Monthly Archives: November 2017

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 3 Comments

by John Walters

Our editorial board is mulling adding a second daily, Fox News Channel-styled offering that would be titled “It’s Alt-Happening!” It’s all about monetizing, after all….

Starting Five

Death Takes A Halladay*

*The judges are already sorry.

Two 20-win seasons. Two Cy Young Awards. One of 21 perfect games in Major League history. One of two postseason no-hitters. Roy Halladay, who has a Hall of Fame resume, passes away at age 40 when his 2018 model ICON A5 amphibious plane crashes into the Gulf of Mexico.

 

Halladay, as his Twitter feed attests, loved flying. His father was a retired commercial pilot. He leaves a wife and two children.

2. Big Bailer Brand*  **

*The judges wish to credit Jamie Reidy for this hed, but they don’t want it to go to his head, which is bald. 

**The judges will also accept “Shanghai Surprise”

***And “Great Ball of China”

****As well as “Ball in a China Shop

*****But not “Wooden You Know It” or “From Chino to China”

UCLA’s study-abroad program needs some work. Three Bruins, including freshman LiAngelo Ball, were arrested for shoplifting during the team’s trip to China to play Georgia Tech.

 

 No idea what the penalty is for shoplifting in China, or if there’s some sort of “Brokedown Palace-meets-Hoop Dreams” drama in the offing. All I know is that shoplifting before your first game is not in John Wooden’s “Pyramid of Success.”

3. Yes, Virginia*

*The judges will also accept, “Roem, If You Want To” as well as “Trans-formation”

The pendulum swings back in Virginia, as Danica Roem, a trans woman (Dem) running for the state’s house of delegates, unseats incumbent anti-LBGT extremist Bob Marshall (GOP).

Meanwhile, in both New Jersey and Virginia, Democrats win the gubernatorial races. The Joisey boy is Phil Murphy while the Commonwealth winner is Ralph Northam. As long as this makes Donald Trump, Jr., unhappy, we’re happy.

Gillespie polled well with white, non-educated voters (some of whom are very fine people). Northam did better with female voters.

4. The Scenic Route

We often check out bbc.com to steal see what’s on their site. In today’s Travel section they have a piece on “The World’s Most Beautiful Road,” on which we were fortunate enough to drive. It’s Chapman’s Peak Drive, which winds south of Cape Town to the bottom of the peninsula. It really does feel as if you’re driving to the end of the planet and yes, you may even see penguins. If you ever get the chance—better yet, make the chance—visit Cape Town.

5. Keepin’ It 140

Plus 40

Twitter has doubled amount of characters we are allowed per tweet. Does the word “logorrhea” mean anything to you? Probably not, because we have yet to include it ion “A Word, Please.”

 

Music 101

Surrender

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th370QmFtk8

Seventies Power Rock, thy name is Cheap Trick! Lead singer Robin Zander, Rockford, Ill.’s answer to Robert Plant; Bun E. Carlos, the drummer who looked like an accountant and always had a cigarette dangling from his mouth; and Rick Nielsen: Did Angus Young steal his schoolboy schtick or is it the other way around? Nobody remembers the fourth guy. Sorry. I really hope Mike Damone was able to find a buyer for those tickets to Friday night’s show. This tune peaked at No. 62 in the Summer of ’78, which was a damn fine summer for music, by the way. We’re all alright! We’re all alright! We’re all alright!!!!!

Remote Patrol

51st Country Music Awards

8 p.m. ABC

Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood, as we’ve noted her before, deserve an Emmy for the work they do each year on this opening. This will be the first CMA’s since Yuge-Know-Who was elected president. Should be interesting.

 

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by John Walters

Sending out good wishes for our friend Tim Prister, who suffered a heart attack on Saturday, and is an outstanding writer and reporter for Irish Illustrated. Few writers, if any, understand the game of football better than Tim does.

Starting Five

October 15, 1988

The 13th Game

As a pair of Top 10 teams, Notre Dame and Miami, prepare to square off in south Florida this weekend, and as ESPN guru and Miami alum Chris Fallica and I suspend our bromance for a few days, you may see people pointing out that neither the Irish nor the Canes will play 13 games this season: the former because they do not belong to a conference and the latter because their trip to Arkansas State on September 9 was canceled due to…a hurricane.

Should that matter to the Selection Committee? Of course not. A reminder that on September 16 No. 1 Georgia hosted Samford and that on November 18 No. 2 Alabama will host Mercer and No. 4 Clemson will host Citadel. These are all FCS squads. The games are glorified personal seat-license shakedowns to those schools’ fans.

Why don’t the Irish belong to a conference? Because no one is in charge atop the FBS. And, you know, Michael Wilbon, imagine an HBCU that was denied entrance to the college football firmament long ago and then forged its own path and wound up being more successful than the establishment itself. Would you want that HBCU to now to kowtow to the very establishment that once spurned it, in the process compromising itself and alienating itself from its own legacy? Methinks not.

And yes, I’ve just described Notre Dame football.

Meanwhile, let’s not forget that conference championship games were launched for one reason only: to make more money for conferences. SEC commish Roy Kramer started it all in 1992: Alabama beat Florida in Birmingham and then went on to knock out No. 1….Miami in the Sugar Bowl.

Antonio Langham’s pick-six started it all

Conferences behave out of self-interest. Conference championship games were not instituted to send a champion to the playoff but to create one giant day of revenue for the respective conferences. Let’s not pretend that these exhibitions are anything more than that. Notre Dame, like conferences, acts in its own best self-interest. That’s college football. Also, when is the last time you ever heard anyone say, “BYU has to join a conference?!?”

2. Boots On The Ground

5’11” Ahmad Bradshaw, here attempting one of his 33 passes on the season, reminds no one of Terry

We sorta feel like the unbelievably one-dimensional offense at West Point has failed to garner enough national attention this season. The Cadets, 7-2, have a shot at their best record since 1996, when they finished 10-2.

The kids who are 40 miles or so up the Hudson lead the nation in rushing (365 yards per game) but are dead last in passing (29.6 ypg). Not only does Army, which has opted to not even attempt a pass in three contests this season, throw for the least amount of yards per game and attempt the fewest passes per (6.2), but it also has the nation’s lowest completion percentage (28.6%), which as you know is a figure completely independent of the number of passes thrown.

Despite that “C” on his jersey, Bradshaw will be commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant. Is that a demotion?

Also, the Knights  have tossed two passes for TDs but five interceptions (two of those picks were thrown by running backs). Kell Walker, a 5’9″ sophomore from Decatur, leads the team with four catches. Quarterback Ahmad Bradshaw has completed 10 passes on the season, but he does have 1,132 yards rushing, which is 10th-best in the nation.

Army is truly infantry.

3. Vin-Sanity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WysX_TOK4ZI

On the other hand, how many Sundays does he have left?

4. That’s So Raven

On Sunday the Baltimore Ravens badly needed to recover an onside (onsides?) kick, trailing the Tennessee Tuxedos by 3 points late. Alas, Justin Tucker’s kick did not travel the requisite 10 yards so they never even got a chance for a scrum.

Baltimore lost, 23-20. What makes that funny is the Ravens are now 0-23 on onside kick attempts in the past 16 years. That’s not good.

5. A Good Guy With A Gun

While wondering why we don’t consider Kim Jong-Un a “mental health issue” and whether “What We Know About The Victims” will now be a weekly feature on cnn.com and   if it’s TOO SOON to talk about Sutherland Springs, then is it not too soon to talk about Las Vegas, we did come across this interview with Stephen Willeford, who likely saved a few lives on Sunday by reaching for his own gun and firing on the coward who snuffed out 26 lives.

Also, here’s Steve Kerr, the Warrior coach, making too much sense…

 

 Oh, and here’s the New York Times with a radical theory explaining the epidemic of mass shootings in the USA as compared to other “civilized” nations. The answer will blow you away: TOO MANY GUNS!

Finally, nice job, Air Force.

Reserves

—Trevor Noah on Shalane Flanagan: “An American woman won a race in November.”

–A reminder that the World Series MVP, George Springer, went 0-fer-4 with four strikeouts (the golden sombrero) in Game 1. Never give up, kids. Never. Give. Up.

—Lamar Jackson is still leading the nation in total offense and by more than 48 yards per game against his next closest competitor (Baker Mayfield). Narrative matters, alas.

–Also, “Matter Matters,” which would be my go-to T-shirt if I were a scientist/activist.

–Thanks to a pass interference call with no time left with Detroit leading Green Bay 30-10, the Packers got a final play from the 1-yard line. The Packers scored. The under was 42 to 43, depending on when you wagered. Either way, the Under fell. BAD BEAT!

Music 101

Ever Fallen In Love

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=terg_LPT3X0

Musical history may remember The Buzzcocks as the band whose name was used to pun the title of a British game show (“Never Mind the Buzzcocks”) as a reference to the lone Sex Pistols’ album (“Never Mind The Bollocks…”), who were incidentally their punk contemporaries. Got all that? Good, because I don’t. Anyway, this mid-Seventies punk outfit would have a huge influence on the soon-to-arrive Manchester music scene.

Remote Patrol

Rolling Stone: Stories From The Edge, Part 2

9 p.m. HBO

I really hope they have some Jancee Dunn anecdotes. She was a funny writer. I wonder if they’ll cover that entire U of Virginia faux rape case. I guess we’ll see.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 3 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

Yeah, She Was An American Girl

In 1977 Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released “American Girl” (interesting note: the band recorded it on the 4th of July, 1976, the bicentennial) and 1977 was also the last year an American girl won the New York City Marathon.

Until yesterday. Shane Flanagan, 36, a silver medalist in the 10,000 in Beijing, outpaced three-time defending champ Mary Keitany over the last five miles to win in 2:26 and change. The UNC alum has said she plans to retire before the race, but why stop now? Your appearance fees are about to go through the roof.

2. Sunday Mass Murder

I’m sorry, but bad puns on massacre headlines are not the problem and even if they are, it’s too soon to talk about it. In a rural southeastern Texas town, Sutherland Springs, with a population of less than 1,000, a 26 year-old Air Force vet who was dishonorably discharged mows down 26.

When he was a candidate, President Trump used the weekly carnage in Chicago’s south side to say, “What the hell is going on in Chicago?” In the past five weeks we’ve had the deadliest shooting and the deadliest church shooting in American history, bookended around the deadliest “terror” attack in New York City since 9/11. What the hell is going on in Trump’s America?

To quote Dionne Warwick, What the world needs now/Is love, sweet love, but a few pols acknowledging that maybe we don’t need to have boners about guns would help, too.

3. “What’s Cookin’, Good Lookin’?”*

*The judges respectfully disagree.

During his monologue on Saturday Night Live, Larry David opined, “There are no good opening lines in concentration camps.” Twitter erupted in both directions, of course. Some were horribly offended, while others saluted David for not copping to the P.C. cops.

The answer to this may have taken place in last night’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, when Richard Lewis’ girlfriend (don’t call her that too soon, honey) told Larry, “It’s hard when you get in front of a group…to say what’s uncomfortable,” and he matter-of-factly replied, “You know, I have no problem.”

4. KP Duty*

*The judges will not accept ‘Harshing My Carmelo’

Yes, it’s been 44 years since the New York Knicks won an NBA championship (we remember; we were there), but having exiled Carmelo and thrown their hopes behind 22 year-old, 7’3″ Latvian Kristaps Porzingis, the Knicks at long last look as if they’re headed in the right direction.

Last night Porzingis poured in a career-high 40 points as the Knicks took down the Pacers in MSG to move to 5-4. He’s averaging 30.2 points per game (he had 37 in a Friday night win against the Suns), which is second in the NBA.

Phil Jackson, a backup (7th man) on that ’73 championship team, made a few errors in his recently ended stint with the Knicks as GM. But he did draft KP and he did get rid of Carmelo. Two shrewd moves.

5. Saudi Prince & The Revolution

Over the weekend the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, arrested dozens of rivals without any formal charges or any legal process. The detained included Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest investor (which is saying something), Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, eleven cousins, and the most favored son of Saudi Arabia’s late King Abdullah.

Hearing the news, we imagine Donald Trump was impressed and asked John Kelly, “Can we do that?”

Reserves

Jane Says

We imagine War For The Planet of the Apes will gross 110 times what the documentary Jane will, but we highly recommend this film on the life and times of pioneering primate researcher Jane Goodall. She is an amazing and fearless woman, who went into the jungles  of Uganda in the early Sixties with only binoculars and her mom as a chaperone.

Goodall had no formal training, nor a college education, but she was hand-picked by Dr. Louis Leakey to study the habits of chimpanzees. At the time scientists believed animals did not have functional brains; Goodall soon produced evidence that chimps used tools and also was literally physically interacting with them. Not unrelated, because it helped her secure future funding, Goodall possessed movie starlet beauty. Today at the age of 83 the British-born Goodall is still crusading for animal rights. She’s a secular saint.

Black Eye For The Buckeyes

This Joshua Jackson interception was incredible. He’s come a long way since Dawson’s Creek.

Urban Meyer’s Ohio State surrenders 55 points in a loss at Iowa, the most points a Meyer team has ever given up. That’s what happens when Nick Bosa is ejected for targeting in the first half (he and Joey may be the first brother duo to both be ejected for targeting in FBS history). The Big Ten planted a flag in itself this weekend with Ohio State and Penn State both losing. Wisconsin’s gonna have to go 13-0 to reach the playoff.

 

Music 101

Miracles

This 1975 tune by Jefferson Starship, a band that changed names about as often as it changed lead singers, is a Yacht Rock Classic. It peaked at No. 3 and it’s layered harmonies  make it sound like something that Fleetwood Mac, whose Rumours owned the charts that year, wished it had recorded itself. Then JS-vocalist Marty Balin wrote and sang.

Remote Patrol

Rolling Stone: Stories From The Edge (Part 1 of 2)

9 p.m. HBO

Will they interview Ben Fong-Torres? Will it be “incendiary?” As the music/politics/culture mag celebrates its 50th anniversary and deals with founder Jann Wenner having just sold it, this should be good.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 6 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

Deshaun Gone

That’s life. That’s what people say. You win the World Series for the first time in your city’s history on November 1 and on the very next day your putative NFL Rookie of the Year at quarterback, Deshaun Watson, tears his ACL in practice and is gone for the season. This is, yes, the same dude who gave a game check to the cafeteria ladies at Reliant Stadium earlier this season after Hurricane Harvey.

J.J. Watt. Deshaun Watson. Bad things happen to good people. God has a plan, or there is no plan. Either way, it’s all about how you react to it.

Plug in Altuve and Watt, with various teammates and a motorist stranded atop his car in a flood plain behind them

P.S. Between Hurricane Harvey, Watt’s and Watson’s altruism, and the Houston Astros, I foresee SI giving Houston it’s “Sportsman of the Year” award. Don’t think it can happen? Look at 1979.

Comic Belief

A couple of years ago, rising comic John Mulaney had his Fox sitcom canceled after 13 episodes (it should have been canceled sooner; it was not funny). Time will show that this was the best thing that could have happened to him.

I’ll always believe that Mulaney, who was SNL’s head writer when he departed, should have taken Seth Meyers‘ “Weekend Update” gig when he left. And yes, Colin Jost and Michael Che have grown into the job, but Mulaney would’ve been incredible.

Anyway, he’s in the midst of his “Kid Gorgeous” national tour at the moment and this Washington Post piece on the man David Letterman recently dubbed “the future of comedy” is a terrific read.

3. Pollin’ Spring!

The latter half of the Pac-12’s Love/Tate relationship….

Huge (no, YUUUUUGE!) weekend in college football coming up. Our pal Ralph Russo at the AP informs us that

 

 So stay tuned! Here are the contests (yes, I’m doing Remote Patrol a little higher up in the blog today; deal with it). Reminder, these are the AP rankings, not the Playoff Selection Committee’s:

No. 7 Penn State at No. 24 Michigan State……Noon……Fox

No. 6 Clemson at No. 20 N.C. State…………….3:30……..ABC

No. 18 Stanford at No. 25 Washington State….3:30…….FOX

No. 8 Oklahoma at No. 11 Oklahoma State…..3:30……..FS1

No. 19 LSU at No. 1 Alabama………………………8…………CBS

No. 13 Va. Tech at No. 9 Miami…………………..8…………ABC

No. 23 Arizona at No. 18 USC……………………10:45……..ESPN

4. What Does +/- Mean?

Last night Los Angeles Lakers rookie Lonzo Ball played 28 minutes and scored no points in the Lakers’ 113-110 loss at Portland. That’s the first time a Top 5 pick has gone scoreless playing that many minutes as a rookie in a game since 1992.

Meanwhile, Ball’s teammate and fellow rookie Kyle Kuzma played 29 minutes and scored 22 points.

But here’s the thing: Ball earned a +10, which I think means the Lakers outscored the Blazers by 10 when he was on the court, while Kuzma earned a minus-11, and I think you know what that means. So what’s wrong: the stat or my assessment of who was more valuable to the Lakers last night (I’ll go with Kuzma)? Or could it just mean that the stat is meaningless?

5. Van-Wounded-Niekerk

Ouch

Our favorite moment of the 2016 Rio Games was not the Billy Bush beach interview with Ryan Lochte (shocker!), but rather relatively unknown South African Wayde Van Niekerk’s stunning 400 win from the outside lane (where he also set the world record)

Well, early last month Van Niekerk, during a celebrity touch football game in Capetown, tore his ACL as well as his suffering medial and lateral tears of the meniscus. He’s out for at least 6 months and will miss the Commonwealth Games, which is a big deal if you’re from England, Australia or South Africa.

Music 101

Night Fever

How do three growed-up men sing that high? And don’t tell me, “They’re Australian.” The brothers Gibb, or Bee Gees, owned the years 1977 and 1978. Owned them. Owned. The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack stayed atop the charts for 24 consecutive weeks, basically the first six months of 1978. This was one of four No. 1 singles on the album. If for no other reasons than as a time-capsule piece (or in case the White Sox stage another Disco Demolition Night), you need to own this album. On vinyl, of course.

 

Remote Patrol

IT’S ALL HAPPENING

by John Walters | 6 Comments

by John Walters

Thanks to commenter “ghostfacekillawhale” (!) for providing edification on Ronnie Spector and also locating the original “Take Me Home Tonight” video, in yesterday’s comments. 

Starting Five

Houston? Nuts!

For years we referred to them as the Lastros on MH, and why not? From 2011-2013, Houston finished in the American League West basement, losing more than 100 games each season. But the Astros drafted well (George Springer, Carlos Correa, Alex Bregman), and insightful observers such as SI‘s Ben Reiter took notice and thought, There’s a plan here…

It wasn’t just that Reiter and SI got the year correct: they even put the 2017 World Series MVP, George Springer, on the cover. Springer exemplifies this franchise’s ascent. After taking a golden sombrero in Game 1, he hit five home runs and accumulated a World Series-record 28 total bases to lead the Astros to the title.

Game 7 was kind of a snooze, as the Dodgers stranded 10 runners after falling behind 5-0 after just two innings. The Dodgers were done in partly by their two Rookies of the Year, 23 year-old Corey Seager and 22 year-old Cody Bellinger, who between them struck nine and 17 times, respectively, in this seven-game Fall Classic.

They’re not exactly a small-market team, but Houston has one of the easiest players for anyone to root for in Jose Altuve

The last time the Dodgers hosted a Game 7 it was in Brooklyn, in 1956, and the Yankees beat them 9-0 that day. Don Newcombe took the loss. He was at Dodger Stadium last night to watch the team fall again in another not-so-dramatic Game 7.

2. L.A. Confidential

You read the Kevin Spacey news this week and you think, The balls on that guy! In the mid-nineties, when Spacey was at his career peak, he did four films that really stick out: Se7en, L.A. Confidential, The Usual Suspects and American Beauty. In two of them, Spacey plays a criminal who toys with the police in terms of having terrible secrets of crimes that he’s committed.

In a third, L.A. Confidential, he plays detective Jack Vincennes, who specializes in taking cash in exchange for tipping off a gossip sheet on the misdeeds of movie stars. In the most famous example, he clues in the publisher of Hush-Hush about an up-and-coming hunk being in a homosexual relationship.

You have to wonder what Spacey was thinking to himself as he took on these roles. Or if he enjoyed the thrill of how close his real life was coming to the characters he inhabited.

Spacey is one of the best late-night talk show guests around. He does spot-on Johnny Carson and Al Pacino impressions and he’s just a terrific raconteur in general. You wonder how dramatically that’s going to change, or if he’ll ever be seen on a talk show with a live audience again. His “mean tweets” would likely be bleeped out.

3. Hitting The Reset Button

We’ve read a few “We’re disappointed” reviews regarding Curb Your Enthusiasm, which returned this season after a six-year absence, this autumn. Having said that, last Sunday’s episode was pure genius. From “Don’t stickle” to “Thank you for your service” to taking an Afghan war vet to a Revolutionary War reenactment, it was a vintage, time-capsule worthy episode. Everything you need to know about Larry David and his warped but not actually misanthropic mind is entirely in this episode.

Lieutenant David?

Could you broil it? Is that a face? Even “I haven’t had a Whopper in three years.”

You have to wonder if, in a way, David was asking the critics if they might be willing to hit the reset button in assessing Curb. As if to say, Can we just go back to when you weren’t praising my genius as the show was in an extended hiatus, placing impossible expectations on me? Can’t you just enjoy what I’m doing here?

Naaaaah.

4. The One Musketeer

Stephen Colbert went after Donald Trump, Jr., last night, using candy bars to discuss socialism as a way to answer this typically asshole-ish tweet by the eldest Trump progeny.

 

Yes, he spelled “too” incorrectly. As we’ve posited before, there’s a good chance that these misspellings by major white nationalists are deliberate. Why? As code to their fellow deplorables that we’ll do what we want to get under the skin of coastal elites. I’m honestly not going to be surprised at all if this comes out.

5. Great Scotts

Scott Frost is now, in terms of job searches, a hot Frost

More than 20 years ago, when MH was traipsing around America covering college football, we encountered two impressive young men, a couple years younger, who were smart and motivated and, it needs to be said, handsome dudes with charisma. One of them was Scott Stricklin, who was a personable assistant SID at Mississippi State and who had just married the daughter of former Boston Celtic Bailey Howell.

The other was Scott Frost, then a freshman defensive back at Stanford playing under the legendary Bill Walsh. Frost, a Nebraska native and a big-time recruit at the time for the Cardinal, seemed an odd fit in Palo Alto. He eventually transferred home to Lincoln (and may have an interesting story or two to share about Lawrence Phillips).

Stricklin is chomping at the bit for a coach to replace Jim McElwain. Florida is a fantastic job.

Anyway, Stricklin is now the AD at Florida and Frost is the second-year coach at Central Florida who has the Golden Knights at 7-0 and ranked 18th in the CFP poll (pardon the redundancy). Florida needs a football coach. I do believe these two men, now each in their mid-forties, will soon be working together.

Music 101

Fantastic Day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iYhw_5ehZ4

As a matter of fact, yes, we are proud holders of Haircut One Hundred‘s 1982 album Pelican West. New Wave that was heavier on horns and guitars than the synth. More akin to English Beat than A Flock of Seagulls. This song from the London group reached No. 7 on the UK charts but never made a dent here.

Remote Patrol