We finished up early and it’s either this or household chores, so consider this a free batch of IAH! on top of the already free batch!
Addendum
Taken 4
Someone stole Red Panda’s unicycle (Jeff Gillooly’s alibi is solid). It’s time to dispatch Liam Neeson. He is someone with a very specific set of skills who will be able to find the missing apparatus for someone with a very specific set of skills.
Loyalty Oaths…
Milo Minderbinder, as played by Angelina Jolie’s pop….
…went out of style with Milo Minderbinder in Catch-22(you’ve never read it?!? OMG!), but no one ever informed Donald Trump, who apparently met Rod Rosenstein shortly after he was installed as acting Attorney General for Use Your Collusion I and asked, “Are you on my team?” That’s pretty much all you need to know about 45, isn’t it?
Beekeeper
Does Hope Float (Or At Least Will Her Alibi?)
Is Keri Russell still young enough to play her in the HBO movie “The Worst Wing” that I should be writing right now?
The latest person whose career may likely go down in a raging inferno due to her proximity to Trump? The lovely Hope Hicks, who (ew!) used to date Corey Lewandowski.
First/Worst Lady
It’s Toasted!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKcneQ6N50Q
In which Trump’s appointee as Director of the CDC, Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, resigns after it is learned that one of her stock market picks is a tobacco company. Cigarette smoking is responsible for one in every five deaths in the USA each year.
Maggie On Trump
Music 101
Kissing The Lipless
For years indie bands were shoe-gazing, too cool by a half types whose only credo was to not care too much. Then in the early aughts along came The Shins, born in Albuquerque and polished in Portland. This is the lead track from their second album, Chutes Too Narrow, released in 2003. James Mercer’s earnest and soaring vocals are a terrific counterbalance to the unpredictable guitar spikes (I’ve been reading, and plagiarizing, more AllMusic album review lately).
Last week we told you about Division III defending national champion Amherst, which has a 53-game win streak and whose coach, G.P. Gromacki, actually has a better overall career win percentage than that of UConn’s Geno Auriemma. The Mammoths are 20-0.
Fralick, right in dark top, is building a dynasty in northern Ohio
We neglected to mention the Division II national champions, Ashland (Ohio), who have won 57 in a row, are also 20-0 this season, and who have a third-year coach, Robyn Fralick, whose career win percentage is even superior to the G-men noted above. Fralick’s two-plus season record is 88-2 (.978), which is ridonk, as the kids used to say (Do the kids still say that)? Also, the Davidson alum’s husband is an unpaid assistant coach on the staff. Niiiiiiice.
2. Finding Memo*
FBI director Chris Wray is a double Yalie
Let’s distill all of this FBI/secret memo/Devun Nunes/Worst Wing-Russia shenanigans into a few Guns ‘n Roses puns: It began with Use Your Collusion and has devolved into Appetite For Distraction. That’s really all you need to know.
*The judges confess they have not much to add on this topic, but that they found the headline irresistible.
3. Where’s Pierre?
Lost at sea: 54 year-old Pierre Agnes, president of Quiksilver, the Huntington Beach-based surfwear company. The France-based Agnes went out fishing alone on his boat off the southern French coast, near the Spanish border, Tuesday morning and then radioed in that he was delaying his return due to heavy fog.
Agnes went out fishing solo and likely was not wearing a life vest. Only Rob Konrad can get away with that, don’t you know?
A few hours later his boat washed ashore in the above condition. We’re not overly nautical, but that doesn’t look promising (we’re guessing a rogue wave capsized it and threw Agnes overboard?). After a two-day search-and-rescue operation yielded no sign of Agnes, French officials called it off. He is now Agnes of God.
4. AFRO-disiac
Former San Diego Padre, Cleveland Indian and New York Yankee Oscar Gamble passes at the age of 68. Gamble played 17 seasons for seven teams, mostly with the Yanks, though he never won a World Series with them. Gamble was known for his lefty power (200 career home runs in an era when a 20-home run season was notable) and for having a terrific sense of humor.
That ‘do was Oscar-worthy….
5. Separated at Birth?
Queens native Walken was 27 at the time….
Noticed this while seeing a deep-cut early Seventies cult classic, The Anderson Tapes (1971; starring Sean Connery, Dyan Cannon, Alan King, Martin Balsam and making his film debut, Christopher Walken), the other night. Above, that’s a young man Walken.
Orr, four years younger than Walken, was about 30 when this pic was taken
And directly above, that’s lead vocalist Benjamin Orr of The Cars, circa 1978 (Orr died in 2000, alas).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD7940dV4ak
By the way, how did we not know about this movie? An action-comedy-heist that also has an early Garrett Morris, pre-SNL, and probably the best car crash scene ever filmed on Fifth Avenue.
Reserves
Consider this an unpaid endorsement for Netflix programming:
No one does miserable quite like Tennant
–HIGHLY recommend Season 1 of Broadchurch and the phenomenal performance by David Tennant as Deputy Inspector Alec Hardy. We’ve previously recommended it, but now we are going to strenuously object if you don’t view it. Also, if you’ve seen it or are just starting, watch the High Street scene about four minutes in, in which as the viewer you don’t realize it at the moment, but you’re meeting nearly every pertinent character in the story.
Doug Kenney: the ultimate sad clown
–Also HIGHLY recommend A Futile And Stupid Gesture, the biopic of troubled comic genius Doug Kenney, who co-founded National Lampoon and co-wrote Animal House and Caddyshack. He died, possible suicide, less than six weeks after the latter film came out; at the time he believed it, and by extension himself, was a colossal failure. Never mind that he knew Animal House was the most successful comedy of all time at the time.
Starring Will Forte as Kenney, the film is mostly hilarious with brush strokes of genius in terms of narrative strategy. Domhnall Gleeson, as Kenney’s Lampoon partner-in-crime Henry Beard, is also outstanding, and delivers the best magazine I’m-outta-here speech I’ve ever heard: “Good luck, f**k you, goodbye.”
Music 101
The Weight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjCw3-YTffo
Enigmatic and biblical, an epic masterpiece The Band off their 1968 debut album. If you’re scoring at home, that’s Levon Holm, Mavis Staples, Pops Staples and then Rick Danko taking turns with the verses. And Robbie Robertson, who wrote the tune, on the double-necked guitar. Nazareth, Pa., is the home of Martin Guitars. I’m not sure if that’s what Robertson intended by including that town’s name, or if it is was only coincidence.
The song originally peaked at No. 63 on the U.S. charts, but has since become an essential component of the metaphorical American songbook.
Remote Patrol
UConn at South Carolina
7 p.m. ESPN
Gabby Williams is one of six Huskies averaging double figures in scoring….
The Huskies have won 131 of their past 132 games and four of the past five national championships. The Gamecocks are the defending national champions, who beat the team that beat UConn—Mississippi State, who incidentally is undefeated this season—in the semis. The Lady Roosters (just go with it) are 18-3 this season.
I know what you’re thinking because I’m thinking the same thing: Where do these Kennedy men keep coming from (when the previous generation keeps dying so young)? Joe Kennedy III gave the Democratic response to the State of the Union speech last night and for those of you trimming the family tree, he’s the 37 year-old grandson of Robert F. Kennedy and the grandnephew of JFK and I’m already nervous for him (he’s also the nephew of Cheryl Hines, Larry David’s TV ex-wife).
The subtext of every Stephen Miller-penned speech is “You should have gone to prom with me, Cindy.”
Joe. K attended Stanford and then Harvard Law, but we all know that Harvard Law never produces good presidents. Anyway, we were listening to the speech on the cab ride home and at first I didn’t know who was speaking so I just assumed I’d been time-warped back to an early episode of Mad Men.
As for the president’s speech, this says it all….
Joe K. spoke from Fall River, Mass., which is only 38 miles from Plymouth, where the Pilgrims first set foot on American shore (if you don’t count the part where they landed on Cape Cod first, which your 2nd-grade teacher probably did not tell you about), which was not a coincidence. His speech was inclusive. Inspiring. It was also, partially, in Espanol. Here, listen (or read)
2. James Harden: 60-10-11
Did the NBA All-Star Game begin 2 1/2 weeks early? Last night James Harden became the first player in NBA history to score 60 points AND net a triple double in Houston’s 114-107 win against the Tragic. The putative MVP was 19-30 from the field and 17-18 from the charity stripe. It pays to practice your free throws, kids.
The Cavs lost Kevin Love, the Dubs lost by 30 (to the Jazz), and James Harden is losing his MVP competition. All that and more in a wild Tuesday ICYMI. @HaleyOSomething: https://t.co/WtM1oY1xLk
I’ll take tweets that did not age well for $200, Alex.
3. Alex Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
The Kansas City Chiefs traded quarterback Alex Smith to the Washington Redskins in a move that was approved by both the NFL and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Smith’s exodus means that the Redskins will release Kirk Cousins (“Hello, Cleveland!”) while K.C. will likely start Pat Mahomes.
Worth noting that Smith, who did lead the NFL in passer rating this season, will sign a four-year extension with the Redskins as soon as he is able, March 14, for $23.5 million per year PLUS a $71 million guarantee. Meanwhile Colin Kaepernick, who once beat him out for the starting job in San Francisco, is three years younger and has won four times as many postseason games, will remain the fittest dude at my gym.
4. Whether Stormy
The Stormy Daniels interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live was a major letdown, kind of like renting Good Will Humping and learning that there’s no Casey Affleck. I’d throw most of the blame on this on Kimmel: he and his producers knew she wasn’t going to be able to discuss her Trump Tryst. It did not help that she is functionally inarticulate.
Melania shows up to the SOTU. First she stole one First Lady’s speech, now she pilfers another’s white pants suit???
Best Moments: During his monologue, when he rebuked S.E. Cupp’s criticism that he should have Monica Lewinsky on for equal time and he played back clips of her appearing on his previous show on three different occasions. That was sweet. Also, he was able to show that a press release apparently denying her assignation with Trump included a forged signature of hers. And she basically did a non-denial denial of the NDA. Finally, he did paint a picture that we had wondered about: the idea of Trump coming home from his SOTU, flicking on the TV, and watching her on JKL. Or at least of Melania doing so from another bedroom.
5. Running’s Latest Teen Phenom
Faster than you can ask, “What ever happened to Mary Cain?” here comes North Rockland High School sophomore Katelyn Tuohy of Thiells, N.Y. Eleven days ago she ran a national high school record 15:37 in the 5,000, lowering the existing mark by 18 seconds. In that race, which took place in Virginia and featured much of the top prep talent in the nation, the second-place finisher came in two minutes later.
Tasty Race of the week: Katelyn Tuohy destroys the national 5K HS record AND runs the No. 4 time in the world this year! pic.twitter.com/5arqdZL36R
Tuohy, 15, won the Nike Cross Country Nationals in December by 40 seconds. Again, that’s a ridiculous margin. Tuohy lives just west of the Hudson river, not far from West Point. She lives just 30 miles to the northwest of Cain, who is now an upperclassman at Fordham and has been hampered by injuries. Tuohy, who will run in the Millrose Games on Saturday, is U.S. running’s next great ingenue.
The one 20th century musician who gets name checked in Call Me By Your Name? That would be Richard Butler, lead singer of the Psychedelic Furs. This 1982 classic by the British New Wave band makes two separate appearances in the film, which reminds us that the freshest new talent at Saturday Night Live is Heidi Gardner (“Okayyyy, random”).
Remote Patrol
Flyers at Capitals
8 p.m. NBC Sports Net
Hockey? Yes, hockey! The Caps lead the Norris Division and Alex Ovechkin leads the NHL in goals (30) and remains the most dominant player scorer on ice. He’s like Ronaldo or Federer with the strange difference being that he has never hoisted a major championship trophy in his sport (Stanley Cup or Olympic gold).
So let’s get this out there first: 1) If you read this site often, you know the animus I have toward our current president (to put it lightly, not a fan) 2) I work with more illegal immigrants than most anyone I know, more than most anyone who would be reading this, and I know from personal experience that they are the hardest-working folks I know, 3) let’s get beyond demonizing illegal immigrants as all being “drug dealers and rapists” but let’s also get beyond giving their offspring cutesy nicknames such as “dreamers.”
Okay, got that? Good. Let’s proceed….
So here’s what I don’t understand: Whenever Donald Trump or his White House oversteps or subverts what the other side believes is the Constitution or his executive privilege, the most popular refrain is, “We are a nation of laws.” And I agree with that.
So why is it that when we start discussing illegal immigration that the same folks who use that sentence as a battle cry no longer care about laws? Isn’t that hypocritical?
If you think we should change immigration law, great. If you think the sight of ICE agents deporting people who are here illegally, who have been within the U.S borders for years, even more than a decade, is heartless, that’s your prerogative. But you can’t beat back Donald Trump with “We are a nation of laws!” with one side of your mouth and then protest the deportation of people who are here illegally with the other unless you are willing to admit that you are a hypocrite. Sorry.
(I’m a Kimmel fan, but he lost me here, putting extenuating circumstances over the primary issue: Is it legal?)
I’m not sure why the Left allows itself to be morally co-opted so easily. I’m all for diversity, I’m all for people from Mexico and other nations coming here and making better lives for themselves. And we should probably make immigration for Mexicans especially more lenient, as the overwhelming majority of them are here to work and do contribute to the greater overall economic welfare of this country (also: taco trucks, yeah!). But as long as people are breaking the law, you forfeit the right to protect both them and your supposed sense of justice when President Trump obviates the law.
McCabe is a former high school state champion in cross-country. His nemesis is a cheeseburger-eating, skirt-chasing slave to immediate gratification
The Gathering Storm
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, a triathlete who has been known to bike 35 miles to work and is married to a pediatrician whom the president called “a loser,” resigned yesterday. Let’s cut through the b.s. and discuss what this means:
–The president is being investigated for possible collusion with the Russians, in part because of meetings that no one denies took place, and in part because two men who worked for him during his campaign, Paul Manafort and Carter Page, had incredibly strong and financially lucrative ties to Russia. This is not in dispute.
Manafort: As dirty as dirty gets
–Almost immediately since taking office, the president has fought this investigation by obstructing justice. First he fired the attorney general of the United States, Sally Yates. Then he fired the director of the FBI, James Comey. He wanted to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller last June but did not when his own White House counsel, Don McGahn, threatened to resign if he did so. He is talking about firing Rod Rosenstein, the acting attorney general in terms of the collusion investigation, since Jeff Sessions has recused himself; and if that happens he might just fire Mueller or Mueller might resign.
Marty Barron: Basically, he’s Ben Bradlee, Bezos is Katherine Graham, and Lardass Trump is Nixon
–McCabe likely left a few months shy of retirement because 1) he was sick of being badgered by Trump on Twitter and 2) now that his boss, Christopher Wray, is basically a Trump apparatchik, he knew that anything he did was only going to be approved if it were in the best interests of Trump as opposed to the best interests of the nation. Moreover, 3) who wants to work for a president that continually calls your agency’s integrity into question when everyone knows that it is the president’s integrity that is wanting?
Pretty much what we’ve come to expect from this administration
–Trump has pretty much eliminated the FBI as a viable threat. If he sacks Rosenstein, he would replace him with someone whom Mueller has to report to, someone who would not only be able to tip Trump off as to what Mueller is doing but who could effectively curb Mueller’s efforts and compromise the investigation. At that point, why would Mueller remain on board?
–The #SecretMemo is the latest effort at obfuscation and distraction. The sole and primary question is this: Was Carter Page and/or Manafort acting in the interests of Russia and interfering in the election? The memo is going to try to distract the American public into the FBI’s surveillance methods, but the FBI secured a FISA warrant most likely because they demonstrated that there was an EXTREMELY LEGITIMATE REASON to surveil Page. In sports terminology, the argument is whether Page had both feet inbounds and the GOP is trying to tell you that the referee maybe shouldn’t have been allowed to be reffing the game.
–If Rosenstein and Mueller go, Trump has won. At least inside the government. The last bastion who would still be able to investigate him and bring him to justice is the free press. This is where it helps that one of the two newspapers who could illustrate his alleged treason is The Washington Post, which is owned by the richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos. Its managing editor is the most incorruptible man in journalism, Marty Barron (the Spotlighthero; Barron’s journalism prof at Lehigh was my cousin’s dad, by the way).
In an ideal scenario the President of the United States and the worst human being in the world would be two different people.
–Donald Trump is not and has never behaved like a man who is innocent. He has always behaved like someone who does not believe in due process but as someone who simply wants this to disappear. That is why he is either bullying or firing everyone in government who could potentially bring him to justice. That is why he keeps repeating the mantra, “No collusion,” as if he believes that if he says it enough, that will somehow make it true. This is not a man who believes in normal discourse. This is a man who speaks in slogans and only says that which will abet his narcissism.
Meanwhile, the State Dept. is rolling back the sanctions on Russia (America is now as feckless as the IOC) because Trump, The Manhattanchurian Candidate, still needs to keep his part of the bargain, no, comrade?
The Trump admin has notified Congress that last year’s bipartisan Russia sanctions bill is serving as a “deterrent” and as such, specific sanctions aren’t needed at this time. From a State Dept spox: pic.twitter.com/rwkd6Vzh66
–If that announcement doesn’t tell you where the White House’s true loyalties lie, what will? Meanwhile, men in power do nothing because Trump’s tax policy and deregulation has made the wealthy even more so, they don’t want to kill this golden goose. And the Koch brothers are going to spend a record-$400 million on this year’s midterm elections in order to ensure that the GOP controls both the House and Senate the next two years so that the gravy train will continue and that anyone inside the government attempting to find out the truth about Trump will be silenced. Or overruled.
–McCabe’s resignation leaves America fantastically vulnerable. Because Trump won’t stop. It’s not in his nature. Rosenstein is next, and if that domino falls, I wouldn’t blame Mueller if he threw up his hands in disgust and made his exodus. Or Trump still might fire him. Are there really any Republicans who’d stand up to Trump even then? No.
Devin Nunes deserves to be hanged. Seriously.
–A president is under investigation for treason. And he gets rid of every single meaningful person in the FBI or Justice Dept. who might be able to find the truth, even if that truth exonerates him. Are these the actions of an innocent man or are these the strong-arm maneuvers of a bullying despot?
–Finally, in a wonderful display of how petty and morally bankrupt Trump is, he actually phoned McCabe last year to admonish him for the fact that Comey, who learned he was fired while in Los Angeles (again, as the HEAD OF THE FREAKING FBI), was able to fly back to Washington on a government plane. At the taxpayers’ expense. This is a man, Trump, who has already cost taxpayers $49 MILLION in one year as president for his golf excursions alone.
2. And Now, Somoene Who Doesn’t Suck
Tom Hanks has signed on to play Fred Rogers in the biopic of everyone’s favorite sweater-wearing middle-aged American hero. Based on the marvelous Esquire story by Tom Junod, which is as good a piece as you will ever read (We still have that issue in case we are ever called upon to teach journalism somehwere).
3. Crypto Updates
In a sign of how much bigger the crypto market is now than it was just a couple of years ago, last weekend a record-sized cryptocurrency hack took place and the world sort of yawned. Four years ago the world’s first major Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, which handled 70% of Bitcoin, was hacked and lost $450 million. Mt. Gox soon filed for bankruptcy and it was thought to be the possible death knell for Bitcoin.
Last Friday a record amount of cryptocurrency, $530 million worth, was hacked and stolen from the Tokyo-based exchange Coincheck. Did you even hear about it?
Meanwhile in Oxfordshire, England, last weekend, an in-home burglary of crypto. From The Guardian: “Armed men broke into the family home of a cryptocurrency trader and are believed to have forced him at gunpoint to transfer holdings of the virtual currency bitcoin.” That means they literally made him get on his computer and transfer his Bitcoin holdings to an anonymous account. Now that’s genius. Criminal and miscreant, sure, but genius.
The lesson: Don’t brag about how much Bitcoin you’re holding…
4. Wahoo Serious?
Major League Baseball announces that the Cleveland Indians will discontinue the Chief Wahoo mascot after next season. Apparently we need an entire year of farewell tours for a purportedly racist depiction of a people whose land we stole?
Is this the Tribe’s next mascot?
We’ve plumbed this turf before, but let’s say that the Wahoo mascot illustration is racist or racially insensitive. Fine. Then what do you call naming the team “Indians?” Because that’s a slur at worst and one of history’s great misnomers at best. And of course isn’t it a little disingenuous to be so concerned about a people’s feelings only now after you’ve stolen their nation from them? The Appaloosa is out of the barn, no?
So, yeah, we get it. But they’re still the Cleveland Indians. The name is still racially sensitive. Maybe they’ll be changed to the Cleveland Golden Knights, which of course is something that has never even actually existed.
5. Pyramid Scheme
Is this the worst blind date in like, ever? That’s the world’s tallest man, 36 year-old Turkish farmer Sultan Kosen, who stands 8’3″; and the planet’s shortest woman, 25 year-old Indian actress Jyoti Amge, who stands 2’1″, outside the pyramids at Giza. They were there to promote Egyptian tourism and I really hope he doesn’t fall on top of her.
Reserves
This right here is why the internet was invented…
Guys. Brad Stevens was upset with his arms crossed in front of a fan who was upset with his arms crossed in front of another fan who was wearing a shirt with a picture of Brad Stevens upset with his arms crossed. pic.twitter.com/PCtYyn68Qj
Found this last night. Here’s the original cast of Saturday Night Live just a few days before their October 11, 1975 premiere episode spending a few minutes with Tom Snyder. Note that Chevy Chase’s healthy ego is already in full bloom while John Belushi does not say a peep. And Lorne Michaels cannot even name all the cast members yet…
The British New Wave band New Order was cut out of the dying carcass of Joy Division, with some of the remaining members forming this band after vocalist Ian Curtis committed suicide. This 1986 song somehow failed to make the Top 40 in either the US or the UK, but it is one of the best songs in the genre and Rolling Stone rightfully put it at 201st in its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list in 2004.
Remote Patrol
King Kong
8 p.m. TCM
In which a citizen of a sh*thole country is brought to the United States, in chains and against his will, and then treated like a public enemy for not playing along with the existing power structure. Or you can watch that other thing on tonight.
