by John Walters

Starting Five

I love when Pence gives the media that death glare that says, “You’re probably secretly gay and you should be exterminated (but maybe I’m secretly gay, too).”

Slow Your Roll (Call)

The Republican clown car is just three days into the New Year (and two days into the 115th session—as opposed to Sessions…all opposed to Sessions, say, “Nay!’ “NAY!”) and the wheels are already coming off the vehicle:

Monday night-Tuesday: The “Let’s Get Rid of the Independent Ethics Panel…On Second Thought, And After Being Flooded With Vitriolic Phone Calls, Let’s Not” debacle.

Wednesday morning: Mike Pence and Paul Ryan, looking and sounding as if they just played in a foursome with Judge Smails and Doctor Beeper, opine on how terrible the Affordable Care Act is and promise that repealing it will be their first order of business….while insisting that they have a plan, but we can’t tell you what that plan is…never minding that the Los Angeles Times disputes their assertions. My gut feeling tells me that what they find most heinous about “Obamacare,” if these men were ever willing to admit it, is the first three syllables of the word.

Monty Python foresaw the GOP pressers of late more than 40 years ago. Thanks to the outstanding Notre Dame photographer Matt Cashore for the suggestion.

Wednesday morning: Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell has the audacity to chide Democrats for thinking about obstructing the confirmation of a SCOTUS, even though he led an unprecedented crusade to do just that the past 10 months.

Cal Marshall dabs at the swearing in of his father, Roger Marshall (R-Kansas), earning himself a grounding by dad and the adoration of classmates for the rest of his high school years.

Wednesday morning: Lawyers who worked for the state attorney general’s office in Alabama write an op-ed in The Washington Post directly and bluntly refuting the claims of Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Jeff Sessions, about having worked on anti-discrimination and desegregation cases. Meanwhile, more than 1,100 law school professors nationwide put their names on a letter to Congress urging it to not approve the nomination of Jeff Sessions as attorney general.

Those confirmation hearings are scheduled to take place on January 11, which is the same day that Donald Trump is holding his first press conference since the election, which is a wonderful tactic for hoping the press takes its eyes off the ball.

Kids, this is EXHAUSTING and we’re still two weeks away from it even beginning. Are you sure you’re ready for this?  It’s going to be a four-year battle between the well-read and the well, red.

So, ‘nova Bitches?

Butler takes down No. 1 and unbeaten and defending national champion Villanova (14-1) last night at Hinkle Fieldhouse, 66-58. Here’s Jay Wright picking up his first technical of the season in the first half, upsset that his guy who shot an air ball didn’t get a foul call.

Meanwhile Butler (14-2) moves to 4-0 against ranked teams this season and picks up one of two wins against top ten teams in the state of Indiana last night (my way of shoe-horning Notre Dame’s 77-70 win over No. 9 Louisville into this item). It was the first time a No. 1 team had played at Hinkle since 1953 (Indiana, which beat Butler that night, one year before Milan High beat Muncie Central in the same building).

Also, not to be dismissed, this is the same Butler team whose charter flight had to make an emergency landing in Pittsburgh last Thursday night after losing at St. John’s, the cabin losing pressure and oxygen masks descending. Players and coaches texted loved ones as the plane descended from 35,000 feet to 10,000 feet in a span of about 10 minutes.

3. Vatican City McDonald’s

I mean, c’mon, man. Not here.

Yes, there’s now a McDonald‘s just outside  Vatican City, rendering yet again the question “Is nothing sacred” rhetorical.

Is the kids’ area known as “Prayland?” Will there be a drive-pew window? What does black smoke coming out of the chimney mean? Can your order the McWafer with cheese and are all patties made from 100% papal bull? And how long until we’ll see a MeccaDonald’s?

4. Retail Between Its Legs

When you ask for the “Death of the Mall” photo and instead are given a Darth Maul photo

Macy’s announces that it is closing 68 stores. Sears announces that it is closing 150 stores. Doesn’t anyone want to go to the mall anymore (as an AMZN shareholder, I have conflicting thoughts about this).

5. Facebook Live Torture Story That Is Disturbing

It may seem cool to broadcast your crimes on social media until you realize you’re handing law enforcement the evidence

Four black Chicago teens, two male and two female, kidnap a white special needs teen and torture him for half an hour, broadcasting it on Facebook Live. Reprehensible, indefensible and certainly racially motivated. They yelled, “F*** Donald Trump!” and “F*** white people!” as they scared the young man half to death.

All four have been arrested by police and should be spending a long time in jail.

So what to say about it? Are there racist black people? Well, of course there are. Do we all want to go running to Clay’s and Bomani’s Twitter accounts to gauge their wildly antipodal takes on this sick incident? Go ahead. Is it a hate crime? I personally don’t believe in that term, but if you’re going to buy into it, then this is as clear an example of one as you will find.

My own personal take, having lived in NYC for a quarter century but having spent many a time in Chicago and having traveled to every city in the U.S. of any relative import is that there’s a special mean in the south side of Chicago that I’ve never personally encountered in any other city. Might it exist elsewhere? Sure. But I’ve never seen it, not in Philly, not in Baltimore, not even in south Central. There’s a reason 762 people were murdered in Chicago in 2016.

As we write this, the sentencing phase of the Dylann Roof mass murder trial is taking place  in South Carolina. He murdered nine African-Americans in a church in a racially motivated crime less than two years ago. Instead of worrying about if white people or black people are the victims/perpetrators perpetually, maybe let’s just punish people who o horrible things and move on.

Music 101

Unwritten

The invention of YouTube allowed anyone with a video camera and an account to have access to the entire world to show of their talent, or lack thereof. This young woman has the chops and there’s a reason besides just her vocals that her cover of Natasha Bedingfield‘s 2004 No. 5 hit has had 16 million in the nine years since she uploaded it. Watch all the way through. Bedingfield is an international star, but I always thought she’d be even bigger than she is: beautiful, lovely voice. Maybe she should’ve had a tawdry marriage to Russell Brand. This is my favorite song of hers.

Wonderful trivia bit: The song was co-written by Danielle Brisebois, the former child actress who played the step-daughter on All In the Family and later Archie Bunker’s Place.

Remote Patrol

Thunder at Rockets

8 p.m. TNT

A battle between the season’s first-half MVP favorites, neither of whom are named Steph or LeBron. Russell Westbrook is No. 1 in scoring (30.9 ppg) and No. 2 in assists (10.5) for the Thunder (21-15). James Harden, his former OKC teammate, is No. 4 in scoring (28.4) and No. 1 in assists (11.9) for the 27-9 Rockets. Besides, these may be the two most fun players to watch in the NBA this season who don’t have a Greek name I cannot spell.

by John Walters

Starting Five

Kelly, 46, heads across 6th Avenue and one block north from Fox to NBC

Me-Gone Kelly*

*The judges, for a limited time, will accept “The Kelly Flies”

As a former employee of both NBC and Fox, I can get behind Megyn Kelly‘s decision to move from the latter to the former. Why? There are so many more lunch choices within the building, silly.

Kelly, 46, is a survivor of Toxic Fox Syndrome (TFS), which happens when you wake up and realize that you must attend the same Christmas party (not to mention the same “War On Christmas! Party”) with Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly.

Kelly will make a lot of bank at The Peacock (likely between $17 and $22 million per year), but UNLESS SHE’S TAKING SAVANNAH GUTHRIE’S PLACE ON TODAY, SHE WON’T BE WORTH IT.

Why not? Because Kelly’s target audience won’t be tuning in to NBC to see her between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., and she’s simply not warm enough a TV personality to pull off that Oprah/Ellen schtick. She’d be great on MSNBC at 8 p.m. as a lead-in to Rachel Maddow or with Matt Lauer between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m., but she’s actually not compelling enough on TV—I don’t think—to be a midday-feelgood-TV-must-watch. NBC overpaid for a TV news personality. Not the first time.

2. What’s Wrong With This Headline?

This story ran on Mediaite.com last night. Maybe whoever produced the piece (likely the author; that’s how digital publishing works in 2017) was still hung over from Saturday night.

3. A Travelsty In Lawrence*

It wasn’t even a Eurostep by this Euro

*The judges will accept “Walk-Off Win”, “Rock Chalk, Jaywalk!” and “Gimme Two Steps, Gimme Two Steps, Mister”

Listen: It was a terrific game at Jog Allen Fieldhouse between Kansas State and Kansas, a welcome distraction on a dreary January week night, but when a white kid (Svi Mykhailiuk) who sounds like a goalie for the Canucks can pick up his dribble at the arc and score a game-winning lay-up and none of the three refs toots his whistle, we got a problem. Kansas wins, 90-88.

4. Trump Attempts To Assange Voters

Presented without comment, other than to say that PEOTUS promptly deleted this after tweeting it:

Trump just tweeted about Assange then deleted it — very likely because autocorrect changed “Assange” to “Assuage” pic.twitter.com/THIW8OOxO9

— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) January 4, 2017

5. Let’s Pick a Stock (But Not a Max Bialystock)

Nvidia, whose logo is reminiscent of Pied Piper, saw its stock price rise 220% in 2016

If you read this site regularly (then your name is either “Susie B.” or “Mom”), you know that I’ll frequently devote an item to a stock and talk about how high it has risen (CHK) or how steeply it has plummeted (FIT) and then finish with something such as, “If you had bought this stock at the start of the year….” and then we all feel poorly that we’re not rich and that we didn’t have this foresight.

Well, guess what? It IS the start of the year.

So what I’d like to do is take nominations for a stock that you think will blow up this year; perhaps not a “single-bagger,” as Ms. B would say (100% rise), but at least a 20%’er. At least And then on Friday we’ll adopt this stock and periodically check on how it’s doing so that 12 months from now we can all feel stupid for not heeding our own advice. I have a couple of names in mind, but I’ll just take nominations today and tomorrow. Thanks!

Reserves

Bill O’Reilly Is Pathetic, But You Already Knew This

First, watch the clip within this link. The Fox News host notes that many performers have been asked to perform at the inauguration and almost all have said no, and then says that it is “NOT CONFIRMED” that they are turning down the gig out of fear of being blackballed by the Hollywood liberal elite. He continues assuming this is why, although he repeatedly (because Fox has lawyers, too) repeats that none of this is confirmed.

Now watch the clip below, in which Charles Krauthammer simply and calmly tells O’Reilly, “You have presented no evidence!”

“Bah!” scoffs O”Reilly. “The evidence is that there’s nobody booked!”

Krauthammer, calmly: “They don’t wanna play for Donald Trump.”

O’Reilly: “Bull!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_JWBxG1P4A

Music 101

Time of the Season

This may have been the Freedom ’90 of videos for the Sixties as a parade of lovelies pass by on screen as Colin Blunstone of The Zombies ask the musical question (and was he the first to do so?), “Who’s your daddy?” This tune by the British band reached No. 3 on the U.S. Billboard charts in March of 1968, which was sort of funny because the band broke up in December of 1968.

Remote Patrol

Heaven Can Wait

8 p.m. TCM

Reds

10 p.m. TCM

It’s Warren Beatty night on Turner Classic Movies, and if you have the willpower to stay up until 1:30 a.m. to finish a 3 1/2-hour movie about love among the Cossacks, God bless you. But the opener in our double feature, a remake, is ineffably charming and harks back to a time when playing for the Los Angeles Rams meant something. It’s not quite Shampoo, but it is peak Beatty (and, you get super ripe Dyan Cannon and just-past-ripe Julie Christie).

Welcome to another cinemensational edition of The Film Room with Chris Corbellini. This week’s film: La La Land, a musical with the City of Angels as not only the backdrop, but the supporting cast.

La La Land

by Chris Corbellini

****

Three years ago, almost to the day, I made a late-night drive back to my Santa Monica sublet when, still a little burned-out from my gig in showbiz, I stopped at a light on Lincoln Boulevard and spotted a musician seated in a darkened bus stop. He was alone, with no audience to speak of, yet singing and strumming his guitar as if he were performing at the Hollywood Bowl. This is LA, I thought. A city of dreamers.

I was about to roll down my window to listen when the light turned green, and I was off to my own day-to-day distractions. I was a TV producer who might have some work for a good (and cheap) guitarist. Oh well. As I write this I still have no idea whether he was any good. This is also LA: a city of risk, missed chances, pipe dreams and broken hearts. Even if you have talent – and there’s talent in every corner and bus stop in LA — there’s also a good chance that your talent won’t be discovered. Your voice will never truly be appreciated. It never happens.

I thought of this throughout every song and dance of LA LA LAND, a mostly sunny, crowd-pleasing musical about chasing big dreams before reaching its karmic destination of what sacrifices you must make to have those dreams come true.

And when I say sunny, I mean literally. The movie kicks off with a swath of bright blue sky before revealing local folks stuck in bumper-to-bumper on what looked like the (dreaded) 405 freeway. The camera then discovers a woman in a yellow dress … and we are off into the first musical number about how sun-splashed the city is, traffic or not. It’s an impressive open, well choreographed and lensed with precision and verve. I saw two edits throughout the sequence, at the most, with the camera darting up and down, left and right, setting up the next iso dance moment. It reminded me of the opening tracking shot of BOOGIE NIGHTS, practically elbowing a theatergoer to let them know this is going to be a good time. In LA LA LAND’s open, you do feel the vibe but don’t see the headliners until the finish line, when one flips off the other. So much for playful. The happy-joy mood is hijacked by two struggling artists neck-deep in Hollywood, jaded but still hustling and in it to win it.

This is Mia (Emma Stone) and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), the former an aspiring actress grinding through soul-dismembering auditions and grinding your coffee beans as a barista on the lot; the latter a talented jazz musician who wants to open a club in a hot spot.  We’ve seen these archetypes before: Mia probably stepped off the metaphorical bus to Hollywood with a suitcase and a smile a year earlier, and will remain optimistic and unsinkable until it’s thunderously beaten out of her. Sebastian is probably from the area, more knowing about the business, and too proud to play music he doesn’t like for the bucks … until he’s not.

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

Both of them are passionate artists, destined to get together, but while Mia made the choice to give LA a go, for Sebastian, it wasn’t a choice. There was no choice to make. Music is an extension of his being, something the film elegantly points out by darkening a half-empty restaurant and bathing Gosling in light at a piano. The look the makeup artist and the entire movie is going for with Gosling is James Dean, hair tussled just so. Still, that introduction of Sebastian as artist reminded me of a Technicolor version of Bob Dylan on stage in DON’T LOOK BACK. Just him, the light, and the instrument. He’s not going anywhere. There’s no other place he’d rather be.

And what’s the reward for Sebastian’s performance? He’s fired, on Christmas no less, and then angrily brushes past Mia, who was floored by the effort.

They meet again, of course, (“It’s pretty strange that we keep running into each other,” she says) and on what looked like Mulholland Drive, high up in the hills, they begin to fall for one other. That exchange, and several others were shot at magic hour — i.e. right before the sunset when the lighting is ideal and reddened around the edges. A later pier scene also comes to mind, when Sebastian briefly dances with a man’s wife, to the chagrin of the husband. One of the notable exceptions is inside Griffith Observatory (the setting of Dean’s REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE), when under cover of a starry night, the two dreamers are in love.

Amidst all this plot and cinematography talk, did I mention LA LA LAND is a musical? It couldn’t be anything else. The middle of the film moves along swimmingly, buoyed by the music — they become a couple, she works on her play, he gets a well-paying gig – until decisions need to be made. He accepts a job in the music industry to show her he cares enough to be a provider, but now that he’s on tour he doesn’t have the time to see her. And what if her play doesn’t work out? Does she get back on that metaphorical bus?

The third act is something special and while I won’t spoil any part of it, Stone really stands out. It’s not hard to envision drama majors and young girls who love the stage being inspired by it, and by the musical numbers in general. The role is indeed the dream of any actress, working or not, famous or anonymous. And I’d like to see the two of them dancing together one more time on Oscar night, celebrated by Hollywood for making a film that celebrates the old-fashioned ideals of Hollywood.

But the endgame and the happy endings of LA LA LAND also provide a cautionary tale — for a jazzman, for an actress, or for that guitarist on a dark street. In showbiz, when the money is finally there, professional and personal lives are rarely in harmony and never perfect. Especially when fame comes into play.  Welcome to LA.

by John Walters

Starting Five

Matt Boermeester’s 46-yard field goal as time expired sealed it for the Trojans

Rose, To The Occasion

USC 52, Penn State 49. The Nittany Lions blow a 14-point lead in the final six eight-plus minutes in a classic from Pasadena—although both squads had double-digit leads at times. Also, in the second and third-quarters, the Nitty Lions scored a touchdown on each of four consecutive offensive plays (that’s good efficiency) and Saquon Barkley had a Reggie Bush-reminiscent 79-yard touchdown run. Trojan frosh Sam Darnold passed for 453 yards and five TDs and will be a Heisman frontrunner next season.

Barkley will also be a Heisman contender in 2017

The takeaway thus far? The Orange and Rose Bowls that bookended New Year’s Eve weekend were fantastic, the semis were desultory. Sure, it isn’t that way every year, but by setting off the two semis from the other bowls, we’ve created an unnatural schism. The plus-one model may have always been the best idea: Play out the bowls and then select the two teams from them you want to see in a playoff. Or, if you really like, the four. Make the bowls be the play-in games (and if you want to eliminate conference championship games, that would be fine.)

2. Circle of Stink

The Buckeyes, like almost all of the Rust Belt, took their lumps

It wasn’t a good bowl season for the Rust Belt. The state of Ohio went 0-4 in bowls, as did the state of Michigan. If you take the bowls in which a school  from Ohio or a school from a state adjacent to Ohio played—Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania—the total record was 1-15. The only school to win its bowl was Western Kentucky, which won the vaunted Boca Raton Bowl over Memphis, 51-31.

Ohio State, the highest ranked team of all 16, was the only one that was shut out, 31-0.

3. Exit, Lane

Nick Saban gave offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin the “Here’s-your-hat, what’s-your-hurry?” treatment yesterday from Tuscaloosa. Steve Sarkisian, who succeeded Kiffin at USC a few years ago, will now succeed him calling plays in the national championship game next Monday night. Kiffin has already been hired as FAU’s head coach, and yes, it does sound like’s he’s engineering a reverse-career progression: NFL head coach to SEC head coach to head coach at alma mater to offensive coordinator at a huge program to head coach at a Group of Five school.

From Pete Thamel’s SI.com story over Christmas break:

Kiffin’s profile comes up as a conceptual thinker. “You’ll like this,” Kiffin says with a smile. “It means I’m imaginative, intuitive about ideas, visionary, enjoys the unusual and learns by experimenting.”

He laughs: “Doesn’t that explain me and everything that’s not in the staff room at Alabama?”

Yeah, it was time to go. But is Saban taking a mighty risk here?

4. Gonzaga? Still Gonzaga

Goss-zaga? Goss-zaga??? Anyone?

There are three remaining undefeated teams in men’s college basketball: defending national champion Villanova, Baylor, and Gonzaga (here’s to the private religious schools!). The Zags are 14-0 and are winning by an average margin of more than 20 points per game. Their closest game was a 73-71 win against No. 21 Iowa State. The only other ranked teams the Zags played, No. 16 Arizona, they won by seven.

The only ranked opponent remaining on the Zags’ schedule? No. 16 St. Mary’s.

All five starters score in double figures, but none more than Nigel Williams-Goss‘ 13.8 points per game. If that name is familiar, the 6’3″ guard was Washington’s leader in scoring and assists two years ago. Then he opted to transfer across state.

5. And It Begins

Virginia congressman Bob Goodlatte, no relation to Jim Pumpkinspicelatte, made the proposal to kill the independent ethics committee.

In a special January 2 night session, and just a day before the new Congress is sworn in, House Republicans voted to gut an independent ethics panel that acts as a watchdog against criminal acts by sitting members of Congress. So that’s not at all ominous and discomfiting, now is it?

The “Just Trust Us” era has officially begun in Washington. Watch your back. And your front.

Reserves

I’m 100% certain I made this analogy on Twitter in the past few months. It’s just that I cannot draw.

Music 101

Mirror Man

This 1982 song by the Human League followed up the British New Wave act’s phenomenal success off the album Dare and the single “Don’t You Want Me?” This was both the title track to the follow-up album. The band later revealed that the song was about fellow British New Wave act Adam Ant.

Remote Patrol

The Late Show

CBS 11:35 p.m.

Oprah Winfrey, who would have made a superior 45th president to the one we’re getting, guests.

by John Walters

Starting Fire

Is 2017 already up in flames? Not yet, but this apartment fire in Holyoke, Massachusetts, was not a terrific harbinger. One woman died and two people are missing.

Starting Five

Rousey once joked in a movie that if Turtle could last 60 seconds in a ring with her, she’d have sex with him. she lasted :48 with Nunes

Ronda, Drowsy*

*The judges will also accept “Friday Night Lights Out”

In her first bout since losing to Holly Holm in Australia in November of 2015, Ronda Rousey was quick meat against Amanda Nunes, losing in just :48 seconds. The once invincible princess of the octagon is now 29, has lost two straight bouts, and is badly in need of a pep talk on the beach from Adrian Balboa. There was no eye of the tiger on Friday night.

Rousey did pocket $3 million for the effort, while Nunes earned $100,000 for the purse and an extra $200,000 for the victory. Have we seen Rousey’s final bout?

A Super Bowl

Gavin’s 66-yard kickoff return set the stage for the Seminoles game-winning TD

You won’t see a more entertaining bowl game this season than Friday night’s Orange Bowl in which Florida State beat Michigan,33-32. It gave us: a punt fumbled away at the one-yard line, a Mackey Award winner and probably 2nd-round pick, Jake Butt, suffering a torn ACL while Steve Levy and Brian Griese spent half the game praising the “toughness” of FSU’s Dalvin Cook for playing and assessing us that Jabrill Peppers wasn’t wussing out as Christian McCaffrey and Leonard Fournette had.

The nation’s top TE suffered a torn ACL right here

(Let’s explore that for a moment: Michigan’s highest rated draft pick, Peppers, strains a hammy in mysterious fashion this week and no one knows about it until literally minutes before the game, and so he sits out. And almost as if the Gods of Irony want to expose someone, Butt, a likely 2nd-round pick, suffers an injury that should keep him out until at least the middle of the next NFL season. All the while the commentators are extolling the virtues of Cook’s decision to play the game.

Taco es muy fuerza!

Injuries happen, sure, and you can’t play football obsessing over them. But Butt’s injury underscores from a pragmatic perspective why sitting out a non-playoff bowl game isn’t a stupid idea for a player who is a sure first- or second-rounder. How much will Butt’s injury—it’s his second torn ACL— potentially cost him?)

As we were saying, it also had a Pick-6, a 71-yard run by Cook (145 rushing yards), a PAT block return, a 14-points-from-behind second half comeback by UM without its top two players, an awkward booth handshake between Bob Griese and his son, some Gordita-level hits from Taco Charlton of the Wolverines, a 66-yard KO return by FSU frosh Keith Gavin as his teammate stomped the turf in anger because he took it out of the end zone, and a go-ahead score on a fade route thrown over arguably the nation’s top cornerback, Michigan’s Jourdan Lewis.

3. Musicalifornia

Saw La La Land last week. People will quibble about the fact that it isn’t quite as perfect as it might have been, or of opportunities missed to do numbers around iconic L.A. sites (I was hoping for a very dark LaBrea Tar Pits number, or at least something beneath the peristyle at the L.A. Coliseum), but I did love it. A lot like Hamilton, the film knocks you off your feet with its first three numbers and then finds it impossible to maintain that pace. But still, even with you off your feet, you still find a way to tap your toes.

The opening scene takes place in bumper-to-bumper traffic at what I believe is the Judge Harry Pregerson Interchange (110 and 105 intersection) and acts as the explanation of what you’re about to see before segueing into an interchange of a different sort, a mutual bird-flipping between two commuters who happen to be our two stars, Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) and Mia (Emma Stone), who don’t know each other yet but will soon be swooning.

And yes, this is from 31 year-old writer-director Damien Chazelle, who gave us Whiplash. He wrote this first, but couldn’t get Hollywood to bankroll it, so he wrote Whiplash to build up some cred for himself in the industry. The plan worked.

Decide for yourself. Me, I loved it.

4. Jerry Riffs on Sir Paul, Prizes and Marriage

This is five years old, but I’d never seen it before. Five minutes of time-capsule level Seinfeld. And, as an extra bonus to you here, at no extra charge, are Jon Hamm and Tina Fey at an awards ceremony last month.

5. Michael Lewis Can’t Lose

Here’s a terrific piece in The Washington Post on author Michael Lewis from fellow author and Cardinal Isidore Newman alum (and fellow extremely wealthy man) Walter Isaacson. Also, if you read just one link from today’s post, read this piece by WaPo reporter extraordinaire David Fahrenthold on his year reporting on Donald Trump (it’s funny, too).

Music 101

Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End

While Let It Be was the last album The Beatles released, Abbey Road is the final one the band recorded, in 1969. This suite of songs closes the album. That’s Sir Paul McCartney on vocals.

Remote Patrol

The Rose Bowl

Penn State vs USC

5 p.m. ESPN

Saquon Barkley has rushed for more than 1,000 yards in each of his first two seasons in State College

Two blue bloods meet in the Arroyo Seco in what is always the best venue for a college football game during holiday season, bar none. Alas, the forecast calls for cloudy skies so that view of the San Gabriels won’t be as sublime as usual.