Monthly Archives: June 2017

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!B

by John Walters | 6 Comments

by John Walters

Susie B, please check in to assure us you are alive. I don’t want to have to send paramedics out to your home.

Starting Five

Durant averaged 35.2 ppg in the NBA Finals and never scored fewer than 31 points in any game

Shooting Out The Walls of Heartache*

*The judges will also accept “Kevin Can’t Wait” and “K.D. and the Sunshine Band” 

The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry (from the poem To A Mouse by Robert Burns). But in this case it didn’t. The Dubs lost Game 7 to the Cavs last June after a record-setting 73-9 season, then lured the NBA’s best player who was not involved in that series (Kevin Durant), then rode him to a 68-15 season, a 16-1 postseason, and a 4-1 victory over the Cavs in the NBA Finals.

Curry, Durant and Klay Thompson buried 19, 18 and 17 threes respectively in the Finals. The Dubs averaged 14 per game. Jump-shooting teams CAN win the championship.

Cleveland led 41-33 in the second quarter, and then Durant and Stephen Curry (two players who’ve won the last three NBA MVP awards) led a 27-4 tear to put GSW up 60-45 and all of a sudden the pressure was off. Game over, series over, and the Dubs wouldn’t choke for the second year in a row. Durant scored 39 last night and averaged 35.1 per game in the Finals; Curry scored 34 last night and averaged nearly 27.

 

Both dudes are still under 30 years old. The Dubs win their second NBA Finals of the past three years and looked primed for more. Meanwhile, I don’t know if the Spurs would have taken them down or not, but I’ll forever wonder, seeing as how they were up 25 at Oracle in the 3rd quarter when Kawhi Leonard was lost for the series, what might have been…

2. Classic Pitt Pic

Above, and taken Sunday by Charles LeClaire of USA Today Sports, is the most iconic Pittsburgh baseball photo since the 1960 World Series. That’s centerfielder Andrew McCutchen leaping over the Marlins’ J.T. Realmuto in a feckless attempt to avoid the tag and score. No luck, but the Pirates still won, 6-1.

This shot, of students atop the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning watching the fateful moment when Bill Mazeroski’s shot won Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, remains the most iconic shot in Iron City baseball history.

3. Bereaveland

This is what’s known as an ironic metaphor

Despite averaging a triple double during the NBA Finals (33.6 points, 12 boards and 10 assists per game), LeBron James could only lead the Cavs to one win. You can argue, effectively that he was the MVP in both the 2015 and the 2017 Finals, or at least the top performer.

So what went wrong for the C.C.s? It’s weird, their second banana (Kyrie Irving) outscored the Dubs’ second banana, their third banana (third banana?), Kevin Love, scored only two fewer than GSW’s third while out-rebounding everyone in the Finals except LeBron. And 4th-7th bananas outscored GSW’s by 22 points. In fact, GSW only drained one more three per game than Cleveland did (both teams shot .382 from beyond the arc). The two teams were one turnover away from being dead even (GSW committed one more, on the final play of the Finals). The stats appear to line up in Cleveland’s favor.

So what went wrong? Without digging too deep, I’d say ASSISTS. Golden State had 147 assists to Cleveland’s 108. Simply a better passing team scoring more easy buckets, which is demoralizing for a defense. Sure, Kevin Durant also went wrong for the Cavs, but that one number is huge. The Dubs average nearly 30 assists per game. The Cavs averaged 21.

When you learn they want you to wear sleeved jerseys in a Finals clinching game.

Where does Cleveland go now? They got Kyle Korver and J.R. Smith to compete with the Dubs from an ICBM standpoint. And they sorta did. But they need to be younger and more athletic. Fewer vets and more guys like, well, Andrew Wiggins (that said, Kevin Love did have a good series, averaging 16 and 12; not a superstar series, but a good one).

Meanwhile, LeBron actually said last night, “I don’t believe I’ve played for a ‘super team.’ ” (What Was Allegedly Written On Your Gate), please.

4. Donald Akbar

Yesterday at the White House members of Donald Trump‘s cabinet, in their first full meeting, took turns at giving him a hand…job. This “adulation bath” as it is called was both prompted by Trump and noticeably on camera.

Mike Pence: “Greatest privilege of my life.”

Etc. I liked also when the budget director said, “We are going to take care of the people who really need it,” i.e., the top 5% of income earners.

It’s as if he’s not satisfied simply being the worst president America will ever have. He wants to be even less than that.

Here’s Seth Meyers on the grandstanding…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlCFLG6rKKY

5. The First Concert Festival

Jim Morrison, playing with a then barely known band out of LA called The Doors

Last weekend they staged the 16th Bonnaroo Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, and it was once again a big deal as U2 and the Red Hot Chili Peppers headlined. I wasn’t there so I don’t know if anyone paid homage to the fact that last weekend also marked the 50th anniversary of the genesis of all U.S. concert festivals (even though Genesis did not appear), where a weekend ticket cost $2.

The Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival took place on scenic Mount Tamalpais in Marin County and was a two-day event sponsored by a local San Francisco radio station. An estimated 30,000 to 40,000 music and hallucinogenic fans showed up to launch, effectively, the famed Summer of Love (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band had been released in the U.S. just one week earlier).

Check out the lineup: Dionne Warwick, The Doors, The Byrds, Captain Beefheart, The Fifth Dimension, The Grass Roots, Tim Buckley, the Steve Miller Band, and a young Janis Joplin fronting a band. A local deejay named Sly Stone sat in the crowd and took it all in.

If you’re a music fan, read this tremendously entertaining oral history of the weekend from Rolling Stone (the mag would launch in SF later that year), which talks about how the Hell’s Angels gave musicians rides to the show on the backs of their bikes and how the lead singer of Captain Beefheart had a bad trip in the middle of their set (psychedelic drugs) that led to a worse fall.

Music 101

Nights Are Forever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ur3_lrvDD_A

Mid-Seventies soft-power rock (admittedly, it’s quite a niche category) didn’t get any better than England Dan & John Ford Coley. This tune lit up AM radio in late 1976 and rose to No. 10 on the Billboard chart, off the album of the same name.

Remote Patrol

Go outside tonight. Or read The Sellout from Paul Beatty. Nothing on.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 4 Comments

by John Walters

PCH: Never mind

Starting Five

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

1. Bette Noire

Methuselan Broadway starlet Bette Midler, 71, wins the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical as the star of Hello, Dolly. Then she gives an extended thank-you speech and tells the orchestra to zip it when they try to play her off.

This is how you DIVA!

2. Summer of Judge (Cont.)

In the Bronx, Aaron Judge goes 4-for-4, blasts two home runs, the second a 495-foot flight that Spirit Airlines is envious of, and by day’s end leads the American League in home runs (21), batting average (.344) and RBI (47). And they said there was no Triple Crown winner in New York this Belmont Stakes weekend.

A landmark date in the Summer of Judge as the Yankees win 14-3 and sweep the Orioles three straight while outscoring them 38-6. And when it was over, Judge and cleanup hitter Matt Holliday suited up in shirts from The Sandlot. This is the most fun Yankee team since  1996 (watch in the above video, at the end, as 5’7″ Ronaldo Torreyes got a boost to high-five Judge).

3. Nadal’s House, Part 10

At Stade Roland Garros in Paris, the Spaniard, Rafael Nadal, wins his 10th French Open in the past 13 years. Nadal, who turned 31 earlier this month, defeated Stan Wawrinka in straight sets and did not drop a set the entire tournament.

The King of Clay becomes the first male to win the same Grand Slam 10 times. He also, with 15 total Grand Slams, is all alone in 2nd place behind Roger Federer (18). Novak Djokovic has 12.

Nadal has won the French Open twice before without dropping a set, in 2008 and 2010. In both those years he won Wimbledon—his only two Wimbledon championships—as an encore. Stay tuned.

4. SEO Readwagon

Samantha Hoopes has nothing to do with the thread below, but maybe it’ll create more clicks….

I’ll allow my tweets yesterday to speak for themselves…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Predators Lose…

….and the Pittsburgh Penguins win. Their second Stanley Cup in a row. That should mute Clay Travis for an hour or so.

Music 101

I Don’t Know How To Love Him


Here’s the incomparable Shirley Bassey singing the majestic ballad from the 1970 hit musical Jesus Christ, Superstar, written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice (there’s a little bit of Alfie in this song, no?). The song is sung in the show by Mary Magdalene as she describes her relationship with the Son of God.

Remote Patrol

Better Call Saul

10 p.m. AMC

I missed last week’s episode, so DON’T TELL ME ANYTHING!

THE WEAKENED EDITION!

by John Walters | 3 Comments

by John Walters

Just in time for summer (Yay!), the Medium Happy staff finds itself with a little more discretionary time on its hands (though diners and drinkers never cease needing to be served and coddled). Who knows, we may even post more postings…

Starting Five

Farewell, Caped Crusader

Yesterday Adam West, who starred as Batman in the eponymous hit show in the late 1960s, passed away at the age of 88. That show was incredible. One of the best, if not the best, theme songs anywhere; a cast of rogues and villains that as a lad scared me out of my feety pajamas (Cesar Romero as The Joker; Burgess Meredith as Penguin; Frank Gorshin as The Riddler; Julie Newmar as Catwoman); a cool car; and the original TV true detectives, Batman and Robin.

But once you were old enough to make your own lunch, you’d watch Batman and appreciate that it was the funniest satire you’d ever seen (as kids we got Batman and Bugs Bunny, two subversive and multi-layered shows; both genius). Batman was actually more of a template for what David Letterman would later do on Late Night than it was for any super hero show. Example: A scene where the Batmobile has to come to a screeching halt in the midst of a chase and deploys a parachute to stop, like a dragster; the vehicle then screeches away as a white van marked “Batman Parachute Pick-Up Service” rolls into view.

In the midst of it all was the handsome Adam West, who played every line as straight and serious as possible, and even more serious when the lines were funnier (how many current-day sitcom actors could learn a thing or two from him?). If you were too young to get the jokes—which were only intermittently sprinkled in to a real, good guys versus bad guys plot—you simply believed that West WAS Batman; once you were old enough, you appreciated how he could deliver lines such as “Some days, you just can’t get rid of a bomb” with all the gravitas of his late Sixties contemporary, William Shatner (as Captain Kirk).

“Some days…”

Quick, Robin, to the Batmobile!

2. Deajah’s View

Stevens stumbled and Jefferson won

Last night’s NCAA Track and Field championships in Eugene were filled with the type of drama that would’ve inspired the late Olympics documentarian Bud Greenspan to make a short film. First, you had Oregon and Georgia vying for the team national championship in the most unique way: Georgia would amass ALL of its points EXCLUSIVELY in field and multi-events (e.g., heptathlon, where it produced the individual NCAA champ) while Oregon would amass ALL its points exclusively on the track.

In the third-to-final event, the 200, Oregon’s Deajah Stevens was running neck and neck with Florida’s Kyra Jefferson (ESPN announcer Dwight Stones told us that her dad is Thomas Jefferson and then made a ponderous “Father of our country” joke that had me furrowing my brow through the first half of the race) with less than 20 meters to go. Then Stevens, not touched by anyone, seemed to just try to stride too far and face-planted. That Stevens failed to win the race was personally distressing, sure; but that the Duck sprinter simply got off and walked off the track without even crossing the finish line cost her team one point.

The Ducks needed to win the final event in order to win the natty, and they did

And why did that matter. Because heading into the final event, the 4 x 400 relay, Oregon trailed Georgia by a little more than 8 points, and you get 9 points for first. So the Ducks needed to win that event or no national championship (had Stevens crossed, they could have afforded to finish second). It was a magical race—Stevens ran the third leg—, a two-team battle between Oregon and USC, but Oregon’s anchor leg took the lead in the last 150 meters and barely held off the Trojans.

Great drama for women’s track, and kudos to ESPN for airing it live.

3. Allie is Alright

Meanwhile, Medium Happy favorite Allie Ostrander, the Alaskan pixie who finished second in the NCAA Cross Country championships as a freshman in the autumn of 2015, won the national championship in the 3,000-meter steeplechase (joining other MH faves such as Jenny Simpson, a three-time champ [2006, ’08 and ’09] and Emma Coburn, 2011).

What made Ostrander’s performance so remarkable—her 9:41 put her five seconds ahead of the second-place finisher, Madison Boreman, of Simpson’s and Coburn’s alma mater, Colorado—is that her first time running this event was just a little over two months ago. Also, Allie’s barely 5’4″ and she’s clearing those hurdles. She’s the tiniest female on the track. But she’s a quick study and a fast runner.

4. Yet Another Tribute To a Friend Who Was Given An Unscheduled Journalism Sabbatical

SI laid off my friend Brian Hamilton a few weeks back, but he asked me not to say anything until he tweeted about it. Anyway, he put it out there so I’ll just make this relatively short: Brian is one of my favorite peeps. We both share New Jersey as a home state, an unfettered adoration for everything about Almost Famous, a fondness for hair metal bands of the ’80s, and custody of Michael Rothstein (it isn’t easy raising him on our own).

Despite his unbridled contempt for a lot about Notre Dame (the students, mostly), this Northwestern alum and I forged a solid friendship when we were both covering the Charlie Weis years. I used to ride my bike everywhere then, even to Charlie’s Tuesday’s pressers (the weather in South Bend in September and early October is heaven). One day as I was locking my bike into the rack Brian walked past with another writer pal of ours and, without breaking stride, quipped, “Tell Winnie Cooper ‘Hello’ for me.”

Brian is a cynical but ultimately very, very good egg. For a game at Michigan State, I was living in South Bend without a car, and was going to have to rent one. Without me even asking, Brian volunteered to swing WAY out of his way on his route from Chicago to East Lansing to pick me up. That’s just who he is.

He’s a brilliant writer, too. I still remember a line he used in a piece early in ND’s 2012 season (my favorite year of his writing) where he used the word “liturgy” in a secular sense and I just stepped back and was, like, “Whoa. Hadn’t thought of that.”

Brian’s great. Highly talented, popular with the writing peeps, versatile. Like Austin Murphy, I don’t worry about his future one bit. I just wanted you all to know that SI let two very talented people go in the past month (while likely keeping others who had higher “metabolism” rates).

5. Ostapenko!

How often has this happened? A tennis player’s first tournament championship on the WTA or USTA tour happens to be a Grand Slam? Yesterday unseeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia overcome a 4-6 first set to defeat third-seeded Simona Halep for the French Open title. Ostapenko became the first Latvian to win a Grand Slam singles title, too.

The 20 year-old became the first unseeded woman to triumph at Roland Garros since Margaret Scriven of England in 1933. Incredible.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 7 Comments

by John Walters

So, wait. When I write less y’all comment more? Good to know. 

Starting Five

James and the Giant Impeach*

The judges will also accept “Comey Don’t Play That.”

How did you enjoy Comey Day? The “Lordy, I hope there are” quote, John McCain babbling incoherently, Marco Rubio admonishing somebody else for not calling Trump out for being out of line, and the White House launching the spit-take inducing, “The President is not a liar?”

What does it all mean? We now know, pardon the pun, unimpeachably, that James Comey considers Donald Trump a liar. We all figured that before, but now we know. However, unlike Watergate, which began with a crime that no one understood and ended with Richard Nixon’s resignation, here we have everything BUT the crime. We have the criminals, we have the motive, we even have the back-channel colluding.

 

 “It’s not a lie if you believe it, Jerry” — G. Costanza

We just don’t have an actual crime yet. We don’t have the money trail. Or the tape in which the parties agreed to a sinister partnership. And even if we get that, we still have a Republican Congress. And even if we get an impeachment, we’ll still have President Stick-Up-His-Ass who will pardon Trump. Just you wait.

The Axis of Weasels*

In Russia the dude on the left would kill you and there wouldn’t even be an investigation

*The judges will also accept “Creme de la Kremlin”

It was good to see the usual suspects (pun intended) rally around the President yesterday. Paul “the President is new at this” Ryan, Corey “Comey Isn’t Man Enough” Lewandowski, Kellyanne Conway and the rest. When the hornet’s nest is this aroused, you can be sure Comey landed a direct blow.

3. Ni**er, Where You At?

What was Bill Maher thinking on Friday night when he used the term “house ni**er?” I mean, sure, it’s HBO, but it’s not The Wire (where you’d hear that term profusely). The funny part to me is that this word constitutes the greatest widespread acceptance of a double standard since the dude I was talking about in Item 1.

It’s okay for African-Americans to use this term all day and all night (in fact, I was reading Paul Beatty‘s The Sellout, a novel about black people by a black author that has this term on just about every page, as this was happening) but not for whites. Of course, you’ve heard that point before. What was funny to me about this instance is that Maher–because like him or not, he is a smart guy–absolutely used this reference accurately. He was invited by the congressman from Nebraska to “work in the fields” and Maher’s joke was that he’s more suited to domestic work. So he dropped in that slang for humor’s sake.

I think this will blow past. As it should. Maher didn’t call someone a “ni**er.” He was evoking an historical term as a joke about the fact that he’s too prissy to do real man’s work. Of course Maher has plenty of enemies and they’re here to pounce on him, but the fact that they would because of this is the latest double standard.

4. The Longest Running Run of Running

Meet Jon Sutherland. The 66 year-old Southern Californian has run at least one mile each day since May 26, 1969. My story in Newsweek. 

5. What Is Tentacle Porn, Anyway?

Believe me, this is the CLEANEST tentacle porn image I could find

Yesterday, as Newsweek‘s British managing editor was prepping for a meeting about, as they’d say on The Office (Gervais version), “redundancies,” a symbolic bomb exploded in his lap. One of the magazine’s most esteemed writers, the best-known and respected in the Beltway, Kurt Eichenwald, was busy mansplaining on Twitter why he and his grown children were discussing “tentacle porn” with his wife and their mom.

 

It’s kinds of astounding what you can get away with and NOT be fired for, isn’t it, M.M.?

 

Earlier this morning I went on Slack to see if anyone at Newsweek had volunteered to do a tentacle porn piece (think of the clicks!), but no one had. In fact, the site hadn’t even covered it, which is 180 degrees opposite of what would happen now if anyone but a Newsweek writer had been the subject of the piece.

To finish up, tentacle porn, or “tentacle erotica,” actually exists. See here. 

Music 101

Hold Back The Rain

Duran Duran, specifically their album Rio that was released in the U.K on May 10, 1982, achieved Peak New Wave (and don’t let anyone tell you different). “Hungry Like The Wolf,” the title track, “New Religion,” “Save A Prayer”, and this song helped propel the album to double platinum and kept it on the charts for 129 weeks.

Remote Patrol

Game Last?: Dubs at Cavs

9 p.m. ABC

Will the Dubs be the first NBA team (or pro sports team among the big four) to go 16-0 in the postseason? Will Susie B. blame Channing Frye for the defeat? Will Jason McIntyre move on to yet another specious debate topic that will be irrelevant three days from now because by then he will have found an even more recent and ephemeral debate topic on which to obsess? Tune in and find out.