Starting Five

1. This is Your Brain on Football

To be honest, I never quite got that ad. Wouldn’t “scrambled” be a superior metaphor to “sunny side up?”

The NFL settles its case with its 18,000 retired players, agreeing to hand over the sum of $765 million plus legal costs but admitting no wrongdoing in terms of failing to disclose traumatic brain injury (TBI) research.

The league’s TV contracts with Fox, CBS and NBC alone (before you even mention DirecTV or ESPN) between now and 2022 are worth more than $27 billion. While $765 million is not quite a parking ticket, it’s the kind of penalty that an HSBC got: It sounds like a lot of money to us minions, but in terms of big business, it’s a number that will not leave a scar.

As opposed to traumatic brain injuries, that research has now shown can lead to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and severe depression or dementia. No one need protect players from playing a game that they want to play AS LONG AS THEY ARE ARMED WITH AS MUCH AVAILABLE INFORMATION AS POSSIBLE. Let’s face it, most would still play the game, anyway.

The scandalous aspect of this is that the nine-figure sum is tantamount to hush money. If the NFL really cares about its players’ well-being, it would be candid and transparent about head injuries, and to hell with the fiscal reperconcussions.

2. Great Scott!

With one foot in the grave, and one foot on the pedal, I was born a Rebel.

Trailing by three with 90 seconds to play and 75 yards from pay dirt, what do you do? Hand the ball off to Jeff Scott on a sweep left is what you do! Mississippi’s five-foot-seven tailback went 75 yards, untouched due to a nifty cutback along the Rebel sideline, to score the game-winner in a wild one at Vanderbilt. The Commodores had just converted a fourth-and-18 two plays earlier, and then scored a 40-yard TD on blown Rebel coverage, to take the lead. Ole Miss frosh phenoms Robert Nkemdiche (“That’s a maaaaaaan, baby!”) at defensive end and Laquon Treadwell (9 catches, 82 yards) at wide receiver are as good as advertised. And quarterback Bo Wallace appears to be reprising the role of “Sunshine” from Remember the Titans. I expect at least one 5,000-word testament on the Rebs this autumn from Ole Miss alum and Oxford resident Wright Thompson.

Also, for the record, Joe Tessitore, Vanderbilt walk-on punter Taylor Hudson is probably an outstanding student and an even better person (he was, after all, his high school’s prom king), but he is not “studying neurosurgery.” That is, unless he is in medical school. In fact, unless he is a neurosurgery resident. Hudson is an undergrad, so he’s simply a dedicated pre-med who aspires to be accepted to med school. Let’s not oversell it.

3. U.S. Military Set to Launch Missile Strike on…Pfizer?

Curiously enough, United Nations weapons inspectors would only need to traipse six blocks to Pfizer’s World HQ on E. 42nd St.

For what it’s worth, approximately 6,570 American women per year (and the number is larger among men) die due to a prescription drug overdose. That figure has quintupled in the past decade. Oh, and Americans’ account for 80% of the world’s pain medication (at this point I should note that Bryant Gumbel has not hijacked this post) because, let’s face it, surviving in Pakistan or Sierra Leone is just tra-la-la. So if you want to talk chemical weapons…

The brushback on this is that the Syrian government knowingly murdered its own people by dropping deadly gas on them. And of course that is inexcusable. But if more than 10,000 people per annum are dying stateside due to what is nominally a remedy, then isn’t that remedy a little bonkers? And how many Americans die per year due to marijuana usage? Far, far (if not infinitesimally) less. But then, the prescription drug lobby is far more powerful than Seth Rogen and James Franco. For now, at least.

4. Derek Carr’s Wild Ride

FSU scored 52 points and yet its leading rusher had 30 yards. So, yeah, Carr was running on fumes at the end.

Okay, I wasn’t watching Rutgers at Fresno State, either. But we should have been. The Bulldogs outlasted the Scarlet Knights in overtime, 52-51, as Fresno State quarterback Derek Carr (yes, the younger brother of former No. 1 overall NFL draft pick David Carr) went 52 of 73 for 456 yards and five touchdowns (he’s our wayyyyy early frontrunner for the Red Grange Award). Earlier this month Carr had to rush his newborn son to the hospital with a life-threatening digestive tract problem.
Here’s a terrific profile on Carr, a senior, by David White, in The New York Times. Here’s Carr on his Manziel-like (minus the stats and accolades) freshman year in The Valley: “I was out running around, living the life. Everyone wanted to hang out with the Next Big Thing, and I soaked it up like an idiot. I want to go back and punch that guy in the face.”       

5. Does Anyone Remember Baseball?

Terrific matinee in Detroit yesterday afternoon, though few seemed to notice. The Oakland A’s were after a four-game sweep of the A.L. Central-leading Tigers at Comerica. Tiger starter Max Scherzer was after his 20th win against just one loss. Both Oakland and Scherzer were denied. Mad Max left after five innings with his team trailing 6-1, but Oakland surrendered a two-out, three run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning to Torii Hunter to lose 7-6. Detroit trailed 6-3 to start when the inning began.

The Bank

Okay, here’s the concept. We are going to open with a fictional $1,000 and play one college football game per week. Oh, and we’re not going to print any of that b.s. “for entertainment purposes only” the way most sportswriters do. Go ahead and gamble: it may be illegal (in most states) but it’s not immoral. If it is, then bathe in the knowledge that you’re far from alone as a sinner.

Anyway, our first wager: we’ll put $50 on Alabama minus-21 against Virginia Tech. The No. 1 Tide face an unranked Hokies squad that is both young and banged up. Frankly, the spread surprises us and maybe somebody knows something, but we’ll stick with Nick Saban, who’s probably annoyed that he has to play this game since it totally messes up his recruiting schedule.

Starting Five

1. Texas Misstep

Now this looks like a guy who’d happily sign hundreds of autographs for one stranger in a hotel room and refuse payment.

King Solomon can rest easy.

O.J. Simpson was not convicted on one of the two murder charges against him.

But Johnny Manziel, by being suspended for one half of Saturday’s game against Rice, was.

Let’s walk this through, as if we were all summer interns at the law firm of Lightfoot, Franklin & White (or, more appropriately, Dewey, Cheatham and Howe).

1) Multiple collectibles brokers, including Florida-based memorabilia dealer Drew Tieman, inform ESPN that they had Manziel sign hundreds of items for them last winter for a “five figure flat fee”, but each of them stop short of even going Gen. Stomtonovich, refusing both to appear on camera and refusing to provide testimony to the NCAA. (And so the question you ask yourself is, Why did they come forward in the first place?)

2) Johnny Football denies accepting any money for autographs. Period.

3) The NCAA visits with Manziel last Sunday at his home in College Station for, as they say in those parts, “a spell.” Like, six hours. Presumably, based on yesterday’s outcome, he performed better than a young Edward Norton in “Primal Fear.”

“C-c-c-c-c-c-c-can you prove I t-t-t-t-t-took the money?”

4) Yesterday the NCAA and Texas A$M perform the intercollegiate athletics justice version of a reacharound. Based on a suggestion by the NCAA, the Aggies suspended Manziel for one half for Saturday’s game against Rice. Manziel is not being suspended for accepting money for signing hundreds, if not thousands, of items for men he barely knew. No, he is being suspended for an “inadvertent violation” of Bylaws 12.5.2.1 and 12.5.2.2, for failing to do more to prevent the use of his likeness for resale. Heyyyyyy! Only Texas A$M and the NC2A are allowed to do that.

Personally, I feel that the Owls should be given the choice whether to suspend Manziel for the first half or defer to the second half, but no one ever listens to me. Manziel must also address his teammates –seriously–regarding lessons learned (“Never, ever, EVER, deposit large sums of money in your bank account and never, ever, EVER, accept payment in the form of a check. We cool, bitches?”). If those conditions are met, Manziel will be reinstated for the second half. Is there some form of reinstatement ceremony involving a robed Mark Emmert and a slaughtered goat, or vice versa, that must occur in the locker room, I wonder?

5) So let’s do the math here:

1) The NCAA is unable to uncover evidence that Manziel took cash, which is what they were most concerned about.

2) Manziel claims innocence, but A$M still accepts the 2A’s suggestion of a feckless half-game penalty.

3) In other words, all parties involved have agreed to, for now, accept the fable that Manziel DID sign hundreds if not thousands of articles but that he did so pro bono. If I am the NCAA, I am asking — and I am sure they did — what was your motive for signing all of these items?

4) And that, my friends, is where the bullsh_t –and every Texan worth his ten-gallon hat is familiar with that– begins to run knee deep. Because Johnny Manziel most likely cannot provide a plausible, credible answer to that question. So while the NCAA may be unable to win its case against the Heisman Trophy winner, the court of public opinion finds it extremely unlikely that Manziel simply stroked that pen for an hour or so out of altruism. You go to motive, and you find Manziel’s tale a tall one. But what Johnny wants, what the Aggies want, and what the NCAA wants, is for Manziel to play September 14 versus Alabama. And that’s going to happen.

The lesson: All parties involved have compromised values –they’re willing to say one thing while doing another–so why should any of us be surprised that they settled upon a compromised penalty?

Unless one of those collectibles brokers chooses to sing to the NCAA. And you wonder what type of cash incentive one of those guys might ask for in order to keep quiet. It’s just a wild thought.

(UPDATE: Yesterday, on the same day that Texas A&M announced that Manziel would be suspended for 30 minutes, the school announced that “seating options for the 2015 season of the Redeveloped (sic) Kyle Field are sold out.” There are, apparently, quite a few sellouts in College Station these days).

2. Yes, As a Matter of Fact, We Are Ready For Some (non-English Premier League) Football.

The Sgt. Barnes of the FBS: “I am reality.”

College football season returns, bringing with it a chorus of full-throated rancor and an end to obnoxious tweets informing us all how many days until its arrival.

North Carolina visits Jadeveon Clowney and South Carolina tonight at 6 p.m. (warning: the Tar Heels can score), while the next incarnation of Clowney, No. 1 overall recruit Robert Nkemdiche, makes his debut for Ole Miss at 9:15 p.m. at Vander-rape. Conclude your evening –start your Friday –with As The Lane Turns as USC visits Hawaii. The subplot here is the two former and frosty USC offensive coordinators, Norm Chow and Lane Kiffin, going up against one another. USC will be without Silas Redd, which should give its underclassmen a distinct advantage in the case of another halftime intrasquad locker room brawl.

And welcome back to you two, too, Katherine and Dee Dee.

3. With Apologies to Chris Huston…

This season we are officially –we really mean it this time — launching our improvement upon the Heisman Trophy, which we have J-dubbed, “The Red Grange Award.”

Our thinking:

1) While the Heisman Trophy is supposed to be awarded, by definition, to “the most outstanding player in college football”, that definition has been corrupted more than the use of “literally.” Literally, in fact. Too many entities, particularly ESPN College Game Day, exert too much undue influence on who should win and use parameters such as a team’s record, etc., or statistical bias.

2) The Heisman, a players’ award, is named after a man, John W. Heisman, whose principle mark on the game was as a coach. Moreover, if you had to provide one nugget on Heisman for his Wikipedia entry, the first thing you’d note is that he was the winning coach in the most lopsided college football game in history: Georgia Tech 222, Cumberland 0. So, you know, why him?

3) Red Grange himself, for two reasons. With apologies to Jim Thorpe, and even George Gipp, Grange was the first superstar in college football. On October 18, 1924, Grange’s Illinois squad hosted Michigan. The Wolverines had not lost in 18 games and during that two-plus year span had allowed all of 32 points. Less than two points per game for 18 games.

And so, on what was the first day that football was played in Memorial Stadium, Grange returned the opening kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown. He scored three more first-quarter touchdowns on runs of 67, 56 and 44 yards. The Galloping Ghost, as he came to be known, would return another kickoff for a score in what would be a 39-14 Illini romp. In effect, Grange was responsible for 30 points against a defense that had allowed a sum of 32 in the previous 2 1/2 seasons.

Helmet sticker, fo’ sure.

(The Wolverines, by the way, would allow just 24 points in their next 17 games, 16 of which were victories. It wasn’t as if Grange exposed a soft defense. He was just the irresistible force that overcome the otherwise immovable object).

Second, Grange transcended college football (and can you think of another time that has happened? Hint: Go back to Item No. 1), even making the cover of Time magazine. He signed with the Chicago Bears one day after his last college game (rushing for 237 yards in an upset of  Penn) for $100,000 and went on a 19-game barnstorming tour immediately after. I mean, Red Grange looks at Johnny Football and laughs, saying, “Son, it’s ALL been done.”

4) Red Grange sounds a lot like “Red Rain”, which is a very cool Peter Gabriel song and the first track of “So”, so that’s another reason.

5) No one in college football has ever had a cooler nickname. No one. The Galloping Ghost. You can’t beat that.

6) The term “grange” refers to an association of farmers, and that’s about as college football-y as it gets.

And so that is why we here at Medium Happy will bequeath –and we so love to bequeath –a Red Grange Award after all the schools play 12 games this year (we never use the term “regular season” in college football since it remains, for one more season, a misnomer). It will be given to “the most outstanding player in college football who best embodies the on-field accomplishments of its namesake” and it will be given without favor in terms of a player’s position, year in school, or team’s record. In other word, absent all the prejudices that have so compromised the Heisman Trophy.

And we’ve even got a Red Grange Watch List. Are you ready for it? It’s….EVERYBODY. Any player suiting up for an FBS school is currently on our Red Grange Award watch list. We don’t even have a list of five favorites, because no one has played a down of the 2013 season yet. Novel idea, we know.

We’ll provide weekly updates on which players had the most Grange-worthy performances.

4. More Manziel (Again, if ESPN Can Do It, Why Can’t We?)

A namesake chronology of the Aggie QB in eight easy Johnnies:

August, 2012: Johnny Manziel, as fans in College Station wonder how a redshirt freshman QB is going to fill the shoes of Ryan Tannehill.

September-November, 2012: Johnny Football, as Manziel posts a record-breaking season and a road upset of top-ranked Alabama, establishing himself rightly as a legend.

Winter, 2013: Johnny Cash, as Manziel poses with a fistful of dollars after a solid night at the casino. There may have been some other lucrative opportunities around this time, though there is “zero evidence of such.

Spring Break, 2013: Johnny Dangerously, as Manziel, who is underage, is photographed often going HAM on spring break. “My mother accused me of going HAM once… ONCE!”

June, 2013: Johnny Bye Bye, as Manziel is sent home from the Manning Passing Academy.

Early August, 2013: Johnny Rotten, as ESPN alleges that Manziel accepted a five-figure fee to sign autographs, hence putting his season (and ESPN’s and CBS’s Saturday programming) in jeopardy.

Late August, 2013: Johnny Bench, as A&M agrees to sit Manziel for the first half of Saturday’s Rice game.

Later August, 2013: Johnny Come Lately, as Manziel enters the contest in the second half. The Aggies will likely already be up by three touchdowns, anyway.

Spring, 2014: Johnny Paycheck, as Manziel leaves school early and is selected in the NFL draft, though where is at this moment anyone’s guess.

5. Summer Train Wreck Round-Up

Spain, August 2

New York City, August 19 to ?

Reserves

Rolling Stone Keeps Kicking Everyone’s Ass

The legendary music magazine (“All The News That Fits”) scores its second Boston-based journalistic coup in as many months with the most detailed story on the last (free) days of Aaron Hernandez yet. Its’ title: “The Gangster in the Huddle.” But unlike the Boston bomber, the former New England Patriot tight end did not score the cover.

It’s nice to see the rest of the magazine catch up with the Pulitzer-caliber work of Matt Taibbi, who has been exposing corruption on Wall Street and in Washington, D.C., for years.

Remote Patrol

North Carolina at South Carolina

ESPN 6 p.m.

Welcome back to the OBC!

All of the deserved attention that young Mr. Clowney has received may have overshadowed the fact that the Gamecocks have put together consecutive 11-2 seasons. It’s too bad (for us, not for him) that tailback Giovani Bernard left Chapel Hill early, because he was one of the premier talents in the FBS, but our loss is “Hard Knocks'” (and the Cincinnati Bengals’) gain. The Heels have a prolific passer in Bryn Renner, so this kickoff game to the 2013 season may be interesting for awhile. I’d like a halftime feature on what Stephen Garcia is doing these days, please.

Starting Five

An abbreviated IAH! today, as the crack MH staff has an unpaid autograph signing session to which it must attend.

1. Johnny Drama

Simpler times: Manziel only had to concern himself with keeping defensive foes off his back.

Vince’s big brother does not believe that Johnny’s bananas.

Yo, Vince, this is just like the time you shot Medellin and everyone in Hollywood turned on you. How quickly they forgot Aquaman and all the money you made them. You were box-office gold that opening weekend, and that was with a major power outage across the country. Or maybe it’s like that time when we were hurting for cash so you agreed to sing at that girl’s Sweet 16 birthday party. I’m not letting you go out like this. Not my bro!

2. Syria, Syriana

Damon: “You’re exporting oil and not improving your nation’s infrastructure? Fine, as long as you’re not fracking.”

Do you remember Syriana? It’s the Matt Damon film in which he lectures someone above his pay grade about a nation’s military and political buffoonishness without having to share the screen with the Affleck brothers. There may be a better film that tackles the Middle East and the conflicts that the State Dept. has in balancing foreign policy with our addiction to oil, but I have not seen it. Terrific film. Anyway, we’re probably going to launch a missile strike against Syria tomorrow (I’ll wait until Adam Schefter or Brett McMurphy reports this before I fully believe it), because its government went all Operation Genoa against its own people last week, reportedly killing more than a thousand citizens via chemical attack.

I’m naïve, so help me out here. Like, at least 100,000 Syrians have died in that country’s civil war in the past two-plus years. Why is it suddenly so egregious and inhumane that 1,300 or so Syrians have died via a chemical weapons strike? Wasn’t the entire affair beyond egregious and inhumane a year ago?

One last thing to note: Steve Jobs’ biological father is Syrian. Abdulfattah Jindali, who was forbidden from marrying Jobs’ American-born mother (she gave him up for adoption) is now in his early 80s and the general manager of the Boomtown casino outside of Reno. No kidding.

3. This Is Why You Never Bet On Baseball

Kershaw, like fellow fireballers Nolan Ryan and Roger Clemens, is Texas-bred.

Recently the Los Angeles Dodgers tore off 18 wins in a 20-game stretch. Their only two losses came when they handed the ball to Clayton Kershaw, whose 1.72 ERA entering last night’s game versus the Lowly (why bother with Chicago) Cubs would be the NL’s  lowest, if the season was over, since Greg Maddux’s 1.63 in 1995. Oh, and the Cubs had lost eight straight to the Dodgers.

So what happens? The last-place Cubs, losers of six of their past seven, touch Kershaw for two runs and bounce him in the sixth inning, his shortest outing since April 23. Kershaw gets the L.

4. More Manziel (Hey, If ESPN Can Revisit Him Every Seven Minutes, Why Can’t I?)

Jeff Spicoli: Was not even INVITED to the Manning Passing Academy.

–When I think of how the NCAA’s surprise (at least to us) Sunday visit to Manziel went down, this is what I think of. (“What [Jordan] Jefferson was saying was, Hey! You know, we left this England Baton Rouge place ’cause it was bogus; so if we don’t get some cool rules ourselves – pronto – we’ll just be bogus too! Get it?”)

–Texas A&M is within its bounds to tell the media what its players and coaches won’t discuss, but the media is within its bounds to make every question about Johnny Manziel, if for no other reason than to make a point. Alan Cannon cannot rescind the 1st Amendment. Only Rick Perry can do that.

–The band Living Colour devised ESPN’s current playlist nearly a quarter-century ago: “Cult of Personality.” It’s why we get LeBron, Manziel, Tebow, A-Rod, RG III, Lather, Rinse, Repeat, Ad Nauseam. Stan Verrett actually segued from a Manziel story to teases on Tebow and RG III this morning by drolly noting, “We never talk about these guys.”

–The Nineties band Nada Surf has gotten no credit (outside of this space, as far as I know) for coining the term, “Johnny Football.” (“And if you see Johnny Football Hero in the hall, tell him he played a great game…”). Lots of sound advice here.

–ESPN launched the Longhorn Network on August 26, 2011 (or, one day before Mack Brown’s 60th birthday). Since that date two quarterbacks who play for schools located in Texas have won the Heisman Trophy (RG III and Manziel), though neither played for the Longhorns. And three Texas-based universities have had at least one 10-win season: Baylor, Texas A&M and TCU. The Longhorns have not. I don’t know; I find it kind of funny.

5. A Short History of ‘Dream’

Less than 50 years later, the U.S. elected its first black president? Are we there yet? No. Closer? Much closer.

August 28, 1963: Martin Luther King, Jr., delivers his landmark “I Have A Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial. The speech itself commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, which proclaimed the freedom of all slaves in the 10 states in rebellion.

September 18, 1965: “I Dream of Jeannie” makes it network television debut. Our star, played by belly-baring babe Barbara Eden, refers to the man who took her away from her home land as “Master.” Hmmm.

Jeannie: Madison Avenue’s paragon of housewifery.

June 27, 1973: Aerosmith releases “Dream On“, the Boston-based band’s first hit (though it peaked at 59)

October, 1986: Lionel Richie declares that “I had a dream, I had an awesome dream” in “Say You, Say Me.”

September 29, 1992: The Cranberries release “Dreams”, an all-time rock yodeling classic.

Starting Five

1. Harvey. Danger.

Ligaments connect bone to bone.

He’s not sick, but he’s not well. New York Mess ace Matt Harvey, 24, who has only been in The Show for 13 months but has already started an All-Star Game, was diagnosed with a partial tear in his ulnar collateral ligament (Rex Ryan is not to blame; nor is Howard Jones, though that reference is a little bit more obscure). Harvey may need Tommy John surgery, which is not to be confused with Tommy Tune surgery (removal of one of your two left feet) or Tommy Rees surgery (implant of a 5-star quarterback, except that the implant fails to take and you are condemned to revert to the mean).

The recovery time on Tommy John surgery is approximately 12 months. Maybe someone needs to develop a procedure in which the rehab time is cut in half. Call it Adrian Peterson surgery.

This is Matt Harvey’s girlfriend. But if he can’t pitch until next summer, weeeeeeelllllllllll……..

Let’s point out that Harvey’s predecessor as Mess’ staff ace, R.A. Dickey, was born WITHOUT an ulnar collateral ligament. And he won the Cy Young Award last season.

2. Winner by KO

He’s baaaaaaack

Keith Theodore Olbermann returned to ESPN television after a 16-year absence last night and began with, “As I was saying…” The 54 year-old anchor never mentioned Tim Tebow, LeBron James or Johnny Manziel, but he did mention his grade-school teacher who recently passed. He did not retract the Genoa story, either.

Let posterity note that the first guest was Jason Whitlock and that he stated, “That’s why I like, I hate to say it, Deadspin. We need someone to watch the watchers.” Sure, but who will watch the watchers’ watchers?

3. Darwin Man Becomes Darwin Award Candidate

Salties: Seriously, not photo-shopped. They’re that big.

A long time ago I visited the remote northern Australian outpost of Darwin, which is located on the Indian Ocean. On the ride from the airport to our hotel I asked the cabbie if I should be afraid of Great White sharks in the waters off the coast. “Nay, there aren’t any Great Whites in the waters here, mate,” he answered. “The saltwater crocs would eat them.”

It’s an actress named Linda and a deep throat is involved, but it’s not what you think.

Suffice it to say that I learned to develop a healthy fear of saltwater crocs and that I, like most Aussies, would never venture into a Northern Territory tributary for a swim (Linda Kozlowski was lucky to escape, and she was just squatting near the shore in Crocodile Dundee). Particularly not anywhere near Darwin, which has the world’s highest density of said prehistoric reptiles. Alas, a local Darwin man, Sean Cole, did just that at a 30th birthday party recently and was snatched by a 16-foot long croc. As my old friend James Parziale used to say, “He gone.”

4. Six Hours? Really?

Manziel is the Verbal Kint of the 2013 season, and it hasn’t even started yet.

According to Travis Haney of ESPN, the NCAA spent six hours with Johnny Manziel in College Station on Sunday, which can only mean one thing: he was smoking a brisket. You’ve really got to slow-cook to maximize flavor, after all. I’ve already mentioned two of Texas’ most sacred cows in this item, by the way.

NCAA: “Johnny, did you take money to sign autographs?”
JM: “No.”
NCAA: “But did you accept cash?”
JM: “No.”

NCAA: “If you did get paid, don’t say anythinnnnnng– NOW!”
JM: “I’m talking. See, I’m talking.”

NCAA: “Who is Keyser Soze?
JM: “Guys, can I go back to playing Madden?

ESPN has already purchased the rights to further Manziel inquisitions and will launch the Johnny Football Network in spring of 2014.

5. Flori-Duh!

Welcome back, friend. It has been too long. We have two for you…

The first, thanks to Deadspin, involves a wing-eating contest, a pantsing, and a punch to the face, all of which appears to have taken place in Jacksonville.

Meanwhile in Fort Walton Beach, a 37 year-old man was arrested for exposing himself and masturbating while rotating 36 degrees (oops, we meant 360; thanks, G.A.) outside of a convenience circles. In gay circles, we believe, this maneuver is known as an “Anderson Cooper 360.”

Reserves

Syria, Not Genoa

Aaron Sorkin creates a season-long story line on The Newsroom about the possibility that the U.S. dropped Sarin gas during a POW extraction in Afghanistan, and it’s compelling stuff. During the week when the plot comes to a head, reports out of Damascus appear to indicate that the government of Syria staged a chemical attack on its own citizens that may have left 1,300 dead.

Ebony and Ivory…Suits

For the record, Robin Thicke sang “Blurred Lines” at the VMAs while wearing a suit whose horizontal lines of black and white were clearly delineated. Our friend Jones (that’s three this week!) notes that The Hamburglar may be missing a suit from his wardrobe. Me, I’m going with Beetlejuice.

Getting twerked by a quarter pounder with cheese?

In which Jerry Dantana meets his own Little Big Horn and Mrs. Lansing uses the term “hizzy”.

As always, we endeavor to both find and explain every pop culture and historical morsel that Master Sorkin drops in the latest episode. This one was replete with them.

1. “Other than the cooked tape, Mrs. Lincoln, were there any holes in the story?”

ACN counsel Rebecca Halliday (Marcia Gay Harden) asks Don Keefer (Thomas Sadoski) what else was wrong with their Genoa report other than the fact that Jerry Dantana doctored the interview. The line is a reference to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln at the Ford Theater while viewing Our American Cousin, and the well-known joke, “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”

You use that line whenever you are trying to make the point that one event overshadows all others related to that event whose own effects are relatively negligible. In that sense, Halliday’s use of this line is improper since she is agreeing with Keefer.

2. “Are you one of the Andrews Sisters?”

“But when his number came up, well he was caught in the draft. He’s in the Army now, blowing reveille…”

Dantana, in Red Team Meeting III, disses Don by using this line, in effect calling him naïve. The Andrews Sisters, a musical trio of siblings, were a huge hit on USO Tours during World War II. Best known for “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.”

3. “As Alfred Adler once said, ‘It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.'”

Will McAvoy quotes Adler, an Austrian medical doctor (1870-1937) whose chief contribution to mankind was identifying the “inferiority complex“, during his opening comments of the special report on Genoa. Thanks a lot, Doc.

4. “The California Golden Bears are hosting the UCLA Bruins…”

Except that Cal would not be hosting UCLA on Sunday night, September 9. The two Pac-12 schools would meet nearly one month later, on October 6. Our research indicates, and we are basing it upon the 14-14 score on the screen and the iso on Cal coach Jeff Tedford, that this footage would have come from the October 16, 2004 meeting between the two. Why Sorkin used this footage is beyond me.

5. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Welcome back, McCotter

Hamlet’s two friends, or so he originally believed them to be, in the eponymous Shakespeare classic. The two are sycophants as well as traitors. Don references them to attack the pretentious and what he believes to be disingenuous nature of the resignation announcement of congressman Thaddeus McCotter (the name itself should have provided a clue) last year. The announcement, in part, reads:

“The recent event’s totality of calumnies, indignities and deceits have weighed most heavily upon my family. Thus, acutely aware one cannot rebuild their hearth of home amongst the ruins of their U.S. House office, for the sake of my loved ones I must “strike another match, go start anew” by embracing the promotion back from public servant to sovereign citizen.”

6. “Keys to Mordor…Dumbledore”

Dumbledoreable

McKenzie, wondering aloud to Slumdog whether the Pentagon’s official response to the Genoa report is buried in some secret internet portal, references both The Hobbit trilogy and the Harry Potter series. Mordor is the dwelling place of Sauron, the dark lord of Middle Earth, while Albus Dumbledore is the headmaster of Hogwarts. Only a geek like Slumdog would know that.

7. “Those are ‘I Love Lucy’ numbers.”

So the Pentagon would be Ricky and News Night would be Lucy, correct? “You got some ‘splainin’ to do.”

Will is over the moon at the fantastic ratings that the Genoa special received via the overnights. During its six-season run, from 1951-1957, the sitcom finished first in the ratings four times, second once and third once. It never did WORSE than a 43.7 share, meaning 43.7% of the households with a TV in America were tuned to it. Of course, it probably killed Sorkin not to dub in “Those are ‘Sharknado’ numbers, but then that would have been an anachronism.

8. “Matlock?”

Oh, Andy.

Maggie is asked to name another lawyer and this is her quickest quip? Somewhere Atticus Finch and Ally McBeal weep. Besides, nobody below the age of 55 has ever seen that program.

9. “At some point at Little Big Horn, I’ll bet Custer led a unanimous vote that said, “I still think we can win.”

To clarify, the Arapahoe, Cheyenne and Lakota did NOT use Sarin.

Sloan Sabbith (Olivia Munn) references the Battle of Little Big Horn, one of the true Epic Fails in U.S. military history. Her point: Once the horse is out of the barn, no leader is really soliciting an underling’s opinion. The leader is soliciting your loyalty.

10. “Shawshank”

Sloan tells Don that he would fare poorly in prison but that she would “thrive” because, like Andy Dufresne, she has skills that would be valuable to the inmate population and the warden: she could invest their money and do their taxes. Sure, but whose poster would Sloan hang on her cell wall? Alan Greenspan’s?

11. “There was a deer on the Merritt Parkway.”

Oh, deer. We must be on the Merritt.

I don’t pretend to know every road way in America, but my two favorites by far are the Merritt Parkway, which runs parallel to I-95 in southwestern Connecticut and allows only cars, and the Natchez-Trace Parkway, which runs through Tennessee and Mississippi.

12. “You need to talk to Deep Throat.”

Not only does Will reference “All The President’s Men” and the clandestine rendezvous between Bog Woodward and his  Watergate source, but then Charlie travels to Washington, D.C., to meet his own personal DT in a parking garage. That’s exactly the same type of structure where Woodward met DT, when he was advised to “follow the money.”

13. Claudette Colvin, Giuseppe Zangara, and the Challenger tragedy

Zangara, being led to his execution by electric chair. No lie, his last words reportedly were, “Pusha da button.”

Hell, it’s gotten to the point where Sorkin is now annotating his own references in the episode itself. I’d expound on these cultural/historical references, but Sorkin has already gone through the trouble of having McAvoy, his mouthpiece, do so. Sorkin’s point: History often turns on what seems an insignificant variable. An aside: the reason Zangara was standing on a wobbly chair when he fired the shot intended for FDR? He was only five feet tall.

14. “Skyfall”

I can’t even remember if I’m supposed to be James Bond or Mikael Blomkvist

Mrs. Lansing attends a gala at the Museum of Modern Art in hopes of meeting the film’s star, Daniel Craig. This was the hottest movie of last autumn. It should be noted that Jane Fonda was never a Bond girl, though she certainly could have been.

15. “Sherlock Holmes it…”

Mrs. Lansing uses Holmes as a verb, suggesting to Mac that even a genius sleuth might have been unable to unearth Dantana’s dastardly deed before the show aired.