That is, the price of Bitcoin must rise this much on average every day to reach $1 million by January 1, 2021.
Today’s magic number: $883.07
Uh oh? Is that a bubble bursting? The magic number is going in the wrong direction for the second day in a row. Worse, today the price of bitcoin is actually down a significant amount from yesterday. Order up some Grey Poupon!
The New York Times keeps knocking down male monsters one by one, day after day. Yesterday it was Salma Hayek further exposing Harvey Weinstein as the cretin he is. Today it’s three women accusing music mogul Russell Simmons of rape (It’s going to be very easy to get a table at Nick & Toni’s this summer).
I almost forgot: PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley has also been suspended due to sexual harassment allegations.
Man, is it going to be easy to get a table in the Hamptons this summer….
Final thought: The #MeToo revolution did not begin with Harvey Weinstein. It began with that Donald Trump “Access Hollywood” tape. And although Sarah Sanders and Steve Bannon would like us to believe that we “litigated it” i.e., exonerated Trump by electing him, we did not. In fact, Trump’s election only inspired those who have been victims of sexual harassment and assault even more to speak up. So, if there has been any good to come of the Trump presidency (besides the healthy stock market), this is it.
3. Casamigos, Indeed!
No wonder everybody loves him….
Yesterday on MSNBC’s “Headliners” Rande Gerber, husband to Cindy Crawford and tequila magnate, related a tale about how in 2013 his business partner above invited his 14 closest friends, a group known as “The Boys,” to dinner at his home. He then handed each of them a suitcase stuffed with $1 million worth of $20 bills.
Clooney even announced he’d paid their taxes for them. It’s like he’s really Frank Ocean, just with a few more associates and no one robbing Andy Garcia’s casino. Gerber, one of the 14, announced that he did not want the money. And then Clooney told the group that if Gerber didn’t accept the loot, nobody got theirs. So Gerber took his and donated it.
Incredible tale. Amazing that Gerber shared it.
3. Omarasa, You’re Fired!
Wow! I mean, who thought this wouldn’t work out (Everyone raises hand)? Former The Apprentice mean girl Omarosa, who had been working inside the White House as director of communications for the Office of Public Liaison, either resigned or was fired yesterday. Officially, she resigned to “pursue other opportunities,” but there are reports that Gen. John Kelly got sick of her act and that she was “physically dragged” off the White House grounds.
Guess we’ll just have to wait to read the book. Either way, President Trump just lost 50% of his African-American pals.
4. This Is What Assholes Look Like
I’m all for people who are cruel to animals doing hard time in prison. I doubt any of these three will, but I hope karma exists solely so that they get to feel the pain. And here’s a message for bros who run sports blogs that are only too anxious to run scary shark videos or stories: sharks on average are as responsible for as many deaths in the United States as you are, which is zero. And even when they do attack, it’s not out of malice. They are wild creatures who either need to eat or are protecting their turf. Just like you. Don’t demonize them. Don’t exploit them for clicks. You’re only helping to foster the culture of assholes that these bros reside in.
it’s time @ManateeGov residents demand the resignation of elected officials #betsybenac & #robertwenzel – after the pair preferred to protect their sons from justice as opposed to doing the right thing. Robert Lee Benac & Michael Wenzel arrested for felony animal cruelty this wk
Meanwhile, the parents of two of these jerks are elected officials who tried to protect them from being charged. Michael Wenzel’s dad is Robert Wenzel, the Planning Section Manager for Manatee County. Please give him a call at 941-748-5401 ext. 6845 to let him know what a wonderful job he is doing as a parent.
5. Walt Buys Rupert
The Disney Co. is, as Downtown Josh Brown reports, “acquiring all the non-racist parts of Fox” in a $52.4 billion deal. I don’t know if this means that ESPN will “pivot to video” or what exactly.
This story suggests it was Disney’s strongest push to compete with Netflix and Amazon and all the streaming services. Hey, there’s Robert Iger on my TV right now. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, even if he’s my sworn enemy.
Reserves
Last Jedi Edition Luke Skywalker….
Last Alt-Right Edition Steve Bannon….
Music 101
Nights In White Satin
The Moody Blues were named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame yesterday and why not? They practically invented prog rock (some would say that should merit them induction in Rock and Roll Hell) and the English band’s 1967 album Days of Future Passed spawned a thousand future planetarium laser light shows. Reissued as a single in 1972, this song hit No. 2 on the Billboard charts.
Remote Patrol
Lakers at Cavs
8 p.m. TNT
Reading the rumors that he’ll be traded for Paul George and not quite believing it….
*The judges will also accept “The Doug Jones Industrial Complex”
In the most surprising result involving an Alabama underdog since Troy beat LSU earlier this autumn, Democrat Doug Jones defeated serially accused pedophile and slavery nostalgiast Roy Moore for the vacant Alabama senate seat. Jones captured 96% of the black vote and he got over 68% of the vote in the county that has Huntsville, a.k.a. Rocket City, a.k.a. where a high number of educated whites live.
Overall, Jones won 49.9% to 48.4%, and even though that’s not close enough to mandate a recount, Moore has yet to concede.
Think about this. If every write-in vote for Nick Saban (or others: Charles Barkley? Gus Malzahn? Deez Nuts?) had gone to Moore, he might’ve won.
This, by the way, is what you’re up against…
I can’t emphasize enough today how epic this @jaketapper clip is.
Senator Kristin Gillibrand (Dem-New York); Trump hasn’t even come up with a demeaning nickname for her yet
This from USA Today’s editorial board yesterday, a column that was titled ” Will Trump’s Lows Ever Hit Rock Bottom?” (this from Foggy Bottom).
Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office “begging” for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED!
A president who would all but call Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand a whore is not fit to clean the toilets in the Barack Obama Presidential Library or to shine the shoes of George W. Bush.
This isn’t about the policy differences we have with all presidents or our disappointment in some of their decisions. Obama and Bush both failed in many ways. They broke promises and told untruths, but the basic decency of each man was never in doubt.
Donald Trump, the man, on the other hand, is uniquely awful. His sickening behavior is corrosive to the enterprise of a shared governance based on common values and the consent of the governed.
We’ll overlook Bon Jovi’s being named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (about five good songs, tops, and a great hairdo) and focus instead on The Cars and Dire Straits finally getting their moment. The Boston-area New Wave band faded a little too soon, but their eponymous debut album is a classic (kinda like The Strokes’ first album) as is the follow-up, Candy-O. One of the few bands who had two lead singers, Ric Ocasek and Benjamin Orr, who split the duties.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnybirLa4xY
Also inducted: The Moody Blues and Nina Simone. Maybe next year, Journey.
4. Football Is Causing SI To Suffer Long-Term Memory Loss?
This weeks cover of Sports Illustrated….
And here’s an SI cover from 25 years ago…
To be fair, it was true then and it’s true now. We just didn’t know what CTE was back then. Instead, Letterman would just have former Colts defensive tackle Art Donovan on the show and we’d see what nuts looked like close-up.
Then again, we still have three weeks of the regular season left to play
By the way, of the four players SI put on its regional NFL Preview covers last August—Tom Brady, J.J. Watt, Aaron Rodgers and David Johnson—two suffered season-ending injuries, one missed more than half the season and has just been cleared to play this morning, and one is Tom Brady because Tom Brady defies all probability.
5. Tibia Not Tibia*
*The judges will also accept “My Foot Left” and “The Agony Of The Feet”
We began today with a pedophile and we end with the Ped-o-Files. Last week on Vancouver Island on the south western Canadian coast, a man walking his dog found a dismembered foot in a black sneaker. What makes this odd is that it was the 13th foot to wash up onshore in British Columbia in the past 10 years. Where are the rest of these people? Why are feet so buoyant? Can we write a Netflix script for this before you do?
Music 101
Take On Me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5z7cYSbsFU
If you don’t know Lake Street Dive, you’re in for a treat here as this jazzy ensemble covers the 1984 classic from A-Ha. LSD met as students at the New England Conservatory of Music a little over a dozen years ago and took their name from a street that anyone who has lived in Minneapolis, home town of their trumpeter, knows well. The vocalist is Rachael Price, and she has the chops.
Remote Patrol
The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee
HBO Now/HBO Go
Bradlee, Jackie, Bradlee’s second wife, Tony, and JFK (who was having an affair with Tony’s sister).
Polio survivor. Harvard grad. Naval World War II hero. Foreign correspondent. Close bud of JFK. Lion of Newsweek and then the Washington Post, where he shepherded coverage of both the Pentagon Papers and Watergate. Ben Bradlee WAS the most interesting man in the world living in one of the most interesting times in American history. This is a fascinating doc with amazing interviews featuring former colleagues such as Tom Brokaw, David Remnick and Sally Quinn.
By the age of 50, you have the face you deserve. This face says anger and hostility, no?
All The Light We Can Nazi
Last night we watched “Nazi Concentration Camps” on Netflix and last week we read the Pulitzer Prize-winning World War II novel All The Light We Cannot See (in other words, who knows how to party like this guy?). What comes across with great clarity is that Germany was lost as a nation as soon as ordinary Germans began to lose their humanity. As soon as people stopped wondering whether or not they were treating their fellow man with decency and rationalized all miscreantism with the explanation that it was for the good of the Reich, then you opened up a vault of evil.
Welcome to Alabama. And, to a larger degree, much of the United States. And that’s all I have to say about Roy Moore this morning.
2. The Moment Keaton Jones Became Black Mirror
Over the weekend our hearts broke as we watched the 75-second video of a Knoxville, Tenn., boy in tears, seated in the front seat of the family car, asking his mom why he was being bullied at school. Sure, we might have wondered what type of mom videotapes her son as he breaks down sobbing and what type of mom posts such an intimate and tender moment on Facebook, but hey, who are we to inquire (To be fair, Keaton reportedly asked his mom to videotape him after she picked him up early from school so that he would not have to eat lunch in the cafeteria).
Within a day the following happened: big-name athletes went out of their way to support Keaton, from Tennessee QB Jarrett Guarantano, who personally hung out with him, to Stranger Things’ Eleven, Millie Bobbie Brown, who tweeted, “I wanna be your friend,” to Titans tight end Delani Walker to Captain America (Chris Evans) to Luke Skywalker himself (Mark Hamill).
Keaton-Don’t waste time wondering why a bully would be so mean-They’re sad people who think hurting others will make them feel better because they really don’t like themselves-They’re just jealous because you’re so smart & handsome❤️Your friend-mh https://t.co/SUMw3OoCTm
The video has already been viewed 20 million times.
But then it got crazier. A GoFundMe account raised nearly $60,000 (no one ever quite explained what the money would be used for) but then was taken down when the person who launched it, Joe Lam, admitted he had no connection to the family.
There was something about Keaton’s mom, Kimberley, posting something on Facebook with a Confederate flag or other racist posts. As if that had anything to do with Keaton’s classmates stuffing ham down his pants.
It’s 2017, and people can find a way to politicize a 12 year-old boy being bullied at school. It’s Black Mirror.
3. Speaking of Bullying…*
Ball in the family….
*The judges will also accept “Ball-tic State”
Yesterday LaVar Ball announced that he was shipping his two teenaged sons, one of whom just left UCLA and the other who is in high school and could play at any college he wants, off to Lithuania to play professionally. You have to imagine that at some point last night LiAngelo and LaMelo placed a desperate phone call to older brother Lonzo and begged him to become their guardian.
Silly us: 25 years ago a Lithuanian, Sarunas Marciulionis, was striving to prove that he belonged as a basketball player in the USA. Now we’ve got Americans striving to prove that they can play hoops in Marciulionis’ homeland.
It is only 5930 miles from Los Angeles to Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital
The Balls signed pro contracts so they are now permanently ineligible to play college hoops. Meanwhile, their pop said, “”I don’t care about the money. I want them to go somewhere where they will play them together on the court at the same time. The priority is for the boys to play on the same team.”
Couldn’t he have found a rec league in Chino Hills instead of Prienu Vytautas in the Lithuanian Club league? My guess is LiAngelo’s and LaMelo’s next stop is the Canada Goose website.
4. Jason and the I’ll-Go-Nuts
I like Jason McIntyre, the founder of The Big Lead. I think he knows that. But in a world in which Clay Travis blocks me on Twitter, I’m left to obsess with the bizarre ideas that emanate from Jason’s oral cavity. Two from the past week that struck me as odd and just misguided:
“Baker Mayfield’s stock is soaring – but why is his stock going up exactly? He’s just like Bitcoin. It’s not a knock on him, but nobody seems to know why everybody is so enamored with him.” — @jasonrmcintyre on @TBL_with_Jasonhttps://t.co/J5nChBFycZ
No. No. No, no, no. See, Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency whose value has skyrocketed but the reason for that ascension is something almost no one can ascertain and adequately explain. Whereas Baker Mayfield has the top QBR Rating in FBS history, has been called by former first-round NFL draft pick and QB Brady Quinn “the most accurate passer I have ever seen,” and has superior pocket presence and footwork. Plus, he has the IT factor. He shines in high pressure moments. His only drawback is his height, but it’s readily apparent why scouts are so enamored of him.
“I’m not saying that Stanton and Durant were 100% lined up. But Giancarlo Stanton just got to pick where he wanted to get traded, and he picked the best. Kevin Durant was a free agent, he got to pick, and he picked the best.” – @jasonrmcintyrehttps://t.co/WuI58w8DbH
No. No. No, no, no, no, no. See, to understand anything, as Dr. Hannibal Lecter lectures us in The Silence of the Lambs, we must distill it to its essence. The essence of the Kevin Durant exodus is that he went to the very best team CURRENTLY in the NBA and to the very team that his own Thunder should have eliminated less than six weeks earlier. His departure shifted the balance of power whereas once there was one, now there no longer was.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GeZsryVyHk
The essence of Gio to the Yankees, on the other hand, is the best power hitter in the National League going to a team that has the best power hitter in their league and who actually plays the same position. If Jason truly wanted to line up Gio on a hoops analogy, he’d be closer going Kyrie Irving to the Celtics (great player headed to the most dynastic team in in its sports history plus that team is, while not yet the best, on the upswing). And if he wanted to go for pure accuracy, he’d compare Gio heading to Yankees in 2017 to A-Rod heading to Yankees in 2004, not because it’s the Yankees, but because you have a guy who’s maybe baseball’s best hitter going to a team whose most popular player plays the same position as he.
Sometimes I wonder why I don’t have my own radio show, I gotta admit….
5. “It’s a Nice Butt, Dennis!”
This is American figure skater Adam Rippon of Scranton, Pa. He’s in the news today because he felt the need to assure everyone that his butt is not fabricated. Not exactly I, Tonya, but it’s news.
McAfee Meter
Days remaining until New Year’s, 2021: 1,116
Yesterday’s Bitcoin Price: $16,389
Current Price of Bitcoin: $17,061
Yesterday’s magic number: $880.59 per day.
That is, the price of Bitcoin must rise this much every day to reach $1 million by January 1, 2021.
Today’s magic number: $880.76
Takeaway? The price rose at just about that rate in the past 24 hours, just a little less than it should’ve, but almost a negligible difference. Bottom line is Mr. McAfee can feel good about not being the Theon Greyjoy of Silicon Valley, at least for today.
Music 101
Friends of P
The dying days of MTV mattering to music fans in the mid-Nineties saw this song by The Rentals getting heavy play. This, from singer/songwriter Matthew Sharp, is the supposed inspiration for the song:
“It is about Ric Ocasek wife Paulina Porizkova. Ric produced the first weezer record. His wife would come down while we were recording and she would do these palm readings. She was a very bright woman, and she would always do these palm readings for fun. She said the only people that have ever written her a song…she was a supermodel in the 80’s…the only people were these bad heavy metal bands…that night I went in the hotel that Pat Wilson and I were staying at and we said we had to bring her in and write a song about her for fun.”
Remote Patrol
The Crown, Season 2
Netflix
Haven’t watched an episode yet, but we were royally huge fans of Season 1. Knock ’em dead, Lizzy.
