IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

https://twitter.com/den_nuhmus/status/1125228045516910595?s=20

and….

Starting Five

The James Gang may take Golden State to a 7th game for the second consecutive year

Harden Home

There’s only one team of the eight remaining in the NBA playoffs that has yet to lose at home this postseason: the Houston Rockets. Last night the Missiles couldn’t miss, as James Harden put on a vintage performance that included 38 points and six threes.

Houston has won 12 in a row at the Toyota Center and 17 of 18 overall and I don’t know why they don’t have that otherwise ubiquitous brunette Toyota pitch woman doing in-game interviews.

Of course, they’re still going to need to defeat Golden State at Oracle at least once if they hope to advance. Clip ‘n save: If Houston forces a Game 7 this weekend, it could be the Dubs’ FINAL game at Oracle as they’ll move across the Bay to the Chase Center come autumn.

In Good Kompany

What were you thinking, Leicester City?!? Vincent Kompany may be an aging (33) Belgian legend, but he’s still a legend. The Manchester City captain was left unguarded from about 27 yards out with the match still scoreless yesterday in the 70th minute. He then delivered a strike that, as announcer Ian Darke aptly put it, was “postage stamp.”

Man City wins 1-0 and takes the Premier League over Liverpool, 95 points to 94, with one match remaining for each side. The Reds, despite losing only one match all season, must win and hope Man City loses or draws this Sunday in order to avoid finishing in second place.

Hero Takes A Fall

As he does in this photo, Riley Howell stood out in real life. And in the final moments of his life. After his funeral on Sunday, his father, a nurse, revealed how the UNC-Charlotte student had been shot three times while tackling the gunman who had invaded their classroom last week. Mr. Howell spoke of how he had personally viewed the body and, being somewhat of an expert on such matters, noted that two bullets must have hit Howell in the torso and body first, and that the final one had struck him in the jaw at such close range that it left a muzzle burn.

Howell and his girlfriend of more than 3 years, Lauren Westmoreland

The shooter, who did not attempt another shot after being body-slammed by Howell, would complain to police that he thought he had internal injuries. Read The New York Times story on Howell. It almost feels as if he was chosen to be at that spot at that moment: to save lives.

Fifth Avenue Camp

The Met Gala, Vogue editor Anna Wintour’s annual shakedown of the fashion industry in order to benefit the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, was held on a cool, Parisian sky-like night in Manhattan last evening. The theme was “Notes from Camp.” And there’s Janelle Monae once and for all answering the question, “What exactly do you wear on a snipe hunt?”

Lady Gaga’s outfit would not fit in the apartments of most NYC residents her age

The first rule of attending the Met Gala: You ABSOLUTELY must evacuate all bowels and kidneys before donning your evening attire. Because you won’t be doing so for the next six or so hours.

GEMs

This happened to us recently: riding our bike in one of Manhattan’s fabulous designated bike lanes. Suddenly a millennial on a skateboard, a white dude probably in his early 20s, slowly drifts right into our lane, approaching head on. You know the reason this is happening: his face is glued to his smart phone.

So we slow down and say nothing until he is right upon our front tire. He stops abruptly, looks up at us, and you know what he says? Pointing at our bicycle, he says, “Those things do turn, you know.”

BAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAAA!

We actually want to thank him. Why? First, because he inspired in us a new acronym to describe him and his ilk: GEM, which we imagine you’ll guess on your own (we’ll reveal in a moment or two below). Second, because he taught us how to deal with all such future encounters: we will simply continue at our current speed and as we get breathtakingly close to an oblivious-to-his-surroundings smartphone addict, simply unleash the most blood-curdling death scream possible. We’re actually looking forward to it.

GEM: Godawful Entitled Millennial.

Eighty-Six Happiness Update

Yesterday, for the first time in my illustrious serving career, I worked at two restaurants in the same day. Did a lunch shift at a place where I’m the newbie, then a dinner shift at my old stomping grounds where I was actually training two waiters simultaneously. I go through pens a lot faster as a waiter than I ever did as a writer.

Music 101

Song On The Radio

You gotta love the cojones on a guy who writes a song with this title thinking, knowing, that it will end up on the radio. Al Stewart received steady airplay, especially on the Adult Contemporary stations, for a string of hits in the late Seventies. This one hit No. 29 on the charts.

Stewart, a Scotsman (his name actually translates into the Scots dialect as “Easy Listening”), played the first-ever Glastonbury Festival in 1970 and actually knew Yoko Ono before John Lennon did. Of course we got that off Wikipedia. Leave us alone.

Remote Patrol

Champions League Semis: Barcelona at Liverpool

3 p.m. TNT

Could Barca, which won 3-0 just six days ago at Camp Nou, possibly be denied a spot in the final later this month? Well, yes. It was only a year ago in the semifinals when Barcelona beat Roma 3-0 in the first leg on the road only to, somehow and quite shockingly, lose 4-1 at home to Roma in the second leg. Roma advanced on Away Goals (since both squads had the same amount of aggregate goals, 4-4, the first tiebreaker).

Sure, it’s highly unlikely that Liverpool, which would need to win 3-0 to force extra time or 4-0 (or 5-1) to win outright, will survive this day. But that’s why it’s worth tuning in, no?

That and the fact that Lionel Messi remains a god walking among mortals.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Starting Five

Stay In Your Lane, Bro*

*The judges will not accept “Won’t Get Foaled Again”

On Saturday night the Kentucky Derby rebranded itself as the “most exciting 24 minutes in sports.” First came the 2-minute race in the slop of a downpour. Then, for the first time in 145 editions of the Run for the Roses, the stewards overturned the decision after two jockeys complained that the winner, Maximum Security, had veered out of its lane on the final turn and cut them off.


Just because something has never happened before does not mean that it can’t happen. Or that it should not. The stewards seemed to agree that Maximum Security’s jockey, Luis Saez, had allowed MaxSec to veer three lanes outside of where it should have. What would have been a disastrous chain-reaction of falling horsies was narrowly averted.

On the other hand, just how egregious was this interference as compared to all the other Derbies in which 18 or more horses have entered? Our guess is that you can probably find a similar blocking out of a contender in at least every other Derby that’s been held the past 25 years. So has VAR invaded Churchill Downs, too? Apparently, yes.

So, yes, the ruling meant that 65-1 long shot Country House was declared the winner and also, for the first time in the race’s history, which spans three centuries, the horse that crossed the finish line first did not win. Rubbin’-is-racing may be true when we’re talking 100s of horsepower, but when your ride has just one horsepower, it is not.

And of course Donald Trump is not happy about this outcome. After all, Maximum Security is his 2020 campaign slogan. Maybe he’ll just invite MaxSec to the White House next week.

Re-enter Sandman

Twenty-three years and $4 billion in boffo box office sales later, Adam Sandler returned to the best job from which he was ever terminated: Saturday Night Live. The Sandman hosted SNL this weekend and it is clear that he is something of a legend/hero to the current cast. Who cares if Lorne gives you the thumb down if you can go on to be even wealthier than he? Ballsy cameo by the second person to join the Sandman on the stage for “I Was Fired.” But if experience has taught SNL comics anything (cough, Larry David, cough, Chris Rock, cough, Sandler, etc.), it should be that recklessness is a masterful career move.

Russian Flight Disaster

In Moscow, a Russian Aeroflot passenger plane caught fire while making a bumpy landing at Sheremetyevo Airport. More than half its passengers died.

The flight originated in Moscow and was bound for the northern Russian city of Murmansk with 73 passengers and five crew aboard. Shortly after takeoff it was reportedly struck by lightning and returned to Moscow where it made a bumpy landing and caught fire. Forty-one of the 78 onboard perished.

All 143 human passengers survived this flight, though a few beloved pets perished

It was a weird and tragic weekend in aviation. Besides this disaster, not one but two planes found themselves ditching in the drink of the St. John’s River in Jacksonville. No people died, somewhat miraculously, in the unrelated incidents, but at least four pets, trapped in the cargo hold, did. Sucks.

On the flight pictured above, bad weather was blamed for a rocky landing. The flight was carrying U.S. military personnel from Cuba.

Don’t Want No Scrubs

Above, that’s Jessica Anderson, a nurse who ran the London Marathon in scrubs a week ago and crossed the finish line in 3:08:22. As the Guinness Book of World Records actually has a standard for fastest time running a marathon in a nurse’s uniform, and as that record, set in 2015, was 3:08:54, Anderson assumed she’d etched her name in the legendary almanac of human superlatives.

Not so fast, my friend. Guinness, for the moment, is not recognizing Anderson’s feets’ feat because they say it has to be “a white or blue dress, pinafore apron and white cap” to qualify as a nurse’s uniform. In other words, what you see on the cover of Blink-182’s Enema Of The State album.

Acceptable nurse’s uniform. Say it ain’t so/I will not go…

Wait until race fan Donald Trump hears about this…

Anyway, Guinness will probably fold under the pressure of all the woke folks. Meanwhile, no one is even sure if the existing record holder, Sarah Dudgeon, is even employed as a nurse. Does that even matter to Guinness?

5. Cersei Don’t F**k Around

We know President Trump does not watch Game Of Thrones because Rupert Murdoch does not own HBO, but we imagine that if he did his favorite character would be Cersei Lannister (SPOILERS COMING). Dig, while Winterfell was celebrating its four-overtime victory over the Night King or Night Ranger (both from north of the border so let’s not quibble here), Cersei was manipulating yet another horny man into helping her cause.

We’re eight seasons in and Cersei remains alive while possessing only two worthwhile attributes: 1) beauty and 2) heartlessness. She warned Eddard Stark in Season 1: “If you play the game of thrones, you either win or you die.” She knows that. She is, if nothing else, a survivor.

Late in the episode Tyrion appeals to his sister over her sense of motherhood, to the three children she has lost (poisoning, poisoning, leap from a balcony) and to the one in her belly. Tyrion goes all Jeff Flake on Cersei and her response, without even batting an eye, is to chop off Missandei’s melon in front of her lover and her queen. Power move.

Even Winterfell has a Starbucks

The show’s creators, Benioff & Weiss, have set up a wonderful and intriguing last half of the final season of their epic series. Beyond just Westeros versus Cersei, we have “THE SECRET” getting out (Sansa, it is implied, told Tyrion who has told Varys) plus we have Sansa, whose face the cameras love even more than panoramic dragons-flying shots, feeling the way most of us do: Dany has done a lot of good, but she’s coaching a little too much like Norman Dale at Hickory High. And she’s down to one dragon.

Yeah, we all thought the Night King and the Wights were the greatest threat to humanity. We forgot about how ruthless Cersei can be. This is the woman who overcame the Sparrows (Her “Shame! Shame!” walk was Trump’s 2012 White House Correspondents Dinner) and lit up half of King’s Landing just to reclaim her throne.

The feeling here is that, and just watch the revised opening credits this season for your clue, the final scene will take place in the proximity of the Iron Throne. We also like the odds of Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer, adding Queenslayer to his list of noms de guerre. But we also think he’ll lose his own life in the process. He is, after all, as he said, “Hateful.”

Redeemed, but still hateful. His sister? Irredeemable. As she demonstrated yet again last night.

Music 101

Planet Earth

Fair to say that the best description for Duran Duran‘s early look was “Cocaine Pirate?” This was the synth-pop-New Wave sensation’s first hit in the U.K., debuting in the spring of 1981. The band wouldn’t really crash on these shores for another year with “Hungry Like The Wolf,” but this early Duran squared is the band at its purest.

Remote Patrol

Premier League: Leicester City at Manchester City

3 p.m. NBC Sports Net

Liverpool fans will become Jamie Vardy fans this afternoon

So this is fun. On Wednesday Liverpool got their hats handed to them at Barcelona in a Champions League semi, then turned around and needed an 86th-minute goal on Saturday at Newcastle to remain within striking distance of Manchester City to win the Premier League. Liverpool has just one loss in 37 matches and 94 total points. Manchester City, the defending champs, have more losses but also fewer draws. After 36 matches MC has 92 points (3 points for a win, 1 for a draw).

With a victory today versus Jamie Vardy and the 2016 Premier League champs, Leicester City, Manchester City would retake the league with one more match remaining for both clubs. With a draw, Liverpool would hold a 1-point lead with one match left for both.

Add to this that Liverpool must host Barcelona on Tuesday for the second leg of its Champions League semi (in which it must either beat Messi & Co. by 4 goals or more or at least 3-0 to force extra time). Even though Liverpool is not playing today, this game is the beginning of an auspicious week for Reds fans, one that may either be crushing or exultant. While Man City has won three Premier League championships this decade, Liverpool has not finished atop the League since 1990.


IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Starting Five

Thor hammered an opposite-field 407-foot homer in the 3rd inning for the game’s lone run

True Norse

It was a rough April for New York Met flamethrower Noah Syndergaard, as he exited it with a 6.35 ERA and a 1-4 record. But the 6’6″ pitcher whom the fans call “Thor” started out May on fire, tossing a complete game shutout and hitting a solo homer for the game’s lone run in the Mets’ 1-0 matinee win versus Cincinnati.

How rare was Thor’s feat? It’s the first time anyone has pitched a complete game 1-0 win in which they homered since Bob Welch of the Dodgers did so in 1983. Since 1920 Major League Baseball has seen 21 perfect games and 14 “natural” cycles (players hitting for the cycle in ascending order of single, double, triple, home run) but only SEVEN times has anyone ever done what Syndergaard did Thursday afternoon at Citi Field.

XY Marks The Spot

We took the most cursory stab at the Castor Semenya ruling the other day. Our initial thoughts were that as no athlete in this instance is attempting to cheat, what’s fair for the great majority is athletes is the right thing to do. So while that ruling appears to penalize Semenya, the greater good is to not penalize all the athletes that must compete against her.

Then Robert Johnson of LetsRun.com wrote an eye-opening piece yesterday. First, Johnson pointed out that almost no one in mainstream media, including highly prestigious papers such as The New York Times and Medium Happy (Ed. Note: We may be fudging on that particular), had bothered to note that Semenya has XY chromosomes.

Kind of a big deal. Or, as Austin Powers once noted, “It’s a man, baby!”

Okay, that was a cheap shot. But “intersex,” which is what Semenya is categorized as, is someone with XY chromosomes and female genitals or XX chromosomes and male genitals. According to studies Johnson cites, true intersex births occur just .018% of the time, or in less than 2 of every 10,000 births.

And here is the truly compelling fact Johnson drops at the end: In the 2016 Olympics, all three medalists in the women’s 800 meters were intersex athletes. All three. Not just Semenya. In the interest of fairness, something had to be done.

No-Bull Marketï»ż

The most successful IPO of 2019 thus far belongs to Beyond Meat, a Los Angeles-based purveyor of plant-based meat substitutes (and yes, that is Jessica Chastain; the company is a favorite among the Hollywood effete elite).

On Wednesday evening the company priced its initial shares (ticker symbol BYND) at $25 but when the market opened the first trades were for $45. By day’s end shares of the stock closed at $65, or a 163% gain in one day for those fortunate enough to have gotten in on the IPO.

Where does the stock go from here? And how long before a Beyond Meat celebrity-themed restaurant named Plant Hollywood? Calm down, Susie B., we’re not recommending this the way we did Bitcoin (and by the way, GBTC is up more than 80% since early February, sooooooo……).

“You wanna do what?!?”

There’s something more going on here than veggie burgers, of course. Cows (and we love you, cows) eat up a lot of available land in the USA (gotta graze somewhere) while also producing lots and lots of methane gas that warms the atmosphere. From an environmental standpoint, there’s a two-pronged reason to reduce the moo moo population. People will always love ribeye, no doubt, but there is a valid argument to be made for making beef more like lobster as opposed to more like, say, corn, in terms of its sheer volume.

Another Anthony Munoz?

Yesterday Bleacher Report published a terrific piece by Adam Kramer about a 5’9″, 160-pound high school quarterback from southern California named Anthony Munoz. The gist of the story was that while Munoz threw for a nation’s best 5,010 yards and 67 touchdowns as a senior at Anaheim’s Western High School last autumn, the 4.0 student has received no Division I scholarship offers.

Great story, right? We’re intrigued. Now, maybe Kramer and his editors simply didn’t care to add this aside, but what we found interesting (and what our editors at SI would surely have insisted we add) is that the greatest Hispanic football player ever is not only his namesake (though, we assume, not related) but is also a mountain of a human being: 6’6″, 280-pound Anthony Munoz, who was a consensus All-American offensive tackle at USC and played 13 seasons for the Cincinnati Bengals before being enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The other Anthony Munoz

Such was Munoz’s greatness that there’s even a Modelo beer commercial about him.

Remember a few weeks back when we launched into one of our frequent tirades about the state of journalism and noted that for a tribe to be healthy, it needs a mix of young, in-their-prime, and older members? Maybe Kramer and the editors simply felt that this aside was not germane enough to mention, or maybe none of them remembered Munoz, who played college football in the 1970s and for the Bengals in the 1980s and early Nineties.

But imagine doing a story on a Chinese-American high school basketball player who led the nation in scoring this season but didn’t land a scholarship offer because he was only, say, 5’7.” And then imagine that his name was Yao Ming. Do you think there wouldn’t be a single place in the story where that irony was not mentioned?

Hamm or Pidgeon?

Pidgeon

We tuned into TCM the other morning—it was a day ending in “y” after all—and spotted a tall, young handsome actor in a film from 1939 titled Stronger Than Desire. How did Don Draper pull off that time traveling trick?, we wondered.

The thespian in question is Walter Pidgeon, who like his modern-day doppelgĂ€nger Jon Hamm was 6’2″. Pigeon, who enjoyed a long and steady career both in films and on Broadway, was born and raised in New Brunswick, Canada. He was twice nominated for Best Actor Oscars and his most famous role was as Greer Garson’s hubby in her Oscar turn as the title character in the 1942 film Mrs. Miniver (which aired at 11:15 p.m. on TCM last night—sorry).

In case you were wondering, we wondered if anyone else had made this connection. It’s the internet age, so of course someone had. We noticed someone else blogged about this last year.

Music 101

Counting Blue Cars

Only too happy (should we rename the blog “TooHappy?” Naww) to find this acoustic version of Dishwalla‘s lone hit, from 1996. The band got lost in a surfeit of mid-1990s bands that started to sound too much alike (Hello, Incubus and Live and Tonic and Fuel) but it’s nice to see they can still get together and perform this song with some earnest musicianship. The band hails from Santa Barbara, so don’t feel too badly for them.

Remote Patrol

Jeopardy!

7 p.m. ABC (check your local listings)

If you haven’t seen James Holzhauer play yet, tune in before he takes a short sabbatical. The professional gambler who was raised in the Chicago suburbs is dominating on a daily (double) basis and has amassed more than $1.6 million in winnings while winning the second-most games (behind only Ken Jennings) in the show’s history. After tonight the show will run its annual teachers tournament, so we assume he’ll be gone for at least one week or so.


IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 9 Comments

By John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Back in the old days that right-wing Christian evangelicals give more creedence to than modern science, events such as these would portend God’s anger with mankind, no?


and…


Starting Five

Lowering The Barr

Unlike most outlets we’ve seen, we’re going to give Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) a B-plus but no higher on her questioning of Attorney General William Barr yesterday. While her strategy was on-target, she did not follow through on execution as well as she might have.

Watch the first two minutes, the important part, below:

She goes vintage 1987 Mike Tyson on William Barr, landing a knockout punch right at the opening bell. Where she errs, however, is in that instead of letting Barr fall on his own, she continues to toss a flurry of softer blows (“seems you’d remember something like that…”) that actually help keep him on his feet.

The question was a solid strike. Barr’s very inability to answer it quickly and directly is more important than the answer itself. Her interruptions only distract us from that point. Harris’ ego got the better of her here and she started grandstanding (“hinted”….”inferred”…..once again, this is improper usage of the word inferred, which is an action by the receiver of a comment, not the commenter himself; she meant to say “implied”).

Remember being in school and not knowing the answer and the teacher just let you twist in the wind for a few moments? That’s what Harris should have done. Watching Barr squirm as he attempted to evade and/or obfuscate her direct question, that was far more important than anything she could add or any other question she might ask. The point was to illustrate that Barr has forfeited his integrity. Why she kept interjecting is beyond us.

There’s much, much more to unpack on Barr’s day before the Senate Judiciary Committee, but frankly it’s all just the same episode on repeat now (this, the Kavanaugh hearings, etc.). What we have here is a party, the Republicans, who for decades hailed themselves as the protectors of law, of integrity, of values. Now their leaders (Barr, Graham, etc.) are only too eager to debase themselves in hypocrisy for what they see as an even higher value: keeping Republicans in power.

So the question is Why? and the answer is simple: In their minds Republicans are the only ones who understand/appreciate American virtue. What they have warped, of course, is the idea that America is only America if white males, preferably upper middle class or wealthier, are in charge. Whether they consciously or subconsciously adhere to this, that is their highest if not only value.

Two further observations: We watch, as you know, a lot of TCM. These are the films many of these troglodytes grew up on and you know what: every major character in a film made before 1960 was white. Every one. Even those that were not white were often played by white people. If Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball in 1949, it would be nearly 15 years before Sidney Poitier did the same in Hollywood. Yes, there were blacks before Poitier, but I can’t think of one in a leading role.

Second, in the past two months we’ve read three books relating to World War II that described either POW conditions or the worst of combat conditions in the Pacific—

—for the record, The Jersey Brothers, With The Old Breed and The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz.

One thing that becomes hauntingly clear is that when conditions deteriorate to the point where the only question is survival or death, then for all but the most extraordinary individuals scruples and ethics and character fly out the window. Almost no one is sharing a found piece of bread in a concentration camp.

And so this is where the Republicans find themselves. They see a nation that demographically is only going to become less white-male dominated and at this point it’s every man for himself. It doesn’t matter how they get the votes, or how they remain in power, or what past statements they’ve made that they now completely turn their backs on. All that matters is that they remain in power. Some of them, such as William Barr, probably even consider themselves patriotic.

It’s funny. Barr had an excellent previous working relationship with Robert Mueller, and even considered him a good friend (he told Donald Trump as much when he appointed him to AG), and yet yesterday in front of the nation he referred to a letter Mueller wrote him as “snitty.” He even sold his friend out for power.

Last point, and maybe I’m straying too far afield here, but maybe it’s just this simple: Could it be that the reasons Republicans are not tougher on the Russians is because the Russians funnel campaign funds to them through donations to the NRA, which in turn donates heavily to Republican pols? Follow the money, indeed. Could it be as simple as that?

Master Strokes

For much of the first 75 of so minutes of Barcelona’s semi-final match (first leg) versus Liverpool yesterday at Camp Nou, genius striker Lionel Messi almost appeared apathetic. At one point he simply took a rest near the side of the pitch during live action. At least two other times he was offside and didn’t make the slightest move to move into an onsides position even though Barca had reclaimed possession.

When Messi decided to punch the time clock, however, everything changed. With Barca clinging to a 1-0 lead in the 75th minute, and with Liverpool seeming to outplay Barca, Messi gained possession and dribbled into a mini break that led to a Luis Suarez shot that ricocheted off the crossbar and right into Messi’s torso. He punched it in for an easy goal.

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

A few minutes later, with Liverpool reeling, the Argentine native took a free kick from 27 yards out and did the world’s best Bend-it-like-Beckham impression we’ve seen in years. Honestly, though, who was even surprised by this point? It was the 600th goal in a Barcelona uniform in Messi’s unrivaled career.

Omaha Stakes

The odds-on favorite for this Saturday’s running of the Kentucky Derby, Omaha Beach, has been scratched due to a “trapped epiglottis.” As FOTB Jamie Reidy noted, “Trapped Epiglottis will be playing an all-ages show in Williamsburg on Saturday night” (we mildly massaged your line, Jamie; hope you don’t mind).

If college hoops is March Madness, horsey racing is May Hem.

You Know Nothing, Joe Jonas

Chaos is a ladder, and Joe Jonas may need a step ladder in order to kiss his new bride, Sophie Turner. We all know her better as Sansa Stark, who unfortunately in real life appears to have reverted to her King Joffrey-obsessed ways. The couple were apparently married by an Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas yesterday.

We don’t object to the idea of Sophie with a shorter man, of course. We just prefer that man be a Lannister. The realm is reeling this morning.

Finally, A Tennessee Suspension Not Related To Bruce Pearl or Memphis Hoops

The longest pedestrian suspension bridge in the USA, the Gatlinburg SkyBridge in eastern Tennessee, is set to open on May 17. The aerial walkway will measure 680-feet across and we’ll check back after the first selfie-related death from the bridge occurs.

Music 101

Venus and Mars/Rock Show

One can get lost in the sheer number of post-Beatles iconic tunes that Paul McCartney has written and recorded. We searched for this tune for 5 minutes this a.m. based on our atavistic memory of the chorus, having no idea that it was a Wings tune. The single reached No. 12 on the Billboard charts here in the States in 1975.

Remote Patrol

College Football: Alabama Spring Game

10 p.m. ESPNU

Also known as “NFL Combine, 2.0.” If you are watching this you either know the call-in number to Finebaum or you’re an NFL scout. But that’s okay. See tomorrow’s stars today. And let’s face it: this is the stiffest competition the Tide’s starters will face until they meet Georgia in the SEC Championship Game.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Starting Five

The Breakup

The photo above suggests that Robert Mueller has been casting a wary eye over his erstwhile friend and boss William Barr for decades. Barr was once Mueller’s boss at the Department of Justice and during his Attorney General confirmation hearings last summer, Barr said, “I told [President Trump] how well I knew Bob Mueller and that the Barrs and Muellers were good friends and would be good friends when this was all over.”

Not so fast, my fiend. Turns out that Bob is P.O.’d over how Bill summarized his two years of investigating. Mueller in fact wrote a letter to Barr earlier this month criticizing his former boss’ “lack of context” in mansplaining the Special Counsel report.

Barr heads to the hill to obfuscate testify before Congress.

Polls By Brooks

For five years or so, seminal sport blogger Brooks Melchior disappeared from the social media landscape, a place where he had once promulgated ideas prolifically. Now he’s finally back, and almost all of his tweets are straight-up polls. To wit…

I guess the responsible thing to do here would be to take a poll on whether or not we’re disenchanted with Brooks’ polls. That said, I’ll take these over anything emanating from Nate Silver and 538.

Castor Cast Out

By a 2-1 ruling, the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport decided that females with naturally elevated levels of testosterone, such as two-time Olympic 800 meters gold medalist Castor Semenya, must take suppressants if they wish to compete at major national events.

I mean, it’s right in the surname, no? Next week we hope the Court addresses traveling in the NBA and maybe even James Harden’s flopping.

Blimey!

Most of us don’t make it to southwestern England, but if you do, be sure and visit Exmoor National Park. Located on the southern shore of Bristol Channel, across from Wales, it is 18,000 acres of magical moor land.

Exmoor was once a royal hunting forest. Some day the judges may just up and leave and run a pub in the English countryside. But they’ll still rule on headlines daily.

Good Job, America

Yesterday in this space we hailed Canadian officials for doing the right thing when happening upon a mountain lion and suggested their Yankee compatriots may not be so compassionate. Well, we were wrong. Well done, men. And remember, these creature are not encroaching on our environment. We’ve been encroaching on theirs for more than 150 years. Be kind to animals!

Reserves

It’s only a verbal commitment, but you gotta think someone named Christ will keep his word

Dear Lord: Notre Dame whiffs on a four-star offensive lineman named Jimmy Christ…ESPN the Magazine to publish its last issue in September. A lot of good folks from SI jumped ship to that mag when it launched in 1999…Meanwhile, SI is in danger of being sold to yet another vulture capital firm that seems intent on using SI more as a brand than as a journalistic publication. Are its days as a mag numbered?….Also, proving that it will not be out-woke by ESPN, SI will have a burkha-clad model in this month’s swimsuit issue, because men only read it for the beautiful faces.

Hot Power Couple

Granted, one power couple was battling it out with a zombie dragon on Sunday night and the other was retelling tales in the crypt. Still, were the producers of Game Of Thrones subtly suggesting that Sansa and Tyrion might make a better ruling couple over a united Westeros than Dany and/or Jon Snow.

Consider: No mortal has played the game of thrones more successfully, absent the aid of dragons or reincarnation, than Sansa Stark. And no mortal has combined cleverness with good ol’ fashioned decency better than Tyrion Lannister. She’s a beauty, and he’s a dwarf (a handsome dwarf, no less). She’s from the North, he’s from the South. They both despite his sister.

This could work.

Might Dany and/or Jon eat it in the final battle of Westeros? Possible. Either way, a Sansa-Tyrion ticket could be just what a united Westeros needs going forward.

Music 101ï»ż

The Great Escape

Lots of just-under-stardom bands such as We Are Scientists toiling out there. The Brooklyn-based band met at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., in the late Nineties, then formed in Berkeley, Calif., before making the great migration to Gabe Kotter’s native digs.

Remote Patrol

Champions League Semis: Liverpool at Barcelona

3 p.m. TNT

The Liverpudlians, with Mohamed Salah, are currently atop the Premier League standings. Barcelona, with Lionel Messi, are atop La Liga. If you want to claim these are currently the two top clubs in the world, no beef here.