by John Walters

A Medium Happy 41st to Casey Affleck, the hidden gem of Good Will Hunting

STARTING FIVE

Touch. Down.

Fiji Gold

It’s always cool when a country wins its first gold medal. Fiji did that yesterday when it defeated Great Britain 43-7 to win the gold medal in rugby sevens. We should point out that Fiji is not the country that had that oiled up flag bearer at the opening ceremony. That was Tonga. Common mistake (Tonga has never won gold; nor has Togo, by the way).

“Rugby is our religion,” said one player. Fiji has 900,000 inhabitants.

Countries that have never won a gold medal, and tell me if you see a common thread here: Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait, Qatar, Sudan, Iraq. Quick hot take: Sports are a great antidote to terrorism.

Ravin’ Simones!

How good of a gymnast is Simone Biles, who won the gold in Individual All Around last night? According to NBC’s Al Trautwig, her winning margin of 2.1 points was a greater number than the COMBINED MARGINS in the victories from 1980 through 2012. That’s NINE Olympic Games. That’s incredible.

Many are calling the 4’8″ Ohio native the greatest gymnast of all time. She’s definitely in Nadia Comaneci’s class. Biles had committed to UCLA, but now she’s going to hold off and earn some $$$.

Manuel also set an Olympic record, 52.70, while finishing in a dead heat for first place

Meanwhile, Simone Manuel became the first African-American woman to win a gold medal in swimming, touching the wall first in the 100 meter freestyle, which is a total badass event. Manuel, 5’11”, attends Stanford. She is from Houston.

Biles is the first African-American woman to win a gold in her event, but she’s just so darn good that no one ever even thought about that (UPDATE: Apologies to Gabby Douglas, who was the first in 2012; our bad).

Thanks, Obama.

3. Michael GOAT

Yes, he won again. In the 200 individual medley, in which you do each of the four strokes for 50 meters. The most challenging race.

That’s 22 gold records (13 individual) for Michael Phelps, which—no kidding—puts him ahead of Leonidas of Rhodes who won 12 individual events back in Greece in the B.C. era. What has impressed me most is that at age 31 I don’t think Phelps has ever looked more physically impressive, and now he’s become the Michael Jordan of the pool. He carries himself out there now like he knows he’s the boss. These are supposed to be his golds.

I mean, Phelps, competing against the world’s fastest swimmers, won by an entire two seconds over the silver medalist. That’s insane. Biles-like. Ryan Lochte finished fifth.

4. Perfectly Ironic

To be fair, NFL PATs are now attempted from farther out than college PATs

It’s rarely newsworthy when a kicker misses a PAT. In preseason. Except that the kicker is Roberto Aguayo of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who made 198 PATs in 198 attempts while at Florida State (he also won a national championship and a Lou Groza Award as the nation’s best kicker).

So last night, in his NFL preseason debut in Philadelphia, Aguayo shanked his first try. Missed it. Clanked it off the upright. A second round pick (extremely high for a kicker), Aguayo said he had “butterflies.” Better get over that. The NFL has no less patience than it does for inaccurate kickers.

5. Tur de Force

An intriguing piece here on how Donald Trump targets women in the media (“Little Katy Tur”) and how it led to the NBC correspondent  needing to be protected by the Secret Service after a Trump rally. You have to imagine that in some back room meeting, the head of the SS is telling Trump, “If you would like to continue to have the privilege of our protection, zip it.”

Trump keeps inciting violence by his followers. One of these days one of them is going to take him up on it. And he, of course, will claim that it isn’t his fault, but only that people are angry because America isn’t great any more.

Music 101

Wouldn’t It Be Nice

This may not even be the best song on Pet Sounds, Brian Wilson’s sublime and ethereal effort for the Beach Boys. This 1966 tune, which peaked at No. 7 in the month of this writer’s birth, was released as a 45 single with “God Only Knows” as the B-side. As the B-Side! Anyway, when European outlets got the vinyl, they flipped it, making “God Only Knows” the single and this song the B-side. I mean, if you own that wax, that’s a keeper.

Remote Patrol

Rio Olympics

NBC All The Time

Huddle, celebrating too early and finishing fourth at the 2015 Worlds to teammate Emily Infeld, will attempt to fashion an updated iconic image of herself

We can finally open up the track, as the women’s 10,000 meters takes place tonight. Notre Dame alum Molly Huddle won this last month at the USA Track and Field Trials. You’ve also got Michael Phelps versus Chad le Clos in  the men’s 100 butterfly final and Katie Ledecky swims the women’s 800 freestyle final and could probably order a Starbucks and get it by the time everyone else if finished.

EQUITY

(Or, “The She-Wolf of Wall Street”)

***1/2 stars

By Chris Corbellini

“The main thing about money, Bud, is that it makes you do things you don’t want to do.”

—Wall Street 

Naomi Bishop is a Wall Street success story, celebrated at a cocktail party for powerful women in New York City, where she admits confidently to the room “I like money.” She has few attachments: a neglected fish in her luxury apartment, and a sorta, no-strings-attached boyfriend. It’s all about the bucks. That’s the endgame.

Shouldn’t that be enough? Bishop, played by Breaking Bad’s Anna Gunn (who turns 48 today), would argue fuck yeah it should. At the start of the movie, Bishop is the center of the universe. The rest of the cast just orbit her like a life-giving star, absorbing her orders, holding a heavy bag for her to box with, and in the case of her protégé, Erin Manning, doing her bidding late into the night despite being denied a promotion past vice president.

The actress that plays Manning, Sarah Megan Thomas, married into the financial world, and as the co-writer/producer she clearly did her homework in that field, interviewing the real-life Bishops of Wall Street.  That research helped build a central character that probably spent her 20s in the Clinton ‘90s eating a lot of investment banker bullshit and spitting out money, beating the boys by a large margin while getting slightly ahead. Now, near the top of the food chain, Bishops’ day-to-day challenges feel authentic to us, as if we already knew this story all too well. The best of the money movies (Wall Street, The Big Short) make complex financial scenarios easy to understand, and so does this one. Bishop and Manning need to secure the big score.

Equity: Lawyers, Gunn and Money

But nothing is ever simple when a billion-dollar valuation is involved. Another start-up deal went wrong for Bishop recently, and she has been denied a global director job that she was clearly qualified for (“This is not your year,” her boss says, winning a gold medal for smugness). Plus the pissy, pretty-boy CEO of her most recent project, another tech start-up, is eyeballing Manning like a tasty treat.  And that sorta boyfriend? Currently under investigation by a prosecutor who’s also an old college buddy (Alysia Reiner, another co-writer/producer).

The film does a shrewd job of showing the lion-taming act women have to keep up in order succeed at the highest levels of the modern workplace. They can use their sexuality to get ahead, sure, but it can just as quickly be used against them. And while investment banking is a bottom line business, the women in this story must ask to be judged solely by that bottom line, and not the “perception” of their abilities and emotional states in the land of brandy and cigars and inside jokes.

Sarah Megan Thomas, co-star, producer, Wall Street wife

Yep, the film poses the question that keeps certain magazines on racks across America for the last 50 years … can women have it all?  Equity‘s answer, I felt, was yes, but in a tragic and most unexpected way. Just follow the money.

By the end of Act 2, right before the IPO, I began to wonder if the stakes on their own would have made Equity compelling if the Gunn character were a man – perhaps a world-beater like a 40-ish Michael Douglas, armed with a protégé of his own in the mold of a Miles Teller, who has a newly-pregnant sweetheart waiting late at night on the couch. The social media company that specializes in security is certainly timely (Snowden!), and the dance for any edge in a big money chess match is timeless. . The film was shot slickly too, panning across the necklines of beautiful creatures in sexy, dark lounges. I actually concluded, depressingly, that not only would a male-centric Equity get made, but the budget would’ve been bigger, to land a Douglas type, with a wide summer release.

But there was a glass ceiling here to be broken on several levels, and everyone gets bloodied from the shards of glass at the finish. Greed, for a lack of a better term, is gender-neutral. What a dick punch to the woman in charge.

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 33rd to Thor, or Chris Hemsworth

Starting Five

Officer Christopher William pulled in Rogata

Anti-Social Climber*

*The judges will also accept “Rogata de Blanked,” “He Does Do Windows,” and “I Prefer Guys Who Don’t Get Apprehended Scaling Trump Tower”

On a hot, muggy afternoon in Manhattan, 19 year-old Stephen Rogata of Virginia decided to scale Trump Tower to get the Republican candidate’s attention. He apparently wanted a private audience with Trump. Rogata, using four suction cups, made it to the 21st floor before police officer Christopher William grabbed him and hauled him in.

Rogata wore cargo shorts, only fueling the debate as to whether they are acceptable on Twitter.

In the spring of 1977 George Willig successfully scaled the south tower of the World Trade Center (he’s still alive). He was known as The Human Fly.

Willig scaled all 110 floors, then was fined one dollar and ten cents.

2. Olympics, Day 5

Katie Ledecky captures her 3rd gold, anchoring the 4 x 200 freestyle relay, and wins by a body length, in the one Olympic pool that is not green. Kristin Armstrong wins her 3rd gold medal in cycling. And Nijat Rahimov of Kazakhstan set a new world record (“Very niiiice”) in the clean-and-jerk (215 kg) in his weight class (77 kg) and had a world-class celebration.

3. John Saunders

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LBrIl9TGDw

After thirty years of highly professional work at ESPN, John Saunders passes away at the age of 61. Saunders, a Canadian who joined ESPN in 1986, was one of the network’s on-air founding fathers whose intelligence and talent was part of the fortuitous coming together of people (Saunders, Bob Ley, Chris Berman) that helped make ESPN what it has since become.

Hannah Storm (above) has now had the unenviable task of announcing on-air the deaths of both Saunders and, last year, Stuart Scott.

4. Play-Rod?

Everyone loves a potentially big sale of memorabilia on eBay

“My job description does not entail farewell tours.” —Joe Girardi, New York Yankee manager

That’s rich. Love you, Joe, and you have been placed in an untenable position multiple times the past few years, but that has been part of your job description. In Derek Jeter’s final two seasons (he played just 17 games in his penultimate year), he hit exactly .250 even though he was a .310 career hitter. Jeets, who also had a career .377 OBP, was getting on base at about a .300 clip. He still got 634 plate appearances and 145 games in his final season.

Girardi was vindicated to a degree last night when rookie DH Gary Sanchez went 4 for 5 from the plate and belted his first career home run. Still, he had Mark Teixeira, who is batting .198, batting cleanup.

McCann pulls everything, even his groin (MH staffers will check to see if that’s true later)

The funniest part of this, to me, is that Girardi’s real problem with an overpaid DH providing little offensive production is not with A-Rod, but with Brian McCann. Yes, he also catches, but McCann is batting just .231 this season, and he’s only 32 years old. At $17 million per, he’s the Yankees 4th-highest paid position player after Tex, Jacoby Ellsbury and A-Rod. Once Girardi permanently puts Sanchez in as his backstop, and he will, he’s going to have an entirely new problem.

No one is going to be happier to see Saturday arrive than Joe G., although Friday night’s game could be rained out. What happens if the Yanks wind up playing a doubleheader on Saturday? Does A-Rod leave after the first game?

Last note: A-Rod will retire a career .295 hitter. Had he left after 2012, before all the Biogenesis junk, he’d be $96 million poorer but he’d have a .301 career average. He’s not getting into the Hall either way, so…

5. More Words About Guns

The man who wrote “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” was killed by a gun

What people forget about the man who said, “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. By the way, and if she gets to pick –if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what, that will be a horrible day, if — if — Hillary gets to put her judges in…” is that nobody, not Hillary, not even I, want to ABOLISH the Second Amendment.

The fact that people focus solely on Trump’s glib threat to a presidential candidate and yet again, not the lie explicitly stated, is one of his true rhetorical gifts (Patti Davis, the daughter of a president who was shot and survived an assassination attempt in 1981, had some harsh words for Trump yesterday).

Reagan daughter @Patti_Davis chides @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/sVjPRNLHPj

— Bud Kennedy (@BudKennedy) August 11, 2016

But here’s what slays me (figuratively), as I spar with hardcore gun advocates on Twitter: They’re simply not honest. Not with me, and/or not with themselves. Almost none of them are willing to admit that they like owning guns, that it’s a status symbol for them. They all preach to me the benefits of protecting their home, protecting their loved ones; also, they talk about how if the people cannot own guns, then we relinquish our freedom.

So let’s tackle a few of those arguments:

–As soon as I see people flocking to electronic home security system conventions the way they do to gun shows, maybe I’ll believe that the most important thing about owning guns is that they provide safety for the homeowner.

–It’s very rare for any of us to find ourselves in a situation or a confrontation where a gun would be necessary—most of us will never encounter such a situation. However, my guess (and you could ask former New Orleans Saint Will Smith if he were still alive) is that having a gun emboldens people to heighten contentious situations when discretion would tell you that maybe it would be best for all to diffuse them.

–The U.S. military has more firepower than the next EIGHT biggest militaries COMBINED. Do you really believe that you, Buford T. Homesteader, is going to prevent it from doing what it would want to do if it came to an armed confrontation? Not. At. All. The irony of all this is that nothing keeps you and me safer day in and day out than THE RULE OF LAW. The fact that we have laws and that people, police and government included, must abide by them is what really protects you. And when institutions attempt to skirt the law or big-time Joe Q. Public (as we often see), the fact that we have a free and independent press to report on such things also protects you.

It’s just that laws and newspapers don’t give you the visceral thrill of firing off a few rounds of live ammunition. It’s primarily a testosterone rush. They’ll never admit that, though.

Music 101

Beginnings

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZuZ7DG1KPA

This song from Chicago is so old that the band was known as the Chicago Transit Authority when it was written in 1969. Written and sung by Robert Lamm, the architect of other Chicago hits such as “25 or 6 to 4”, “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?”, and “Saturday in the Park,” the tune initially failed to chart. After the band became more popular in 1971, the song was re-released and climbed to No. 7 on the Billboard charts.

Remote Patrol

Olympics 

NBC All The Time

I saw that Today is having the band Perry perform live on Copacabana Beach. How about Duran Duran? Hellloooooooo? Highlights from Day 6 will include Phelps vs. Lochte and in gymnastics the women’s individual all-around.

by John Walters

A belated happy 31st (yesterday) to the pride of the Bellas, Anna Kendrick. We’ll be singing “Titanium” in the shower. Alone.

Kinda funny that today—Aug. 10th—is Justin Theroux’s birthday because today MH is serving the leftovers. A few items from Monday, a few from yesterday. Next time we take a field trip to Montauk, we’ll find out where the free wifi is sooner.

Starting Five

1. When You Just Realized You’re 31 Years Old and You Still Only Have 19 Gold Medals

This was Monday evening, or two gold medals ago for Michael Phelps. He now owns 21 gold medals, which is not only the most for any Olympian, winter or summer, but if he were his own country, Phelps would be tied with Ethiopia in 40th place for most gold medals of all time.

Michael Phelps, then 22, meets Katie Ledecky, then 3. Phelps swam his first Olympic race when Ledecky was three.

Meanwhile, Katie Ledecky, a.k.a. “Gold Minor,” won gold last night, too. She is 14 for 14 all-time, in Olympics or  World Championship or Pan Am Games finals as a swimmer. She now owns three golds, two from Rio.

2. Rio? Grand*

Simone Biles putting the finishing touch on her floor exercise

*Judges will also accept Au-Some, Gold-Fashioned

Let’s take a moment to savor/appreciate/acknowledge just how dominant the U.S.A. is over the greatest athletes from the rest of the world, after just five days. Team U.S.A. has the most gold medals (10; China is second, with 8) and more than 50% more overall medals than its next closest competitor, again China (27 to 17). China has four times as many citizens as the USA does.

Phelps. Ledecky. The women’s gymnastics team last night. More golds are on the way, too.

This isn’t a “rah rah” item. This is a, “Take the time to appreciate what these people are doing” item. The USA does win any more. All the time.

2. National Pas(Tebow)time

Will Tebow replace A-Rod on the Yankee roster come Saturday? Who wouldn’t be in favor of this?

Former Heisman Trophy winner and NFL playoff-game-winning QB Tim Tebow batted .494 in high school baseball. Rather than go Full Uncle Rico and spend all day talking about it, he’s announced that he will pursue a career in baseball. Good for him.

So what if Tebow, who turns 29 on Sunday, doesn’t make it? Why not try? It’s funny how many cynical tweeps also cite Rudy as a favorite movie of theirs. If you’re not going to be aspirational, what’s the point of even following or playing sports?

4. Shooting Off His Mouth

Oops, he did it again. You heard him. My new favorite drink is the “Donald Trump 2nd Amendment Joke:” an empty glass served with a last straw. Alas, it’s usually available again next week.

5. Out-Cast Members

Pharoah won’t be returning to Studio 8-H this fall….

After six seasons Taran Killam and Jay Pharoah are out as SNL cast members. I loved them both, and thought Killam was, before last year, SNL’s most valuable male player in skits. He didn’t seem to be as inspired last season, though, or as present. I wonder if losing out on being Trump to Darrell Hammond, who’s technically not in the cast, made him an unhappy camper. Still, I’m going to miss Jebediah Atkinson. I picture Jebediah being the one who informed Killam he was cut (don’t cry for Taran; he’s married to Cobie Smulders, so there’s a lot of syndication money to go around for a long, long time).

…nor will Taran Killam.

Fact is, Hammond does a better Trump.

Pharoah is maybe the most gifted impressionist SNL has ever had (Hammond included), but Dr. Ben Carson is a non-entity now and I guess Lorne didn’t feel he needed him. I really enjoyed Jay’s “Weekend Update” spots, where he just went from one black actor/rapper to the next rapid-fire. They were both funny and impressive.

I hear Lorne will give both Taran and Jay the start versus Tampa Bay on Friday night, so that’s nice.

Music 101

Sweet Talkin’ Woman vs. Do You Believe In Love

Our old and close friend, and my former fellow Dillon Hall R.A. Randy “Randall” McDonald (Notre Dame Lax man) celebrates his 25th wedding anniversary today (related: we’re old). Last week after we ran the Huey Lewis tune here, he pointed out how closely related it is to ELO’s “Sweet-Talking Woman” and that both songs even have the same opening lyrics. So, judge for yourself (Randy, this is as far as I’ll go to fete you and Kristen in this space: Do you really expect me to post a Southside Johnny song? C’mon!)

Remote Patrol

Olympics

All The NBCs  All The Damn Day

Is it me or is NBC doing fewer features and am I seeing less of Mary Carillo these Games thus far? I love Mary Carillo (you know that already). Anyway, Phelps swims in a semi tonight, Ledecky in a medley final. At noon it’s US vs. Fiji in men’s rugby, and both USA hoops teams are on the hardwood tonight.

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 35th to Roger Federer, who’s won more men’s grand slam singles titles (17) than anyone. He’s betterer, he’s Federer.

The Starting Five

1. Sports Natation

Katie Ledecky, who won gold and broke a world record in the 400-meter freestyle (3:56:46) last night, may as well be swimming in another pool . And she’s up against the world’s very best swimmers.

Michael Phelps adds to his gold haul (19 career) by swimming the second leg of the men’s 4×100 free and, at age 31, turning in the fastest split of his career. Phelps went into the turn in 2nd place and when he resurfaced, the USA had the lead. That was the difference.

2. The Grisly Games

Not right Said fred

Some nasty, nasty spills in the first two days of competition from Rio. On Saturday French gymnast Samir Ait Said broke his lower left leg when he landed awkwardly on the vault.

Yesterday Dutch cyclist Annemiek van Vleuten was leading the women’s race with just 11 kilometers remaining when she skidded out on a downhill turn and went head over handlebars into a curb. Van Vleuten lost both the gold and consciousness. She suffered three minor spinal fractures, so in a way she was kind of lucky.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyxgToqzKR0

3. A-Rrivederci

The final shoe dropped. The Yankees, after trading two All-Stars and the man with the fastest pitch in baseball, and after watching former All-Star Mark Teixeira to retire, finally persuaded Alex Rodriguez to hang up his needles spikes. A-Rod will play his final game this Friday (I have three tickets; offers start at $200 for one, $700 for all three) because the Yankees were going to release him anyway and eat the remaining $25-million or so on his deal, so why not go out with a little dignity?

The Legends Era is officially over as of Friday. Tainted numbers, sure, but if he never gets another hit, A-Rod retires No. 1 in grand slams (25), No. 4 in home runs (696), No. 3 in RBI and No. 20 in hits. As recently as last season he jacked 33 homers and had 86 RBI, but this season he is batting .204 with 9 homers and 29 RBI.

He’s got four games left. I’d love him to pull a Kobe-60 and hit four out in his final four games, but I’m not sure that he’ll play more than one game. It’s not going to happen (but that’s what we said about Kobe, too).

4. PaintGate

Not a Seinfeld episode. No, the NFL’s first game of the season between the Colts and Packers, on a lovely summer night in Canton, Ohio, was canceled due to rock-hard paint at midfield and the end zones. Could it really have been any worse than the artificial turf the Women’s World Cup used last summer?

5. Death on the Waterslide

The German word for insane if “verrukt,” which is also the name of the world’s tallest waterslide (168 feet, 7 inches, or 17 stories, or taller than Niagara Falls) at Kansas City water park Schlitterbahn. Yesterday the park held Elected Officials Day (they and their families were admitted free) and Caleb Schwab, 10, the son of a lawmaker, somehow died in an incident associated with Verrukt, which has a 60-degree drop, then climbs five stories before continuing down. No one is quite saying how he died at the moment.

The 2014 opening was delayed three times for safety reasons.

Music 101

Venus

There was once a seminal pop-punk band named Television in the mid-Seventies in New York City  that all the music aficionados love, but that radio just did not. Ah, the pain of being an early adopter. You can hear a little of The Cars and even ELO in their sound. You may have heard of lead singer Richard Hell. Anyway, this is one of the band’s top songs.

Remote Patrol

Olympics

NBC 8 p.m.

More Katie Ledecky and Michael Phelps, plus Missy Franklin jumps into the pool. Both USA men and women’s hoops tonight. Also, synchronized diving, the only Olympic sport that would get you kicked out of the pool if you tried it back at the McClintock Pool in Tempe back in the 1970s.