IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

Paige Turner

They’ve been waiting for Paige Bueckers’ arrival in Storrs, Conn., for nearly four years. Last night showed why.

Bueckers has been a highly coveted recruit for Geno Auriemma since her 8th grade year in Minnetonka, Minn. The Huskies, meanwhile, have not won a national championship since 2016, equaling their longest drought (2005-2008) since they began cutting down nets in 1995.

This was BEFORE her three 30-point efforts. She’s now averaging 21.8 ppg and leads the Huskies in minutes as well

On Monday night No. 2 UConn hosted No. 1 South Carolina and Bueckers drained a game-high 31 points, the last three in overtime, above. Bueckers now has back-to-back-to-back 30-point games for the Huskies, the first Connecticut freshman ever to do so.

And she did so last night off that bucket in overtime.

Portnoy’s Complaint

I thought this was fascinating, coming as it does from someone who, credit to him, launched his own media empire and is worth tens of millions of dollars, if not more. There’s something lovely about him still being such a fan and at the same time something incredibly naive.

Here, Kitty Kitty

This is cool and you’ll love it. If you’re patient.

You may have noticed that I post more fun tweets lately and go on fewer dystopian rants than I used to. Part of that is the Lloyd Braun (“Serenity now!”) in me emerging, part is the relief that we’re (mostly) done with Trump, part is that I’m just plain very busy. Doing what, exactly, I cannot say, but I feel very busy.

Musk-Have Currency: Bitcoin

So last week we took down our position in Riot Blockchain (RIOT) by 80% and were planning to go back in somewhat, a little toe dip, on Monday morning. Then Elon Musk blows our cover with a pre-opening bell report that he’d invested $1.5 BILLION in Bitcoin.

So while, yes, we profited, we had to chase the tail of the dragon to catch up. As soon as Musk announced that monstrous Bitcoin investment, plus the intention to begin accepting Bitcoin as payment for Tesla vehicles, the value of Bitcoin roared more than 10% upward. Our little side play, RIOT, jumped by 40% on Monday.

So what’s next? Not sure, but the passing of the stimulus package suggests that more of those ungrateful millennials will not only be spending their unemployment cash but also their stimulus dough on investments, and GameStop is literally so last week. So might they not piggyback on Elon’s strategy? Stay tuned.

Two weeks ago you could’ve bought RIOT for below $18. This morning it opens at $36.

Yes, It’s The Hollies, Frankie Avalon and Giant NFL Cut-outs

I mean, yes, I was around in the 1960s, but I don’t remember any of it. I expect my days in the 2060s, should I be so lucky, will be much the same.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

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The Bucs Top Here*

*The judges will also accept “Tompa Bay,” “TAMPA BrAdY,” and “Star Bucs”

Points to ponder and gape at:

–Tom Brady has now won more Super Bowls (7) than any individual NFL franchise.

–The Buccaneer defense went through three future Hall of Fame quarterbacks—Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers and Pat Mahomes—two of them on the road, to win the NFL championship.

Gronk had two touchdown catches in the easy win

–According to Tony Romo of CBS, Tom Brady is the winningest athlete in the history of the four major pro sports here in North America and the Tampa Bay Bucs were the losingest team in the history of the four major pro sports. Quite a stat if true. As Chris Berman put it after last night’s 31-9 Buc defeat in their home stadium, “The team that invented losing.”

–This was not even one of Tom Brady’s four most intriguing Super Bowl victories (the first, versus the Rams; the miraculous comeback against the Falcons; the win against the Seahawks; and the close call against Carolina). Of course, no other QB has more than four SB wins. The remarkable aspect? Brady did not win a Super Bowl in his supposed prime, ages 28-36.

Tom Brady is a Dorian Gray-ish 43. Rob Gronkowski is only 31. What’s to prevent them from pulling off the ultimate power move and joining the New York Jets next season?

I’m Sorry, What?

A gambler who wins 56% of the time is a very happy person.

Bra Bra Land

Hooray for Hollyboob!

Last week Julia Rose, 27, and five friends were arrested after briefly altering the iconic “Hollywood” sign. There’s not much more to the story than you’ll read here, but we do believe the writer missed an opportunity to point out that “what’s another boob job in Hollywood?”

From My Pillow To My Zillow

One week SNL is hitting at the easiest punch line, Mike Lindell. The next it’s taking on a less obvious target and with funnier results.

By the way, host Dan Levy (former SCTV cast member Eugene’s son) was terrific and I’ve never even seen Schitt’s Creek.

Deadly Ski Weekend

In Millcreek Canyon, Utah, just 15 minutes from Salt Lake City, four skiers in their 20s were killed after being caught in a massive avalanche on Saturday. Four others who were with them survived and even dug the others out, but it was too late. The area they were skiing in is not affiliated with any ski resort.

It’s Utah’s third fatal avalanche incident this ski season, bringing the total dead to six. In Colorado one weekend earlier, three skiers died in an avalanche near Silverton.

Back-county skiing is serious stuff.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

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by John Walters

Defense Calls Kyrie Irving

This is the opening pleading of the $2.7 BILLION lawsuit that Smartmatic has filed against Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Fox News, and Fox hosts Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro. I’m not sure why they won’t or can’t name a certain former U.S. president. I am sure that those named will whine that their free speech is being impinged upon. It’s clearly not. Say what you want. But your speech, if knowingly false and harmful, has consequences.

Related, here’s Maryland congressman Jamie Raskin (D) making a succinct argument (which we made here last week, perhaps not as eloquently or succinctly) as to why the Republican “let’s just move on” argument is either disingenuous or bone-headed (or both):

And here’s the latest in the ugliness that is Marjorie Taylor Greene:

Lou Bega Has Not Released Any Mambos*

*We stole this from a tweeter, @AKHockeyBear

https://twitter.com/PennStateFball/status/1357518557601361920?s=20

If the Nittany Lion football program was looking for attention this morning, mission accomplished. There’s no such thing as bad publicity, no?

Fox News, not to be outdone, is chiding the 46th president for flying on a private jet from D.C. to Delaware (where it never blasted the 45th for flying from D.C. to south Florida almost every weekend of the past year).

5,078

The odd thing to us is not that the U.S. yesterday posted the highest number of deaths related to COVID-19 in one day, eclipsing the 5,000-mark for the first time. The odd thing is that this news was nowhere to be seen on the front page of The New York Times or on CNN’s home page. Have we reached herd apathy on the severity and deadliness of this virus?

Pooches Are The Best

Your lost kid would not be that excited to see you. Your missing-for-three-days-in-the-jungle girlfriend would not be that excited to see you. Patty Hearst would definitely not be that excited to see you. But doggies? Woof woof!

Blank Lives Matter

I’m not involved enough in the current happenings of online advertising to expand upon what the Toronto Star is saying here, but essentially, believe them. In my final days at Newsweek, I was pulled into an hour-long meeting that was about nothing more than learning to write an SEO-friendly headline so that it would appear higher up on the Google search page. As our speaker (think of a female version of the Jimmy Fallon character from Almost Famous: “I didn’t create the rain, I just have the best umbrellas”), “Google controls the world.”

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

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by John Walters

Greene Party

The judges, to be frank, did not know where to go with this one. GOP: Greene’s Own Party? Or how about The House Marjorie Tea (Party) Leader? I mean, Q-Anonsense is so last year, after all.

Anyway, America’s Ultimate Karen, Marjorie Taylor Greene, rose to speak to a Republican House caucus yesterday and reportedly half of those gathered gave her a standing ovation. Later, House Minority Leader (and it must steam his tea to have “minority” anywhere near his name) Kevin McCarthy duplicitously claimed he had no knowledge of Q-Anon or the Georgia congresswoman’s endorsement of such.

Yesterday Canada declared the Proud Boys a terrorist organization. The GOP calls these same people its base.

French Open*

We do not know if Carla Bruni was among those in the party, but we don’t know that she wasn’t, either

*The judges also like “Menage A Trois A Trois A Trois A Trois” and “Voulez-Vous Coucher Stadium”

Outside Paris, police bust an 81-person sex orgy for 1) taking place after curfew and 2) failing to observe social distancing regulations. The latter, well, that’s fairly difficult to avoid during a sex orgy.

The math geek in us loves the total number of attendees here. Eighty-one is equal to 3 x 3 x 3 x 3, which means that it was possible for 27 menage a trois to be taking place simultaneously. Someone phone the editors at Guinness.

Winter Stormings

Two weekdays, two months, one winter.

On January 6th a violent mob stormed a stronghold of democracy in Washington, fueled by irrational rage and ignorance.

On February 2nd (or 3rd, we’re not sure) a frolicsome group of New Yorkers, in a storm, engaged in a snowball fight in Washington Square Park, fueled by irrational exuberance and, most likely, cabin fever.

Who would you rather be?

Roaring Kitty Goes To Washington

From MarketWatch.com:

Rep. Maxine Waters, the chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, told Cheddar TV that Robinhood Co-CEO Vladimir Tenev and Keith Gill, the investor who popularized the GameStop trade on Reddit, will testify later this month.

Gill, as readers of this blog and many non-readers of this blog know, goes by the Reddit message board pseudonym of Roaring Kitty. This is like having Mr. Spiccoli appear in front of the House Education Committee, except that when Betsy DeVos was Secretary of Education, that likely would have been a step up.

The irony here is that Gill may be nearly as wealthy as DeVos is now. Probably not, but it’s funny to think so.

Use Your Illusion

Down The Reds

Every sportswriter’s favorite Premier League club, Liverpool F.C., has suddenly fallen upon hard times. The Reds lost at Anfield, their home, yesterday 1-0 to lowly Brighton Hove & Albion, which sounds less like a football club than it does a particularly tweedy white-shoe law firm.

This was Liverpool’s second consecutive home defeat, and once again to a club in the bottom fourth of the Premier League’s 20-team field (a loss to Burnley in late January). To put these bizarre defeats in perspective, the 2019 Premier League champs had gone 68 home matches in a row without a defeat before its last two matches. It hadn’t suffered consecutive home losses since 2012.

Suddenly their manager is Jurgen Kerplopp.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

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by John Walters

Haven’t We Seen This Movie Before?*a.k.a. “Citizen Jeff”

Born in the Mountain Time Zone region. From a poor family but his mom finds a way to raise his stake in a better future. Preternaturally brilliant, he builds an empire in a newfangled industry from scratch. Marries a gorgeous brunette as he becomes the world’s wealthiest man. Divorces the brunette for a cheap floozy in the entertainment biz. Steps down from an everyday role in the company he built. What’s next?

For Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles), it was political aspirations, namely, governor of New York. What will Jeff Bezos, who is only 57, do next?

Here’s the curious twist: Kane was a newspaper magnate who then had everything imaginable shipped to his dream palace, Xanadu. Bezos is a shipping magnate who used some of his fortune to buy one of the nation’s two most respected daily newspapers, The Washington Post. If he makes a political run, how will his own paper cover it?

Here’s an idea: Bezos announcing he’s running for the House in AOC’s district and promises everyone who votes for him $1,000 $10,000. He could easily afford it.

Queens Gambit

When you read the story, it seems that Trump impeachment defense attorney Eric Herschmann may have just saved democracy

We’re only now catching up to this insane Axios story, by Jonathan Swan, about what was transpiring inside the Oval Office as Donald Trump (from Queens) listened to pitches crazier and crazier from minions and sycophants. to overturn the election. A MUST-read. Cannot wait for the movie.

The money quote (among many): “When Rudy’s the voice of reason, you know the meeting’s not going well.”

My Pillow Talk

Last weekend Saturday Night Live attempted a My Pillow bit on “Weekend Update” (with Beck Bennett as CEO Mike Lindell). It was okay, but nowhere near as funny as the actual Lindell’s appearance on a Newsmax program last night. As someone noted on Twitter, the utter irony of Lindell appearing in a segment about his right to speak freely (on Twitter) and then having his mic volume turned down because he was uttering crazy talk on that very segment

My Pillows may also be used to muffle mouths, no?

Right On The Mark

https://twitter.com/ChrisCorbellini/status/1356644126037573638?s=20

Yesterday morning CNBC had billionaire Mark Cuban (likely still smarting from his team’s second straight home loss to the Phoenix Suns, the latter on a Devin Booker three with 1.5 seconds to play) on to talk the GameStop saga, etc.

Cuban said something that was so self-evident to this “retail investor” and yet seemed to take co-host Jon Fortt and whoever else was on air for CNBC by surprise. Cuban’s point, and I entirely agree, is that the idea that there’s an inherent value in a stock is almost entirely myth. Yes, sure, technically one could own enough shares of a stock to find a seat on the board and influence policy, but no one you or I know is ever going to be in that position.

I’m trying to quote Cuban as closely as possible here, but what he said was this: “A stock only has two points of value. One is the dividend, which many companies don’t even offer. The second is what you can get someone else to pay for it (above what you did).”

BOOM. Yes. Fort challenged Cuban, asking about fundamentals and balance sheets and P/E ratios and basically asking, “So you’re saying all the homework that we all do is meaningless?” And Cuban said, “Um, yeah.”

And I agree. You MAY do all that homework if you like. And technically, you’re correct. But here’s how the stock market is different than, say, analytics: If 99 of 100 people say 2+2= 5, your knowledge of arithmetic is enough to declare that they are wrong. And you, the one, are right with your answer of 4.

However, if in the stock market 99 people say 2+2= 5 and you insist on it being 4, well, they’ve moved the needle to it being 5. And they’ve made money while you stood there shouting into the abyss.

Honoring Brian Sicknick

President Biden took a few moments after most men his age’s bedtime to ride down to the U.S. Capitol and pay his respects to the Officer Brian Sicknick, who was killed during the January 6 insurrection. His body is lying in state there.

As he did so, this screen grab compares what CNN and MSNBC and C-SPAN were covering live with what Fox News was.