by John Walters

A Medium Happy birthday to Margaux Hemingway (Papa’s granddaughter) who left this world too early in 1996 at age 41.

Starting Five

Jimmy negotiates a side deal with Kim….

1. Saul Survivor

The season two premiere of Better Caul Saul featured two prime call-forwards to Breaking Bad (Spoiler Alert), one of them being the bluetooth-bore whose car Walter blew up at a gas station and the other being a certain expensive tequila that Gus Fring would use to commit mass murder. And I’m writing today’s MH from my cocobolo desk.

Everyone needs a friend like Kim Wexler

Also, if you saw the episode, you tell me: Did you think Jimmy’s “You should see what I use to floss!” line was improvised? Kim’s (Rhea Seehorn’s) laugh sounded almost too genuine to be acting.

It was a very fruitful episode for Jimmy, but how much happiness can one man bear?

2. Grammys

Gaga culminated a smashing 9-day run with last night’s homage to the Starman

I sort of watched the Grammys via Twitter (enjoyed Stephen Douglas’ “What if Alexander Hamilton was white?”). Lady Gaga raced through the entire David Bowie catalogue in four minutes, Kendrick Lamar reminded us that white people suck (it had been at least six hours), but earlier Taylor Swift had reminded us that Kanye West sucks (it had been at least…), Adele got taken down by technical difficulties (if only she had performed in a car with James Corden), and Pitbull pitbulled.

3. “The Sea Was Angry That Day, My Friends…“*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1dFhQVqXhM

*The judges will also accept “The Old Man And Woman and the Sea” or “Wave at the Camera!”

Fortunately, everyone in this French video survives. A reminder that “rogue,” as in rogue wave, is a French word. This footage is actually more dramatic than most horror films. It looks like a Werner Herzog film. It should be repackaged as such and be nominated for an Oscar short film next year.

*Kudos to The Yonk for the suggestion…

4.  Jerry Makes a New Friend

Sometimes Seinfeld has a famous guest, but you can tell that they never quite click (e.g., two weeks ago, Will Ferrell). On the most recent episode of CCC, however, and maybe because unlike Will he is a true standup comic, Jerry bonds with Sebastian Maniscalco, who kind of reminds you of a combination of Kramer and Tony (“Step off, George!”).

Notice that they go for coffee, and then they hit a place for a glass of wine. Neither wants the date to end. Signature moment, and one that defines Jerry perfectly, comes when Maniscalco, a Los Angeles native, points to the ocean on a sunny day as they are driving a Camaro Z28 and asks, “How can you not love this? The sea, the sun, the palm trees…”

And Jerry, dismissively waving his hands at the throngs of humanity, says, “Because they’re all enjoying it. And that’s what ruins it for me.”

Maybe I’ve been in New York City too long, but I completely get where Jerry’s coming from.

5. “Bad News On The Doorstep…”

Last weekend all four members of the British band Viola Beach, plus their manager, perished when the vehicle they were driving in Stockholm, Sweden, plunged 80 or feet off a bridge.  The band had just finished playing their first gig ever outside the UK and were driving into Stockholm after midnight. Apparently the bridge had opened to let a boat through, there was a gap in it, and no one knows precisely how the accident occurred.

Posthumously, the band has now scored its first Top 40 hit. The song’s title is “Swings & Waterslides.” Seriously.

Music 101 

Love Will Tear Us Apart

The Manchester band Joy Division ever the vanaguard of the first wave of New Wave, even if lead singer Ian Curtis did not stick around to see it. Curtis wrote this pessimistic tune in 1979 and then committed suicide in May of 1980. The band released the song, an ironic nod to The Captain & Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together,” one month after Curtis took his own life. His widow, Deborah, had the song’ title inscribed on his tombstone. The Captain & Tennille later divorced. Curtis’s tale is tangentially told in a terrific Steve Coogan flick, 24-Hour Party People.

Remote Patrol

When one channel (IFC) is staging a “That 70s Show”marathon, it may be a good night to phone a long lost friend instead of watching TV.

by John Walters

A Medium Happy birthday to our favorite heliocentrist heretic, Galileo, who was born many (of Jupiter’s) moons ago….

Starting Five

The U.S. Constitution, the Emancipation of the slaves, the Apollo moon landing, and now this.

1. Air Gordon (& More)

Highlights from the NBA All-Star Weekend:

–Win Butler, an American who happens to be the lead singer in a Canadian band (Arcade Fire), is named MVP in Friday night’s Celebrity Game. Then he gets blocked in the postgame interview by Sage Steele (“So we’re talking about celebrity stuff, not politics.”)

–That game also featured the NBA commissioner’s brother-in-law.

—Aaron Gordon and Zach LaVine put on arguably the best dunk contest duel since Michael Jordan versus Dominique Wilkins. Gordon loses to LaVine, but his dunk will have  a more lasting legacy.

–Vancouver Island native Steve Nash opens Sunday night’s festivities reminding all that Dr. James Naismith, a Canadian, invented the game.

–During pre-game intros, both Kobe Bryant and Russell Westbrook spurn the bro-hug opp with Canadian Prime Minister Drake. Russ had the best All-Star Game entrance I’ve ever seen (at 2:15 below)

–The West scores 196 points in a 196-173 win. We are informed by Marv Albert (who works really, really well with Reggie Miller and Chris Webber) that the Air Canada Center scoreboard is not designed to put up a “2” in that spot.

–During a timeout, a 6’1″ white dude in long pants, Jordan Kilganon, performs a spectacular dunk as if he were inside a bouncy house. We’re still not sure how he did it.

—Paul George scores 41 points. In the final two minutes the West seems to realize that the Indiana forward is just a bucket away from breaking Wilt Chamberlain’s 54-year old All-Star Game scoring record, so Coach Pop has Draymond Green face guard him.

–Stephen Curry buries a 42-footer as time expires, but TNT/TBS cameras are too busy focusing on Kobe and miss it.

–Kobe handles his All-Star Game bow out with consummate class. Really. He’s not half the diva Magic was or still is.

2. My Bloody Valentine

For the last time, stop being a wuss. You’re going to get us both eaten.

Quite the cathartic midseason premiere for The Walking Dead as Daryl pulls a hero move and blows up Negan’s highwaymen. Later, when all seems lost, Rick finally gets angry enough to start a melee with the walkers. I’m not sure why suddenly the zombies forgot how to go after living flesh en masse, but Rick and the gang prevail. Also, Glenn survives improbably yet again. Still, it was a cathartic night for those of us who have been waiting at least a season for Rick and the Gang to stop acting like suburbanites.

Definitely one of the best TWD episodes ever. We don’t tune in for the sentimental monologues. We want zombie fights, dammit. And to see a few bad humans git what’s coming to ’em.

3. Lionel Trains 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLgmHCIuZ3I

FC Barcelona’s Lionel Messi is arguably the greatest soccer player in the world (there are some Cristiano Ronaldo fan boys who will disagree), the greatest soccer player of all time (Pele fans), and the greatest artist practicing in Spain since Pablo Picasso.

Messi has won FIFA’s Ballon D’Or (world player of the year) four of the six times it has been given out (Ronaldo the other two). He entered Sunday’s match against Celta Vigo with 298 goals in just 332 matches. In the first half, Messi scored on a penalty kick from outside the box, hooking the ball brilliantly in Bend It Like Beckham fashion.

But then, in the second half, sitting at 299 career goals in La Liga, and looking at a gift penalty kick, he did the above. Most of us asked, “Is this even legal?!?” Apparently it is. Messi’s gift to teammate (and serial masticator) Luis Suarez gave the latter a hat trick for the match. Messi remains stuck on 299, but now one of his most iconic career moments is the goal he did not score.

4. Grayson Allen Wrenching Defeat

Dickie V: “That was Havlicek all the way.” Yup.

The setting: Cameron Indoor Stadium. Mike Krzyzewski’s 69th birthday. Unranked Duke (18-6) leads 61-60 over No. 7 Virginia (20-4). Purported Most Hated White Player Grayson Allen, who looks disarmingly similar to Coach K’s two grandsons and is an 85% free throw shooter, misses BOTH free throws with :27 left. UVA comes down and a Cav makes an awkward, back to the basket layup with less than :10 to play.

Cue Duke inbounds pass. Allen drives left, picks up ball, takes one step, then two (that’s a travel, no?), picks up ball, runs into contact (IMO, good no call since it was a charge if anything), has his right foot come back down (so that’s up and down), releases the shot form about 10 feet, which of course banks in. Duke wins, 63-62.

Great shot. Great ending. A few whistles might have been blown, but hey, it was Coach K’s birthday (I would’ve enjoyed that temper tantrum, though). Not to worry if you’re the Cavs, though. So many Top 25 teams lost this weekend, including two teams ahead of them, that they likely won’t dip.

5. You Gotta Be Shippin’ Me

I checked today’s date: it is not April 1st.

Australian billionaire Clive Palmer is building a near exact replica of Titanic, which he is dubbing Titanic II. The vessel, which will have a welded as opposed to a riveted hull, is set to lift anchor in 2018 on a voyage from Jiangsu, China, to Dubai.

Like the original, Titanic II will have 1st, 2nd and 3rd classes (steerage?), squash courts, a grand staircase, Turkish baths, and a dude who won his ticket in a card game. The original Titanic hit an iceberg, sunk in a matter of hours, killed 1,503 people, and grossed nearly $2.2 billion at the box office. Titanic II will accommodate 2,400 passengers and 900 crew members. Not sure if it will sail under the White Star Line.

Music 101

With A Little Luck

One of these days the editors of Medium Happy will meet in a conference room (all MH conferences are in person) and compile our Beatles’ Post-Beatles Greatest Hits album: all the best tunes from Paul, George, John and Ringo post-breakup. No doubt McCartney would have the most songs on the album, including this gem from 1978, which soared (on the strength of its Wings?) to No. 1 in the U.S. It’s EZ Listening, no doubt, but it’s a nice, soothing palliative. The song, no lie, was recorded on a boat in the Virgin Islands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EZ7v0duYjI&list=RD4EZ7v0duYjI

Remote Patrol

Better Call Saul

11:15 a.m AMC

Of course, if you have NetFlix, you can also watch all of Season 1 whenever you want….

The network will rerun the entire first season of BCS, from the origins of Slippin’ Jimmy to the offer of a cushy job in Santa Fe (Take it, Jimmy! Happy hours at Tomasita’s can’t be beat!), and if you are still grounded by 10 p.m., you can watch the Season 2 premiere. It ain’t Breaking Bad, but Season 1 slowly established our connection with these characters while also doing a flip on a few people we thought were good and a few we thought were evil.

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 24th to Abigail Blatchford, who is not an Si swimsuit rookie.

Starting Five

1. Permanent Waves

What’s Rule No. 1? You know what it is. Rule No. 1: Gravity always wins. So yesterday or a few days earlier physicists explained that they were able to sense gravitational waves from, I believe, the collision of two black holes a billion or so years ago light years away(Yeah, like one of us is going to disprove that within the next news cycle; Hey, I actually took Physics in college and aced it, unlike every other sportswriter you know; I don’t wanna hear your guff!), which props up Albert Einsteins’ Theory of Relativity.

Albert: “Tell me something I don’t know.”

I can picture Albert Einstein staring back from the infinite morass, saying, “It ain’t rocket science, boys. I ain’t no dummy.” Anyway, a bunch of mortal physicists validating Einstein’s work is like Jesse Pinkman looking at Mr. White and complimenting him on the purity of that last batch.

2. Catch It Like Beckham?

Odell’s younger cousin (right) is headed to Indianapolis for the Combine.

Until yesterday I would have thought that Eli Manning was the only New York Giant with an NFL-caliber relative. And then I was watching local news report on Terron Beckham, who is built like a brick ship house.

Interesting story (and I imagine there’s more beneath the surface). Terron is 23 and never played college football. But on the WCBS report I saw, they said that the 5’11”, 220-pound fitness trainer bench-pressed 225 pounds 42 times and had a standing vertical of 45″. The first number would be better than any running back last year at the NFL Combine and the second would tie the record. Terron is headed to the Combine next week and he’ll be a big story.

3. “Bruuuuuuuuuce!” “Booooooooooooook!”

This won’t be the first book written about Springsteen, just the first one written by Bruce.

They’re not booing, they’re saying, “Autobiography!”

“Sprung from pages out on Highway nine…” is how I’d open the tome, but I shouldn’t tell my fellow Monmouth County native how to write. Bruce Springsteen has been working on his autobiography for seven years (well, actually, if you listen to his lyrics, he’s been working on it since Greetings From Asbury Park) and now we know it will be released on September 27.

I’m looking forward to the book tour. “I saw Bruce at the Rochester Barnes & Noble! He read for three hours, then he came back and read for 40 more minutes!”

Comic Matt Goldich: “I hope this Springsteen book finally reveals whether or not he is from New Jersey.”

4. He Was A Day Tripper (Even If It Occurred at Night)

Matt Lawson was not given a yellow card for this move.

Haven’t we all daydreamed about doing this? A euphonium (I don’t know, either) player in the Scots Guard, Lance Sergeant Matt Lawson was on an early Valentine’s Day date with his wife when he heard shouts of “Stop! Police!” Lawson saw the 17 year-old assailant headed his way when at the last moment, he stuck out his right leg and tripped him. It was beautiful. Lawson, 37, should be signed by Sunderland later this week.

Lawson, middle, has a keen right leg.

5. Hawaii 19-3 (Which Is Not, Percentage-Wise, Superior to 5-0, But They’ll Take It)

6’11” Stefan Jankovic, a Serbian native who transferred from Mizzou, leads the Rainbow Warriors in scoring, rebounding and blocked shots (he is not to be confused with the RW’s other 6-11 center, Stefan Jovanovic, though we could see why you might).

I was all set to do this item on how the three East Bay teams–Golden State, Cal, and ST. Mary’s—are undefeated at home last night after Cal easily handled No. 11 Oregon 83-63. That put their combined home mark at 54-0. I went to bed and of course the Gaels lost at home to unranked Pepperdine, 69-63, to sully the unbeaten streak.

Then I looked farther west, to Honolulu. Do you realize that Hawaii is 19-3 and that one of the Rainbow Warriors’ three losses is to Oklahoma? Last night Hawaii ravaged UC-Irvine, the second-best team in its conference, the Big West, 74-52. Coincidentally, their leading scorer last night with 23 points was Roderick Bobbitt, who is from the East Bay (Oakland).

In case you were wondering, the Rainbow Warriors have been to the NCAA Tournament four times (2002, 2001, 1994, 1972) but have yet to win a game.

Music 101

Shout It Out Loud

I’m just a foot soldier in the KISS ARMY, but this is one of my favorite songs from the band. Both Paul and Gene get vocals, and it has a typical anthemic mantra. KISS is never trying to rewrite “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which I love about them. KISS’s second-ever single, it reached No. 31 in the USA but climbed all the way to No. 1 in Canada. This has long been one of the most oft-played songs on KISS tours, and why not?

Remote Patrol

Sunday Night

Casablanca

8 p.m. TCM

History of the Eagles, Parts I & II

8 p.m. CNN

NBA All-Star Game

8:30 p.m. TBS

“Play it, Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By.'” That’s the line.

What the hell, NBA? 8:30 p.m  tip-off on a school night? You really don’t care, do you? Listen, if you have not seen Casablanca, like, ever, do yourself a favor and watch it. A witty script, a suspenseful love story, Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Nazis! Also, flip back and forth to watch the love-hate fest that was the Eagles. It’s a good night to hunker down with the clicker.

PayPal Blessings: MH staff accepts donations at TrumanSparks88@gmail.com

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 47th to Jennifer Aniston.

Opening Act

Let’s begin with this today. I ‘m referring to it as…

DeAngelo Blow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdi9YzmynSM

Starting Five

Markieff Morris, who is awaiting a hearing on felony assault charges, chokes teammate Archie Goodwin.

The Suns of Anarchy (Part 9)

The Phoenix Suns are a lot like the price of oil: Every time you think they’ve hit bottom, they reach a new low. During Wednesday night’s loss to Golden State, Markieff Morris, who ought to be traded by two months ago, choked teammate Archie Goodwin. What a total punk? Is this really the same franchise that once did this (and the star of this video was playing on the other team tonight)? No wonder Steve Nash has no interest in being associated with them.

Short of selling the team (please do, Robert), owner Robert Sarver needs to ship out Markieff Morris to the worst NBA outpost possible (well, he is from Philadelphia, after all) and hope to land draft picks in return. It’s a crime what has happened to this franchise since they showed Jerry Colangelo the door. The coaches told Sarver to trade Morris after he tossed a towel in Hornacek’s face, he didn’t listen, and this is what he has wrought.

This was the worst choke job by a Sun in that arena since Game 7 of the ’95 Western Conference semis versus Houston (Phoenix led by 18, lost by 1, and Houston tra-la-la’ed to an NBA championship.

2. 77 Pounds for a Match Ticket? Bollocks!

Remember that glorious story of a bunch of American colonists rising up against King George in he 1770s, barking about “taxation without representation,” and dumping some tea leaves into Boston Harbor? Well, history has a sense of humor.

Last week the Fenway Sports Group, an American sports ownership group, announced that they’d be raising ticket prices for the priciest seats at Liverpool’s Anfield ground to 77 pounds next season (meaning the season ticket cost would, for the first time, exceed 1,000 pounds). This despite the fact that Premier Clubs will be seeing an $8.3 billion windfall next season due to a new television contract.

(Part of the lesson here: If it says “Fenway,” it’s evil.)

This, the team’s supporters decided, was the final insult. So last Saturday some 10,000 of them (nearly 1/4 of the 44,000 in attendance) staged a walkout during the 77th minute of Liverpool’s match versus Sunderland. Black flags were waved throughout the venue. The message was received.

FSG promised not to raise ticket prices next season and the three-man ownership group sent an open letter to fans in which they actually wrote, “The three of us have been particularly troubled by the perception that we don’t care about our supporters, that we are greedy, and that we are attempting to extract personal profits at the club’s expense. Quite the opposite.”

Whatevs. Either way, I hope someone forwards this clip to the Steinbrenners. They lost me when they built the New Yankee Stadium seven years ago. Haven’t bought a ticket since.

3. To Dine For

The bakery counter at Porto’s

Yelp just released its list of the Top 100 Restaurants in the USA.

The top 5: 1) Porto’s Bakery & Cafe in Burbank, Calif. 2) Cheese Board Pizza in Berkeley 3) Paseo in Seattle 4) Joe’s Kansas City BBQ in, you guessed it, Kansas City 5) TKB Bakery & Deli in Indio, Calif.

Little Miss BBQ finished 19 spots higher on the list than New York City’s top finisher, Gramercy Tavern.

No. 13, by the way, is Little Miss BBQ in Tempe, Arizona, which is located in a swank-free industrial area. But the smoked meats is plenty good.

4. The Blind Slide

Oher, at the bottom, blocking Ware.

As sequels go, we’ve all seen better, but this really is pretty incredible. Michael Oher, whose adolescence was immortalized in The Blind Side, becomes a blocking sled for I believe DeMarcus Ware in the third quarter of Super Bowl L. How does this happen? Meanwhile, check out Oher’s teammate at right tackle, Mike Remmers. He jumped. False start. No flag.

5. American History Lesson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mOC_GqgCjM

Was it just me, or was the Super Bowl L halftime show a 15-minute lesson in the United States’ history of race? We begin with a white, British man on American soil (why, hello, Pilgrim, a.k.a. Chris Martin of Coldplay),   sprinting on to the stage and singing, “And that was when I ruled the world.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_Hgh7sPDLM

Eventually, of course, he just seems dorky and uncool. And that’s when a man of color (Bruno Mars) with a much better set of moves and a stronger beat takes the stage for a little “Uptown Funk.” And then he lets a woman of color (Beyonce) who is also a badass have her moment before the two of them share the stage. And then finally they let the dorky white guy tag along but we all know that he’s really just lucky they don’t decide to cut him out altogether.

Was this intentional, or just a coincidence? Will people be writing American Studies PhD papers on this some day? I hope so.

And Finally…

And he caught this, too.

Notre Dame wide receiver Corey Robinson was elected student body president yesterday. The Admiral’s son may be the first Fighting Irish football player to hold the office of president since Ronald Reagan.

Music 101

Relax

Frank Say….What The F–? I cannot prove it, but I’m going to say that Frankie Goes To Hollywood was the final straw for many of us who were beginning to think that New Wave was just becoming a little too…weird. I don’t think the genre ever recover from his bombast, although this 1984 release, which would climb to No. 10 on the Billboard charts, always was liquid fuel to light a fire under a dorm party.

Remote Patrol

Iowa at Indiana

ESPN 9 p.m.

Erstwhile Wisconsin transfer Jarrod Uthoff could be the B1G Player of the Year.

A loss at Penn State last weekend helped get the Hoosiers (19-5) dumped from the AP poll, while the No. 4 Hawkeyes (19-4) have just one B1G loss. You can also flip to ESPN2, where No. 11 Oregon (20-4) visits Cal, which has yet to lose at home this season. Hoping Big Red will be calling that game for the WWL.

PayPal Blessings: On the day that Newsweek announces that it is taking down its pay wall, why not announce that we are INVITING you to donate to the Medium Happy coffers (unless your name is Phyllis; your money is no good here)? Purely voluntary on your part, but if you ever feel the inclination, like say if your GPRO stock ever climbs north of $15 again, our PayPal name is TrumanSparks88@gmail.com. We think. Or you could just write us a note at that address to tell us how much you detest this site. 

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 66th to Mark Spitz, who was the original Michael Phelps. Spitz won 7 gold medals in Munich in 1972.

Starting Five

The man who resembles the angriest torts prof in America just won New Hampshire

Bern Notice

It was a great night for Juice and Jews (He can’t write that, can he?), if you were watching The People vs. O.J. Simpson and cable news. The Juice made it home alive in his slow, white Bronco, while Bernie Sanders garnered about 60% of the Democratic vote in the New Hampshire primary. Donald Trump won the GOP side handily, with John Kasich finishing second (“Everybody swing to the left/Everybody swing to the right”)

What of Jeb! ?, you ask. Well, Samantha Bee tackled that in her new show, Full Frontal, with a Grizzly Man-like homage to the latest Bush who aspires to make 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. his home address.

2. Everything You Need To Know About the Dubs in :29

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

If you stayed up late to watch the second half, you also saw Stephen Curry drive left, circle under the basket, and somehow toss up a shot on the right side of the rim, from almost directly beneath the basket, that evaded the long arm of Dwight Howard, kissed the glass, and fell through. He didn’t have a a great second half, but Curry still scored 35 in a 123-110 win at home against the Rockerts.

Golden State is now 47-4 and 24-0 at home (San Antonio is 44-8 and 28-0 at home). The Rockets, who are 27-27, had the score tied to start the fourth quarter and are an 8-seed. These two would meet in the opening round of the season ended today.

3. Bomb Disposal

Seth has even coined a new term: “Deskologue”

On Monday night, at the 3:40 mark of this clip, Seth Meyers told a joke that in a few short words captured the themes of abandonment, decades of frustration, and the death of not one but two elderly women. I laughed. But the audience did not. Which made Seth laugh, mightily.

He’s so much more comfortable working from his desk, and this was a Carson-ian moment. Johnny used to enjoy himself most when his jokes really, really cratered.

4. Where There’s a Will

There’s no correlation between how funny and/or successful a comedian is and how well he or she and Jerry will connect on Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee. The most recent episode, with Will Ferrell, takes our two funny men to a diner in Venice Beach, but there are a lot of fits and starts here. It doesn’t really flow that well. My favorite moment is when Will begins a question with, “On a scale of zero to 10 with zero being—” and Jerry interrupts, “Everyone understands the scale.”

Who am I really hoping Jerry takes out for coffee next? Key and Peele (cut to joke about one of them having to sit in the back of the car).

5. Never Say Dive Attitude

You dive on a grenade, you don’t gingerly approach it, lean down, and then pick it up and toss it.

I’m not sure why this photo needs to incite the latest edition of Race Wars. It seems obvious enough. Your team trails 16-10 in Super Bowl 50 with, as the photo attests, 4:12 left in the game. It’s 3rd-and-9 so even if you recover this fumble, sure, you’re probably going to punt.

Still, the ball is on the ground after Von Miller made yet another outstanding play (look: I just gave credit to an African-American; but aren’t I about to “bash Cam,” so aren’t I a racist?) to strip the ball. If you’re Cam Newton, you at least have to dive for this ball before DeMarcus Ware scoops it up. Every coach from Pop Warner up to Ron Rivera would preach that you dive for this ball (unless, maybe, you’ve already endured four neck surgeries).

There were Cam apologists aplenty yesterday, explaining that Cam would have had to contort his leg in a weird position and risk injury. Well, that’s only because he approached the football as if it were a quarter on the sidewalk and wasn’t going to get his trousers dirty to pick it up. If, right at the moment above, he dives for the football, he’s got at least a 50/50 shot at it.

@jdubs88 Black Power. No more making nice. When the media bashed Cam, they awoke a sleeping giant

— Kevin Brown (@masterdon40) February 9, 2016

Of course, even by mentioning this play and discussing it purely in football terms, I’ve crossed the line with some people. That’s what’s so depressing.

Music 101

Ruby Tuesday

“Don’t question why she needs to be so free
She’ll tell you it’s the only way to be
She just can’t be chained
To a life where nothings gained
And nothings lost, at such a cost”

and…

“There’s no time to lose/I heard her say/Catch your dreams/Before they slip away

Dying all the time/lose your dreams and you/Will lose your mind/Ain’t life unkind…”

This song, written by Keith Richards in a quasi-homage to his ex-girlfriend Linda Keith, who took up with Jimi Hendrix, made it to No. 1 in 1966. This is probably amongst your top five Rolling Stones tunes. Certainly it is one of the most idiosyncratic and beautiful. It’s a classic. They don’t name restaurant chains after duds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YJXfcndyvU

Remote Patrol

The Great Escape

8 p.m. TCM

Steve McQueen does a WW2 rendition of Evel Knievel

Long before there was Saving Private Ryan, there was this film from the early 1960s. A terrific ensemble cast that includes Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Garner, Sir Richard Attenborough and James Coburn. As in SPR (and The Dirty Dozen, which aired on TCM last week), the WW2 film isn’t about a significant battle as much as it is about a group of men on a particular mission. And most of them will perish. If you’ve never seen it, do yourself a favor. It’s outstanding.

PayPal Blessings: On the day that Newsweek announces that it is taking down its pay wall, why not announce that we are INVITING you to donate to the Medium Happy coffers (unless your name is Phyllis; your money is no good here)? Purely voluntary on your part, but if you ever feel the inclination, like say if your GPRO stock ever climbs north of $15 again, our PayPal name is TrumanSparks88@gmail.com. We think. Or you could just write us a note at that address to tell us how much you detest this site.