by John Walters

Yakety Saxers

In Philadelphia, with Julius Erving and Allen Iverson seated courtside, the Sixers blow a 26-point 3rd-quarter lead and lose Game 5 to the Atlanta Hawks. What happened? Well, only two Sixer players, Joel Embiid and Seth Curry, scored after halftime; the Sixers were outscored 40-19, AT HOME, in the fourth quarter; and Ben Simmons shot 4-14 from the free throw line.

Embiid (above), who finished with 37 points and 13 boards, did all but carry his team on his wide shoulders but it just wasn’t enough.

The Jazz also lost at home despite having a decent halftime lead the Clippers being without Kawhi Leonard, a three-time NBA Finals MVP.

Both series had been squared at 2-2. The team that wins Game 5 of a 2-2 series goes on to win 82% of the time.

23 And Me

The Arizona Diamondbacks lost again last night, in San Francisco. Not only are they 2-27 over their las 29 games but this was their 22nd consecutive road defeat, an ignominious record they now share with the 1943 Philadelphia Athletics and the 1963 New York Mets.

The D-Backs could collect their 23rd consecutive road loss before sundown, as they wrap up their series at San Francisco with a matinee. On the hill for the Giants? Kevin Gausman, who is 7-1 with a 1.43 ERA and a 0.78 WHIP. Uh oh.

As The Kid pointed out to me, Arizona’s last road win was Madison Bumgarner’s (7-inning) no-hitter at Atlanta on April 25.

It Happened One Film

Another vignette from Frank Capra’s autobiography, Frank Capra: The Man Above The Title.

The year was 1933 and by this time Capra had begun to establish himself as the star director at his little movie-making studio, Columbia Pictures, but they were clearly not in the same league as the big boys, MGM and Paramount. He was the star of an also-ran studio, but his imperious boss, Harry Cohn, trusted him.

Meanwhile Capra was obsessed with winning an Oscar, but he sort of felt that he’d never get that acclaim unless he was pitching in the big leagues with MGM or Paramount.

So here’s Capra mooning that his latest film, Lady For A Day, will get the Dangerfield treatment from the Academy (and it will). But in the meantime he’s about to make his next picture. No actress in Hollywood, not even those who’ve worked with Capra, will take the female lead. They’ve read the script and they hate it. Finally he and his writer, Rob Riskin, pay an in-home visit to an actress with whom Capra had worked before on one of his very first films. It’s early December and the actress tells them she’s packing up to spend a month skiing in Sun Valley with friends. They beg her to reconsider. She lays down the gauntlet. “I get $25,000 a picture,” she says. “If you double that and get me in and out in four weeks, I’ll do it.’

She thinks she’s put the carrot out too far. Instead, Capra gets his boss, Cohn, to go for it. The actress is Claudette Colbert.

Male lead? Capra’s in luck. Sort of. Louie B. Mayer, the head of MGM and the most powerful man in Hollywood, is furious at one of his male stars, Clark Gable. He basically puts him out on a loaner to Columbia to teach Gable a lesson. Gable arrives at Capra’s office midday, drunk. Capra asks Gable if he’d like to read the script on his own or if they should talk about the story first. Gable looks at Capra, whom he’s never met, and says, “Pardner, I don’t care what the fuck you do.” (Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn...)

The film? It Happened One Night. It would go on to become the first (of only three films) to sweep the five major Oscar categories: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Screenplay.

Capra’s genius lay in a few different talents: 1) he could always find a way to rally the most diffident or even downright recalcitrant lead actors to put aside their egos for the sake of the film, and 2) he was never too stubborn to listen to a better idea.

Capra had a very close friend, a writer named Myles Connolly, who was never afraid to be the gadfly reminding Capra he was not perfect. Such friends can often be annoying, but they’re almost always good for us. Connolly took a look at the script and showed Capra the problem: neither the heiress nor the gent had any traits that would make any normal American, in the midst of the Great Depression, want to root for them. He suggested that the heiress be bored with her well-kept existence, that the guy have some issues of his own. Make them sympathetic. Capra had Riskin rewrite the script. He listened.

The rest is Hollywood history.

20-20-20

Rafael Nadal has announced that he will not be competing at Wimbledon later this month/next month. What does that mean? A much more open door for Novak Djokovic to win. What does that mean? Well, Roger Federer and Rafa have 20 Grand Slam wins and Djokovic has 19.

So if the Djoker wins at the All-England, all three tennis greats will be tied for the most Grand Slams with 20 and tied for the first time since before Roger won his first Grand Slam in 2004.

And this opens the door for Djokovic to be the all-time leader in Grand Slam wins. Whether you think that makes him the greatest tennis player of all time is up to you.

A Triumph For Satire

These are the type of moments that Joseph Heller or Paul Beatty (The Sellout) wishes they’d written. As GOP-infested state legislatures move to outlaw the teaching of Critical Race Theory, i.e. history, the Senate has just approved Juneteenth as a federal holiday. Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery.

So the GOP is saying, You can have your day off to celebrate not being slaves any more (hell, you’re all lazy and not working and just collecting the unemployment any more), you are just not allowed to teach anyone, white students particularly, about the origins of all of this.

Go Ask Alex

We were watching the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials last night and we may have discovered America’s next darling/sweetheart… oh no, am I objectifying. Yeah, probably. But that’s how the world, and marketing, works. Her name is Alex Walsh, she’s 19, attends Virginia, she won the 200 IM, and she has a face that can move truckloads of Wheaties boxes.

No one has Katie Ledecky’s talent, but Walsh has the intangible “All-American girl” traits that can elevate her to stardom.

Tales From The Crypto

If there’s one thing that can potentially sink the crypto craze (besides it being a very well-marketed Ponzi scheme), it’s the profundity of various and newfangled coins. If you have too many different types of coins, all of them springing up from thin air, then none of them are valid. Billionaires and treehouse inhabitants learned this the hard way yesterday as the IRON Titanium Token, a.k.a. TITAN, surged to $65 a coin, then quickly dropped to below $60, inducing panic among the whales.

Its latest stop? A price of $.002175, or about 1/5 of one penny.

If you owned 1,000 TITAN coins at the start of yesterday, they were worth $65,000 at one point. They’re now worth two dollars.

If Bitcoin were the only cryptocurrency, the concept would have far greater stability.

The Kid

…. had to know this was coming. He’d won eight straight since betting on the Clippers in Game 5 at home. So he did a similar thing yesterday, a Game 5 involving the Clippers, except going against them. And he lost. He’s now at 19-8 and the bank is down to $1,510.

Waiting on today’s wager. We wonder if he’ll have the temerity to take the Diamondbacks.

UPDATE: He’s taking Brazil -500 over Peru. So to win $100 or to lose $500.

by John Walters

Massive

Legen—wait for it—dary.

With Kyrie Irving out with a sprained ankle and James Harden at about 50% with a sore hammy, Kevin Durant absolutely took over Game 5 for the Brooklyn Nets. The two-time MVP transformed into The Lord of Flatbush Ave. with a 49-point, 15-rebound, 10-assist masterpiece as the Nets took a 3-2 lead in the series with a 114-108 victory.

Never in the history of the NBA playoffs had a player had a triple-double combo of at least 45 points and at least 15 boards (with 10 assists, by definition). Now one has. Two years after a disastrous exit in Game 5 of the NBA Finals due to a ruptured Achilles, Kevin Durant is back.

Alex Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

By midway through the Olympics (Opening Ceremony is July 23) you will probably be familiar with the name John John Florence. The 28 year-old is the U.S.’ top male medal hopeful in the new Olympic sport of surfing.

But John John’s mom, Alex, may be the more intriguing story. Her tale is a combo of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born To Run” and the Beach Boys’ “Surfer Girl.” Alex was born and raised on the Jersey shore, but she grew up dreaming about the Hawaiian surf lifestyle. At age 16 she won a bikini contest, which gave her enough dough to travel to California, where she won another bikini contest, which gave her ample scratch to move to Hawaii. She landed without a place to stay or a soul in the world that knew her, but Alex Florence is not the type who remains a stranger.

She quickly found a shack to move into on Oahu’s famed North Shore—home to the Banzai Pipeline, the greatest break in surfing. She became a surfer and also had a son. Exactly who John John’s dad is not public information… leading to some speculation that it is 11-time surfing world champ Kelly Slater… whom John John beat out for the final spot on the Olympic team.

You’ve got to give the lady credit. A lot of people say, “Baby this town rips the bones from your back” and “we gotta get out while we’re young,” but Bruce lives only a few miles from where he grew up. Alex heeded the call and moved her existence from the Jersey shore to the North Shore… and never looked back.

A Burrito, No Competo

American middle-distance star Shelby Houlihan will not be going to Tokyo. The American record-holder in both the 1,500 and the 5,000 won’t even be headed to this weekend’s U.S. Track & Field Trials in Eugene, even though she lives just two hours north in Portland.

Why not? Houlihan tested positive for a banned anabolic steroid, nandrolone.

Houlihan, who at age 28 is in her absolute prime and who did not win a medal in Rio, claims she is innocent. The 12-time All-American from Arizona State is blaming the bad contents on a pork burrito she purchased from a food truck. “I feel completely devastated, lost, broken, angry, confused and betrayed by the sport I love,” Houlihan, who found out last Friday that her appeal had been denied, posted on Instagram. If you read this story, there’s good reason to believe that Houlihan is telling the truth.

The ban lasts four years. Houlihan’s hopes for Tokyo are gone. It’s not as if she’s Russian, after all.

“You’re Drought!”

(With 15 homers and 43 RBI, 3rd baseman Eduardo Escobar is actually having an All-Star season for baseball’s worst team)

After a home win versus the Colorado Rockies on Sunday, May 2nd, the Arizona Diamondbacks had a 15-13 record. Not superb, but at least competitive in baseball’s most talented division: the National League West. Then the bottom fell out.

The D-Backs are 5-35 since then and 2-26 in their last 28. They’ve lost 21 consecutive road games—the MLB record is 22. In this 40-game span the Diamondbacks have had a 13-game and our currently in the midst of a 12-game losing streak.

Quick: name a player on the D-Backs. I can’t, either. That’s likely part of the problem.

A reminder that the 1962 New York Mets, in their inaugural season, own baseball’s worst record in the modern era over a full season (40-120, .250). The D-Backs, at 20-48 (.294) are still north of that.

North By Northeast

Remember that item we ran a month or two ago (of course you do) about how Hitchcock films have so many recurring conceits? Well, we ran that before we ever saw Saboteur, Hitchcock’s 1942 spy thriller. I guess it’s easier to say that almost every Hitchcock film has distinct elements of one or more other Hitchcock films. It’s as if he has a certain number of ingredients and each dish resembles one or three other dishes.

Saboteur is basically North By Northwest headed in the opposite direction (L.A. to the Statue of Liberty), except our hero is on the run from the law for a crime of war sabotage of which he is innocent. It even has a climactic scene, as in North By Northwest, with our hero and the villain grappling on an iconic American landmark with the villain falling to his death (there’s a lot of gravity playing a role in Hitchcock films: these two, Vertigo, Rear Window). This film also resembles other early Hitchcock efforts (Notorious, The Lady Vanishes, The 39 Steps) involving Nazi spies and/or Fascist rings.

And as we noted with Battleground a week or two ago, the notion of fascists and/or authoritarian governments is nothing new. Here’s Hitchcock in 1942, when the Nazis were all over Europe and the U.S. (and Great Britain) were in dire straits, using a scene to fight for truth, freedom and the American way. The dashing villain in this scene is that era’s Mitch McConnell, the Koch brothers, Mike Pompeo and, of course, Donald Trump.

The Kid

….did it again. That’s eight in a row off Portugal’s 3-0 win versus Hungary. He moves to 19-7 and is now up a healthy $1,635.

Tonight he loves that Kawhi Leonard is out for the Clippers so with UTAH being at home, he likes the JAZZ minus-125. Risking $125 to win $100.

by John Walters

https://twitter.com/blaireerskine/status/1404557073376071681?s=20

Don’t Mess With Texas B/C Texas Is A Mess

Remember, oh, a few months ago when Texas was TOO COLD and residents were burning furniture to stay warm because the grid was down and its GOP leadership was blaming it on wind turbines? Well, here we are a few months later and now Texas is TOO HOT and once again citizens are being asked to live as if they are in a third-world country (don’t do laundry or dishes, please).

Maybe Texas just has a major Goldilocks problem?

This is because Texas’ leadership wants to remain fiercely independent, which comes at a price to Texans when your leadership is also grossly incompetent, corrupt, misogynistic and ignorant. Funny how life works that way.

You have to watch this.

Fox 26 Houston reporter, @IvoryHecker, just savaged her network bosses ON LIVE TV— saying she will expose them by releasing damning secret recordings to Project Veritas for “muzzling” her reporting

pic.twitter.com/JmawnooxqD

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 15, 2021

There are three states we’ve spent time in that seemed markedly different than the rest of the USA in terms of infrastructure, plumbing, road maintenance and just general functionality: Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Now what else do those three states have in common, you might ask?

Texas, unlike those other two states, has no excuse. It’s a wealthy state with tons of resources that has long been grossly mismanaged. Oh, but its high school football fields are the best in the nation.

Progressophobia

Forgot to include this yesterday, but it’s one of Bill Maher’s better “New Rules” essays. What I love about Maher, admire about him, is that he’s as likely to piss off the Far Left as he is the Far Right. Because he’s not about searching for affirmation or protection from either tribe. He’s about looking for the truth. And if you disagree with his truth, please just show us the facts. I think he’s spot-on here. If you disagree, tell us why.

Roger That

$FB https://t.co/NXaMSGeMZv

— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) June 15, 2021

Here’s Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, a true rock god (whom we had the privilege of serving tequila shots back in 2012), going full-blast on the awfulness that has always been Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook.

The Last Frontier Rail

Did you know about the Alaska Railroad? You can fly your ass to Anchorage, the state’s largest city, and from there embark either north- or southbound. You can go by rail to Seward or to Fairbanks. You can even take it directly to Denali, home of the national park that is home to the highest peak in North America. The state of Alaska owns and operates the railroad, which actually covers relatively little ground in the entirety of The Last Frontier. The state understands its value both for freight and tourism.

It’s never been easier to explore this planet (with access to beer most of the way), and yet so many people are addicted to their laptops and home base. What would Jack London think?

The Kid

…Speaking of rails, train kept a’ rollin’, all night long… he improves to 18-7, seven straight wins, off last night’s Vegas shutout of Montreal. He’s at 18-7, a 72% win percentage, and up to $1,535.

Today he likes Portugal and confirmed aqua drinker Cristiano Ronaldo over Hungary in the EuroCup. That’s a -220 bet, so $100 to win and $220 to lose.

by John Walters

Ned’s Dead, Baby. Ned’s Dead.

Ned Beatty enters the ultimate transfer portal at age 83. An incredible character actor with an outstanding body of work, but let’s focus on two scenes that will live as long as people love movies. What makes them so powerful is that Beatty (no relation to Warren, who was born the same year) is playing two characters who could not be more opposite. The first, from Deliverance, is weak and literally gets raped—probably the most uncomfortable moment on screen in a major motion picture to that point in time (1970).

The latter is an all-mighty potentate, explaining to a charismatic TV host how the world actually works. From Network, 1975.

Two lines that will live forever: “Squeal like a pig!” and “And you will atone!” (only the latter was actually uttered by Beatty himself). So iconic is the latter cinema moment (both, actually) that Jimmy McGill reprises it in the premiere episode of Better Call Saul.

Djoker’s Wild

Down 1-0 to the greatest clay court player ever on Friday, Novak Djokovic rallied to win the final three sets at the French Open semis (the key moment was winning the third set tiebreak after squandering a 5-3 games lead). Then on Sunday, down 2-0, he rallied against 5th-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas and again won three straight sets.

The all-time men’s Grand Slams championships titles list now looks like this: Roger Federer, 20 (age 40); Rafael Nadal, 20 (age 35); Novak Djokovic, 19 (age 34). For us, this was the Djoker’s springboard triumph, the one that will allow him to finish atop this list.

Also, we should mention that UNSEEDED Barbora Krejcikova won the women’s title at the French. So Naomi or Serena basically gave one away.

Speaking of Serbian swingers, Nikola Jokic’s weekend in Denver began with pregame MVP presentation and ended with the above frustration swipe, drawing an immediate ejection.

So it was quite a Sunday for Serbian swingers.

Leave, Eriksen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_-GJwUtDU0

On the second day of Euro Cup 2021, in a match between Scandinavian sides Denmark and Finland, Danish midfielder Christian Eriksen suddenly collapsed on the pitch. According to the team doctor, Eriksen “was gone” before being resuscitated with a defibrillator. At the time, in the match’s 43rd minute, neither side’s players know if Eriksen had expired for good or no when they were asked whether or not they wished to continue the match. No one should have put them in that position.

Eriksen has recovered and is in stable condition. Denmark lost, 1-0.

Graze Autonomy

Finally, a good idea: one that will promote both tourism and wild animal welfare.

The Interstate 80 bridge that connects Illinois and Iowa across the Mississippi River is in poor shape (related: it’s always infrastructure week) and needs to be replaced. It’ll cost $20 million to tear it down. So Chad Pregracke has a better idea: you’ve got to build a new bridge anyway, so why not keep the existing bridge intact and allow it to be used as a bridge for bison to cross so that they may graze in either state (would a buffalo toll be one bill?).

Pregracke agrees that his idea is crazy, but so crazy that it might just work. A bison bridge would draw tourists to the area and it would also save the cost of having to tear down a bridge that would have a practical purpose.

Welcome To The Internet

We’d been hearing some of the tweeps push the “High Praise” button on Bo Burnham’s new comedy special, Inside, which he basically wrote, produced and performed from wherever he was safe-spacing. So we thought, Okay, we’ll give it a short listen and… WOW. The lyrics here are brilliant, as is the entire performance.

It’s as if there’s an American-born Tim Minchin out there. You’ll want to listen to these lyrics more than once.

Check, Please

Three years later, we’re still a little mystified as to why Anthony Bourdain killed himself (June 8, 2018). Few humans appeared to have a better life and few seemed to have more of a passion for it. Bourdain, the 6’4″ chef-author-adventurist, was living the dream with his shows No Reservations (The Travel Channel) and Parts Unknown (CNN). He seemed like the guy you’d want to sit down and have a beer, or better yet, a meal with. I always thought of him as the Lou Reed of chefs: totally New York, totally a rock star, totally feral, and with a dark side just under the surface.

Next month a documentary about Bourdain’s life and death, The Roadrunner, will be released. July 16th. Can’t wait.

The Kid

…. keeps rolling. He won with the Pirates on Friday to move to 17-7 with a bank roll of $1,435. What will he do next?

Tonight, he wants to keep the win streak alive with VEGAS minus-250 versus Montreal in the Stanley Cup playoffs. That’s $100 if Vegas wins and a loss of $250 if Montreal wins.

by John Walters

When The Schiff Hits The Fan

In today’s episode of “Banana Republicans” we learn that Donald Trump had William Barr subpoena Democratic congressmen Adam Schiff’s and Eric Swallwell’s data from Apple. And Tim Cook handed it over.

This would seem like an absurdly gross misuse of power, no? Particularly since there was no evidence of any crime being committed. What was taking place is that Schiff was the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee investigating leaks about the White House and Russia.

As an aside, there’s no person in the world keeping a better secret than the American translator who was in the room with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. Whatever communication passed between those two world leaders in Helsinki in the summer of 2018 is invaluable.

Kamala Harris, here a senator, asked the right question but erred in letting Bill Barr off the hook. She should have remained silent and waited, as uncomfortably long as it took, to get a response.

.@SenKamalaHarris: Has the president or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested you open an investigation into anyone?

BARR: ….. ah …..

HARRIS: Seems like something you should be able to answer

BARR: I don't know ……. pic.twitter.com/8FIqrGzSrm

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 1, 2019

It Goes To 12

College football has now decided to go from a 4-team playoff to a 12-team playoff. Guess what? Relative to the 4-team playoff, we are in favor of this (we’d return to the old system of the two top-ranked teams at year’s end and bowls and Brent Musburger and/or Keith Jackson, but that’s us). With one YUUUUGE caveat: you shouldn’t be asking the best players in college football to play two to three extra games, with exponentially higher risk of injury, without compensating them. That’s just unethical.

Al-CAT-raz

This is a fascinating story about people, the pandemic and pussycats. Here on Isla Fuhrtada, a small island off Brazil’s coast, live 100s of mostly abandoned cats. They are mostly feral now. What exactly they are eating, I don’t know. Maybe they should become pen pals with that elephant herd in China.

I think they could start charging cat lovers to visit the island and then use the proceeds to leave Nine Lives cans all over the island. Works for us.

The SuperFriends

"G7 …. Assemble."#G7pic.twitter.com/8LmMq3ETZN

— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) June 11, 2021

or

or

Clay Mation/Machine

In a few hours from now as the MH staff pecks this out, Rafael Nadal will be taking on Novak Djokovic in the French Open semifinal. A few notes, via The Kid…

—Nadal is 105-2 all-time in matches at the French

—Nadal has only dropped 22 sets in those 107 matches, or about one per five matches.

—Should Nadal beat Djokovic and win the final, he will surpass Roger Federer for the most Grand Slams in a career (21 to 20). Djokovic has 18. However, there are those who will always consider this mark somewhat dubious. Why? Because currently 13 of Nadal’s 20 career Grand Slams were won in Paris. He is the King of Clay, unassailable. But while he has won at least one of each of the other three Grand Slams, he’s not been anywhere near as dominant.

–No matter where Djokovic and Federer end up on the all-time list, and there guess here is 1st and 3rd respectively, Nadal is the greatest player on clay ever. Not even close. Whether he’s the greatest tennis player of all time is a matter of opinion. There will be those who will never shake from Fed. Djokovic will likely end up with the most Grand Slams and yet also the fewest fervent acolytes of the trio.

Say It Ain’t So, Bo

1989: “Bo Knows”

2021: “Bo Knew”

The news coming out this week about Bo Schembechler, arguably the most iconic coach (after Fielding Yost?) in Michigan football history, is truly disturbing. Some are saying it’s worse than the Joe Paterno news and that may be accurate. If you’re not up on what’s happening, read here. And remember that it’s Bo’s stepson making these allegations, with first-hand knowledge of being a victim as a child.

One suggested reason as to why coach Bo Schembechler never blew the whistle on Dr.Robert Anderson, why in fact he lobbied to have him reinstated: control (see our Vlad Putin item above). When you’ve got the goods on someone else’s sexual perversions, you can get them to do what you want.

Somewhere in heaven (or elsewhere), Woody Hayes’ spirit is saying, “All I ever did was punch a player on national TV.”

Hidden Figure

Her name was Judith Love Cohen. Born in Brooklyn in 1933, she excelled at both math and ballet. In college, she was the only female in her engineering classes and also dancing in the Metropolitan Opera Ballet. She moved to Los Angeles, where her dance career ended but she was the only woman in her engineering classes at USC.

She worked at TRW, an engineering firm, for more than 30 years. Her most important project was the Abort-Guidance System, which was used to get the Apollo 13 astronauts back home safely in 1970. A few months earlier she had given birth to actor Jack Black. Yes, this dude…

Pretty cool, eh?

The Kid...

…. is hot tonight! The world, is hot tonight! But where will he be tomorrooooooooow?

The Kid wins his fifth straight, I believe, to move to 16-7 and $1,335. He liked Vegas last night and they beat Colorado 6-3. You’d think he’d be up more than $335 for having won roughly 70% of his picks.

We’ll see if he gives us a call today. His favorite athlete is Rafael Nadal and he claims to have made boatloads of juju betting Rafa at the French Open over the years, so he might be incommunicado this morning.

UPDATE: The Kid likes MILWAUKEE (35-27) -270 against Pittsburgh (23-38) in the Senior Circuit. To win, $100. To lose, $270. The Brewers put Brandon Woodruff and his 1.42 ERA on the hill at home.