Starting Five

1. A female from Rhode Island, Olivia Culpo, wins Miss Universe and the University of Notre Dame has the top-ranked football team in the nation. We’re taking the Mayans minus the points.

Mathazar and the rest of the Thermians will protest the “Universe” part of the title, reminding all that Rhode Island is “not an island, either.”

2. The Oklahoma City Thunder Snow win their 12th straight while the Los Angeles Clappers win their 11th straight. Fine, but when will Steve Nash return to the Lakers?

3. We are entering the “Twelve Days of Cliffmas”, as Washington has just a dozen more days to negotiate a deal to spare us from the Fiscal Cliff. Did you know, by the way, that House Speaker John Boehner 1) is five-foot-six and 2) was a linebacker at Moeller High School whose coach was Gerry Faust?

Speaker of the House/ Workin’ on Plan B/ Dedicated servant/ Of aris-to-cra-cy

4. The University of Connecticut’s No. 2-ranked Huskies held a pre-game ceremony to honor the 26 victims of the Newtown massacre, then went out and allowed just 25 points to Oakland University in a 97-25… massa victory.

5. The New York Jest will release Tim Tebow, a man of profound religious faith who spent the past four months gaining a true appreciation of the term “purgatory.” If there are any teams out there looking for a dedicated punt protector, we got a guy for you. Also, the Jest are shopping Mark Sanchize. All we have to say is this: If the Jest draft USC quarterback Matt Barkley, we will laugh and laugh and laugh.

No, I do not want a copy of “Bright Lights, Big City” as a Christmas present, thank you very much.

Reserves

The bodies of the two killers who framed Truman Capote’s classic work, “In Cold Blood”, are being exhumed. It turns out that Richard Hickok and Perry Smith may have committed a second series of murders during thier 1959 rampage. Capote’s book has long been considered the apotheosis of true crime reportage –if not the seminal work on such –but it turns out he may not have been as thorough as we all thought.

LSU’s aussome Aussie punter, Brad Wing, has been suspended for the Tigers’ Chick-Fil-A Bowl against Clemson, a game that will determine who really plays in Death Valley (and is the best Tigers). If we are Les Miles, we comfort ourselves by remembering that Clemson allowed 70 points in its previous bowl game, so there’s a chance that Wing would never have gotten on the field, anyway.

For Domers, from Dennis Dodd, this is just eerie. Kudos to Ted Mandell for all the research but it still doesn’t excuse him from being the executive produder of the Freekbass video. One last nugget for you, Dennis: 1988 was the last year in which I didn’t professionally cover a college football game…until this year.

A tiny French village, Bugarach, may be your best hope for salvation when the world ends tomorrow. Our advice: book  round-trip fare to Paris, just in case they’re wrong.

Pic de Bugarach, which many believe houses an extraterrestrial spaceship. As Al Roker noted, “Didn’t the Coneheads come from France?”

This study asserts that, the 12.12.12 gig notwithstanding, rock stars die earlier than the general population. As the always insightful Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal tweeted in response to this story, “Still totally worth it, no?”

Richard Deitsch provides his year-end media awards at SI.com. Solid, no big surprises. Too many honorable mentions. Also, we’re sorry, but we just cannot get behind any awards list that includes Rachel Nichols. The woman has a perpetual smirk on her face.

By the way, only when we researched that photo did we learn that there is ANOTHER Rachel Nichols, an actress who unlike the ESPN personality graduated from an Ivy League school (ESPN’s RN attended Northwestern). We feel obliged to also provide a pic of the thespian Rachel Nichols, whose credits include both the sequels to Dumb and Dumber (“Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd”) and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. 

Ironically, this pic was snapped at the ESPY Awards (where she was named “Best Rachel Nichols?”)

In the best battle of father-son Ricks since “I Love Lucy”, the elder Pitino led Louisville to a 24-point win against his son’s Florida International squad last night. We can picture Mrs. Pitino welcoming home her husband today with a “You got some ‘splainin’ to do.” (although, fans of Lexington restaurant after-hours shenanigans will note she has done this before)

It’s without a doubt one of the most influential works ever written and it rings as true as ever for Christmas 2012. “A Christmas Carol” was published today in 1843. Written by Charles Dickens at the age of 31, it tells of the the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge from cold-hearted, wretched miser to that of a man who embraces the light, joy and warmth of life. Scrooge is visited on a “cold, black, biting Christmas Eve” by the ghost of his old business partner and then by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come.

Dickens’ theme was simply that love and charity conquer all and that our time spent on this earth is best used in the fellowship of one another. This year, more than any in some time, we are all faced with the somber prospect of not just Christmas Yet to Be, but life in general. Like Scrooge, we are challenged to change our ways, or as Marley tells him, be left to deal with the “shadows of what may be.”

The 18th Amendment was repealed after 17 years because it proved to be stupid. There’s another amendment on the books that was written for a world that was 223 years ago. It may not be stupid, but it needs to be fixed because it continues to fail us. It’s a far too simple decree for an awfully complex issue. Laws will always be broken but it’s incumbent on our leaders to make them as hard as possible to break. We all know what happened in Connecticut last week, laws were broken. A week before that in Minneapolis, a 4-year old shot and killed his 2-year old brother. No laws were broken. The story came and went in a flash. It happens all the time, all over the place. I know, stupid parents, I get it. You have to pass a drivers test to get a license, you should have to pass a gun safety class every two years. Too much? The picture below is too much. Perhaps all those classes would have kept guns away from a clearly troubled son. Of course they might not have, but an effort needs to be made.

“the means to exercise the natural rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and the capacity to regulate its competitive actions to avoid depriving others of those rights and to sacrifice itself for the greater good of the polity as a whole or for their common posterity”

It’s your right to own a gun. The greater good demands that those guns should be limited and that safety be paramount.

I understand the dialogue, but I’m really tired of hearing how things are in England, Japan or Switzerland pertaining to gun laws and murder rates. If I lived in Switzerland I’d probably be a great skier, but I don’t live there. With greater freedom comes greater responsibility.

“Titanic” and “Platoon” were both released on December 19th as well, and although the analogies abound, you just can’t do better than “A Christmas Carol.”

The opponent is strong and powerful and might be too big to fail. This is not to say that a single soul on the opposing side doesn’t want the exact same thing everyone else wants, but they’ll fight on how to get there. It doesn’t need to be repealed, but it needs to be fixed. The setting is clearly different, and I’m cheating because the movie came out on December 22, not December 19, but the message applies, especially the last line.

Merry Christmas to all and, “as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!”

— Bill Hubbell

Starting Five

1. Dave. We know that he has a son and we know that he lives in Connecticut, not terribly far from Newtown. So we anticipated the “Late Show” host having something to say about Sandy Hook and he did not disappoint. (15 minutes in). Letterman has changed so much over the decades. From NBC to CBS. From ruddy brown hair to gray. From wearing wrestling sneakers with a blazer and khakis to expensive suits. From mostly sarcastic to sometimes somber, a person who understands that he has a massive forum in which to share worthy views. Part of it was 9/11, part of it was his open surgery, and certainly part of it was becoming a father (so why are WE so serious?!?)

2. A convergence of the trinity of New York City’s most intriguing athletes of 2012 occurred last night: R.A. Dickey left, Jeremy Lin returned — just for one night — and Tim Tebow, well, he will hopefully land in a better place. The Mess traded Dickey to the Toronto Blue Jays (and ESPN’s Buster Olney now declares the Canadian club as the favorites to win the A.L. East). Lin scored 22 points as the Houston Rockets beat the Carmelo-free Knicks at the Garden, New York’s first home loss this season. And Tebow watched idly as Mark Sanchez threw four interceptions as the Jets lost at Tennessee and, mercifully for those of us who watch ESPN, were eliminated from playoff contention. All three inspirational athletes deserve better than New York City has given them.

Yes, but whose couch did he sleep on last night?

3. Jim Boeheim gets to 900 wins as the Orange defeat Detroit. In one sense that puts the inveterate Syracuse coach –who is also an alum — in the same class as Mike Krzyzewski and Bob Knight (the only two Division I coaches to attain that summit), and yet no one seriously puts Boeheim in their class as coaches, do they? Coach K has four national championships, the other Coach K has three. Boeheim has one. A marvelous career, although the events of last year are certainly a blemish, but that total is more of a monument to longevity… and hail (and snow, and slush) to anyone who can survive 50 winters in Syracuse, N.Y.

4. Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii passes away at the age of 88. Inouye was the longest-serving U.S. senator and as genuine a war hero as you’ll ever meet. He lost his right arm in a battle in Italy in World War II. In the firefight, Inouye used his good arm to pry a grenade out of his useless hand and toss it back at a German who was reloading his rifle. Earlier, in another battle, he was struck in the chest with a bullet but the slug hit two silver coins that he kept in his pocket for good luck. Inouye was first elected to the Senate in 1962 and his 50 years of service (there’s a lot of that going around today, apparently) is the second-longest tenure in U.S. Senate history. Inouye’s last word, according to his office, was “Aloha.” Larry Beil would appreciate that.

…and as a soldier in World War II

5. The bravest man in overseas reporting, NBC’s Richard Engel, is freed five days after being taken hostage in Syria. Yes, my sister wonders, but did they damage his face? Is his hair still lustrous and wavy?

Engel survives being taken hostage by Syrian forces. Your move, Anderson Cooper.

Reserves

The world’s oldest living person, Dina Manfredini of Johnson, Iowa, is now…dead. Manfredini was 115 years old. Shouldn’t there be some type of crown or sceptre that is handed off to the oldest-living person when their forebear dies? We’d be for that.

On February 13, 2009, you could buy a share of Sirius satellite radio stock (SIRI) for nine cents. Today that same share is selling for $2.99, or about a 3,000% upgrade.

Our close friend Maureen “Moe” Cavanagh has written a story, pro bono (who would be so dumb as to write for free???), about an altruistic storekeeper in our neighborhood who is taking the words of Robbie Parker (yesterday’s “It’s All Happening”) and living by them. And here’s the profile of Moe that we wrote long, long time ago in Sports Illustrated. 

We’re thinking that the word “Sandy” will be used quite often in next season’s episodes of “The Newsroom.”

A dozen FACTS about guns and mass shootings, courtesy of The Washington Post.

A few more thoughts about Sandy Hook, evil, the media and pop culture…

One of my favorite books — and I’m not alone here, if high school reading lists and Pulitzer Prizes are any indication — is “To Kill A Mockingbird.” The title, of course, refers to the evil of harming something that only brings the world joy. And while that is certainly a salient theme when we contemplate the tragedy of Sandy Hook, the other aspect of the novel that hit me over the weekend was the thought of Boo Radley. In the story Arthur “Boo” Radley is a reclusive neighbor, disturbed and anti-social, whom the local children have built up to be some kind of monster. In the story’s climax, however, it is Boo Radley (portrayed, in the 1962 film by a young Robert Duvall) who saves Scout Finch from the true villain. He is a hero. In Newtown, though, their Boo Radley was a monster. Disturbed, most likely, and perhaps mentally ill, but still a monster.

Boo Radley

The Newtown massacre, the slaughter of innocents, also had me thinking about “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.” While we often think of it as just a holiday cartoon with a hilarious theme song, there is of course a greater message that is translated at the end. And that of course is that someone who perpetrates evil, who takes away all of the trappings of Christmas, can ever take away our faith. In that sense, albeit to a far greater degree of being violated, in fact, to the superlative degree of such, the shooter was the Grinch. And while he took away so many lives, he could not extinguish faith. Or decency. Or love. You see that in the way that people are reacting to the tragedy, in how strangers from all over the country are reaching out to Newtown and its people to offer prayers or assistance (personally, we are fans of the man from California who paid for all the coffee yesterday for patrons of the Newtown General Store). 

So many lives taken, so many more irrevocably damaged. And yet, somehow, we will all gather in the town square, hands clasped, and sing “Yahoo Doray.” And while the shooter did not mean to steal Christmas — at this point who knows what his motives were? — the point remains that you cannot take away goodness, no matter how many 30-round clips you are carrying. 

Starting Five

1. “Begin the day with a friendly voice, a companion unobtrusive…” Any band that can sprinkle a polysyllabic adjective into the first line of its best song is Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-worthy. Rush got the call the other day. So, spring of 1984. Brophy Prep. Senior class awards (I am voted 3rd Most Affable — of course, I demand a recount. Third-most?!??! WTF?!?!). Anyway, the ceremony is spiced up by classmates Michael Brockman (vocals), Chris Redl (face-melting guitar) and Mark Reckling (drums) performing a spot-on rendition of “Spirit of Radio.” I wish you could’ve been there. It’s like 10:15 a.m. on a Friday morning and kids were holding up lighters.

We’re mad, men, over MM’s snub by the Hollywood Foreign Press

2. The Golden Globes nominees are announced and somehow “Mad Men” does not garner one of the five “Best Television Drama” nods. Hunh? The past season of MM, particularly the first few episodes, was some of the most brilliant television ever created. I know that everyone loves Breaking Bad and there’s a huge swell of support for “Homeland”, and this scribe is even fond of the frequently overwrought “The Newsroom”. All that said, none of them approach the genius, the layered themes, the fascinating characters, the subtle nods to history (the Thanksgiving Day fog, for example) that Mad Men provides. This was the first of many time-capsule scenes to appear from the past seasons. It’s not just Megan Draper’s performance; watch the expressions of every character, which is just a scouting report on who they are and how they feel about both her and Don.

3. The Loss Angeles Lakers fall again, 116-107, to the New York Knicks at MSG. It’s the second consecutive evening in which the Garden hosts a slew of performers who are past their primes (Kobe, you’re still there).

4. ESPN’s Rob Parker asks the question that absolutely no one was wondering about: “Is he (Robert Griffin III) a brother or is he a cornball brother?” You’ll remember that Parker trolled another current Washington Redskin QB a few years ago. That Mr. Parker still has a job at the WWL this morning is and should be an embarrassment to all the dedicated, earnest individuals who do such good work there.

Parker brother…

5. The Book of Exodus: Seven schools, all of them with Catholic affiliations, are leaving the Big East. Yes, we know, Exodus is the Old Testament. This is not a Revelation to us.

Reserves

So much more to discuss — Giovanni Bernard, Josh Hamilton, the health of Bush 41, Jon Gruden as the next Secretary of State, La. Tech’s affinity with nepotism, etc. — but it’s the height of steak-serving season and we’re working a double. Be kind, tip accordingly. Thank you.

32 Division III football teams began playing down bracket style on November 17th at schools across the country. The final two standing, Mount Union and the University of St. Thomas will play tonight in Salem, Virginia to crown a champion. What a novel idea! Every game always matters. If the score is going to be in the paper the next day, the game matters. Obviously this isn’t John writing anymore, it’s your Day of Yoreist, and St. Thomas Alum  (and leading rusher in 1985.) Go Tommies! (Although if you’re betting, take Mt. Union and give the points.)

Have only seen snippets of the 12.12.12 show (they’re keeping us busy at the steakateria). Will do more full, and fulsome, review this weekend. That said, we will offer some opinions. Please note that we FULLY applaud the gestures of the artists, and even the sponsors, in providing relief for the hundreds of thousands of victims of Sandy. All criticisms below are not related to the cause itself.

Starting Five

1. God, or whatever you call the greater being, loves irony, so there was something delicious about seeing the man (now age 70)who wrote the song “When I’m 64” share an all-star stage with fellow rockers Mick Jagger (69), Roger Waters (69), Roger Daltrey (68), Pete Townshend (67), Eric Clapton (67) and the corpse of Keith Richards (68). So the answer to your question, Sir Paul, asked nearly five decades ago, is, Yes, we still need you.

“Mu-mu-my generation” is now all eligible for social security

Long live rock? Long live rock stars. And yet, there was something sad and poignant about last night’s show. When Roger Daltrey and his tanned but not so firm belly roared, “Let’s get together before we get much older“, there was a sadness to it. Because “much older” no longer means “grown up” but rather “infirmed.” And as I sat there watching the parade of once-sexy sexagenarians take the stage, still performing well but nowhere near their peak years, the thought occurred to me, “Hope they die before I get old.”

2. Rock-and-roll has always been about youth and hope and sex and dreams. “Sally, take my hand…” or “Together we can break this trap/We’ll run til we drop/Baby we’ll never look back” or “Love, sister, is just a kiss away.” And so watching last night’s show lent a hint of sadness. Sadness that no worthy successors have come along to replace the first wave of massive rock stars (yes, there are a few who approach them, such as U2). Sadness that this probably was, and definitely should be, the last time we see them all assembled on stage together. To use a phrase from another classic Sixties rock band (who deserves to be mentioned at or near this level), The Byrds, “To everything, turn, turn, turn/There is a season/Turn, turn, turn…” (and yes, we know they stole that from Beatitudes). We are not sure if rock and roll is here to stay/it will never die, but last night’s show may have illustrated that rock and roll will never be as big as it was in the Sixties, and that it may be something, like Shakespeare, that will be performed for decades and generations to come but never improved upon.

3. Bigger fashion faux pas: Kanye’s kilt or Daltrey’s belly.

4. Saw a lot of tweets suggesting that Roger Waters’ duet with Eddie Vedder on Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” was a highlight of the evening. We are just watching it now. Will admit that the lyrics of that song have popped into my head more in the past three decades than just about any tune in rock (0utside, of course, of ABBA’s “Take a Chance On Me”). Anyway, here’s a clip.

5. Greg Bishop of The New York Times discusses the irrelevance of college basketball from November until the Ides of March, has a few proposals. We’ve been saying this for years. Here are our three ideas to improve the REGULAR season (that, yes, may come at the slight expense of March Madness): 1. Cut the NCAA Tourmanent in half, to 32 teams (we don’t recognize Dayton). 2. No longer provide automatic berths to conference tournament winners 3. Eliminate one-and-done. You can go directly to the NBA after high school or you must wait three years, just like college football.

Reserves

The Golden State Warriors beat the Heat in Miami. Love Steph Curry, love Klay Thompson, love David Lee. This is a t-e-a-m. Much more fun to watch than that team from SoCal.

Bruce Springsteen opened? In retrospect, why not (they may have gone in reverse order of age; the Boss is 63)? Bruce opened with “Land of Hope and Dreams”, which has been a concert staple and classic of his for more than a decade.

The Sandy set list is here. Songs we would have gone with, by artist:

Springsteen… The Rising, Badlands

Roger Waters…. Wish You Were Here

Eric Clapton…. White Room

Eddie Vedder … Hunger Strike duet with Roger Daltrey in the Chris O’Connell role.

Rolling Stones… Can’t Always Get What You Want, Wild Horses

The Who…. From little we’ve seen, no one played up to their level as well as The Who. We won’t quibble.

Billy Joel…. “I Love You Just the Way You Are”

Paul McCartney… Yesterday

All in all, a crackling good show, but also one that for us was poignant. In the words of Billy Joel, “These are the days/To hold onto/Cuz we wont’/Although we’ll want to…”

Will write more later. Gotta go serve some steak…