IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Starting Five

1. Life Below Zero

If you know someone in the Midwest, they may experience the coldest day of their lives today or tomorrow. Some 90 million will experience temps below zero, while 25 million of those will experience cold below minus-20 degrees.

Grand Forks, N.D.: minus-27.

Minneapolis: minus-27.

Duluth, Minn: minus-26.

Chicago: minus-19.

Des Moines: minus-16.

Wind chills in these cities will take another 10 to 30 degrees off the thermometer. Meanwhile in Australia, it’s so HOT that snakes are taking refuge in people’s toilets (no, mate, that is NOT the world’ longest dump you are staring at).

But back to The Biggest Chill. In Chicago, where there are estimated to be 80,000 homeless people, a week like this is an actual national emergency. Maybe they’ll build a wall against the cold. Or maybe they’ll tweet about it.

2. Feeling Minnesota

There’s snow place like home…

Meanwhile in northern Minnesota, the most frigid temps in 50 or so years did not stop the Arrowhead 135, an ultra marathon, from being staged. The race, in which competitors may run, mountain bike or ski, covers 135 miles from International Falls, MN (often the coldest spot in the Lower 48) to the Fortune Bay Casino, also in Minnesota.

This year approximately 160 racers embarked just before dawn on Monday morning and as of now there are still seven runners out on the trail. Here are this year’s results as of now, with a 7 p.m. local drop dead (not literally, although…) limit on racing:

–none of the skiers finished

–39 of the 75 bikers finished

–6 of 57 runners finished, with 7 still out on the course.

3. Love And Hate

Also in Chicago, early Tuesday morning (i.e., just after midnight betwixt Monday and Tuesday), actor Jussie Smollett from Empire was attacked and brutally beaten. The attackers, who doused him with an unknown substance and also attempted to put a noose around his neck in the city’s Streeterville neighborhood, allegedly yelled homophobic and racist slurs. Smollett’s character on the show, like Smollett, identifies as gay (and as black, I mean, since neither are really a choice…c’mon, people, it’s 2019).

Meanwhile in Atlanta, Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Brandin Cooks gave two tickets to the Super Bowl and is paying all expenses for the team’s locker room janitor.

Love and hate. We always have a choice, as Preacher showed us. By the way, last night for reasons I won’t explain, I went back and re-read the lyrics to “Where Is The Love?” by the Black-Eyed Peas (yes, this is the same band that gave us “My Humps.” Leave it alone). Read them if you have some time. Straight-up gospel stuff.

4. Stairway To Hell

To live in New York City is to see mothers attempting to carry a stroller down a flight of stairs into the subway station. Almost always, no matter the neighborhood, someone spots that mom (or nanny) at the top or foot of the steps and provides an assist. We’ve all done it.


That’s what makes the death of Malaysia Goodson, 22, on Monday night so wrong. Goodson died attempting to carry her toddler down the stairs in a midtown subway station. The pols and media will harken for more elevators at subway stations ($$$). I’ll simply harken for more good Samaritans. It’s cheaper and it’s better.

5. Monsters Bald

Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker and…

…Balok, the alien at the end of the closing credits from the original Star Trek TV series. Both of them feel the Mueller Report needs to be released as soon as possible. Also, if you know the history of the series, both of them are figureheads being propped up by someone else, both lacking any real substance or bona fides. Look it up.

Music 101

I’d Love To Change The World

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

Fronted by guitarist Alvin Lee, the band Ten Years After took its name from the idea that it formed in 1966, or ten years after the birth of rock ‘n roll. This tune, by far the Brits’ most successful commercial release, peaked at No. 40 and epitomized the sense of confusion and frustration of the counterculture movement. The song’s opening lyrics: Everywhere is freaks and hairies, dykes and fairies.

Ten Years After played Woodstock and made the film, even though this song was not yet in their arsenal.

Remote Patrol

The Theory Of Everything

Netflix

One of those delightful British historical films that either stars Eddie Redmayne or Benedict Cumberbatch or Keira Knightley. You decide. Remember when Redmayne, who won a Best Actor Oscar for this portrayal, nearly won two Oscars in two years after having been a complete nobody? The Academy wised up and said, “Whoaaaa! Whoaaaa! Who do you think you are, Hillary Swank?”

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Starting Five

Howard’s End?

Billionaire coffee merchant Howard Schultz does a sit-down with Andrew Ross Sorkin in a Manhattan Barnes & Noble to discuss how he’s considering entering the 2020 presidential race as an independent and gets fresh-roasted by an audience member.


Too many Americans are not ready for yet another outerborough-born billionaire (Brooklyn) coming in and mucking up the presidency. Especially because Schultz’s entry into the race as a third-party candidate could swing the election for the incumbent.


2. Pelican Westbound?*

*The judges will never apologize for a Haircut 100 reference.

Saturday: Saturday Night Live presents an insightful and spot-on skit about how obnoxious recent visitors to New Orleans can be.

Monday: Anthony Davis informs the Pelicans that he will not re-sign with them at season’s end. Dude, if you’re going to California why not join the Dubs? Do you realize that LeBron will be 35 next season and already has 1,400 career games under his belt? There are a lot more “groin injuries” in his future. We don’t want to say that we’re against anything that keeps the propagation of this Lakers 24/7 narrative alive, but we are.

A message to my ESPN friends: We love how Scott Van Pelt makes a plea about how the blogosphere/sports media annoyingly lives in the future and never the present. So how come all of you (SVP included, though at least he preemptively decries it) keep doing this “Lakers All The Time” bit? They stink and they have for awhile. We know they’re historically a great franchise, but your obsession with them is tantamount to tampering.

3. Zionist

Zion had 26, 9 and 4 blocked shots in last night’s victory in South Bend.

We’ve changed course in our Zion Williamson assessment. Yes, he’s not long and that may not be what NBA GM’s are looking for, and he’s not a great outside shooter, and he still dribbles like a bull in a china shop, but here’s what he does have: incredible energy and strength, especially around the rim.

The team that drafts him (wait, wasn’t I just hectoring ESPN about staying in the present a  moment ago?) is going to have to be amenable to having an outlier, a square peg, but there is something Xavier McDaniel/Rodney Rogers/Charles Barkley about his game that is highly appealing.

As for Duke this season, they’re really, really good. We prefer the Virginia Redemption storyline one year after being the first-ever No. 1 seed to be knocked out in the first round.

4. El Chapo, Meet The Sacklers

American Drug Kingpins

Yesterday in a Brooklyn court room the prosecution rested its case against notorious drug lord El Chapo (a.k.a. Joaquin Guzman). Also yesterday a Massachusetts court ruled that a lawsuit against the Sackler family, the nation’s most aggressive proponents and marketers of Oxycontin, will have its documents revealed on February 1.

Oxycontin and other prescription opioids are, in terms of American deaths per year, are the mot lethal drug, legal or illegal, out there. Two Sackler brothers, since deceased, were medical doctors who launched Purdue Pharma, which was the first big manufacturer of Oxycontin in the U.S.

The Sackler name is all over art institutions and other such cultural spots for the family’s philanthropy. Are they gonna get the Christophe Columbus treatment eventually?

5. Islam and The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance

Take a few minutes if you have them (you do; get off Instagram) and read this wild adventure of a young man motorcycling through Kurdistan. If it sounds crazy, it kinda is, though not as crazy as biking your way through Syria. By Jason Motlagh in Outside magazine, which still often does tremendous work.

Music 101

These Eyes

Arguably Canada’s greatest rock group (after Rush), inarguably Winnipeg’s greatest rock group, this is The Guess Who. This was their first top ten single, released in 1969. The band once played the White House for Richard Nixon (but they were told not to play “American Women”) but we have no idea if they ever shared a bill with The Who.

 

Remote Patrol

Ninotchka

2:45 p.m. TCM

Written by Billy Wilder, directed by Ernst Lubitch, and starring Melvyn Douglas and Greta Garbo, this 1939 comedy classic is your typical fish-out-of-the-Volga schtick. A stern Russian woman is sent to Paris to sell tsarist jewels after the Bolshevik revolution and finds herself irresistibly drawn to the Parisian lifestyle. Josef Stalin is subtly mocked. It’s like An American In Paris with much less dancing.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

and…

Starting Five

End Of The Stone Age?

From Roger Stone‘s Wikipedia page: “In 1977, at age 24, Stone won the presidency of the Young Republicans in a campaign managed by his friend Paul Manafort.” Those two have been tight for more than 40 years—they started a D.C. lobbying firm together in 1980. If you read up more on Stone you’ll learn that he treats politics a little like Fight Club: The First Rule of Politics Is There Are No Rules.

(Go directly to Kate McKinnon’s Wilbur Ross at 2:28)

Stone was arrested Friday morning in a pre-dawn raid and charged with seven felony counts. He is the embodiment of the Trump Villain: just a little too smug and pleased with himself. It’s not enough that he committed the crime; you can tell he wants a little satisfaction in the form of attention and that, ultimately, will prove his downfall.

Roger Stone’s going away just like Manafort and Flynn and Cohen and the rest. The question voters should ask themselves is, Next time, will there be a crew that is equally mendacious but not so stupid? Because that gang will truly be dangerous.

2. Maisel Tov!

At the SAG Awards, which don’t waste our time by handing out awards to unattractive people such as writers or directors or makeup folks, Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (we’ve never seen an episode but we’d like to, so if you have Amazon Prime why don’t you be a dear and invite us over to binge?) wins Best Ensemble Comedy, Best Lead Actor and Best Lead Actress. Glenn Close wins “Best Actor In A Film No One’s Seen,” Rami Malek wins “Best Actor Portraying a Lead Vocalist,” and Black Panther wins “Best Ensemble Cast In A Film That Spike Lee Did Not Direct.”

Robin Wright at 52. Princess Buttercup still got it.

In other notes: Host Megan Mullally was a delight because she didn’t try too hard and Robin Wright must be doing pilates and yoga and cross-fit all at once. Bradley Cooper must be wondering if he’s just not that popular in Hollywood (as we’ve said before, if there were a “Best Trailer” Award or “Best First Half Hour” Award, A Star Is Born would be a shoo-in). Jason Bateman won for Best Lead Actor in a Drama and had our favorite line: “This is…reassuring,” before giving a sincere and sober speech about the rollercoaster life of showbiz. And yeah, that was Elvin (Geoffrey Owens) from The Cosby Show, a.k.a. the world’s most famous Trader Joe’s bagger, doing an “I’m an Actor” monologue in the open.

3. Mural, Mural On The Wall*

*The judges will also accept “Goodbye, Columbus”

As you may have read, the University of Notre Dame has decided to cover up the murals of Christopher Columbus that have lined the 2nd floor hallway walls of the Administration Building (you know it as the Golden Dome building) since the late 19th century. A few tweeps and friends have asked me what I think of this development (while a certain older family member gave this move three “Sheeshes” and an “Oh, Brother!”).

Let me begin: For two years I was a student tour guide at Notre Dame and every tour began in front of those murals with a brief description. To go back, I actually worked in the Admissions Office, but I was so incompetent at filing that our office manager, Josie, eventually moved me over to tour guide. For every hour I worked for her, I think Josie need another hour to correct my filing mistakes. At least once a week she shot me a glare that said, “If I’d known you were this dumb, I’d have made sure they never admitted you here.”

(As an aside, if you or one of your siblings did not get admitted to Notre Dame in the mid-Eighties, my filing errors may have had something to do with it. I’m sorry. But then again, look where you are today. And look where I am. So it all worked out for you!).

Back to Columbus: I’m not a leading scholar on whether or not Columbus was more pernicious or more of a product of his times. I do know that in 1985 and ’86 we ND students were not “woke” about Columbus. The nearest we got to being woke was owning a Benetton shirt. I doubt I really paid too much attention to the Columbus controversy before that Sopranos episode.

The problem for the university is that as the nation’s foremost Catholic institution, it positions itself as a paragon of virtue. Hence, if there is considerable evidence that Columbus played a major role in mass genocide, etc., etc., then you have yourselves a problem. However, if you scrub the Columbus murals, what next? I mean, the Catholic church has literally hundreds of priests who have been convicted of pedophilia. What happens when we begin to examine those legacies.

Remember, this is a school whose two most famous figures are 1) the world’s only know virgin mother and 2) its only known person to rise from the dead. So in terms of fanciful suspensions of disbelief, the Notre Dame community has already positioned itself at the very tip of the planet’s longest and flimsiest limb. It’s just serendipitous timing that the school was established after Galileo’s theories on heliocentrism became established as accepted fact as opposed to being heretical. There may have been murals in the Golden Dome illustrating the sun revolving around the Earth.

I’m not sure if I’ve made myself clear. But, really, I wasn’t half bad as a tour guide.

4. Government Hutdown

This is Warnscale Head, one of 100 or so “bothies” on the British Isles (I, too, was disappointed when I looked closer and did not see an “r” in that term). These communal huts, appealing to ascetics, are basically available to anyone who happens to reach one and is in want of shelter. Here’s the story from the lucky New York Times scribe who was able to trek out on this boondoggle.

In the pre-WorldWideWeb days bothies were a well-guarded secret, but because the internet ruins everything you are now able to find them mapped out and even provided with latitudinal/longitudinal coordinates. An aside: Northern Scotland is the most magical place we’ve ever visited—and we’ve been to Tucumcari, N.M.—so this would be a wonderful way to while away a fortnight or two.

5. It Wasn’t Me

James Corden and Shaggy hook up for a little parody tune.

Music 101

Jailbreak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC6Cgb8nHwk

If you were one of the kids who bought Thin Lizzy’s Jailbreak album in 1976, back when music came in vinyl that had two sides, this eponymous single was Side One, Track One. But when you flipped the disc over and the needle touched the outer most ring on Side 2, you heard one of the essential songs of the ’70s: “The Boys Are Back In Town.” Lead singer/songwriters Phil Lynott, an Irishman, isn’t a household name in the States, but he’s a legend back in Dublin. Lynott became addicted to heroin in the late ’70s/early ’80s and was only 36 when he passed away in 1986.

Remote Patrol

Duke at Notre Dame

7 p.m. ESPN

If you really hate Notre Dame (and not just because they had those Columbus murals up for 130 years), tune in tonight as Zion Williamson turns John Mooney into a poster. When we were students there, the Irish took down a No. 1-ranked Duke squad (if not 1, at worst 2 or 3). That ain’t happening tonight against what will likely be a No. 2 Duke squad. The Irish lost by 27 at home to No. 3 Virginia on Saturday. This could potentially be worse.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Starting Five

1. Intolerable Cruelty

He’s a silly little man, that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. The billionaire, appearing on CNBC yesterday morning with Andrew Ross Sorkin, said he did not understand why furloughed government workers are going to homeless shelters for food (tip: this is what many people who don’t get paid do). They should be taking low-interest loans out from banks instead.


Check out the second video where Ross refers to a family being broke as a “liquidity crisis.” Good grief. I’m sorry, who are the elitists? The good news is that Savannah Guthrie will probably have a sit-down with Wilbur later this week.

Later, attempting to ameliorate the gaffe but instead only exacerbating it (that’s two, TWO SAT words in one clause!), President Trump painted a Rockwellian portrait of being broke, “Local people know who they are, when they go for groceries and everything … They will work along. I know banks are working along … They know the people. They’ve been dealing with them for years. And they work along.”

When did “work along” become a phrase? And does Trump really expect Americans to believe we’re all living through the bank run scene from It’s A Wonderful Life (“Why, your money’s in Joe’s house…”). By the way, it struck us yesterday that it must seem like old times for Donald Trump: he’s got thousands of people working for him who are being told they’ll be getting paid later. You may want to ask a few dozen contractors, plumbers and construction workers in the Tri-State area how that movie ends.

2. In Other Jimmy Stewart Movie News


Early last evening a normally mild-mannered Senator from a flyover state gave an impassioned speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate. And he didn’t even have to filibuster. Michael Bennett (D-Colorado) let bearded counterpart Ted Cruz (R-Texas) have it right between the eyes.

Our little commentary on how yesterday killed THE WALL, in the form of a geometric proof:

  1. President Trump proclaimed that he was going to build THE WALL and Mexico was going to pay for it.
  2. Mexico isn’t going to pay for it.
  3. Trump’s next step was to hold the budget hostage unless he got funding he wanted for THE WALL.
  4. In fact, ON CAMERA, in the Oval Office, Trump assured Bennett’s Senate colleagues Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, that he would take the blame for the government shutdown: “If we don’t get what we want… I will shut down the government…I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck. … I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down.”
  5. The government has been shut down for 35 days.
  6. Now the very people who were with Trump on this shutdown are watching as he and his billionaire cronies stiff hundreds of thousands of Americans and put air-traffic security at tremendous risk in order to get THE WALL.
  7. Trump doesn’t really care about Americans, he cares what Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham think. He’s not even willing to listen for one moment to reasonable alternatives to THE WALL. Because he understands that THE WALL is the symbol of his presidency. And if it fails, he fails. He’s willing to screw Americans for as long as it takes in order to get THE WALL.
  8. Yesterday, America got to see just how out of touch Trump and his cronies are with most of Americans. “Liquidity crisis” and “work along” from billionaires who’ve never had to work paycheck to paycheck.

  9. Having already lost the battle as to whom is to blame for the government shutdown, yesterday the White House lost the battle as to who the true elitists are. The only people who still believe in them are hopelessly racist or foolish.

3. Intolerable Cruelty, Part II

You need more? Here’s Larry Kudlow, the president’s economic adviser, attempting to portray his fundamentally wrong—and he knows it—interpretation of “volunteering” as a battle of semantics. It simply isn’t.


Of course, being told that you must come to work and do your job without pay or else be fired is not volunteering. It’s forced labor. Indentured servitude. It’s a hostage situation. But I’m sure Bill O’Reilly would point out that they are being well-fed.

How many more examples does America need to demonstrate just how little the filthy rich care about most of them? There’s only thing they want from you, there’s only thing they need from you and that is YOUR VOTE. And trust us, if there were a way to remain in office without having to figure out ways to manipulate you in order to obtain it (what do you think voter suppression is, anyway?), they’d go that route. They want NOTHING to do with you other than that you do your jobs for as little as possible.

4. Wait, There’s More?

This morning, before sunrise (just before 6 a.m.), FBI agents pounded on Roger Stone‘s door in Fort Lauderdale: “FBI! Open the door!”

Stone, a longtime friend and consigliere to Trump, was arrested and indicted on seven counts. The circle is closing.

And yes, in case you’re wondering, the FBI agents who conducted that raid have yet to receive a paycheck in 2019.

5. He Bru Outta Here

*The judges will also accept “Bru’s Your Daddy”

Just weeks into his early enrollment classes at USC, Bru McCoy, the Trojan’s lone 5-star recruit of 2019, enters the transfer portal. We’re not exactly sure how this will go down, but it could work out that McCoy will have to sit out a year no matter where he transfers (if indeed he transfers) even though we’re still one week away from National Signing Day. That’s because he signed during the early period and already enrolled at USC.

But that was before the Trojans’ new offensive coordinator, Kliff Kingsbury, moved on to the head coaching job with the Arizona Cardinals. It almost—I mean almost—seems unfair. McCoy, rated the No. 1 athlete prospect in the nation and a product of Santa Ana (Calif.) Mater Dei, a giant feeder school for both USC and Texas, is reportedly thinking Longhorns. That would be a huge pickup for Tom Herman (until the NCAA finds out someone from the Longhorns was tampering…we’re only kidding…they’d never do that!).

The only other question is whether “Bru” is the past tense of “Bro” or of “Brah.”

Reserves

ESPN’s Odd Couple

Bill Walton Ain’t Afraid Of No Ghosts

During the second half of last night’s “Conference of Champions” classic from Eugene, Bill Walton told partner Dave Pasch (I can’t recall why it came up) that he had been in Ghostbusters but that his scene was cut. Pasch, not surprisingly, was dubious. If you travel to the film’s IMDB page, however, you’ll find Big Red’s name in the cast credits, in the “others listed alphabetically” area.

Now, if only we can gets someone from ESPN to twist Ivan Reitman’s arm to release Walton’s deleted scene(s).

Music 101

Fat-Bottomed Girls

It never got the radio play of Queen‘s other late Seventies/early Eighties hits—maybe it had something to do with the title and lyrics?—but few tunes exemplify everything that made the band original and unmatchable: cheeky (!) lyrics, crunchy guitars, ethereal harmony and Freddie Mercury’s charismatic and inimitable voice. The song was released in 1978 as a Double A-side single with “Bicycle Race.” Talk about a bargain for $1.99. It went to No. 24 on the Billboard charts.

Looking back, it’s almost tragic that this band did not write the soundtrack for The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The two were off by just a few years, but they would’ve been perfect for it.

Remote Patrol

Senna 

Netflix

Definitely falls into our Top 10 favorite documentaries list along with Grizzly Man, American Movie, Free Solo and The Mule. Wait, what?

Brazilian Formula One champ Ayrton Senna had it all. Then he lost it all on one bend in the road on a day when he knew he shouldn’t be driving. Worth noting: the driver directly behind him that day was Michael Schumacher, who himself has been in a vegetative state due to a post-retirement skiing accident that took place more than five years ago.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Starting Five

Scare Traffic Control

At peak operational times there are approximately 5,000 airplanes in the sky at once (and yet on most cross-country flights you rarely see more than one or two cross your path), more than 2.6 million travelers flying daily in and out of U.S. airports and some 14,000 Air  Traffic Control specialists, none of whom have been paid in more than a month. Nor have Air Marshals. Or TSA agents.

This is like some awful statistical probability experiment that, should it continue to run its course, will end in calamity. Catastrophe. The last large-scale domestic commercial air plane crash in the United States took place in 2009 when 49 people perished on a flight from Newark to Buffalo due to ice buildup on the wings. So we are nearing a happy decade anniversary (take a bow, Sully).

Yesterday unions that represent pilots, flight attendants and the ATC (the lone group not being paid), an alliance of more than 130,000 air travel pros, issued the following warning: “In our risk averse industry, we cannot even calculate the level of risk currently at play, nor predict the point at which the entire system will break.”

Then again, maybe they’re overreacting. What could possibly go wrong if people who are not paid to do a very important job (i.e., the ATC and TSA) kept not being paid? I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?

2. And Yet, No Backyard Or Basement

Hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin just spent $238 million on an apartment at 220 Central Park South (of the two obnoxiously towering residential skyscrapers, it’s the one on the right). That’s by far—by more than double—the most money ever spent on a private residence in U.S. history and it doesn’t even hit .300 or smash 50 home runs.

Griffin’s home has 24,000 feet of space but no backyard (I mean, he has Central Park but then so do you and I) or driveway. Not even a moat. I mean, here’s Seton Castle in Scotland which sold for a fraction of the price ($6,5 million) in 2008

Seton Castle in Scotland would have cost far, far less

By the way, if you’re wondering what exactly hedge fund managers do to be worth all that money, it’s a little bit like being John Calipari: You recruit, recruit, recruit, except that instead of recruiting talented basketball players, you recruit billionaires and mega-millionaires. You recruit them to put their money into YOUR managed fund.

You have an SEC license (congrats, you passed a couple of tests) which allows you to trade directly with the big banks and who knows, with all that money in your arsenal, maybe (I mean, maybeeeeee) someone on the inside gives you a tip here and there because there could be a kickback in it.

At the end of the year, you keep a percentage (sort of like the vig for gambling) of what you  bring in. You may not do better in terms of the market than Walker Capital or the average investor but it doesn’t matter because once upon a time you worked at Goldman or Credit Suisse and that C.V. persuaded enough billionaires to park their cash in your fund. Congrats!

(We may have gone off on a tangent about hedge funds and the people who work at them  from what began as a simple item about the most expensive home ever purchased in the U.S.A. Oh, well.)

3. You Go Conway And I’ll Go Mine

In a new book by Cliff Sims, who spent 500 days working in the Trump administration (presumably Sims worked there for as long as he thought he needed in order to secure a high six-figures book deal), Chief Reptile Kellyanne Conway receives a withering review. In an excerpt from Team Of Vipers we found this line: “She seemed to be peren­nially cloaked in an invisible fur coat, casting an all-­knowing smile, as if she’d collected 98 Dalmatians with only 3 more to go.”

MH recommends hitting that hyperlink. The last graf is a keeper.

4. Harden In The Garden*

*The judges who miss Lance Kerwin suggested “James At 61”

He makes it look SOOOO easy, but James Harden, abetted by 25 free throw attempts (22 of which he drained) scored a career-high 61 points and heated up frigid New York City in a 114-110 Rockets win. Only Carmelo Anthony (until last week, Harden’s teammate this season) has ever scored more points (62) at MSG and among Knicks opponents, only Kobe (also 61) had ever scored as much.

It was Harden’s 21st consecutive 30-point game and he also had 15 boards. The MVP race is O-VUH.

5. Wild Moose Chase

Should’ve been at Breckenridge Ski Resort in Colorado last Saturday, where a moose took after snowboarders in the wildest moment involving death-defying ski hijinks since the “Chinese Downhill” scene from Hot Dog, The Movie.

No one was hurt and the moose was excused for not wearing a lift ticket.

Music 101

Reap The Wild Wind

We have no basis for this assertion (when has that ever stopped us?) other than having lived through the era as teens, but we’d call late 1982-early 1983 as the peak of the New Wave era. It was a glorious epoch of synthesizers, androgynous lead singers and kids in our Arizona high school wearing trench coats to school cuz they wanted to pretend they livd in London or Manchester. For this song that was released in September of 1982, Ultravox teamed with producer George Martin. Yes, the guy behind the mixing board for the Beatles. That George Martin.

Remote Patrol

Warriors at Wizards

8 p.m. TNT

Sports creatures you’re watching right now, this month, that you should not take for granted because people will still be talking about them 20, 40 years from now: the New England Patriots and the Golden State Warriors. The Pats are headed to their ninth Super Bowl of the Belichick-Brady era. The Dubs are headed to their fifth straight NBA Finals and if you saw them sweep the Staples Center tenants the last few nights by 18 and 19 points, respectively, you know they’ve shifted to an even higher gear with the addition (UNFAIR, really) of Boogie Cousins. Savor it.