IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by John Walters

MH staffer Chris Corbellini almost won $1 million (pinky finger to side of mouth) last January. To learn how close he came, and why he didn’t, please read his column that directly precedes this. Related: I once nearly interviewed Elle MacPherson at a posh Madison Avenue townhouse in the early ’90s, but then she had to cancel at the last minute. 

Tweet Me Right

Starting Five

Darn Sox

In every year that has ever ended in ’18 and had a World Series, the Boston Red Sox have won that World Series. Also, as one tweep noted, of Boston’s nine Fall Classic championships, all have taken place between the years ’03 and ’18. So as a Yankee fan let’s hope we’re off the hook for another 85 years or so.

Listen, the Sox were the best team by far all season and all playoffs long. In last night’s clinching Game 5, Rent-a-World Series-MVP David Freese of the Dodgers hit David Price’s very first offering for a home run and Los Angeles never had a legitimate hit after that (Freese’s triple was more the result of a designated hitter playing right field and losing a playable fly ball in the lights).


(We hated everything about Manny Machado’s approach to hitting and base-running this October, which is why we’re terrified the Yankees will sign and overpay him. Above, the final pitch of the World Series.)

Before Game 5, after the wild 18-inning classic (we stayed up for all of it) and Saturday’s Sox comeback win, we had an inkling that this series would end up a little like 1975. In that series, the Red Sox lost to the Reds but all anyone seems to remember about it is Carlton Fisk’s Game 6 home run (that’s on you, Will Hunting). We thought that all anyone might remember of 2018 going forward was the Game 3 classic, the longest game in World Series history both by innings and time (Nathan Eovaldi’s 98-pitch extra innings defeat is a metaphor for every “nice try”), and also the Yasiel Puig GIF/three-run homer from Game 4


Was it a memorable series (besides for Red Sox fans)? Yes. It had two memorable games, 3 and 4, some outstanding performances by two guys who look as if they play beer-league softball on the weekends (MVP Steve Pearce and near-MVP Brock Holt), some memorable plays (Clay Bellinger’s 8-2 double-play put out). The 1986 World Series? Everyone only remembers one game from that, after all, but we still talk about it. Game 3 and, to a lesser extent, Game 4, will long be remembered. Steve Pearce’s animal takeover of the Series–home run, bases-clearing double, home run and home run over 4 at-bats through Games 3 and 4—were legendary. And he’s 35.

As I asked after his second home run last night, “Where has he been all his career?” And as my friend Jim, a diehard Sawx fan who can read the back of a baseball card replied, “Everywhere.”

2. Tragedy In Pittsburgh

Eleven dead, including a 97 year-old Holocaust survivor. You know the story.

How did the president react? First, he discarded an umbrella at the top of the steps of Air Force One, providing the perfect metaphor for every human being or institution with which he has ever come in contact.

 Then Trump suggested that the synagogue should have had armed guards (never mind that four police officers were shot confronting the suspect, who had an AR-15). Then he attended a rally and joked that he’d considered canceling because he was having a bad hair day. Then on Monday morning his blonde Eva Braun, Kellyanne Conway, suggested not that the murders were anti-Semitic but rather “anti-religiosity” (the Evangelicals even want pity after a slaughter of Jews)…


while Trump once again attacked the media, which is like quintupling down on his gas lighting. It’s all very, very obscene.


Wow. That almost, ALMOST, sounds like a call to arms for more alt-right whack jobs to attack the press. I wonder which cable news TV host will be assassinated first. It’s coming. And when it happens, trust me, Donald Trump will not hold himself accountable. Behind closed doors, he’ll smile.

3. Van-Demoninum

The Friday arrest was a reminder to us all that all vans house creepy characters (even Van Jones, what with that interview of Jared Kushner last week). A brief rundown of van enthusiasts will only prove that (thanks to all who contributed):

Jack Black, Mr. Schneebly in School Of Rock…


Uncle Rico, Napoleon Dynamite….


Buffalo Bill, Silence Of The Lambs 

Fred, Daphne, Thelma, Shaggy and Scoob (and how did they get the money to finance their never-ending road trip? Selling drugs, probably)


Kelly Leak, The Bad News Bears…


Matt Foley, who lived in a van down by the river…


Also: Jeff Spiccoli (though he’s not actually creepy, just stoned), Cheech & Chong (ibid) and Harry and Lloyd (might as well be stoned).

4. Indonesia Air Tragedy

A Lion Air Flight with 189 aboard crashed into the sea not long after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia. The pilot had requested to be able to return just 13 minutes after takeoff and then there was radio silence.

5. Mike Gundy’s Second-Best Press Conference Moment


We gotta admit, the Oklahoma State coach is right on (though we don’t collect unemployment checks here at MH).

Reserves

Finally, FINALLY, someone made the smart play that the Twitterverse always clamors for. I don’t know if this wrecked your wager or your fantasy points and I don’t care. This is legen…wait for it….dary.

Music 101

Do You Love Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azKPeIWdE6I

It’s not every week that we feature a genuine classic here, but this 1962 gem by The Contours is certainly that. Backstory: THE Berry Gordy, Jr., wrote this song and intended to have The Temptations record it. But he literally could not locate them and was so impatient to release it, knowing it was a sure-fire hit, that he gave it to The Contours, whose first two singles had tanked. It was the right move for everyone involved, as lead singer Billy Gordon’s raspy vocals make it inimitable. The tune had two top-five runs, in 1962 and, thanks to its appearance in Dirty Dancing, in 1988.

Remote Patrol

Patriots at Bills

8 p.m. ESPN

A hero for these times

First, even we’re a little intrigued by a prime time game at Rich Stadium we mean Ralph Wilson Stadium, er New Era Field. Second, consider this a six-day advance warning that the Packers and Aaron Rodgers are playing Tom Brady and the Pats in New England next Sunday night and that contest will blow past any NFL or World Series ratings to date the past two months. Gonna be YUUUUUUUUGE. And we’d love to go if you have a spare ticket or two lying around.

Tonight, though, it’s just gonna be odd to see the Bills playing in prime time. If you go, bring a book. When New England is up by 50 in the second half, walk to the top row of the stadium, take off your coat/sweater/shirt and neoprene undergarment, and start reading your book. You’ll instantly become a meme.

CHRIS PICKS!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by Chris Corbellini

Week 8 Picks:

Some thoughts on Big Data: Last January I sat at a kitchen table in a lower Manhattan apartment, the quiet of a cold Sunday morning behind me, slush on the ground, and made an executive decision regarding fantasy sports: let me try a roster made up of quantitative roster choices, based purely on data and nothing else, and roll with it. I was alone, and thankfully so – I was betraying my instincts and years of pro football experience in storytelling and qualitative film evaluation. It just felt weird. A buzzy feeling crawled up my spine.

After all, you never go against your instincts, right? Because that’s what I was doing. And taking a 30,000-foot view of it, I wondered, why was I being so weird about a single fantasy lineup that no one else cared about? I wasn’t exactly rescuing orphaned kids from a burning ship here.

And still, I hesitated. Maybe because in one sense the years and long hours that came before in my football life would be rendered useless if I went quantitative. Maybe. Working in pro football is a dream. The long hours are the tradeoff, if you want to be good at it. You are trying to get an “A” in a pass-fail course with the NFL – because that’s who the league hires, and also because everyone around you is so good you often need to be obsessively competitive to keep up. So, this Quant Lineup I was making became an existential thing – as if all my choices in the past didn’t mean much. My head was screaming change your picks and go with your gut — I worked for those beliefs, and had enough experience to know my opinion was as good as anyone’s in the biz. It felt unnatural to go against all that experience.

But I didn’t make the change.

It was a single-game daily fantasy sports contest — Minnesota vs. Philadelphia in the NFC Championship Game — with well over 300,000 entries. Grand prize was the biggie — $1 million. I had three entries, one was the Quant One in question and the other two a mix of Quant/Gut picks. There was no entry limit, so I was going against the sharks in the industry. The dudes that tout their picks on radio shows and websites. The millionaires. They enter hundreds of lineups in these biggies, which essentially gives them mad stacks of chips at the poker table, while you have a single $5 chip.

In the fourth quarter, I was out in front of all those big names, and everyone else. Eagles receiver Alshon Jeffery scored his second TD of the day in Philly, sending the Linc into hysterics, and I only vaguely heard it because my quant lineup was in fourth fucking place. And climbing. My whole of the Planet Earth was on my little (cracked) iPhone screen, which indicated a high five-figure payout. The million was just waiting for me. I jumped from my chair, stared at a friend for a looong moment, and said numbly “I need a drink.” This was what they called in the industry a sweat. They should just call it the shakes.

I poured myself a Scotch, plopped down on the couch, and watched as the Vikings got the ball back, trailing 38-7. If there had been a five-alarm fire in the apartment at that moment, with human beings and my Labrador retriever on fire, and my high school crush standing in front of me amidst all that chaos asking me to marry her, I wouldn’t have noticed it. Nothing mattered but the pixels on the iPhone screen, and the TV screen.

And, you know, at least I didn’t allow myself to think what would I do with that money. Good thing, because the ensuing series did me in:

–2nd & 6 at MIN 14 (9:14 – 4th) J.McKinnon up the middle to MIN 21 for 7 yards (M.Kendricks).

–1st & 10 at MIN 21 (8:56 – 4th) C.Keenum pass short right to J.McKinnon to MIN 28 for 7 yards

–2nd & 3 at MIN 28 (8:32 – 4th) C.Keenum pass short left to J.McKinnon to MIN 33 for 5 yards

–1st & 10 at MIN 33 (8:10 – 4th) C.Keenum pass middle to J.McKinnon ran ob at MIN 45 for 12 yards.

–1st & 10 at PHI 40 (6:34 – 4th) C.Keenum pass short middle to J.McKinnon to PHI 30 for 10 yards

Adds up to a totally meaningless 41 yards for running back Jerick McKinnon, during a drive that ended with an interception. It meant squat. But the Jerick McKinnon Garbage Time Power Hour mattered quite a bit to me. Those plays dropped me to 666th place, where I finished.

666. Perfect.

*** Out of the ashes of that experience is where I am with sports analytics. I get it now. The quants shall rule the Earth. It’s not a coincidence that my first-ever quantitative lineup sent me upwards to new heights. So much so that if your NFL team doesn’t have a quant team, I have to ask: “How’s 1966 treating you?”

At some point (soon), a pro football organization is going to find a perfect meld of old-school/analytical thinking, and become the new NFL dynasty. We’ll call it the Big Data era. It’s coming. Some sports executive, man or woman and probably south of 40 years old at the moment, will figure out how to combine those two schools of thought perfectly (that’ll be the qualitative part, getting those two schools to co-exist). That organization will then take all the big games, and the copycats will probably chase them for a decade. And when someone figures out how to measure emotional intelligence, and the exact cost, production-wise and chemistry-wise, of removing a very good player for a more affordable one … I mean, it’s over. The principles of those findings and the data could very well be put into practice in the corporate world, and a single team could make millions off it.

Ultimately, I think the numbers game was hard for me to fathom because I’ve been so close to pro football players over the last few years. Close enough where I could smack their shoulder pads between reps. I know their backgrounds. I know what gets to them. And with that … I noticed everyone is so different out there on the football field, even when plugging away together. That hard to quantify, right? Still, in the data there is a winning formula for the sport. I know it. It won’t be ignored. And it shocks me not at all that gambling will run side-by-side with those analytics in years to come.

So, this week, I tried to find the perfect balance of quantitative and qualitative with these picks. Let’s see where it goes. Hopefully not to the 666.

Like always, William Hill odds, and home team in CAPS.

BEARS (-8) over Jets

Here’s great stat from the betting tool at The Quant Edge (full disclosure: I work as an advisor to that start-up, and looked around the site this week): Should Mitch Trubisky have a great game at home, there’s a 79.3% chance Chicago will cover the line. I see no reason why he won’t play well. Mitch came within a yard of tying it against the Patriots in the final seconds last week, and practically scrambled to Lake Michigan on a score earlier in the game. This is his team now, and I’m sure that mad scramble had teammates talking all week. When the Jets try to box him in, he’ll just dink and dunk them to death.

I also entered the Pro Football Focus grading tool into an excel sheet this week to see the difference between the Jets offense and Bears defense, and I got -14.218. In other words, the Bears D is 14 points better in the matchup — or 1.29 per player. This is the biggest mismatch of the week. Ow. No doubt gambling experts will tell you that Da Bears are the lock of the week, and I can’t disagree with them this time. The numbers bear it out. Pun intended.

Colts (-3) over RAIDERS

So yeah, the Raiders are 32nd in the league against No. 3 receivers, 32nd in the league against tight ends, and 31st in the league against running backs in the pass game (stats courtesy Pro Football Outsiders). And after running back Marlon Mack gave us a brief injury scare earlier in the week, only to return and practice in full (he’s still listed as questionable), it’s all systems go for the Colts pass game. Andrew Luck will go all “Pass 2 from Techmo Bowl,” dropping passes to Mack in the flat, where Oakland’s average linebackers will struggle to keep up. We’re gonna blink and Luck will have 300. Coach Chucky threw in the bloody towel this season with the Mack and Amari trades, and perhaps QB Derek Carr — who had to defend himself on Twitter with a “I’m a Raider” stream of consciousness — is the next to go. The organization can’t get to Vegas and a blackjack table soon enough.

Patriots (-14) over BILLS

I know, I’m messing with the football gods with this pick. Going against a home underdog? -14. Really? At this juncture, yep. The Patriots are beginning to hit their stride. The Bills D will look to stymie James White in the short passing game – it’s Buffalo’s weakness (the defense ranks 24th against pass-catching running backs, according to PFO) and it’s White’s offense now, as he leads the Patriots in catches, touchdown catches, and Boston Globe Sports Friday features. And I think Buff’s strategy will work just long enough for Bill Belichick to glare at the offense, and *almost* raise his voice. New England will then counter-strike with its other offensive weapons, leading to a healthy heaping of Belichick/Brady gushing from the MNF announcers, and that’ll be that.

Tommy B will dive for a TD in the fourth quarter, pump his fist, spike the ball, and we’ll go to bed. By the way, another TQE stat: If Brady and White have good games, there’s an 80.5% chance New England will cover. So, I’m saying there’s a chance, Buffalo.

Eagles (-3) over JAGUARS

None of this is Wentz’s fault. Not the 3-4 record. Not the erratic play. And the NFC East is still up for grabs, so Philly has every reason to be jacked up for this business trip. Here’s a stat to remember: Jacksonville has allowed 400 passing yards to the right side of the field on short throws, where Wentz has done well. Strictly going on numbers here, Wentz should be able to pick at that right side — away from Jalen Ramsey, though I don’t think they’ll avoid him altogether — and thus a lot of that target volume will go to my favorite Eagle, Mr. DFS, Alshon Jeffery. I also put Philly-Jacksonville PFF player grades together in a spreadsheet for this one, based off a Jaguars three-receiver set due to the Leonard Fournette injury, and the Eagles D has over a 10-point advantage against the Jags offense, nearly a point per player.

After a key turnover or two, I see the Eagles prevailing by a TD and regaining their confidence. Time for the sweat of another NFL weekend. Or should I say, time for the shakes …

Last week: 2-2

Season: I don’t want to say … OK, gun to my head, it might be 8-17.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 3 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Starting Five

MAGA Millions Lottery Winner!

I have a cat. I love my cat. He’s everything you’d want a cat to be: cuddly, passive-aggressive, fiercely unaffectionate unless he wants food, and an instigator of all sort of fluid-related messes.*

You know what he doesn’t do? Fetch. Which is why I never throw him a ball to retrieve.

NBC’s Andy Lack hired one fantastic cat and then ordered her to bark and for that, they’re both bozos. Lack is a bozo for ever thinking Megyn Kelly could be a daytime host with broad appeal and Kelly is a bozo for ever believing she’d be able to step out of the Fox News vortex of hate and paranoia and be the next Kelly Ripa or Ellen.

But Lack, 71, will still retire with a pile of gold and Kelly may walk away with as much as $69 million. She gets the money and she doesn’t have to do the job? Is America great or what? That’s just purr-fect.

*My cat would not authorize MH to use a photo of him for this piece.

2. Try A Little Tenderness


Look at these crisis actors! Crossing racial lines to actually be kind to one another. What is this country coming to, anyway?!? Hoping Twitter can get on top of this and suspend the accounts of the people who promulgated these videos. Did you watch the second video kind of wondering if the lady was going to call the police or take a pot shot at them? Because we’ve seen enough of those.

*MH staffers watched that video and thought, Well, she may be paying for gas with pennies but at least she owns a car. Must be nice!

3. Mike and The Fred Dog


We get it, Mike Francesa. You’re a New Yawk City guy, and New Yawk is a pro sports town, and here’s some schlep from Syracuse calling to ask your opinion about Fred Flintsone’s pet. Besides, college coaching names are whacko what with Dino and Dabo and Jimbo and Ed. O.

Still, it’s funny and very in character that Francesa is so dismissive of the caller. Instead of saying, “Who is that?” he decides to simply declare that such a person does not exist. Francesa, 64, retired last December and remained retired a full four months. He missed that daily jolt for his ego. He either needs to do more homework—Syracuse is the only Power 5 school in New York state and having a good season and, oh, they play Notre Dame in Yankee Stadium next month—or hang out with Megyn Kelly.

4. Yosemite: 2 More, That Makes 8

Two more people died in Yosemite National Park this week, bringing the total this year to eight and making it far more dangerous than surfing but still less dangerous than riding in an SUV limousine in upstate New York (too soon?).

By the way, this story is strange, or at least its coverage has been weird and perhaps a tad confusing (or incompetent). What happened was, a couple apparently was standing at Taft Point, a popular but perilous overlook at Yosemite and no one knows what caused it but they fell a few thousand feet to their deaths.

What makes this odd is that every story you read talks about how another couple posed at this spot a week ago, a photographer shot them in his frame and then went about on social media trying to locate them. Apparently that shot went viral and he’s still attempting to locate them but WHO THE F&%* CARES, THEY’RE NOT DEAD YOU JUST HAVEN’T LOCATED THEM AND WHY WOULD YOU THINK THAT YOU COULD?

Anyway, most stories we’ve read have focused more on this photo and the man’s search for this elusive couple than on the couple that actually died and I’m sure I had to read the story more than once or twice before I was absolutely sure we weren’t talking about the same couple (which, sure, we might be if the same couple visited the same spot one week apart).

I’m more frustrated than I ought to be by this. But you know, death by gravity, that’s just part of lie (Rule No. 1) whereas Bad Journalism, that’s something we ought to be able to combat.

5. This Is You, And That Is Every Day


We can all learn a lot from this pooch.

Reserves

Two crazy moments from an NFL Thursday night game….

************************

‘

The dude in the suit is thinking, Wasn’t forcing me to shave this glorious beard punishment enough?

*****************

Being forced to watch videos of serial killers at breakfast but it’s not toxic at Maryland? Okay…At the very least it’s twisted.

Music 101

The Rest Of The Dream

While certainly a song of its era in terms of sound, this 1990 offering from criminally underrated musician/songwriter John Hiatt remains a timeless gem. It’s an ode to parents and their children (“When you can’t find a light at the top of the stairs/When you cry in the night/You know I’ll be there”) and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band liked it enough to cover it the same year it was released (and it’s really lame, but we run it so that you can appreciate how awesome Hiatt is). Hiatt is in the midst of an East Coast swing right now and coming to a theatre near you!

Remote Patrol

World Series: Game 3

Red Sox at Dodgers

8 p.m. FOX

The Red Sox have celebrated series wins at Yankee Stadium, Minute Maid Park and maybe, as early as Saturday or Sunday, at Dodger Stadium

As our Twitter pal Andrew Hammond asked Wednesday night, “Does anyone really think this series is returning to Boston?” L.A. would need to win two of three in Chavez Ravine for this to happen. The Sox are 9-2 in the postseason after a 108-win regular campaign and we feel obliged to remind you, again, that all this has been done without Dustin Pedroia who, while no longer in his prime, is still a mighty good player.


This actually looks like the opening scene from a Stephen King horror novel.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right


Andrew Benentendi is our favorite Red Sox. If we could trade for one, it would be him. Maybe because we’re both Italian. I dunno.

Starting Five

Bombs Away

Two days after a pipe bomb was sent to liberal billionaire (apparently there is such a thing) George Soros, similar suspicious packages were mailed to the Clintons, Obamas, CNN and Senator Maxine Waters.

Investigators aren’t saying whether or not these were actual pipe bombs or fascimiles, but last night at a rally in Wisconsin America’s greatest blow hard, Donald Trump, absolved himself of any blame. “No one should carelessly compare political opponents to historical villains, which is done often and all the time,” said Adolf HiTrump. “It’s got to stop. We should not mob people in public spaces.”

He’s right about the historical villains comparison. Hitler, after all, was not German.

A reminder that Trump has called Waters “crazy,” CNN and its like “the enemy of the people,” and leads “Lock her up!” cheers regarding Hillary Clinton. And only a week ago he praised a Montana politician for assaulting a member of the press. But it’s not his fault the far right is becoming even more brazen in terms of potential violence.

Yes, the entire Trump presidency is a ticking time bomb…

2. Toronto Rapture

The best team in the NBA is…the Toronto Raptors? Okay, maybe not but early in the season Toronto (5-0) is the best in the East. The addition of still-in-his-prime and fresh-legged Kawhi Leonard has done wonders. Leonard posted 35 last night in a win against the  Minnesota Timberwolves. It’s nice to have Mr. HUGE Hands back in the game.

3. Stock, Drop and Roll

The Dow plunged 600 points on Wednesday and the Nasdaq plunged 4.4%—that index’s worst day in seven years. Over at Walker Capital, MH’s investment arm, we’ve stopped shipping in the LaCroix and are compelling all employees to drink out of the tap. We’re tightening both our bootstraps and our chinstraps (no matter what Merrill Hoge says).

Anyway, it’s been a grim month but we believe that there are three emotions involved with investing: euphoria, calm and panic. When you’re euphoric, sell or hold. Never buy. When you’re calm, don’t do anything too drastic. And when you’re in panic mode, hold or buy. DO NOT SELL.

In the immortal words of that sage investor from Platoon, Sgt. Barnes, “Take the pain.”

It’s good for you.

4. Blackface-Listed

Remember, NBC dumped $24 million into a contract for Megyn Kelly, which was quite the costly lesson to learn for something we could have gladly told them: Yes, those anchors you watch on Fox are actually as out of touch with the average decent American as you presume them to be.

Kelly may be blonde and she may (up until today) host a daytime talk show, but she’s the anti-Ellen DeGeneres.  She’s not warm, she’s not relatable, she’s not funny and she’s definitely not friendly. Whatever NBC execs thought they saw in her, they were wrong—and some exec who pees standing up and lobbied for her to join the team should be canned (If you wonder why are there so many dopes in high-level positions in media, it’s because they get there by mimicking the maneuvers of the high-level dopes who are their bosses on the way up).

Kelly did apologize today but it’s too late. She is out, based on those completely tone-deaf blackface comments. It would have been awkward enough if a guest on the show had defended wearing blackface (on a show that airs at 9 a.m.), but for the host of the show to do it? Anyway, I’m sure she’ll be a welcome presence on whatever right-wing whack-job radio network that employs Rush Limbaugh. Time to return to your tribe, Megyn.

5. Mercury Retrograde

You know how you can’t wait to see the Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody? Have you noticed that while the music in the trailer rocks you (clap clap) and while Rami Malek looks and feels enough like lead singer Freddie Mercury, that the dialogue feels trite and hackneyed? And that’s the trailer, which stuffs in all the best moments.

Alas, your instincts are correct, at least according to this review. Writer David Ehrlich basically says that the film took the satirical Walk Hard (a parody of every rock biopic ever filmed) and then tried to be that minus the funny.

Something to remember: surviving band members Brian May and Roger Taylor originally wanted to do this film more than a decade ago and believed that Freddie’s way-too-early AIDS-related death was just the midpoint of their story. That’s clearly delusional.

May and Taylor also have their fingers in this pie, and apparently were far too worried about how everyone would come off as opposed to presenting a vivid and accurate portrayal. If the film wanted to break free, it never actually does. But the music is still great; they couldn’t crush that.

Reserves

Hudson Whodunnit

Two female bodies were found washed up on the shore of the Hudson River just half a mile south of Medium Happy World Headquarters on Wednesday afternoon. The unidentified females were bound together at their feet by duct tape. That’s about all we know right now but chances are that they were dumped upriver a ways and floated down toward the Upper West Side.

Music 101

Party All The Time

Here’s what’s funny: It’s not a bad song, and how many acts would love to be able to say they had a single spend three weeks on the Billboard charts at No. 2? But when Eddie Murphy released this, he was 24 years old and one of the biggest stars in the world purely off his precocious comic genius. He was the Michael Jackson of comedy and now he wanted to be the Michael Jackson of music?!? People thought it was a bit, until they realized it wasn’t. And no one ever really took Murphy seriously as a comic again once he began taking himself so seriously as an “artist.”

Remote Patrol

High Anxiety

8 p.m. TCM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNKQBJZ8dOY

Mel Brooks was riding quite the winning streak (Blazing Saddles followed by Young Frankenstein) when he wrote this lampoon of psycho dramas. While not quite in those films’ class, this one is still a treasure and Cloris Leachman as Nurse Diesel (“Those who are tardy do not get fruit cup”) is the model for all future dominatrix types. Note the wispy mustache.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

We have a tie! Here’s Sid The Kid scoring the goal that will lead off every Hall of Fame montage in which he ever appears…


…and here’s Tony Atamaniuk as the prez detailing that he understands this nation better than we do, sadly.

Starting Five

1. Freeway Fuhrer 

It’s 2018 but someone forgot to inform the owner of this World War II German-model plane that the Battle of Dunkirk is over.  Let’s face it, though, living in the age of Trump, hearing that a Nazi war plane crashed on the 101 Freeway northwest of Los Angeles barely musters more than a yawn.

The pilot, who took off from Van Nuys Airport, walked away unscathed and we presume will return to his unit in the Malibu Luftwaffe shortly even though he was shot down behind enemy lines. MH staffers reached out to the pilot for a comment, but he only provided us with name, rank and serial number.

2. Maritime Of Their Lives

That’s Riley Whitelum and Elayna Carausu, and through viewer support of their YouTube channel, Sailing La Vagabonde, they’ve cruised 41,000 nautical miles across the high seas. Sure, it helps that they look like an early ’70s album cover, but their wanderlust has obviously inspired viewers.

They’re obviously not doing a lot of running. Yoga, perhaps?

To their credit, Riley saved up enough money to purchase a small boat, then made Elayna his first mate (!), and then they set up their video camera and suddenly it was smooth sailing. They even recently upgraded to a catamaran that costs more than $600,000.

They’re both Australian, in case you were wondering.

3. Tragedy At Utah

She was a heptathlete on the University of Utah track and field team and there’s no good reason why Lauren McCluskey, 21, is not alive this morning. Instead, she was shot dead by her 37 year-old ex-boyfriend, who later killed himself, on Monday night.

Two weeks ago McCluskey found out the man she was dating had lied to her about his past—he was a registered sex offender—and broke up with him. Then he began harassing her. Then she told university police. And they never informed his parole officer. On Monday night, as McCluskey was sitting in her car and talking to her mother on the phone, he approached her and shot her.

4. “When It Hasn’t Been Your Day, Your Week, Your Month, Or Even Your Beer*

*The judges acknowledge that the best MH hed we’ve written in ages, we didn’t even write. Our sister sent this one in.

This Ross Geller doppelgänger lifte a case of beer in Blackpool (north of Liverpool, on the northwestern English coast). Police are searching for both him and his monkey.

5. The Shipping News

Two things: First, a 2,400 year-old Greek trading ship was found intact on the floor of the Black Sea. If that little Swedish girl who found the Viking sword found this also, it’s game over. Meanwhile, might be a good time for Gordon Lightfoot to head back into the studio.

Second, as you’ve probably heard, they’re planning on sailing a replica of the Titanic on the same course in 2022. The Blue Star Line (yes, just like the one from the movie) is currently   building Titanic II in China. It will make its maiden voyage with room for 2,400 passengers from Dubai to Southampton, England (where its namesake sailed from) and then head across the Atlantic to New York.

Our guess is that every passenger will attend the lifeboat drills.

Fate being what it is, we’re worried it will collide with Riley and Elayna’s craft and while that will make for an extremely viral YouTube video, we’re not sure if that’s the best outcome for all.

Music 101

Highway Tune

This is Greta Van Fleet, a Michigan-based band for our times who sound as if they found their parents’ stash of Led Zeppelin albums. Recently, New York Times reviewer Jon Pareles had a problem with that. We don’t know why. Three of the four band members are brothers, so really they’re more like the Beach Boys or even Haim.

Remote Patrol

World Series, Game 2

8 p.m. Fox

Do you realize that Joe Buck has been calling World Series games since 1996? Sure, his pop was a broadcasting legend (Jack Buck), but Joe has smoothly transitioned into arguably the most valuable sports microphone wielder there is. And his sidekick, John Smoltz, is up to this level. We also love how Fox has kept the booth to two men.

As much as we loathe the Red Sox, there’s no better TV venue for a baseball game than Fenway Park. It’s a wonder more new parks don’t try for the more intimate, quirky setting.