by John Walters

Happy New Year, all! Okay, let’s be real:
Just, “New Year!” 2017 is the reason the “May you live in interesting times” salutation began. Anyway, we’ll be here to document it for you at the same low, low price.

Starting Five

Sophomore Samuelson out of Orange County is Geno’s next super duper star

UCant (Beat UConn)

Work, work, work. Top-ranked Connecticut defeats No. 4 Maryland, 87-81, in College Park, for its 87th consecutive victory. All five Husky starters scored in double figures, led by POY candidate Katie Lou Samuelson’s 23 points. UConn led by 15 entering the fourth quarters.

Geno Auriemma’s stone-cold killers have now taken down the No. 2, No. 3, No. 4, and four other teams ranked between Nos. 12 and 15, and it’s not even New Year’s Day yet. Good luck to anyone who hopes to come between the Huskies and 100 straight.

Do sports fans appreciate how astounding this is?

2. John Boy Walton, Pete Rose, The Cast of Star Wars and Mummenschanz Walk Into A Talk Show

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

If you’re someone who was lucky enough to grow up (or at least remember) the Seventies, you remember The Mike Douglas Show. It was an afternoon talk show that had been taped locally in Philadelphia for years but by the time this episode aired, in 1977, had moved  to Los Angeles. Douglas was the most genial of hosts, a good guy and a good singer who never embarrassed his guests.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um9PaPWyeCY

Anyway, I found this lineup yesterday. Richard Thomas is the co-host (Mike would have stars rotate as his co-hosts for a week) and the guests are Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Pete Rose, Tom Seaver and….. (again, if you were around in the Seventies, you’d remember this name) the mime group Mummenschanz. This episode needs to be preserved in the national archives.

3.  A Stupid Day in Charlotte

For Whom The Belk Tolls

This is why tight ends don’t run bootlegs

First we learn that Arkansas senior tight end Jeremy Sprinkle (33 catches, four TDs) was suspended from the Belk Bowl for allegedly attempting to shoplift from a Belk department store. Sprinkle was at the Belk outlet as part of a function in which each player from both Arkansas and Virginia Tech was given a $450 gift card to use at Belk (but they can’t pay them, you see), but Sprinkle reportedly tried to walk out with more than that amount.

The Razorbacks jumped out to a 24-0 halftime lead on the Hokies but then lost, 35-24.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sYfitLyG9Q

Speaking of thinking something is over before it isn’t, here’s Charlotte Hornets guard Kemba Walker getting his Swaggy P on…

4. Something Wild (and Blue Jacket)

Dubnyk is the NHL’s stingiest goalie

I know, I know, I know…We’re not supposed to pay attention to hockey until A) April or B) a black man discovers it on TV and starts sending hilariously filthy tweets about it, but the Minnesota Wild (23-8-4) have won 12 straight hockey matches procedurals fixtures games. Even better, the Columbus Blue Jackets (25-5-4) have won 14 in a row. Even better than that, the Blue Jackets visit the Wild on Saturday night (Will this tear some of the Columbus TV audience away from Clemson-Ohio State? Nope).

Not surprisingly, Minnesota’s and Columbus’ tenders of the net, Devan Dubnyk and Sergei Bobrovsky, are Nos. 1 and 2 in Goals Against Average, respectively, in the NHL.

The 1992-93 Pittsburgh Penguins won 17 in a row, which is the NHL record and very well within reach for whoever wins on Saturday.

5. Jokes and Java (Cont.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lOLTQzNxUM
MH’s favorite web series, Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, premieres next Thursday.  Jerry Seinfeld finally landed the comic with whom I most wanted to see him drive around in search of  a cup of joe, Norm MacDonald. Other guests for Season 9 include Lewis Black, Cedric the Entertainer, Bob Einstein (a.k.a. Super Dave Osborne, a.k.a. Marty Funkhausser), Kristen Wiig and everyone’s favorite-least-favorite faux Nazi, Christoph Waltz  (who hopefully will only order a glass of milk and perhaps some strudel).

Next Thursday is a pretty big Seinfeld day, as he’ll also be playing the Beacon Theater a few blocks down from MH intergalactic headquarters.

Music 101

I’ve Been Waiting

Matthew Sweet broke in the early Nineties, when a spoonful of competent but not particularly dangerous bands (read: Gin Blossoms, Dave Matthews Band, Counting Crows, Hootie) were struggling to break out of the shadow cast by the edgier acts (Nirvana, Weezer, Pearl Jam, Beck, etc.). Sweet’s only crime was writing straight-ahead, sincere rock songs that the good kids who are afraid to ask the girls to dance listen to. Love this song. That’s my problem.

Remote Patrol

Orange Bowl

Michigan (10-2) vs. Florida State (9-3)

Jim Harbaugh: Always smiling

Finally, a bowl game we’d anxiously anticipate if it had been a regular-season game. Two teams that were sexy picks to make the playoff in August who stumbled just enough to leave them shy, but in Jabrill Peppers and Dalvin Cook we have legit NFL Top 15 picks (if not higher) and Heisman runners-up. Plus, you have Captain Khaki in south Florida and two legit perennial programs. A nice amuse bouche before tomorrow’s semis.

by John Walters

Starting Five

Brooks made the game-winner over the outstretched arrm of Lonzo Ball, who could be the No. 1 overall pick next June.

Brooks, Brother*

*The judges will grudgingly accept “A Knight To Remember” or “Duck, Bill (Walton)

Just like you drew it up on your outdoor court, Dillon Brooks takes a short pass and buries the game-winner with less than one second remaining in Eugene. The Ducks take down unbeaten (13-0), No. 2 UCLA Deep in the Woods. And Bill Walton, who was on the court in South Bend when the Bruins’ 88-game win streak fell in 1974, was seated courtside. What a long, strange trip it’s been.

Notes: 1) Duck frosh Payton Pritchard’s three with :15 to play was huge, even though he did appear to walk before taking the shot, That made it 87-86, UCLA 2) Bryce Alford, the coach’s son, is an 87% free throw shooter but missed the front end of the one-and-one (his only free throw of the night), with :08 to play, which gave Brooks the chance to go for the jugular, 3) Kudos to “The Conference of Champions” for moving away from its Thursday-Saturday formula to put this game on this night, and over Christmas break on ESPN. It felt bigly.

2. Reynolds R.I.P.

What the hell? One day after the death of Carrie Fisher, 60, her famous actress mom Debbie Reynolds, 84, passes. People are going to say that she passed from grief, and perhaps she did, but you have to wonder if there will be an autopsy and whether it was prescription drug-assisted grief. And would that even be revealed.

Regardless, both mother and daughter were the female leads in films that A) are in the American Film Institute‘s Top 12 (Singin’ in the Rain, which was released in 1952, ranks No. 5, while Star Wars, released 25 years later, comes in at No. 12.) B) starred two men and one woman (Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor, and Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill.

3. Bowl Binge

Justin Jackson ran for 224 yards and three scores in Northwestern’s Pinstripe Bowl win at Yankee Stadium and afterward said, “Like, Derek Jeter peed in that urinal.”

If you’ve ever dined at a Texas Roadhouse, then you understand that America’s real motto is “Too Much Is Not Enough” (great food, I just needed my stomach pumped afterward). And so it is with bowls. Here is the total of bowls by decade in the past 50 years:

1966: 9

1976: 12

1986: 18

1996: 18

2006: 32

2016: 40, not including the national championship game.

Do I have a problem with teams playing postseason games primarily as ESPN programming? It’s not anywhere near the top of my list of Major Beefs (as opposed to the president-elect’s sons killing animals in the name of charity) (and the Major Beef Bowl, sponsored by Del Frisco’s will probably be a thing next year), but here’s the thing: to play in a “bowl” for the longest time implied that the team participating had earned something most others had not, that it had had a special season. It was like being an honor student.

Apparently, 27,608 tickets were “distributed” for the Foster Farms Bowl. Probably a quarter of that bothered to show up pic.twitter.com/rrLqqPOKUc

— Eric He (@erichesports) December 29, 2016

Now, if 80 of 128 teams play in bowls, that means that more than half the FBS teams are bowl teams. Anything that more than half of an entire group can attain is by definition not special or elite. It is the norm. So if your alma mater or favorite school plays a game in a half-empty stadium between December 17 and say, today, there’s no crime in that. And football being what it is, it’s impossible to play in a game and not care—you don’t sleepwalk through football games or you can be killed.

But let’s not pretend that winning a bowl game, for 75% of them nowadays, is anything special. It’s simply ESPN programming. And if you say, “Well, it’s special to the team that won,” well, bless their little hearts. Putting a “My Child is an Honor Student at Greenwood Elementary” bumper sticker on your car doesn’t mean much if he or she regularly gets B’s and C’s. And the kids who get straight A’s, their parents don’t need that bumper sticker for validation.

4. His Cup Run Ith Over

Where would we be without Flip Cup and Beer Pong, as a society?

Celebrity deaths are not the only ends that need to be mourned. Robert Huselman, the man who invented the Red Solo Cup (above), passed away on December 21 at the age of 84 in Scottsdale, Arizona. I can think of a few ways to celebrate his life.

5. Beach Bums*

*The judges will also accept any headline with the word “Rubbish”

Today in People Suck new: Revelers at Sydney’s Coogee Beach left behind 16 tons of garbage after Christmas day partying. Keep in mind that Christmas Down Under is sort of like the 4th of July here, in terms of time of year. I wonder how many Red Solo Cups were in that trash heap.

Music 101

Welcome to the Black Parade

This was an audacious attempt from a young band out of the wilderness in New Jersey, but the autumn 2006 release from My Chemical Romance went to No. 1 in the UK that autumn. The band called it quits in 2013.

Remote Patrol

Cool Hand Luke

8 p.m. TCM

Peak Paul Newman here in 1967, as an inmate on a southern prison farm who refuses to be broken.

by John Walters

Starting Five

Fisher was just 19 years old when they began filming Star Wars

R.I.P., Carrie Fisher

To my parents’ generation, she was Debbie Reynolds‘ daughter. To mine, she was Princess Leia in the Star Wars films (as well as the pushy friend in When Harry Met Sally). Carrie Fisher, who suffered a heart attack on a flight from London to Los Angeles over the weekend, dies at the age of 60.

Honestly, if you told me I’d be writing about London, a person with a royal prefix and a death this week, that wasn’t the person I’d have thought we’d be talking about.

2. Fevered Pitch

The Blues are way out in front in the Premier League with just over half the season remaining

On Boxing Day in London, Chelsea defeated Bournemouth for its 12th consecutive Premier League victory. The Blues have a record of 15-2-1 (one draw) and can tie the Arsenal’s league record for most consecutive wins (14) if they at Stoke on New Year’s Even and take down Tottenham at home, White Hart Lane, on January 4. The latter will provide stiff competition.

3. Housing Bubbles: Silicon Valley, Brooklyn

We’re approaching point where you’ll have to be a millionaire to be able to afford to live on the street from Do The Right Thing (“Go back to Boston!”)

Last night Friend of the Blog Amelia Boone, who works as an attorney for a Brobdingnagian Silicon Valley company sent out a tweet about housing prices in her area.

People wonder why I spend my time looking for cabins in the mountains. Ex. A of my options in SJC: https://t.co/iJcmY3AD9C #rentingtilIdie

— Amelia Boone (@ameliaboone) December 27, 2016

And that led us to thinking: What if just one megalithic tech corporation moved out of the Silicon Valley (with its perfect climate, proximity to San Francisco and the Wine Country, etc.) and relocated to say, Sioux Falls, South Dakota? Sure, housing prices in South Dakota would climb, but the early arrivals would get so much more bang for their buck. Look at this home I found in Sioux Falls for the same price that they were asking at the Sunnyvale abode in Amelia’s tweet:

About the only place in America with more exaggerated housing prices than Silicon Valley? You got it: Brooklyn.

4. Stock Tip: NVDA

We weren’t paying much attention to Santa Clara-based tech company Nvidia all year, mostly because we couldn’t spell it correctly and also because it makes parts for gamers’ games, and we’re not gamers. So we missed out (mostly; but Susie B. did not).

Last February 9 the stock hit a low for the past year of $24.80 . This morning in pre-market trading it’s at $119.10. So we’re just a few dollars away from a 400% jump in less than 11 months, which is good cheddar if you can get it. The stock shows no signs of slowing down (it’s up $30 per share, from $90, in just the past fortnight) as takeover rumors begin to swirl.

Buy it? I dunno. But if you know gamers, they’re not about to find a new hobby, such as going outside to play, any time soon.

5. Bowls Gone Wild

The Golden Gophers had two fewer practices and were missing four defensive starters, and still held Wazzu to a pair of field goals for 59 minutes and 41 seconds

Three of Tuesday’s four bowl favorites flat out lost (Temple, Wazzu, Boise State) and the fourth, Army, failed to cover (Cadets, 10-point favorites, beat puking North Texas, 38-31). Kids, don’t bet bowl games, but if you’re gonna, take the ‘dogs. Always. Please. There were no three schools in the pre-NYE games that seemed more of a lock than the three that lost yesterday. There’s no predicting this.

Music 101

I’m Your Man

George Michael was a part of at least 10 Number 1 hits in the U.S. or the U.K., which is remarkable. This was Wham!’s third chart-topper, written and produced by Michael, and it was not featured on any album. It was just a one-off. Six months after this song was released in 1985, Wham! split. It was simply a matter of one man being far too talented to remain as part of a duo with a guitar player with a cute face. Don’t you love the relentless up-tempo beat and Michael’s relentless confidence on this song?

Remote Patrol

No. 2 UCLA at No. 21 Oregon

ESPN2 9 p.m.

Ball, with ball

The Bruins are 13-0 and freshman Lonzo Ball is one of the two or three most exciting players in the country (he’ll look so good in a Suns uniform next year). The Ducks were SI’s sexy Final Four pick in the preseason, but they lost two in November, to Baylor and Georgetown. Matthew Knight Arena is not an easy place to win on the road. We’ve got the Ducks ending the Bruins’ run….I mean, it’s not as if they’re going to win the next 75 in a row, is it?

by John Walters

Maddow demonstrating how she can karate chop her way out of a pile of GOP bullsh*t

Kellyanne Trolls

How glad am I that I decided to check out Rachel Maddow’s show last night and visiting, for the entire hour, was Kellyanne Conway. These are two exceedingly bright and tough women, one of whom works for the forces of good and the other, alas, not so much. You should definitely watch this entire interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F8ejvaNsfY

Early on, this is an exchange:

Maddow: “[Trump’s] saying we’re going to expand our nuclear capability.”

Conway: “He’s not necessarily saying that.”

Maddow: “He did, he did literally say ‘We need to expand our nuclear capability.'”

Later in the interview, Maddow, who’s as sharp as any political commentator on TV, missed an easy layup. After rightly pressing Conway on Trump’s proliferation of lies about Martha Radditz and only getting Conway to concede that if there’s an apology coming from the Trump camp, it may not be public, the topic moved to Melania Trump’s $150 MILLION lawsuit against an unknown blogger (not this unknown blogger, though I do hope that’s coming in the future).  When Maddow asked Conway whey the First Lady to-be is pursuing that suit and Conway replied that she deserves a public accounting of the blasphemy directed at her, Maddow missed the opportunity to go for the kill and ask why Trump wasn’t affording Radditz the same courtesy. She missed on that one, and she’s likely kicking herself this morning about it.

Watch the video. It’ll be fun to talk about in a year or so when we’re huddled in our underground bunkers with no internet.

2.  A Good Gig?

Would you play the inaugural ball if you were an A-list act? Reportedly, the following acts have flat-out said, “No” to requests by Team Trump to perform at the inauguration: Celine Dion, Elton John, David Foster, Ice-T, Andrea Bocelli and the Dixie Chicks.

Seems like Donny is upset because no one famous wants to attend or work his party:

The so-called “A” list celebrities are all wanting tixs to the inauguration, but look what they did for Hillary, NOTHING. I want the PEOPLE!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2016

Comedian Patton Oswalt wrote a short Facebook post last night suggesting A-Listers should accept Trump’s offer and then populate their acts with minorities, LGBT’s, etc. That they should use the platform to advance more progressive issues.

I respectfully disagree. Nothing will speak louder, at least on this night, than the entertainment community standing together as one and shunning Trump and his ideals. Besides, men like Trump and his cronies are used to having coloreds and spics work their galas. That doesn’t mean they view those people as anything close to equals; even if you’re Elton John, who’s gay, you’re just the help.

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

Don’t play Sun City during apartheid, and don’t play Trump’s inaugural. It’s a similar crusade.

3. Damn, It Feels Good To Be a Gangsta…On NBC

Rodney Harrison looking at Costas like, “Don’t even…”

What is Bob Costas doing here? This was last night at Lincoln Financial Field before the Giants-Eagles game. True gangsta Rodney Harrison—Did you ever see him hit people in the NFL?—called out Costas on the hat and then got a little more personal (psst, Rodney: I’m not sure if the biters are real, but you could’ve called him out on the dye job and the surgical work around the eyes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KrSpXiTeu0

4. There Are Still Wonderful People in the World

Dr. Margolis is a Jewish man with a deep belief in goodwill toward men. As we approach Christmas Day, I wonder where we have seen that before….

This is Dr. David Margolis, a pediatric oncologist in Milwaukee. He noticed that Nordstrom’s was selling a rock in a leather pouch for $85, so two weeks ago he decided to start collecting rocks and selling them for the same price with the idea that all of the money would go toward charitable works at the Milwaukee Children’s Hospital. He’s already sold more than 700 stones and here’s the really good news: The folks at Nordstrom’s heard about it and kicked in $50,000 in matching gifts. In just a fortnight’s time Margolis has raised more than $100,000 for research, art and music therapy, and other needed items to make the lives of children suffering from cancer better. If you want to help, hit this link.

As Dr. Margolis told me earlier this morning, “What I love about this time of year is that everyone is thinking about other people first. Why it can’t be like that 24/7, 365 is an entirely different conversation.”

5. The Italian Job

Dead

Police in Milan stopped a Tunisian man just after 3 a.m. local time and asked for his papers—just like in those old World War II films. The man replied by pulling a pistol from his bag and firing at them. One officer was wounded but in the exchange they killed Anis Amri, the Berlin truck massacre suspect.

It’s not as sexy as ordering up a nuclear arsenal, but good old-fashioned police work eliminated the suspect less than 96  hours after the crime. No costly trial. No years of incarcerations. Finis. Salut!

Music 101

Closer To The Heart

“And the men who hold high places/Must be the ones who start/To mold a new reality/Closer to the heart, closer to the heart….” Good luck with that, Geddy. Did you see whom we just elected president? This is a classic Rush song from 1977, off the A Farewell To Kings album.

Remote Patrol

Shakespeare Live!

PBS 9 p.m.

On the 400th anniversary of The Bard’s death, the Royal Shakespeare Company performs a greatest-hits package of his work from Stratford-Upon-Avon.  Performers include Judi Dench, Benedict Cumberbatch, John Lithgow, Helen Mirren (it’s suddenly hot in here) and Ian McKellen. Get yourself cultured up! You can live without watching Troy vs. Ohio in the Dollar General Bowl.