IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 4 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

St.Valentine’s Day Massacre

Expelled from his high school one year earlier, Nikolas Cruz returned just before the last bell of school yesterday and murdered 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

Yes, it IS the right time to talk about gun legislation. Cruz had posted violent photos on Instagram and had lost his mother as a teen (a family had taken him in). He was attending another high school and working at The Dollar Store. Was he a troubled teen? Absolutely. But he was a troubled teen with no criminal past who was able to purchase an AR-15 rifle two years earlier in life before he was able to purchase a Bud Light.

 

There was a former Florida Congressman, a Republican, on CNN late last night, and what he said should resonate. Jolly said that the most hallowed ground for most Republicans in Congress is to be invited to speak at the NRA convention, to demonstrate that they are further to the right than their predecessors. As long as that mentality exists, sane gun legislation is not about to happen. He said our best hope is to flip the House and Senate. This from a Republican.

Meanwhile, three of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history (Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, this) have taken place in the last five months. Homeland Security begins at home.

2. Shiffrin Gears

After a few days’ delay, American Mikaela Shiffrin earned gold in the Giant Slalom. For the record, there is no Miniature Slalom. This is her second gold in the event: the Vail, Colo., native is still just 22 years old.

3. The Russia Connection

Putin: You can’t spell oligarch without “O.G.”

On May 12, 2016, The New York Times ran this exhaustively reported piece describing in detail and with diagrams how the Russians systematically beat the drug testing process at the Sochi Olympics, which they of course hosted. This piece of journalism was terribly embarrassing to the Russian government and it extended all the way up to Vladimir Putin. If only the IOC had any balls, Russia would have been completely banned from Pyeongchang (the “OAR” designation is a sham).

But what if, and this is only a pet theory, that story catalyzed Putin to seek payback? What if this article inspired Russia to seek that Trump Tower meeting just one month later? What if the Russians, who are fiercely proud of their Olympic prowess no matter if it has often been illegally gained, decided to get payback by telling the Trumps of the dirt they had on Donald, and explaining how all of this was going to go down in their favor with the possibility, eventually, of sanctions being lifted?

Suddenly the appointment of Exxon’s Rex Tillerson (whose former company stands to make the most from sanctions being lifted and is one of the few Yanks whom the Russians adore) to Secretary of State makes sense. As does Trump’s unwillingness to say a single negative thing about Putin while he trashes pro athletes. As does Trump’s unwillingness to admit that Russia meddled in the 2016 election while the FBI and CIA overtly state that it did.

4. Reince Comes Clean

The MH staff predicted this a year ago. There would be two types of Trump staffers: 1) Kool-Aid gulping loyalists (e.g. Stephen Miller) who would gladly kill for Herr Fuhrer, many of them family members or 2) those who’d stick around long enough to be able to write a lascivious book proposal. Count original Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, who always seemed to nice a guy to work with Trump, among the latter.

In excerpts from Priebus’ new book that appear in Vanity Fair, he writes, “Take everything you’ve heard [about working for Trump] and multiply it by 50. [It was] like riding the strongest and most independent horse.”

5. It’s All Downhill From Here

When the MH staff were lads, the men’s downhill was the highlight of the Winter Olympics. We loved two things about it: the simplicity and the danger. Be the fastest is something any five year-old can comprehend, and then when you watch men fly more than 40 yards in the air, that’s something.

This run from Austrian Franz Klammer before his home crowd in Innsbruck in 1976 remains our all-time favorite Olympic moment. Notice the crowds lining the course, something that is missing at Pyeongchang (safety reasons?). It’s more fun with the crowds lining the course.

Last night 35 year-old Aksel Lund Svindal (above, and above terra firm) became the first Norwegian ever to capture gold in this event, which seems rather surprising to us. The Norwegians are in first place in the medal standings overall with 17. Germany is first in terms of gold medals, with 9, even though their figure skating pair that took gold last night, Aljona Savchenko and Bruno Massot, have been citizens of Russia and France, respectively, for almost their entire lives. Mason, in fact, needed three tries to pass his German language test in order to be granted citizenship just a few months ago.

 

Music 101

Nothing Left To Lose (But Myself)

Eugene, Oregon, native Mat Kearney is a Coffee House All-Star. The adult contemporary star had this breakout hit in 2006 that went to No. 41 on the Billboard chart, while the producers at Grey’s Anatomy cried, “Get us the rights to that song, STAT!”

Remote Patrol

Winter Olympics

8 p.m. NBC

2006, Turin. Props to the NBC announcer who calls it bluntly about Lindsey Jacobellis’ epic fall/epic fail: “She went down on a showboat trick!” That remains the closest she has come to a gold medal (the silver here is her only Olympic medal), but the 32 year-old from Stratton, Vermont, will go for it perhaps for the final time tonight.

 

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

Starting Five


Great White (To Be Cont.)*

*The judges will also accept “Attack of the Flying Tomato”

In second place before what may be the final run of his Olympic career, Shaun White goes balls-to-the-wall on the halfpipe with a gold-medal run. That’s three golds in four Games for the red-headed wonder, aged 31.

2. Great White (Part II)

Half a world away from Pyeongchang, the annual dog days of winter in New York City conclude with a Best In Show for a Bichon Frise named Flynn. If you thought we’d get through this Westminster Dog Show item without mentioning the infamous song by Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, you were wrong…

3. What The Elle?

This is Louise Linton, whose husband Steve Mnuchin is the Secretary of the Treasury. And this is one of her pics from a current profile in Elle. In the piece, Louise claims that SoulCycle “is my temple, I go there every day.” We’ve seen her husband and we’ve got to disagree: American Express is her temple. SoulCycle is more like a small crypt.

4. A Lotta Lotto News

–You heard about Donald Savastano, the upstate New York carpenter who won $1 million but died three weeks later due to Stage 4 cancer. At least he was able to afford a doctor and a nice funeral.

–Then came Jane Doe, the woman in New Hampshire who won $560 million but has been unable to claim it while she sues for the right to not have to divulge her name. Since then she has been deluged with offers from afar as to how to skirt this regulation; meanwhile, how much of her fortune will those lawyers claim?

–Now comes Bill Pendergast of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canadia. Pendergast and his wife lost their home due to a wildfire two years ago. He just won $1 million. He says he’s going to finish rebuilding the abode and finally buy a Mustang. And he doesn’t care who knows who he is.

5. MH Movie Buff-ery

The Benedict ranch house was nothing more than a facade

We watched the 1956 epic Giant the other night, and since we stayed up until 1:45 a.m. to watch, we felt as if we needed to glean something and to pass it on. A few notes: 1) Yes, that’s a young and ginger Dennis Hopper playing the son of Jordan Benedict (Rock Hudson) and his wife, Leslie (Elizabeth Taylor), 2) Like Carole Lombard in To Be Or Not To Be (noted here a few weeks back), James Dean died before the release of the film (in a car accident, as you probably knew), 3) there are no actual giants in the film, though Hudson was a rather tall fellow, and 4) the exteriors were shot just outside of the southwestern Texas town of Marfa, which is now an eclectic tourist destination (it has also been the setting for Oscar darlings There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men) for film geeks. Check out their Prada store:

Music 101

Cupid

We chose this Sam Cooke classic because there aren’t that many great Ash Wednesday tunes…

Remote Patrol

Winter Olympics

8 p.m. NBC

Will Valentine’s Day be the night when America’s newest sweetheart, Mikaela Shiffrin, at last makes her much-delayed 2018 Olympic debut? And will someone please let my pals at The Big Lead know that this is happening? Cool, thanks.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 5 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Du Jour

 

Starting Five

Kim Young ‘Un

For the second time in three days, a 17 year-old American wins a gold medal using a snowboard. This time it’s Chloe Kim in the half-pipe. For the second time in as many nights, the most spectacular performance by an American was given by an Asian-Americna woman. MAGA!

 


“U.S. Shifts Korea Approach” hed below a Korean-American gold medalist whose two parents were both born in South Korea. Coincidence? Serendipity? Irony? All of the above?

2. Gottlieb’s Confession

Not sure if you’ve read Doug Gottlieb‘s piece in The Athletic yet, but if you have not, here it is. Gottlieb has actually written about his credit card-theft spree during his freshman year at Notre Dame before, but not as in-depth as this.

Full disclosure: 1) Doug is my favorite college basketball analyst and I think he was criminally underutilized by CBS before and during March Madness. 2) I lived in the same Notre Dame dorm, Dillon Hall, that he did, and was an RA there my senior year.

Here, now, are my problems with Doug’s story:

A) The title: “The Mistakes I Made, And The Price I Paid.” You didn’t make a mistake; you literally committed a sin (“Thou Shalt Not Steal”). It’s a capital-C Commandment. I hate when people use the word “mistake” to minimize a transgression. “Mistake” implies you made an error in good faith. A sin is a sin. And as for the price YOU paid, I’m sorry, who cares?

B) Doug writes, “The last thing I want is to do is sound like I’m making excuses. The hard truth is, there are none.” Hard stop. Fine. Oh, but then Doug equivocates, writing, “But over the years, I’ve thought about why I made those bad decisions. My understanding has helped me process what I did, forgive myself and eventually move on, even if there are a lot of folks who won’t let me.”

And then he spends paragraph after paragraph explaining how his outside circumstance contributed to his thefts. Nope. Sorry. Lots of us are homesick as college freshman, Doug. Some of us also arrived from sunnier climes as well and missed the warm weather. Most of us didn’t have the advantage of having our fellow classmates cheer for us, of being campus celebrities. We may have gotten depressed, some kids drank too much. But stealing? Sorry, that’s just a conscious decision to betray someone’s trust.

C) Doug writes, “I had appeared before the committee three months before on charges of plagiarism. I got off with a slap on the wrist.” Notice how he does not write whether or not he committed plagiarism. The fact that he does not claim he was innocent suggests to me that he did this. But notice the style of syntax, the “charges of.” Even now, as a 42 year-old man, Doug is not copping to it. By the way, that offense would have gotten most of us Domers suspended for the semester.

D) Doug writes, “Over the next week I called all three kids I had stolen from. I apologized profusely and offered to pay them back. I also begged them not to report what I had done to the school’s honor code committee.” Does Doug realize that this is not an apology? If he’s asking them for a favor, everything he tells them before that is bullshit. And even to this day, by the way he writes his tale, he seems to fail to understand that. The proper action is to apologize, offer to make amends, and then at most ask for their forgiveness. As soon as he asked them to not report what he’d done, he effectively demonstrated how insincere that apology was.

Doug had a successful career at Oklahoma State after his exodus from South Bend

Finally, I’ll add that there is no Greek system at Notre Dame. Your dorm is tantamount to a frat, except that it becomes more like a family because unlike frats, you take and accept the oddballs and freaks as well (they took me). What Doug did here was a major betrayal of his second family.

Am I being too harsh on an 18- or 19 year-old kid? Maybe, but Doug is now a 42 year-old husband and father. I’m not bashing the choices he made then as much as his massaging of the truth at this point in his life. I understand that “I f**ked up, I’m sorry, and I learned from it; hopefully, LaMelo Ball will learn the same lesson,” is a rather short essay, but it is all that needed to be written. Everything else was self-absolving it’s-society’s-fault patter.

There’s the times we b.s. others. Most of the time, though, we b.s. ourselves. This is one of those moments. Frankly, I was incredulous at the plethora of pats on the back Doug received both on Twitter and in the Comments section for this. But then, he’s a sports celebrity that people like (I like him, too). So it’s never about the content, it’s about who’s spouting it.

p.s. I’ll add that a minor Twitter celebrity DM’ed me yesterday after receiving DMs about me to ask, “Why do so many people dislike you?” I smiled. The same people who would DM that person to tell him how they feel about me would never say that to my face. I’m not here to be popular. And they’re not here to be courageous. 

3. ICE Capades

This is Syed Ahmed Jamal, a 55 year-old chemistry professor at Kansas University. Jamal was getting ready to take one of his three kids to school last month when officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested him on his front lawn. He has been  detained in a Missouri jail for three weeks as legislators bicker over whether he will be deported.

Jamal came here legally more than 30 years ago from Bangladesh, but the long and short of it is he overstayed his various visas. The fact that he attained multiple undergrad and grad degrees does not matter. We have serious doubts that Jamal has any connections to MS-13.

The question becomes, If the U.S. government is willing to deport this man and break up his family, how much time does Melania have?

4. Hair’s Johnny!

We love Johnny Weir on the figure skating. And love that peacock plume. When we wrote for NBC’s inaugural Olympic Ice program at the 2006 Torino Games and Weir was still competing, we pitched, “He’s Here, He’s Weir, Get Used To It” as a daily feature. Someone much higher up turned us down.

5. Presidential Portrait

You’ll notice how the Barack Obama portrait puts a bush in the background

The Obamas had their presidential portraits unveiled yesterday. 44 on the artist, Kehinde Wiley, who painted his portrait that will hang in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.: “He and I make different sartorial decisions. But what we did find was we had certain things in common. Both of us had American mothers who raised us with extraordinary love and support. Both of us had African fathers who were absent in our lives.”

Reserves

Brand Recognition

Rachel Brand, 44, is a whip-smart lawyer who was No. 3 at the DOJ and was, in case Donald Trump fires Rod Rosenstine, poised to become the new head of the department. That would mean she’d be overseeing Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. She wanted no part of being in the middle of the greatest political tug-of-war since Watergate, so she resigned on Friday and took a job at Walmart. Not like a cashier’s job, mind you. At least we don’t think.

She’s a very, very intelligent woman. And she chose not to be yet another person whose career is permanently stained by an association with Donald Trump. Tough to blame her.

Music 101

Tonight, Tonight

Was Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness the last audacious, ambitious double album of the rock era? This was the lead single off the 1994 double-vinyl effort from Chicago’s own Smashing Pumpkins, and I’m not certain that Jim Carrey’s character from The Mask was not at least physically based on lead singer Billy Corgan.

Remote Patrol

Winter Olympics

NBC & NBCSN

The Flying Tomato returns, and there’s some skiing and speed skating, too.

 

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 4 Comments

by John Walters

Winter Olympics Special: Wind, Luge or Draw

Starting Five

Triple Axel Rose

In Pyeongchang, or as some people call it, P.F. Chang’s, Mirai Nagasu becomes the first American woman and only the third anywhere to land a triple axel in Olympic competition. Nagasu’s effort helped the Americans take a bronze medal in the team skate competition.

 

Also on the U.S. team were Nathan Chen, siblings Alex and Maia Shibutani and openly gay skater Adam Rippon. Where are all the REAL Americans?, asks U.S. delegation head and V.P. Mike Pence.

2. Red Reign*

*The judges will also accept “Red Takes Gold” or “Gerard Dip ‘n Do”

If you’d asked us who Red Gerard was prior to this weekend, we’d have assumed he was an old-timey college football coach who didn’t allow water during two-a-days. But now we know he’s the first Winter Olympics medalist born in the 21st century.

Here, Gerard is heels over head (look at the photo), so how come they always say it the other way around?

Gerard, in 11th place—last—before his third and final run in Slope Style, nailed it and took home gold. He’s 17 years old and was born in Cleveland, though now he and his six  siblings and parents live in the Colorado Rockies. There were 17 Gerard family members at the event, or more Gerards than competitors.

Gerard is 5’5″, 116 pounds and looks like that Vans-clad skate punk with whom you went to high school. He looks as if he knows a guy, if you know what we mean.

3. All Gusts, No Glory

Imagine training four years and yes, there are other competitions that you partake in, but the Olympics are the paramount. And then you arrive at the hill at Phenix Park in P.F. Chang’s, where the temps are just below zero and the winds are blowing up and sideways at 15 knots. NBCSN is even showing wind sock iso-cams.

The event is normally three rounds, but organizers curtailed it to two rounds. So, immediately, your entire Olympic experience is cut by one-third. And then most competitors had to cancel at least one run mid-run because the wind interrupted their performance and they lost too much momentum to do the following jumps.

Anderson: This is not from P.F. Chang’s, but it demonstrates why snow boarding is a fave of TV execs

Considering that the organizers moved back women’s giant slalom three days due to the same conditions, you wonder why they let this happen. Our assumption: TV.

American Jamie Anderson, who won gold in Sochi in 2014, repeated as the gold medalist, although she only completed one run and it was far more safe than spectacular. All these ladies got robbed.

4. Pole Break, But Not Heartbreak

*The judges will also accept, “Norwegian Could”

See that dude on the ground, in the red circle. His pole just broke in the early stages of the men’s 5,000 cross-country ski race. His name is Simen Kruger and he’s from Norway. He’ll drop back to 34th place. And then he’ll ultimately win going away, taking gold.

Also, this event, too, saw bitterly cold temps. We know, we know, it’s the WINTER Olympics, but it’s reportedly been very nasty there.

4. Luger, Winner

This is Chris Mazdzer, who became the first American male ever to earn a medal in singles luge. Mazdzer, who finished in 13th place in both the 2010 Vancouver and 2014 Sochi Games, also finished 18th in the World Cup standings this season and never made a podium. But this weekend in P.F. Chang’s, he earned silver.

Only a month ago the 29 year-old Saranac Lake, N.Y., resident had posted on social media that he was near despair and was having a difficult time believing in himself. In short, it was tough sledding for his luge. Now he’ll always be the first male U.S. luge singles medalist. Well done, Chris.

Reserves

 

 Killer Queen

Up in Toronto, Canada, they’ve arrested a 66 year-old divorced gay landscaper and part-time mall Santa named Bruce McArthur who has been charged in the murders of five men but may have killed dozens more. When McArthur, who police believe used dating apps to lure is prey, was arrested by police on January 18 at his 30th-floor apartment, he had a potential victim handcuffed to his bed and the date did not seem happy to be there.

We asked our favorite Torontoan (Torontan?) and frequent MH behind-the-scenes contributor, Moose, if she was the serial killer and her reply was, “If I were the serial killer, you’d have been the first person I killed.”

Music 101

Prince of Darkness

Acoustic guitar heroines? Indigo Girls were certainly that. Here’s the Georgia duo, Amy and Emily, in their prime.

Remote Patrol

Lincoln

TCM 8 p.m.

In yet another Oscar-winning performance, Daniel Day-Lewis portrays a 19th-century legend who drinks the South’s milkshake. By the way, Happy 209th Birthday, Abe!

Giant

10:15 p.m. TCM

Elizabeth Taylor. Rock Hudson. James Dean. Any questions?

 

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 3 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

Day Zero

“I miss the rains down in Africa”  *

–Toto

*Wait, it’s “BLESS the rains?” Never knew that. Oh, well…

You know who else misses those rains? Africans. The Dark Continent is now the Dry Continent, as a massive drought has imperiled one of its urban jewels, Cape Town, South Africa. Because the main reservoir that nourishes it may soon be bone-dry, officials have announced a Day Zero for water availability (originally it was supposed to be in mid-April, but it has been pushed back one month to May).

A reminder to those who saw The Big Short: Dr. Michael Burry, the iconoclast who was the first to begin shorting the housing market at least four years before the sub-prime mortgage crisis detonated in 2008, made hundreds of millions of dollars. At the end of the film, just before the credits roll, the film announces that Burry’s latest interest is….WATER.

2. To Cav Or Cav Not

“Y’all don’t gotta go home, but you gotta git your ass up outta here”

More than 1,000 flights were canceled in the Midwest yesterday, but seemingly none in Cleveland. The Cavs jettisoned Isaiah Thomas (Do you want Frye with that?), Jae Crowder, Derrick Rose, Iman Shumpert and Dwyane Wade while welcoming aboard George Hill, Rodney Hood, Larry Nance, Jr., and Jordan Clarkson.

In short, the Cavs expelled four of their eight leading scorers for more youth and potential. Remember how the veteran locker room was going to be more cohesive? Not so much. It’s up to LeBron and Love to shepherd a Cavs team that since mid-December has an 8-14 record (31-22 overall).

Meanwhile Rose, a former league MVP, joins his 4th team in three seasons (Utah) who plan to waive him. Minnesota appears interested.

Stay tuned for Susie B’s’ expert analysis of Cleveland’s Swap Meet Wednesday in the comments….

3. Top Jimmy Struts!

With a five-year, $137.5 million contract, the San Francisco 49ers make former Tom Brady backup Jimmy Garoppolo the highest-paid player in NFL history. I think it’s that extra .5 million dollars that really arouses my curiosity. Don’t you prefer round numbers?

The four-year veteran has started seven games in his career, but his teams (Pats, Niners) are 7-0 in those games. For what it’s worth, Garoppolo did have the top-selling NFL jersey this Christmas. We Eye-talians are marketable!

4. Future CEO

Outside a San Diego marijuana dispensary, an industrious Girl Scout sells 300 boxes of cookies. And somebody has a problem with that? Why? Notice the Tagalong glasses. This young lady, and/or her parents, are geniuses.

5. One And Done in Pyeongchang

The Kenyan Olympic team is Sabrina Samider, born in Kenya but raised in Austria.

Was watching the figure skating last night and wondered, How come we never hear about Irish Winter Olympians (turns out there are five of them in South Korea)? That led to a search for national representation from unlikely precincts. So here are the countries that are sending one (1) athlete to compete in Pyeongchang:

Azerbaijan

Bermuda

Cyprus

Ecuador

Eritrea

Ghana

Patrick Brachner will represent Azebaijan in alpine skiing

Hong Kong

Kenya

Kosovo

Luxembourg

Madagascar

Malta

Puerto Rico

San Marino

Singapore

South Africa

Timor-Leste

Togo

Tonga

Reserves

The referee gave him a technical foul for this—Whaaaaa?

 

****

Coming to a theater near you?

Music 101

Theme from Shaft

“Who’s the black private dick/That’s a sex machine to all the chicks?/SHAFT!/Damn right”

(lyrics begin at 2:42)

Can you dig it? This song and film not only influenced how New York City-based films were shot and scored for the Seventies, it also influenced NBA theme music the rest of the decade. Isaac Hayes wrote and recorded this 1971 tune, which went to No. 1 on the Billboard charts and won the Oscar for Best Original Song (Hayes became the first black man to win the Oscar in this category). And you just have to love how subversive all of it is, right down to the film title, which went right over your Aunt Polly’s head.

Remote Patrol

Olympics Opening Ceremony

8 p.m. NBC

Who’s in the mood for a NON-MILITARY parade!