by Katie McCollow

Your author

It’s customary here at Medium Happy to start out wishing a famous person a Happy Birthday, so here you go: Happy Birthday, Drew Carey! Can you believe he is 57 years old, and still alive as far as anyone knows?

According to Famousbirthdays.com, the Internet’s most reliable source for celebrity birthdays (I know this because it came up first when I googled “May 23rd  birthdays”), Mr. Carey is the 8th most popular person to celebrate a birthday today.

That statistic seems unlikely, even though it comes from such a rock-solid source. So I clicked the button on the page that said so, hoping to get a little more information (what can I say? It’s the journalist in me).

My one-click deep-dive led me to another page that listed Youtube stars called Gavin Free and…

… Little Kelly as the first and second most popular people celebrating birthdays today.

I know exactly who they both are and I can’t believe you don’t.

I need to lie down.

I will not do that annoying, clueless old-person thing where the clueless old person goes on a rant about youngsters she’s never heard of who are famous via avenues she knows little about and are therefore meaningless. I will not.

NOT ME DOING THIS: Young people stuff!! BRAAAAHHHR why isn’t it the nineties anymore???

 

In fact, I’m going to do the complete opposite and say “Of course! I enjoy the work of both those YouTubers, doing whatever it is they do.  I don’t waste my time watching network television while I ride around on my pet Woolly Mammoth!  Now I must go turn myself into a Panda on Snapchat! It’s called a story.“

I’m actually surprised Drew Carey made it into the top ten.

***

This weekend was my son’s Senior Prom. Ah, prom…do you remember, kids? Do you? I do.

I was on student council all through high school—yep, I was that girl. The first three years I ran successfully (especially brow-raising when you consider that in ninth grade, I though it would be an extra-cool touch to have my fingernails painted with rainbows for the election) but as a senior, when I thought all I had to do was show up with my long list of bureaucratic accomplishments (those elf-a-grams don’t distribute themselves, people!) I got my ass handed to me by a football player who made fun of my overly earnest speech.

Don’t. Just no, is what I learned too late

I was so distraught at the thought of losing my cushy homeroom, long lunches and access to power (typical, right?), I petitioned the student body to allow me back on. I sat in the principal’s office with my list of signatures, pride nowhere to be found, and begged. He smirked as I did so, which at the time, I did not appreciate. Looking back, I can’t believe he didn’t actually laugh in my Tracy Flick face.

I even kind of looked like her

Where was I? Oh yeah, prom. Well, I always signed up for the prom committee, because it was like, the pinnacle of the school year and financing it was pretty much the reason the student council existed. One year, I may have made some, um, bold claims about getting The Replacements to play, based on the fact that my younger sister was besties with Slim Dunlap’s daughter. (That’s actually true.)

The Replacements: We don’t do proms

 

I may have, before gathering all the information I needed, flapped my gums a little more than was wise, and when my dear friend, eventual prom date and die-hard Replacements fan swung me up in a tearful bear hug and bellowed “You’re getting the MATS??” I may have answered with an awkward “Mmmmm…” panic growing in my belly. Rainbow-painted fingernails were the least egregious of my political misfires.

Suffice to say, the Mats did not play our prom, I got my bangs cut way too short the day before and I made the bizarre culinary choice of ordering rabbit at our pre-dance dinner, which gave me such gut-punishing gas I was in agony for most of the night.

Prom night, 1987. I am the the one sporting a pink dress, no bangs and a strangely aggressive pose. I’m not bloated just yet.

Prom! It’s magical, kids. Just like in the movies…

Five Best Prom Movies—I refuse to include any of the actual Prom Night movies, because I hate hacker/horror films.

 

Valley Girl (1983)

Shades of Romeo and Juliet, a soupcon of The Graduate, a Josie Cotton soundtrack  and a pre-dental work, pre- balding Nicholas Cage. Love it.

My leg warmers experience is a story for a different day

 

Can’t Buy Me Love (1987)

McDreamy! Do we still call him that, even though Patrick Dempsey hasn’t been on Grey’s Anatomy for some time? Not that I would know. I only watch Youtube and  Vines and Instagrams.

He was actually pretty cute then, too…RIP, beautiful Ms. Peterson!

 

10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

Julia Stiles, who I am constantly confusing for Erika Christensen (yes, constantly, as in every moment of every day–I’m not kidding, ask my kids) and a fresh-on-the -scene Heath Ledger in a modern (well, if you’re like me and 1999 seems like fourteen seconds ago) teenaged take of Taming of the Shrew.

Above: House of Stiles. Below: The Most F’ed Up Daughter In The Upside of Anger

It’s not just me, right?

 

Pretty in Pink (1986)

Siiiigh. John Hughes, of course, and starring the darling Andrew McCarthy, hilarious Jon Cryer, 80’s it-girl Molly Ringwald and a hideous pink dress.

The gist is, for those unlucky ones amongst you who have not seen this movie, she is a poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks in love with a posh preppy boy (Andrew McCarthy) who is out of her tax bracket. A bunch of stuff happens and her best friend Ducky (Jon Cryer) tries to tell her that she’s too good for the posh preppy boy anyway, so she shouldn’t sweat it, but she does, to the point that she makes this awful dress so she has something to wear to the prom and prove she’s just as good as anyone.

I mean…

Anyone who’s ever met a high school girl knows there’s absolutely no talking her out of a crush, even if her nice best friend loves her to pieces, and there’s certainly no talking her out of a completely heinous dress that she thinks is pretty.

Case in point: this next picture is of me from last summer, wearing a dress that I wore to a high school dance (not prom, but my companion to the dance to which I wore this sartorial abortion did, miraculously, ask me to the prom one month later) and that I found at my mother’s house, so naturally, put on.  It’s actually quite similar to the dress Molly Ringwald wore in Pretty in Pink; it’s pink, it’s boxy and shapeless, but her dress is actually sexier, since hers exposes her shoulders and does not include a large, sandwich-board-like chastity bib. This dress very clearly says, “HANDS OFF THE MERCHANDISE”.

Does it come with a wimple? Which sister-wife am I again?

My mom actually made this dress, as she did most of the dresses I wore in my life (see: Prom picture, above)up until about age 25, including my wedding dress (she also made all the bridesmaids dresses, and she’s made many dresses nad ). She is a spectacularly excellent seamstress. None of the blame belongs to her, as it was 100 percent designed by me. It speaks to my mother’s great love for me that at no point did she say, “Sweetie, this dress makes you look like a doomsday cultist.”

 

Carrie (1976)

“Wait just a freegin’ flaggin’ minute.” you’re probably thinking, “She said no horror films!” First of all, I didn’t exactly say that. I mean I kind of did, but really, I’m going to make a ‘five best prom movies’ list and not put Carrie on it?? Secondly, what in the Sam Hill does “freegin’ flaggin’” even mean? Anyway yes, it’s technically a horror film. But, you know, high school.

That looks about right

Drive Me Crazy came out in 1989 (update: make that 1999).

by John Walters

A More Than Happy 89th to the World’s Most Interesting Sportsman, Bud Grant

NBA champion. NFL wide receiver. Winner of five Grey Cups as a CFL coach. Took the Minnesota Vikings to four Super Bowls. World War II veteran. Former teammate of George Mikan and Chuck Bednarik. Has lived in the same home for 50 years. Ohhhhh, Mr. Grant!

Starting Five

Why can’t we be friends, Susie B? Why can’t we be friends?

1 Above and Beyond

That’s 10 in a row for the Cavaliers after bumping Toronto 108-89 last night. The Raptors again kept it close for one quarter. There was one play where a Raptor attempted a three from the deep corner, right in front of Cleveland’s bench, and as he did three Cav benchwarmers stood up behind him and enthusiastically waved their arms and shouted (with big grins on their faces).

The shot missed wildly.

I tried to imagine that scene happening with David Blatt as coach. Give Tryonn “STFU, I Got This” Lue credit. This team seems much happier and together under him. It’s less Lord of the Flies than it is Stripes after Sgt. Hulka died (did he die or was he just incapacitated? I forget).

David Blatt: 30-11 this year with the Cavs.

Luke Walton: 39-4 this year with the Dubs.

Both their teams should make the NBA Finals, and neither will be the coach of those teams when they do.

2.  The Daily Harrumph! (“Redskin, please”)

Random Thought after taking on PC Bros on Twitter yesterday (which I chose not to post on Twitter): “I grew up in a country where you were considered prejudiced if you treated people differently based on the color of their skin. Now I live in a country where you are considered prejudiced if you don’t treat people differently based on their color of their skin.”

(Should I post this on Twitter? What do you think?)

So the Washington Post released a survey/poll of 504 Native Americans nationwide and found that 9 of 10 were NOT offended by the NFL team’s use of the word “Redskins.”

Surprise.

Slow news day. And this was like catnip to my friends Bomani and Clay, albeit on polar opposite sides of this dispute.

In 1988-89 I was a chemistry teacher/basketball coach/dorm moderator at Saint Catherine Indian School in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which taught Native American students grade 7-12. I lived with NAs (for the purposes of brevity) day in and day out. My firsthand experience (which apparently is not enough on Twitter) was that not only were my students not offended by “Redskins,” but that the Redskins were by far their favorite team.

I’ll need a judge’s ruling on whether it’s okay for one Native American to call another Native American “Redskin.”

Is the word racist? In a strict sense, of course it is. But all the PC Gang who came at me on Twitter yesterday for sharing what I just did (“White privilege!” “I have friends who are…”), even though they themselves have no personal experience with NAs, couldn’t tell you what BLM stands for or what a feast day or a pueblo is, etc., they’re all missing the point. For many NAs, seeing that face on that helmet is validation that American culture has not passed them by. You and your Trader Joe’s Liberal pals may think that’s warped, but before you patronize a people you don’t know or understand, maybe ask them how they feel.

I know he was making a point at the time, but I laughed. When did everyone lose their senses of humor? Was it before or after REM’s “Everybody Hurts?”

Am I defending the use of the word Redskins by Daniel Snyder? Not at all. I’ve covered this topic in depth in the past. All I’m saying, from someone who’s had far more exposure to NAs than most anyone who follows me on Twitter, is that the results of that poll did not surprise me one bit. And that, c’mon, after all, isn’t the really offensive thing the usurping of these peoples’ lands and their way of life?

3. The World Is Not Enough

Craig’s refusal has left the Bond franchise shaken, not stirred (I know, too easy)

Actor Daniel Craig, who has played James Bond in the past 007 films, has reportedly turned down $100 million to star in two more. That’s a lot of money, penny. But as the British actor told one interviewer last year, “I’d rather break this glass and slit my wrists” than star in another Bond film.

So I guess that leaves the door wide open for Ricky Gervais.

4.Goo Goo Goo (Gurgle, Gurgle) Joob

Man, you’ve been a naughty boy/You let your face grow long

At the Xixiakou Wildlife Park in northeast China, a walrus killed his trainer and a tourist by hugging them and dragging them underwater to drown them, which was definitely not part of the act. The walrus was actually just trying to be friendly (or so his defense attorney says).

The tourist was walking along a path above the walrus’ enslcosure, one that has no barrier, and fell into the water. The trainer jumped in to save him. The walrus, so happy to finally have someone to play with, was a little over-exuberant. Perhaps.

(Here is where someone adds a politically incorrect line about how will the world ever survive with two less Chinese people?)

5. Hot In Herre

According to scientists (what do they know?), the Earth broke a monthly heat record for the 12th consecutive month. When you consider that there are 12 months in a year, and correct me if I’m wrong, that would mean that the hottest month on record for each month in recorded history has happened within the last year.

Also, India, a country that in 10 years is projected to have the world’s largest population, set a record yesterday with its hottest day ever, 123.8 degrees.

Music 101

White Winter Hymnal

It was Fleet Foxes who wrote and recorded this modern classic in 2008, but six years later the a cappella group Pentatonix covered it for a Christmas album. This video has gotten nearly 26 million views, or nearly twice as many as the Fleet Foxes’ video, which is actually one of the last really creative music videos in (this guy’s) memory.

and here’s the Seattle band’s. Don’t overanalyze what the song means or why it gets stuck in your head and never leaves. It just does. And it’s the perfect a cappella song, too, written just as that phenomenon was taking off.

 Remote Patrol

Game 4: Penguins at Lightning

NBC Sports Net 8 p.m.

Thunderbolts and lightning? Very, very frightening.

Penguins and Lightning? Not as scary. Pittsburgh leads 2 games to 1.

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 40th to Kevin Garnett, the NBA’s all-time leader in seasons played, 22

Starting Five

The flight had 66 passengers and crew aboard

Mediterranean Mystery

Egypt Air Flight MS 804 disappears over the Mediterranean about 1o miles after crossing into Egyptian air space over night. The Airbus 320 had 10 crew and 56 passengers, two of whom were infants aboard. No distress signals. No radio call from cockpit. The city of departure (Paris) and of arrival (Cairo) have quite a recent history with terrorism, thought.

2. Vintage Curry

Seconds later, on another shot, a three, Durant would be called for the foul and Curry would bury 4 straight free throws

Were you watching? The Thunder were within seven, 64-57, with just over seven minutes remaining in the third quarter of Game 2 from Oracle. Now, I may have the timeline wrong, but in the first 4:51 of the quarter, Curry missed two shots and was tripped while dribbling and fell, but no call. He was forced to call timeout and he seemed peeved. Then….BAM!

7:09….Stephen Curry is left wide open on the left wing, buries a 3. 67-57.

6:33…Curry misses layup, but recovers to receive pass on right side. Three-pointer misses, but Kevin Durant, who had guarded him on the missed layup, closed out on the three and is called for a foul (TNT, which has been doing a poor job of showing a replay of the most recent play, never gave us a good look at what transpired). Durant bitches, is T’ed up. The league’s best free throw shooter twines four in a row. 71-57.

6:07….After a Durant 2, Curry responds with another 3. 74-59.

5;47….Curry makes a 22-footer, and OKC calls timeout. 76-59.

5:11….After Draymond Green blocks an Enes Kanter shot, Curry buries another three on a fast break. 79-59.

A Festus for the rest o’ us. Ezeli has been having a very good series.

If you’re scoring at home, Golden State, i.e., Stephen Curry, went on a 15-2 run in less than two minutes to blow Game 2 wide open. He went for 20 points total in the quarter. Put it on the already overly long Curry highlight reel for this season. Dubs win 1118-91 as Curry goes for 28 (Durant had 29).

The bad news? We have to four days for Game 3 in OKC.

3. Is Bryce Harper Being Cloned*

Sons of the Harper? (That’s for all you nerdy GoT fans)

Bryce Harper doppelgängers are showing up at Major League ballparks (Do you ever seen Gronk clones showing up at NFL stadiums? No, you don’t. You know why? Because there’s only one Gronk!)

That’s Joe Lentini of New Jersey, who was at Citi Field last night.

And this was May 9, as a Harper bro sat behind home plate for a Nats home game.

*”That’s a clone question, bro.”

4. B-52’s

The plane was en route from Planet Claire when it ran into engine trouble 52 miles west of Venus?

All seven airmen aboard survived somehow, but a B-52 crashed at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam yesterday. It happened shortly after takeoff. No word yet on any of the servicemen were named Private Idaho.

5. Jokes Seth Can’t Tell

None of the next generation of late night comics (Jimmy, James, Stephen, Seth) is doing a better job than Seth Meyers. Or at least he appeals the most to me. Anyway, this I believe is the second installment of a segment called “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell,” in which he invites on a black and a lesbian member from his writing staff to tell jokes. The first three are fairly tame, but then No. 4 is great and No. 5 hits the sweet spot.

Music 101

Muskrat Love

I’ve long wondered if the two characters in this 1976 song, Muskrat Sam and Muskrat Suzie, ever met up with the Magic Rat from “Jungleland,” the Springsteen tune that came out a year earlier. The Captain & Tenille, how do you explain them to millennials? Anyway, they had three monster hits in the mid-Seventies, including song of rodent romance that climbed to No. 4.

Remote Patrol

Beach Party 

8 p.m. TCM

“You wanna ride my board?” “Okay, but I’m not getting wet.” Heyyyyyyy

It’s Peak Frankie and Annette, as an anthropologist visits a beach town to study the sex habits of American teenagers in 1963. Or you can flip to ESPN and watch another NBA playoff game decided by 25 points….zzzzzzz….or you can read. Or talk to your kids about Donald Trump. It’s all up to you.

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 46th to Liz Lemon/Tina Fey….

Starting Five

“But seriously, Megyn, we should go out to dinner at Trump Tower Grill after this interview. It’s a tremendous grill. Everyone says so.”

1. Live, With Kelly & Trump

Kelly Ripa is still searching for a dance partner over on Columbus Ave. and 67th St., but on the other side of Central Park, over on Fifth Avenue in the mid-Fifties, Megyn Kelly sat down with Donald Trump for a live interview last night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NEHiNKjn_c

Kelly finally sat down with Trump last night and after all the build-up, she let him off rather easy. When, for example, she asked if he was sorry about using the word “bimbo” to describe her and others, Donald, here in plaintive Trump mode, replied, “Did I say that? It’s not the most horrible thing. Over the course of your life, you’ve probably been called worse.”

A better interviewer would have pounced on him for this. Kelly froze a little in the headlights, moving on to softball questions about his brother, about when he knew he had a chance to be president, etc. There was no blood coming out of Donald’s eyes, his nose, his whatever.

2. Believeland

Kyrie and LeBron are finally playing nice together and have the Cavs headed to the Finals (yes, it’s premature, and no, I’m not sorry)

Are the Cavaliers this good? Is the East this poor? Or is it a combination of both? Cleveland glided past Toronto in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals by a 115-84 score  and the Cavs are now 9-0 in this postseason.

A quick comparison in three-point shooting between the three teams with a realistic chance to win the title: Threes made per game in the postseason, CLE 15.7, GSW 12.1, OKC 8.5. Three-point shooting %: CLE .455, GSW .403, OKC .347.

At this point, and with Steph Curry’s knee not having time to properly heal, you have to say the Cavs are the favorite to win it all. Okay, you don’t have to, but I will.

NBA Draft: Enter the Dragan

Also, last night, the NBA held its draft lottery, which only affects the top three teams that will pick. Form held, as it will go Philadelphia, Lakers, Celtics (inheriting Brooklyn’s pick). The Sixers are bad, but they’re not so dumb that they will not choose Ben Simmons. The Lakers will really, really want the Aussie (and he them, probably), so we’ll have to see how that goes.

Let’s say PHILA stays with Simmons. Do the Lakers taken Brandon Ingram? And the Celtics’ Dragan Bender, this year’s Kristaps Porzingis? (Bummed my Suns couldn’t move up from No. 4; they would’ve loved Bender; still may move up to nab him).

3. “Consider the Bulldog”

From horses mating in episode 2 to a bulldog having its entire genome denigrated in episode 4, SV has not been kind to animals this season

On Monday the New York Times called HBO’s Silicon Valley “irrepressible genius” and I dare say the Grey Lady was not effusive enough in her praise. The show, having now developed the characters to a degree that they are family to us, is in its prime and having so much fun being half-Entourage and half-Office Space.

Mike Judge is skewering corporate hypocrisy and idiocy (and likely writing a parable about what it’s like to deal with studios or network bosses as well) as well as Matt Weiner ever did with Mad Men. Sunday’s scene in which Gavin Belson welcomes in a crew of outsiders to work on Nucleus, Hooli’s failed compression system project, even though the outsiders are simply ex-Hooli employees who figured out Richard’s algorithm and then took it to Pied Piper’s chief competitor, a company that Belson then purchased and returned under the Hooli umbrella. If you can’t beat ’em, buy ’em, even if they used to work for you.

Erlich: “Together we’re worth 20 million and 36 thousand dollars.”

Silicon Valley has been top shelf for awhile now, but Sunday’s episode may have been its best yet. We got golden moments from Bighead, the Chauncey Gardner of the tech renaissance, who keeps innocuously hitting one grand slam after another; from Jared, Pied Piper‘s innocent den mother (“You guys can’t help but be elegant; you’re like Audrey Hepburn); and from Erlich. I don’t know how many takes it took T.J. Miller to master that coughing up bong smoke while explaining Pied Piper’s new price point, but it was beautiful.

It’s the funniest show on TV, and it’s also the representative show of the zeitgeist: When Jared finds himself in Erlich’s garage because the guy he is Air BnB’ing his condo to is sub-Air BnB’ing it to other tenants, well, who cannot identify with that?

4. The World Gets Smaller

The first commercial plane landed on St. Helena one month ago

What’s this? This is the island of St. Helena (featured previously in MH for the 699 steps that are Jacob’s Ladder), the final home of Napoleon Bonaparte and one of the world’s most remote locations, as it sits 2,500 miles east of Rio de Janeiro and 1,200 miles west of the coast of Africa. But, hoping to lure tourists, St. Helena recently constructed an airport and last month got its first commercial flight (above). You have to imagine some residents weren’t psyched about this.

Big city life on St. Helena

I keep hoping the mayor/governor of St. Helena is a dude named Mr. Rourke (“Smiles, smiles everyone!”)

5. A Word About CEO Pay*

*So I’m gonna go on a rant here and feel free to inform, educate, correct me. I don’t have an MBA or anything.

Let me begin with a crude analogy: Just because I’m opposed to rape doesn’t mean I’m opposed to sex. Likewise, just because I’m opposed to Standard & Poor’s 500 CEOs earning on average 335 TIMES what their companies’ standard employees earn does not mean I’m opposed to capitalism.

If, IF you create something where nothing existed, or start your own company, build your own brand, I hope you become as wealthy as humanly possible: Jerry Seinfeld, J.K. Rowling, Elon Musk, Ben & Jerry, even Mark Burnett: You’re all extremely wealthy and good on you. You made it yourself.

If, however, you are the CEO of a company, particularly a publicly traded company, then you are an employee. You are part of a team. Now, defenders of CEO pay (if the average worker earns $50,000 a year, then that CEO is earning, on average, $16.8 million a year, not to mention his fabulous perks) will tell me that’s where the market is set. Yes, but WHO is setting the market? And at what point does the salary of the CEO damage the company as a whole?

CEOs are not LeBron James or Steph Curry. One of them, a decade, may be, as there’s one or at most two such NBA players per decade. CEOs are more like college football coaches. For every Nick Saban there are 3 dozen Gary Pinkels getting rich off the top-of-the-market price that Saban has set and, frankly, deserves.

The problems here are many: Salaries are overhead and it is a CEO’s job to keep overhead low. So, if your company is not meeting its projected earnings, why are you laying off 5,000 workers without touching a single dime of your “F U” money?

Second, I have a very close high school friend who does very, very well. You know what he does? He is a consultant. His company goes in and makes a presentation to a CEO, basically acts as a CEO Whisperer, and then collects a check for $3-5 million. He’s basically telling the CEO how to do his job better (but isn’t that why you’re paying the CEO all that money?). And who is footing that $3-5 million bill? The CEO himself? Hell, no. The company.

(Note, on Silicon Valley Gavin Belson’s CEO Whisperer is his guru, and that’s the dude who privately persuaded him to acquire the smaller company, a maneuver that is ultimately about to backfire and big-time for Hooli)

You know how we college football fans hate search firms for coaches because 1) we know we could do just as good a job ourselves at a fraction of the cost and 2) isn’t the AD just abdicating the responsibilities of his job? Well, in the corporate world, consultants are search firms and I don’t mind you using one, but then maybe you admit that you’re not worth the salary you are receiving.

Finally, these salaries breed hubris, a hubris that I’m not sure most people who have not seen it understand. See that photo above? That’s a chocolate embossed with the photo of Norm Pearlstine, former editor in chief of Time, Inc. (the CEO of sorts of its editorial content). A number of years ago Sports Illustrated laid off half a dozen to a dozen (the exact number escapes me, but I survived that cut) employees on the same day it threw a going away party for Pearlstine that cost more than $300,000. The party did. Each partygoer received one of these chocolates.

I keep that chocolate in my freezer as a reminder of what fabulous douchebags corner office types can be (and no, I was not invited to the party; a co-worker gave that edible to me). I’m not a socialist; far from it. If you haven’t watched Jeff Pearlman’s terrific movie Book Whore on Youtube, you can watch it and see first-hand that I’m as entrepreneurial as any writer you’ll meet. But at the end of the day, if a CEO earning 335 times the average salary of his employees is acceptable to you, then why not 700 times? Why not 3,350 times?

If there are 100 lions in the pride, and only one of them eats well, the pride eventually dies out. If you pay Kobe all of your payroll and then populate the rest of your roster with crappy players, then your team goes 17-65. If you pay one person who isn’t even particularly irreplaceable (Congratulations, you and 900 others graduated from Harvard MBA this spring. Woo hoo!) 335 times what the rest of the employees are earning, you are helping to, slowly, destroy this country. You’re eliminating the middle class.

I have a lot of wealthy friends. Not coincidentally, I have a lot of friends who resent paying taxes. And I don’t blame them. But, when we have CEOs leading companies that employ tens of thousands of people, and these same CEOs lay off thousands of employees when THEY fail to do the job they are paid to do while not touching their own salaries, they create a toxic atmosphere of unemployed folk. And I know that deep down a lot of wealthy people I know would just rather these (lazy) unemployed people disappear (die, but they won’t exactly say that), but the facts are that most of the unemployed these CEOs create are not lazy and that we still haven’t legalized class genocide.

But, you know, they’ll vote for Trump because he’s found a way to make it sound like you should be blaming the unemployed or the illegal aliens for your financial woes when actually it’s the CEOs who worship only their almighty stock price and their own salaries. Do you know who is employing the illegal aliens? Ultimately, it’s the same people earning 335x your salary so that they can beat their quarterly earnings estimates. But they want you, the voter, to blame Miguel.

I worked at Del Frisco’s, a publicly traded company. We had plenty of undocumented workers. That helps keep profits up, and that helps keeps the stock price rising, and that helped our manager at the flagship store earn a salary of more than$350,000 per year. And good for him. But let’s not blame Jorge or Domingo back in the kitchen for the absence of the middle class. Let’s remember that there’s a man with 14 pies who just wants a 15th pie, while you can’t even get more than half a slice.

Capitalism is terrific. But, like democracy, it is prone to contamination and corruption. When people tell me that $17 million (to $30 to $40 million) is the market price for a CEO, I must ask, “Who’s setting the market?” The very people who are earning those salaries.

And so I take you to the recent episode of Silicon Valley. Action Jack Barker was a terrible manager and a toxic CEO. Pied Piper succeeded in spite of him, not because of him. It has been my experience, in 25 or so years in the business world, that it’s a coin flip as to whether your CEO is helpful (Mark Mulvoy at SI) or deleterious (Mark Mulvoy’s successor at SI) to your product, but that the magazine has to be published either way. When the episode ended, they left the CEO chair empty. Because maybe they realized that, in the end, they’re no worse off without one.

Meanwhile, I’ll note that the man who succeeded Mark Mulvoy, armed with a degree from Princeton, relied heavily on focus groups to inform his decisions. His parents spent all that  money so he’d be smart enough to let a group of yokels convening in a Holiday Inn conference room in Hackensack tell him how to put out a magazine. That’s not about wisdom or vision; that’s about covering your ass, which is what a lot of CEOs are better at than anything else.

Another thing: Let’s say, as an S&P 500 CEO, you cut your salary by two-thirds. You’re still earning $5 million per year, which is far more than a dude with an MBA and perhaps a law degree ever dreamt of earning without securing his own patent or creating his own company. That’s at least five times, to ten times, more than a surgeon. And while I don’t espouse the Labor Theory of Value (you should earn according to your job’s value), my point is this: Where else is a CEO going to go, in what line of work, is he ever going to earn close to $5 million, based on what he knows how to do?

That $16.7 million “market” is just an artificially bloated price point, made by the very same people earning that money. Now, if you take $10 million out of a CEO’s pay, he’s still earning $5 million annually (you can still afford that second house with ease), while you can actually afford to employ at least 1,000 more people. That’s 1,000 less people who are unemployed, who are making positive contributions to society, who ARE BUYING SHIT.

You see how that works? If everyone earns a living, everyone is a consumer, and the rising tide lifts all boats. It’s just that, as CEO, your boat is now a 35-foot yacht instead of an 80-foot yacht. Boo. Hoo.

Last word: I read once that Ben & Jerry’s, and I don’t know if they still do this, had a rule in which no employee could earn more than seven times any other employee at the company. That may seem socialist to you, and I can go with you on that ratio perhaps being too austere, but there’s something to the principle here. I’d rather play on a 2016 Warriors team where individually we earn less but accomplish more as opposed to a 2016 Laker team where one guy earns everything, the team sucks, and DeAngelo starts secretly tape-recording me and posting it on social media. But that’s just me….

Okay, I’m out.

Music 101

Light My Fire

Jim Morrison and The Doors appearing on the Jonathan Winters Show in 1967. Sure, why not? This was more than a decade before the debut of cable television. The song, off the band’s debut album, spent three weeks at No. 1 in the summer of ’67 and is one of the most emblematic songs of the psychedelic Sixties. Certainly it is the Doors’ signature tune.

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

Remote Patrol

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 60th to Sugar Ray Leonard, who was every ounce the golden boy Bruce Jenner was for the USA in Montreal in 1976

Starting Five

The year was 1966 and she was 17. This would not be her final brush with greatness….

Do You Know This Teen?

My fabulous colleague Abigail Jones has been working since I think she was a teenager  on a Newsweek cover story about teenagers. Specifically, she endeavored to round up the teens who appeared in an issue of Newsweek 50 summers ago and talk to them about how their views have changed over the half-century. Also, she spoke to 2016 adolescents and compared perspectivers from teens then and now (BREAKING: teens still can’t believe you won’t let them use the car or that you’re going to give them a curfew).

Anyway, the woman who was Newsweek‘s cover model in 1966 went on to become a regular on a sitcom more than a decade later. If you want to take a guess at who she is, I’ll wait and reveal her identity right before Music 101.

2. OK-C Change

Surviving Dothraki Khal Steven Adams had 16 points, 12 rebounds and one ethnic slur

The Thunder win at Golden State, 108-102, by outscoring the Dubs by 19 in the second half in methodical fashion (by 9 in the third quarter, when Russell Westbrook ‘sploded for 19 points, by and by 10 in the fourth quarter).

In the second quarter, when the Dubs led by as many as 13, comedian Norm Macdonald tweeted this:

Warriors will sweep. Bet it if you can get it.

— Norm Macdonald (@normmacdonald) May 17, 2016

As soon as the game ended, black journalist Rembert Browne tweeted this:

Huge loss for rich white people that just became basketball fans

— Rembert Browne (@rembert) May 17, 2016

Interviewed by ESPN’s Chris Broussard on the court after the game, the Thunder’s Aussie-Dothraki center, Steven Adams, complimented the Dubs’ “quick little monkeys,” then The Big Lead posted an item on that video within about 14 sseconds, then my friend Jason McIntyre tweeted out that there’s nothing to see here, which begs the question as to why TBL posted something about it so quickly.

This is nothing internet. Please don’t try to make this a racial thing. Watch the video. https://t.co/J1oBhwRymH

— Jason McIntyre (@jasonrmcintyre) May 17, 2016

The Thunder have now won five of six from the Spurs and Dubs. May want to take them seriously.

3. Bill & Bill’s Big Adventure

Francesa and Simmons hung out

Big day in the Big Apple for Bill Simmons, one year and about 10 days since his abrupt and  unceremonious exodus from ESPN. In the morning he accompanied former boss and good friend Jimmy Kimmel to Howard Stern’s radio show (Steve Martin was also a guest, for the first time) and was invited to don some headphone. In the afternoon he did a segment with his radio idol Mike Francesa. That’s a lot of egos in play in one day in two studios.

Here’s Simmons’ “I Believe” speech to promote his show, which is a riff on Kevin Costner’s from Bull Durham, which of course the ever-jealous (of Simmons) site Deadspin had to crucify because this is what they do before boarding the J, L, 2, D or F train back to Brooklyn each night. It’s fun to watch how angry Drew Magary is that Simmons has an HBO show and he, Drew Magary, does not.

4. Black By Popular Demand

Jack Johnson (the boxer, not the surfer/singer) was this country’s original black sports superstar

After more than a year (or two or three?) of delays, ESPN finally launched The Undefeated this morning (there’s a CP Time joke here that you really, really should not make) at 7 a.m. I wish editor-in-chief Kevin Merida and his staff lots of success and I am reminded of an anecdote from my days at SI.

Every year, before Christmas, all the magazine’s writers would be invited in to New York City for our annual Christmas party. And there’d be an afternoon meeting with the top writers and editors in our 18th floor conference room in the Time & Life Building (Don Draper’s building). Anyway, at the time, in the mid-1990s, Phil Taylor, who lived in the Bay Area, was the mag’s only African-American writer. 

I didn’t see anything on Ali, who was the first trans-racial black superstar in sports, on this morning’s site

So Phil walks into the conference room and I’m seated next to staff writer Kostya Kennedy, who doesn’t say much but when he does is sneaky and caustically funny. As Phil passes by us, Kostya says, loud enough for Phil to hear, “See that? All the black writers stick together.”

Phil laughed. I laughed. But the point is that you have never been able to enter any sports department or press box and see a majority of black writers, much less even a fair representation. And yet in two of the country’s most popular team sports, there are an inordinately high number of African-American athletes. So, yeah, maybe The Undefeated is a welcome and overdue idea.

And maybe it will be an echo chamber. When I was invited to meet Merida last week with a few other journalists (some of whom disrespectfully kept checking their cell phones as he spoke to us in a conference room at ABC), I was amused by the fact that I could look out the 22nd floor windows in one direction and see Trump Tower and look in the other direction, west, and see the glass-walled high-rise abominations he has built along the Hudson River. And I wondered, in an increasingly polarized America, how this site will be received by anyone outside the 12% of Americans who are black. 

But maybe that’s not the point. Maybe it’s supposed to be a niche site. We’ll see. Meanwhile, there are one-third more Hispanic Americans than African-Americans and that ethnic group is very well represented in our national pastime, if not by an ESPN site. Yet. 

5.  Sasha Fierce? No

Frere-Jones has some ‘splainin’ to do….

This is Sasha Frere-Jones (we shared a masthead once at The Daily, now defunct). He was recently let go by the Los Angeles Times as its music critic for allegedly filing a $5,000 expense report (seriously, dude?) for a strip club that he visited, apparently without an interview subject. There were other alleged transgressions as well. 

Newsweek Teen?

Does this mean that was Andy Travis driving the motorcycle?

It’s Jan Smithers, alias Bailey Quarters, the Maryann to Jennifer’s Ginger on WKRP in Cincinnati. Here she is today:

Music 101

Oh, Sweet Nuthin’

Is there a better title for a song from a band that positively reveled in nihilism? This was the final track on Loaded, the fourth and final Velvet Underground album that featured Lou Reed. It was released in November of 1970, and would sound just as natural being played by the Allman Brothers band or Black Crowes, the latter of whom covered it.

Remote Patrol

Game 1: Raptors at Cavaliers

8:30 p.m. ESPN

Kryie Irving have each made 28 threes in the postseason, more than anyone in the Eastern Conference, despite playing just 8 games

I’m not going to watch this game…but I want Susie B. to think that I am even the least bit interested in what happens in the Eastern Conference prior to the Cavs advancing to the NBA Finals. Toronto takes, at most, one game in this series. But if I had to wager, I’d say fewer than that.