by John Walters

The Man would have turned 39 today.

Starting Five

1. Simmer Down. Simmer Down Now!

Yes, I’m old enough to remember when SNL cast members portrayed presidents of presidential candidates, from Chevy Chase’s Gerald Ford (in which he never applied makeup) to Dana Carvey’s George Bush to Darrell Hammond’s Bill Clinton to Will Ferrell’s Dubya to Fred Arnisen’s Obama.

Anyway, Donald Trump is HOSTING SNL tomorrow and this has quite a few people upset. And I don’t get it. Most people who oppose a Trump presidency, if I were to go out on a short limb, define themselves as liberals, and as such are fierce protectors of the First Amendment. And that’s really all this is: a late-night comedy show is exercising its First Amendment rights.

If you want to argue that it’s unfair that Trump (Stephen Colbert last night opined that the new film Trumbo is about the love child of Trump and Dumbo) gets 90 minutes of air time that the other candidates do not, my rejoinder is A) He’s not the musical guest, too; it’s not really 90 minutes B) It’s 2015 and we’re going to have more than a dozen freaking debates; I think all of these candidates are receiving adequate air time, C) If seeing Trump on SNL is what persuades someone to vote for him, then maybe we deserve the government we’re getting and finally, D) if you TRULY wanted to protest Trump’s appearance, the best thing to do would be to simply ignore it — and not watch.

Oh, and you and I are SURE that this just got accidentally leaked (funny, by the way; and that is the only mandate SNL serves, or should serve).

2. Brad & Carrie Rule Again

From two nights ago, but every year Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood rule as hosts of the Country Music Awards. How happy they must have made Disney CEO Bob Iger on Wednesday night, as the show aired on ABC and they were able in their monologue to slyly work in product placement for both Star Wars and The Muppets. Stick around for the wonderful dig at Blake Shelton, who took it like a champ (No Gwen? Too soon?)

3. Why Haven’t You Written a Think Piece on What the Demise of Grantland Says About Journalism Yet? 

Grantland Rice on his iPhone. Granny actually played football at Vanderbilt and also served in World War I before writing heroic ledes

When I was in high school, our school newspaper (“The Round Up”) had an editor who would use as many Led Zeppelin songs titles as headlines as he could get away with. He didn’t do it because the titles made great heds, but rather because he was simply being self-indulgent. That dude, Keith Blanchard, later went on to become the Editor-in-Chief of Maxim. You can look it up.

I don’t know what that ditty says about anything… I really enjoyed Andy Greenwald’s Game of Thrones recaps and also anything that Mark Titus had to say about college hoops — he actually channeled the early Simmons’ combo of passion for a sport with a scoundrel’s sense of humor quite well. I did not read it much beyond that. So I’ll miss some of Grantland; I missed My So-Called Life, too, but it didn’t garner ratings.

As for Clay Travis’s advice, here’s what I’d say: Do NOT go into writing to make money. Go into writing because you want to express yourself and because you have that itch. If you’re trying to become wealthy or worse, famous, you’ll probably either wind up compromising your values or will have revealed yourself to have none at all. And if you had no values, why didn’t you just become a hedge-fund manager in the first place? You’d have dressed and eaten better earlier, you know.

Meanwhile, if you follow your heart, you may have a long, slow trudge to wealth and success, but eventually you’ll be able to sue your employer for age discrimination. So there’s that….

4. RIP, “Ace Cool”

What is about Cookes and the Pacific? (I know, the other one had no “e”)

He was 59. Alec “Ace Cool” Cooke was known as a lone wolf among the Big Wave surfers, but he had lived in Hawaii since age 6, the scion of one of Hawaii’s five established sugar plantation families.

Last week he paddled out into Waimea Bay on Oahu’s North Shore to catch a set at twilight, and he has not been seen since. His board was recovered, though, minus the indentation of a shark bite. It’s sort of a legendary way to go if you’re a surfer. I mean, that’s how Bodhi went.

5. Where In The World?

Thursday: Vasyugan, the world’s largest swamp, which is located in….you guessed it….Russia

Music 101

No Day But Today

“There’s only us/There’s only this/Forget regret/Or life is yours to miss…” 

There are better-known closers to end “Show Tunes Week” with, but first of all, we’ll do it again (do not despair), and second, I was lucky enough to see the original cast (almost all of whom are here in this film version) on Broadway, a group that included Taye Diggs, Jesse L. Martin, Anthony Rapp (yes, he was in Dazed and Confused, too), Adam Pascal and, of course, Adele Dazeem. I still get goose bumps listening to this.

It helps if you remember/know that the show’s creator, Jonathan Larson, died unexpectedly the night before the show’s off-Broadway premiere, which really hammered home that “Life is precious” theme he was going for.

Remote Patrol

SATURDAY

No. 16 Florida State at No. 1 Clemson

ABC 3:30 p.m.

No. 3 LSU at No. 4 Alabama

CBS 8 p.m.

There are people out there who bitch and moan about Verne and Gary, and I simply don’t understand those humans…at…all. The No. 1 CBS crew don’t get every last fact right, but they’re having F-U-N. And aren’t sports supposed to be fun (or did we all lose sight of that fact years ago)? Two fantastic games (with Notre Dame-Pitt as a noon brunch) with legit Heisman talents in Dalvin Cook and Leonard Fournette. Putdown of Clemson I saw from an FSU fan this week: “Clemson’s ‘tradition’s are getting in a bus, touching a rock, and running down a hill. I went to pre-K, too.”

by John Walters

Bryan Adams turns 56…

…while Ryan Adams turns 41. That is just TOO strange (Ryan’s parents had no idea who Bryan was when they named their baby boy).

Starting Five

Big Red never coached, but Luke is now 5-0 while sitting in for Steve Kerr

1. “Luke, I Am Your Father”

The Golden State Warriors trailed by 10 midway through the fourth quarter last night in a battle of unbeatens, but of course they won by six, 112-106. I was impressed by interim coach Luke Walton (now 5-0), who during the fourth quarter timeout just reminded his Warriors players to “have fun, this is what it’s all about.”

If you stayed up late to watch, I think it was Mike Breen or Jeff Van Gundy who shared the story of how when Walton was a lad, his dad, the undeniably great Bill Walton, would scrawl aphorisms from John Wooden on his lunch bag (“Failing to prepare is preparing to fail”). How great is that?

Steph had a game-high 31.

And yes, we noticed that Toronto improved to 5-0 with a victory over OKC.

2. Sleeve Me Alone

LeBron James: These sleeves are the pits

I had been waiting for some NBA player to do this. Last night the best* player in the NBA tore his sleeves mid-game because they were hampering his shooting form. Duh. Remember when the NBA issued sleeved jerseys for all five Christmas Day games last year and you were like, what’s next, herringbone sweaters? The shoulders need a little free range when you’re shooting, Commish Silver. Black sleeves, green sleeves, it don’t matter: It’s the worst sports fashion idea since Constanza’s all-cotton uniforms.

* We write what we must to keep one of our most loyal readers happy.

3. Spectre-tacular

The new James Bond film Spectre opened in the U.K. last weekend and earned $80 million, which is a record for the British Isles. Last night on Late Show with Stephen Colbert, actor Daniel Craig explained just how his character happens to obtain those cars that he seems to run through so often.

4.FANG Bites

We didn’t forget your birthday, Famke Janssen. Happy 51st to a lovely Dutch treat.

FANG is an acronym, coined by CNBC’s Jim Cramer, for the four mega-market cap tech stocks (excluding the mega-mega one, Apple): Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google.

We’d all do well to pay attention to (and buy) them. While you were off trying to win $300 on FanDuel or DraftKings, here’s where these stocks were last November 10th and here’s what their price was at yesterday’s close:

2014                            2015                         % Up

 Facebook (FB)                       $75                             $104                          38.7%

Amazon (AMZN)                    $300                         $641                          113%

NetFlix (NFLX)                      $55                            $114                            107%

Google (GOOG)                      $540                         $728                           34.8%

That’s not bad. Ah, yes, but should you still buy them or do we return to Rule No. 1 (“Gravity always wins”)? I happen to think there’s still a lot of fuel in those rockets, myself. And all four of those companies are built on the idea of “serial monopoly,” or only getting stronger as they devour more market share.

5. Where In The World?

Hint: The world’s largest swamp is not located where you might expect (No Googling!…Okay, go ahead)

Yesterday’s Answer: Mount Fuji, Japan

Music 101

You’re The Top

If you like clever word play (hello!) and a plethora of topical references to the Jazz Age, you’ll never find a more satisfying tune than this Cole Porter gem from the breezy 1934 musical Anything Goes. If you ever see it or have seen it, you’ll recognize how James Cameron stole liberally from its love triangle-on-an-ocean liner plot for Titanic. 

Remote Patrol

Baylor at Kansas State

FS1 7:30 p.m.

We have to work on this form, Jarrett

Seth Russell was lost for the season on October 24 with a fractured cervical vertebra, so what did Baylor and coach Art Briles do? They went to Jarrett. It falls upon true freshman  Jarrett Stidham to lead the No. 6 Bears. Tonight may not be too challenging, but the Waco gang has three Top 15 teams to follow after tonight. Psst: Stidham can play; Russell may be out of a gig.

by John Walters

Happy 32nd to Price Is Right model and former LSU track star Rachel Reynolds

Starting Five

More than 800,000 Royals fans were estimated to have shown up.

1. Royals Flush With Fans

At Union Station yesterday, a throng of Royals fans appeared on a gorgeous afternoon to salute their World Series champions and, judging by the size of the crowd, await the white puffs of smoke heralding the election of a new pope.

Kansas City proper has about 467,000 humans and it is estimated that 800,000 showed up to laud the franchise’s first World Series champions in 30 years (imagine if the Cubs ever win).

Related: “Around The Horn” host Tony Reali noted on Monday’s program that his surname, in Italian, translates to “Royals.”

2. Daily Harrumph: Love Is All Around

Few Favorited this development on social media

Twitter replaced its “Favorite” tab with a “Heart” Like yesterday in a maneuver to be more Facebooky…now if only there were someplace on social media for humans to react to this instantly and viscerally, expressing to all of the world how they feel about it.

Me, I had fun renaming films: “I Favorite Huckabees” and “My Heart Year,” for beginners.

3. Tiger, Tiger (and Tiger), Burning Bright

To this point, Notre Dame at Clemson may have been the most impactful game of the season in the rankings…

It’s Death Valley Days in college football, as the initial College Football Playoff rankings have the Clemson Tigers and LSU Tigers 1 and 2. The Memphis Tigers, at 13, are the top Group of 5 school — and have a chance to improve their resume against an undefeated Houston team on November 14, followed by one-loss Temple the following week (not that Memphis and Paxton Lynch will advance to the Football Four — Who are we kidding? — but it could be an interesting run).

…while Stanford’s 11 a.m. start and 16-6 loss in Evanston could be the biggest outlier and wind up costing the Pac-12 a berth.

What I like about this year’s rankings? With the exceptions of Memphis and possibly Florida, every team in the Top 20 will play at least one other team in the Top 20, and mostly in the Top 10, going forward. This will mostly sort itself out.

Easiest path going forward: No, Clemson, I have not forgotten that you already took down No. 5 Notre Dame, but your only tough remaining game is at home this Saturday versus No. 16 Florida State.

Easiest picks to criticize: Ohio State at No. 3 and Alabama at No. 4, based on resumes. Based on eye test, I have no problem with it.

Michigan State basically stole a victory from the Victors, which sets up an awesome final two weekends in the B1G

Biggest error by Selection Committee: Using maths to explain their rankings. As Dan Wolken tweeted yesterday, their stock response should simply be, “We think they’re better.” I mean, why do you put together 12 experts in a room, after all? Any Nate Silver wannabe could crunch numbers and give you a Top 25 the maths way.

How it breaks down per conference:

ACC: Best bet is for Stanford Clemson to win out.

Big Ten: No conference is in better shape, with three current unbeatens. The easiest way to muck this up is if the Fighting Harbaughs upset Ohio State on November 28.

Big 12: Four unbeatens, none of whom have played one another yet, all of whom will. If this turns into the melee from Anchorman, we’ve got trouble (Bob Bowlsby: “That escalated quickly”) . If anyone runs the gauntlet unbeaten, they’re in.

“Oklahoma State used a trident…”

Pac-12: We’ve got trouble. One-loss teams Stanford or Utah need to run the table, and even then it’s not a sure thing.

SEC: Calamity awaits if Alabama beats LSU (and the Iron Bowl is never a gimme, especially since it’s at Jordan-Hare this year). Easiest in is if LSU wins out. If Alabama wins Saturday, it would appreciate LSU beating Ole Miss the following week.

Notre Dame: Win out and you’ve got an outstanding resume and it may come down to whether any Big 12 teams are undefeated. You’re in over a one-loss Big 12 team. As for a one-loss Clemson team, would SelCom place higher value on head-to-head or strength of schedule? We’ll see.

Finally, one guarantee: One of these top ten ranked teams will lose against someone they shouldn’t lose to in November. Wackiness awaits.

4. How Can We Miss You if You Never Go Away?

He couldn’t stay away. Shocker.

How long ago was that poignant Jon Stewart retirement party? Remember the one where Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played him off? When was it, August?

(By the way, the Navesink River is officially THE place to be. You’ve got Bon Jovi and Stewart on one side of it, and Bruce on the other; “In my hometown, in myyyy  hoooome town…”)

Anyway, less than three full months later, Stewart has signed a four-year development deal with HBO (“It’s not TV, it’s where the smart, cool bros go”). Now that Stewart has taken the bait, how does HBO not inveigle him to dedicate himself to covering, at least in some form, the most fascinating presidential race of this millennium (if not our life times)? As bees in honey drown…

5. Good. Band. Meeting.

The best pre-game warmup in sport

A leftover from the weekend, but New Zealand, a nation of approximately 4 million people, won its second consecutive Rugby World Cup by defeating arch-nemesis Australia, 34-17, in London. Makes sense. The All Blacks became the first nation to win the quadrennial event three times and the first to repeat.

Related: I miss Flight of the Conchords and particularly, the band meetings with Murray (“Brit?” “Here.” “Jermaine?” “Present.”)

Music 101 

Go Go Joseph

“Show Tunes Week” continues: In 1970 two fledgling playwrights by the names of Andrew Lloyd Webber (music) and Tim Rice (lyrics) coopted the Old Testament story of an abandoned brother and turned it into a Broadway musical smash titled Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (as a grade schooler in Red Bank, I watched the Red Bank Catholic H.S. drama department put on the show seven years later and I can’t imagine it was done any better on Broadway.) This here’s the show stopper, as Joseph (here, Donny Osmond), interpreter of dreams, gets his mojo back while in prison. The Narrator, played here by Maria Friedman from the 1999 straight-to-video movie, is pretty terrific.

Remote Patrol

49th Country Music Awards

ABC 8 p.m.

Not. Happening. Tonight.

The only sure thing is that Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert will not be seated next to one another.

Clippers at Warriors

ESPN 10:30 p.m.

If I ran Oracle Arena, I’d play this clip before every tip off. The last two unbeaten teams in the Western Conference (both 4-0) meet in Oakland tonight.

by John Walters

Happy 58th birthday to Dolph Lundgren! “You will lose!”

Starting Five

“My dad played in the NBA!”… “Jinx!”… “Jinx again!”

1. Stephen Up

I’m sorry, but Steph Curry is about to has become my male Taylor Swift. The Warriors aboded the Grizzlies by 50 last night and in doing so set a record for largest margin of victory after four games of an NBA season (combined, that is): 100 points.

Curry had 30 points, which drops his scoring average to 37.0 ppg.

Can we ask, How good a coach is Luke Walton, by the way? 4-0 in his first four NBA games with a margin-of-victory record.

Also, may we ask, Isn’t it about time that Curry earned a righteous nickname? That was the wonderful thing about the Seventies: almost everyone in sports had a nickname.

Finally, here’s Steph and Mrs. Steph lip-synching doing a Dubsmash of a song from Frozen. Adorable. Also, the kid even has acting skills.

2. Grimes & Misdemeanors (a.k.a., The Daily Harrumph)

This is what makes Brian Van Gorder such an excellent underling: he knows when not to pay attention.

Notre Dame football coach Brian Kelly does his weekly press conference at noon today and he is going to be asked about the above. Hopefully, he’ll have a better answer than he did Sunday. 

There are a few points worth making: 1) It is never a good look to put your hands on a staffer and push him/grab him. Never. Understood. 2) Don’t compare this situation to your office, unless you have co-workers who wear helmets. Violent sports such as football and hockey come with a little more testosterone attached. 3) What if David Grimes, a former Notre Dame wide receiver, had been a recidivist offender in terms of chirping at the refs? What if he had been warned by coaches, even by the referee, not to do this again? At this moment the Irish had just received a 15-yard penalty for tripping (on center Nick Martin, who was penalized thrice in the game) and I doubt Kelly was going to be happy about being penalized 30 yards.

I’m sure Kelly knows that he needs to control his temper better. That’s a terrible look for him. And today he will come out, sharply dressed, and field questions with his usual calm and composure. Probably best for him to say, “No matter the circumstance, I need to handle myself better in a moment like that” and if people ask if he has apologized to Grimes, he can say, “We’ve discussed it.”

3. Layers of Wrong

Corn Elder (far right for Miami), who scored the game-winning TD for the Canes, was named ACC Special Teams Player of the Week, while I named the ACC “Mixed Signal Sender of the Week.” And yes that’s a block in the back.

I still cannot shake Miami-Duke, for a few reasons:

1. I’m hearing like 3% in terms of reaction of what a great play Miami made, penalties and mistakes aside. Sorry, but one week after losing 58-0 at home and firing your coach, that was pretty incredible. Duke was 6-1, after all.

2. Why are so many people asking how come the outcome of the game cannot be overturned (good luck retrieving your money from your bookie) as opposed to asking, How come a video replay official cannot see what so many of us saw? What is the reason for that systemic breakdown?

3. The outcomes of games, no matter how incompetently officiated (Don Denkinger, Bush Push, 5th Down, etc.) should never be posthumously overturned. Never. I don’t want to have to wake up the next morning as a fan to find out if my team still won after I watched them win last night.

Video Replay: What could possibly go wrong?

4. Remember when video replay was going to “get it right?” Yes, and wasn’t Titanic unsinkable? Does anyone really believe that by allowing someone in a league office to overturn the outcome of a game you’re going to eliminate errors?

Oh, yeah, that. (Is this the first time Titanic has ever been used as a metaphor?)

5. Meanwhile, what if it had been Miami-Clemson? And what if ACC officials, knowing their best shot to land a team in the CFB playoff was the Tigers, overturned the loss? Now you’ve got another team far outside the ACC whose CFB Playoff fate may be affected by a decision a few self-interested execs made in a board room. That’s not what sport should be about.

6. Not the main issue here, but Miami beat Duke with an interim coach and a backup QB. Also, and this is what amuses me to no end, let’s just say the only thing wrong with the final play was whether his knee was down. And so I ask you, Is Duke’s final TD any more legit, i.e., Did he cross the plane?, than Miami’s? (at 0:54)

And you say, “Well, sure it was, they confirmed it on review.” Oh, so that play is legit because video replay confirmed it but Miami’s is not even though they confirmed it on video replay? “Yeah, but I can see that his knee was down,” you reply. And see the essential paradox of that? It’s not about video replay being the final verdict. It’s about it confirming what you think.

4. Troll Job

Remember Amazon, the company whose newfangled style of retail threatened to put so many brick-and-mortar stores, particularly bookstores, out of business? Well, now Amazon is opening a physical book store, just like the type you used to visit before you could order books on-line from Amazon or read them via Kindle, in Seattle. That is some massive trolling, Jeff Bezos.

Waiting for Ford to come out with a 2016 “Horse and Buggy F-10.”

Maybe Amazon just wants to “re-Kindle” our love of visiting bookstores and hanging out.

5. Where In The World?

Hint: Bill Murray once golfed in its shadow

Monday’s Answer: Munich Residenz

Music 101 

Tomorrow

Remember, it’s “Show Tunes Week” at Medium Happy. It hasn’t happened in quite some time, but Broadway showstoppers used to occasionally climb onto the Billboard Top 40 charts (“Memories” from Cats, for example) and inundate your AM radio. When I was a lad in 1977, a cute tween named Andrea McCardle became a household name for singing this hit from Annie.

Remote Patrol

College Football Playoff

ESPN 7 p.m.

Don not forget Fournette

Gentlemen, start your anger. Where’s TCU? What does Oklahoma State have to do to garner some respect? And whither undefeated Toledo, who will host Northern Illinois on ESPN2 at 8 p.m.? Not to worry. The field will soon sort itself out as just this weekend LSU visits Bama, Florida State takes a trip to Clemson, and TCU travels to Oklahoma State. That’s six teams ranked in the Top 17 all meeting one another.

by John Walters

…and to the 11th president of the USA, James K. Polk

Happy Birthdays to the 29th president of the USA, Warren G. Harding….

Starting Five

The Jeurys out on whether Collins should have allowed Familia start the ninth.

1. Harvey Danger

It went from Dark Knight to dark knight rather quickly in Game 5 of the World Series. Met manager Terry Collins tells ace Matt Harvey that he’s taking him out of the game as the Mets are nursing a 2-0 lead after eight innings. Harvey: “No way.”

Okay. Collins is a nice guy, he acquiesces. Harvey allows a leadoff walk off a 3-2 pitch to “He don’t lie, he don’t lie, he don’t lie” Lo Cain, and you saw what happened after that. I was hoping that Harvey would get at least one strikeout in the 9th so we could say we saw both a marathon and a 10-K effort in New York in the same day, but instead we had to settle for a pair of New York City marathons.

The Met lose 7-2 in 12 innings, which means that in three of their four losses, they led in the eighth inning or later. The Royals win their first World Series in 30 years.

2. Suspensions of Disbelief

An eight-lateral kickoff return by Miami gives them the win over Duke. Penalties/things that the refs missed:

A. Probable runner down at :26, B. Clip at :38, C. Crack back block above the shoulder pads at :42

Did the refs miss these? Yes. Was nine minutes a little too long to decide whether or not the man’s knee was down? Certainly. Should a ref in the replay booth be given the onus of basically deciding who wins a game, which in this case he was? Your decision.

Here’s a similar play from Trinity University in Texas, 2007:

The refs blew it, certainly. To me, the clip was the most egregious miss. Still, a two-game suspension is rather excessive. Were any referees suspended during the Bush Push, which was also a climactic play that decided a game? (No.). And I’m not sure if any refs were suspended after the 5th Down game in 1990, either.

3. CFB’s Wild Weekend

“And that’s not all!” As wild as the Miami-Duke finish was — and it was — what was supposed to be a Somnolent Saturday in college football was actually quite thrilling. Nothing quite as good as that “Go  Canes!” return in the first game of the post-Golden era but here’s a few things you may have missed:

Harvard, where they do go to “play school,” ties Ohio State for the nation’s longest winning streak at 21 games. But it wasn’t easy as the Crimson trailed 13-0 at Dartmouth on Friday night midway through the fourth quarter before coming back to win, 14-13. The Crimson scored the game-winner with just :38 remaining. I KNEW I should’ve driven up to Hanover. That’s on me. My bad.

Michigan holds off Minnesota when Golden Gopher receiver Drew Wolitarsky catches a pass less than a yard shy of the game-winning TD, then the GGs fail to score from that close on the next two plays (a field goal from point-blank range would have sent it to overtime). Wolverines win, 29-26, and collect the Little Brown Jug.

Meanwhile out on the Palouse, Stanford was in trouble all night long versus the Cougars — someone wasn’t too happy about being passed over by College GameDay — but Wazzu’s Erik Powell missed a 43-yard game-winning field goal after already having made 5 ( from 46, 23, 47, 28 and 28 yards) in the wind and rain. Tough to blame him, though. Gotta be better in the red zone, Coach Leach. Stanford survives, 30-28.

When you set a school record for field goals in a game but miss the game-winner against at Top 10 foe: From GOAT to goat.

Finally, how about this play by freshman defensive back Terrill Hanks of New Mexico State, against Idaho in overtime, that snapped the nation’s longest losing streak at 17 games? Hanks actually catches the ball with his ankles. Aggies win, 55-48.

4. Steph Child

He’s even better this year, but he can’t play the Pelicans every night

The NBA plays an 82-game season, so I’m wondering why the Golden State Warriors, who have the league’s MVP, Stephen Curry, and happen to be defending champions, played a team with a man who has been heralded as a future MVP, Anthony Davis, twice before November 1? They’ll only play three times all season, which means you’ll have to wait 133 days before the Warriors and Pelicans next square off, for the last time this year.

Curry will miss them. He scored 40 in their first game last Wednesday night, and 53 on Saturday night.

5. Where In The World?

Friday’s Answer: Avenue of the Baobabs, Madagascar

Music 101

Ol’ Man River

It’s “Show Tunes Week” at MH, and so we’ll begin with this showstopper from Show Boat. That’s William Warfield reprising the classic in this 1951 movie version; it was originally put on screen in 1936 with Paul Robeson singing — Robeson, you may recall, was an All-American football end in 1918 and 1919, which meant he was light years ahead of the integration movement in collegiate sports.

Here’s the Paul Robeson version:

Remote Patrol

NBA Coast to Coast

ESPN 2 8 p.m.

I have to give a little love to this show, because I’m glad someone at ESPN understands Short Attention Span Theater. It’s a long NBA season, and most of us would prefer to get a look-in on all the games on a Monday night in November as opposed to suffering through yet another 2 hours of LeBron (I know, I know, Susie B.: he’s magnificent; I’d just like a little variety). Tonight you’ll get look-ins on the Thunder and Rockets, plus LeBron, Steph Curry and Spurs are all in action. SAS is actually in NYC  at MSG (too early) to atone for the most inconceivable loss of the NBA season last winter (it may have cost SAS home-court, if I remember correctly).

Above, that’s Russell Westbrook with the fierce put-back slam. Curry may be the NBA’s MVP, but Russ is the league’s FON: Force Of Nature.