IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 3 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right


Starting Five

The only blight on this contest was the Ram uniforms

54-51

With Rams 54, Chiefs 51, in a game between the NFL’s top two teams, the league officially joined the Big 12 last night:

–The highest-scoring Monday Night Football game in NFL history.

–The first game ever in which both teams eclipsed 50 points.

–10 passing TDs, 6 by Pat Mahomes (who also threw a pick-six)

–Each quarterback threw for more than 400 yards.

–Oddly enough, Todd Gurley’s 13-game streak of at least one touchdown per game ended.

It was the first Monday Night game in the Los Angeles Coliseum in 33 years. Don’t wait so long for the next one.

Chicago Fire

Four dead in Chicago after a mass shooting at Mercy Hospital. A 38 year-old ER doctor, Tamara O’Neal, was the target of the gunmen’s wrath. She had recently broken off an engagement. It appears he shot her in the parking lot and then ran into the hospital as he was exchanging gunfire with police who responded to the call.

A 25 year-old pharmacy resident, Dayna Less, apparently was struck by stray fire. A policeman, Samuel Jimenez, was also fatally wounded. What a mess.

Stay tuned for the president’s praise of the HEROES who prevented it from becoming a greater tragedy (this most likely was not a mass shooter-style incident, but rather a domestic violence incident).

3. All The Small Things*

*The judges will not accept “In the Blink of an ‘i'”

It’s moments such as this when the internet and Twitter are fun.

It began when James Corden, host of The Late Late Show and a Brit, said that across the pond Blink-182 is pronounced “Blink One-Eight-Two.” And that got the ball rolling…


Then Cordon replied…


At this point Tom DeLonge, the band’s original vocalist and guitarist, entered the fray…


And from here we were watching and waiting, an-ti-ci-pa-ting…..


What’s my age again? What’s my age again?

4. Lanka Her Up 

News from Washington, D.C.: Ivanka Trump, alias “First Daughter,” alias “Secretary of Handbaggery,” alias “The One That Got Away” (in dad’s opinion), has apparently been using a private email server to conduct government business. This almost automatically erases her chances to win the 2016 presidential election.

5. The DOWN Jones Industrial

Catch me I’m falling! Whoa, what a stinker of a week for the stock market. As we type this the Dow has already fallen nearly 600 points this morning. Let’s hang on/To what we got/Don’t let go, girl/We’ve got a lot/Got a lot of stocks between us…

We reminisce to last year at Thanksgiving, when Bitcoin was soaring and Walker Capital was raking in the cash (and obviously, using those rakes on cash instead of forest floors, where we should have been using them, proved catastrophic). All’s we can say is that if you haven’t sold or shorted already, you may as well hang on for the ride. At some point this beast must resurface for air.

In the meantime, here’s where Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC) was last December 18

$38

and here’s where it is today….

$5.

So there’s that.*

*We got out long ago

 

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right


Not a Schitt’s Creek fan, I see.  Whitaker works directly for the president, while Mueller works directly for the Attorney General, which is why the former needs Senate approval and the latter does not. We covered this in Civics class last week, Donald. Where were you?

Starting Five

The President walks with the ex-husband of his oldest son’s girlfriend

1. Rake America Great Again*

*The judges will also accept “Forest Gumption”

Drain the swamp.

Sweep the forest.

What an idiot.

You can’t just pave Paradise and put up a parking lot.

2.  Condi Nasty!

Yesterday Adam Schefter reported that the Cleveland Browns want to interview former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for their head coaching job. Granted, literally anyone would not do worse than Cleveland’s 0-16 season a year ago, but if you’re going for former Secretaries of State, hell, Henry Kissinger is still living.

We look forward to the Dawg Pound being re-christened the Rice Paddy.

3. Carnage in Macau

Sophia Florsch, 17, was traveling roughly 171 m.p.h. at this Formula 3 race in Macau when she hit the back of another driver’s vehicle and somehow catapulted like a rocker over the wall and above the people clad in orange below. Remarkably, nobody died and Florsch, while suffering a few broken vertebrae, will not be paralyzed.


and

4. The Old Man And The Pee

Now playing on Netflix, an eight-episode series, The Kominsky Method, starring Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin. They’re a pair of Hollywood best friends. Sandy Kominsky (Douglas) is a well-regarded acting coach who never quite made it big in film or TV and Norman Newlander (Arkin) is a very succcessful agent.

Created by Chuck Lorre (Two and A Half Men, The Big Bang Theory), it’s very, very good but just shy of great. Arkin, unsurprisingly, is a treasure and the best part of the show. Lisa Edelstein is criminally under-utilized. Douglas pokes a lot of fun at himself. There’s a little too much about peeing and prostates and not enough of Kominsky in his acting class, which is a fertile ground to plumb. They should’ve done more of that. But the banter between Arkin, 84, and Douglas, 74, is terrific. Worth it for that alone.

5. Frozen Force*

*The judges will also accept “The Frigids of Madison Cross Country”

The NCAA Cross Country Championships were held in frigid Madison, Wisconsin, on Saturday around high noon. Snow on the ground, temps in the low thirties. Not great, Bob. But Dani Jones (55, above), a native of Phoenix, won the women’s race while leading Colorado to the women’s team championship.

On the men’s side, Northern Arizona pulled off a historic team three-peat while Wisconsin’s Morgan McDonald won the individual title on his home course.

Music 101

My Doorbell

The White Stripes are THE rock and roll band of this century. Or, were.

Remote Patrol

Chiefs at Rams

8 p.m. ESPN

Football’s two best teams, both 9-1, meet not in Mexico City but in a Mexican-named city: Los Angeles. We know, Spanish-named, don’t @ us.

CHRIS PICKS! WEEK 11

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by Chris Corbellini

These Saints Could Be Something Special

I learned everything I needed to know about teamwork when I was 19. I had just qualified for the Dad Vail Regatta Finals as a freshman rower, and when my teammates and I returned back from the hotel, we spotted the varsity guys playing pool and drinking beers (they had not qualified). One of them, a future commodore of the boathouse, quickly called his shot. I will never forget it.

“Tonight you will hear the greatest speech of your life.”

We were in Philly somewhere. I don’t remember where exactly – and I lived in Old City for seven years in my 30s, so I should. All I recall is that night, after dinner, in a room with all eight of us and our coxswain seated around our coach as he started …

“When you are all rowing together, as one, after all your preparation, it is magic. You will feel it. It will all click. The boat will walk on the water. It’ll feel effortless. It. Is. Magic.”

He was in his late 50s at the time, and looking back now in a hazy way he reminds me of present-day Harrison Ford, with a little more nerd to him. A lifer on that water, always chasing some eight-man boat in his skiff on frosty Lake Cayuga in October and April. He went on, but I’ll stop there. The point was made. When you work together, moving as one for a singular goal, and it begins clicking almost unconsciously … well …

You become greater than the sum.

Everything just moves. It is indeed a magical thing. Perfect synergy in all that sweat. A perfect harmony at the finish as everyone exults, exhausted. A team that manages to find that and become greater than their parts can defeat another loaded with talent. I will always believe this.

Now let’s flash forward nearly 25 years. I’m reading an academic paper about the concept of team fit, and the study used something called Frescoball as a test case (You basically hit the ball to each other using super-size ping pong paddles, and not let the ball drop). The researchers separated the teams of two into eight categories, like so:

Athlete Consistent/Athlete Consistent (AC-AC)

Athlete Consistent/Athlete Inconsistent (AC-AI)
Athlete Inconsistent/Athlete Inconsistent (AI-AI)

Non-athlete consistent/Non-athlete consistent (NC-NC)
Non-athlete inconsistent/Non-athlete inconsistent (NI-NI)
Athlete consistent/Non-athlete consistent (AC-NC)
Athlete inconsistent/Non-athlete consistent (AI-NC)

Athlete inconsistent/Non-athlete inconsistent (AI-NI)

I’ll spare you the math and accompanying graphs, and just explain that the researchers at the University of Madison-Wisconsin punched out a supporting formula for my crew coach’s speech: you whip opponents by being consistent together. The AC-AC were big winners, yes, but the AC-NC and NC-NC teams were not far behind, and in most cases, convincingly beat the others.

And I think about that coach’s wisdom, and frescoball, as the NFL reaches Week 11.  Who is the AC-AC squad, action-packed with immeasurable talent and working together as one?

If the Los Angeles Rams put it together in all three phases during the playoffs … I mean, say goodnight, kids. The Rams are already more than a contender. As of this week, Los Angeles is l1-4 co-favorites to win the Super Bowl. If they can find a No. 3 receiver now that Cooper Kupp is out for the season, and that defensive line really starts to find its groove, and the corners start believing in themselves again, then that’s the AC-AC, and they’ll happily skip away with it. But the Rams aren’t quite there yet. They haven’t found that walking on water moment.

Meanwhile, the New Orleans Saints are grinding away together exceptionally well. There’s no way New Orleans should be 8-1 with that mediocre defense: slot corner P.J. Williams is atrocious (with a 42.6 Pro Football Focus grade last week), and Eli Apple isn’t exactly 2009 Darrelle Revis, either. But the sum is certainly greater than the parts. Throw in Brees and Kamara and Michael Thomas on offense, and there’s an AC-NC dynamic going on down there in NOLA. I can’t wait to see what they do with it … maybe with the HOF-bound Brees as a rallying point, the Saints find that magic and it all comes together in Super Bowl LIII.

And that’s where I’ll start this week. At New Orleans. As always, home team in caps. William Hill odds. I also added some percentages to correspond with the winners I picked – they represent the calculations made by The Quant Edge that those teams will cover the Vegas line. Full disclosure: I currently work at TQE as an advisor.

NEW ORLEANS (-7.5) over Philadelphia (57.2%, 75.5% if Brees plays great)
Iggles QB Carson Wentz is gonna light up the Superdome. Alshon Jeffery, Golden Tate, Zach Ertz, Nelson Agholor … that’s four bottles of lightning right there at his disposal. I’m sure there are plenty of folks out there in gambling-land who expect the Eagles to cover in a close loss.

But looks at those odds: 75% if Brees has a great game! On that turf, in front of that moveable feast of New Orleans fans, I submit that the Brees bar for great would be in the 310-yard, 2-TD passing range. With all that momentum after scoring a combined 126 points in the last three games, Brees could do that after three quarters, and let Kamara take it from there and pad the stats of his adoring fantasy owners from coast to coast.

I see the Saints winning by 10, with their embattled defense (and that D has been embattled since the ‘60s, with a blip of awesome in the early ‘90s) making a big play that surprises us all. There is a danger of NOLA peaking in this one, but let’s not knock the Big Easy off that cloud just yet, shall we?

Houston (-3) over WASHINGTON (58.2%, 81% if Deshaun Watson plays great)
The Texans have a nearly nine-point advantage when comparing their PFF grades on defense to that of the Redskins offense. Houston still can’t cover a tight end, so Washington’s Jordan Reed might enjoy this one (I feel like I write that every week). But the Redskins offensive line is a gooey mess at the guard spots, and the Texans should stunt inside to rough them up.

And here’s a Keanu Reeves “whoa” stat: corner Danny Johnson and his 39.4 PFF rating will face DeAndre Hopkins and his 90.8 score … a 51.4 differential. They will have to double Hopkins, right? Or throw Josh Norman his way? In either case, Watson is gonna throw a bunch while on the run in this one, as that Redskins front can pulverize you in the pocket (their linemen grades last week: 71-64-71-78). And when Watson does roll out, Hopkins is shifty enough to slip free of anyone. I see Houston winning this one on the road by a TD.

Carolina (-4.5) over DETROIT (58%, 73.3% if Cam plays great)
Norv Turner is yet another example of a failed NFL head coach absolutely tearing it up as an assistant. As offensive coordinator of the Panthers, he’s proven to Cam Newton that a two-man game with he and Christian McCaffrey is their best chance to win every week, and it’s worked well so far. That pair will face a Lions linebacker corps that are average at best, and a slot corner who shall remain unnamed who has a PFF-low grade of 29.6.

Still, this might be one of those fantasy-vulture games, where Carolina’s No. 2 receiver has, say, three touchdowns in the first half — instead of McCaffrey or popular tight end Greg Olsen. You wouldn’t expect Lions coach Matt Patricia to fall for such decoy tactics, but this was a weird f-cking week for him, as he spent a testy afternoon with reporters having to defend practicing outside when his next four games are indoors.

ARIZONA (-5) over Oakland (63.5%, 78.6% if David Johnson plays great)
A purely analytical pick, and one totally against my gut. I don’t typically go with a rookie NFL QB at -5. But New Cardinals offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich realized that maybe featuring David Johnson, one of the league’s best players, is, you know, a worthwhile thing. At this point I expect Arizona to ride Johnson like one of Khaleesi’s dragons, burning defense after defense to cinders. A shame it’s too late for the Cards (2-7) to make a real run.

Oh, by the way, the Raiders D is ranked 29th against running backs in the passing game, and 32nd overall, so I punched in David doing well into TQE’s betting tool, and it gave me 78.6%.

Good luck to you all this week.

In the words of the late, great William Goldman: “May all your scars be little ones.”

Last week: 2-2
Overall: 16-21

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 7 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

and from the same game…

Starting Five

The Daily Kerfuffle: All-Houston Edition

The city of Houston was ground zero for all sports kerfuffles last night: the Warriors, who are in the midst of dealing with a minor tiff between two of its starters, were visiting the Rockets, who announced that they were bidding adieu to Carmelodrama after just 10 games (this saga will become ESPN’s first :30 for :30).

And on the gridiron, future Top 10 pick Ed Oliver of the University of Houston fumed at coach Major Applewhite when the latter doffed the former’s oversized jacket that is only for active players who are on the sideline. Why jackets are a necessity at 50 degrees is another issue.

Oh well, at least the Pardon My Take gang will have plenty to discuss all day.

The Warriors lost, by the way. The Cougars won.

2. It’s A Little Bit Funny

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

I hope you don’t mind, I hope you don’t mind, I hope you don’t mind our including this Christmas advert by John Lewis & Partners, which are a chain of high-end department stores in the United Kingdom.

3. Why Are We Fighting The Holocaust All Over Again?

Earlier this week, for reasons that make no sense at all, we started watching Schindler’s List at midnight (and watched it in its entirety). It’s only a coincidence that we were watching just a couple of nights after Jews in our neighborhood were gathering at local synagogues to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, when the Nazis in Germany and Austria destroyed more than 1,400 Jewish synagogues, businesses and homes.

This commemorative gathering came only a week after many Jews in New York gathered to commemorate the slaughter of their denizens at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. Jews are forced to do entirely too much commemorating, we feel.


Earlier this week, during a production of Fiddler on the Roof in Baltimore, a man stood up and shouted, “Heil Hitler! Hell Trump!” and we guess it was just a relief that he did not pull out an AK-47 and start mowing folks down. Those are the things we get to be thankful for. We sorta think Sarah Silverman (also Jewish) put it very well the other night (Here she was on Real Time last Friday: “In this age, I consider myself very lucky that I get a star and I don’t have to sew it on my clothes…”) when she opened her Hulu show this week by stating that we should be thankful for Donald Trump.

Why? Because Trump has brought our ills to the fore. “Trump’s shamelessness brought to light things that were going on in the dark. We can see them now. He is like a black light at a Holiday Inn Express exposing America’s….” (Well, you know where she’s going).

Whether you want to consider him directly responsible or not, Donald Trump has made it safe for Nazis and White Nationalists to feel bold all over again (oh, and while we’re at it, don’t type “Make France Great Again” when they won the Freakin’ World Cup last summer on the backs of African immigrant players; the U.S. failed to even qualify for the most important sporting event in the world). There’s a faction of Americans, a sad faction, who wonder why we took the wrong side in World War II. And thanks to Trump, they’re no longer in hiding. In a bizarre way, we should be thankful for that.

4. A Rock Star Is Born

The trailer alone is enough to make us want to drop everything and see Free Solo, which we can happily report is not the latest installment of the overcooked Star Wars franchise. Alex Honnold, 33, is the world’s greatest (still) living free climber and in June of 2017 he became the first human to scale the 3,200-foot wall of El Capitan without any gear except shoes and a chalk bag. No ropes. No pitons. No carabiners.

I’m off the deep end, watch a I dive in….wait, that doesn’t work.

Knowing how this film will end shouldn’t dull your fascination with it. It’s easily one of the greatest human feats ever, even more impressive than Sweet Pea leading The Land to an NBA championship. And we think we all should see this on a big screen, not on Netflix. That’s just our thought.

5. Aussie Rules

Yes, that’s her….

Is Nicole Kidman in every film AND at every awards show right now, or are we just imagining things? The Aussie actress is 51 but in a bizarre way she’s entering her prime. By the way, Nicole Kidman, Naomi Watts, Margot Robbie. When did Australia’s most valued export become actresses? And then you add Saiorsie Ronan and Kate Winslet to the pile and you wonder if any American actresses can compete…

Anyhoo, we went back down a “73 Q’s” worm hole yesterday and have decided that Kidman is one of the planet’s more delightful people. You tell us what you think. Is Kidman truly this delightful or is simply that convincing of an actress? Does it matter?

Music 101

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vUsQMgEveo

Debbie Harry inspired more crushes, the sisters in Heart had more powerful vocals, and Joan Jett got more love from the MTV, but in the late Seventies and early Eighties no female rocked harder than Chrissy Hynde of The Pretenders. This was the closing tune off their eponymous 1979 debut album and while it was never released as a single, it deservedly garnered plenty of airplay from album-oriented FM stations.

Remote Patrol

Medal of Honor

Netflix

Learn a little more about American heroes…

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 6 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right


 Starting Five

1. Stormy Weather

Attorney Michael Avenatti, the man who never met a cable news appearance he didn’t like, was arrested yesterday on a felony suspicion of domestic violence charge. The man who crusades for the likes of Stormy Daniels and other wronged women is now going to be receiving a plethora of black kettles for Christmas.

We’re reminded of two vignettes: One, Chris Rock’s joke about how Nelson Mandela survived 18 years of being imprisoned on Robben Island but then sought a divorce from Winnie just a few years after being released. Second, there’s a scene in the film Lincoln, after watching a movie in which the president has demonstrated profound patience in dealing with political rivals as he seeks to get the 13th Amendment passed, in which Honest Abe nearly loses his sh*t with Mary Todd because, let’s face it, she was looney tunes.

We’re not equating Avenatti with Mandela or Lincoln. Don’t misunderstand. It’s just that behind a lot of crusaders there’s a home situation that is not handled as easily.

2. I Wanna Ride A Cowboy

That’s former Dallas Cowboy linebacker Jeff Rohrer (1982-87) and his partner, Joshua Ross. The couple, based in West Hollywood, are getting married this weekend. Will this upset the NFL establishment? There’s a “take a knee” joke that we have too much class to explore.

This, from The New York Times story, is the kind of sentence that a writer presents to his editor with anxious excitement, waiting for the moment the editor gets to that part of the story (and hoping he doesn’t kill it):

“The man who once spent four quarters chasing quarterback Vince Ferragamo on a Sunday, will look like a million bucks on his wedding day thanks to Salvatore Ferragamo…”

3. Family Feud

Remember the Pike County murders of June, 2016, when eight members of a rural Ohio family were all murdered in one place at one time, most of them in their sleep? And remember when it was learned that this family, the Rhoden family, were pot farmers and everyone assumed it was a drug hit and MS-13!!!

That’s at least 8 fewer NASCAR fans

Turns out it was another family whose main connection was that their son, Jake, had a child with one of the daughters but did not have custody. Yes, appears it was all a custody issue. Wow, a lot of people are paying for a little youthful indiscretion between a pair of teenagers.

4. LeBron Passes Wilt….Sort Of

In a LeLakers win over Portland last night, LeBron James had his best game of the season thus far: 44 points, 10 boards, 9 assists. Great game. He also passed Wilt Chamberlain in the all-time points department, 31,425 to 31,419.

Curious thing: Of the NBA’s five most prolific career scorers, in terms of total points, all but one (MJ) wore a Laker uniform for at least a game. Something else that’s weird? You have to go all the way down to 18th on the list to find anyone who ever wore a Celtic uniform (Paul Pierce) for at least a season, and yet Boston has the most NBA championships (the Lakers, second-most).

Chamberlain was DeAndre Jordan in a world that was in no way yet prepared for that. Two generations ahead of his time.

Finally, for perspective, the Big Dipper (Chamberlain) still is one of only two players, the other being MJ, who retired with a career scoring average of more than 30 points per game. LeBron averages just over 27 and is in fourth place all-time on that list, although Kevin Durant is at No. 5 and has averaged just 4/100ths of a point less than LeBron over a 10-year career. Our bet is that Durant will end up ahead on that ppg blotter.

5. Cy of Relief (But He’s Not A Relief Pitcher)

What the baseball writers got wrong two days earlier—failing to name Miguel Andujar, with his 47 doubles and 27 home runs, AL Rookie of the Year—they got right yesterday: naming Jacob deGrom NL Cy Young Award winner.

deGrom may be the worst pitcher in baseball when it comes to autocorrect (it always goes to “legroom”; he’s like Dalvin Cook used to be) but we don’t care about his paltry Won-Loss record (10-9). The native Floridian had baseball’s lowest ERA (1.70) AND its lowest WHIP (.91) and as far a we’re concerned those are by far the two most important metrics by which to measure a pitcher.


Nope. Nope. Nope, Michael. And by the way, deGrom’s victory is the latest but not the last example of everyone beginning to realize that the era of the STARTING pitcher is, if not over, about to be far less emphasized by clubs. Won-Loss records have made the STARTING pitcher a thing far longer than common sense would ask.

Music 101

Lithium

Band? Cult? Linen Department? Merry Prankster Wannabes? The Texas-based Polyphonic  Spree were all of that and more and they blazed a brief and memorable trail across the songosphere in the early years of this century. I’ll always remember that one evening we all shared in Irving Plaza. One of the best shows I’ve ever seen.

Here’s Tim DeLaughter and the kids covering Nirvana‘s Lithium. This is an example of one band discovering another band’s song that actually fits the band that did not write it better.

Remote Patrol

Lost In Translation

TMC (not TCM!) 8 p.m.

For relaxing time, make it a Santori time…