IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 4 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

The Unforgettable Fire*

*The judges will also accept “La-Lozenge Land” (because if you live there, you’re coughing)

How bad is it? Thousand Oaks is now Twin Oaks. Bel Air is now Blech Air. The northbound section of the nation’s busiest freeway, the 405, was closed. The inferno consumed nearly 500 acres in Bel Air, the even tonier neighborhood slightly north and to the west of Beverly Hills (and UCLA).

LiAngelo Ball drops out of UCLA, and then this happens. Coincidence?

Sadly, with the Santa Ana winds blowing steadily and no hope for rain in the forecast for at least the next fortnight, the charring shows no signs of stopping.

By the way, sources tell MH staffers that two members of U2—Larry Mullen and The Edge—own lots of property in some of these incinerated areas, hence the second reason for the hed.

2. Al Franken’s Stuart Smalley Struggle

You’re good enough (welllllllll…..), you’re smart enough (okay, mostly), and gosh darn it, people like you (not any more).

Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.) will likely resign today after the latest sexual harassment allegations came forward yesterday, allegations which he disputes. Now the Dems will do the right thing as a means of acting in good faith, but Roy Moore will proceed with the Dec. 12 election for a vacant Senate seat in Alabama because if there’s one thing we’ve learned about being a Republican in the Trump era, it’s that hypocrisy no longer has to be acknowledged.

Because they’re going to bury Franken

Democratic senator Bernie Sanders appeared on CBS This Morning this, uh, morning, and he was asked about a Franken and Moore tit-for-tat (we really need to invent a better idiom here). Sanders suggested “we take it a step further” and get the acknowledged Sexual Harasser in Chief to resign from his job.

Meanwhile, we did come across this line from a 1991 Stuart Smalley bit on SNL: “You’re only as sick as your secrets.” Ouch, babe.

3. The Play-In Game

 

“S-E-C! S-E-C!”

 Earlier this week Sports Media Watch released a list of the top-watched college football games of the season. Here are the seven contests that drew more than 8 million viewers, from least to most:

Oklahoma-Ohio State………………………………………8.1 mil

Penn State-Ohio State………………………………………9.9 mil

Ohio State-Michigan……………………………………….10.5 mil

Alabama-Florida State……………………………………..12.1 mil

Big Ten Championship Game (Ohio St.-Wiscy)…..12.9 mil

SEC Championship Game (Auburn-Georgia)…..13.1 mil

Iron Bowl (Alabama-Auburn)…………………………13.7 mil

So yes, six of the seven most-watched games of the season featured either the Crimson Tide or the Buckeyes. You know, the two teams who basically battled it out for the fourth and final spot in the playoff. One team didn’t beat anyone in the Top 15 or even advance to its conference championship game; the other lost the most important game it played but also lost to an unranked foe, Iowa, by 31.

Everybody: Hurts, sometimes.

So what if the suits in Bristol or Century City and those in Grapevine, Texas, had met and said, “You know what? We’re all making this up as we go along, anyway. Let’s have Alabama and Ohio State play on December 16th and the winner gsts in. Just this one time.”

Honestly, I have no idea what sacred covenant such a game would have broken. It’s a win-win for all, especially whoever would have broadcast it. No way that game, on a Saturday with no other games competing against it, draws fewer than 12 million viewers. No. F’in. Way.

4. Remember Me

Mexico. The afterlife. Murder. Family. Dia de Muertos. Frida Kahlo. Acoustic guitar battles.

I went to see the new Disney Pixar flick Coco last week and man is it bold. It chugs along predictably for the first 20 or so minutes and then all of a sudden it’s taking you over a bridge of marigold petals into the world of the dead. Quite a heady trip for an eight year-old (talking about my emotional age).

Anyway, I couldn’t help but thinking that while this was an audacious and terrific film, it’s going to make an even better theme park ride whenever Disney opens a Disney Tierra or Disney Mundo in Mexico.

5. NCAA Unbeatens

Sooner frosh Trae Young does not play for an unbeaten, but he leads the nation in scoring and is No. 3 in assists

Number two Kansas lost to Washington last night, which means that there are nine unbeatens remaining in Division I: Duke (11-0), Villanova (9-0), Miami (7-0; Do they also use a turnover chain?), Arizona State (7-0), TCU (9-0), Mississippi State (7-0), Florida State (8-0), Georgetown (6-0) and Valparaiso (8-0).

UCLA? The Bruins are 7-1.

None of the above have lost to Iowa by 31, in case you were wondering….

Reserves

World’s Largest Starbucks….

…opened earlier this week in Shanghai. Between this and that library we featured last week….29,000 square feet and 400 employees.

A few random thoughts…This nation was born in the Age Of Enlightenment, but seems to be going down in flames (literally in California, figuratively elsewhere) in the Age of Entitlement. As one friend said to me yesterday, “We’ve become a nation of Veruca Salts.” And, oh, sweetie, do you mind not talking on your smartphone in the coffee shop? Thanks….

 

In the past 24 hours I’ve seen the following internet headlines, “Bitcoin Passes $12,000″, “Bitcoin Rips Past $13,000” and “Bitcoin Tops $15,000” when I Googled “bitcoin price.” It’s currently at $15,746.” To me there’s something funny and ironic about financial experts ripping Bitcoin for having no there there. Like Oakland. Or, religion. I mean, the only reason we “know” there’s a God is because most of us have put our faith in His existcnce. There’s no scientific proof. If enough people believe Bitcoin is a valid means of transacting exchanges, it is every bit as valid. In short, if you rip Bitcoin for not existing in reality and then go light an Advent candle, you’re sort of a hypocrite.

Music 101

Baby, Let Me Follow You Down

This song had been around in one form or another since 1935 when Bob Dylan re-recorded it for his 1962 self-titled debut album. Four years later at an historic concert at the Royal Albert Hall in England, Dylan and The Band turned it from a folk song into an electric-guitar blowout and that shook up the faithful. You have to go to the 1 hour, 3 minute and :06 mark of this video to locate it, but it’s worth it.

Remote Patrol

No Country For Old Men

8 p.m. AMC

A four-time Oscar winner, including Best Picture. Or you can watch the College Football Awards Show on ESPN at 7 p.m. Call it.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 4 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

The Russians Are Not Coming, The Russians Are Not Coming!*

*The judges will also accept “IOC You Later”

In an unprecedented move, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) banned Russia from taking part in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. No Russian anthem will be played, no Russian flag will fly, and the few Russian athletes who will be allowed to take part must wear a neutral color (we suggest beige).

Adelina Sotnikova won gold in Sochi in Ladies’ Figure Skating

This is the IOC’s punishment for the systematic doping that has been a state-sponsored part of Russia’s Olympic movement for years. In case you were wondering, Russia finished 5th, 6th and 5th in overall medal count in the 2014, 2010 and 2006 Winter Games, respectively.

Remember that Russia will be hosting the World Cup next summer, and South Korea is in Group F. It wasn’t South Korea’s call, this ban, but I still expect their players may have difficulty getting showers with hot water.

2. Jerusalem

Over the weekend the film Wag The Dog had a 20th anniversary screening (it got a little contentious, as host John Oliver grilled Dustin Hoffman about sexual harassment allegations related to him). Then on Tuesday Donald Trump, taking a page from the film’s playbook, announced that the United States was formally recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Brave? Bold? Courageous? Or cunning? Distracting? Machiavellian? While Jews and hard-right Christians applaud the announcement that the U.S. will move its embassy from Tel Aviv to the Holy City, Arabs and Muslims have called for “three days of rage.” It’s a maneuver that nobody appeared to need—no U.S. president has recognized Jerusalem as Israel’ s capital since the Israelis took over the city in 1967.

One opponent of the move said, “I cannot keep quiet about my deep worry about the situation that has been created in the last few days.” That opponent? Pope Francis.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was more blunt, and dramatic, saying this move would be “plunging the region and the world into a fire with no end in sight.”

Does Donald Trump actually care about “solving” a religious battle that predates Jesus, or is there a part of him that hopes to instigate terrorist attacks, which will then strengthen his hand about a Muslim ban and a potential military engagement in the Middle East. Donald Trump is not about peace. He’s about victory.

And, oh, doesn’t this maneuver, and the possibility of Muslim acts of defiance in retaliation, sweep Robert Mueller’s investigation off the front pages.

3. Queen Bae and Colin K.

At the Sports Illustrated awards bacchanalia last night (did our invitation get lost in the mail, Chris?), Colin Kaepernick received the Muhammad Ali Legacy Award, and that honor was completely validated by the fact that Beyonce served as the presenter.

Part of Kaepernick’s speech: “I say this as a person who receives credit for using my platform to protest systemic oppression, racialized injustice and and the dire consequences of anti-blackness in America: I accept this award not for myself, but on behalf of the people. Because if it were not for my love of the people, I would not have protested. And if it was not for the support from the people, I would not be on this stage today.”

4. Califirenia

Another month, another fire raging out of control in the Golden State. This one in Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles, between Malibu and Santa Barbara.

I’d be lying if I said I cared half as much about the structures being burned than I do about the wilderness habitat being destroyed. That’s precious land for animals. More than 50,000 acres have been burned, and the only thing stunting this inferno’s growth is firefighters and the Pacific Ocean to the west.

Still, these pictures are incredible, eh? You have to marvel at the courage of the firefighters, and also of the photographers taking these shots.

5. The MH Art Corner

Denis Lebecq

Over the summer we found ourselves spending a day in Carmel, California, and we stepped into an art gallery, the Galerie Rue Toulouse, that had some truly dramatic paintings. So if you ever find yourself in that corner of the country with a half-hour to kill or a few thousand dollars to spend, we highly recommend it.

Marc Clauzade

The Galerie Rue Toulouse…

Reserves

I’m going through Mad Men again. It’s my all-time favorite show (“Duck, Crab. Crab, Duck.”)

 

Music 101

Midnight at The Oasis

The early Seventies were so confusing for us animal-loving kids attached to AM radio. “Put your camel to bed,” but does it bunk next to the horse with no name? Or the horse named Wildfire? Maria Muldaur‘s 1973 hit peaked at No. 6 on the charts and had no part in all in inspiring the Gallagher brothers to name their band what they did some 20 or so years later.

Remote Patrol

Super Troopers

8 p.m. IFC

One of the funniest meow films of this meow millennium stars a bunch of no-names from the meow Broken Lizard comedy troupe meow portraying staties in Vermont. If’ you’ve never watched, get yourself a liter cola, do not say the word “shenanigans” and enjoy. FARVA!

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 6 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

Ahem (We Called It)

Houston Astros World Series champion 2nd basemen Jose Altuve (5’6″) and Houston Texans philanthropic defensive end J.J. Watt (6’5″) and named Sports Illustrated’s “Sportspeople of the Year,” which we called here back in September. It’s the right choice.

2. Hittsburgh

 

On Monday Night Football, Pittsburgh Steeler wideout JuJu Smith-Schuster lays out Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict, who was carted off the field with a head injury. Smith-Schuster cited “karma” as the reason for his hit, and Burfict has been the league’s reigning headhunter for a few years now. Still, these two play twice a year so somewhere down the line there’s a crossing pattern that is going to leave the rookie form USC woozy if not worse off due to this shot.

Jon Gruden: “I don’t know what you have to do to get ejected from a football game….that’s bad football, bad for the game.”

3. Putting The “Bite” In Bitcoin

He may be the most interesting man in the world…

Cybersecurity pioneer John McAfee, who last July boldly proclaimed that the price of a single Bitcoin would be $500,000 by 2020 or else “I’ll eat my dick,” has recently gone “two solariums” on that brazen declaration. He’s taking up a notch.

Last week McAfee proclaimed that the price of a single bitcoin, which as we type this is $11,875 (nearly 12 times its price on New Year’s Day), would reach $1 million by 2020 or else he’d still eat his zucchini emoji.

 

If you did not have a good reason before yesterday to stick around until 2020, well now you do!

4. Ball’s Out!

LiAngelo never played a game for the Bruins. Will LaMelo?

Pulling the “You Can’t Fire Me, I Quit!” card, LaVar Ball has pulled second son LiAngelo Ball out of UCLA (he was one of three Bruin players suspended indefinitely) and promised to train him his own damn self. “I’m going to make him way better for the draft than UCLA ever could have,” says LaVar.

Of course you will.

5. “Jane, You Ignorant Slut!” at TBL

To Jason’s credit, he always engages me when we disagree. I respect that.

Okay, so we were on a big ol’ plane yesterday and missed most of the news, but this caught our eye before we boarded. First, our frenemy Jason McIntyre, grand poobah and founder of The Big Lead, wrote a panting piece on Sunday night about Ohio State’s omission from the college football playoff (imagine, a 2-loss team with a 31-point defeat to an unranked foe failing to make the final four), that was titled, “Alabama In The Playoff Over Ohio State: The Day College Football Died.“

I was one of a few who accused Jason of simply trolling for clicks. The following morning Kyle Koster, a lucid writer at TBL, wrote a counterpoint piece titled “College Football Teams Are The Masters Of Their Fate, The Captains Of Their Souls” because your typical TBL reader has at least seen Invictus, if not read the poem. Kyle’s point is that there were no martyrs on Sunday, that if you 1) play someone with a pulse in the non-conference, 2) win your conference championship game and 3) lose no more than once, you’re in.

Of course, neither Alabama nor Ohio State met this criteria this season, which was Kyle’s larger point. Failure to do all three leaves you vulnerable. And it’s cool for writers at the ssme site to disagree, particularly on this issue. What I found fascinating was this line Kyle wrote: “Quibble with the selection committee’s choice if you wish. Feign outrage for clicks.”

Now who was he speaking to there?

Music 101

Rocky Mountain High

An ethereal voice and a gift as a songwriter (he also wrote “Leavin’ On a Jet Plane”) that’s right up there with Carole King and Joni Mitchell. John Denver wrote the theme song for the state of Colorado with this 1972 gem that shot up to No. 9. Notice here that Johnny Carson needs a little work on his “displaying the album cover” game.

A Word, Please

Fractious (adj)

Irritable and quarrelsome (i.e., me 73% of the time on Twitter)

 

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

Starting Five

Jolly Ol’ (Saint) Nick

There was Alabama coach Nick Saban, who only a month earlier referred to the media somewhat dryly as “rat poison,” appearing on ESPN’s SportsCenter to lobby for his Crimson Tide. Now Nick is far from the most oleaginous Alabamian to lobby for himself with voters this month, but it still seemed beneath him.

Alabama or Ohio State was simply a Ginger or Maryann argument. Do you like Alabama’s one loss (as opposed to Ohio State’s two) more than Ohio State’s more impressive wins, including a conference championship victory over the last unbeaten Power Five team out there? I actually think the Selection Committee takes, as I do, a more holistic approach, balancing bad wins (at Iowa) and OOC scheduling (Florida State or Oklahoma; draw, if you consider that FSU was No. 3 to open season) and week-in-and-out consistency yada yada yada.

All that said, here’s what I’d like to see the Selection Committee REQUIRE of any team wishing to compete in the playoff going forward:

1) No FCS opponents

2)  At least five true road games. If you want to play a neutral site game, sacrifice your seventh home game, not your fifth road game.

Using those standards, who from this year’s field would make the playoff?

Oklahoma, Ohio State, Wisconsin and USC.

Interesting, eh?

2. Ebenezer Trump

The cold open on Saturday Night Live imagined Christmas Trump being visited by three ghosts: Mike Flynn, Vladimir Putin and Hillary Clinton. Extra props to SNL MVP Kate McKinnon for playing Kellyanne Conway and HRC in the same sketch.

Also, the episode had a distinct brogue, as it was hosted by the enchanting Saoirse Ronan (she’ll be back) with musical guests U2. That’s U2 and Eminem already this year. Lorne’s swinging for the fences.

3. “Taxation Without Representation”; Anyone Remember The Last Time That Happened Here?

Yay, diversity!

The U.S. Senate voted in favor of President Trump’s tax bill by a margin of 51-49 at 2 a.m. on Saturday morning. Bob Corker of Tennessee was the only Republican to vote nay on the bill, which is expected to add $1 trillion to the deficit (fiscal conservatism!), and decrease the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20% (stock buybacks!).

That’s not the worst part—personally, the corporate tax rate should be lowered, I think, even though most MNCs obviate that rate. The worst part is that a nearly 500-page bill, with amendments scrawled in on the margins, was delivered to Democrats just a few hours before a vote was taken and GOP leader Mitch McConnell did that Joey Bosa Shrug at them as if to say, “Sucks to be you, doesn’t it?”

Dig: the hardline conservatives don’t want, well, let’s hear what Senator Chuck Grassley had to say:

 

Here’s what I don’t understand: Isn’t it possible to be opposed to deadbeats smoking weed, getting drunk all day and playing Candy Crush while living off unemployment checks and yet still have a heart? I mean, just because I’m not in favor of welfare deadbeats, can’t I also believe that maybe it’s not the best idea for the top 1% in this country to control 38% of all privately held wealth? Isn’t there a middle ground here?

Apparently, for too many Republicans, the answer is no. If you weren’t smart enough to be born the son of a millionaire, that’s your damn fault. And if you are one of those bootstrappers, well, apparently good fortune had nothing to do with it.

What I do think is this: the cure for the bottom half of this country isn’t one giant middle finger from the upper class (the cure is, of course, a long-term war or “law and order” to help feed the Prison Industrial Complex; hell, you knew that).

4. The NFL’s WWE Day

The worst NFL season I can remember (Why did you have to retire, Tom Brady?!? Wait, really?) may have hit a nadir Sunday as the only two noteworthy stories involved Rob Gronkowksi top-roping a Buffalo Bill, Tre’Davious White, causing a concussion; and Marcus Peter chucking a referee’s flag into the stands (and not being ejected; Peters assumed he’d been ejected, so he left the field only to be coaxed back by his coaches).

Anyway, it’s just a circus. Does anyone besides the Philadelphia Eagles even care who wins this season?

5. Long-Distance Runaround

This is Diane Van Deren, a Colorado runner who is not famous for pooping while jogging. No, what Van Deren is known for is being the firs woman to complete the 430-mile Yukon Arctic Ultra. What makes her story so bizarre is that she took up running after having a lobectomy (a part of the brain removed) in 1997 to stave off epileptic seizures.

Following that, as I learned by listening to her story on NPR, she no longer had a sensation of time passing. In other words, Van Deren was less susceptible to fatigue because her mind stopped registering how far she had gone or how far she had to go. She lost the ability to, as all endurance runners are familiar with, psyche herself out. Van Deren, who won the first 50-miler she attempted, sort of became “The Perfect Runner” because she no longer cared about anything except being in the moment.*

Yes, there is a larger lesson outside of running here.

*Speaking of which, this story is a few years old but I’m totally being Van Deren about it by posting it now.

Music 101

Soul Meets Body

Some bands go an entire career without writing a melody this infectious and timeless. Can you ever get tired of the self-propelling beat of this 2005 time from Pacific Northwest shoe-gazers Death Cab For Cutie? The song peaked at No. 60 on the Billboard charts because what do they know/what do I know?

Remote Patrol

Late Night with Seth Meyers

12:35 p.m. NBC

Why this episode? Seth’s lead guest is Samantha Bee, who may have a thought or two on our current political and sexual harassment (and overlapping of the two) climate.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

Starting Five

Flynn de Siecle

General Mike Flynn plea hearing at 10:30 a.m. Ooooooooh! Flynn is expected to plead guilty to one count of lying to the FBI, and we can go out on a short limb and assume he traded information in order to save both himself and his namesake son more jail time. Be on the lookout, Trump son and son-in-law.

2. Tiger’s Making A Comeback

In his latest return to golf, Tiger Woods, 41, shoots a 69 in Round 1 of the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas. It’s his first tournament in 10 months and his first round in the 60s in more than two years.

3. To Leach His Own

Is Mike Leach coming to your ci-taaaaaaay, Knoxville? I don’t know if that will work, but it sure will be fun. A note: Leach has shone in precincts such as Lubbock and Pullman that are remote and where anything above .500 makes you a coaching god. The scrutiny and the expectations will be much, much higher with the Vols.

If you’re keeping track of the coaches Tennessee has reportedly targeted and whiffed on: Jeff Brohm, Dave Doeren, Kim Jong-Un and of course, the Schiano Man.

Update: Tennessee has fired AD John Currie and at this point I gotta be honest: I just don’t care what’s going on at Tennessee.

4. RIP, Gomer Pyle

Talented singer and gifted comic bumpkin actor Jim Nabors passes away. You may know him as the guy who informally began the Indy 500 each year by singing “Back Home Again In Indiana,” but we older folk remember him as the smiling, ineffably happy, golly gee mechanic on The Andy Griffith Show whose idiosyncratic charm landed his character its own sitcom, Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C. Nabors was 87 so his death is not a surprahs, suprahs, surprahs.

Note: Gomer was more of a goober than Goober (George Lindsey), who passed away in 2012 and was actually a former college football player at Northern Alabama.

5. The Aggies & The Ecstasy?

Tomorrow New Mexico State hosts South Alabama in Las Cruces with an opportunity to end the longest bowl drought—57 years—in college football. The most newsworthy bowling event in this southern New Mexico desert town since 1960 involved a mass shooting at a bowling alley in 1990 that left four dead. A documentary, titled Nightmare in Las Cruces, was made about it. The two killers have never been found or identified.

Music 101

Incense and Peppermints

Meet the Strawberry Alarm Clock, a peak psychedelia band from 1967. This tune from the L.A.-based band went to No. 1 for one week in 1967, which is no small accomplishment considering the bands they were up against at the time: Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Doors, The Association, Aretha Franklin and The Monkees.

Remote Patrol

Pac-12 Championship Game

Stanford vs. USC

8 p.m. ESPN

DT Harrison Phillips is a true stud

Can Bryce Love still win the Heisman? No. Can USC still get to the college football playoff? Highly unlikely. Is this going to be an entertaining rematch? Uh-huh. The Trojans won in the second week of the season.