by John Walters

Starting Five

Papa Don’s Pizza*

*The judges will also accept “LoKKKer Room Talk”

Did Donald Trump use the N-word? Should any of us care?

The War of the Word heated up this morning after The Worst Wing’s lone black staffer (former, that is), Omarosa, released a tape in which three staffers discuss the fact that Trump used the N-word and that there is a tape of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COM7Vh1lIMw

Here’s what we know: As slimy as Omarasa can be, she DOES have a tape of three White House staffers (herself included) discussing Trump’s use of the N-word (years ago, it should be noted, while he was doing The Apprentice). One of them, Katrina Pierson, distinctly says, “He said it.”

Last night, BEFORE this tape was released, Pierson was asked about this and flatly denied any existence of the tape. This morning, we have confirmation that she is a liar.

Is anyone surprised by any of this? That Trump is a racist? That Pierson is a liar? That Omarosa is a snake? “All the best people…”

2. Bridge Collapse

In Genoa, Italy, a portion of the Morandi Bridge collapses during a heavy storm. The list of fatalities is still being put together, but it appears that at least 20 motorists have been killed. Some vehicles wound up in the Polcevera River below.

3. Amazon By The Months

Shares of Amazon (AMZN) are poised to jump more than another 1% this morning, or about $20 per share, to $1,917. Even the sharpest skeptics of FANG stocks are conceding that Amazon and Google remain solid BUYS. We took a look at what months Amazon has hit each new $100 milepost, beginning at the $500 mark, in the past three years. As you can see, the upward slope is getting steeper.

At this rate, AMZN should crash through the $2,000 barrier by early September if not sooner.

$500…..July, 2015

$600….October, 2015 (3 months)

$700….May, 2016 (7 months)

$800….September 2016 (4 months)

$900….October 2016 (1 month)

$1000….May 2017 ( 7 months)

$1100….October 2017 (5 months)

$1200….November 2017 (1 month)

$1300….January 2018 (2 months)

$1400….January 2018 (1 week)

$1500….February 2018 (1 month)

$1600…March 2018 (1 month)

$1700….June 2018 (3 months)

$1800….July 2018 (1 month)

$1900….August 2018 (1 month)

4. Paying Their Last R-E-S-P-E-C-T-S

By day’s end, the Queen of Soul may be up there in heaven’s choir. Aretha Franklin, 76, is gravely ill and in hospice care. Here she is from The Blues Brothers (1980):

Franklin, a Detroit native, was the first female to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

5. Dumb-Strzok*

Strzok

*The judges will also accept “Bowen’s Arrow”

We’re not sure who got screwed worse, FBI agent Peter Strzok or L.A. Clippers analyst (and former NBA defensive stalwart, particularly with the San Antonio Spurs) Bruce Bowen. Both men were fired yesterday for speaking their minds while in an unofficial capacity.

Strzok was fired due to the texts he sent a fellow FBI agent/girlfriend about what a crook/nut-job then-candidate Trump was. Not that he was wrong. Bowen, who played for years under Gregg Popovich, was fired for appearing on a radio show and basically saying that Kawhi Leonard was acting like a spoiled brat and/or getting bad advice. Which he is.

But you see, the Clippers hope to land Leonard as a free agent a year from now and they don’t want anyone associated with them hurting Kawhi’s feelings. So they canned him.

Yes, neither man’s free speech was impugned: no one put them in jail. But it’s kind of sad to see power plays such as these when what the guys are saying is the truth. Then again, if it wasn’t the truth, there’d be no need to pull such a power play.

Music 101

Alone Again, Naturally

Is it possible to do worse than yesterday’s musical selection? We’re going to try. Here’s Irish musician Gilbert O’Sullivan with a song in which the narrator contemplates suicide after his bride leaves him at the altar, then goes on to discuss the deaths of both his parents. What’s more bizarre: that O’Sullivan wrote this song at the age of 21 or that none of it is autobiographical? Let’s go for Door No. 3: the strangest thing is that in 1972 this song spent six weeks at No. 1 (What is WRONG with people????).

Remote Patrol

Scorcese Fest

Goodfellas

7 p.m. AMC

The Wolf Of Wall Street

8 p.m. FX

Has Marty lost something off his fastball in the past two decades? You be the judge.

by John Walters

1. Fantastic Feats

On an otherwise slow sports weekend in early August (no NBA, no real NFL or college football and really only the PGA Championship of major import), we were still treated with three incredible moments.

The first: Saturday night in Oakland and A’s rookie centerfielder Ramon Laureano makes the most incredible double play of the season.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gkbD65SiMQ

We’re hardly the first to say it, but that’s a 321-foot (107 yards) toss that never made the first baseman move an inch. It must have had launch codes. Not to forget that the catch itself was incredible. Haven’t seen a throw like that since Yoenes Cespedes roamed left for the A’s.

Then last night Wayne Rooney, who was supposedly old and washed up, made one of the great individual soccer plays you’ll ever see. Note that D.C. United had pulled the keeper so he had to make this tackle to save the game. Like Laureano, that was just the first half of a two-part incredible feat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBSrKMfz33w

And do pay attention to where we were in stoppage time. There were only 40 seconds or so remaining.

Finally, we turned on the Nats-Cubs game after a 13-hour day at the gig last night to this scene: Cubbies trail the Nats 3-0 in the bottom of the ninth inning. Two outs, bases loaded. Max Scherzer has pitched an absolute gem—seven innings, no runs, 11 K’s—for the Nats but his night is over.

In steps Cubs rookie David Bote to pinch-hit in the ninth spot. In 75 previous at-bats, Bote has two home runs. And we’ve all watched enough baseball, plus seen how the Nats’ season is going, to know how this ends. Bote sends a 2-2 pitch to dead center, over the wall.

A nationally televised prime-time walk-off grand slam. Cubs win! Cubs win! (we need Will Ferrell as Harry Caray to call the final pitch of this game for posterity).

Note: ESPN Stats reports this is the Cubs’ second walk-off grand slam of the season after only having two such plays in the entire history of the franchise prior to 2018.

2. “This Moment of Serenity”

*The judges will also accept “Leaving On A Jet Plane” 

We get it: What if some “evildoer,” or worse, a radicalized Muslim (!) had stolen that Horizon Air prop jet that seats 76 passengers (officially, a Bombardier Q400) and not 29 year-old Richard Russell, who from the sound of his tone with the air-traffic controller, was strictly out for a joy ride?

But they didn’t. It was Russell. And while we understand the safety concerns—fans were already filing into Safeco Field for a sold-out Pearl Jam concert (how cliche)—we listened to Russell’s audio with the the tower and…

…thought of him as a restless but gentle soul, a self-described “broken guy” who just yearned to have a moment of freedom, to break out of the controlled monotony most of us face. He yearned to really live. At least that’s how we read it. We’re glad no one else was hurt; there was nothing in his voice to indicate that he had any intention of harming anyone.

Like those globe-pedaling cyclists we profiled last week, Russell died at the age of 29 in a crash. But man, that loop-di-loop he did. How many commercial pilots have yearned to do that after takeoff?

p.s. Washington state now is the all-time leader for wild aviation tales: D.B. Cooper and Richard Russell (and, yes, we know Cooper’s flight originated out of Portland but it landed at SeaTac before taking off again).

3. Payeng It Forward

We’d never heard of Forest Man, a documentary that was released last summer, until one of our favorite Twitter follows, Vala Afshar, tweeted about it last week.

In short: Jadav Payeng, a Mishing tribesman in India, was concerned about the deforestation taking place around him. In 1979 he noticed a few dozen snakes had perished on Mashuli Island, where he’d grown up, when they’d washed ashore and had no place to hide from the sun. So the next day he planted a tree. And the next day he did so again.

And Payeng kept doing that, planting one tree per day, for 37 years (note to my friends in Brooklyn: someone really needs to do this in Bushwick). Payeng, through his daily act of conservationalism, created a forest preserve that over the years attracted has attracted a herd of elephants, plus rhinos, tigers and deer.

What I love about this story is it reminds me that one person can absolutely make a big difference.

In 1978, Jadav Payeng began planting a tree every day for 37 years —results are stunning. #MondayMotivation pic.twitter.com/C6QOcbCCYy

— Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) August 13, 2018

Payeng created paradise simply by repeating a selfless ritual day after day. There’s a metaphorical lesson in that for us all. There’s also the lesson of how one man can make a tremendous difference for good. If there is a heaven, Payeng is a first-ballot entry. He honestly deserves a Nobel Peace Prize, we think.

4. Durkin Do-Nots

Last week former ESPN reporter Brett McMurphy broke a story that rendered a B1G East coach on administrative leave and a week later a trio of current ESPN reporters respond with, “Hold my beer.” Now Maryland coach D.J. Durkin is on administrative leave—our own Stewart Mandel tweeted “Legends and Administrative Leavers”— and we think, unlike Urban, that Durkin’s turtle is cooked.

First, there’s an actual death (Jordan McNair) involved. Second, it’s exactly the type of bullying culture university presidents want no part of. Durkin’s curriculum vitae includes stops at Notre Dame (under Ty Willingham, who was to busy rushing to his tee times to bully players) and Stanford and Notre Dame under Jim Harbaugh (the poultry-hating coach with a travel bug). We’d be curious to see how his coaching style was influenced and by whom.

5. Trumpy Bear

The paws are much larger than the original, no?

It’s too late to take it to last weekend’s white supremacist rallies, but surely there will be more in your future! It’s Trumpy Bear, and the ad we saw on CNBC last week says it can be yours for just $19.95 (in true Trumpian fashion, there’s a quickly spoken throwaway line that informs you it’s TWO payments of $19.95, so really it’s $39.90).

We’ll give them credit. The idea is genius. If you’re part of the MAGA crowd, you may want a Trumpy Bear for those long nights when thoughts of a female president or Robert Mueller succeeding give you chills. If you are on the other side of the fence (or, wall, but Mexico’s gonna pay for it), you may purchase it for the ironic value. Or as a piñata.

Ed. Note: Our birthday is coming up. Please do NOT get us this. Kthxbye.

Music 101

Feelings

What song made you reach for the radio dial—to be clear, not the “Turn It Up!” volume knob but the “Change that crap!” Tuner knob—at warp speed like no other in the Seventies? We’ll go with this 1975 tune by Brazilian one-(*)hit wonder Morris Albert. The soft-rock classic peaked at No. 6 and induced countless bouts of spontaneous vomiting.

Remote Patrol

Mets at Yankees

7 p.m. ESPN

An East Coast Bias spectacular! But hear us out: The Mess are throwing Jacob deGrom (or as my autocorrect tries, often successfully, to inform me, “Jacob Legroom”) and his 1.77 ERA versus Luis Severino and his 15 wins. We’ve got the MLB ERA leader versus a man tied for the MLB Wins lead (Max Scherzer would be the MLB wins leader today were it not for Bote’s grand slam last night).

p.s. Rain is in the forecast….again.

by Chris Corbellini

Shark and Awe: Jaws was that rare film that might’ve swept Best Popular and Best Picture (or would’ve at least been deserving)

Show me any guy who ever said he didn’t want to be popular, and I’ll show you a scared guy … Most of the time, the best stuff is the popular stuff. It’s much safer to say popularity sucks, because that allows you to forgive yourself if you suck. And I don’t forgive myself. Do you?

–Jeff Bebe, “Almost Famous”

Now we have a high school yearbook category during an Oscars broadcast: Most popular!

No one can define it yet (really, the Academy’s release stated as much), but Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film category will be an actual thing, and doesn’t it feel like Hollywood wants its head cheerleader and prom king up on stage? This surprises me not at all: the whole industry is a popularity contest from pre-production to final mix to trailer release — unless you are lucky enough to self-finance your own vision and get it up on the screen. But, why now?

Short answer: Television ratings.

Long answer: Television ratings, and a chance to put the creatives of Black Panther on the stage twice.

And let’s not forget that by adding this category you are rewarding the richest people in the theater on Oscar night. If you’re getting a percentage of a movie’s gross, and you should as a Hollywood film producer, and if you are also lucky enough to have helped put together a Blank Panther … which seems like a popular film Oscar lock … then not only will you have paid for your new Malibu beachfront property in cash, but you’re going to win a statue on Oscar night as well.

If I were a documentary filmmaker who likely had to bum some cash off his parents to rent a tuxedo for the occasion, I’d barely be able to muster polite applause for this category’s winner. And I wonder how Spielberg feels about all of this? Sir Steven was known as a “popular” director, which was the ultimate backhanded compliment: He was legendary moneymaker and yet not considered in the same artistic class as titans Scorsese or Coppola until he made Schindler’s List roughly 20 years into his career. Now the Academy has added a category to honor those thrilling films that also made serious coin — which was a category that Spielberg re-invented.

I’m not an Oscar purist, and I doubt such a person exists. So now you can win a Most Popular Oscar, a Best Picture Oscar, or both. Okay sure, go nuts, Academy. What will likely happen next February is a prestige film wins Best Picture, a Star Wars or Marvel movie wins Most Popular, and they’ll try to keep the broadcast under three hours by using a vaudeville wooden hook to drag long-winded winners off the stage (OK, maybe the hook won’t happen. Maybe).

Or, and this is pie-in-the-sky thinking, perhaps some gutsy kid who decided to use his college student loan payments as funding to direct, write and produce a movie of his own will wind up with another quotable Swingers and he’ll win Most Popular, and a career is born. I’ve always been a “try something new” person when it comes to all matters creative, with the understanding that if it isn’t working, you can always go back to the tried-and-true. At the very least, the upcoming Oscar night monologue will have some great material to work with.

By the way, the quote above is not in the actual cinematic release of Almost Famous (which should be awarded a Most Popular Oscar, retroactively), and that’s a shame. It’s in the director’s cut, and I think it’s Cameron Crowe’s innermost thoughts on how a famous lead singer, the definition of a popular kid, sees life as it plays out in front of him. I figure it’s Crowe’s views on Hollywood and pop art as well.

Jeff Bebe’s comment, which died on the cutting room floor, was…incendiary.

And I get it. Yes, the most popular Oscar is the business backslapping itself yet again. Still, speaking as a fan with tastes that veer towards the popular stuff … I do get excited whenever I see the Star Wars opener “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” followed by that opening blast of John Williams’ famous score. It’s like I’m sitting next to the 1983 version of me, and we’re giggling together. For me that’s unique to the movie-going experience, and hopefully for one Oscar night at least, a blockbuster that pulls out such joy in so many will be celebrated with a statue.

And perhaps in 2020 the Academy will go full high school yearbook and add “Best Looking” and “Best Body” to the proceedings, catering to those young folks who are in search of the perfect Instagram selfie. They shall rule the Earth.

by John Walters

Tweet du Jour

“We only have empty pockets when it comes to the morally right things to do, but when it comes to tax cuts for billionaires and when it comes to unlimited war we seem to be able to invent that money very easily,” Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says. https://t.co/cgpyxY7z1g pic.twitter.com/dgVgv8EMRb

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) August 9, 2018

Give ’em hell, Alexandria!

Starting Five

J.D. Power & Associates

In Toronto, the Red Sox win their sixth straight and 81st game of the year. They’re guaranteed of a .500 finish with 47 games remaining and we’d forgotten that only five years earlier their DH/slugger/presumptive American League MVP, J.D. Martinez, was CUT by the Houston Astros.

If only the Astros had kept him, they might have won a World Series.

Anyway, Boston is a ridiculous 81-34 and Martinez leads the American League in home runs (34) and RBI (98) and is second to teammate Mookie Betts in batting average (.332).

2. High Nunes

On the 40th anniversary of Richard Nixon’s resignation, another Republican from California is caught on tape making some rather inappropriate confessions. This time it’s Congressman Devin Nunes, possibly the worst member in the House, copping to the strategy of trying to impeach Rod Rosenstein and also to the fact that Trump’s tweets make him cringe. He did so at a GOP fundraiser last week. Dunce.

3. Swinging Gates*

*The judges will definitely not accept “Gatesgate” nor “He’s A Rick House, He’s Mighty Mighty, Just Let It All Hang Out”

In the People vs. Paul Manafort, the prosecution’s star witness, Rick Gates, faces grilling by the defense. Their attempt to throw him off his game: Why should the jury trust someone who has taken part in four extramarital affairs? Our reply: All that does is confirm Gates as a credible Trump crony.

4. About That Assist, LeBron

We explicitly chose a photo where Sweet Pea’s shoulders were not exposed because it’s too hot and bothersome out for Susie B. to get even more hot and bothered

Bully for Cleveland.com, which ran a story explicating that for all of LeBron James significant and earnest altruism, the taxpayers of Cleveland will foot the bill for about 75% of the newly opened I Promise School (it is a public school) and that the University of Akron is on the hook for almost all of those promised scholarships.

It’s not that LeBron is a fraud; he’s anything but. It’s just that the hagiographic interviews by folks such as ESPN’s Rachel Nichols and CNN’s Don Lemon never revealed the fiscal breakdown of who was footing the bill. It was lazy reporting all around, and most of us just assumed LeBron was getting the check for the entire meal. Turns out he’s just buying the appetizer.

We have no idea how much it would cost to run a school (unless you’re home-schooled, which then wouldn’t cost so much). And while we don’t want to BLAME LeBron for focusing on education and putting is money to help, we will ask: Why not just launch a small, private school, fund it completely, and use it for at-risk kids? LeBron can more than pay for that.

Here’s an even better idea: Why doesn’t every single NBA and NFL franchise do something like this? At least pour in as much money as LeBron has for the I Promise School.

5. The NCAA Messes Up Again

Duke-bound Zion Williamson would have likely hired an agent

The NCAA announces that in the future the elitest of elite high school hoopsters will be allowed to select an agent and then tells USA Basketball that it will be its job to determine which players fit that description. This reminds of those long-ago summer afternoons when my sister would walk into the den while our parents were both at work and ask me if I wanted to help fold the laundry. 🙂

Anyway, why can’t the NCAA do anything right. Just open it up to anyone; most players are smart enough to know they don’t need an agent in 12th grade and for those delusional enough not to understand it, well, that’s what Darwinism is here for.

Meanwhile, what does this mean for Kentucky hoops?

Reserves

You’re going to need a bigger award

The Academy Awards announces that it will hand out an Oscar for the “Best Popular” film as well, also known as the “Marvel-ous” Award or the “We’re Sorry, Jaws” award or “The Rock” award.

Music 101

Stereo Hearts

In 2011 Gym Class Heroes hooked up with Adam Levine and produced this catchy, smart tune. Levine’s voice is pure honey. And then the gang from Glee covered the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02lW6TpjVJk

Remote Patrol

The Godfather, Part II

3;30 p.m. AMC

I know it was you, Fredo.