Monthly Archives: January 2018

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 8 Comments

by John Walters

 

Starting Five

1. I’m Joe K., You’re Joe K. 

I know what you’re thinking because I’m thinking the same thing: Where do these Kennedy men keep coming from (when the previous generation keeps dying so young)? Joe Kennedy III gave the Democratic response to the State of the Union speech last night and for those of you trimming the family tree, he’s the 37 year-old grandson of Robert F. Kennedy and the grandnephew of JFK and I’m already nervous for him (he’s also the nephew of Cheryl Hines, Larry David’s TV ex-wife).

 

Joe. K attended Stanford and then Harvard Law, but we all know that Harvard Law never produces good presidents. Anyway, we were listening to the speech on the cab ride home and at first I didn’t know who was speaking so I just assumed I’d been time-warped back to an early episode of Mad Men.

As for the president’s speech, this says it all….

Joe K. spoke from Fall River, Mass., which is only 38 miles from Plymouth, where the Pilgrims first set foot on American shore (if you don’t count the part where they landed on Cape Cod first, which your 2nd-grade teacher probably did not tell you about), which was not a coincidence. His speech was inclusive. Inspiring. It was also, partially, in Espanol. Here, listen (or read)

2. James Harden: 60-10-11

Did the NBA All-Star Game begin 2 1/2 weeks early? Last night James Harden became the first player in NBA history to score 60 points AND net a triple double in Houston’s 114-107 win against the Tragic. The putative MVP was 19-30 from the field and 17-18 from the charity stripe. It pays to practice your free throws, kids.

 

I’ll take tweets that did not age well for $200, Alex.

3. Alex Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

The Kansas City Chiefs traded quarterback Alex Smith to the Washington Redskins in a move that was approved by both the NFL and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Smith’s exodus means that the Redskins will release Kirk Cousins (“Hello, Cleveland!”) while K.C. will likely start Pat Mahomes.

Worth noting that Smith, who did lead the NFL in passer rating this season, will sign a four-year extension with the Redskins as soon as he is able, March 14, for $23.5 million per year PLUS a $71 million guarantee. Meanwhile Colin Kaepernick, who once beat him out for the starting job in San Francisco, is three years younger and has won four times as many postseason games, will remain the fittest dude at my gym.

4. Whether Stormy

The Stormy Daniels interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live was a major letdown, kind of like renting Good Will Humping and learning that there’s no Casey Affleck. I’d throw most of the blame on this on Kimmel: he and his producers knew she wasn’t going to be able to discuss her Trump Tryst. It did not help that she is functionally inarticulate.

Melania shows up to the SOTU. First she stole one First Lady’s speech, now she pilfers another’s white pants suit???

Best Moments: During his monologue, when he rebuked S.E. Cupp’s criticism that he should have Monica Lewinsky on for equal time and he played back clips of her appearing on his previous show on three different occasions. That was sweet. Also, he was able to show that a press release apparently denying her assignation with Trump included a forged signature of hers. And she basically did a non-denial denial of the NDA. Finally, he did paint a picture that we had wondered about: the idea of Trump coming home from his SOTU, flicking on the TV, and watching her on JKL. Or at least of Melania doing so from another bedroom.

5. Running’s Latest Teen Phenom

Faster than you can ask, “What ever happened to Mary Cain?” here comes North Rockland High School sophomore Katelyn Tuohy of Thiells, N.Y. Eleven days ago she ran a national high school record 15:37 in the 5,000, lowering the existing mark by 18 seconds. In that race, which took place in Virginia and featured much of the top prep talent in the nation, the second-place finisher came in two minutes later.

 

Tuohy, 15, won the Nike Cross Country Nationals in December by 40 seconds. Again, that’s a ridiculous margin. Tuohy lives just west of the Hudson river, not far from West Point. She lives just 30 miles to the northwest of Cain, who is now an upperclassman at Fordham and has been hampered by injuries. Tuohy, who will run in the Millrose Games on Saturday, is U.S. running’s next great ingenue.

Reserves

Today’s greatest reason the internet exists…

 

Goodbye, Super Blood Moon. We hardly knew ya’….

Music 101

Love My Way

The one 20th century musician who gets name checked in Call Me By Your Name? That would be Richard Butler, lead singer of the Psychedelic Furs. This 1982 classic by the British New Wave band makes two separate appearances in the film, which reminds us that the freshest new talent at Saturday Night Live is Heidi Gardner (“Okayyyy, random”).

Remote Patrol

Flyers at Capitals

8 p.m. NBC Sports Net

Hockey? Yes, hockey! The Caps lead the Norris Division and Alex Ovechkin leads the NHL in goals (30) and remains the most dominant player scorer on ice. He’s like Ronaldo or Federer with the strange difference being that he has never hoisted a major championship trophy in his sport (Stanley Cup or Olympic gold).

And Now, A Few Brief And Uncomfortable Words About Illegal Immigration (Because We Don’t Want To Put This On Twitter)

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

So let’s get this out there first: 1) If you read this site often, you know the animus I have toward our current president (to put it lightly, not a fan) 2) I work with more illegal immigrants than most anyone I know, more than most anyone who would be reading this, and I know from personal experience that they are the hardest-working folks I know, 3) let’s get beyond demonizing illegal immigrants as all being “drug dealers and rapists” but let’s also get beyond giving their offspring cutesy nicknames such as “dreamers.”

Okay, got that? Good. Let’s proceed….

So here’s what I don’t understand: Whenever Donald Trump or his White House oversteps or subverts what the other side believes is the Constitution or his executive privilege, the most popular refrain is, “We are a nation of laws.” And I agree with that.

So why is it that when we start discussing illegal immigration that the same folks who use that sentence as a battle cry no longer care about laws? Isn’t that hypocritical?

If you think we should change immigration law, great. If you think the sight of ICE agents deporting people who are here illegally, who have been within the U.S borders for years, even more than a decade, is heartless, that’s your prerogative. But you can’t beat back Donald Trump with “We are a nation of laws!” with one side of your mouth and then protest the deportation of people who are here illegally with the other unless you are willing to admit that you are a hypocrite. Sorry.

(I’m a Kimmel fan, but he lost me here, putting extenuating circumstances over the primary issue: Is it legal?)

I’m not sure why the Left allows itself to be morally co-opted so easily. I’m all for diversity, I’m all for people from Mexico and other nations coming here and making better lives for themselves. And we should probably make immigration for Mexicans especially more lenient, as the overwhelming majority of them are here to work and do contribute to the greater overall economic welfare of this country (also: taco trucks, yeah!). But as long as people are breaking the law, you forfeit the right to protect both them and your supposed sense of justice when President Trump obviates the law.

If I’m wrong here, please educate me.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by John Walters

Starting Five

McCabe is a former high school state champion in cross-country. His nemesis is a cheeseburger-eating, skirt-chasing slave to immediate gratification

The Gathering Storm

FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, a triathlete who has been known to bike 35 miles to work and is married to a pediatrician whom the president called “a loser,” resigned yesterday. Let’s cut through the b.s. and discuss what this means:

–The president is being investigated for possible collusion with the Russians, in part because of meetings that no one denies took place, and in part because two men who worked for him during his campaign, Paul Manafort and Carter Page, had incredibly strong and financially lucrative ties to Russia. This is not in dispute.

Manafort: As dirty as dirty gets

–Almost immediately since taking office, the president has fought this investigation by obstructing justice. First he fired the attorney general of the United States, Sally Yates. Then he fired the director of the FBI, James Comey. He wanted to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller last June but did not when his own White House counsel, Don McGahn, threatened to resign if he did so. He is talking about firing Rod Rosenstein, the acting attorney general in terms of the collusion investigation, since Jeff Sessions has recused himself; and if that happens he might just fire Mueller or Mueller might resign.

Marty Barron: Basically, he’s Ben Bradlee, Bezos is Katherine Graham, and Lardass Trump is Nixon

–McCabe likely left a few months shy of retirement because 1) he was sick of being badgered by Trump on Twitter and 2) now that his boss, Christopher Wray, is basically a Trump apparatchik, he knew that anything he did was only going to be approved if it were in the best interests of Trump as opposed to the best interests of the nation. Moreover, 3) who wants to work for a president that continually calls your agency’s integrity into question when everyone knows that it is the president’s integrity that is wanting?

Pretty much what we’ve come to expect from this administration

–Trump has pretty much eliminated the FBI as a viable threat. If he sacks Rosenstein, he would replace him with someone whom Mueller has to report to, someone who would not only be able to tip Trump off as to what Mueller is doing but who could effectively curb Mueller’s efforts and compromise the investigation. At that point, why would Mueller remain on board?

–The #SecretMemo is the latest effort at obfuscation and distraction. The sole and primary question is this: Was Carter Page and/or Manafort acting in the interests of Russia and interfering in the election? The memo is going to try to distract the American public into the FBI’s surveillance methods, but the FBI secured a FISA warrant most likely because they demonstrated that there was an EXTREMELY LEGITIMATE REASON to surveil Page. In sports terminology, the argument is whether Page had both feet inbounds and the GOP is trying to tell you that the referee maybe shouldn’t have been allowed to be reffing the game.

–If Rosenstein and Mueller go, Trump has won. At least inside the government. The last bastion who would still be able to investigate him and bring him to justice is the free press. This is where it helps that one of the two newspapers who could illustrate his alleged treason is The Washington Post, which is owned by the richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos. Its managing editor is the most incorruptible man in journalism, Marty Barron (the Spotlight hero; Barron’s journalism prof at Lehigh was my cousin’s dad, by the way).

 

–Donald Trump is not and has never behaved like a man who is innocent. He has always behaved like someone who does not believe in due process but as someone who simply wants this to disappear. That is why he is either bullying or firing everyone in government who could potentially bring him to justice. That is why he keeps repeating the mantra, “No collusion,” as if he believes that if he says it enough, that will somehow make it true. This is not a man who believes in normal discourse. This is a man who speaks in slogans and only says that which will abet his narcissism.

Meanwhile, the State Dept. is rolling back the sanctions on Russia (America is now as feckless as the IOC) because Trump, The Manhattanchurian Candidate, still needs to keep his part of the bargain, no, comrade?

 

–If that announcement doesn’t tell you where the White House’s true loyalties lie, what will? Meanwhile, men in power do nothing because Trump’s tax policy and deregulation has made the wealthy even more so, they don’t want to kill this golden goose. And the Koch brothers are going to spend a record-$400 million on this year’s midterm elections in order to ensure that the GOP controls both the House and Senate the next two years so that the gravy train will continue and that anyone inside the government attempting to find out the truth about Trump will be silenced. Or overruled.

–McCabe’s resignation leaves America fantastically vulnerable. Because Trump won’t stop. It’s not in his nature. Rosenstein is next, and if that domino falls, I wouldn’t blame Mueller if he threw up his hands in disgust and made his exodus. Or Trump still might fire him. Are there really any Republicans who’d stand up to Trump even then? No.

Devin Nunes deserves to be hanged. Seriously.

–A president is under investigation for treason. And he gets rid of every single meaningful person in the FBI or Justice Dept. who might be able to find the truth, even if that truth exonerates him. Are these the actions of an innocent man or are these the strong-arm maneuvers of a bullying despot?

–Finally, in a wonderful display of how petty and morally bankrupt Trump is, he actually phoned McCabe last year to admonish him for the fact that Comey, who learned he was fired while in Los Angeles (again, as the HEAD OF THE FREAKING FBI), was able to fly back to Washington on a government plane. At the taxpayers’ expense. This is a man, Trump, who has already cost taxpayers $49 MILLION in one year as president for his golf excursions alone.

2. And Now, Somoene Who Doesn’t Suck

Tom Hanks has signed on to play Fred Rogers in the biopic of everyone’s favorite sweater-wearing middle-aged American hero. Based on the marvelous Esquire story by Tom Junod, which is as good a piece as you will ever read (We still have that issue in case we are ever called upon to teach journalism somehwere).

3. Crypto Updates

In a sign of how much bigger the crypto market is now than it was just a couple of years ago, last weekend a record-sized cryptocurrency hack took place and the world sort of yawned. Four years ago the world’s first major Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, which handled 70% of Bitcoin, was hacked and lost $450 million. Mt. Gox soon filed for bankruptcy and it was thought to be the possible death knell for Bitcoin.

Last Friday a record amount of cryptocurrency, $530 million worth, was hacked and stolen from the Tokyo-based exchange Coincheck. Did you even hear about it?

Meanwhile in Oxfordshire, England, last weekend, an in-home burglary of crypto. From The Guardian: “Armed men broke into the family home of a cryptocurrency trader and are believed to have forced him at gunpoint to transfer holdings of the virtual currency bitcoin.” That means they literally made him get on his computer and transfer his Bitcoin holdings to an anonymous account. Now that’s genius. Criminal and miscreant, sure, but genius.

The lesson: Don’t brag about how much Bitcoin you’re holding…

4. Wahoo Serious?

Major League Baseball announces that the Cleveland Indians will discontinue the Chief Wahoo mascot after next season. Apparently we need an entire year of farewell tours for a purportedly racist depiction of a people whose land we stole?

Is this the Tribe’s next mascot?

We’ve plumbed this turf before, but let’s say that the Wahoo mascot illustration is racist or racially insensitive. Fine. Then what do you call naming the team “Indians?” Because that’s  a slur at worst and one of history’s great misnomers at best. And of course isn’t it a little disingenuous to be so concerned about a people’s feelings only now after you’ve stolen their nation from them? The Appaloosa is out of the barn, no?

So, yeah, we get it. But they’re still the Cleveland Indians. The name is still racially sensitive. Maybe they’ll be changed to the Cleveland Golden Knights, which of course is something that has never even actually existed.

5. Pyramid Scheme

Is this the worst blind date in like, ever? That’s the world’s tallest man, 36 year-old Turkish farmer Sultan Kosen, who stands 8’3″; and the planet’s shortest woman, 25 year-old Indian actress Jyoti Amge, who stands 2’1″, outside the pyramids at Giza. They were there to promote Egyptian tourism and I really hope he doesn’t fall on top of her.

Reserves

This right here is why the internet was invented…

 

*****

Tell me why Kenan Thompson and SNL did not think of this first…

 

****

Found this last night. Here’s the original cast of Saturday Night Live just a few days before their October 11, 1975 premiere episode spending a few minutes with Tom Snyder. Note that Chevy Chase’s healthy ego is already in full bloom while John Belushi does not say a peep. And Lorne Michaels cannot even name all the cast members yet…

Music 101

Bizarre Love Triangle

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

The British New Wave band New Order was cut out of the dying carcass of Joy Division, with some of the remaining members forming this band after vocalist Ian Curtis committed suicide. This 1986 song somehow failed to make the Top 40 in either the US or the UK, but it is one of the best songs in the genre and Rolling Stone rightfully put it at 201st in its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list in 2004.

Remote Patrol

King Kong

8 p.m. TCM

In which a citizen of a sh*thole country is brought to the United States, in chains and against his will, and then treated like a public enemy for not playing along with the existing power structure. Or you can watch that other thing on tonight.

U2 40, PART IV: THE TOP TEN LIST

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

I have here in my hands the top ten list. There’s no easy way to do this, because with most of these songs I at one point or another have declared, “Now THIS is my favorite U2 song.”

Latest live gig….

Special thanks to Notre Dame official photographer and licensed pilot Matt Cashore who reminded me of the song below. When I think of All That You Can’t Leave Behind on a Top 40 favorite U2 songs list, this one totally belongs. So allow me to cheat a little and make it No. 10 1/2. It’s the closest the band has ever come to touching the face of God and that chorus near the end is reminiscent of a 60s flower child song, something you might have heard from The Mamas and the Papas or Donovan or even The Association. Just a beautiful tune and it’s a misdemeanor, perhaps even a felony, that this was left off The Unforgettable Fire.

Three Sunrises

Four men who’ve been together for 40-plus years, all because Larry Mullen posted a sign at his secondary school. As Bruce Springsteen noted, “Bands are started by accident, but they don’t stay together by accident.” One reason U2 has remained together so long is because they are a communion of souls. They take the music very seriously, but never seem to take themselves too seriously (seriously). Check it out:

Now on to the top ten list, this time going in reverse order:

  1. Ultraviolet (Light My Way)

Achtung Baby, 1991

No explanation for this, but the six-word U2 ear worm that infects my mind more than any other is “Baby, baby, baby/Light my way...” We Catholics know a thing or two about popular refrains, and this one is as popular as it gets.

9. Magnificent

No Line On The Horizon, 2009

My favorite U2 song of the past decade, it just rumbles across the plains coming at you  like a buffalo stampede. It would have fit perfectly on The Joshua Tree. In March of 2009 the band visited Dave Letterman’s show for an entire week to promote this album, and then on Friday morning played a show outside at Fordham University.

I doubt this song is on any of your Top 10 lists, but this list is all about you being true to your own feelings about the band’s oeuvre (“You know how to spell ‘oeuvre,’ don’t you, Holden?”).

8. Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses?

Achtung Baby, 1991

In the winter of 1992, my roommate Fuder and I lived in a one-bedroom apartment with no TV. We were both pretty busy: She was going to law and business school, while I was teaching a high school science class before heading to work at SI (one of us made millions; I’ll let you guess who). Anyway, we spent most week nights at home studying or doing class preps, and we listened to two new albums: Nevermind and Achtung Baby. This song always reminds me of that period because my well-deserved nickname is “Spilly” and she loved to remind me, “You’re an accident waiting to happen.”

Also, you have to love at about the 4:09 mark where Bono wails for all he’s worth, “Come on now love, don’t you look back!”

Bono rarely gets credited for having a spectacular vocal range, a la Freddie Mercury or George Michael, but he can take it up a notch when he has to and his voice is so passionate and earnest that it has become one of the more formidable in rock and roll history.

7. Running To Stand Still

The Joshua Tree, 1987

Back when albums mattered, the sequencing of songs mattered. And no U2 album is better  arranged than The Joshua Tree. The grand opening of “Where The Streets Have No Name” segues into a trio of tunes that demand you get on your boots. By the fifth track you need a slow dance, and here we are. There’s nothing I can say about the song that the song itself doesn’t do better. It’s just quiet and powerful and the lyrics, “You’ve got to cry without weeping/Talk without speaking/Scream without raising your voice” are some Beatitudes-level sh*t.

I’m not sure if this is the only U2 song in which the title does not appear until the last line of the song. Maybe.

  1. Sunday, Bloody Sunday 

Under A Blood Red Sky, 1983

“This is not a rebel song, this is ‘Sunday, Bloody Sunday.’ The angriest U2 song was Bono’s “I Want You” Uncle Sam recruitment poster. You say you want a revolution? Well, you know, U2 wants to change the world.

  1. One Tree Hill

The Joshua Tree, 1987

You may consider this ridiculously high at No. 5, but this musical eulogy for a fallen friend is the band at its best: creating a mood through The Edge’s experimentation and Bono’s haunting voice. Somewhere Pope Francis laments that the rock and roll’s gain was the Catholic church’s loss

  1. I Will Follow

Boy, 1980

The first guitar riff that let us know change was in the air. U2 made this their second or third song at a show I saw in 2015 and the crowd, so many of us in our 40s and 50s, went bonkers. It’s teen angst exponentialized, but what I love about it is that bridge near the end where the band has the confidence to slow it down and indulge their lead singer (“Your eyes make a circle/I see you when I go in there…”). They were all 20 or 21 when they recorded this tune, but their self-assurance was remarkable.

Bono lost his mom when he was 14 and this song is mostly a reflection on the mother-child dynamic. Also, it’s the first track from their first album. They dove in head-first.

  1. Bad 

Wide Awake In America, 1985

I don’t doubt that this is many fans’ favorite U2 song, and that’s alright, that’s alright, that’s alright. Yes, if you were watching the band’s show at Wembley for Live Aid in the summer of ’85 you remember the moment when Bono clambered off stage to engage in a communion of sorts with the fans. This was Bono at his most charismatic and also, yes, most self-indulgent and pretentious. It was also the day U2 separated itself from all other bands that had come along since Woodstock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zIW8qDPhos

Apparently, The Edge, Larry and Adam weren’t thrilled with their mulleted-crooner’s vanity-project theatrics, as his extended love-in forced them to drop a song from their set. This is like criticizing the Gettysburg Address for being too short. No one remembers the other tunes U2 played in this set. They just remember Bono hugging the woman as he slow-danced with her and Bono’s freestyling at the end as the band kept playing the refrain.

Years ago I had the good fortune to speak to Steve Lillywhite, who has produced albums for everyone from Peter Gabriel to The La’s to the Rolling Stones to The Psychedelic Furs to The Talking Heads, etc, etc. I asked him if any artist truly stood out among the tall trees and before I even finished the question, he said, “Bono. Bono is a genius.”

  1. Beautiful Day

All That You Can’t Leave Behind, 2000

Nine years! It had been nine years since Achtung Baby, since U2 had truly touched the sun. Most of my contemporaries and I feel that, like REM, U2 would always be one of our favorite bands from college and our 20s but that, you know, maybe the gas tank was empty.

And then this. U2 is the most Catholic and also the most catholic band in the world, and this song is their offertory. No U2 song, in lyrics or melody, better embodies their approach to their fellow congregants. When Bono sings, “It’s a beautiful day” is when I hear “Hosanna in the highest.”

Also, the band never gets enough credit for its videos, but this one is just phenomenal. I don’t know how they did that with the plane and the runway (I’m sure you can Google it; was it real or green-screen?) at Charles de Gaulle Airport outside Paris.

Mostly, this song is just an affirmation that U2 had something to offer on the other side of the millennium. Few bands come out with a song this energized in the third decade of their existence.

p.s. Every day is a beautiful day.

  1. With Or Without You

The Joshua Tree, 1987

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmSdTa9kaiQ

In March of 1987 U2 released The Joshua Tree and there was just a general sense that they were about to be the biggest band in the world. The video for the first single was going to have a WORLD PREMIERE on NBC’s Friday Night Videos. My friends had departed for spring break, but as I was studying for the MCATs, I’d chosen to stay behind to study.

In the basement of Dillon Hall, I watched the video for the first time, all alone, at midnight. I put down my Biology book and paid close attention: Does Bono have a ponytail? Is that guitar just a prop? Etc.

It’s not U2’s greatest song, but the way it slowly builds to an orgasmic climax, like a 50-foot wave crashing (or like, well, you know…) is only part of its charm. Some songs just come along at the right point in your life and offer inspiration. This one nudged me into thinking that it’s better to do something you love doing and feel that much passion for than doing what you think you’re supposed to do. I realized that my studious approach to being pre-med was just a matter of running to stand still…

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed…

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 5 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

1. 20!

In Melbourne, Roger Federer beats Marin Cilic in five sets to win the Australian Open and his 20th Grand Slam title. Federer, 36, has now won three of the past five Grand Slam titles, with 31 year-old Rafael Nadal winning the other two. Those two men are the top two all-time in GS singles wins with 20 and 16.

Since the start of 2004, Federer, Rafael Nadal (16 Grand Slams) and Novak Djokovic (12) have combined to win 47 of the 57 Grand Slam singles titles. A triumvirate of tennis greats.

2. Mars Attacks!

Album of the Year: 24K Magic.

Record of the Year: 24K Magic.

Best R&B Album: 24K Magic.

Song of the Year: That’s What I Like.

Best R&B Song: That’s What I Like.

Best R&B Performance: That’s What I Like.

At the 60th Grammy Awards at Madison Square Garden, Hawaiian native Bruno Mars stole the show, winning six awards. I don’t know who killed rock and roll, but last night Bruno killed hip-hop.

3. Eau No!*

*The judges will not accept “The Shape of Water”

In Paris, the floods are in Seine! The famous river has surged to a peak of more than 19 feet and your Evian water may be a little brown this spring.

4. Wynn Loss

After becoming the latest rat bastard outed as a sexual harasser, 76 year-old Steve Wynn steps down at Republican National Committee finance chairman. It’s amazing, isn’t it, that of all the powerful men who’ve been accused of sexual harassment in the past 18 months, that Donald Trump is the only one who was falsely accused. Wynn, for the record, dismissed the claims that the billionaire demanded naked massages and sexual intercourse from employees as “preposterous.” Of course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DZNDEqcSi0

Anyway, you may remember Moe Greene from The Godfather (“You son of a bitch. Do you know who I am? I’m Moe Greene! I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders”), who was loosely based on Bugsy Siegel, the man who built Las Vegas. If that is Siegel’s legacy, then Wynn is the man who saved Las Vegas. Every bit the visionary that Siegel was, Wynn is the man who in the past 30 years made Las Vegas what it is today.

As for Wynn’s transgressions? As someone on CNBC put it on Friday, “It is Sin City, after all.” The good news is that he’s now free to star in Weekend at Bernie’s 3.

5. Hoops Whoops

0-13 for a guy whose best shot is a dunk?

I don’t know if it made SportsCenter (it failed to make the ESPN.com gamer), but Phoenix Suns rookie Josh Jackson shot 0-13 from the field in the team’s Sunday matinee loss at Houston. It’s not the worst shooting performance of all time—Tim Hardaway shot 0-17 in a game in 1991 and Hall of Famer Dennis Johnson shot 0-14 in Game 7 of the 1978 NBA Finals, but each of those dudes were five-time All-Stars. Jackson is a rookie who has had a disappointing season.

Send it in, Jerome! In front of Bill Raftery nearly 30 years to the day later, UVA’s Ty Jerome hit a 3-point dagger to seal the win.

Also worth noting in weekend hoops news: both Duke (by 2 to No. 2 UVA) and North Carolina (in double OT to NC State) lost at home on Saturday. The last time that happened was 1973.

 

 

Music 101

Message In A Bottle

The best song that is also a Nicholas Sparks book title, this 1979 single by The Police was their first No. 1 hit in the UK.

Remote Patrol

A Futile And Stupid Gesture

Netflix

Do you know the story of Doug Kenney (played by Will Forte, left)? I did not. Kenney and his Harvard Lampoon pal Henry Beard (Domnhall Gleeson in a shagadelic wig, right) parlayed success at the Lampoon—they wrote a satire J.R.R. Tolkien tribute called Bored of the Rings—into the foolish courage to launch a magazine start-up, National Lampoon.

Kenny would go on to write two comedy classics, Animal House and Caddyshack, before a tragic and arguably accidental death in Hawaii at the age of 33. He actually was colossally wrecked over the “failure” of the latter film, as Airplane! was released three weeks earlier and got all the pub in that summer of ’80.

It’s a biopic, but it’s also delightfully silly: it ends with a food fight at a wake. And if that middle-aged blonde leading the studio tour near the end of the film looks familiar, that’s because she is: Martha Smith, who played Babs Jensen in Animal House.