by John Walters

Starting Five

Into The Great Wide Open

Bob Dylan? Everyone appreciates his lyrics, but how often do you rock out to him? Bruce Springsteen? Phenomenal, but there will always be an undercurrent of rock fans who don’t understand why the rest of us beatify him.

Tom Petty? Tom Petty is universal. He IS American rock-and-roll. His music is featured at the beginning of Fast Times at Ridgemont High and in Jerry Maguire. You’ve never met nor will you ever meet anyone who thinks that Tom Petty is overrated, or that his style didn’t appeal to them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIB9nmQMkiw

He was cool. He was gifted. He was unique. Tom Petty was that kid we knew in high school who’d tamed his guitar and had the potential to maybe get somewhere, but the difference is that he went ALL THE WAY with his talent. Go watch the doc Runnin’ Down A Dream. Petty knew early on what he was going to do and that he was going to make it. He persuaded Benmont Tench’s dad, a judge, to let Tench drop out of Tulane so that he could join the band as they drove west to L.A. to meet record executives and get a recording deal. They did, of course.

So many songs. So many riffs. So many different moods, and all with that unmistakably appealing nasal twang. Tom Petty IS American rock-and-roll. There is no better singular representative.

(MH’s favorite Petty song)

Petty died last night at the age of 66 after suffering cardiac arrest in the predawn hours of Monday (he hung on for hours after Twitter had pronounced him dead because “you can stand me up at the gates of hell/But I won’t back down”).

When Petty was 11 years old, he met Elvis Presley. Then he went home and told his dad he wanted a guitar. The rest is history. I first attended a Tom Petty concert in August of 1985 and he blew the roof off Compton Terrace, an outdoor amphitheater located along I-10 south of what is now Ahwatukee, Arizona. I last saw him play last April in Nashville. He looked haggard and folks I know in Malibu tell me he was quite the chain smoker. He did not look healthy.

The Gainesville, Fla., native played his final show at the Hollywood Bowl a week ago, ending with “American Girl.” A week later he is gone. God it’s so painful when something is so close and well, you know.

Rest well, Tom Petty. You gave us as many fantastic songs as any American rock-and-roller who ever strapped on a guitar.

I wanna glide down, over Mulholland
I wanna write her, name in the sky
I wanna free fall, out into nothin’
Gonna leave this, world for awhile

There’s really nothing else worth saying. We lost one of our favorites last night. We’ll leave you with this one from Echo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcBcV8hBsvc

25 Indispensable Tom Petty Songs

American Girl

I Need To Know

Listen To Her Heart

Refugee

Here Comes My Girl 

Even The Losers

Dont’ Do Me Like That

The Waiting

A Woman In Love

Deliver Me

Change Of Heart

Don’t Come Around Here No More

Rebels

Southern Accents

Runaway Trains

Free Fallin’

I Wont’ Back Down

Yer So Bad

Learning To Fly

Into The Great Wide Open

Mary Jane’s Last Dance

Walls

You Don’t Know How It Feels

Swingin’

Room At The Top

I’m on a flight and a little scrunched, so pardon the brevity of this. A few disjointed thoughts on what transpired in Las Vegas last night. I hope it makes sense….

1. Perhaps, as the most economically prosperous nation in the world and yet the one that repeatedly deals with more mass shootings than the entire rest of the planet combined, perhaps we should ask citizens of other nations to answer the WHY of it for us. What, in their opinions, is it that is intrinsic to the United States of America that leads to these repeated massacres (Columbine, Virginia Tech, Newtown, Las Vegas)?

You know how sometimes you are unable to see that a shirt looks bad on you or that you’re with the wrong person for you but all your friends can? Would it really be such a bad idea to solicit opinions from people outside our borders?

2. Prayers ARE thoughts. There’s literally nothing you can do that is less trite or hackneyed than to tweet out “Thoughts and prayers.” You may as well say nothing. Also, neither thoughts nor prayers heal bullet wounds.

3. Of course, the gun is only the instrument. The sickness inside someone’s mind is the cause. But we cannot outlaw free will (nor should we) or sick thoughts (nor should we). We can minimize carnage by recognizing that no one outside of the military or law enforcement should have access to semi-automatic weapons (or automatic weapons, or however the 2nd Amendment activists or NRA dudes who know what I mean refer to them as). There is no need, in a civilized society, for citizens to own them when you assess the cost-benefit analysis.

4. It is fair to point out that the founding fathers did not envision guns that fired multiple rounds per second when they drafted the 2nd Amendment. They had no idea how lethal guns could become. On the other hand, the founding fathers were unable to envision words that could be spread across the world in a matter of seconds via Facebook, Twitter and the internet when they drafted the 1st Amendment. All they really knew is that they could not foresee the future; the words were deliberately general in nature with the idea that they would trust future generations to apply common sense to the indomitable path of progress.

Guns and free speech are both far more potent than they were in 1783. However, I’d wager that modernized guns are far more lethal than modernized free speech. You can turn off your computer or phone; you can’t turn off a live round headed your way. It’s way past time for some common sense in gun ownership.

5. I don’t believe in the term “terror,” other than in a general sense. The usage of the term since 9/11 has been one of the more dangerous and toxic things to insinuate itself into our national conversation the past 16 years.

There are laws and there are crimes. There are countries and there are wars. Let’s not mix them. I guarantee you the people lying flat on the ground in front of the Mandalay Bay felt waves of terror last night and at that moment they didn’t give a flying flip as to whether the shooter was mentally unbalanced or a jihadist; if he was a nut job or had a political agenda. It doesn’t matter.

Crimes are crimes. If a person kills people for a political agenda, that doesn’t make it any worse or better for the victims. The more we as a nation talk about terror as a thing, the more we feed oxygen into the fire. There is no “war on terror;” the very admission of such is the greatest weapon “terrorists” will ever have.

by John Walters

Starting Five

American Sniper

Watching the morning news shows discuss Las Vegas, where more than 50 people were shot to death by a 64 year-0ld man (Stephen Paddock of the Arizona-Nevada border town of Mesquite) with an automatic rifle holed up on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay. It’s the worst mass shooting in American history. Jason Aldean was performing at an outdoor country music festival.

Paddock

Hearing a lot of what, but not much about how (aren’t hotel windows in Vegas unable to be opened?) or when or why. The morning news shows are anxious to get first-person eyewitness accounts, but there’s no objective overview. Where is the site? What time did the shooting commence? How did the gunman get the weapons inside the room?

So much gunfire that smoke from weapon triggered room alarm and gave away murderer position, says LV officer intvd. #LasVegas

— Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) October 2, 2017

Note to news producers: We don’t need more than one eyewitness account with tears. We need information.

I guess we’ll soon be having the “thoughts and prayers” tweets and the “You’re not getting my guns” tweets. For now, just another morning in America.

2. Chaos Is A Ladder

If you saw the Saturday Night Live cold open, in between the lampooning (Kate McKinnon’s Jeff Sessions is basically a cross between Smeagol and Forrest Gump) of presidential figures, Alec Baldwin made an important point: Donald Trump, not unlike Petyr Baelish, is all about creating chaos.

So it seemed that Colin Kaepernick was gone and that the anthem protests were dying until Donald Trump called players who did so “sons of bitches,” which of course threw napalm onto the fire.

So look at what we had yesterday, all over the league and across the Atlantic Ocean. This, of course, pleases Trump to no end. He wants to sow division.

3. The Night Michael Che Called The President of the United States A ‘Bitch’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2MVSSgK5L4

This was the keeper moment from the season premiere of Saturday Night Live.

4. The MH Domin-Eight

Nick Saban, currently the best coach in all of American sports

1. Alabama: The Crimson Tide have won their last two games, versus SEC opponents, by a combined 125-3 score.
2. Clemson: Wins versus Auburn at home and at Louisville and at Virginia Tech. Auburn gave Clemson the best game (a 14-6 loss) and is a Top 10 team.
3. Georgia: The Bulldog defense is lights-out and Jacob Fromm is no ordinary freshman at QB.
4. Penn State: Saquon Barkley is your Heisman frontrunner and Trace McSorley is a TOTAL gamer at QB (he threw the 4th-and-undefeated pass at Iowa). Nuttiness have nation’s top tight end and a stingy defense, too. No team I’d rather see break the Alabama-Clemson-Ohio State CFP this season.
5. Oklahoma: Sooners have a soft September before back-to-back versus Bedlam and TCU in November.
6. Washington: Huskies season begins in November with four in a row versus Oregon, Stanford, Utah, Apple Cup. Could go unbeaten and fail to make playoff.
7. Auburn: Tigers have best Scoring Defense of all one-loss teams, and that lone “L” was at Clemson.
8. TCU: If Auburn has best road loss, TCU may have best road win (at Oklahoma State), or at least the best outside of Columbus.

At 218 yards per game rushing (leads the nation) and a WORST of 160, Bryce Love is our Red Grange Award frontrunner.

By the way, here are the top eight teams, in order, in Scoring Defense: Alabama, Georgia, Penn State, Clemson, Washington, Auburn, UCF, Wisconsin. Total losses among those eight teams? One, by Auburn at Clemson.

5. But His Name, You See, Is Stockman

A former director of the Office of Management & Budget sees a huge sell-off in stocks coming. “There is a correction every seven to eight years, and they tend to be anywhere from 40 to 70 percent,” David Stockman said recently on CNBC. “If you have to work for a living, get out of the casino because it’s a dangerous place.”

Reserves

A few interesting stats from the just concluded regular season in MLB (the first one is my favorite).

Music 101

Glass Jar

If David Lynch is looking for a song for his next project, this recent release by Tristen, featuring backing vocals from Jenny Lewis, would seem to be his vibe.

Remote Patrol

The Godfather

AMC 8 p.m.

Because it may be the best American film of all time.

by John Walters

Starting Five

Lights Out

In Green Bay, lightning delayed the Bears-Packers game for 45 minutes and then Chicago linebacker Danny Trevathan delivered this hit on Green Bay wide receiver Davante Adams that knocked him out cold.  Adams had caught a pass near the goal line and was being held up by another Bear defender when Trevathan just laid into him, helmet to helmet. He should have been ejected for targeting and forced to miss the first half of the Purdue game, no?

Green Bay won 35-14 because Aaron Rodgers is Aaron Rodgers and Mike Glennon is not an NFL starter.

2. Someone Else Is Not Fonda Megyn Kelly

Your week is going better than Megyn Kelly’s first week at Today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA_ruiJp1nk

3. Tesla Girls*

*The judges appreciate all references to OMD

This is Cover Girl‘s cover model this month and she’s not modeling for money. Her son is Elon Musk.

Ready to play Cruella if called upon…

Maye Musk, 69 (“verrrrrry nice”), is a South African lass who has been a model (as opposed to a Model S or a Model 3) for decades. She’s even more beautiful, and I know it sounds like heresy, than MH fave Helen Mirren.

4. The Price Is Wrong

We asked the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price, to bid on the actual retail price of several private flights that he took without going over. Price bid $51,887.31 but the actual retail price is approximately $400,000. So no, he did not go over, but I don’t think he’ll be advancing to the showcase showdown.

What’s worse? That Price took all these flights (one to have lunch with his son and then return to D.C.) or that he actually stands up and says he’ll pay for the cost of his seat—the only reason these flights were undertaken was for his benefit—and believes that that should assuage any of us taxpayers.

Yet another Trump-appointed official that you look at and just think to yourself, What an asshole (too many to count).

5. Trumped By Baldwin

Alec Baldwin’s ascendence to the role of Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live last autumn had pretty much the same effect on Darrell Hammond‘s as Trump’s election had on Hillary Clinton. This is a fantastic feature on Hammond in which the comic reveals that post-traumatic stress has led him to cutting his arms. In fact, Hammond cut his arm to relieve stress back in 2000 moments before going on live to deliver his famous Al Gore “lockbox” performance. Well worth your time.

Reserves

Streaming service Roku issues its IPO yesterday and shares finished the day up 68%, from $14 to $23.50. If you made that bet, good for you. Even if you weren’t in on the initial offering, as most of us 99% are not, you could still have finished up more than 33%. The stock is up another 10% this a.m. in pre-market trading…The Astros beat the Red Sox but the Yankees lose and fail to gain ground: Astros are one back of Cleveland for best overall A.L. record (Cleveland owns the tiebreaker) and Yanks are three back of Boston with three to play. If Astros don’t overtake Cleveland, they’ll get Boston again next week….

Thumbs Down Guy perfectly represents the New York fan

It’ll be sad if the Yankees don’t defeat the Twins in the wildcard game next week because suddenly there’s a lot of fun stuff enveloping this team. Besides the Judge’s Chambers in right field, two new wrinkles that are actually organic because the players developed them: 1) the thumbs down after a teammate does something great, which began a few weeks back at Citi Field when Todd Frazier got a clutch hit and a fan seated in the front row gave a double thumbs down (a miserable Mets fan who did not appreciate the Yankees overtaking their park due to Irma?) and 2) the latest thing is Ronald Torreyes (cameraman) and Didi Gregarious (mic) conducting an improvised in-dugout interview of the Yankee who just clouted a home run.

Music 101

Such Great Heights

Nobody writes a song that sounds more like a Microsoft presentation at a tech conference better than The Postal Service. Vocalist Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie hooked up with two other musicians to form this indie band from the Pacific Northwest that rocked the world of English lit majors at all NESCAC schools.

A Word, Please

panoply (noun)

a complete or impressive collection of things

Remote Patrol

Weekend of TV! Gentlemen, start your couches!

Friday

USC at Washington State

ESPN 10:30 p.m.

Win one for the Kippur!

True frosh Stephen Carr is the most dynamic player on USC thus far

Saturday

Saturday Night Live (season premiere with Ryan Gosling)

NBC 11:30 p.m.

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

If we don’t see Kate McKinnon as Megyn Kelly, I don’t know anything.

Sunday

Curb Your Enthusiasm

HBO 9 p.m.

Six years, Larry?!? Six years? Welcome back.

by John Walters

Starting Five

Hugh Gone

The silk pajama party had to end some time.

We imagine Playboy founder Hugh Hefner read Ric Flair’s boast yesterday of bedding 10,000 ladies, cackled, and then fell into his eternal slumber. Hefner, 91, passed away at his residence. Cause of death: exhaustion.

Pamela Anderson has appeared on the cover a record-13 times

The MH staff had the opportunity to interview Hef (he was deaf in his left ear) and spend an evening at the mansion in May of 2000. We hung out at the Grotto and roamed the grounds with the future wife of a high-ranking ESPN executive. Later that night—this is all true—we climbed into Stuart Scott‘s limousine and drove up the coast to Malibu.

The maiden Playboy, with Marilyn Monroe on the cover in December of 1953, remains the best-selling issue with more than 53 million copies sold

What we recall about meeting Hef is that before we were allowed to sit next to him, his rep warned us that if we made any sudden movements toward the maverick publishing magnate, that we’d be quickly tackled and neutralized.

Unlike its imitators, Playboy often rose to high art, as with this June 1965 cover (there’s a 12-page pictorial of Ursula Andress inside, though)

We never subscribed to Playboy, but props to Hef for inventing an industry and launching an empire. It was even featured prominently in Mad Men.

2. Death at Yosemite

A rock fall on El Capitan, the famed granite rock face that rises nearly 4,000 feet from the floor of Yosemite National Park, kills one climber and injures another. The rock was said to have been “as big as an apartment building,” 100 feet by 100 feet. As this is the peak of climbing season, the casualty numbers could have been worse.

3. You Say Pitino, I Say Paterno….

Now available on https://t.co/mNhlZB4Rp7 👀🔥
#RIPitino pic.twitter.com/bLdqRlGJrv

— ThrowboyTees (@ThrowboyTees) September 28, 2017

At more than $7 million per year, Rick Pitino was by far the highest-paid coach in college basketball. Now he’s gone. Less than two weeks ago Pitino was the celebrity game picker on College GameDay. Where next?

4. Survivor: Puerto Rico

More contestants than ever, and everyone wants to be voted off the island. A nation without power and with 44% of its residents lacking access to potable water as Congress mulls whether to waive the (Alex?) Jones Act, which denies foreign countries from sending aid there. Meanwhile, relief supplies sent to San Juan have been sitting at the dock, unloaded, since Saturday.

And your president is claiming that Puerto Rico is in “the middle of the ocean.”

5. Escape From Detroit*

*We totally lifted this item from a SportsCenter report

Imagine you’re a Detroit Tiger fan, or player, or manager Brad Ausmus or owner Mike Ilitch. Staff ace Justin Verlander, a 2011 Cy Young Award winner, is putting together a desultory 10-8 season with a 3.82 ERA when you trade him to Houston. In five starts with the Astros, Verlander goes 5-0 and has baseball’s lowest ERA in that span, 1.05.

The Tigers also traded outfielder J.D. Martinez to the Diamondbacks. In 57 games with Detroit Martinez hit 16 home runs with 39 RBI. In 59 games with Arizona he has smote 29 home runs with 65 RBI, both tops in baseball in that time span.

If only the Tigers had some players this season, they may not have finished in last place in the A.L. Central and with the worst record in the American League.

Reserves

Deshaun Watson, just one of those NFL “sons of bitches.” Also, perhaps J.J. Watt’s example is infectious?

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

Lionel Messi remains the GOAT….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euumiylA3Sw

The Tampa Bay Rays’ catcher is named Jesus Sucre. That’s right: Sweet Jesus.

Kit Harrington (Jon Snow) and Rose Leslie (Ygritte) are engaged. Is that dragon glass in his right hand or a fag?

Music 101

Ohio

Neil Young, a Canadian, wrote this song after seeing photos of the Kent State massacre in Life magazine. Many radio stations wouldn’t play the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young tune because it directly mentioned Richard Milhouse Nixon, the president, in the lyrics. Listen to that angry guitar riff: they just evoke discord and trouble, no?

And try the version above, too. We may have even posted this one before.

Remote Patrol

The Vietnam War: The Finale

PBS 8 p.m.

As Nixon resigns following Watergate, the Americans break their promise to return to South Vietnam should the North break the terms of the treaty and invade again. Vietnam descends into more civil war until the fall of Saigon in 1975. Thus ends the darkest chapter in American history (yet).