNLESS IT’S THE GREATEST ITEM OF ALL TIME

“I’M WRITING THIS ITEM, AND IT’S ABOUT ME AND IT’S ABOUT SOMETHING THAT I EXPERIENCED, SO OBVIOUSLY IT HAS TO BE THE WORST ITEM YOU’VE EVER READ. UNLESS IT’S THE GREATEST ITEM YOU’VE EVER READ. BUT IT MUST BE ONE OR THE OTHER. BECAUSE I’M IMPORTANT! AND WHAT HAPPENS IN MY EXPERIENCE IS REALLY, REALLY IMPORTANT, AND SO IT’S GOT TO BE NOT JUST GREAT BUT THE GREATEST UNLESS IT’S SO HORRIBLY TERRIBLE THAT IT’S THE WORST.

OF. ALL. TIME!”

Okay, now that really WAS the worst maritime disaster.

Yesterday we woke up to Ian O’Connor on ESPN claiming the New England Patriots (six Super Bowl wins in the past 18 seasons) are the greatest sports dynasty of all time, which must be huge news to the New York Yankees (20 World Series titles in a 27-year stretch from 1936-1962) and John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins (10 NCAA championships, oh, and an 88-game win streak, in 11 seasons).

Then we headed to CNN.com, where our friend Jeff Pearlman tried to persuade us that this was the worst Super Bowl of all time (hardly), but it was really an excuse for Jeff to talk about his personal experience with the game growing up (much of Jeff’s writing is personal and, like, ketchup, it’s all about how much you dap onto the burgers that distinguishes between tasty and putrid…or you could just Eat Like Andy).

Of course, this wasn’t one of the great Super Bowls of all time, but it was very, very far from the worst. There was only one turnover, the outcome was in the balance until the final few minutes and (arguably) the greatest coach-QB combo the NFL has ever seen was winning its sixth Super Bowl together. No, this was a long way from Niners-Broncos or Niners-Chargers or Cowboys-Dolphins, to name a few.

But historical perspective doesn’t matter when you want to claim that something is THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME…unless it’s THE WORST OF ALL TIME. Mostly, it’s about you. And wanting your experience to be the most specialist experience anyone’s ever had. Isn’t this the same thing writers mock Donald Trump for almost daily?

Seriously, what was so great about it?

To be fair, Recency Bias (a $3 term for this modern phenomenon in which people rush to the superlative) isn’t a recent discovery. A century ago people were hailing the end of The Great War, or as it was also dubbed, “The War To End All Wars.” Then, just 20 or so years later an even more catastrophic and deadly war commenced and The Great War was renamed World War I. Kinda like how folks of our generation refer to it as Star Wars while people under 30 call it A New Hope (auuugghhhh!!!!).

There’s nothing wrong with something or someone who is contemporary being The GOAT (or The WOAT). Stephen Curry is The GOAT of three-point shooters and it isn’t even close. Michael Phelps is The GOAT of swimming. But if you’re going to write one of these columns every time something strikes you as sublimely good or heinously bad, you’re just forfeiting your credibility. You become The Boy Who Cried GOAT (or WOAT).

2. Maroon Still Outscored The Rams

The annual Super Bowl halftime show is America, or maybe just Twitter, at its Veruca Saltiest. Nothing is good enough for us. We can’t sing. We can’t play a musical instrument. We definitely should not be walking around topless in public. And on Sunday, as we do most every year, we spent 15 minutes ripping Maroon 5 a new one for…what? For performing Maroon 5 songs?

I’m not a huge fan—I actually like “Payphone” best of their songs, but knew they wouldn’t play it just to spare us all from a mountain of Twitter takes about no one needing to use a payphone any more—but it’s not as if Adam Levine and the band were awful (it was a big day for the tribe in Atlanta: Adam Levine AND Julian Edelman).

So what’s wrong? First, the NFL picks bands that middle-age white guys would pick: Maroon 5 and Coldplay in the last three years? Come on. Second, they’ve made the pomp and circumstance trite. Fire? Check. Young people with their hands in the air like they just don’t care around the stage? Check. Black performer brought in midway through the set as an act of appeasement? Check.

Third, nothing is ever enough for the SB home-gamers. Lady Ga Ga drops from the roof of a stadium? Okay, that’s cool. What you got next? Most of you are too young to remember this, but there was an episode of the show Happy Days (1970s sitcom, wildly popular at the time) where the host of a reality show within the show called “You Wanted To See It” asks Potsie what he’d like to see live on TV. And Potsie says, “A human sacrifice.”

It’s the greatest joke in that show’s history (no, wait…OF ALL TIME!) and we never forgot it because even then, in a show from the Seventies about the Fifties, they realized that America’s appetite for excess is insatiable. And so, yeah, until a Super Bowl halftime act takes the stage and actually kills one of its members during the performance, Twitter will remain Veruca Salt about it. We’re the worst.

The most disappointing aspect of the halftime show? Maroon 5 is the first Super Bowl halftime act to share a name with an NFL franchise (the now defunct Pottsville Maroons) and yet no one from CBS noted that.

3. Andy Cohen & Fatherhood

Our reaction to the LGBT 50 year-old TV host becoming a first-time dad? Bravo! (Saw a headline reading “Andy Cohen To Reveal Sex Of His First Child” and our first thought was, “Gay?” Oh, lighten up.)

4. Vonn, Damn

Downhill ace Lindsey Vonn, the most decorated alpine skier in history, men’s or women’s (Does this make her GOAT-worthy?), crashes in the Super-G at the final event of her career, the World Championships in Are, Sweden. Vonn, 34, had announced that she would retire after this weekend.

The oft-injured Minnesota native hit a gate with one of her skis during the Super-G and tumbled. Fellow American Mikaela Shiffrin won. Vonn was in pain but was able to walk away from the accident with help. Sunday’s downhill is slated to be her final race, but it is too early to know if she’ll be fit to do it.

5. No Creepy For Old Men

Here’s looking at you, kid. Indeed.

A steady winter’s diet of TCM has worked us to a curious Hollywood phenomenon of its Golden Age: the insouciant casting of leading men at least 20 or so years older than their ingenue leading ladies. Was this a thing all across society at the time (our parents were born just five months apart, or at least that’s what they told us) or was it just a paragon of the heterosexual relationship, an aspirational ideal for audience members?

This was the era in which Hollywood, winking, gave us a musical number titled “Thank Heaven For Little Girls.”

Here’s just a few examples, and these aren’t throwaway films. Most of what follows are considered classics:

To Have And Have Not (1944): Starring Humphrey Bogart, 44, opposite Lauren Bacall, 20. Bogey was no dope. The two began a romance during filming and were married one year later. Three years after that they made Key Largo (1948).

Singing In The Rain (1952): In which Gene Kelly, 39, woos Debbie Reynolds, 19. To be fair, Kelly at 39 is in better shape and more handsome than 100% of the available actors in Hollywood or not in Hollywood.

The Band Wagon (1953): Fred Astaire is 53; Cyd Charisse is 31.

Rear Window (1954): Starring Jimmy Stewart, 46, and Grace Kelly, 25. Maybe Kelly fled Hollywood because they kept putting her in films where she was supposed to fall in love with daddy figures: To Catch A Thief (1955) where she’s 26 playing opposite Cary Grant, 51; High Society (1956) where she’s 27 and falling back in love with Bing Crosby, 54; and High Noon (1951), where as a 23 year-old she’s betrothed to Gary Cooper, 51.

My Fair Lady (1964): Audrey Hepburn is 34, Rex Harrison is 56.

Ewwwww!

You could delve deeper if you like: Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak in Vertigo (he’s 50; she’s 25) or Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint in North By Northwest (he’s 55; she’s 35). Both, like Rear Window, are Hitchcock films (he had issues). Again to be fair, Cary Grant was better-looking in his fifties than in his thirties (we’d like to think we can relate!).

Gloria Swanson was 18 years older than William Holden, so of course he was only with her for the money.

One last thing: If you go to the AFI Top 100 list, there are only two films in the Top 30 that we know of where an older woman chases after or seduces a younger man: Sunset Boulevard and The Graduate. In one of those films the women as portrayed as deranged and in the other she’s… well, not a very good mom (also, in real life Ann Bancroft was only 6 years older than the young man she seduced, Dustin Hoffman). Older women don’t get to dance and sing a happy closing number with their far younger man. Maybe someone needs to write that movie (and don’t say Harold and Maude).

Music 101

Devil Inside

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HKsXe9JYu4

We don’t know, but we have strong reason to believe, based on common sense, that someone in Hollywood crunched the numbers on Bohemian Rhapsody— a world-wide gross of $833 million thus far versus a production budget of $52 million— and has already green-lighted a Michael Hutchence/INXS biopic.

Makes perfect sense, right? Both Freddie Mercury and Hutchence were extraordinarily charismatic front men of savagely creative rock bands who died tragically young (go back and look at INXS videos “Don’t Change” and “This Time” when the feral Hutchence was still in his early 20s; he had IT and he knew he had it). You even have the triumphant Wembley show side-by-side, just six years later.

Hutchence killed himself in 1997; three years later Yates died of a heroin overdose

Curious twist: In the last two years of his life, before committing suicide, Hutchence was in a serious relationship and had a daughter with Paula Yates. She had left her husband to be with Hutchence, that husband being Bob Geldof, who had organized Live Aid, where Queen made their legendary appearance that is the climax of Bohemian Rhapsody.

So what’s our title? Do we use the song above? “Suicide Blonde” hits a little too close to home. “Not Enough Time?” “Bitter Tears?”

Remote Patrol

State Of The Union Address

9 p.m. ALLS THE CHANNELS

If you haven’t heard, Melania Trump invited a boy named Joshua Trump to the SOTU who “has been bullied in school due to his last name.” No farce can keep up with the reality of this presidency. You gotta think Stephen Miller will drop a New England Patriots-inspired “I’m still here” reference into the speech.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Starting Five

The GOAwayTom

You know: six Super Bowl in nine appearances this millennium for Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, Robert Kraft and the New England Patriots. The city of Boston’s four pro teams have amassed an even dozen championships since years began with a “2” in front of them.

Some random thoughts on Pats 13, Rams 3:

–You really can’t hate Tom Brady when you see this:

–At a Super Bowl where Colin Kaepernick’s name was never mentioned nor any image of him shown, the NFL doubled down on audacity by posting a brief video tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr., and then inviting his daughter out for the pre-game coin toss. The balls on these guys…


–Forget about Todd Gurley’s being criminally underused (he was likely hurt with what Joe Torre would call a “balky knee”). Do the Rams even have a tight end? Tyler Higbee was never targeted and hence never caught a pass.

–Goff completed 50% of his throws, Brady 60%.

–The game featured just one snap, total, from the red zone. One. That’s a Super Bowl record for fewest by a margin of four.

–Both team’s punters were at Oregon State around the same time a decade ago.

–Rob Gostkowski, New England’s all-time leading scorer, became the first kicker to miss a field goal attempt inside Mercedes Benz Stadium this season.

–Befitting a 13-3 snoozer, the game had no trick plays. Zero (our bingo card sits fecklessly by).

–The champions’ feast after this game should be beet loaf.

–At the half:


–Janet Jackson’s watching Maroon 5’s halftime show and saying, “Oh, so now it’s okay to expose a nipple (or two).”


–Kind of hard to believe Jason McCourty broke up that fourth-quarter TD pass attempt considering where he was midway through the play. And yes, Jared Goff found the receiver late and then wobbled a duck his way.

–If that was the last catch of Rob Gronkowski’s magnificent and bodacious career, it would be fitting.

–Bud Light’s “War On Corn Syrup” and Bud’s “Wind-powered” beer. What’s next? “Our beer is more likely to be discounted as a happy hour special than anyone else’s?” Who at Bud Light thought launching an unprovoked strike against America’s No. 1 cash crop was a good idea?

–Did anyone else see that overhead tracking shot of Tracy Wolfson getting lost in the postgame scrum and think, I haven’t seen anyone get lost like that in a mob in Georgia since Season 2 of The Walking Dead?

–The trophy will say “Julian Edelman,” but the real Super Bowl LIII MVP was Kansas City Chief defensive end Dee Ford. On a play in which the Chiefs should’ve clinched a Super Bowl trip with an interception of Tom Brady very late, Ford lined up in the neutral zone on a play that was going away from him.

–Don’t anyone tell Mike Pence about this:


–This pic is difficult to top:

–If the Rams get rid of Jared Goff, they should trade him to Jacksonville so that hostile fans can refer to him as “Jag Goff.”

–Sean McVay becomes the youngest coach ever to lead his team to the Super Bowl and fail to score a touchdown and get into the red zone. Credit the 33 year-old for owning it, telling reporters that he was completely outcoached by Belichick.

–Rams OL Brad Whitworth was sanguine post-game: “At the end of the day, we’re all gonna die.” It’s nice to see that, 40 years later, someone is still channeling Bill Murray‘s pregame hype speech from Meatballs: “It just doesn’t matter! It just doesn’t matter!”

2. Northam Exposure

Your medical school had a yearbook?!? Virginia governor Ralph Northam became this past weekend’s Covington Catholic (or maybe Josh Hader?) when a photo of two men posing on his yearbook page showed one in a Klan hood and the other in blackface. Probably the worst part for Northam, 55, is that he cannot remember which one he was (so he took a page from Trump 101 and denied being either).

At Saturday’s “Mea Culpa But I’m Not Admitting Guilt” press conference, Northam did offer that he once put on blackface to be Michael Jackson in a dance contest (unprompted, he revealed that he won…good for you!). Later folks plumbed his VMI undergrad yearbook and learned that friends called him “Coonman.”

Of course, he was just a kid, a mere 24 or 25 years old, when that photo was taken.

3. Virk Outta Work

On Friday ESPN fired anchor Adnan Virk, escorting him off the Bristol campus. The charge? Excessive leaks to the media. When Virk did less than what his bosses felt he should do in terms of cooperation, he was canned. We were agnostic about Virk, although we’d slot him in that “up-and-coming ESPN anchor who’s trying just a bit too hard to show us how clever he is” (you wanna do that, bub, write your own free blog!) bin. Now the Pakistani-born Canadian, 40, is done. It’ll be interesting to see what a future employer thinks in terms of hiring him given that he’s now known as a leaker. Any openings on the White House staff?

4. Nuke The Knicks

Jive Turkey

In case you haven’t been paying attention: The New York Knicks are 2-26 since December 1, which is also the last time they won at Madison Square Garden. One of those two wins was in OT at Charlotte, the other indescribably versus the Lakers (minus LeBron) at Staples.

It’s only getting worse: yesterday they lost at MSG to the Grizzlies, who entered with a nine-game road losing streak. Also, the Knickiest Knick, Enes Kanter, thought he’d actually been called off the bench to play but the assistant coach was actually calling for new Knick Dennis Smith, Jr. So he said, “Dennis” and Enes thought his name was being called, so he headed to the scorer’s table and then was called back.

The crowd groaned. You can’t even give him this?

5. Don’t Hold Back

There’s the nice Ellen on TV. She hosts a daily afternoon talk show. And then there was the unfiltered Ellen Page—you know her as the star of Juno—who appeared on Late Show last week and did not hold back in an impassioned rant against the intolerance of this White House.

Judge for yourself.

Music 101 

Grace

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjO4IenAyUw

Artist Jeff Buckley, who drowned in the Mississippi River late one night after a recording session for his second album, is the Mark Fidrych of rock and roll. By that we mean that neither man is in his respective Hall of Fame (Rock, Baseball) for the dumb reason that their careers, though short and incandescently brilliant, were too brief. That’s dumb. Every young baseball fan should be aware of Fidrych’s magical rookie season with the Detroit Tigers in 1976 (19-9, league-best 2.34 ERA, but the numbers weren’t what made The Bird unique).

When Buckley’s debut album (also titled Grace) was released in 1994, it peaked at 149 and he must’ve thought, What do I have to do? More likely he thought, Pearls before swine. In the decades since, the album has come to be rightly appreciated as an all-time classic and Buckley as a rock legend. There’s a musical biopic waiting to be made here.

Remote Patrol

She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

The Duke. Hollywood has never made a movie star quite like him, though Liam Neeson comes close.

The two Johns—Ford and Wayne—team up again, in 1949, for the second installment of their Cavalry trilogy (Fort Apache, 1948; The Rio Grande, 1950). Shot on location in Monument Valley, it received the Oscar for Best Cinematography. It’s “31 Days Of Oscar” time at TCM and it’s only just getting started so I’m going to be this annoying and pedantic all month. What else is new?

CHRIS PICK!

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by Chris Corbellini

Brady: It’s not rocket surgery

Super Bowl pick: The Patriots, Again

William Hill line: Patriots -2.5

“I thought ‘tonight, no matter what happens, my life is going to be different.’”
–Steve Young, on his thoughts during the morning of the Super Bowl

“I was trying not to pee my pants.”

-Troy Aikman, on his thoughts while in the tunnel before his first Super Bowl

So, yeah, the Super Bowl and I go way back.

I’ve attended six Super Bowls, and produced hours of content on the game, including blocks of NBC’s pregame show last year, and what stands out to me about the contest itself is that while the faces change, the emotion stays the same: Jumpy at the start, humbled at the finish.

I’ve seen tears before and after, team-wide exhaustion and a stunning quiet in a locker room, and Charles Woodson’s broken collarbone. I’ve seen Peyton Manning throw warm-up passes so hard I thought he was going to break an equipment manager’s hands. I’ve seen Devin Hester return an opening kickoff for a TD and I could feel my vocal chords but not hear my screams above the din. I’ve seen a backup WR make a catch with his helmet right in front of me. I’ve watched Santonio Holmes float like a butterfly. I’ve marveled at the box of lightning that is Aaron Rodgers’ throws. I’ve walked through the confetti.

And still, what stands out: jumpy at the start, humbled at the finish.

At some point early for the players, the Super Bowl stops being a spectacle, and becomes the game that they’ve always known. Until that point, anything can happen, especially in a contest of wills and moves and countermoves between ostensibly the two best teams in the NFL. So, while looking for the little edges here and there to make a final score prediction, I had to factor in this jumpiness factor.

These Patriots, Dynasty Vol. 2, are playing in their fourth Super Bowl over the past five years, and third in a row. It’s a working theory, I know, but they should settle down quicker. The Rams are turbo-paced and precise, and succeed with a lot of pre-and-post snap movement on offense. They are innovators, and young, with a coach who is still in his mid-30s. So. Yes, there is a real chance for mental errors on both sides of the ball here for LA. Then again, the Rams could also explode for two early TDs too, with that youthful energy finally being unleashed on the biggest game of them all.

So let’s keep digging. With teams that are so evenly matched, both on the analytics side and with eyeball scouting, the most minute weaknesses need to be exploited. And here are the weak spots for both teams before Super Bowl LIII kicks off: The Rams can get beat deep, Brandin Cooks is awful against press and man coverage, and Jared Goff becomes Jared Goof when under pressure, while the Patriots have a 41-year-old quarterback, cement has been poured into their linebacker’s cleats, they have no real established deep threat, and most of the country is against them.

That’s it. If you followed pro football even a little this season, you could have predicted the New Orleans-LA-New England-Kansas City Final Four by November 1st, and this Super Bowl matchup is not a surprise either. The strengths of both are many, and to this point those weaknesses above have not been exposed. Not really.

Edelman is one of two undrafted receivers who play a huge role in New England’s passing game.

The Rams offensive line is the engine room for their dynamic offense, powering them to the No. 1 ranking in rushing success rate, and a No. 8 ranking in passing success rate. The Patriots O-line is just as dominant, especially in pass protection, allowing just the third fewest sacks this season (all of these stats are courtesy The Quant Edge).

Both teams have an elite running back rotation, with the Rams boasting Todd Gurley and beer-bellied C.J. Anderson and the top-ranked rushing success rate (58%). The Pats have featured rookie Sony Michel, but are also famous for their misdirection, which means James White, the team’s dump-off back, and Rex Burkhead, a plow-horse, could become The Guy today. Even fullback James Develin could have a two-TD day. In the pass game, the Patriots have Julian Edelman and Rob Gronkowski, who have made catches in the grandest of Super Bowl moments, while the Rams have a terrific slot receiver in Robert Woods, and again, quickness everywhere.

More general awesomeness: Both of their defenses rank in the top half in DVOA rankings, with ridiculous speed in their respective defensive backfields.

So, it really comes down to who can exploit those few weaknesses, and this is where the Patriots have the edge. Their head coach, Bill Belichick always picks at an opponent’s scab, and so I think they will at least attempt the following:

-Rough up Cooks in bump. The former Patriot is the fastest player for either side, and so he must be erased. If you give him a zone defense to work against, Cooks will tear it apart. But against a rough customer like Stephon Gilmore in press-man, he could disappear.

-Hound Goff constantly. Another stat from The Quant Edge: Under pressure, Goff falls way back into the pack with a 29thranked passer rating (58.2). The Patriots defense doesn’t have a showstopper like Richard Seymour or Tedy Bruschi or even Rob Ninkovich these days, but as a group they play well enough. While they won’t stuff Goff completely, Belichick wants the QB uncomfortable throughout, with his rushers’ hands up and arms outstretched, and maybe a missed assignment against that pressure turns into a killer INT.

Aaron Donald may be the best player in the game today, regardless of position, at this point in time.

-Send somebody long: The Saints gave the Patriots a template to beat the Rams with the passing game: Attack corner Marcus Peters deep (Michael Thomas had over 200 yards receiving against Peters during the regular season). While Julian Edelman will keep Nickell Robey-Coleman busy on the crossers, slants and comebacks, Cordarrelle Patterson and Phillip Dorsett need to beat Peters in single coverage straight down the field. Or at least establish the threat of going deep against him.

The Rams, meanwhile, will attack the flat with Gurley, and look for mismatches on Woods. According to Pro Football Outsiders, the Patriots ranked just 22nd in the NFL against pass catching backs, and have been known to give up big games to No. 1 receivers. On the other side, defensive coordinator Wade Phillips needs the game plan of his career to attack that great Patriots line and pound on Tom Brady. It’s been done before, most notably in Super Bowl XLII, when Brady nearly tapped out due to the Giants pass rush from Michael Strahan, Osi Umenyiora, Justin Tuck, and Jay Alford. Wade’s dominant interior defensive linemen, Aaron Donald and Ndamukong Suh, better be in top shape, otherwise late in the game Brady will enjoy a comfy pocket which to work from.

Cooper Kupp was halfway to an 80-catch season when he tore his ACL in Week 9.

And I think he will have time to make those money throws in those final moments. All the little things that have been drilled into these Patriots, over and over since July, will be muscle memory at the finish here in February, and it’ll be just enough.

But win or lose, all of these grown men will be humbled by their Super Bowl experience. I think this passage from the poem “The Law of the Yukon,” sums it up perfectly:

“And I will not be won by weaklings, cuddled, suave and mild, but by men with the hearts of Vikings, and the simple faith of a child.”

Final score prediction: Patriots 31, Rams 27

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 4 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right


Thanks to @BrianKearney95 for sending this to us.

Starting Five

Baltic See Ya

All’s we can say is we strongly urged James Dolan to listen to the other Sharks before accepting Mark Cuban’s offer for 7’3″ Kristaps Porzingis. Barbara Corcoran wouldn’t have offered more? Mr. Wonderful? Daymond John? Lori the QVC lady? Robert with the good hair? No one?

Maybe if New York wasn’t a small-market town…anyway, now international player-adoring owner Cuban has Porzingis and likely Rookie of the Year Luka Doncic: i.e., his best pair of foreign-born players since Nash and Nowitzki.

2. Pet On Parade

So adorbs!

In Thailand, Khemjira Klongsanun was seven miles into the Chombueng Marathon when she noticed runners ahead of her dodging an object in the road. It was a lost puppy, and as there were no homes nearby, Klongsanun figured it had been abandoned.

She picked up the pup and carried it the last 19 miles across the finish line. After the race Klongsanum repeatedly appealed for the pup’s owner to come forward, but no one ever did. And so she adopted him and named him Chombueng. She’s our early leader for Sportsperson of the Year.

3. $650 Per Hour

Jordan McNair. Remember when it was supposed to be about him?

Two days ago The Washington Post put out an incredible story about how an eight-person committee formed to investigate Maryland’s football culture last August spent two months on the project, submitted a 192-page paper and billed the university $1.57 MILLION. And some of  these “investigators” were alums. To wit…

Charles Scheeler, attorney and the committee’s point person: $283,000

Ben Legg, retired federal judge: $161,000

Alex Williams, retired judge: $155,000

Bonnie Bernstein, sports reporter and Terp alum: $118,000

Tom McMillen, former Terrapin hoops star and three-term Congressman: $59,000

Doug Williams, Super Bowl QB: $30,000

All of the committee members charged the school at an hourly rate of $650, which is like partner-level at Skadden, Arps. Or should at least come with bottle service.

Now, we think we know what’s happening here (not that it makes it any less obscene). Maryland was paying for the work to a degree, but what the school was really paying for was insurance against the lawsuit they expected head coach D.J. Durkin to file once they terminated him. If they had simply done what common sense tells you to do (fire the jerk), his wrongful termination suit might have heft.

Here, though, if it came to a hearing or arbitration the school could point to its hefty 192-page report (feel the bulk!) AND to all the consultancy fees they paid and say, “A ha! See? We did our homework.”

So, yeah, it’s crazy obscene that Bernstein and McMillen would charge their own alma mater $650 an hour for a fait accompli , but it’s good work if you can get it. We’re just wondering why Terp alum Susie B. was not onboard this gravy train.

Related: We know and like Bernstein. Consider her a friend. But you know, we’re also journalists and we report on the news. Look around and see how many folks in the sports sphere call attention to this fleecing. Will fellow Terp alum Scott Van Pelt mention it on SportsCenter? Would seem to be the story that would normally be right in his wheelhouse.

4. This Totally Won The Science Fair At Manitoba Junior High

5. Take The AFI Quiz


Last night we stayed up late to watch Singin’ In The Rain on TCM because 1) we’d never seen it and 2) it’s not as if we had to wake up early to go to work and 3) we’re that rare straight guy who owns a cat and enjoys musicals. Whaddaya want from us?

Anyway, afterward TCM host Ben Mankiewicz noted how the Gene Kelly-Donald O’Connor-Debbie Reynolds-Cyd Charisse classic was pretty much overlooked upon release in 1952 (one cast member was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, but it was none of them; it was Jean Hagen) and didn’t even make prominent Top 10 films of the year lists at the time. Now, as Ben noted it’s on the American Film Institute’s Top 100 Films list. In fact, it’s in the TOP TEN.

The folks at AFI finally got smart and realized that many movie fans check out this list and count how many of the movies they’ve seen, so when we returned to the list late last night (actually, this morning…“Good mornin’, good mornin’, we’ve talked the whole night through…”) we smiled at its new wrinkle: you can check a box next to the movies you’ve seen and it will do the counting for you.

Take a moment and score yourself. We suggest only checking the box if you’ve seen the movie in its entirety. We scored a 66, but strangely have never seen two of the top six. Someday…

Music 101

Let’s Duet

Wondering if John C. Reilly and Jenna Fischer got hate mail from Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon after Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story was released. As Rolling Stone opined last December, this genius parody nearly killed the music biopic. It came out only two years after Walk The Line and had to be inspired by it, nearly plot point for plot point.

Remote Patrol

Celtics at Knicks

7:30 p.m. ESPN

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Starting Five

1. Chiberia

We didn’t coin the above term, but we wish we had. It looks brutally cold in the Second City this week and it was 23-below yesterday. The last time anyone saw a U.S. city this frigid, Jake Gyllenhaal was searching for his dad.

When it’s THIS cold in the Midwest and it’s THAT hot in Australia, it makes us wonder if Snow Miser and Heat Miser are feuding again.


Why isn’t he wearing gloves?!?!

Also, the Minnesota Timberwolves actually played last night, at home, despite temperatures dipping to 29-below. The game against the Grizzlies went into overtime. The crowd was announced at 13,000-plus. I don’t think so.

2. “BP” Stands For

  1. Best Picture?
  2. Black Panther?

The question is, At next month’s Oscars will those two be interchangeable? The MH Cinema Snobbery Crew believe they will. Yes, we believe Black Panther will win Best Picture.

Should it? We don’t know and we don’t care. We just think it will.

Why? Because Roma is the closest thing to a legitimate Best Picture, but few people saw it and almost as many had the same reaction while watching it as the deadbeat boyfriend did during the movie date scene in Roma.

Bohemian Rhapsody? Won Bet Picture at the Golden Globes and even its producer looked as if he was about to apologize. BlacKKKLansman? Not close. A Star Is Born? The GGs and SAGs showed it little love; we don’t see Oscar reversing that course. The Favourite? An English period piece that doesn’t know if it’s a comedy or tragedy and is whiter than the avalanche scene from Force Majeure? Nope. Vice? Everyone is sick of politics. Green Book? Possible, but if you’re going down the kumbaya-racial-harmony road, why not just go all the way and give THE MOST FINANCIALLY SUCCESSFUL ALMOST-ALL BLACK CAST OF ALL TIME FILM THE OSCAR?

#OscarsSoWhite? You can’t say that now. Oscar doesn’t like super hero films or blockbusters? Shut up! With one decision the Academy can shut up most of its detractors and still give Roma the Best Foreign Picture statuette.

We saw Black Panther and we thought it was okay. Not great, but okay. The actors were extremely good-looking. There was that. But we think it will win. For one Academy Awards at least, Oscar will be made of Vibranium and the last words you may hear are “Wakanda Forever!”*

*Our nasty wish is that Warren Beatty or whoever reads the card wrong and early into the acceptance speech the producers of Black Panther see that their award was meant for BlacKKKlansman.

3. Bahamian Rhapsody

Always preparing

If you’ve seen the Netflix Fyre Festival doc (not sure if he shares this anecdote in the Hulu doc), you won’t forget Andy King. He’s the well-heeled, creamy-lipped (?) pal of Billy McFarland who was told by the doomed festival promoter that he might have to “take one for the team” and then was only too happy to be a team player.

In the past week or so, King has become the web’s favorite meme, a flirtation with infamy that has brought him to his knees. Still, the events promoter/entrepeneur warned, and he actually used these words, that while he was “blown away” by the attention, he does not “want to be known as the blow job king of the world.”

Doesn’t he look like someone who should be in Congress?

4. What To Do With Amazon?

“Alexa, don’t tell my wife about this”

Tech/retail/and-soon-to-be-healthcare? giant Amazon reports its earnings after the bell today. As you know, musing on where Amazon stock is headed is almost as popular on this site as is hating on the Super Villains at Susie B.’s gated estate in Maryland.

Last Friday Amazon stock hit $1,680 per share.

On Tuesday it dipped to $1,592.

Yesterday, after AAPL and FB announced solid earnings and when Fed Chair Jeremy Powell announced he’d be holding his horses on rate hikes, AMZN shares shot up to $1,670. And then to $1,691 after the bell. (UPDATE: And now $1,702).

Is the rally on? Or has the price jump already been baked in with Tuesday’s leap? Guess what: We have no idea. But maybe you do?

5.  God-Forsaken

We don’t know what else to put in this space today, so why not include America’s most misplaced Cracker Barrel server, White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders, telling two evangelist interviewers that “I think God wanted Donald Trump to be president?”

Meanwhile, this piece in Salon is outstanding is it walks readers through the final moves of Robert Mueller’s chess game.

Music 101

Don’t Cry Out Loud

No era did sappy melodramatic AM radio tunes quite like the Seventies, and Melissa Manchester was riding in the first-class car on the tear train. Maybe punk rock was born out of necessity. Anyway, this song was written by Peter Allen (an ex-husband of Liza Minnelli’s) and Carole Bayer Sager, who also wrote Arthur’s Theme. That’s a lot of schmaltz for two people to produce. This video, by the way. I mean…

The song peaked at No. 10 in 1979.

Remote Patrol

Letterkenny

Hulu

Our friends to the north who are snowbound and housebound recommended this to us. It’s Canadian and it’s funny, but maybe NSFP (Not Safe For Phyllis). Enjoy.