Monthly Archives: December 2017

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 4 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

 

1. Franken’s Time

As expected, Al Franken resigned (and Aaron Boone will soon be named the next senator from Minnesota). Whether Franken, a Democrat, was taking one for the team for a slew of groping accusations from before he was elected senator or not, the entire episode had a whiff of sexual McCarthyism to it.

Was it the right thing to do? Yes. Franken’s resignation speech was too self-referential, however, and sure, he could not resist mentioning the elephant in the room (by referencing the two elephants who were not in the room):

“I, of all people, am aware that there is some irony in the fact that I am leaving while a man who has bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office and a man who has repeatedly preyed on young girls campaigns for the Senate, with the full support of his party.”

 

So there you have it. On the donkey side, Franken’s resignation gives them the moral authority to say, At least we’re not hypocrites. On the elephant side, they’re saying Franken resigned as a ploy to attempt to force the GOP’s hand. Imagine that logic: your babykiller’s sign of contrition was just a scheme to get our babykillers to pay a price for their baby killing.

 

Even if the Dems are that Machiavellian, it doesn’t change the root point: Roy Moore and Donald Trump should not hold public office.

 

2. Irish Goodbye 

Josh Adams left defenders behind for the season’s first two months. Then ESPN’s producers left him behind last night.

Okay, let’s look at how the top 15 schools in the current College Football Playoff rankings were treated on last night’s two-hour, ESPN awards show.

No. 1 Clemson: Face time with Dabo Swinney and lots of Christian Wilkins mentions.

Oklahoma: Wall to wall Baker Mayfield, deservedly so, including a rotation on the ferris wheel with Maria Taylor.

Georgia: Face time with Kirby Smart and Roquan Smith, a Bednarik Award finalist.

Alabama: Two awards for defensive back Minkak  Fitzpatrick, who should’ve been a runner up to Iowa’s Joshua Jackson.

Ohio State: an interview and an awkward joke with J.T. Barrett.

Wisconsin: Jonathan Taylor-not-Thomas.

And on and on. Saquon Barkley (Penn St.) and Bryce Love (Stanford) took a turn on the ferris wheel with Taylor. Scott Frost (UCF) deservedly won coach of the year.

Who got the least love from ESPN? Notre Dame, USC and UCLA. The Bruins didn’t do much on the field, but they have the best quarterback, at least in the NFL’s eyes, in college football. Or USC does; the Trojans finished 10-2, won the Pac-12, and were barely mentioned. Can you imagine before the season began this show taking place with absolutely zero participation from Sam Darnold?

That’s right: Sam Darnold was utterly absent on the awards show.

And then there’s Notre Dame who, yes, sh*t the bed in their two showcase games, but had no shortage of Josh Adams highlights ready to share and a pair of first-team Walter Camp All-Americans on the O-line (Mike McGlinchey, Quenton Nelson) who didn’t even have their names mentioned during the roll call.

Yes, the Irish appeared in multiple video montages, there to make Georgia players or N.C. State’s Bradley Chubb or Love look good, but it’s hard to believe Josh Adams, who had eight runs of 59 yards or longer this season, never even appeared on the program. We got plenty of cancer chatter and a dancing BYU mascot and a stupid challenge between Herschel Walker and Barkley, but the Irish, I’m sorry, and I know I’m partisan, got royally snubbed.

3. Sweet Pea and The Streak

We just reminded LeBron that while he is the league’s 3rd-leading scorer, he has yet to have a 40-point game this season.

Look at those cute Cavs. Since losing to the best-in-the-west Houston Rockets on November 9, 117-112, they’ve reeled off 13 wins in a row. And Derrick Rose is back in the fold. The Cavs visit Indiana tonight and have an intriguing matchup against Trust The Process on Saturday, but they could reel off eight more in a row before LeBron and the gang visit Golden State on Christmas day (noon local tip. What the hell, Adam?!?).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0QpGulQWII

Kevin Love is now the Cavs’ leading rebounder and second-leading scorer, by the way.

Which window belongs to Susie B.’s guest room?

LeBron’s new home sold for $23 million. Apropos price. We’re going to move in next door as soon as John McAfee’s prophecy comes true. Clay Travis already has a guard posted at the gate, I assume.

4. Who Is Shohei Ohtani?


If you answered, “Isn’t he the guy who invented Bitcoin?”, well, you’re close. Ohtani, 23, throws a 102 m.p.h. fastball and also plays outfield for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters of the Japanese League. But he’s coming to America and he wants to play for a small-market team. Considering how well a dude named Ichiro Suzuki fared in Seattle, we wonder why he wouldn’t just park it there. As close to home as he can get, too.

The Mariners are one of seven teams (along with the Padres, Angels, Dodgers, Giants, Rangers and Cubs) vying to sign him. I sort of hope he ends up with the Padres. They’ve been a non-factor for nearly 20 years now.

5. Rabbit, Run

We animal lovers get weepy over moments like this. I want to buy this man a beer.

 

Music 101

Pilot of the Airwaves

It was 1979 and someone forgot to tell English singer-songrwriter Charlie Dore that the folk era had ended at least five years earlier. But this song’s catchy hook and Nashville twang shot it up to No. 13 on the Billboard chartCs. This is the kind of tune they could have used in the background on WKRP. Maybe they did.

Remote Patrol

Celtics at Spurs

9:30 p.m. ESPN

Kawhi Leonard, the most autocorrect-able player in pro sports, will not return until this weekend, but you still get a matchup between two of the three best coaches in the NBA. The Celtics have the NBA’s best record (22-4), while the Spurs are 17-8, have won five straight, and Ginobiliiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!!

THE JOHN McAFEE “EAT MY OWN DICK” METER

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by John Walters

Last July cybersecurity pioneer and magnate and iconoclast John McAfee boldly predicted on Twitter that if the price of Bitcoin did not reach $500,000 by the end of 2020, “I will eat my own dick on national television.”

A little over a week ago, on November 29th, McAfee doubled down on his wager:

 

We here at MH are not proponents of self-mutilation, but we do enjoy a brazen proclamation. That’s why we’ve created the John McAfee “Eat My Own Dick” Meter. We’ve assembled a team of mathematicians, plus one Wexford composition book and our iPhone calculator, to determine just how much the price of a Bitcoin must rise each day to keep McAfee ahead of his goal, which we’ve taken the liberty to assume is to NOT eat his own dick on January 1st, 2021.

So here’s the quick math: There are 366 days in 2020, 365 days in 2018, 365 days in 2019, and including today, 25 days remaining in 2017. That is a sum of 1,121 days.

Now, we checked the price of Bitcoin right now and it is $15,506. If you subtract that from $1 million, that leaves $984,494. Unless our mathematicians have erred (please tell us), that means if we divide $984,494 by 1,121 we will reach the average number of dollars bitcoin must rise each day to keep McAfee on schedule. Remember, bitcoin does not take Saturdays and Sundays off. The price is subject to change 24/7/365.

So, our McAfee Magic Number izzzzzzzzzzzzz………. $878. 

So, if you’re paying attention, McAfee is waaaaaaaay behind schedule right now. But then that depends on where you delineate the slope of increase. For example, between January 2nd ($899) and November 6 ($6,066), the price of Bitcoin rose $5,167, or an average per day of $16.78.

However, between November 6 and today, the price of Bitcoin has risen an average of $308 per day. That’s still less than 1/2 of what McAfee needs to keep his eggplant emoji, but it’s nearly a rate of 20 times greater increase in the past month than the first 10 months of the year. At that rate of increase, McAfee will blow past his goal of $1,000,000 by 2020 easily.

In peril?

As you may have guessed now, none of the MH staffers ever took a statistics course in college. However, we’ll do our best to make the John McAfee “Eat My Own Dick” Meter at the forefront of the analytical vanguard. Each day we will recalibrate the rate of return McAfee must meet to maintain (or catch up to) pace in order to retain his member.

So while he needs to average $878 per day today, that number is subject to change each day based on the previous day’s performance. I think this is where calculus kicks in. Anyway, we look forward to bringing you the John McAfee “Eat My Own Dick” Meter each day as part of It’s All Happening!

 

 

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 4 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

The Unforgettable Fire*

*The judges will also accept “La-Lozenge Land” (because if you live there, you’re coughing)

How bad is it? Thousand Oaks is now Twin Oaks. Bel Air is now Blech Air. The northbound section of the nation’s busiest freeway, the 405, was closed. The inferno consumed nearly 500 acres in Bel Air, the even tonier neighborhood slightly north and to the west of Beverly Hills (and UCLA).

LiAngelo Ball drops out of UCLA, and then this happens. Coincidence?

Sadly, with the Santa Ana winds blowing steadily and no hope for rain in the forecast for at least the next fortnight, the charring shows no signs of stopping.

By the way, sources tell MH staffers that two members of U2—Larry Mullen and The Edge—own lots of property in some of these incinerated areas, hence the second reason for the hed.

2. Al Franken’s Stuart Smalley Struggle

You’re good enough (welllllllll…..), you’re smart enough (okay, mostly), and gosh darn it, people like you (not any more).

Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.) will likely resign today after the latest sexual harassment allegations came forward yesterday, allegations which he disputes. Now the Dems will do the right thing as a means of acting in good faith, but Roy Moore will proceed with the Dec. 12 election for a vacant Senate seat in Alabama because if there’s one thing we’ve learned about being a Republican in the Trump era, it’s that hypocrisy no longer has to be acknowledged.

Because they’re going to bury Franken

Democratic senator Bernie Sanders appeared on CBS This Morning this, uh, morning, and he was asked about a Franken and Moore tit-for-tat (we really need to invent a better idiom here). Sanders suggested “we take it a step further” and get the acknowledged Sexual Harasser in Chief to resign from his job.

Meanwhile, we did come across this line from a 1991 Stuart Smalley bit on SNL: “You’re only as sick as your secrets.” Ouch, babe.

3. The Play-In Game

 

“S-E-C! S-E-C!”

 Earlier this week Sports Media Watch released a list of the top-watched college football games of the season. Here are the seven contests that drew more than 8 million viewers, from least to most:

Oklahoma-Ohio State………………………………………8.1 mil

Penn State-Ohio State………………………………………9.9 mil

Ohio State-Michigan……………………………………….10.5 mil

Alabama-Florida State……………………………………..12.1 mil

Big Ten Championship Game (Ohio St.-Wiscy)…..12.9 mil

SEC Championship Game (Auburn-Georgia)…..13.1 mil

Iron Bowl (Alabama-Auburn)…………………………13.7 mil

So yes, six of the seven most-watched games of the season featured either the Crimson Tide or the Buckeyes. You know, the two teams who basically battled it out for the fourth and final spot in the playoff. One team didn’t beat anyone in the Top 15 or even advance to its conference championship game; the other lost the most important game it played but also lost to an unranked foe, Iowa, by 31.

Everybody: Hurts, sometimes.

So what if the suits in Bristol or Century City and those in Grapevine, Texas, had met and said, “You know what? We’re all making this up as we go along, anyway. Let’s have Alabama and Ohio State play on December 16th and the winner gsts in. Just this one time.”

Honestly, I have no idea what sacred covenant such a game would have broken. It’s a win-win for all, especially whoever would have broadcast it. No way that game, on a Saturday with no other games competing against it, draws fewer than 12 million viewers. No. F’in. Way.

4. Remember Me

Mexico. The afterlife. Murder. Family. Dia de Muertos. Frida Kahlo. Acoustic guitar battles.

I went to see the new Disney Pixar flick Coco last week and man is it bold. It chugs along predictably for the first 20 or so minutes and then all of a sudden it’s taking you over a bridge of marigold petals into the world of the dead. Quite a heady trip for an eight year-old (talking about my emotional age).

Anyway, I couldn’t help but thinking that while this was an audacious and terrific film, it’s going to make an even better theme park ride whenever Disney opens a Disney Tierra or Disney Mundo in Mexico.

5. NCAA Unbeatens

Sooner frosh Trae Young does not play for an unbeaten, but he leads the nation in scoring and is No. 3 in assists

Number two Kansas lost to Washington last night, which means that there are nine unbeatens remaining in Division I: Duke (11-0), Villanova (9-0), Miami (7-0; Do they also use a turnover chain?), Arizona State (7-0), TCU (9-0), Mississippi State (7-0), Florida State (8-0), Georgetown (6-0) and Valparaiso (8-0).

UCLA? The Bruins are 7-1.

None of the above have lost to Iowa by 31, in case you were wondering….

Reserves

World’s Largest Starbucks….

…opened earlier this week in Shanghai. Between this and that library we featured last week….29,000 square feet and 400 employees.

A few random thoughts…This nation was born in the Age Of Enlightenment, but seems to be going down in flames (literally in California, figuratively elsewhere) in the Age of Entitlement. As one friend said to me yesterday, “We’ve become a nation of Veruca Salts.” And, oh, sweetie, do you mind not talking on your smartphone in the coffee shop? Thanks….

 

In the past 24 hours I’ve seen the following internet headlines, “Bitcoin Passes $12,000″, “Bitcoin Rips Past $13,000” and “Bitcoin Tops $15,000” when I Googled “bitcoin price.” It’s currently at $15,746.” To me there’s something funny and ironic about financial experts ripping Bitcoin for having no there there. Like Oakland. Or, religion. I mean, the only reason we “know” there’s a God is because most of us have put our faith in His existcnce. There’s no scientific proof. If enough people believe Bitcoin is a valid means of transacting exchanges, it is every bit as valid. In short, if you rip Bitcoin for not existing in reality and then go light an Advent candle, you’re sort of a hypocrite.

Music 101

Baby, Let Me Follow You Down

This song had been around in one form or another since 1935 when Bob Dylan re-recorded it for his 1962 self-titled debut album. Four years later at an historic concert at the Royal Albert Hall in England, Dylan and The Band turned it from a folk song into an electric-guitar blowout and that shook up the faithful. You have to go to the 1 hour, 3 minute and :06 mark of this video to locate it, but it’s worth it.

Remote Patrol

No Country For Old Men

8 p.m. AMC

A four-time Oscar winner, including Best Picture. Or you can watch the College Football Awards Show on ESPN at 7 p.m. Call it.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 4 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

The Russians Are Not Coming, The Russians Are Not Coming!*

*The judges will also accept “IOC You Later”

In an unprecedented move, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) banned Russia from taking part in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. No Russian anthem will be played, no Russian flag will fly, and the few Russian athletes who will be allowed to take part must wear a neutral color (we suggest beige).

Adelina Sotnikova won gold in Sochi in Ladies’ Figure Skating

This is the IOC’s punishment for the systematic doping that has been a state-sponsored part of Russia’s Olympic movement for years. In case you were wondering, Russia finished 5th, 6th and 5th in overall medal count in the 2014, 2010 and 2006 Winter Games, respectively.

Remember that Russia will be hosting the World Cup next summer, and South Korea is in Group F. It wasn’t South Korea’s call, this ban, but I still expect their players may have difficulty getting showers with hot water.

2. Jerusalem

Over the weekend the film Wag The Dog had a 20th anniversary screening (it got a little contentious, as host John Oliver grilled Dustin Hoffman about sexual harassment allegations related to him). Then on Tuesday Donald Trump, taking a page from the film’s playbook, announced that the United States was formally recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Brave? Bold? Courageous? Or cunning? Distracting? Machiavellian? While Jews and hard-right Christians applaud the announcement that the U.S. will move its embassy from Tel Aviv to the Holy City, Arabs and Muslims have called for “three days of rage.” It’s a maneuver that nobody appeared to need—no U.S. president has recognized Jerusalem as Israel’ s capital since the Israelis took over the city in 1967.

One opponent of the move said, “I cannot keep quiet about my deep worry about the situation that has been created in the last few days.” That opponent? Pope Francis.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was more blunt, and dramatic, saying this move would be “plunging the region and the world into a fire with no end in sight.”

Does Donald Trump actually care about “solving” a religious battle that predates Jesus, or is there a part of him that hopes to instigate terrorist attacks, which will then strengthen his hand about a Muslim ban and a potential military engagement in the Middle East. Donald Trump is not about peace. He’s about victory.

And, oh, doesn’t this maneuver, and the possibility of Muslim acts of defiance in retaliation, sweep Robert Mueller’s investigation off the front pages.

3. Queen Bae and Colin K.

At the Sports Illustrated awards bacchanalia last night (did our invitation get lost in the mail, Chris?), Colin Kaepernick received the Muhammad Ali Legacy Award, and that honor was completely validated by the fact that Beyonce served as the presenter.

Part of Kaepernick’s speech: “I say this as a person who receives credit for using my platform to protest systemic oppression, racialized injustice and and the dire consequences of anti-blackness in America: I accept this award not for myself, but on behalf of the people. Because if it were not for my love of the people, I would not have protested. And if it was not for the support from the people, I would not be on this stage today.”

4. Califirenia

Another month, another fire raging out of control in the Golden State. This one in Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles, between Malibu and Santa Barbara.

I’d be lying if I said I cared half as much about the structures being burned than I do about the wilderness habitat being destroyed. That’s precious land for animals. More than 50,000 acres have been burned, and the only thing stunting this inferno’s growth is firefighters and the Pacific Ocean to the west.

Still, these pictures are incredible, eh? You have to marvel at the courage of the firefighters, and also of the photographers taking these shots.

5. The MH Art Corner

Denis Lebecq

Over the summer we found ourselves spending a day in Carmel, California, and we stepped into an art gallery, the Galerie Rue Toulouse, that had some truly dramatic paintings. So if you ever find yourself in that corner of the country with a half-hour to kill or a few thousand dollars to spend, we highly recommend it.

Marc Clauzade

The Galerie Rue Toulouse…

Reserves

I’m going through Mad Men again. It’s my all-time favorite show (“Duck, Crab. Crab, Duck.”)

 

Music 101

Midnight at The Oasis

The early Seventies were so confusing for us animal-loving kids attached to AM radio. “Put your camel to bed,” but does it bunk next to the horse with no name? Or the horse named Wildfire? Maria Muldaur‘s 1973 hit peaked at No. 6 on the charts and had no part in all in inspiring the Gallagher brothers to name their band what they did some 20 or so years later.

Remote Patrol

Super Troopers

8 p.m. IFC

One of the funniest meow films of this meow millennium stars a bunch of no-names from the meow Broken Lizard comedy troupe meow portraying staties in Vermont. If’ you’ve never watched, get yourself a liter cola, do not say the word “shenanigans” and enjoy. FARVA!

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 6 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

Ahem (We Called It)

Houston Astros World Series champion 2nd basemen Jose Altuve (5’6″) and Houston Texans philanthropic defensive end J.J. Watt (6’5″) and named Sports Illustrated’s “Sportspeople of the Year,” which we called here back in September. It’s the right choice.

2. Hittsburgh

 

On Monday Night Football, Pittsburgh Steeler wideout JuJu Smith-Schuster lays out Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict, who was carted off the field with a head injury. Smith-Schuster cited “karma” as the reason for his hit, and Burfict has been the league’s reigning headhunter for a few years now. Still, these two play twice a year so somewhere down the line there’s a crossing pattern that is going to leave the rookie form USC woozy if not worse off due to this shot.

Jon Gruden: “I don’t know what you have to do to get ejected from a football game….that’s bad football, bad for the game.”

3. Putting The “Bite” In Bitcoin

He may be the most interesting man in the world…

Cybersecurity pioneer John McAfee, who last July boldly proclaimed that the price of a single Bitcoin would be $500,000 by 2020 or else “I’ll eat my dick,” has recently gone “two solariums” on that brazen declaration. He’s taking up a notch.

Last week McAfee proclaimed that the price of a single bitcoin, which as we type this is $11,875 (nearly 12 times its price on New Year’s Day), would reach $1 million by 2020 or else he’d still eat his zucchini emoji.

 

If you did not have a good reason before yesterday to stick around until 2020, well now you do!

4. Ball’s Out!

LiAngelo never played a game for the Bruins. Will LaMelo?

Pulling the “You Can’t Fire Me, I Quit!” card, LaVar Ball has pulled second son LiAngelo Ball out of UCLA (he was one of three Bruin players suspended indefinitely) and promised to train him his own damn self. “I’m going to make him way better for the draft than UCLA ever could have,” says LaVar.

Of course you will.

5. “Jane, You Ignorant Slut!” at TBL

To Jason’s credit, he always engages me when we disagree. I respect that.

Okay, so we were on a big ol’ plane yesterday and missed most of the news, but this caught our eye before we boarded. First, our frenemy Jason McIntyre, grand poobah and founder of The Big Lead, wrote a panting piece on Sunday night about Ohio State’s omission from the college football playoff (imagine, a 2-loss team with a 31-point defeat to an unranked foe failing to make the final four), that was titled, “Alabama In The Playoff Over Ohio State: The Day College Football Died.“

I was one of a few who accused Jason of simply trolling for clicks. The following morning Kyle Koster, a lucid writer at TBL, wrote a counterpoint piece titled “College Football Teams Are The Masters Of Their Fate, The Captains Of Their Souls” because your typical TBL reader has at least seen Invictus, if not read the poem. Kyle’s point is that there were no martyrs on Sunday, that if you 1) play someone with a pulse in the non-conference, 2) win your conference championship game and 3) lose no more than once, you’re in.

Of course, neither Alabama nor Ohio State met this criteria this season, which was Kyle’s larger point. Failure to do all three leaves you vulnerable. And it’s cool for writers at the ssme site to disagree, particularly on this issue. What I found fascinating was this line Kyle wrote: “Quibble with the selection committee’s choice if you wish. Feign outrage for clicks.”

Now who was he speaking to there?

Music 101

Rocky Mountain High

An ethereal voice and a gift as a songwriter (he also wrote “Leavin’ On a Jet Plane”) that’s right up there with Carole King and Joni Mitchell. John Denver wrote the theme song for the state of Colorado with this 1972 gem that shot up to No. 9. Notice here that Johnny Carson needs a little work on his “displaying the album cover” game.

A Word, Please

Fractious (adj)

Irritable and quarrelsome (i.e., me 73% of the time on Twitter)