by John Walters

Starting Five

Lights Out

In Green Bay, lightning delayed the Bears-Packers game for 45 minutes and then Chicago linebacker Danny Trevathan delivered this hit on Green Bay wide receiver Davante Adams that knocked him out cold.  Adams had caught a pass near the goal line and was being held up by another Bear defender when Trevathan just laid into him, helmet to helmet. He should have been ejected for targeting and forced to miss the first half of the Purdue game, no?

Green Bay won 35-14 because Aaron Rodgers is Aaron Rodgers and Mike Glennon is not an NFL starter.

2. Someone Else Is Not Fonda Megyn Kelly

Your week is going better than Megyn Kelly’s first week at Today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA_ruiJp1nk

3. Tesla Girls*

*The judges appreciate all references to OMD

This is Cover Girl‘s cover model this month and she’s not modeling for money. Her son is Elon Musk.

Ready to play Cruella if called upon…

Maye Musk, 69 (“verrrrrry nice”), is a South African lass who has been a model (as opposed to a Model S or a Model 3) for decades. She’s even more beautiful, and I know it sounds like heresy, than MH fave Helen Mirren.

4. The Price Is Wrong

We asked the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price, to bid on the actual retail price of several private flights that he took without going over. Price bid $51,887.31 but the actual retail price is approximately $400,000. So no, he did not go over, but I don’t think he’ll be advancing to the showcase showdown.

What’s worse? That Price took all these flights (one to have lunch with his son and then return to D.C.) or that he actually stands up and says he’ll pay for the cost of his seat—the only reason these flights were undertaken was for his benefit—and believes that that should assuage any of us taxpayers.

Yet another Trump-appointed official that you look at and just think to yourself, What an asshole (too many to count).

5. Trumped By Baldwin

Alec Baldwin’s ascendence to the role of Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live last autumn had pretty much the same effect on Darrell Hammond‘s as Trump’s election had on Hillary Clinton. This is a fantastic feature on Hammond in which the comic reveals that post-traumatic stress has led him to cutting his arms. In fact, Hammond cut his arm to relieve stress back in 2000 moments before going on live to deliver his famous Al Gore “lockbox” performance. Well worth your time.

Reserves

Streaming service Roku issues its IPO yesterday and shares finished the day up 68%, from $14 to $23.50. If you made that bet, good for you. Even if you weren’t in on the initial offering, as most of us 99% are not, you could still have finished up more than 33%. The stock is up another 10% this a.m. in pre-market trading…The Astros beat the Red Sox but the Yankees lose and fail to gain ground: Astros are one back of Cleveland for best overall A.L. record (Cleveland owns the tiebreaker) and Yanks are three back of Boston with three to play. If Astros don’t overtake Cleveland, they’ll get Boston again next week….

Thumbs Down Guy perfectly represents the New York fan

It’ll be sad if the Yankees don’t defeat the Twins in the wildcard game next week because suddenly there’s a lot of fun stuff enveloping this team. Besides the Judge’s Chambers in right field, two new wrinkles that are actually organic because the players developed them: 1) the thumbs down after a teammate does something great, which began a few weeks back at Citi Field when Todd Frazier got a clutch hit and a fan seated in the front row gave a double thumbs down (a miserable Mets fan who did not appreciate the Yankees overtaking their park due to Irma?) and 2) the latest thing is Ronald Torreyes (cameraman) and Didi Gregarious (mic) conducting an improvised in-dugout interview of the Yankee who just clouted a home run.

Music 101

Such Great Heights

Nobody writes a song that sounds more like a Microsoft presentation at a tech conference better than The Postal Service. Vocalist Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie hooked up with two other musicians to form this indie band from the Pacific Northwest that rocked the world of English lit majors at all NESCAC schools.

A Word, Please

panoply (noun)

a complete or impressive collection of things

Remote Patrol

Weekend of TV! Gentlemen, start your couches!

Friday

USC at Washington State

ESPN 10:30 p.m.

Win one for the Kippur!

True frosh Stephen Carr is the most dynamic player on USC thus far

Saturday

Saturday Night Live (season premiere with Ryan Gosling)

NBC 11:30 p.m.

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

If we don’t see Kate McKinnon as Megyn Kelly, I don’t know anything.

Sunday

Curb Your Enthusiasm

HBO 9 p.m.

Six years, Larry?!? Six years? Welcome back.

by John Walters

Starting Five

Hugh Gone

The silk pajama party had to end some time.

We imagine Playboy founder Hugh Hefner read Ric Flair’s boast yesterday of bedding 10,000 ladies, cackled, and then fell into his eternal slumber. Hefner, 91, passed away at his residence. Cause of death: exhaustion.

Pamela Anderson has appeared on the cover a record-13 times

The MH staff had the opportunity to interview Hef (he was deaf in his left ear) and spend an evening at the mansion in May of 2000. We hung out at the Grotto and roamed the grounds with the future wife of a high-ranking ESPN executive. Later that night—this is all true—we climbed into Stuart Scott‘s limousine and drove up the coast to Malibu.

The maiden Playboy, with Marilyn Monroe on the cover in December of 1953, remains the best-selling issue with more than 53 million copies sold

What we recall about meeting Hef is that before we were allowed to sit next to him, his rep warned us that if we made any sudden movements toward the maverick publishing magnate, that we’d be quickly tackled and neutralized.

Unlike its imitators, Playboy often rose to high art, as with this June 1965 cover (there’s a 12-page pictorial of Ursula Andress inside, though)

We never subscribed to Playboy, but props to Hef for inventing an industry and launching an empire. It was even featured prominently in Mad Men.

2. Death at Yosemite

A rock fall on El Capitan, the famed granite rock face that rises nearly 4,000 feet from the floor of Yosemite National Park, kills one climber and injures another. The rock was said to have been “as big as an apartment building,” 100 feet by 100 feet. As this is the peak of climbing season, the casualty numbers could have been worse.

3. You Say Pitino, I Say Paterno….

Now available on https://t.co/mNhlZB4Rp7 👀🔥
#RIPitino pic.twitter.com/bLdqRlGJrv

— ThrowboyTees (@ThrowboyTees) September 28, 2017

At more than $7 million per year, Rick Pitino was by far the highest-paid coach in college basketball. Now he’s gone. Less than two weeks ago Pitino was the celebrity game picker on College GameDay. Where next?

4. Survivor: Puerto Rico

More contestants than ever, and everyone wants to be voted off the island. A nation without power and with 44% of its residents lacking access to potable water as Congress mulls whether to waive the (Alex?) Jones Act, which denies foreign countries from sending aid there. Meanwhile, relief supplies sent to San Juan have been sitting at the dock, unloaded, since Saturday.

And your president is claiming that Puerto Rico is in “the middle of the ocean.”

5. Escape From Detroit*

*We totally lifted this item from a SportsCenter report

Imagine you’re a Detroit Tiger fan, or player, or manager Brad Ausmus or owner Mike Ilitch. Staff ace Justin Verlander, a 2011 Cy Young Award winner, is putting together a desultory 10-8 season with a 3.82 ERA when you trade him to Houston. In five starts with the Astros, Verlander goes 5-0 and has baseball’s lowest ERA in that span, 1.05.

The Tigers also traded outfielder J.D. Martinez to the Diamondbacks. In 57 games with Detroit Martinez hit 16 home runs with 39 RBI. In 59 games with Arizona he has smote 29 home runs with 65 RBI, both tops in baseball in that time span.

If only the Tigers had some players this season, they may not have finished in last place in the A.L. Central and with the worst record in the American League.

Reserves

Deshaun Watson, just one of those NFL “sons of bitches.” Also, perhaps J.J. Watt’s example is infectious?

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

Lionel Messi remains the GOAT….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euumiylA3Sw

The Tampa Bay Rays’ catcher is named Jesus Sucre. That’s right: Sweet Jesus.

Kit Harrington (Jon Snow) and Rose Leslie (Ygritte) are engaged. Is that dragon glass in his right hand or a fag?

Music 101

Ohio

Neil Young, a Canadian, wrote this song after seeing photos of the Kent State massacre in Life magazine. Many radio stations wouldn’t play the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young tune because it directly mentioned Richard Milhouse Nixon, the president, in the lyrics. Listen to that angry guitar riff: they just evoke discord and trouble, no?

And try the version above, too. We may have even posted this one before.

Remote Patrol

The Vietnam War: The Finale

PBS 8 p.m.

As Nixon resigns following Watergate, the Americans break their promise to return to South Vietnam should the North break the terms of the treaty and invade again. Vietnam descends into more civil war until the fall of Saigon in 1975. Thus ends the darkest chapter in American history (yet).

You say Pitino, I say Paterno

You say Petrino, I ask, ‘Did he know?’

Pitino, Paterno, Petrino’s No Geno

Let’s call the whole thing off….

by John Walters

Starting Five

Kneel Arm-Strong

Donald Trump stepped up his campaign against NFL players and the First Amendment yesterday with this tweet:

The NFL has all sorts of rules and regulations. The only way out for them is to set a rule that you can’t kneel during our National Anthem!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 26, 2017

 Then this morning he tweeted that Congress needs to abolish the 60-vote rule so that he can get his health care bill passed. Trump’s “SOB” comments last Friday night dovetailed nicely both with the failure of the GOP health care bill to pass and news, at least given to him, that the FBI had evidence that Jared Kushner was conducting government business on (“Lock”) his private (“him”) email server (“up!”).

And to a great degree this is what this entire charade has been about: Trump distracting America from his disastrous failure to push policies through despite a majority GOP Congress and the news trickling out about his family’s/cronies’ treasonous or at least corrupt and hypocritical actions in the White House.

Lou Holtz wants to know what all these NFL players are crying about https://t.co/tu7sLprCka pic.twitter.com/SMRflQM4GH

— Deadspin (@Deadspin) September 27, 2017

Meanwhile, Lou Holtz, we’ll never tell you to “Stick to sports!”, but this was an ignorant and callous take.

2. The Other Shoe Drops

Tony Bland, one of the assistants charged

The FBI, in a sting operation, arrests assistant coaches from Arizona, Auburn, Louisville, Oklahoma State and USC for funneling shoe-deal money to recruits. And rumor has it that Rick Pitino, Louisville head coach, may be fired today, as he has already used up his allotment of last straws.

So college basketball/AAU/big shoe companies are dirty. I don’t even own a set of pearls to clutch. This is not a closed-system offense. This is a lesion on the skin that points to evidence of a completely diseased organism. Are we really supposed to believe this was taking place outside of the knowledge of the head coaches? And are we really surprised that with so much money at stake and so much money flying around that coaches won’t use some of that money to funnel the top players to their schools?

By the way, the FBI never informed the NCAA that it was conducting this sting. What does that tell you?

3. The Ballad of the Mad Pooper

An unidentified man posted a video (since taken down) claiming that the scourge of Colorado Springs, the Mad Pooper, both suffered a traumatic brain injury and has undergone gender reassignment surgery (apparently one excuse would not suffice so an entirely unrelated excuse was thrown in) and that is why she cannot control her bowels.

No explanation as to why, as the New York Post labels her, “the daring defecator,” always seems to poop on the same neighbor’s lawn. The unidentified spokesman, who may have just been someone horning in on the MP’s infamy, claimed that her name is “Shirley” and that pooping was protected under the first Amendment (it’s not).

4. Who’s Missing From This Montage?

Can you imagine the look on a certain former San Francisco 49er’s face when he first saw this week’s SI cover? ROGER GOODELL?!?! What the WTF?!?

5. From The Mad Pooper to Max Hooper

Crazy court verdict that should be garnering more attention this morning. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. has been ordered by a Dallas jury to pay $4 billion-with-a-B! to the estate of a deceased American Airlines executive, Max Hopper (as we run to ATM to see if our money is still there).

Four billion dollars! In actual damages, though, Hopper’s wife and two step-children will likely be awarded about $5 million. Still, not a bad haul . Hopper pioneered the SABRE reservation system for AA and died in 2010 with assets totaling $19 million but with no will. The family hired J.P. Morgan to divvy up the goods and appears that JPM took their sweet time and kept billing the family.

Read the story and you’ll find that Hopper owned 6,700 golf putters and more than 900 bottles of wine. How many were belly putters, though?

Reserves

This first inning catch by Yankee outfielder Aaron Hicks (breaking: the Yankees have a surplus of quality Aarons in the outfield, right, Hank?) robbed the Tampa Bay Rays of a grand slam. The Yankees would win 6-1 and are now only 3 back of the Red Sox, who have gone into a tailspin of late. Question: What are all of Hicks’ teammates in the bullpen staring at?

Twitter wants to give us 280 characters? How about first giving us italics? And 140 was quite enough, thanks…On CBS This Morning earlier Delta Airlines CEO Ed Bastian announced that beginning this weekend Delta would be offering FREE text-messaging in flight all around the world. When Gayle King asked him about use of cell phones to place calls, Bastian replied, “Not in my lifetime.”

We like this guy.

Music 101

My Best Friend’s Girl

You’ll find The Cars at the intersection of punk and New Wave in the late Seventies. And before you make a derisive quip about Ric Ocasek’s odd looks, he’s married to Paulina Porizkova and we’re not. This was the second single off their 1978 smash debut album, one of the best debut albums we’ve ever enjoyed 4,000 times.

Remote Patrol

The Vietnam War

PBS 8 p.m.

Part 9 of 10. Yeah, we get it, JW, you want us to watch this series. Why? Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

by John Walters

Starting Five

Baseball’s most majestic swing

Bomb Blasts, Not Bombast

On a sultry autumn Monday afternoon in the Bronx, Aaron Judge connected twice to the bleachers (as he had done the day before in Toronto). The silent slugger’s two homers gave him 50 for the season, eclipsing Mark McGwire’s record for rookies. ROY? How about MVP?

2. Begin The Megyn

Unless her personality radically changes in the next few weeks—and it won’t—Megyn Kelly may go down as the SuperTrain of morning talk show hosts. Like the long ago ambitious NBC prime-time show that quickly crashed and burned, Kelly seems to be not just awkward to watch, but a tire fire. It was only one show yesterday, sure, but she had more than nine months to prepare for it. And it was cringe-worthy.

First Jamie Horowitz and now this. Why are NBC execs so, SO bad at their jobs?

3. Oy Vey!

On one hand 2-0 Miami at 4-0 Duke on Friday night at 7:30 p.m. gives the game marquee status. On the other, both student bodies (if not so much their football teams) are heavily Jewish, and Friday is Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. What up with that?

Later Friday night, 4-0 USC visits 4-0 Washington State. College GameDay should have been there. And yes, USC is also a Yom Kippur-aware campus

4. The Art of the Kneel*

It’s ironic, isn’t it (at least for us Game Of Thrones fans) that the Tywin Lannister wannabe occupying the White House is admonishing NFL players to “bend the knee” by not bending the knee. Last night Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, knelt in solidarity with his players (as Shannon Sharpe said on FS1’s “Undisputed” yesterday, billionaires do not appreciate being told what to do, not even by the racist facilitator they voted for).

Trevor Noah on last night’s The Daily Show: “I don’t know if Trump is racist, but I do know he definitely prefers white people to black people. I can say that with confidence.”

*Thanks, The Daily Show

5. Mean Tweets # 11

The Jim Parsons and Gwyneth Paltrow tweets are the funniest, but Kumail Nanjiani’s comeback at the final tweet is gold. Stay tuned to the end.

Music 101

River

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAK9Pj5-QXY

Never released as a single, Joni Mitchell’s 1971 Christmas classic has nevertheless been recorded 432 times by various artists. She’s quite the Canadian. And yes, the piano accompaniment borrows heavily from “Jingle Bells.”

Remote Patrol

The Vietnam War (April 1969-May 1970)

PBS 8 p.m.

It’s curious to watch the story of a nation coming apart nearly 50 years ago and then tune to cable news and hear the president call peaceful protesters “sons of bitches.” In last night’s episode, we heard how Richard Nixon clandestinely contacted the president of South Vietnam weeks before the 1968 election to ask him not to attend peace talks so that he could get a better deal from the U.S. once Nixon was elected. LBJ knew about it, via wiretapping, but he opted not to influence the election by revealing it. Nixon won. The rest is history.

Sound familiar?