IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 3 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet du Jour

Starting Five

Ellis never gave up and should probably head out on a corporate inspirational speaking tour immediately after graduation

Dominance And Resilience

Two races late Saturday afternoon on opposite coasts. The one you know about, the one you more than likely watched, involved Justify, starting from the post position and leading wire-to-wire at the Belmont Stakes. Justify becomes the second horse in four years to win the Triple Crown and the first, we believe, to have done so without having raced as a two year-old. The Bob Baffert-trained horse becomes the 13th Triple Crown winner overall.

Though we appreciated Justify’s unchallenged excellence, it didn’t really move us. Maybe because we couldn’t really relate to being the most talented and simply being smart enough not to get in your own way.

The racer we could relate to was Kendall Ellis of USC, who took off from the last position in the women’s 4 x 400 relay at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Eugene. A little set-up: heading into the 4 x 400, the final event, Georgia had 52 points, Stanford 51 and USC 43. You get 10 points for first place, so USC’s only chance was to win the race (the Dawgs and Cardinal did not advance to the final in this event so neither had a chance to add to its total score).

USC’s anchor leg handoff was clumsy and Ellis, a senior from Pembroke Pines, Fla., was going to have to fight through traffic if she were to have any chance. A quick note about Ellis: she graduated high school with a 4.7 GPA and was a four-time Florida state champion in the 400. She also graduated USC in the spring of 2017 with a business degree. She’s a grad student.

So, after the botched handoff, Ellis is in fourth place. Go to 2:20 on the video and watch the final lap. Listen to ESPN’s male announcer (John Anderson? Dwight Stones? I think it’s the former, who is a former high jumper at Missouri) say with certainty, “There’s no way [Purdue loses] unless she drops the baton. Purdue’s going to win this…” just 100 meters from the finish.

Final note: this was LAST YEAR’s women’s 4 x 400 race. Look who finished in 2nd place. Ellis didn’t just come back from 4th place on Saturday. She came all the way back from 2017.

2. Alex and Anthony

As many of us devoted at least a few Saturday and Sunday moments to muse on what could lead CNN’s Anthony Bourdain to take his own life, the Washington Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin seemed to have the best weekend of his. Ovi tossed out the first pitch at the Nationals game, did a keg stand somewhere else, did push-ups in a D.C. fountain, and barbecued while singing “We Are The Champions” at the top of his lungs.

Ovi, understandably, was seizing the day, which is something Bourdain, via his two travel shows (first, No Reservations on the Travel Channel and later Parts Unknown on CNN), seemed to be encouraging us all to do. Perhaps that’s what makes the 61 year-old New Jersey native’s suicide so incomprehensible: Bourdain seemed to have a greater appetite for life and empathy for his fellow man than anyone on television.

If and when CNN re-airs it, watch the tribute to Bourdain that ran on Sunday night (extra, EXTRA props to the CNN producers who likely spent all weekend in an edit bay to make the show possible). Bourdain was no mere sybarite, getting to go to places we’ll never go to, eating foods we may not eat, having conversations we’ll never have and basking in the glory of his good fortune. No, if that was his schtick, we’d have never been drawn in.

Bourdain was an honest and empathetic travel guide. He was blunt and he opened a vein in describing his experiences to us. He was raw. He was genuine. Not only did he never take it for granted, but he approached his job as if he were both missionary and teacher. The difference is that whereas most missionaries bring their culture to a foreign land, his job was to bring that foreign land to us. He was the pilgrim, but we were the beneficiaries.

And how does all of that tie in to Ovi? Well, if you’re reading this, I can promise you that you’re never going to win a Stanley Cup. But you don’t have to in order to approach any weekend as Ovi did this past one. You’re alive. And there’s so much to do and see. You’re lucky. Don’t ever forget it.

And that does not make us understand Bourdain’s death any better. We may have more thoughts on that later this week. But at least he showed us not only what it is to live, but also to understand that most people all over the globe are remarkably similar: we are not our world leaders, or our military. We are a community. If you watch the CNN special, you’ll notice that Bourdain did not shy away from visiting dangerous places (Myanmar, Iran, Tripoli) and he’d always ask common citizens the same question: “Are you hopeful?”

3. Nadal’s House

The Spaniard, Rafael Nadal, wins his 11th French Open title, this time in straight sets. Beyond their 30th birthdays Nadal, 32, and Roger Federer, 36, seem more intent than ever  on putting the “Most Grand Slam titles” mark forever out of reach. Between the two of them they’ve claimed the last six Grand Slams—three apiece—dating back to the beginning of 2017.

Does Novak have a prayer of catching Rafi or Roger?

Federer now has 20 Grand Slams and Nadal 17 (Pete Sampras retired more than a decade ago with the then all-time most of 14). While it once seemed that Novak Djokovic, still only 31, would pass both of them as he won 6 of 8 Grand Slams between 2014 and 2016, the Swiss and the Spaniard are not going quietly into that good night. And it has now been two full year, eight Grand Slam events, since Djokovic has hoisted a cup.

Where does this end and who finishes on top? We’re going to go with Nadal, who has four years on Federer and basically owns Roland Garros (11 titles in Paris in the past 14 years).

4. Blame Canada

We don’t speak German, but we have to imagine Angela Merkel is at least thinking, You’re a buffoon.

If this weekend’s G-7 Summit in Quebec City were a party, Donald Trump was the guest who arrived unfashionably late, wondered why his friend who’d previously slipped the date rape drug into the drinks of sisters of other party goers wasn’t allowed to attend, and then left early, after which he insulted the affable host.


America First!


5. Hand-icapped

The first self-inflicted wound was punching the white board after Game 1. The second was wearing the cast after Game 4. Now the spin is that Ol’ Sweet Pea, who was able to go 9 days without his hand injury being revealed but unable to do so for one final hour after his team had been swept, only wore the cast to the post-series presser because news had begun to leak about the injury.

So how did that news exactly “leak?” Who leaked it? And why would that news compel you to wear the cast, which comes off as nothing less than a plea for sympathy and absolution. We know you’re great. We know the Cavs couldn’t have won without you (or with you). We know you didn’t have enough help. But now you need us to know that you were hurt the final three games and, oh, by the way, whose fault is that?

Not a good look. He’s an all-timer, but his career is speckled with moments (“The Decision,” “The Supporting Cast”) that make you wonder if he ever understood what being part of a team is all about. As one friend of ours aptly stated it yesterday, “He’s the Millennial Jordan.”

Reserves


Homophobia AND a grammatical error! It’s a MAGA two-fer!

Music 101

Singapore

Tom Waits, the lead track from his acclaimed 1985 album, Rain Dogs. Seemed rather appropriate for today. Thanks, Cecil.

Remote Patrol

The Staircase

Netflix

Did novelist Michael Peterson murder his wife, Kathleen, or did she simply fall down the staircase at the family home? And wasn’t it more than a coincidence that family friend Elizabeth Raitliff died 18 years earlier…at the bottom of a staircase? This is being hailed as the “Making A Murderer” of 2018.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by John Walters

Tweet du Jour

Starting Five

Parts Unknown

Chef, author and noted master of global peregrinations Anthony Bourdain has apparently committed suicide. This comes as a shock as Bourdain, 61, appeared not only to have a fantastic life but came off as the ultimate guy with whom you’d want to have a beer. Bourdain seemed…grounded.

Women of a certain age found him dreamy while men envied that he was the Most Interesting Man In the World. Bourdain was also a self-professed recovering heroin and cocaine addict.

You never know…

Capital Times

The Washington Capitals have finally done it. The Caps beat the Golden Knights 4-3 in Las Vegas last night in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup finals. At the end of 13 seasons and 1,124 games, Alex Ovechkin, who did score one goal last night, can finally hoist the Stanley Cup. It is also Washington’s first championship in its 44-year history.

3. Fast Times At Hayward Field

In the NCAA women’s 10,000 meter championship last night, six runners broke the 30 year-old meet record of 32:28.57. Kansas’ Sharon Lokedi (above) broke the tape in 32:09.20. The other record-breakers but runners-up were Dorcas Wasike (Louisville), Karissa Schweizer (Missouri), Alice Wright (New Mexico), Charlotte Taylor (San Francisco) and Anna Rohrer (Notre Dame).

Meanwhile at the Bislett Games in Oslo, someone forgot to adjust one of the hurdles in the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase and kept it at the men’s height, a six-inch difference. Chaos ensued. From LetsRun.com: “Jamaica’s Aisha Praught, the 2018 Commonwealth Games champ, ended up just running into the barrier and coming to a complete stop before using her hands to help herself get over,” and, “America’s world champ Emma Coburn got over the barrier without problems but she immediately started gesturing to the stands to try to let people know about the gaffe.”

Emma gestures….

Oddly, the officials did not stop the race and re-start it but simply corrected the error in the midst of the race and kept it official. Friend of The Blog Emma Coburn finished second.

4. No Wonder This Horse Always Turns Left

Justify, who will likely win all three races in the slop, is a verifiable rainmaker

Tomorrow is the Belmont Stakes and Justify, starting from the first post, is favored to win the Triple Crown, which would make him the second horse to do so in the past four years. Now comes a story from the New York Times that the horse is partly owned (15%) “by a secretive entity that.. will remain out of the spotlight because it vigorously avoids any public attention. It is a company controlled by top employees of the billionaire investor George Soros.”

5. World’s Highest Bungee Jump

If merely strolling across the Glass Bottom Bridge in Zhiangjiajie, China, was not enough for you, beginning in August you will be able to bungee jump from it. That will make it the world’s highest bungee jump (853 feet). For comparison’s sake, that is the equivalent to almost four times the height of jumping from the roadway of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The cable car at Zhiangjiajie is also pretty insane, something out of Avatar

Zhiangjiajie is in central China, inland, about a 2-hour flight from Hong Kong….if you go.

Music 101

Breaking Us In Two

Our love for Joe Jackson knows no fetters. A musical genius and a hopeless romantic. “Steppin’ Out” was the single from this 1982 album, but Side 2 features this and “A Slow Song,” both melancholy classics.

Remote Patrol

Game 4: Dubs at Cavs

9 p.m. ABC

Will it go five? Nope. Where will LeBron play next?

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 8 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

1. The Man Show

We can wonder why Ty Lue never doubled Kevin Durant (43 points on 15-23 shooting) in the second half or why he hasn’t played Rodney Hood (15 points on 7 of 11 shooting in his first significant minutes last night) more, but the larger epiphany of the 2018 NBA Finals is that Golden State has three players who on any given evening can be THE MAN and Cleveland only has one. And that it’s impossible to fathom how much more mental energy that drains from LeBron James game after game as opposed to the succor it provides KD, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson.

After Game 2 the dolts at ESPN’s postgame show were discussing how Curry (nine threes) had wrapped up the Finals MVP award. Then after KD’s performance, capped by that ridiculous, stone-cold 30-footer in the final minute, they were handing it to KD. Watch, Klay will explode for 35 in Friday night’s Game 4. The point is, Steph can have an off night (1 for 15 in the game’s first 46 minutes and 0-9 from beyond the arc before finishing 3 of 16 with one made three) in one game and he’s got two teammates who can spell him in the scoring area, not to mention a talented supporting cast who know their roles.

LeBron does not have that luxury. And when, in the final two minutes, he passes off to Tristan Thompson instead of keeping it himself and at least trying to draw the foul, he will be criticized. And should be, to a point. He knows the deal: He’s got to put this squad on his broad shoulders. If you’re gonna lose, LeBron, lose with the ball in your hands. But you’re going to lose, anyway. You’re simply outnumbered.

2. Judge and Jury


We watched this unfold as it was happening last night and it was glorious, and props to Scott Van Pelt with leading off his show with it as “The Best Thing I Saw Today.” Yankees at Blue Jays. Score knotted at 0-0 in the top of the 13th when Aaron Judge comes to the plate with one on and one out.

First, some backstory…

In a makeup doubleheader in Detroit on Monday, Judge had to have had the worst day in his young career. He went o-9 with eight strikeouts. Manager Aaron Boone gave him Tuesday’s game in Toronto off. When he comes to the plate in the 13th he’s 0-4 with a walk.

Meanwhile, up in the right-center mezzanine level there’s a boy, we’ll guess about 12, who’s seated with his parents and another person (aunt?). During batting practice Judge had lofted a JudgeBomb into their tiny area of seats so they already had that souvenir. During every Judge at-bat the Yankee broadcast would put the camera on him because he alone would stand holding an “All Rise” sign with a silhouette of a gavel. His unabashed devotion was both infectious and nostalgic, because all of us at one point in our lives had that innocent love of sports, worship of an athlete.

And by the 13th, as Yankee broadcasters Ryan Ruocco and Ken Singleton were noting, not only did his arms look heavy but so did his eyelids. So when Judge bombed a two-strike pitch into the left-center bleachers for the go-ahead (and ultimately, winning runs), well, it was special. As Singleton warmly noted, “That’s a lifetime memory right there.”

And if you’re too cynical to appreciate that, then what’s left?

3. “Where’s My Mom?”


Watch this come-from-behind win in the final 200 meters of the NCAA men’s 10,000 meter championship yesterday from Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon. That’s fifth-year Michigan senior Ben Flanagan with the epic kick on the track that Steve Prefontaine made famous in the final race of his collegiate career. Afterwards, his first words are the hed of this item.

4. The World’s Highest Post Office

Yes, it’s about exactly what the title says: the Hikkim Post Office in northern India is located 14,567 feet above sea level, nearly three miles high. It is officially the highest post office on earth.

These are the types of stories I’d pitch at Newsweek and an editor would lift up one curious eyebrow and then agree only on the condition that I paid for most of the travel myself (which I would). Print journalism is a terrible get-rich-quick scheme.

5. Who Moved My Commander Of Cheese

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

Tough day for the president in the curdled milk department, as Kellyanne Conway mistakenly (or was it?) referred to him as the “Commander Of Cheese” and Wisconsin’s own Paul Ryan backed Trey Gowdy’s assertion that President Trump is full of it on the FBI “spy” allegation. When you’ve even lost Paul Ryan…

Luckily, some of the best and most decent men in America, such as Rudy Giuliani and Sean Hannity, are still on Trump’s side. Personally, we think Kellyanne was just a little hangry during the interview. Get that woman a Snickers.

Reserves

The semi-annual Munk Debates, held in Toronto, were created 10 years ago with the idea of bringing two people with polar-opposite views together in a public forum and allowing them to engage in old fashioned rhetorical swashbuckling. It’s like “First Take” only it’s about things that really matter and it’s actually entertaining.

Past participants have included Malcolm Gladwell, Tony Blair, Christopher Hitchens, Maureen Dowd, Laura Ingraham, etc. The other night British comedian Stephen Fry took on jackass-of-all-trades Jordan Peterson and the topic was political correctness. If you have the time and the will, watch it above.

Music 101

Everything Is Beautiful

In the summer of 1970 this song, written, composed and performed by Ray Stevens, hit No. 1 for two weeks. It was the emotional salve that a country scarred from the Sixties needed. The children’s chorus at the beginning is from the Oak Hill Elementary School in Nashville, two of whose members were Stevens’ daughters.

Remote Patrol

The Wizard of Oz

8 p.m. TCM

Stanley Cup: Game 5, Caps at Golden Knights

8 p.m. NBC

NCAA Track & Field Outdoor Championships

7 p.m. ESPN2

Ovi, Oz and Ostrander all in the same night?

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 3 Comments

by John Walters

74 years ago today: the proudest American day of the 20th century.

Starting Five

Patrio-Odd

It’s only strange that you don’t know the lyrics to “God Bless America,” a song that only has 28 different words, if you’re the President of the United States and you specifically commissioned an event to celebrate how much more of a patriot you are than the Philadelphia Eagles. Also, the New York Yankees, who are geographically the closest team to Trump Tower, have been playing this song during the seventh inning stretch every game the past 16-plus years. Every. Game.

2. Kate Spade Commits Suicide

A New York-based top-shelf name in fashion for more than two decades, Kate Spade apparently hung herself in her Park Avenue apartment yesterday. Spade, the sister-in-law of comic David Spade, was 55.

Along with Donna Karan and Marc Jacobs and Tory Burch, Spade, who made her fortune in women’s purses, was a contemporary New York fashion icon. Not bad for a graduate of Arizona State who in college had worked at a biker bar. She leaves behind a 13 year-old daughter, to whom she wrote a note before hanging herself in her bedroom.

3. Spew Many

Guatemala’s aptly named Fuego volcano has claimed the lives of at least 75 people with as many as 200 missing since it began erupting on Sunday. Fuego sent ash and smoke as much as six miles skyward and then, well, it all fell back down to earth.

The ash and lava swept down the mountain at speeds that would overtake the fastest human runner and no warnings had been given prior. Entire villages were swept under what is known as the “pyroclastic flow,” a mixture of hot gas and volcanic matter.

4. Noe Surrender

University of Toledo senior Janelle Noe will be competing at the NCAA Track and Field Championships this weekend and it’s not trite to say that it is a minor miracle that she will even be on the starting line.

On January 15, 2016, Noe attended an off-campus house party where a male teammate, Christopher Housel, walked around with air freshener, a bottle of Everclear and a match and, well, things turned out badly    (that rare tale of a dude acting like a jerk and scarring  a woman for life). Housel was sentenced to four months in jail and community service in a burn unit. Noe was burned over 50% of her body.

Last weekend Noe, who cannot be exposed very long to the sun, qualified in Tampa to partake in the 1,500 meter event this weekend in Eugene with a 4:16. She won’t be expected to win, but if Eugene brings its not-unusual overcast skies to the day and Noe runs a time she is happy with, no one will feel more triumphant. Nor should they.

5. Kyler Can Do It All

A few notes on Kyler Murray, the 5’10” Texas A&M transfer who will succeed Baker Mayfield at OU this fall and who was the ninth overall player chosen in the MLB draft by the Oakland A’s earlier this week:

–His pop was a quarterback at Texas A&M from 1983-86, but somehow he decided to make an exodus from College Station and head to Norman (Kevin Sumlin is like a human breeding ground for QB transfers).

–In high school in Allen, Texas, Murray led his team to a perfect 42-0 record over three seasons and a trio of state championships. He threw for more than 10,000 yards and rushed for more than 4,000.

–He is the first high school athlete to be chosen to play in both the Under Armour High School All-American football and baseball games.

–This will actually be Murray’s third season in Norman. He was a backup for the Aggies as a frosh in 2015, then he sat out during his transfer year in 2016, then backed up Baker last season.

–An outfielder, this spring he hit .296 with 13 doubles but struck out twice as many times (56) and he walked (28), which is troubling.

–He’s playing football this fall, which will give him a chance to go up against coaches Lane Kiffin (Florida Atlantic) and Chip Kelly (UCLA) in his first two starts.

Reserves

How did we miss this? And look who’s seated in the front row. Why didn’t this happen between Rory and Logan????

Music 101

The Rainbow Connection

We’ve run this song in this space before, but never the duet between Kermit the Frog and Debbie Harry (who never gets enough credit for the clarity and power of her vocals) on The Muppet Show. People ask why we don’t get shows or songs like this any more, and I don’t have the answer, but it’s a valid question and maybe as a culture, we’ve passed our creative peak.

Remote Patrol

Dubs at Cavs, Game 3

9 p.m. ABC

James, Beard

I’m not ready to count LeBron & Co. out yet, and neither should you be. The Dubs do NOT want this to turn into a Best of 3 series. This is like one of those classic sports movies where the hero must hit a nadir before he mounts his unlikely comeback. Stay tuned.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by John Walters

Tweet du Jour

Starting Five

Get The Flock Outta Here

Yesterday America’s favorite “short-fingered vulgarian,” Donald Trump, disinvited the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles from a scheduled White House visit. From the White House statement:

“The Philadelphia Eagles are unable to come to the White House with their full team to be celebrated tomorrow. They disagree with their President because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem, hand on heart, in honor of the great men and women of our military and the people of our country. The Eagles wanted to send a smaller delegation, but the 1,000 fans planning to attend the event deserve better.”

The problem, as former Eagle wide receiver Torrey Smith (who played for the team last season) noted, is that none of the Eagles knelt during the national anthem last season. No one. True, many of them were not going to attend, but that’s because they’ve come out publicly against “pussy grabbers” and a guy who equivocates for Neo-Nazi groups and calls their colleagues “sons of bitches.” But it wasn’t about the anthem.


Meanwhile, how fitting that this president disinvites a team whose home city is where both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were written and whose mascot is America’s symbol for liberty. What a dope.


Philadelphia mayor Jim Kenney was refreshingly blunt in his assessment of the kerfuffle: “Disinviting them from the White House only proves that our president is not a true patriot, but a fragile egomaniac obsessed with crowd size and afraid of the embarrassment of throwing a party to which no one wants to attend.”

2. Then Fox News Jumped In


The White House’s Ministry of Information, a.k.a. Fox News, quickly got their propaganda machine up and running, reporting the story that the President had canceled the Eagles’ visit while showing their geriatric audience still photos of the Eagle players kneeling. But, as Eagle tight end Zach Ertz pointed out, the players were kneeling because they were praying before the anthem.


All of this reminds us: the Washington Capitals took a 3-1 lead in the Stanley Cup finals last night with a 6-2 defeat of Las Vegas. That White House visit will go much smoother since two of the Caps’ premier skaters, Evgeny Kuznetsov and Alex Ovechkin, are Russian.

3. Schultzless in Seattle

After 36 years at Starbucks, the company he founded in Seattle in the 1980s, Howard Schultz, 64, announcing he is stepping down. His next move? Schultz is considering a run at the White House, one of the few places in the country that does not have its own Starbucks.

It could be an intriguing race: two men from the outer boroughs of New York City, one from Queens, the other from Brooklyn; both raised in post-World War II America, one the son of German parents, the other of Jewish parents; one got into Fordham, the other took a football scholarship to Northern Michigan; one inherited his first few million, the other launched a company that has had as much influence on the American fast-food landscape as McDonald’s. One wanted to own a major professional team, one actually did.

4. Masterpiece Theater

We will admit to being genuinely ambivalent and torn on the Supreme Court case of Colorado baker Jack Phillips, who refused to bake a cake six years ago for a same-sex couple who were getting married out of state (at the time, Colorado did not recognize same-sex marriage). We honestly think the bigger issue is, Who takes a wedding cake across state lines???

Anyway, give the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colo., credit: he’s not just homophobic. He refuses to bake cakes for Halloween festivities and divorce parties, too. Being a conservative Christian can be a huge financial liability in the pastry chef biz.

Anyway, we respect his right to do what he feels is right and we acknowledge that a private business owner is not the same as a municipal entity. So, we’ve come around to our Twitter friend @AuburnElvis’ view on that.

What we simply don’t understand, having been around so many gay and lesbian couples and people here in New York, is how anyone can envision homosexuality as a sin. Remember, the people citing their sources on this are citing human beings who did not even know the Atlantic Ocean existed, much less that the earth revolved around the sun. And yet these are their geniuses for understanding homosexuality?

If you simply believe that God is love, then you will see so much love among homosexuals, both those in and out of relationships. Many of the best people I have known in NYC, including many of the people with whom I work at the Cookoutateria, are gay. And they’re great. My former boss at Newsweek is such a wonderful person that I’ve thought he’s got to be hiding that he’s gay (he’s married and has a child). He’s just too nice, funny, witty and thoughtful to be a straight man.

Anyway, haters gonna hate hate hate/Bakers gonna bake bake bake. Let them eat cake, I say.

5. High Noon Fallutin’

It was only one episode, and it’s stylishly produced, and again, we stress, it was ONLY ONE EPISODE. But by now I think we know who Bomani Jones and Pablo Torre are: they’re two smart guys in their thirties who do not wear their education like a lower back tattoo but rather like a neck tattoo.

The idea behind this show, produced by ESPN’s Erik Rydholm, who gave us PTI among other ESPN bloviation fests, is a younger, more woke PTI. The difference here, I believe, is that Tony Kornheiser was always a lovable crank. He’s Toby Ziegler from the West Wing, and Mike Wilbon is kind of his, I dunno, his Leo McGarry?

High Noon is two Josh Lymans talking back and forth at each other. We felt the most revealing aspect of the program is the pains they took to remind viewers that, despite the title of the show, it airs at 9 a.m. Pacific. They never mentioned the Mountain or Central/Clay Travis time zones. “It’s the show Coastal Elites have been waiting for…”

Music 101

Still

The Commodores may best be known for “Brick House,” but they also released four big slow-ballad hits in the late Seventies: “Easy,” “Three Times A Lady,” “Sail On” and this No. 1 R&B smash in September of 1979 (they did not write “September”; that was Earth, Wind & Fire). That’s a quartet of the greatest junior high slow dance jams ever penned.

Finally pianist/songrwriter/singer Lionel Richie realized he was doing all the heavy lifting and went solo, launching a successful but unbelievably schmaltzy (“Dancing On The Ceiling,” etc.) one-man hit parade in the early Eighties. The Commodores would go on to be bottom-feeders in the SEC East.

Remote Patrol

My Next Guest Needs No Introduction: Howard Stern

Netflix

Honestly, David Letterman’s six-part series has been largely underwhelming. We made it through Barack Obama and George Clooney but barely watched any of the next three. The suspicion here is that he’s saved the best for last. Stretching all the way back to 1984 and Late Night on NBC, Howard Stern has always been Dave’s best interview foil because he has absolutely no filter.