Monthly Archives: September 2017

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 4 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

Patriots are patriots

Through The Perilous Fight

Donald Trump, speaking at a Friday night rally in Huntsville, Alabama, refers to NFL players who kneel or sit for the national anthem as “sons of bitches,” and it’s on. Nothing like telling a predominantly white audience in the south that uppity N-word are SOBs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrW-GI_9IL8

It’s pretty simple: What Colin Kaepernick began as silent, peaceful protest for what he saw as injustice has morphed into, for those who support Trump, an assault on WHITE POWER. The flag is the symbol of liberty, not of nationalism. The very act of burning the flag or kneeling during the anthem is as American as any pledge of allegiance, because it is an affirmation of the First Amendment, an amendment for which Trump clearly has no respect or regard.

 

What happened last Friday galvanized players and others: kneeling or sitting during the anthem—the playing of which has no more necessary place at a sporting event than at a religious ceremony—is now, at least for us, a symbol of defiance of Trump, for a man who does not respect the tenets of freedom and liberty and justice for all.

 

There are big-P Patriots in the NFL and small-p patriots all over the country, and as Bob Costas wisely stated on CNN this morning, being a patriot is so much more than being a part of/supportive of the military. This entire obsession with beatifying the military as secular saints, by the way, began after 9/11. Which was part of bin Laden’s plan: tear away the one thing that makes this country great: the freedom to express yourself in any way you please non-violently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK3aUPSbYDE

Here’s billionaire Steve Mnuchin, who loves America so much that he spent your money to take his wife on a honeymoon to France…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKJO6zyI_kU

Anyone remember this dude?

2. A Bunt Home Run? Yes, A Bunt Home Run

If you were wondering if the Detroit Tigers are simply going through the motions this month, this Brian Dozier leadoff bunt home run confirms it.

3. Miller Time Out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je0S74_Q04k

Someone did this to me when I played quarterback in 6th grade in Pop Warner football. Never realized it could cost you a game. Miller got flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct after a 3rd down play midway through the fourth, gave the Bills a fresh set of downs, and Buffalo went on to win.

4. Puerto Rico

Most Puerto Ricans are without power, and issues of food and potable water are soon going to be at high-crisis levels. If only Puerto Ricans were American citizens. Wait, wut? The storms are past, but the troubles are only beginning. This is MH’s official we-haven’t-forgotten post.

5. The MH Domin-Eight

Our weekly rankings of the top eight in college football. Note: Based on what I saw out of the Fighting Irish on Saturday night, I won’t be surprised at all if they find themselves on this list later this season.

By the way, our preseason pick to win the Grange Award was Saquon Barkley. We’re feeling awfully good about that pick after last Saturday night. Also note, that on the most crucial play of the Nittany Lions’ season, he stayed in for pass protection.

  1. Alabama (4-0) Tide trounced Vanderbilt 59-0 and suddenly those Derek Mason features look a bit premature
  2. Penn State (4-0) Maybe Clemson has the better road win, but maybe Iowa is better than Ohio State, anyway.
  3. Georgia (4-0) Or maybe the Bulldogs have the most impressive road win, in South Bend.
  4. Clemson (4-0) Tigers had a three-quarter post-Louisville, post-Auburn hangover versus B.C., then put up 27 in the fourth quarter.
  5. Oklahoma (4-0) The Sooners had more trouble with Baylor in the first half, and with Tulane the week prior, than a Top 4 team should.
  6. USC (4-0) Far from in love with the Trojans, but Stephen Carr is a future Heisman favorite and they have played three consecutive solid opponents.
  7. TCU (4-0) Impressive win for the Frogs in Stillwater
  8. Washington (4-0) Equally impressive win for the pooches in Boulder.

Music 101

I Got You Babe

I got flowers in the spring/I got you to wear my ring/And when I’m sad, you’re a clown/And if I get scared, you’re always around…

Schmaltzy sure, but this 1965 folk song by Sonny and Cher (what ever happened to them?) is a simple and timeless classic: you think they were gonna have Phil Connors be roused from his slumber by just any song in Groundhog Day? Sonny Bono, then a songwriter for Phil Spector, wrote the song as a rebuttal to Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me, Babe.”  The ditty spent three weeks at No. 1 in August of 1965 and sold more than one million copies.

Here’s their final time performing it together…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBoJe0ihS-M

They seem to be having fun, no?

Remote Patrol

The Vietnam War, June 1968-May 1969

PBS 8 p.m.

As civil unrest and racial violence reaches levels of hostility unprecedented since the Civil War, Richard Nixon wins the presidency and promises—wait for it—law and order. I wouldn’t put this doc quite up there with Ken Burns’ The Civil War or World War II efforts, but that’s partly a product of how difficult it is to provide a linear narrative of Vietnam. Telling the story has proven to be its own quagmire.

 

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by John Walters

Starting Five

Mellow Yellow Fellows

The Los Angeles Rams overcame those color-rush yellow unis to beat the San Francisco 49ers 41 -39 (“39ers, amirite? Hello?”) last night on “Thursday Night Football” (slogan: “When it’s on, it’s on”). Under first-year coach Sean McVay, AGE 30, the Rams are 2-1 and have the NFL’s most potent offense.

McVay, the youngest head coach in modern NFL history, is making waves in a city known for them

No, seriously. The Rams are averaging 35. 7 ppg (No. 1), Jared Goff is No. 2 in the league in passing yards per attempt and Todd Gurley (above), a.k.a. The Gurley Man, is No. 1 in rushing touchdowns.

Up next for L.A. on October 1th? At Dallas. That should be interesting.

Meanwhile, sure it’s not the wisest thing to kick off a game at 5 p.m. local time in a stadium next to a major freeway at the southern tip of San Francisco Bay, but does the NFL really expect us to believe Levi’s Stadium was filled, as they say, to 100% of capacity last night? Or is it just a matter of scores of secondary-market tix going unsold?

2.Mad Men*

Kim is 33 years old, or younger than Ivanka. Trump is 70, or older than the DPRK

*The judges apologize to all the good—and bad—folks at Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce

Tuesday: Donald Trump calls Kim Jong Un “Rocket Man” and threatens to “totally destroy” North Korea in a speech at the United Nations general assembly.

Thursday: Kim releases a statement in which he promises to “definitely tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard [senile old person] with fire.” Ooooooooh. So Khaleesi of you.

 

Friday: Trump tweets that Kim is “definitely a mad man.”

Small blessings, but at least they’re only lobbing insults at one another compared to what both have in their arsenal. Meanwhile, can someone put out an alert to Dr. Phil?

 

3. Another Kelly At 9 A.M.

The New York Times story is titled “Megyn Kelly Is Ready For Her Closeup,” to which we ask, “Is she?” The former BFF (Blonde Fox Female) steps into the 9 a.m. hour of NBC’s Today on Monday, instantly becoming the second-most popular Kelly (Ripa) at that  hour on TV.

Kelly is smart and pretty and all, but we kind of feel NBC paid for the Megyn Kelly of five to seven years ago as to the MK of 2017. It’s like that insane deal (at the time) Sony gave Michael Jackson in the 1980s after Off The Wall and Thriller had been released. The time to have gone into business with The King of Pop was before then.

4. “We haven’t seen this many people come forward to speak out against a bill since Cosby.” 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l09fdpD5Sw

It’s extremely satisfying to watch Jimmy Kimmel, to borrow a term used by a famous orange-haired men earlier this week, “totally destroy” Senator Bill Cassidy this week. Of the many terrific points he made, Kimmel wondered aloud why so many congressmen and Fox flunkies go directly to ad hominem attacks about his qualifications to discuss health care when the man in the Oval Office’s main qualification to be there was that he once said, “Meatloaf, you’re fired.”

Later in the show Senator Al Franken appeared, and the Democrat from Minnesota and erstwhile Saturday Night Live writer quipped, “You know, I usually don’t like it when comedians get involved in politics…”

5. Bye Bye, Bettencourt

Liliane Bettencourt, the heiress of French cosmetics company L’Oreal, has died. Bettencourt was 94. Why should you care? With a projected worth of $44 billion, Bettencourt had been the world’s richest woman (now the mantle belongs either to Baby Ruth candy bar heiress Sue Ellen Mitschke or to Oprah; probably Oprah).

Music 101

Archie, Marry Me

Can a band whose members originate from the eastern Canadian islands of Cape Breton and Prince Edward make it big? Alvvays‘ (pronounced “Always”) self-titled 2014 debut album hit No. 1 on the U.S. college charts. The band, led by lead singer-songwriter Molly Rankin, released its second album earlier this month.

 

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?*

The MH film musicals department reminds readers that 1961 Academy Award Best Picture winner West Side Story featured a Puerto Rican character named Maria, but that it was 1965 Oscar Best Picture winner The Sound Of Music that had a Maria, decidedly not Puerto Rican, who was the subject of the above lyric. The staff regrets any misunderstandings.

Hurricane Maria, having left Puerto Rico “100% without power,” possibly for months, now heads towards Turks and Caicos. Imagine that: no electricity for months. The night is dark and full of terrors.

2. Top Jimmy Struts

This is what a beatdown looks like. And what a double-down, as well as a refusal to back down, looks like. Good for you, erstwhile co-host of The Man Show. 

Plus, Jimmy Kimmel has the facts on his side. What I’m reasonably certain of is that we asked Kimmel and the president to take a shot test on the details of Obamacare and Graham-Cassidy, that the late night talk show host would record a much higher score. What does that tell you?

3. Hey! My Balance Sheet Is Up Here

 

Is the woman above A) In the top 100 players on the WTA Tour B) the lead singer in a Chaka Khan cover band C) the CBO of one of the most oft-mentioned companies in America?

This is Bozoma Saint John, the 40 year-old Chief Brand Officer at Uber. Boz, as she is known, was born in Ghana but her family emigrated to Colorado Springs (back when that town was not riven by the strife caused by The Mad Pooper!) when she was 14. A graduated of Wesleyan, Saint John went from being a marketing executive at Beats, to holding a similar job at Apple after that monolithic brand acquired Beats, to her present-day job at Uber.

Her Twitter handle is @badassboz and we believe it. This is a dynamic, smart, beautiful, confident (Above: “I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid. I’ve never been afraid of anything“) and strong African-American woman. And as the first black woman at that high a level in Silicon Valley, Boz is also a pilgrim. If you’re wondering when Cosmopolitan is going to do a feature on her, they already have.

4. Bronx Bombings

The New York Yankees swept a three-game set from the Minnesota Twins this week, but what may linger more in our memory were the strikes by balls (see what we did there?). On Tuesday night Chase Headley was struck dangerously close to the Holy of Holies.

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

Yesterday, teammate Todd Frazier nailed a foul ball line drive that struck a young girl. She remains hospitalized this morning. The girl’s family declined to provide her or their names, but expect her to be the Rosa Parks, so to speak, of protective netting extending along the sidelines of Yankee Stadium.

5. What A Foo Believes

How about pairing one of America’s hardest-rocking bands with late-night TV host James Korden? Nothing about this conceit is new, of course, but sometimes it works better than others. This, with Dave Grohl and Foo Fighters, is one of those times. Who knew you could shred to a Rik Astley tune? That’s Pat Smear (wonderful name), bleached-blond in the back center, who used to be sorta the fourth member of Nirvana.

We love the answer as to why the Foos all pile into one van together even though they regularly have three vans prepared to transport the six members: “Because you don’t want to be the one guy not in the van” “Because then you know who they’re talking about.” Honest and hilarious.

It’s not actually much of a secret, but Foo Fighters have a tremendous sense of humor. Stick around to the very end to see what we mean.

Related: The Foos have never been featured in the segment below. We’ll fix that next week.

Reserves

 

Too good not to include.

X squared + Y squared = Z squared

Music 101

I have no need of friendship/Friendship causes pain/It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain…

By 1966, teenybopper rock songs (“Wake Up, Little Susie”, for example) seemed inappropriate in a world in which JFK had taken a bullet to the head, Vietnam was becoming that problem that would not go away, and civil rights unrest here at home was no longer something that people could pretend was not happening. The Beatles released Revolver that year and the Beach Boys Pet Sounds, but Simon & Garfunkel were months ahead of them with Sounds Of Silence, an album whose first words were “Hello darkness, my old friend…” This song, the final track, reached No. 3 on the Billboard charts.

Remote Patrol

The Vietnam War (July 1967-December 1967)

PBS 8 p.m. (re-airs at 10 p.m.)

Now we’re deep into the shit. As Dr. Benjamin Spock of all people said in last night’s episode, and I’m paraphrasing, This is a war in which tens of thousands of American men and Vietnamese will die because of LBJ’s pride (that’s a president, not a Sweet Pea).

“Life isn’t fair; get used to it.” That was the advice the commander at the Army Ranger Training School, Chargin’ Charlie Beckwith, gave his recruits. Incidentally, Beckwith was a former University of Georgia football player who was good enough to play in the NFL but chose the Army instead; he later would lead the ill-fated raid in Iran to rescue the hostages but instead resulted in the deaths of eight men.

 

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

Land Fall

A devastating earthquake, magnitude 7.1 and with an epicenter 75 miles southeast of Mexico City (the world’s 5th-largest city), leaves more than 200 dead (it could have been much, much worse). And how come earthquakes are not named?

Mexico City as the earthquake hit

Meanwhile, at a similar latitude but 1,000 or so miles east, Hurricane Maria and her 155 m.p.h. winds strike San Juan, Puerto Rico, just two weeks after Irma visited. It has been called “potentially the most destructive storm in modern history.” Are you beginning to get the idea that Someone Up There isn’t pleased?

2. The Wrath Of Con Man

“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.” —Jules, Pulp Fiction

“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.” —Donald Trump, Sept. 19 United Nations Speech

We imagine the president is too busy rattling nuclear sabers this week to catch any installments of “The Vietnam War.” Sad!

Would it be so terrible if Donald and Kim Jong-Un took Jules’ advice when it comes to impending hostilities and just both acted like “two little Fonzies?” And you know what Fonzie is? Cool.

Meanwhile, Rolling Stone‘s Matt Taibbi had a few thoughts on our president’s “malignant narcissism” and on America’s inflated sense of its own “exceptionalism.” Highly recommended reading.

3. Scoring Down, Snoring Up In The NFL

 

(We truly hope the above becomes the NFL’s 2017 slogan)

We are two weeks into the NFL season and the Cincinnati Bengals, New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers (the name may refer to their 2017 point total) have scored a combined one touchdown. The NFL used to be boring, but at least teams scored. Currently 15 of the 32 franchises are averaging fewer than 20 points per game.

If it were just outstanding defense, you could make an argument that this is still good football. But as we were writing that, Cam Newton just overthrew a wide-open Christian McCaffrey again. Newton’s Panthers beat the Buffalo Bills 9-3 on Sunday. Four field goals.  The Seahawks beat the 49ers 12-9 in a game that had one TD and five field goals.

Football is famine.

4. Hoskins Does It Again

Last night with the scored tied, two outs and the bases loaded in the seventh inning, Philadelphia Phillies rookie Rhys Hoskins saw 10 straight fastballs between 96 and 98 m.p.h. against Los Angeles Dodgers reliever Pedro Baez. Hoskins fouled off multiple full-count offerings before hitting a three-run go ahead double and the Phils won 6-2.

With all the well-deserved hoopla (and pomp…and circumstance) focused on fence-clearing rookies Aaron Judge (44 homers) and Clay Bellinger (38), Hoskins has arrived late and staked a claim of his own. He’s the Hurricane Maria of rookie sensations. Since being called up to the bigs on August 10, the Jesuit High School (Carmichael, Calif.) alum has smoked 18 home runs with 43 RBI in just 39 games.

How do those numbers fare historically? Through a player’s first 34 games (Hoskins is in the midst of a relative HR drought at 5 games) his 18 home runs were the most in MLB history and his 43 RBI in his first 39 are the second-most ever behind only Albert Pujols (44). Bollinger has the NL ROY sewn up, most likely, but expect Hoskins to get a few votes.

(RELATED: AS OF LAST NIGHT THERE HAVE NOW BEEN 5,694 HOME RUNS HIT THIS SEASON; THAT’S A NEW MAJOR LEAGUE RECORD AND WE STILL HAVE ONE WEEK-PLUS REMAINING THIS SEASON)

5. The Mad Pooper Strikes Again!

Terror in Colorado Springs as an as-yet unidentified female jogger has at least twice been spotted taking a dump in the same spot outside a resident’s home. The assailant does bring T.P. to wipe herself, so these are pre-meditated attacks. Thoughts and prayers, C.S.

Music 101

Jesus Of Suburbia

Green Day played the Rose Bowl last Saturday night and is playing Central Park’s Great Lawn this Saturday. How’s your week going?

Remote Patrol

The Vietnam War (January 1966-November 1967)

PBS 8 p.m.

If you watched last night, we’re getting to the point where it becomes clear that former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s pride/ego/arrogance helped to sentence tens of thousands of Americans (and exponentially more Vietnamese) to early deaths. You can read more about all that in David Halberstam’s The Best and The Brightest.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

Starting Five

Will The Quick Blonde Fox Jump Over The Lazy Doggerel?

Here comes Laura Ingraham, 54, to host a nightly Fox News program at 10 p.m. and take on MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. More to the point, Sean Hannity is moving up an hour to do direct battle with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who has recently begun to win that hour (against “The Five”).

A few notes on Ingraham: she grew up in Glastonbury, Conn., graduated from Dartmouth (’85) where she was the first female editor-in-chief of the Dartmouth Review, and graduated from the University of Virginia law school in 1991. She was outspokenly homophobic until she learned that her brother Curtis was gay (funny how that works, hey, alt-right?) and reportedly once dated Keith Olbermann, who later dated and lived with Katy Tur (the book he could write).

Ingraham’s show begins on October 30. A former Fox News female of similar follicular hue, Megyn Kelly, opens her daily NBC hour, 9 a.m., on September 25 (again, bad investment, NBC).

2. Now Soccer Is A Game Of Inches?

Manchester United has a new striker from Belgium, Romelu Lukaku, and its fans are so giddy about his Premier League-leading five goals thus far that they have adapted the lyrics of a song by local legends The Stone Roses to read thusly:

 ‘Romelu Lukaku/He’s our Belgian scoring genius with a 24 inch penis/Scoring all our goals/Bellend by his toes.’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yZqPN57W3o

Naturally, an advocacy-rights group named Kick It Out has labeled the chant as racist and wants it banned, although we’d have to ask whether instantly associating an alleged two-foot python with the color of its owner’s skin is not more racist? Also, has anyone in Kick It Out stepped inside a pro sports locker room because we have and…well…

3. The Four Hosemen?

Speaking of members only, bummed that we failed to notice this during the obligatory Frank Leahy montage for the Notre Dame-Boston College contest (he coached at both schools). By the way, Josh Adams rushed for 229 yards to surpass 2,000 in his career ( he is now averaging 147 ypg). The junior from Warrington, Pa., hit the 2,000 mark in just 316 (maybe we should have titled this entry “Josh 316?” The judges say, “Nah”) carries, the fewest in school history. According to school SID Michael Bertsch, the previous record-holder for reaching 2,000 in the fewest carries (323) was George Gipp.

But seriously, thank God there are no Manchester United locker room shots with a certain naked Belgian footballer in the background. We don’t even own pearls to clutch.

4. “Let’s Play Nine?”

The important numbers for Jose Altuve: .348, his batting average, the best in baseball; and 5’6″, his height

The Boston Red Sox are 86-64 and have the American League’s third-best record. The Houston Astros are 91-58 and have the A.L.’s 2nd-best record. Unless the Yankees, three back in the A.L. East, pass Boston or the Indians, 1 1/2 ahead of Houston for the best overall mark, falter, Boston and Houston will meet one another in the American League Divisional Series.

What makes that more intriguing is that Houston travels to Fenway Park for a season-ending four-game series later this month. A 4-game series is unusual enough, not to mention one in which two teams that are not intra-divisional play to end the season. Houston and Boston could very well wind up playing nine consecutive games against one another.

That’s an awful lot of outfielders

Note: The original World Series, in 1903, was the one and only best-of-nine series. The winner in that series, in eight games? The Boston Americans, who would later come to be known as the Red Sox.

5. “The Vietnam War” Companion Books

If you’re taking our advice and watching Ken Burns’ and Lynn Novick’s PBS documentary, The Vietnam War, here are two outstanding companion tomes (seriously, two of the best history books our staff has ever read, and don’t we sound like Clay Travis now [“I’m smaht! I read history books! I know more than you do about The Civil War! BOOBS!”]):

The first is Once Upon A Distant War by William Prochnau, which would be the first book we’ll assign as reading as soon as some college invites us to teach a journalism course. It’s all about the scribes (David Halberstam, Malcolm Browne, Peter Arnett, Neil Sheehan) who have been heavily cited in the first two episodes of the doc and credited as the men who told the truth about Vietnam while the Pentagon and the White House fumed.

The second is by Sheehan, who has deservedly gotten mucho camera time to open the series, and is titled A Bright, Shining Lie. It’s all about John Paul Vann, the military advisor whom Sheehan and his colleagues first admired as the straight-talking in-the-field commander, but who also had a closetful of skeletons. Vann, referenced a lot in the second episode, becomes the symbol of the U.S.A. in Vietnam for Sheehan. It took him more than 12 years to write this book, an obsession.

Reserves

Pfeiffer: All about Eve

Some horror films are gory; Mother is allegory. Remember that. How many people who are walking out of it don’t realize what they’re watching?…Clayton Kershaw surrendered the first grand slam of his career last night, to the Phillies, and the Dodgers lost 4-3. Kershaw has allowed nine earned runs in his past three starts after allowing a total of two in his previous seven…You may want to catch Conan O’Brien‘s special from Israel (TBS, 10 p.m.) tonight; he shines when he’s doing his wanderlust thing.

Music 101

Feel Good Inc.

Is Gorillaz the most important animated band since Josie & The Pussycats? In 2005 the band, which is primarily Blur lead singer Damon Alban but in videos consists of four fictitious animated members—2-D on lead vocals, Noodles on guitar, Murdoc Niccals on bass and Russel Hobbs on drums—released this worldwide hit that went Top 10 in 17 different countries. Alban has had far more success as the invisible genius behind Gorillaz than he has ever had fronting his “real” band.

Remote Patrol

Jerry Before Seinfeld

Netflix

So that’s what those “Netflix Is A Joke” billboards are all about. Jerry Seinfeld’s special about how he got started in the biz begins streaming today. Why are you still here?