IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 5 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right


Trash league. Maybe this is the latest iteration of the Eurostep, as in “You’re o’stepping all over the court…”

Starting Five

Wall Nuts

Substantive discourse about border security? Nope. All Twitter, and the President, were concerned about last night is who’s crowd was bigger. Donald said he crammed 35,000 MAGA fans into a 6,500-person capacity arena. The El Paso P.D. said no, and it estimated Beto O’Rourke’s throng to be roughly 10,000 to 15,000.

Meanwhile, MAGA fans taking the word of a man who’s lived his entire adult life in a skyscraper on Fifth Avenue over that of El Paso citizens who’ve lived there through two dozen Vern Lundquist visits. I mean…the self-delusion is real.

2. Dem Dems

If you missed it, here was Saturday Night Live‘s “Them Trumps, ” a takeoff on the idea that the President was just as corrupt but this time was black, kind of like the family in Empire.

That’s not really a good segue, other than phonetically, into what this item is about: the already far-too-crowded field of Democratic presidential candidates still nearly a year out from the Iowa caucuses. Thus far: Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Julian Castro, John Delaney, Tulsi Gabbard, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren and a few more who aren’t even worth noting.

Harris is smart, a former prosecutor, and is in favor of legalizing weed. Has already taken the wind out of pearl-clutchers by saying she smoked, inhaled, and enjoyed.

Exploring and likely to announce: Pete Buttigieg (mayor of South Bend, Afghan War veteran, Harvard-educated, 37 and openly gay), Kirsten Gillibrand, Joe Biden, Beto O’Rourke, Mike Bloomberg.

A top five? Harris, Biden, O’Rourke, Bloomberg (if he runs; unlikely) and our wild card is Buttigieg, mainly because we think Trump just wouldn’t know how to deal with him.

South Bend friends have extolled the virtues of Mayor Pete to us for a few years now. Here comes the national stage.

We’re reminded of those lists of kids who announce that they’re entering the NBA draft when at least 75% of them would be better served by remaining in school.

3. What’s My Scene?

For its annual Hollywood issue, Vanity Fair had a most excellent idea: to explore the 25 most influential film scenes from the past 25 years in film. They nailed most of the big ones (“I drink your milkshake” from There Will Be Blood, the storming of Omaha Beach from Saving Private Ryan, etc.) and, without saying it explicitly, make a bigger point: some scenes surpass the films in which they exist. That is, it’s the scene we remember often, not the film.

Which is fine.

What scenes are missing from the list? The opening scene from Inglourious Basterds (that film has about 3 scenes that might qualify), the “Please, Mr. President” scene from Inside Llewyn Davis, the “Tiny Dancer” scene from Almost Famous, the “Call It” scene from No Country For Old Men, the deposition scene from A Social Network.

Give us yours…

4. Zapping Zapruder

Abraham Zapruder: the man who “shot” John F. Kennedy

We watched Jackie late the other night for the first time (so good, so depressing) and a thought hit us: on that terrible day in Dallas nearly 56 years ago, there must have been a crowd of 500 to 1,000 people in Dealey Plaza (if it had been Donald Trump, he’d have sworn it was 35,000) and yet history shows that only one person, Abraham Zapruder, came away with video footage of the President Kennedy’s assassination. One. Not even any of the news networks (and yes, cable news networks did not yet exist) had it.

That was the most memorable event to take place on American soil in the 20th century, and were it not for one man’s home movie camera, there’d be no footage of it.

Think about where we are today. Almost every person in any crowd is toting a video recorder the size of a pack of cigarettes (and almost no one is toting a pack of cigarettes). What percentage of the crowd would be videotaping such a moment as it happened today? 25%? 50%?

Astounding how much the world changes in half a century. Of course, President William McKinley was fatally shot (he died eight days later of gangrene) in 1901, in Buffalo, and there’s no video footage or camera stills of that event.

5. With A Cameo From Her Husband

Of course Vogue’s “73 Questions” videos are staged to a large degree, but that doesn’t mean they’re always easy to pull off or that, after more than six dozen queries, we can’t glean a little about the true personality/character of the subject. Our favorite folks thus far have been Emma Stone, Saoirse Ronan and now, Gisele Bundchen.

The previous extent of our knowledge of the German-by-way-of-Brazilian supermodel (makes you wonder what her grandfather did, no?), in terms of audio with video, was hearing her complain that her husband’s receivers weren’t very good at catching the football after that second Super Bowl defeat to the Giants. Here, though, she is animated, warm, and refreshingly unguarded. You be the judge.

And yes, we’re wondering where they go next with this series. 73 Questions With Tom Hanks would be fun. Or Larry David (with JB Smoove). Or with the guy who actually asks the questions.

Music 101

Tonight You Belong To Me

On September 18, 1978, the four members of KISS each released a solo album on the same day. For sheer unbridled late Seventies audacity, only Dirk Diggler’s brief foray into the music business and Farrah Fawcett leaving Charlie’s Angels after Season 1 comes close (if you were not alive, Farrah was the BIGGEST THING ON THE PLANET for a brief time).

Anyway, Paul Stanley‘s is our favorite of the four albums, even if Gene’s peaked higher (22, to Paul’s 40) on the Billboard charts and Ace is the only one who had a hit single (“New York Groove” peaked at 13, although most fans don’t realize it’s a cover). Some critics think this was the moment that the band’s nosedive, relatively, began. They’re still out on tour right now. But they never regained the momentum they created from 1975-1978.

Remote Patrol

Night Train To Munich 

4 p.m. TCM

A film released in 1940 telling the story of a Czech inventor and his daughter who are kidnapped by the Gestapo once they storm into Prague. A British agent, disguised as a high-ranking German official, follows and attempts to save them by wooing the daughter. Casablanca (1942) follows directly after at 6 p.m. Remember, both films made and released at the outset of World War II, before anyone knew what the outcome would be. Something to consider as you watch. If you watch. You’re gonna watch, right?

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right


(Take him No. 1. Don’t overthink it).

Speaking of number one overall picks…

Starting Five

Kacey IS The Sunshine Band

At the Grammys, which we missed, Kacey Musgraves (whom we adored for “Follow Your Arrow” a few years back), wins Album Of The Year and Best Country Album for Golden Hour. Also, Childish Gambino wins Record of the Year and Song of the Year (and no, we still cannot tell you the distinction) for “This Is America.”

2. About Bob

More than one year past his last on-air appearance for NBC, for whom he toiled nearly 40 years, Bob Costas revealed to ESPN Outside the Lines the details regarding his exodus from the Peacock. No surprise: it was centered around the 66 year-old broadcasting legend’s willingness to take on tough issues regarding the NFL.

A few items: NBC’s Sunday Night Football, which Costas hosted, was THE No. 1 most-watched prime-time TV program in the nation. Two, Costas has earned 28 Emmys and is, at least to us, the most respected sports broadcaster in the nation. We’ve known Bob well for more than 20 years and we can tell you: for someone who has been famous and rich for nearly two-thirds of his life, he is as down-to-earth as anyone in the business we know. Bob is passionate about sports but also about ideas and pop culture and history and politics. Basically, about everything that makes you want to get up in the morning.

Also, he’d never make it on a “First Take” type program because he actually listens and is more than gracious in conceding a point.

The big point here, though, is that the NFL is a leviathan and woe unto anyone who criticizes them (remember when ESPN backed out, at the last minute, of that concussion investigation?). We’ve told this story before, but it’s a true one: In the days after ESPN signed its most recent, most lucrative TV rights contract with the NFL, then ESPN chief John Skipper reached out to Roger Goodell for an itemization of the terms of the deal, which he did not yet have. Goodell’s two-word response: “Stop whining.”

Maybe Roger was just having a laugh. But that’s the arrogance of the NFL. And every fan validates it.

3. Morons

Mother, daughter, father. Which one of these three did not have sexual relations with the film’s villain? Clue: it’s a trick question.

We watched Abducted In Plain Sight this weekend and sorry, Fyre Festival, but we’ve got a new leader in the clubhouse for most easily duped rubes in a Netflix documentary. Meet the Broberg parents, who allowed neighbor Paul Berchtold, a.k.a. “B”, to kidnap their daughter Jan not once but twice in the early to mid-1970s.

B., on the right, psychologically terrorized this family for years.

That’s really only the beginning and we don’t want to reveal any more only to say that this B fella may be the greatest manipulator of decent but simple people in the service of his own sexual gratification since, well, Joseph Smith. We’re actually questioning why the parents, Jan, and her two sisters would even sit for this documentary. I mean, sure, $$$, but was it worth it?

4. Tough Sledding*

*The judges will also accept, “The Bigger Chill”

While it is not a horror film, Arctic may give you chills (check out the trailer). Starring Mads Mikkelsen as a pilot who is stranded somewhere north of the Arctic Circle. Think Cast Away or The Martian: colder than the first if not the second film. Shot entirely on location in Iceland.

We wondered, Is it better to release such a film in the dead of winter, as they have done, or in the summer months? We think they made the right move.

5. Jack Be Accurate

Wabash sophomore Jack Davidson, a sturdy 6’1″, 170-pounder from Fishers, Ind., went 9-for-9 from the free throw line Saturday night versus Kenyon. Davidson, whose routine is two dribbles and a swish, has now converted 89 consecutive free throws dating back to December. That’s good for the Division III record and places him just five shy of tying the overall NCAA record by Paul Kluxton of Division II Northern Kentucky, set in 2001.

More than a one-trick pony, Davidson averages 25.2 ppg and is shooting .432 from beyond the arc for the Little Giants, who are 19-4.

Burns

Note: Davidson still has a ways to go to tie the overall NCAA consecutive free throws record regardless of gender. In 2017 Monica Burns of Division II Wheeling Jesuit stroked 118 in a row.

Our favorite thing about this record is that it’s really within any player’s reach. It’s all about consistency and reputation. Like a good tee shot.

Music 101 

You Wouldn’t Like Me

About a quarter century too late to appear on MTV’s “120 Minutes,” here come The Beths straight outta Brooklyn Auckland, New Zealand. Easily the greatest Kiwi band since Flight of the Conchords. The foursome, faves of Rolling Stone editors, is currently opening for Death Cab For Cutie (perfect “If You Like This Band…” complement) in Europe, but will hit the States in late March.

Remote Patrol

Dr. Zhivago

Netflix

No, no, no, not Dr. Trivago. It’s not a film about a travel website that aggregates the best deals on hotels. Who told you that? So, we’re deep into the heart of winter, so this Russian epic starring Omar Sharif and Julie Christie fits perfectly into your bleak hibernal mood. Nominated for 10 Oscars, it won five and might’ve won more had it not been up against The Sound Of Music in 1965.

Two Easter Eggs to notice for you David Lean fans (the director, who’d previously done The Bridge On The River Kwai and Lawrence Of Arabia): Sir Alec Guinness is commanding a giant structure that traverses a river and two, the scene in which Omar Sharif gallops off swiftly on horse across an endless expanse of barren terrain.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 6 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right


If there’s such a thing as a Secular Saint, then Bill Murray is that person.

Starting Five

When Pecker Picked A Pecker Pic 

The skinny: David Pecker, the head of AMI, which publishes The National Enquirer, came at Amazon founder Jeff Bezos with threats to publish his personal texts to his mistress, Lauren Sanchez, one of which included a phallic photo.


Bezos, instead of crying, “FAKE NUDES,” instead decided to expose the blackmail attempt (and he has emails to back him up).

If you were writing this as a novel, you’d give the villain a name like David Pecker, no? Although I guess one would argue that that’s also a good sobriquet for the dick pic dude.

Of course, that’s just scratching the surface. How did Pecker obtain these text messages (Bezos’ chief investigator, Gavin de Becker, is looking into whether a government agency was enjoined to assist)? Why did Pecker want Bezos’ newspaper, The Washington Post, to stop investigating the death of Jamal Khashoggi? This is like an entire season arc of Homeland or House Of Cards or maybe better yet, Veep or Silicon Valley.


It’s just getting started. Know that the president and Mr. Pecker have worked together in the past on a number of occasions.

2. “No Thank You, Mr. Pecker”

The title of Bezos’ expose was our headline above, which at first glance sounded to us like a  show-stopping number from a pornographic musical. Which got us to thinking: Has there ever been an explicitly pornographic musical (South Pacific?)? And that got us to thinking about titles for such a musical or some of its numbers. Here’s an incomplete list, with a little help from tweep @KurtRoedel:

“Dildo-Re-Mi”

“We’re In The Moneyshot”

“I’m Gonna Wash That ____ Right Outta My Hair”

“A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Scrotum”

“The Lion Schwing”

“The Book Of MoreMan”

There were more but we also know who some of our readers are (Does Seth MacFarlane ever have this problem?)

3. Rondo, Refreshing


There was a time when the Lakers at Celtics, no matter what the month, was the biggest game of the NBA season. The two met up last night in Boston and L.A. cured its No AD post-trade deadline blues in the best manner possible: former Celtic guard Rajon Rondo hit the game winner as time expired for a 129-128 Laker victory.

You may recall that LA lost by 42, the worst defeat of LeBron James’ career, at Indy two nights earlier. They trailed by as many as 18 in the second half last night.

By the way, does anyone else remember that before “Rondo” was an All-Star caliber point guard and Connect Four prodigy that it was a citrus soda?


Also by the way, Russell Westbrook, who has won two of the past three All-Star Game MVP awards, was the 16th overall player (18th, if you count the two captains) selected in last night’s All-Star Game draft. Guess some folks don’t like playing with Russ.

 

4. Are PayDay Loans The Next Subprime Mortgage Crisis?

This week the Trump administration is moving on deregulating the payday loan industray (legal loan-sharking) and you gotta wonder why. One clue: Corey Lewandowski is a paid lobbyist for said industry.

What are payday loans? They allow you to take out a loan, sometimes at an interest rate of as great as 400%, against your next paycheck. So basically if you want money fast you’re willing to pay for its immediacy by agreeing to an exorbitant premium on said loan and using your paycheck as collateral. Thus the death spiral begins, as you’re basically taxing your own paycheck.


(The MH Video Team recommends)

It’s a loser’s game, and there are a few questions: 1) Should the government be involved with protecting financially unsophisticated adults against themselves? 2) What is the state of the common wage in this country that allows more than 14,000 pay day loan centers (basically as ubiquitous as Starbucks) to operate? 3) What is the state of the middle- and lower-class consumer appetite that they cannot wisely manage their own money and instead spend themselves into chronic and inescapable debt? 4) Why would the government take the side of loan sharks over the common worker (oh, I think we know the answer to that one)?

The subprime mortgage crisis happened because the government regulatory committees didn’t do their due diligence in overseeing crap mortgage securities. The securities were crap because the mortgages were crap: people earning $40K per year were buying $500,000 home and being asked to put almost nothing down and then not needing to pay any interest for the first three years. When the mortgage finally started to kick their ass, it was assumed, they’d sell the home because homes are always an appreciable asset.

Until they weren’t. That’s called a bubble. The mortgage brokers knew they were selling customers a product they couldn’t afford but their job wasn’t to get the entire cost of the house, but only to sell the mortgage. The rest was the bank’s problem. And as long as Mortgage Lender A was going to do this dirty business, Mortgage Lender B felt obliged to remain competitive. But they all knew the house of cards was eventually going to crash. They just didn’t care; that was someone else’s mess.

If you or someone you know or love is working at a pay day loan center, you (or they) are complicit. Sorry. Much like the mortgage lender folks, you have to know that abetting the eventual bankruptcy of tens of thousands of Americans who, yes, are too stupid or too desperate to manage their money, is going to crash the system. Are you your brother’s keeper? No, you don’t have to be. But you don’t have to be the serpent in the garden, either. That’s a choice you make.

Either way, payday loans are an evil biz that exploit the working poor and desperate. But don’t worry, very poor or very rich people: when the system crashes, and it will, the financial burden will be placed on the middle class. It always is.

5. Super Bowl MVP


Let’s end the week on a note of altruism and looking out for those of us who are less fortunate. Weird: Before Sunday’s Super Bowl I actually wondered, What if the NFL were to give away like an entire section (or more) of Super Bowl tickets to the homeless, or to disadvantaged children, etc? I mean, what a tremendous look that would be for them and they certainly could afford it?

And I don’t mean nosebleed seats. I’m talking prime seats where the TV cameras could spot these fans. Why wouldn’t you want to do that? And of course the answer is that these billionaire owners didn’t become billionaires by not being greedy.

Music 101

Looking At The Sun

 

In the autumn of 1993, I covered the SEC for Sports Illustrated out of a Birmingham base. And I drove everywhere. Never flew…to Baton Rouge …Lexington …Fayetteville …Columbia…even Gainesville. That was the best way to find hidden Dixie delights, particularly backwoods eateries. Of course, such an odyssey demanded good car tunes, and the first six tracks of Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend album were constantly being played as I rolled through Meridian, Sylacauga and various Decaturs. Good times.

Remote Patrol

Abducted In Plain Sight

Netflix

Bravo, Netflix. You’ve figured out (thanks to Making A Murderer?) that America is obsessed with true crime, the creepier the better. Serial killers rock our world (Ted Bundy Tapes), as do bizarre and unsolved murders (Evil Genius) and then of course, there’s the sexual terrorization of women. That’s your trifecta.

This is the true story of Jan Broberg Felt, who while growing up in Pocatello, Idaho, was twice kidnapped as a young teen—by her neighbor. Broberg Felt has since grown up to be a working actress in Hollywood.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 7 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right


“He was ”Mason Jarred'” (dons sunglasses….”YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!”)

Starting Five

Herring, Northam, Fairfax. All three have appeared in black face at one point.

Virginia Wahoos

What the hell, Virginia?

Your governor, Ralph Northam, apologizes for dressing up in black face as Michael Jackson (too many jokes) and winning a dance contest after he’s pretty sure that he wasn’t in blackface or a KKK hood in his medical school yearbook?

A couple days later your Lieutenant Governor, Justin Fairfax, is accused of sexual assault stemming from a 2004 incident involving a woman who is now a Stanford fellow in politics. Fairfax never donned blackface, as he was born with one.

And then your Attorney General, Mark Herring, not wanting to be left out, preemptively announces that he once donned blackface, in 1980 as an undergrad at UVA, to dress up as rapper Kurtis Blow.

Blackface. Redskins. This state has some appropriation problems (the Washington team trains in suburban Virginia).

“I feel like I’m living in an episode of a Nathaniel Hawthorne novel where people are rushing to judgment, and it feels like if I don’t proclaim judgment right away, it somehow reflects on me,” State Senator J. Chapman Petersen, a Northern Virginia Democrat, told The New York Times. “I think we need to slow down.”

Oddly, we agree with him. Pitchfork Twitter wants everyone who’s ever offended anyone to be fired. Is Pitchfork Twitter even holding down a job?

2. Balaclava Face

This should’ve come from the J. Peterman collection and been a subplot on Seinfeld. Jerry and Larry are probably kicking themselves that they never thought of it. Urban sombrero was easy, but blackface balaclava?

Luxury Italian designer Gucci were selling these for $890 but apparently too many Virginia legislators were ordering them or too many people complained, and now they’ve been taken off the market and off-line. Which means that if you did purchase one before everyone got all butt hurt about facial protection, it’s likely worth five times that on e-Bay right now.

3. B-B-B-B-B-Billionaire

But where do they play beer pong?

We’ve hesitated to enter the fray on Howard Schultz and the 70% marginal tax rate, etc., as we have friends who do exceedingly well for themselves and sometimes when we air our views it creates tension (and then they’ll no longer pay for lunch, and who wants that?).

First of all, Schultz was never going to win this election but the moment he told Andrew Ross Sorkin that he should not be called a billionaire but rather “people of means,” he completely lost me. You’re a billionaire, Howard. Own it. You own most everything else.

For a quick moment: Howard was saying this to the man who created a TV show titled Billions, but you know…


Almost all of us will never earn $10 million in one year (and devoting 90 minutes per day to a pro bono blog isn’t getting us any closer) and fewer still will ever be worth a billion dollars. For this writer, it’s not about jealousy. And it’s not even about taxing the rich excessively (not necessarily in favor of that).

So what’s it about? It’s about thinking, and it’ll always be hypothetical, that if we ever accumulated that much money we’d almost feel shameful about it. We’d want to be like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett (or Gavin Belson) and use our vast resources to help people. And many wealthy people do.

But it’s also about wondering just how much money one person should have while thousands of others go hungry or homeless. Well, they’ve earned it, some of my friends will say. And to a certain point, they have. But past a certain point laws and regulations are put in place by fellow “people of means” that skew the game in favor of the wealthy. And those people want nothing at all to do with the other 99%.

There’s a reason the Hamptons are zoned so that workers literally have to bus themelves in to do things like lawn care and pool cleaning. Or that Blade runs ads on CNBC so that hedge-funders and Wall Street types may fly directly from Manhattan to Easthampton and Bridgehampton between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Saves time, sure. But it’s also a way to never have to deal with the riffraff. They’d rather not know. And they’ve earned enough so that they don’t need to.

People like me ask, “How much is enough?” while people like them look down on us, in that patronizing Get Out “Oh, no, no, no” way because there is no such thing as enough. Enough? That’s funny to them. But you look around and you see films such as There Will Be Blood or Gary Cooper’s Bright Leaf (same idea 50 or so years earlier but with tobacco) or documentaries such as The Queen of Versailles and you realize that even with all that access, so many billionaires are just as miserable as anyone else. Jeff Bezos is getting a divorce.

Of course, most of us say, I’d like to have that money and see if I’d be miserable. The answer is that if you’re miserable at middle class you’d be miserable rich. And if you’re happy rich you’d probably be happy middle class. The things that actually make us happy are having a purpose, having people to love (and who love us), having a loyal pet, developing talents that provide self-esteem and, lastly, a private jet (!).

And at the end of the day the dispossessed, many of whom work just as long hours at less prestigious gigs, have few options outside of violence. That’s not legal, you say. Fine. But a lot of things that the wealthy get away with are only “legal” because the game is rigged in their favor. We got a chuckle the other night when President Trump promised that “America will never be socialist.”

Really? Then what was the great bailout of 2008?

4. Fake News Vs. King Of The Jews

Really needs illustrations…

So we were sitting in church last weekend and we had this crazy thought: How many Evangelicals out there lionize Donald Trump and repeat one of his favorite mantras “Fake News” in one breath and then pick up or quote from the Bible in the next? And the reason we ask that is, Don’t they realize that the Bible is JOURNALISM?

Have they ever sat and realized, ‘Wow, if someone had not written down these events on papyrus as they were occurring, we’d never know about it.’ Man, imagine that. What would these people do on Sunday mornings, and how would they be able to commit their hypocrisies without a historical record to stand behind?

We’re not going quite this far, buuuuut…

Anyway, it was just a thought. The next time an evangelical, or any Christian, hits you with “Fake News,” remind them that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were really the original journalists. And man did they have a whopper of a story to tell (they must have colluded with one another the way the “failing” New York Times and Washington Post do). And yes, we saw that the NYT blew out its revenue numbers in digital this past year.

5. The Daze of the Dolphins

All aquariums are terrible ideas—sorry—but even more so placing one in the middle of the Sonoran desert. This week a fourth dolphin died at Scottsdale’s Dolphinaris, a tourist facility that has only been open two years.

Fish gotta swim. So do certain mammals. Keeping dolphins and whale in aquariums, I don’t care how large, is like asking someone to live their lives in a walk-in closet. It’s cruel and inhumane and I’ll put their welfare over little Billy’s desire to pet one. But that’s me. I’m weird that way.

Dolphinaris is closing temporarily. It needs to close permanently.

Music 101

No More I Love You’s

Man. How many female vocalists heard Annie Lennox crush these vocals and were too despondent to even get out of bed? In the early and mid-Eighties Lennox was only known as the platinum-blonde half of Eurythmics and her vocal range isn’t something folks discussed as if she were, say, the distaff Freddie Mercury. That all changed when she seemingly underwent a metamorphosis (she’s not even blonde anymore!) and released this international hit in 1995.

The song was actually written and released nine years earlier by a British New Wave duo (sound familiar, Annie?) called The Lover Speaks but failed to crack the Top 50 in the US or UK. Lennox’s version went to No. 2 in the UK and No. 23 heere.

Remote Patrol

All About Eve

8 p.m. TCM

“Fasten your seatbelts—it’s going to be a bumpy night.” In Margo Channing, Bette Davis fashioned the most gloriously bitchy, witty and endearing diva Hollywood had yet seen. Also, keep a close eye on the ditzy blonde who shows up at the party that is the hub of the film: that’s a young and already comically gifted Marilyn Monroe (this film ranks 28th on AFI’s Top 100 list).

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 6 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Starting Five

An instant classic. One of the great photos of this presidential era.

Nancy Claps Back

Photographer Doug Mills captured the moment at the State Of The Union when President Trump’s words, which some to the left of the aisle might perceive as indicative of the double standard the GOP is foisting upon us now that we don’t have a Kenyan commander-in-chief, earned a clap back from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

What Trump actually said: “We must reject the politics of revenge, resistance and retribution and embrace the boundless potential of cooperation, compromise and the common good.” 


At that moment, as those in the chamber applauded, Pelosi clapped vigorously and at the POTUS and some (including us) interpreted it as, “Yeah, finally.”

2. Et Tu, SOTU

“I’m not gonna tell him, you tell him”

Other notes, observations and memorable moments from SOTU 2019 (an incomplete wrap-up), or as we’ve dubbed it “Unity…Or Else!”:

–Trump’s red tie was seriously leaning to the left at the beginning of his speech, lending itself to an easy “Even his tie is crooked” joke.

–A friend of mine was not the only one who saw all the female congresswomen dressed in various shades of white and wondered if this was a new season of The Handmaid’s Tale. I just thought of a Wimbledon class photo or perhaps the flight attendant lounge at Emirates Airlines.

From the White House to the White Blouse

–Outside of his border wall argument, which if factually challenged was at least vigorous and focused, the president kept to the safest of topics. We learned that he’s against childhood cancer and in favor of remembering World War II heroes and survivors. Hell, Maroon 5’s set list was edgier than that.


–As to the aforementioned “factually challenged,” the sheriff of El Paso his own self fired up the Twitter machine to refute Trump’s claim that a wall had made his city safer. It was very safe long before that, the lawman argued.

–The President insinuated that there cannot be peace if Robert Mueller does not quit investigating him, going full Jackie Chiles with this quote:


–In case you were wondering, the president never mentioned or even alluded to 1) the 35-day shutdown or 2) climate change.

—Kamala Harris with the best “No, no” we’ve seen since the housekeeper in Get Out:


–Trump actually said that had he not been elected, the USA would be in a war with North Korea right now. WUUUUUT!?!

–We kinda did a side eye when the man who inherited millions from his dad and has since  declared bankruptcy half a dozen times talked about America “not squandering its inheritance.”

–Trump mentioned “ridiculous partisan investigations,” but James Comey and Robert Mueller are Republicans. So who was he talking about?

3. The Crocodile Punter

No, this is not an MS-13 member, at least not as far as we know. This is Louis Hedley, a 6’4″ punter from Australia by way of the City College of San Francisco (yes, also O.J.’s alma mater). None of the real publications have identified where from Down Under he’s actually from, other than to say that he’s in his mid-twenties and worked as a scaffolder in the Aussie desert (that’s west) for eight years. You just have to wonder if Manny Diaz will let him out of two-a-days next summer to attend Sturgis, no?

4. Sweet Pea Loses By 42!

We’re just posting this for our (and Susie B.’s) enjoyment. The Indiana Pacers, minus their best player (Victor Oladipo) destroyed the Los Angeles Lakers, who had their best player (besides Kyle Kuzma), by 42 points. The final was 136-94, the worst loss of LeBron James’ career.


(This photo says it all, no?)

Is it fair to say that all that Anthony Davis trade talk has not done wonders for locker room cohesiveness. After the defeat Lakers brass announced that they were walking (limping?) away from trade negotiations with the Pelicans, which makes us just a little sad because we were hoping to use the hed “LeBrow” one of these days.

5. Hawaii 1-0-0

Under the proposed law, Kilauea would still be permitted to smoke. It is, after all, older than 100.

Hawaii legislator Richard Creagan has introduced a bill that would make it illegal to smoke cigarettes before the age of 100. Quietly (or not so quietly), we think this is brilliant. It won’t surprise you to learn that Creagan is a Democrat, but you should also know that he is an E.R. physician who calls cigarettes “the deadliest artifact in human history.”

Let’s go to the audience survey. The number one answer is “GUN!”

Anyway, our sense of less government is better (we think Thomas Jefferson put it more poetically) compels us not to agree with Creagan’s bill, but at least it’s inspired. Besides, it leads us to another point we’d like to discuss: what if, at a certain age that we could all agree upon (say, 85 or 90 years old), the government could top off your Medicare at $1,000 a year? How much money would that save?

Your grandpa’s reaction as you show him this item.

Now, this would be our proposal and as soon as we proposed it, Fox News, understanding its base, would report that I had declared a “War On Grandpa.” So what? I’m not in favor of anyone dying, but how many people in the the primes of their lives might have better access to health care if we weren’t spending so much on extending the lives of people who are often a quarter-century past their most recent day of employment. We’re all for golden years, but platinum years?

What say you?

Music 101

Break On Through

Between the ages of 22 and 27 lots of young men work on getting a PhD. Jim Morrison worked on going from being nobody to one of the world’s most famous frontmen as leader of The Doors to having it all flame out with his death by heart failure (official cause unknown as he died in Paris, where an autopsy is not required by law) at the age of 27 in 1971. In between the band released eight albums that sold 4 million copies and a slew of singles that sold 8 million units and remain FM radio staples to this day.

You may already know this, but in case you don’t: While Morrison was one of the signature counterculture rebels, his father was a highly decorated Navy admiral who served with distinction in Vietnam.

Remote Patrol

The Longest Day

8 p.m. TCM

Mitchum, with stogie…

When it comes to telling the story of D-Day, there’s Ken Burns’ WW2 documentary, Band Of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan and this, from 1962, which came first. Not only do you have arguably the greatest alpha-male cast in the history of film (John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Richard Burton, Sean Connery, Rod Steiger, Henry Fonda, Peter Lawford and Robert Wagner, among others), but you also see the day from the German perspective, with actual German actors playing those roles.

Some of those actors worked for almost nothing simply because they wanted a cameo in what they knew was going to be an epic picture. It is.