by John Walters

A Medium Happy 56th to Bono. You done alright.

Starting Five

Portland, or as Steph refers to it, “Rip-Your-Heart-Out” City

1. “I’m Back!”*

*The judges will also accept “This Is 40”

Yes, you are. After sitting out for nearly two weeks and missing 4 1/2 games, all Stephen Curry did last night was score an NBA-record 17 points in overtime in Golden State’s 132-125 Game 4 win. Curry, who should formally be announced as league MVP today, looked mortal for most of the contest, starting out 0-fer-9 from beyond the arc. His NBA-record streak of 152 consecutive games with at least one three-pointer was in jeopardy up until 4:35 to play in regulation.

But then Curry went off. Including that moment, when his three swished in to give the Dubs a 103-100 lead, he scored 23 points and also had the key assists on Golden State’s only other two baskets in regulation. It was a masterpiece.

2. The Gilfoyle-Dinesh Dynamic

Take one monotone former Geek and a rugby shirt-wearing Pakistani, input to system…..

Engineers or hackers? If T.J. Miller (Erlich Bachman) and Thomas Middleditch (Richard Hendricks) were originally the stars of HBO’s Silicon Valley, Martin Starr (Gilfoyle) and Kumail Nanjani (Dinesh) have broken the code and become the show’s funniest duo. And Zach Woods (Jared) is just half a step behind.

Sunday’s episode was the best example of what makes the Gilfoyle-Dinesh dynamic work, as Dinesh bought a gold chain and Gilfoyle ripped him for it. Then, when Dinesh ditched the chain, that only aggravated the situation. “You flinched,” Gilfoyle announced. “That’s only going to make it worse.”

I’ve written down all the insults that were directed Dinesh’s way because of his bling in Sunday’s episode. Also worth watching, for anyone reading this who is yet to head to college (Are there any of you out there?). Notice how everyone behaves in the house and whose behavior works better in the group situation. This is dormitory or frat-house living.

Gilfoyle: “And you are too legit to quit.”

Gilfoyle: “Eh, MC Hamas?”

Gilfoyle: “Later, Chain the Virgin.”

Gilfoyle: “Pakistani Mr. T.”

Jared: “Sorry, Django….unchained.”

Erlich: “No, Dinesh, that chain is insane…and not in the membrane.”

Jared: “Sorry, Cypress Halal.”

Erlich: “It’s a shame, Bel Biv Danesh, but unfortunately, that chain is poison.”

Jared: “Hey, Danesh, nice chain. Do you choke….” (Medium Happy can’t print the rest so close to Mothers’ Day).

3. Desolation Row

No one ever names tornados. Maybe that’s why they’re so furious.

A series of tornados touched down in Oklahoma yesterday, killing two. Tornados are like that old Mark Twain idiom, “Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it” on acid. I have no idea if this is God’s input on expanding the Big 12.

4. Bryce Capades

“I DO have the best hair in the National League!” Harper proclaimed after the Nats’ win

After a lost weekend at Wrigley Field in which his team lost four straight and he was walked 13 times, Bryce Harper, baseball’s top hitter, was bound to be a little salty. He walked twice more against the Tigers on Monday and went 0-for-2, striking out on 3 pitches in one at-bat.

In the ninth inning with the score knotted 4-4, Harper, standing at the rail in the dugout,  chirped at umpire Brian Knight after a teammate whose name doesn’t really matter was called out on strikes. Knight tossed him. The next batter hit a walk-off home run and as Harper ran onto the field to celebrate, he directed some invective at Knight.

A fine’s coming. Harper didn’t deny he yelled. “Couple choice words,” he said. “If I do [get fined], I do. I’ll pay it. So I think it deserves to, you know, maybe he’ll get fined, too. So we’ll see.”

5. Did They Perform ‘Shake A Leg?’ 

Angus Young wields the axe while Axl recuperates

Here’s what I know: AC/DC lead guitarist Angus Young is really going to earn his money this summer. Axl/DC, i.e. AC/DC with Axl Rose replacing Brian Johnson on lead vocals (deafness problems), made their European debut in Lisbon, Portugal, on Sunday. Rose sounded far better than he had two weeks earlier at Coachella, but it’s still a little strange to listen to a dude in a throne belt out some of the most face-melting rock songs ever written.

You be the judge.

Music 101

Staring At The Sun

In honor of both Bono’s birthday and Mercury’s traverse across our home star (wear protective eyewear!), this U2 tune from 1997’s Pop feels right. Nowhere close to U2’s album (their worst?), but this song is above average. U2 was so HUUUGE at this time that this track still made it to No. 2 on the Billboard chart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U3rY3fZ5vU

Remote Patrol

The Night Manager

AMC 10 p.m.

Who’s playing whom?

What? Did you think I was going to abandon Jonathan Pine after three episodes? And isn’t it fun to watch Hugh Laurie play the opposite of House: a charming and amiable bloke who is actually evil. This is the series that is going to make Tom Hiddleston a star over here as well. You’ll be seeing more of him. He’s terrific in this role.

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 80th to Albert Finney. Tom Jones (the movie, not the singer) is fantastic.

Starting Five

Snow fells four traitors

1. Stark-ness On The Edge Of Town

Bran (Muffin) Stark is beginning to realize that his father, Ned, was not exactly the hero he thought (and might that be his aunt Leanna up there in the tower and might she not be the mother of his half-brother, Jon Snow?)….A girl has eyes once more….Ricon Stark is the unwitting guest of the worlds’ nastiest person (and Game Of Thrones’s best actor?), Ramsay Bolton….and Jon Snow drops the mic after executing the four men who killed him (“You shouldn’t be here,” says one, and let’s face it, he’s right), giving his pal his cloak and walking out of Castle Black while intoning, “My watch has ended.”

As Action Jack Barker said on Silicon Valley, “If you come for the king, you better make sure you kill him” (and after you do, burn his body so he can’t rise from the dead)

What’s the use of defending The Wall from Wildings when the real monsters are to the south of you? White Walkers or Boltons, the end would be the same, no? Jon Snow is definitely a NeverTrump figure.

At the very least< Iwan Rheon, the Welsh actor who plays Jon Snow, deserves an Emmy nod for Best Supporting Actor. He’s the worst, which is why he’s the best

As has been pointed out on the Twitters, though, Jon Snow did fulfill his requirement to the Black Watch, serving until death. No one ever wrote anything about serving until after death.

Meanwhile, Danaerys (Jon’s half-sister?) Targaryen finds herself in a Khals’ Widows Shelter, where she will undoubtedly catch up on episodes of Matlock and Murder: She Wrote. 

Question: Why are Tyrion and his new friends worrying about how to attack three powerful factions outside Mereen? Don’t they now have two dragons at their disposal?

2. Greg Bryant

Bryant scoring in 2014, with Everett Golson in the background

A bizarre and tragic story out of West Palm Beach, Florida, as former Notre Dame running back Greg Bryant is shot and killed in the wee hours of Saturday morning while driving on I-95. His unidentified passenger survived with minor injuries.

There are no details or leads as of yet. Bryant was, at the time, a HUGE get for the Irish in 2013. ESPN considered the five-star back the No. 2 prep running back in the country. He had two carries for 12 yards in the season opener versus Temple his freshman year, but he ran into “team rule” trouble with Brian Kelly and found himself below classmate Tarean Folston on the depth chart.

At this time last year we were wondering if he could be the 2015 starter, but he left school in late August after he was ruled ineligible for the 2015 season. He was living out of a hotel room in south Florida and attending a juco there before accepting a scholarship offer from the University of Alabama-Birmingham, a program that, like Bryant, was trying to resurrect itself.

Bryant was declared brain dead early Sunday afternoon. He was 21 years old.

3. A Walk on the Wild (North Side)

Harper ended the weekend having gone 12 straight plate appearances without an official at-bat, but his OBP. was certainly helped

The Chicago Cubs are now 24-6 after a four-game sweep of the Washington Natties in which Mad Joe Maddon, the Cubs’ innovative skipper, had his pitchers walk Bryce Harper, baseball’s best hitter, 13 times. Thirteen!

This on the same weekend in which the second half of Game 3 between the Cavs and Hawks opened with an intentional foul of Tristan Thompson. Can’t fault the coaches/managers for exploiting the rules to their advantage, but it’s this type of chicanery that may compel me to start reading books or exercising in my leisure time.

The Cubs, by the way, have the best record after 30 games since the 1984 Detroit “Bless You, Boys” Tigers, who won the World Series. We’re about a week away from someone declaring that Kris Bryant/Joe Maddon/Jake Arrieta is “ruining” baseball.

4. Flori-Duh

I find it interesting that the arrest report stipulates that it was a cheeseburger. Not a hamburger, a cheeseburger.

In the town of St. Cloud, a few miles south of Orlando, a mom and her adult son, Nicholas Middledorf, 28, go out drinking. They arrive home with some food, apparently, and an argument over a cheeseburger breaks out between Nicholas and his younger brother, Benjamin Middledorf (we’ll assume they’re full brothers, but this is Florida, soooo…..).

The argument escalates and Benjamin grabs a gun. Shoots his brother dead. So, Happy Mother’s Day.

5. Colon Blow

Colon, 42, deserved to stare at this one, and maybe even do a bat flip

You’re never too old (or too heavy) to hit your first Major League home run. After 18-plus seasons and 249 at-bats, Met pitcher Bartolo Colon blasted his first home run in San Diego on Saturday. Colon, 42 years old and packing 285 pounds (at least) on his 5’11” frame, hit a shot over the left field wall over former All-Star James Shields. The portly pitcher becomes immortalized as the oldest player to hit his first Major League home run.

p.s. It was his first hit of the season, too,

A Reminder….

Karlie Kloss would like to remind you that the Cannes Film Festival begins on Wednesday…

Music 101

Once In A Lifetime

“And you may tell yourself, ‘This is not my beautiful house’/And you may tell yourself, ‘This is not my beautiful wife'” Does it say something about America’s collective IQ that this brilliant 1981 tune by Talking Heads never even charted in the Top 100? AllMusic.com critic Steve Huey described its theme as “the drudgery of living life according to social expectations, and pursuing commonly accepted trophies (a large automobile, beautiful house, beautiful wife).” Wikipedia adds, “Although the singer has these trophies, he begins to question whether they are real and how he got them. This leads him to question further the reality of his life itself, providing the existential element.”

Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1wg1DNHbNU

Remote Patrol

Game 4: Warriors at Blazers

TNT 10:30 p.m.

Draymond Green scored 37 points in Stephen Curry’s absence in Game 3 Saturday night, but Damian Lillard posted 40 and the Blazers won, 120-108. Curry will sit out again tonight as Portland attempts to even up the series.

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 55th to Frank Ocean/Money Monster…George Clooney.

Oh, and by the way, there are worse ways to promote your upcoming film release….

More than 8 million views already….

Starting Five

Canadians, wary of a mass exodus from their neighbors below, are like, “Burn it all, eh.”

1. Feel The Burn

The Miami Heat took one of two games while in Toronto (both went to overtime), while out in Alberta the old-fashioned heat and fire have caused 88,000 Canadiens to be evacuated. The inferno can actually be seen from space. It really does look like hell.

Now here’s the weird conspiracy theorist part. There was no lightning in the area, so the fire was likely caused by human action, be it accidental or intentional. The fire began in Canada’s oil sands region, and so they have had to cut production massively, which has created an oil shortage (short-term), which has led to a rise in the price of oil, which if you own oil or energy stocks has been very beneficial for you in the past day or two (I didn’t do it). That’s probably not why the fire started, but it sounds like something from a James Bond film (like Casino Royale).

Meanwhile, getting back to basketball rings, @BobbyBigWheel had the tweet of the night when he typed, “I thought Heat vs. Raptors was decided 65 million years ago.”

2. Say It Ain’t So, Joe*

Did Joe know? We don’t know.

*He can’t because he’s dead. So, um….

From Thursday’s Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse civil case, a major shell of bombage when a line in a court order from a related insurance coverage case is read to the court. “In 1976, a child allegedly reported to PSU’s Head Coach Joseph Paterno that he (the child) was sexually molested by Sandusky.”

As they say on the Twitters, “Big if true.”

This would mean that Joe Paterno, the Penn State football coach, was at least aware of Sandusky’s evil for the last 23 years that Sandusky was on his coaching staff. This isn’t an Aaron Moorehead-hate-tweeting-a-5-star-QB transgression (and probably not the best surname to summon considering the topic at hand), this was child molestation. If JoePa was aware of this, there’s no excuse.

3. Let’s Taco ’bout Hispanics (and Hysterics)

Trump University accepts a bid to play in the inaugural Taco Bowl

“This Taco Bowl is huuuuge. We make the the greatest taco bowl at Trump Taqueria. let me tell you. Happy Sink O’DeMayo.”

Meanwhile, the GOP convention in July is beginning to look tike that birthday party for the unpopular kid in your class that everyone is hoping they’ll have a good excuse not to attend. Actually, that’s not even true. They’re just out-and-out RSVP’ing “No.” George Bush (Elder) and George Bush (Younger: they are the Pliny’s of our time) have both said no, as has Mitt Romney, as has John McCain. As has Jeb Bush, Bob Dole sounds as if he’ll stop in for a piece of cake before continuing on to see his mother-in-law.

Even the host of the party, Paul Ryan, is like, “Meh.” It looks as if it’s just going to be Trump, Reince Preibus, Lou Holtz, Sarah Palin and PFT Commenter come July in Cleveland.

Here’s the funny thing: At the first GOP debate (last August, also in Cleveland), Trump was given the third degree when he was the lone candidate to say he would not pledge that he would not run independently if he failed to garner the nomination (the question was asked of all, but it was intended to put him on the spot). And now here we are, nine months later, and it’s the GOP who is abandoning the party b/c of Trump and not vice-versa.

4. a lOT of hockey*

First OT: Crease Orgy in Nashville

*The judges will accept “Eakin It Out.”

One overtime in Dallas St. Louis. Cody Eakin scores 2:58 into OT to win for the Stars.

Three overtimes in Nashville (I went to bed at the start of the third OT). Mike Fisher scores 48:48 into OT to win for the Preds.

In each match, the home side trailed, scored the equalizer, then won in the extra sessions. These are only the conference quarterfinals. The NBA and NHL are determined to keep you up after midnight all spring.

Didn’t watch the Stars take down the Blues, but it did feel like the Sharks (who are predators) beat the Predators (who are predators) in the first overtime. A Shark player was knocked from behind into the Predator goalie (do you really expect me to know names at this hour? Patrick Roy? I can spell that at least) and then the puck went through the net. The Sharks were called for goalie interference and the goal disallowed, which seems uncool since the Shark was pushed into the goalie, as I said. Anyway….the Penguins are going to win it all, anyway.

5. A Near Cat-astrophe*

This may not be the actual boy-snatching leopard. No defamation of character intended…..

*The judges refuse to accept “Leo Da Cat’rio”

At Kruger National Park in South Africa, six year-old Kellan Denny failed to come back from running along a wall when his father called him for lunch. And then he almost became lunch. A leopard snatched him and ran off with him as his father gave chase, shouting, “No! No! This can’t be happening!”

The kitty, who had sunk his teeth into the boy’s shoulder, dragged him about 30 meters before decided he’d rather eat at Denny’s than eat one of the Dennys. Good call. Kellan has now been dubbed “Leopard Boy” by his family. If he didn’t cry, he’s the coolest kid of all time.

Where In The World?

Hint: Location is featured in a current TV show….

Music 101

Somewhere Only We Know

The live music sing-along jag I’ve been on the past week or two continues. Here’s Keane at the 2009 V Festival in Essex, England, performing their 2004 hit from their debut album, the second-best selling album in Great Britain that year. Coldplay, Keane and Snow Patrol all hit it big in the early 00’s out of England, but those latter two bands will never play a Super Bowl halftime show. That’s Tom Chaplin on lead vocals.

Remote Patrol

Sunday

Game Of Thrones

10 p.m. HBO

Jon. Snow.

If you have read the books, you have a pretty strong idea of who Jon Snow’s parents were (former L.A. Ram wide receiverJack Snow and leggy Joey Heatherton), but the show may finally reveal it this weekend.

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 28th to Adele

Starting Five

Trump in Indiana, surrounded by his Ring of Babes. Because he knows what you respect, America.

Exit Pols

Less than 24 hours after Ted Cruz suspends his campaign, John Kasich follows suit. The GOP has no other choice now but to play its Trump card.

So I was talking to a friend about this last night. And here was my thought: Remember all those times you’d tune in to The Tonight Show and host Jay Leno would do those “Jaywalking” segments in which people didn’t know how many branches of government there were or couldn’t name a single explorer but could name three Kardashian sisters?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROrtyz9v5q4

Well, those folks are becoming less and less the anomaly. Those folks are the norm. We are  increasingly not only becoming a dumber and more crass nation, but we’re almost proud of it. And so Donald Trump is not to blame.

Trump is the smoker’s cough. That’s just the symptom. The disease is emphysema, and it comes from years of smoking. Our disease is ignorance and arrogance, and it comes from decades of self-indulgence and willful ignorance. He’s the nominee we deserve.

2. The James Gang*

Who’s hot? J.R. Mr. Smith is shooting 52.8% from beyond the arc in the postseason.

The Cavs led Atlanta by 36 aa the half last ni-zzzzzzzzzzz…..

Granted, it’s the Eastern Conference, but Cleveland is the only undefeated team (6-0) in the playoffs thus far. That Tyronn Lue can coach.

*The band by this name, best known for axe man Joe Walsh and the tune “Funk 49,” (seen here at MH two weeks ago), was actually from Cleveland. Wonder if the Cavs make use of that coincidence.

3. Devil Inside

Longino led the Pac-12 in sacks last season with 11 for ASU. That’s more than first-round pick DeForest Buckner of Oregon had.

We are not featuring former Sun Devil linebacker Antonio Longino here simply because we’ve never seen a football player whose britches were hiked up that far above his knees. Alas….

….Longino is being featured because, after going undrafted last weekend despite a terrific senior season, he has been arrested for allegedly tampering with evidence in a Cleveland homicide investigation. Days away from a Friday tryout with the Cincinnati Bengals (who may still be an apt fit), Longino is being held in a cell in Cleveland Heights on $100,000 bond. He is an East Cleveland native. He was due to check in at the Bengals’ facility today, but now finds himself in a much different facility, in another part of Ohio, wearing a different shade of orange.

4. It’s 2014 All Over Again

Erstwhile Medium Happy man crush Gareth Bale can’t get any love in Spain. He scored this first-half goal, the only goal in either leg, versus Manchester City yesterday. However, it goes down as an own goal against Man City’s Fernando because it deflected off his leg. C’mon, kids. This Ronaldo favoritism has reached toxic levels.

Anyway, Real Madrid advances to the UEFA Champions League final in Milan later this month where it will face neighbors Atletico Madrid. These two met in the final two years ago, when Atletico was poised to pull of the upset until Real scored the equalizer in the 93rd minute, stoppage time. A deflated Atletico allowed 3 goals in extra time to succumb 4-1.

5. Para Cinco de Mayo: Quien Es Jose Antonio de Cuervo?

Tequila!

Imagine if there were a Mexican drug lord, nay, a Mexican drug family, dating back more than 200 years, whose particular product enjoyed 35% market share world-wide. Would that family be a target of the federales? Or would it be one of the most celebrated corporations in all of Mexico?

The town of Tequila. A “Tequila Express” train actually runs from Guadalajara to here, about 40 miles.

In 1795 Don Jose Antonio de Cuervo first began distilling the blue agave plant in the state of Jalisco, Mexico. The product is known as tequila because that’s the name of the town where it is made (imagine if beer were simply called “Milwaukee”).

Don Jose Antonio de Cuervo: the original Mexican drug kingpin

Tequila is, not unlike Scotch, a protected resource. You cannot call it “tequila” unless it is produced in Tequila. Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

Chesapeake (Bay) Watch

The stock (CHK) opened at $6.73 Monday and closed at $5.65 yesterday, a drop of 16%.

This morning, before the bell and due to its quarterly earnings report, the stock is up 73 cents, or 12.92%.

Down > 10%, up > 10%. All in less than four days.

Music 101

In A Big Country

Kids, there was a time when serious music fans wondered if U2 was just a Big Country knock-off band. There was also a time when a Scottish band named Big Country had a song named “In A Big Country” at the same time that a band named Talk Talk had a hit called “Talk Talk” off an album titled Talk Talk. The year was 1983 and it was Peak MTV New Wave era.

In 2001 lead singer Stuart Adamson, sadly, pulled a Michael Hutchence (INXS) and hanged himself alone in a hotel room in Honolulu. The Edge of U2 gave the eulogy and said that Big Country wrote the songs that he wished U2 could write.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di-_n05tppo

Remote Patrol

The Breakfast Club

AMC 8 p.m.

Even in the Eighties, Emilio Estevez’s jeans and tank top look wasn’t cool. Especially not in the Chicago suburbs during the school year. What were they thinking here?

“Demented and sad….but sociable.” Maybe you’ve never seen it, or maybe you just haven’t seen it in awhile, but this may be the cream of the crop of the John Hughes film series, and maybe the smartest teen flick of the Eighties, a decade that was awash in them. I’ll always maintain that Judd Nelson, a.k.a. John Bender, deserved a Best Supporting Actor Oscar and Hughes definitely one for Best Original Screenplay.

by John Walters

Medium Happy birthdays to Erin Andrews (38) and Charissa Thompson (34)

Starting Five

Hard rock? Soft rock? Fossilized rock!

Vampire Weekend

No, that’s not a mirage: Bob Dylan. The Rolling Stones. Paul McCartney. The Who. Roger Waters. Neil Young. All in one place (Indio, California) for three days in early October. “Desert Trip.” Tickets priced anywhere from $199 for a single-day GA pass to $1,699 for three days and a closer seat or spot in the pit.

We can make fun and snark (“Oldchella” or “Desert Trip and Fall: the Broken Hip Tour” or “The Grateful Undead”) but if you were a classical music fan and had the chance to see Bach, Beethoven and Mozart play one last gig in the same concert hall, how much would that be worth to you?

“I’ve been around for a long, long year….”

Suggested songs based on lyrics:

“Old Man”….Neil Young

“Mother’s Little Helper” ….Stones (“What a drag it is getting old”)

“Long Live Rock” …..The Who (“Long live rock/Be it dead or alive”)

Waters playing “Another Brick in the Wall” less than one month before the presidential election should be fun

“The Times They Are a-Changin'”…..Dylan

“Comfortably Numb”…..Waters (it’s just an incredible song

“The End”…..McCartney (“And in the end/The love you take/Is equal to the love you make”)

Here’s how it came about. And here’s my story in Newsweek. 

Quick Thought: Six bands in a Desert Trip 2 lineup? One rule: Your lead singer can’t be dead (or deaf), so I’m sorry to Queen , Nirvana and the Eagles, but you’re disqualified. Here goes it: Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, U2, Pearl Jam, Aerosmith, Radiohead?
Your thoughts, please.

2. “Ted’s Dead, Baby. Ted’s Dead”

Welcome to the “Uni States of America” (no “ted”)

Donald Trump won 53% of the vote to Ted Cruz’s 36% in Indiana, and the Senator from Texas dropped out of the race. “We left it all on the field,” said Cruz, properly employing a sports metaphor in the Hoosier State, albeit a bit too late. And, considering the month that we are in, perhaps he should have said, “We got lapped and then I spun out in Turn 3.”

What next for him? Will Cruz go home to Canada, as so many other Americans have threatened to do if Trump wins? I hope not. My hope is that he moves to New Orleans and opens the French Quarter’s most popular new restaurant: Jumbalyin’ Ted Cruz.

3. HamilTony

“Alexander Hamitlon/My name is Alexander Hamilton/And there’s a few awards I haven’t won/But Just you wait, just you wait”

Speaking of Washington insiders who never made it all the way to the White House, “Hamilton” received 16 Tony nominations yesterday, a record. Lin-Manuel Miranda will soon have more Tonys than anyone in New York City outside of Little Italy. To think you could be nominated for this many awards without your ship hitting an iceberg in Act 2.

4. Charles Keating IV

Keating, who was 31, is also the cousin of Olympic swimming gold medalist Gary Hall, Jr.

The Navy SEAL who was killed in Iraq in a clash with ISIS on Tuesday was the scion of a very well-known family in Arizona. Charles Keating IV was the grandson of Charles Keating, the infamous savings and loan financier (who died in 2014 at the age of 90),  A 2004 graduate of Arcadia High School in Phoenix (in the shadow of Camelback Mountain), Keating was a cross-country city champ in the 1600 as a sophomore, junior and senior. He attended Indiana University, where he ran cross-country, but later dropped out in 2006 to join the Navy and become a SEAL. Just a guess here, but considering his home state and the timing of when he left IU, I would not be surprised if he had not been somewhat influenced by the life and death of Pat Tillman. Keating was engaged to be married in November.

5. Hot In Here

Kudos to Jimmy Kimmel for trying, yet again, to do a little good in the world while also being funny about it (“How do you know climate change is real? When the hottest year on record is whatever year you happen to be in.”). This is really good, especially the part when Jimmy parrots Sarah Palin’s “Who am I to question that?” line. “Exactly,” says Kimmel. “Who are you to question that?”

Music 101

Rock and Roll

With yesterday’s “Vampire Weekend” news, I decided to look for the first rock and roll song. And then I found a song that, while it may not fit the definition, is the earliest known use of the term “rock and roll.” And it refers not to sex but to the motion of a boat on the ocean (Or were they being coy way back in 1934? Perhaps.)

These are the Boswell Sisters (Connie, in the middle, was unable to walk, perhaps because of childhood polio, though no one knows for sure; but that’s why they appear seated in the boat) and they were stars of radio in the Depression era. The Andrews Sisters would later model themselves after them. This song appeared in the movie musical “Transatlantic Merry Go-Round.”

Worth noting: many people consider the 1927 song “When The Levee Breaks” by Kansas Joe McCoy to be the progenitor of rock songs. Led Zeppelin would later record songs called “Rock and Roll” and “When The Levee Breaks.”

Remote Patrol

UEFA Champions League Semi-Final

Manchester City at Real Madrid

2:45 p.m. FS1

Toure for Hollywood!

The second leg of the semi heralds the return of Cristiano Ronaldo. The first leg ended in a 0-0 draw. No one has scored more goals in Champions League play than Ronaldo, who has 93. Which is crazy. Because the first leg ended scoreless, Madrid must win if Man City scores even one goal. Yaya Toure, who is not a lyric from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, returns for the the English club.