IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 6 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

Whose town? His town!

Baker Backers

Cleveland wins for the first time in 20 games and the entire city gets free Bud Light (what was second prize, by the way?). I see a commercial in which rookie quarterback Baker Mayfield overindulges, is chased down by the king’s guard, then tossed into the Pit of Misery. But then he leads them all to escape by scrambling away from the guardsmen and spiraling the keys to a fellow prisoner?

2. CannaCurious?*

*The judges will also accept “Weed All About It”

Why the sudden buzz about pot stocks?

On Wednesday the CEO of Canada-based Tilray (TRLY)appeared on CNBC, boasted that his company had gotten  approval from the DEA to import cannabis from Canada to the USA for medical research, and shares surged 38%. Yesterday Tilray came down from its high, searched in vain for a bag of Doritos, and saw its share price plunge 20%. They’re down another 16% in pre-market trading this morning.

Ahhh, but also yesterday, shares of England-based Isodiol International (ISOLF; a Walker Capital holding) surged 28%.

If you’re a cannabis company looking to step out from the pack, why not hire this pair as your spokesmen?

Why the sudden surge of interest in cannabis stocks? Because Canada is legalizing recreational marijuana use next month (this explains Richard Deitsch’s recent exodus to Toronto). Here are all the details if you just decided that you’ve always been meaning to visit Winnipeg or Moose Jaw and what better time than now.

We should note that this cannabis craze is taking place while the DOW is experiencing record highs. Coincidence?

It’s funny, though: All last autumn our friend Jason McIntyre was referring to Baker Mayfield as “Bitcoin.” Turns out Mayfield is not Bitcoin at all, but cannabis stocks sure appear to be.

3. The President of Something Called “The Ethics and Public Policy Center” Just Did A Very Unethical Thing

Yesterday conservative blogger/lawyer/former Antonio Scalia law clerk/Montgomery Burns doppelgänger Edward Whelan posited, ON TWITTER, that perhaps Christine Blasey Ford just fingered the wrong full-maned white guy for the attempted rape when she was in high school. Then Whalen went ahead and named whom it might have been.

Yes, now you have middle-aged white guys playing the “all white guys look alike” card in order to exonerate Brett Kavanaugh. What is useful here, besides the fact that we hope that other white guy, whom we won’t name, sues the suspenders off this clown, is that Whalen did not deny that the incident occurred. And he’s close buddies with Kavanaugh.

I’m not a smart man, Jenny, but maybe Edward Whelan should not be the man in charge of anything that has Ethics in its name?

4. Sawx Clinch

You better, you better, you Betts

Yes, Luke Voit hit a home run again, giving him 10 with the New York Yankees and making them the first team in Major League history to have 12 players with at least 10 home runs in one season. But the Red Sox won 11-6 to clinch the A.L. East in Yankee Stadium and stave off a three-game sweep.

And the A’s beat the Angels, 21-3, putting them just 2 1/2 back of the Yanks in terms of hosting the wild card game. Note: If both teams finish with identical records, the Bombers own the tiebreaker.

This was a typical Yankee loss in the second half of the season: A few big home runs, including a Giancarlo Stanton grand slam, but a costly (and sort of unforgivable) fielding error by Miguel Andujar in the 7th inning allowed a run and then Aroldis Chapman allowed a three-run bomb to Mookie Betts in the 8th…because he’s a totally unreliable pitcher now. 

Last night A’s leadoff hitter Nick Martini, who we’d thought was a bartender back in Bedford Falls who refused to serve George Bailey, went 3 for 6 with a home run.

Anyway, the A’s are SMOKING RED HOT and right now, at best, the Yanks are the third-most likely team to represent the A.L. in a World Series. But that Red Sox-Astros ALCS should be en fuego.

5. Victim Victoria

At least 80 people are dead and probably more as a passenger ferry capsized in Africa’s largest lake, Lake Victoria. The ship, with a capacity of 600, may have been carrying as many as 1,000 when it sunk. 

Music 101

Whole Lotta Love

The song that released the tethers from Led Zeppelin and let their monster career take flight. The song, the first track off Led Zeppelin II, was also the band’s first single, hitting No. 4 in the USA in spring of 1970 and No. 1 in Germany. Led Zep did not release songs as singles in their native U.K.

Parts of this song were cribbed directly from Chicago blues musician Willie Dixon’s “You Need Love,” which Muddy Waters had recorded in 1962. The band eventually settled with Dixon in 1985 and now he gets credit on the song. Elvis, the Stones, Led Zep: the originals in appropriating black culture.

Reserves

Can’t wait to read this. In SI, and Tom Verducci is a master.

I was an 11 year-old Yankee fan who sat in the upper deck of Yankee Stadium the day it was announced, in late July, that Billy Martin would come back the following season. We all were relieved and at the time were assuaged (even if I didn’t know what that word meant at the time) because even though 1978 was lost (or so we thought), there was reason to be giddy about the future.

****

Now this. THIS. This is writing. By Alexandra Petri. Outstanding.

Remote Patrol

Florida Atlantic at UCF

7 p.m. ESPN

This would have been a fantastic game last year, as the Owls won their final 10 games in Lane Kiffin’s inaugural season while Scott Frost’s Knights went 13-0. It’s still a good game, as McKenzie Milton, the Knights’ QB, gets a national prime-time platform. He’s from Hawaii, too, you know.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right


Mark Cuban entered the Shark Tank yesterday. Rachel Nichols, step-daughter of Diane Sawyer, does the family proud. Cuban, to his credit, comes on camera and takes the grilling. Doesn’t excuse what happen, but he didn’t hide. Ahem.

Starting Five

Dodgers: Artful

So apparently there’s an entire other league of baseball teams outside the Red Sox, Astros and Yankees. Seriously! No one there plays .600 ball, but they’re going to have playoffs and everything next month, and then the hottest team will win the right to be smoked by one of those three teams above (Astros).

And right now the hottest team in that league is the L.A. Dodgers, who last night completed a three-game sweep of the Rockies thanks to a go-ahead, pinch-hit, three-run blast by Yasiel Puig. The erstwhile Cuban refugee has hit six home runs in the Dodgers’ past five games.

The sweep put the L.A.ers 2 1/2 up on the Rockies in the N.L. West

Rojo for Ronaldo 

One day after Messi passed longtime rival Ronaldo for Most Career Champions League Hat Tricks (8), Ronaldo one-upped his Argentine friend by being the first of either of them to be given a red card in a Champions League match. The Portuguese man-of-war was sent off in the 29th minute after chiding a Valencia foe for flopping.

Out of the shallow now

To Ronaldo’s credit, he did not berate the official, claim he’d never cheated in his life, demand an apology, or even sulk about the fact that his ex-girlfriend is now Bradley Cooper’s baby-mama. You can read Martina Navratilova‘s essay (“What Ronaldo Got Right”) in tomorrow’s New York Times.

By the way, Ronaldo’s new team, Juventus, still won 2-0. Their next Champions League group match is against a side called Young Boys. Really. That’s the name of the club. Young Boys. Sounds like a ’70s punk outfit.

3. New Highs For A Pot Stock

If you owned shared of Tilray (TLRY) one month ago, you know that at the time they were hovering in the low $30s. Yesterday, though, the stock reacted as if it were Tuco having taken a hit of Heisenberg’s crystal blue for the first time, shooting up more than 50%.

That probably had something to do with Tilray receiving approval from the U.S. to import a cannabis study to California (check the stock portfolio of your local congressman).

Shares of the Canadian cannabis company are now at $228.

Is cannabis gonna be this year’s bitcoin in terms of small asset class bubble? We’ll see.

4. Rape Doc

Grant Robicheaux (above) had it all: an orthopedic surgeon in his 30s with good looks and a Newport Beach, Calif., address. His girlfriend was a smoke show. But that wasn’t enough.

Allegedly, Robicheaux, 38, and his girlfriend, Cerissa Riley, 31, traveled to music festivals and the like, met and charmed women, then drugged and sexually assaulted them. Like, dozens of women.

They’re both free on $100,000 bail and if I were him, I’d run. Or jump off a cliff. Because he’s too pretty for prison. And you know what happens to pretty boys in prison…

Speaking of sexual assault and tribal culture, this piece from Elizabeth Bruenig of  The Washington Post is outstanding. Really well written by a young scribe. Highly recommended (no idea if she is related to Dallas Cowboy linebacker Bob Bruenig, but wouldn’t that be a scream?)

5. Get The F Out!*

*The judges thank the Chandler regional bureau for this headline suggestion.

Remember that Snickers commercial where the end-zone painter forgot to paint the “i” in Chiefs so that it turned out “Chefs?” (great googly moogly). Apparently it can happen in real life, and as many online smart-alecks noted, “Cathay Pacific has no F’s left to give.”

Mistake? Probably, but also a brilliant marketing maneuver.

Music 101

Love Is The Drug

If VH-1 still did “Behind The Music” (we haven’t watched VH-1 or MTV in years), a Roxy Music doc would be in order. Brian Ferry is the type of artist who was born to be brilliant and difficult and what else could he have ever possibly done to make a living?  The band’s genius co-founders, Bryan Ferry and Brian Eno, did a lot of shagging. Even for rock stars.

This was always a band that was more influential than it was popular. But if you don’t already own them, go buy Avalon or Street Life: 20 Great Hits. You’ll see what we mean.

This 1975 single was the British band’s breakout hit in the U.S. You can hear the early New Wave and disco all over it.

Remote Patrol

Jets at Browns

8:20 p.m. NFL Network

We’re not even sure if we get this channel, but there are always salooneries. The Browns have lost 36 of their last 37 games, including 19 in a row, but they’ve played very well in their two defeats this season. The J-E-T-S were incredible on MNF, then hit a dud at home versus the Dolphins. For two teams that probably won’t make the playoffs, this is a must-watch game.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by John Walters

 

Starting Five

Messi-anic*

*The judges will not accept “Lionel Trains”

In FC Barcelona’s Champions League opener, Lionel Messi (Did you just call him the greatest footballer of all time??? Okay, he’s in the top 3, at worst) scored three goals as the Spanish club took down PSV Eindhoven (Dutch), 4-0. It was Messi’s eighth career hat trick in Champions League play, putting him alone for the most hat tricks in this annual tournament.

Messi had been tied with Cristiano Ronaldo, who’s also in that Top 3 conversation (along with Pele).

2. Brought To You By The Letter “G” *

*for “gregarious,” of course

We don’t care what the nature of Bert and Ernie’s relationship is, we just are curious as to why one of them has a unibrow and the other has none. It’s as if they’re the Anthony Davis and Charlie Villanueva of PBS.

Meanwhile, as someone astutely uttered on the Twitter yesterday, “Their relationship has always been much healthier than Kermit’s and Piggy’s.”

After all, they DO attend the theater a lot

Moving on to Statler and Waldorf…

3. Tragedy In Ames

Some stories are just too bizarre and sad: 22 year-old Iowa State golfer Celia Barquin Arozamena, the reigning Big 12 champion, was attacked and fatally stabbed while playing a round alone in Ames Monday morning. The assailant: a homeless man of the same age who had told an acquaintance that he had “an urge to rape and kill a woman.” The suspect lived in a homeless encampment not far from the Goldwater Golf Links course where she was playing.

Arozamena was set to be honored during Saturday’s Iowa State football game for being the school”s female athlete of the year. It’s the second fatal stabbing of a female college student in Iowa this summer, but since this time the assailant is a white American male and the victim is of Hispanic heritage (as opposed to the last time, when the identifying traits were reversed), you probably will not hear any national GOP figures exploiting the tragedy for political capital.

4. What’s Missing In This Story…

We finally got around to reading this story in the June issue of Runner’s World titled “The Running Safari.” In it the author, Tom Downey, is given the opportunity to go on recreational runs inside a private game reserve in Tanzania.

At first we thought, How cool. Then he informs us that as he’s running he has a guide in a follow vehicle. Later he spends three or four grafs explaining how running is prohibited at most safari spots because wild animals being wild animals, you know, they see a weaker creature running, and they might just give chase or be alarmed, etc. But then Tom continues that as a travel writer and runner he has a near visceral need to explore new places on foot, running (something we get, as do we) and so apparently his urges are more important than the animals’ (something we don’t get).

Two trunks, one animal

Lastly, Downey  explains that this private game reserve “has the resources and knowledge to protect me, and provide a safari vehicle, guide and scout, who will follow behind me and scan the horizon for any danger.”

And when we read that line, here was our first thought: We’re not concerned about YOU, Tom. We’re concerned about the animals. Left untyped in Tom’s piece is any mention of what would have happened if an elephant or hyena or any other wild creature had surprised Tom or the guide before they had time to get him into the vehicle. Also left untyped: Who paid for this extravagant story?

What might have been a tale about the magnificence of the wild came off, at least to this writer and runner, as one man’s selfish urge to check off a bucket-list item, no matter the inconvenience to or danger in which he was putting that land’s inhabitants, the animals.

At least he didn’t bring a rifle. Thank God for small favors.

5. Oh No It Doesn’t


This 2015 joke has not aged well, Judge Kavanaugh. Last night former White House spin wizard Ari Fleischer went kindergarten logic (“He’s doing it, too!”) on the Kavanaugh confirmation kerfuffle, tweeting:


And that’s useful information if Al Gore ever seeks public office again. Or is nominated to a judicial position. Like Kavanaugh, he was never charged with a crime (for reasons you can research yourself).

We do agree with Fleischer on this statement, which he uttered on Fox News:

“There’s a bigger ethical issue I want to get to here, too. And I want to say this with a lot of sensitivity because these are sensitive issues. But high school behavior — how much in society should any of us be held liable today when we lived a good life, an upstanding life by all accounts, and then something that maybe is an arguable issue took place in high school? Should that deny us chances later in life? Even for Supreme Court job, a presidency of the United States, or you name it. How accountable are we for high school actions, when this is clearly a disputable high school action? That’s a tough issue.”

You can totally argue “YES, it should deny you chances later in life” if the behavior is awful enough. And so that’s the question. How awful was this behavior, because it appears as if Kamp Kavanaugh has already moved beyond the “it never happened” stage of their defense.

Music 101

Janie’s Got A Gun

 

Listen to the sound of an experienced, confident and polished band. This 1989 hit from Aerosmith is almost :45 in before you get any discernible vocals from Steven Tyler, but it’s all a terrific build-up. The ’70s rockers seemed to be content to rest on their laurels until Run-DMC woke them up with the crossover cover of “Walk This Way” three years earlier introduced them to a new generation of fans. Then this song heralded the band’s renaissance, climbing all the way to No. 4 in early 1990. Easily the best thing the band produced in the past 35 years this side of Liv Tyler.

Remote Patrol

The Amazing Human Body

8 p.m. PBS

For those of you who were never shown Hemo The Magnificent in elementary school.

Ocean’s Eleven

8 p.m. TCM

The original, with the Rat Pack: Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. Angie Dickinson is the babe while Cesar Romero (the original Joker) plays the heavy. Tune in just to see how different 1960 Vegas was than the current iteration.

 

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

More than a decade after it went off the air, the cast and creators of Gilmore Girls were basking in Emmy’s glow. It may be time for that Hep Alien world tour.

Gilmore Girls Win The Emmys!

Two Emmys for Amy Sherman-Palladino. One for her husband, Danny or David (I don’t remember which). Nominations for Milo Ventimiglia (This Is Us) and for the show (The Handmaid’s Tale) in which Alexis Bledel is a major character. Man, those kids from Stars Hollow went out into the great big world and really made a name for themselves (even if the best the show’s star, Lauren Graham, was able to do this past year was a three-episode arc on Curb Your Enthusiasm).

Other Emmys thoughts:

–The self-deprecating/self-aware opening number (“We Solved It”) was too safe, as was Colin and Michael’s duologue. The only line that did not feel stale or safe was Michael Che’s noting, “Can you believe they did 15 seasons of E.R. without one Filipino nurse?”

–43 years after being the biggest television star in America as Arthur Fonzarelli, Henry Winkler, 72, wins his first Emmy. “Kids, daddy won! You can go to bed now.” Good humor.

Fonzie and Richie Cunningham together again. The former survived the Malachi Crunch, dating the Hooper Triplets and a duel with Mork from Ork to reach this moment.

–Tracy Morgan was his typical checked-out-genius self. He told Jimmy Kimmel that he was only rooting for the black actresses, including Millie Bobbie Brown. When Kimmel, a reliable straight man, informed Morgan that Brown is not black, Morgan shot back, “Then she’s not invited to the cookout.”

–Benicio del Toro’s “We’ll kill, then we’ll kill again” woke us from our slumber. Fine non sequitur there.

–Yeah, yeah, yeah, the dude wins an Emmy, reveals that his mom just died, and then proposes to his girlfriend. It was like an episode of This Is Us broke out in the theater.

–After that, it was a letdown when Betty White, 96, opted not to propose to anyone in the audience. “Til death do us part” doesn’t sound so overwhelming when you’re just a few years away from turning over the odometer.

At least the Emmys were vertically diverse

–Mad libs still decrying the lack of diversity among the honorees. They just weren’t paying attention when a dwarf (4’5″ Peter Dinklage) and a 6’4″ drag queen each won an Emmy.

2. Florence

This tweet illustrating how Interstate 40 morphed into a tributary got our attention…


And we also saw, as did you, that video of the doggies who’d been locked in cages and left behind by their owners and were fortunately rescued.

This man is a hero. The dopes who left these pooches behind should spend a few nights in a flooded cage themselves.

Who does this??? (I’d save my cat before I’d save my own mother, and both creatures are well aware of that,  though I don’t think there’s going to be a tray of lasagna waiting for me the next time I fly home).

3. LaJax

The Gurley Man already has three touchdowns in two games.

The NFL season is only two weeks old, but already the Los Angeles Rams, bolstered by a defensive stud who should have won the Heisman (Ndamokung Suh) and an offensive stud who would’ve had he not gotten hurt (The Gurley Man), appear to be the best team in pro football. The best team in the AFC? That would be the Jacksonville Jaguars, who silenced the New England Patriots in Jax in a rematch of their AFC Championship contest.

The Rams have the NFL’s best point differential after two games, +54. The team with the second-best PD? The New York Jets (who are 1-1), at + 23.

4. Pussy Riot Poisoning

We just finished Ben Mezrich’s Once Upon A Time in Russia, which tells the story of the post-glasnost rise of the Russian oligarchs, which then led to ascendance of Vladimir Putin. The book also tells the story of the first known target of Vladimir Putin’s wrath via polonium poisoning, a former KGB agent named Alexander Litvinenko. From his deathbed in London in 2006 Litvinenko released a statement in which he accused Putin by name of being behind his murder.

A dozen years later, little has changed. This week Pyotr Verzilov, the spokesman for the Moscow-based band Pussy Riot, which have long been outspoken protesters against the Putin regime, was apparently poisoned. He has been flown to a hospital in Germany for treatment. In July Verzilov and two others stormed the pitch of the France-Croatia World Cup semifinal dressed as police as a form of protest. Vlad doesn’t forget those things.

5. Should Brett Fret?

We’ll say this first: The biggest mistake that Brett Kavanaugh made in terms of this just-under-the-wire scandal was denying it ever happened. Unless it didn’t happen…

But if it did, the GOP’s most-favored Supreme Court nominee made a YUUUGE tactical mistake by adopting the Donald Trump strategy of DENY DENY DENY. By now you know the story: A letter written by a 51 year-old professor in California, Christine Blasey Ford, gets into the hands of Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) in July. She turns it over to the FBI. The FBI fails to follow up. Feinstein leaks the letter after the confirmation hearings but before the vote.

The contents of the letter? That while Kavanaugh was a 17 year-old student at Georgetown Prep, he attempted to sexually assault the 15 year-old Ford at a party at a posh house in Montgomery County, Maryland. She recalls being groped and Kavanaugh, shite-faced, trying to muffle her screams with his hands.

It’s not rape, but it’s legally an assault. It’s a preppy in 1981 or ’82 acting like a jackass. The world was a far more sexist place back then, especially for the white male American teen (see: Animal House, Caddyshack, Porky’s, Risky Business, etc.). How long did this alleged assault last? Were any of her clothes removed? How blitzed was he?

None of those answers mitigate the fact that the alleged incident is serious. But if it did happen and Kavanaugh had come right out and said, “I was 17 years old and drunk and stupid. I sincerely apologize,” well, sure, we’re about to hit the one-year anniversary of the MeToo movement, but it’s possible that the confirmation vote would have proceeded on schedule (Thursday) and he’d have been approved with reservations.

He was a minor. No charges were filed. The statute of limitations has passed. Own it, apologize, stress that you’ve gone on to be a responsible figure in public life, you’re married, a dad, yada yada yada…

Instead, Kavanaugh denied this ever happened. Now it’s no longer a case of how horrible his behavior was—something I believe reasonable people can disagree on, at least in terms of what long-term consequences it should have on his career. Instead, now it’s a HeSaidSheSaid case. Who’s lying? And after Monday’s hearing, when I believe Ford will come off as a far more credible witness than Kavanaugh (and she’s already passed a polygraph), it will be too late for Kavanaugh to employ the strategy the MH staff just laid out.

Because now it will all be about him being an exposed liar. And c’mon, a dude who claims to have no memory of a meeting with a major player at a law firm within the past year (when questioned by Kamala Harris) now has a vivid memory of having not attended a party 35 years ago? Riiiiiiiiiighhhhht.

Maybe she’s lying. Maybe she was “put up to this’ by the Democrats. I doubt it, though. If Ford’s telling the truth, and it’s much more plausible that she is, then Kavanaugh is now something worse than an adolescent ass. He’s a confirmed adult liar. And that will likely disqualify him.

Music 101

I Want To Break Free

We were waiting at the service bar of the cookoutateria Sunday afternoon when this Freddie Mercury gem energized the sound system and a colleague opined, “This may be the most underrated Queen song.” Part of the greatness of Queen, not unlike the Beatles, is that they were capable of extraordinarily sophisticated epics (Bohemian Rhapsody/A Day In The Life) but also of penning simple melodies that remain in your brain forever (Crazy Little Thing Called Love, or this song/Eight Days A Week). This 1984 song hit No. 3 in the UK, but only No. 45 here in the States, where MTV banned the video for a time due to all the band members dressing in drag.

Remote Patrol

Norm Macdonald (Has A) Show

Netflix

We can’t vouch for the entire series, but the premiere episode with David Spade is hilarious. And that’s mostly because David Spade is just a very funny and likable guy (as are all men from the Phoenix area). The set is only slightly more elaborate than “Between Two Ferns” and Norm’s longtime pal, Adam Get, acts as sidekick. Stick around for the closing jingle, which is easily the most (only?) inspired part of the program.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 3 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Starting Five

Davis Up

This may be a first: Cornerback Vontae Davis, 30, in his first season with the Buffalo Bills, retired at halftime. “I shouldn’t be out there anymore,” Davis said in a statement, after putting on his dress clothes with the Bills trailing at home to the Chargers 28-6 at the intermission.

Davis was a healthy scratch in Game and pulled himself out of Sunday’s game after telling coaches he didn’t feel right. He’ll get mocked all over the inter webs, but he spent nine full seasons in the League and he gets to WALK away. So yeah, awful timing, but maybe it’s the right decision. No one should play in the NFL half-assed. You’ll get murderlized.

FWIW, in the worst loss we were ever part of in organized football (49-0 to the vaunted Marcos De Niza Pop Warner Bobcats in 8th grade), our teammate quit immediately after the game, on the field, handing in his shoulder pads and helmet to our coaches. And he was our starting running back (maybe he was upset with the play of the team’s quarterback, ahem…). Anyway, we bring this up because one of Davis’ Bills teammates, linebacker Lorenzo Alexander, noted that he’d never seen that at any level, including Pop Warner.

Then again, at least my teammate waited until after our loss to quit.

Cape Cod Is Now Cape Fear

We arrived home from the cookoutateria on Sunday night to see that Jaws was airing on Ovation. Which is odd timing, because it’s the story of a shark that terrorizes an island near Cape Cod (a fictional Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket). Meanwhile, on Friday afternoon, a 25 year-old swimming at a beach in Cape Cod that used to be an annual pilgrimage for the MH staff, in the town of Wellfleet, was the victim of a fatal shark attack.

Arthur Medici of Revere, Mass., was boogie boarding about 30 yards offshore when he was bitten. It’s believed to be the first fatal shark attack off Cape Cod since 1936. But, a 61 year-old man was bitten last month by a shark a miles north of Wellfleet in the town of Truro. Well, off the coast of the town of Truro.

1. Matt Ryan Fitzpatrick Mahomes

The first of these three-quarterbacks-in-four-words should have won his first Super Bowl two years ago. The third, in his second NFL season and first as a starter, has guided the Kansas City Chiefs to a pair of road victories while throwing 10 TD passes without an interception.

The middle guy, pictured above, is a career journeyman, a married father of six who graduated from Harvard, went undrafted, is 35 years old and is only starting for the Tampa Bay Bucs because Jameis Winston is serving a four-game groping suspension. But here’s the thing: Ryan Fitzpatrick has thrown 8 TD passes, just one pick, and has the Bucs at 2-0 after they beat the Super Bowl-champion Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday. In doing so he became the first QB in NFL history to throw for 400 yards and 4 TDs in each of the first two games of a season.


Also, the Chandler Hamilton High grad has a sense of humor to go with that bushy beard, donning teammate Deshaun Watson’s outfit for his postgame presser. That is some major swag.

4. Crazy Lost Asians

This is Fan Bingbing, one of China’s most famous movie stars. No one has seen her since June, shortly after a report was released stating that she was evading paying taxes by having a public contract for movie deals and a far, larger private one. In China these are known as “yin-yang” contracts.

Her disappearance in the authoritarian Communist state has been met with great…Fanfare. We assume wherever she went, she’ll turn up again in a few months, properly reeducated.

This is what happens in a nation where the central government is permitted to control the media.

5. 26.2 In 2:01:39

At the Berlin Marathon on Sunday, Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge set a world record with a time of 2:01:39. The 33 year-old Olympic champion lowered the world-record time, set four years ago on this same course, by an astounding one minute and 18 seconds. The 5’5″, 123-pound runner has now finished first in 11 of the 12 marathons he has run.

A sub-2 hour marathon will happen, it’s just a matter of when.

Music 101

Coconut

This song by Harry Nilsson, featured on his 1971 album titled Nilsson Schmilsson, reached No. 8 on the Billboard charts. But what does it mean? We have no idea. One curious note: the song has no chord changes. It’s a C7 all the way through.

Remote Patrol

70th Primetime Emmy Awards

8 p.m. NBC

Your hosts are Michael Che and Colin Jost, and presumably at some point in the show they’ll bring on Leslie Jones to discuss her sex life. We’ve never seen The Handmaid’s Tale, This Is Us (more than a few minutes before heading to the bathroom to retch), The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, or Atlanta, so we’ll probably feel left out. Mindhunter wasn’t even nominated, which we do not understand. At least Kate McKinnon should win something.