by John Walters

Starting Five

Going back to Cleveland….

See Ya In June

The NBA Finals begin on June 1, no matter how long or short the conference finals go. That’s fine, because the Golden State Warriors closed out the Utah Jazz on Utah’s court last night by 26 points. The Dubs and Cavs are now a combined 16-0 in the playoffs and except for Cleveland’s opener versus Indiana, which they survived by one point, the games haven’t been close.

Might Houston or San Antonio give the Dubs, who are winning playoff games by an average of 15.6 points per game, give Golden State a stiff challenge. I see either team winning one or two games, but no way the Dubs have a test like the one OKC gave them last year. And the Cavs could lose one to Boston or Washington, but they shouldn’t.

Bring on the third chapter of the Dubs-Cavs trilogy. Until then, the NBA is on cruise control. Even the TNT guys sound bored.

2. Ride, Sally, Ride

Make America Yates Again

Confession: I have a serious middle-aged guy crush on Sally Yates. She’s smart, beautiful, and she doesn’t take any sh*t from Ted Cruz (Did you notice the flirting going on between her and Senator Blumenthal?). Anyway, the big takeaways is that here was a woman among boys, patiently explaining to Don McGahn why one White House official lying to another one matters, and painting a smile on her face when d-bag Louisiana senator John Neely Kennedy said, “With all due respect, who appointed you to the Supreme Court?”

Atta girl, Sally. You rocked.

3. For Goodness Snake

Each spring, as the weather warms outside the town of Nacisse, Manitoba, the red garter snakes awake from their winter hibernation and well, they’re in the mood to boogie. Gotta make more snakes. They’re not venomous, so we can all chill.

4. Is Health Care A RIGHT?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SToeM55KMzU

First of all, major props to Jimmy Kimmel for 1) wading into a politically controversial issue, albeit only after it became personal to him and 2) not backing down from the haters who tried to shush him by calling him a “Hollywood elite.”

Last night Kimmel spoke more on health care and had the smart Louisiana senator (not John Neely Kennedy), Bill Cassidy, who is a physician and a Republican, to discuss health care. Cassidy spoke about the “Jimmy Kimmel test” for health care, which was, “no family should be denied medical care, emergency or otherwise, because they can’t afford it.”

Kimmel kid

So allow me to wade in here (because I never get myself in trouble discussing health care): 1) Why did Kimmel say “family” instead of “individual?” Am I less important because I’m not married or not the young child of someone? 2) If we are to take Kimmel literally, can we ask, as Cassidy did, “How do we pay for it?” And while it’s laudable that Kimmel suggested not “to give tax breaks to millionaires like me,” the uncomfortable reality people don’t want to face is, What’s the value of a human life? And are some human lives more valuable than others? I’m not talking race or gender or religion, I’m asking, Do we spend as much to save an infant who needs a life-saving heart procedure as we do to save an 88-year old who needs one?

My recent experience with health care is that the most vociferous folks about it are the ones who will spend the least on it. Which is always the way. Come at me, bros.

5. Huell Be Sorry

And, yes, Howard saw it coming, which is why he tried to persuade Chuck not to testify

On Better Call Saul, Jimmy McGill—and his brother, Chuck—finally have their day in court. And Jimmy outwits Chuck by exposing his electricity illness as being psychosomatic (which we all knew dating back to Season 1) during Jimmy’s disbarment hearing. It may have been the best courtroom gotcha scene since A Few Good Men, but it will end up destroying the relationship between two brothers and more importantly, because it transpired in front of Chuck’s ex-wife for whom he still has strong feelings, it will probably destroy Chuck.

Ewell, a favorite from Breaking Bad, plants the battery on Chuck that exposes him. I believe that’s his first appearance on BCS.

Music 101

Tighten Up

Second confession of the day: I have no memory of hearing this song by Archie Bell and the Drells before this morning, but in the spring of 1968 (kind of a turbulent time in the USA) this song went to No. 1 on the Billboard charts. Even nuttier, between the time the band recorded this song and its release, Bell was drafted into the U.S. Army and shipped to Vietnam. He was over humping in the bush against Charlie as his song went to No. 1. How come I’ve never heard this story? Life is nutty.

Remote Patrol

Game 6: Senators at Rangers

7:30 p.m. NBC Sports Net

This should have been New York’s close-out game, but they surrendered a late 3rd period tying goal on Saturday and then lost in overtime. Now it’s a survival game. The Garden will be rocking.

by John Walters

The Starting Five

Yankees Sweep! Thuuuuh Yankees Sweep!

Wild weekend in the Windy City for the New York Yankees as they take three from the World Series champs, the Chicago Cubs. Friday: Down 2-0 in the ninth with two outs and two strikes, Brett Gardner strokes a go-ahead three-run homer. Saturday: The Yanks explode for five runs in the first and cruise to an 11-6 win. Sunday night: Yanks blow a three-run lead in the ninth and need nine more innings to escape with a 5-4 win.

New York is 20-9, baseball’s 2nd-best record.

The Cubs are now 16-15.

To be continued in October?

Mud Run

At Churchill Downs Always Dreaming, a 9-2 co-favorite, won by nearly three lengths in the slop. Fellow co-favorite Irish War Cry finished 10th. RIP your exacta.

3. Morning Joe-Mance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZXNqic_Zi8
SNL skewered Morning Joe, then pretty much took the rest of the show off. Michael Che had a good line about that White House photo op of white dudes looking so happy, “you’d think they just discovered sickle-cell,” but the rest was lame. Am I the only person tired of hearing Leslie Jones work through her sexual issues on TV? We get it: you’re a big black undersexed woman. What’s the funny part?

4. Ace In The Hole

A day or two from now, “The Dark Knight Returns” will be the go-to New York tabloid hed. The Mess suspended Matt Harvey three days after he failed to report to work on Saturday (he was scheduled to pitch Sunday). In fairness, how many of us have had to choose between getting out of bed with Adriana Lima to watch someone named Robert Gsellman pitch or hitting the snooze button?

5. War Of The Words

As awful as the new health care bill is, ask yourself 1) Is my diet garbage? 2) So I exercise 3-4x a week? 3) Do I get enuf sleep?

— Medium Happy (@jdubs88) May 5, 2017

That time I suggested maybe Americans could eat better, exercise more and get enough sleep and got more than 1,100 replies, not all of them suggesting I ingest male genitalia (Is that the only food available in a “food desert”).

@jdubs88 @MurderBryan there are people who are born with diseases, dipshit

— michael transaction (@optimuscack) May 8, 2017

Listen, if you’re going to come at me with words like “ableist” or “victim shaming,” I’m coming back with Darwin’s thoughts on natural selection.

“Go outside and take care of yourself. The government isn’t going to save you.” https://t.co/dtHGF31VaZ

— Outside Magazine (@outsidemagazine) May 5, 2017

And for the LAST TIME, if it isn’t overtly obvious to you that recommending better diet, exercise and sleep does not mean the person doing the recommending is oblivious to factors such as genetics, I don’t know what to tell you. It SHOULD be obvious that you cannot do much to change your DNA, but you can do a lot to change your diet, exercise and sleep habits.

(FWIW: I lived without any health care from 2009-1013 and also from 2003-2006; that ’03-06 frame is more intriguing, as SI hired me back to write for SI On Campus and told me they could not provide health care. Then my boss at SIOC proceeded to hire kids right out of college and did provide them health care.)

Music 101

The Ghost In You

One of John Hughes’ favorite bands, The Psychedelic Furs released this soft-New Wave tune in the spring of 1984. It only reached No. 59 on the charts, but I always liked it more. That’s lead singer Richard Butler with the velvety, haunting voice.

Remote Patrol

Game 4: Dubs vs Jazz

9 p.m. TNT

I’ll be watching Better Call Saul, of course, but some of you may want to watch the Warriors attempt to finish off the Jazz, although it seems the NBA postseason has been distilled to the Dubs and Cavs doing their “Anything you can do, I can do better” routine. If Golden State wins tonight, the two repeat NBA finalists will be 16-0 this postseason.

by John Walters

Starting Five

Enema Of The State

How did Trump know his health care bill would pass in Congress? He had a preexisting cognition.

Well, I know it’s called the A-H-C-A, for starters. https://t.co/XYdyOspDvX

— Smokin’ Sarah Spain (@SarahSpain) May 4, 2017

Also, the bill means that $880 billion will go back into the hands of the nation’s wealthiest people, so remember that as your wife or father can no longer get dialysis or heart medication.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mtZ60AvDQY

I tried to explain this on Twitter last night: If this bill passes the Senate and tens of thousands of people who would have lived under Obama now die, that the people who pass it should have no expectation of safety.  One guy asked what kind of country has no respect for the rule of law, and I pointed out that the colonists who dumped tea into Boston Harbor did not; or the Scots who fought back against Prima Nocie (a law in which a Roman or English soldier gets to sleep with your wife before you on your wedding night) did not.

.@Reince exiting gop cloakroom tells me: “The president stepped up and helped punt the ball into the end zone.”

— Molly Hooper (@mollyhooper) May 4, 2017

Horrendous laws, particularly those that endanger the lives of thousands, tend to have violent consequences. And so this dude on Twitter wondered where I was before Obamacare, and how mad I was then. And I tried to explain that we had slavery under Washington and Jefferson, but they weren’t bad presidents. However, if someone had tried to reintroduce slavery AFTER Lincoln (and who knows, it’s only been 106 or so days for Trump), then that guy would be a horrendous president.

2. Does This Make Them Also Great Danes?

A story on BBC.com (a HIGHLY recommended daily read) says that for the first time in 200 years, a wolf pack has returned to Denmark. Better yet, lupine experts are not providing officials with information as to the wolves’ location so as not to interfere with their breeding. Yay, animals! Yay, people who get it.

3. Let’s Get It On

How do you beat the Dubs when Draymond Green is making five threes in a game on top of everyone else?

I’m not 100% sure who will advance to the NBA Finals, but the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers are now a collective 12-0 in the postseason. With their 115-104 Game 2 defeat of Utah last night, the Dubs have now won their six by an average of 16 points per game. The Cavs’ games have been much closer (they were a missed shot away from losing Game 1 to the Pacers), but the LeBrons seem to be getting stronger with each game.

Will either team lose before the NBA Finals (yes)? Are we heading toward the final chapter in this trilogy in June? Yes.

4. The Daily 360

I don’t know why I hadn’t really noticed it before, but if you go to the New York Times sit (nytimes.com), on the far left column, you will see a video embed under “The Daily 360.” They’re fantastic! Each day the Times takes you to a different part of the world with a 360-degree camera and provides a short essay to accompany it.

Truth: When I was at The Daily, the Fox News-run iPad newspaper, we did these and they were also terrific (the first one was from the heart of Tahrir Square in Cairo during the Egyptian uprising). Alas, they were expensive and we didn’t really commit to it as much as we should have. Also, not enough people use iPads, so there was that.

5. Fyre Extinguisher

I really didn’t pay attention to this Fyre Festival sh*t show until last night minutes ago, but 25 year-old organizer/Fyre Media founder Billy McFarland has some ‘splainin to do (and is already facing $100 million in lawsuits). A planned concert festival on the Bahamian island of Great Exuma with promotional posters featuring Bella Hadid and Emily Ratjakowski (the usual suspects), a rumored $250K payment to Kendall Jenner for a single Instagram post, tickets that cost as much as $12,000 and acts that canceled at the last minute such as Blink-182.

Move over, Martin Shkreli: There’s a new douche in town

Lots of profligate spending by McFarland and his fellow bros, who sound as if they were trying to get their Wolves of Wall Street on. Listen, if I want a clueless twenty something or two to throw a concert festival and pull it off, I’m going to Wayne and Garth. At least they knew how to do it.

Music 101

Sister Golden Hair

I’ll never understand why Glenn Frey and Don Henley didn’t just approach America and pay them gobs of money to write for them or simply to just go away. Or ask them to join the band. America was the best Eagles band outside (and often including) the Eagles in the early Seventies. This song, released in 1975, was one of two songs by the L.A.-based band that went to No. 1.

Remote Patrol

Game 3: Spurs-Rockets

9:30 p.m. ESPN

Kawhi Leonard can overcome anything short of autocorrect, but how will the Spurs fare now that Tony Parker will miss the rest of the playoffs? Tough task in Houston, and suddenly the James (Harden) gang has the upper hand.

by John Walters

Starting Five

Da Judge!

New York, baseball, America: Are you ready for your next superstar? Yankee outfielder Aaron Judge smoked a batting practice home run so hard yesterday that it smashed a TV screen in the centerfield bar. Then he clouted a two-run homer against the Blue Jays, his 13th of the season, in New York’s 8-6 win.

The Yankees, wisely, have no plans to fix this TV. Can we refer to it as a “Smoked Screen?”

We’re five weeks into the season, and Judge, technically a rookie, is all alone or tied for most home runs (13), best WAR (2.3) and most RBI (27) in the American League. He’s also tied for sixth in batting average (.330). A reminder: the Aaron era in the Bronx began less than 15 hours after the A-Rod era ended. Judge smoked a home run to dead center field in his first Major League at-bat.

2. Barf Brag

Comey seems to be holding it in right here….

Addressing a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, FBI Director James Comey said, “It makes me mildly nauseous to think that we may have had some impact on the election.” Great, Jim, but would that be a preexisting condition?

3. Caps Lock*

*The judges, reluctantly, will also accept “On Thin Ice”

Despite the absence of Sidney Crosby, the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Washington Capitals last night to push the Caps to the brink of elimination (3-1) in the Eastern Conference semis. The Caps have Alex Ovechkin, arguably the best skater in the sport, and had the best record this season (again), but they’ve never advanced to the Stanley Cup finals in Ovi’s 11 previous seasons.

4. Over The Rainbow

This is Randy Rainbow. I don’t know much about him—think Pee Wee Herman meets Glee—but he sure put a lot of work into this.

5. You Can Still Rock In America!

First of all, sorry about the photo being off 90 degrees (after 5 minutes of tinkering with this, I got tired of the game). Anyway, that dude in the olive t-shirt, I totally dig him. My good friend Randy and I were at the Tom Petty concert last week and we noticed this young man, probably around 20 years old, and the girl he was with, rocking out to Petty and singing along to the songs.

And we loved that someone so young was THAT into Petty (we think that may have been his parents next to him). Anyway, at one point he noticed us staring at him and he didn’t think, “Those two old guys are creepy” but rather understood why. We exchanged smiles and thumbs up. After the concert ended, he walked over and we exchanged hugs though I’m not even sure if words were spoken. He knew why we dug him, and he was coming over to let us know that for old farts, we’re alright.

At some point I may have handed him a Pepsi, even. I’m not sure.

Reserves

Jackson, The Musical

I took a stab at it….

Music 101

Pilgrimage

What is the REM-est song? I’m not sure, but this is 1983 tune belongs in the top five. REM is the band of my twenties and I’m forever thankful for that and my experiences at SI, including my best friend there and the greatest REM fan I knew, Tim Crothers. It’s like nothing else to hear Tim walking down the halls of the 18th floor on a Thursday or Friday morning crooning, “Pilgrim-aaaaaaaaaage!” Good times.

Remote Patrol

The Late Show

11:35 p.m. CBS

Why am I suggesting this over Jazz-Dubs, Game 2? Because that series will only start if the Jazz win Game 3 at home and two, Charles Barkley is appearing with Colbert tonight. Right now Colbert is must-watch viewing, even if you don’t care for his politics, because he’s the only one going truly toe-to-toe with Trump (Seth Meyers, does, too, but some of us need to sleep). And Barkley is probably going to have a few words to say about the prez.

by John Walters

Starting Five

Isaiah 2:53

Isaiah Thomas scored 53 points to lead the Boston Celtics to a 129-119 Game 2 overtime win against the Washington Wizards and a 2-0 lead in the series. The 5’9” guard, whom Chicago Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg accused of palming the ball on most plays (he’s right, by the way) and being “unguardable,” posted the second-highest playoff point total in the franchises illustrious history (John Havlicek once scored 54) on what would have been his sister’s 23rd birthday. Chyna Thomas was killed in a single-car accident on April 16.

2. LePen Pal

*The judges will also accept “The French Correction”

A twice-divorced maverick politician who appeals to the nation’s far-right populists and is seen as a slight underdog heading into the final week before the presidential election? Meet Marine LePen of France, whom one middle-aged shopkeeper in France praised to the New York Times for “the simplicity of her words” and addressing “the Islamic unbearableness of what we live every day.” Faire grande France encore!

3. Fenway Park: Chants Encounters

   

To atone for the racial taunts directed at Baltimore Orioles centerfielder Adam Jones from a few fans the night before, the Fenway faithful gave Jones a standing ovation before his first at-bat last night. Last weekend, when an in-game wedding proposal went awry, the park reverberated with the chant, “She said, ‘No’!”

4. Dial ‘M’ For Maddow

On Late Night with Seth Meyers, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow described a bizarre phone call she once had with then-candidate Donald Trump and later opined, ““There’s never been a president who is more addicted to news about himself and who’s more response to the news that he supposedly thinks is so worthless. So it’s a weird tension. It’s a dangerous time for the first amendment and the free press in this country. At the same time, we’re oddly influential with the guy who wants to kill us.”

5. Depp Charges

   

   Now the wig makes sense

A bitter trial between actor Johnny Depp and his ex-manager has led to allegations that the Pirates of the Caribbean star has a “compulsive spending disorder” (he reportedly spends $2 million per month) and that he routinely pays sound engineers to feed him his lines through an earpiece so he will not have to memorize them (so that’s not an earring?). If this does not inspire Ricky Gervais to launch Season 3 of Extras, nothing will.

Music 101

Is She Really Going Out With Him?

“Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street….” Do yourself a favor and own Joe Jackson: Live 1980-86, which has three versions of this 1979 track that hit No. 21 on the Billboard chart.

Remote Patrol

NBA Playoffs Doubleheader

7 P.M TNT

Raptors at Cavs followed by Rockets at Spurs. And yes, Susie B., we should’ve mentioned that glorious Game 1 alley oop dunk from Kyrie to LeBron.