Monthly Archives: March 2018

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 6 Comments

by John Walters

 Note: Put in your team for our knockout pool in the comments section!!!!

Tweet du Jour

 

Why do all the pro-gun nuts remind us of Biff from Back To The Future?

Starting Five

For 17 minutes, in memory of the 17 murdered, students sat with their backs to the White House

March Sanity

And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They’re quite aware of what they’re going through

–David Bowie (who once organized a student movement as a teen to support those with long hair)

On the one-month anniversary of Parkland, students nationwide walked out of their high schools yesterday to protest inaction on gun violence in government. “We have grown up watching more tragedies occur and continuously asking: Why?” said Kaylee Tyner, a 16-year-old junior at Columbine High School outside Denver, where 13 people were killed in 1999, inaugurating, in the public consciousness, the era of school shootings. “Why does this keep happening?”

Last night MH tuned in to Fox News just long enough to hear Cucker Tarlson denounce the students, of course, reminding them that they are not yet old enough to vote (some are) so that, in Cucker’s view, they have no right to be political. Or apparently to exercise their First Amendment rights. This is how lame the arguments have gotten in defense of the NRA.

The good news is that no one shot any of the students who staged or participated in the walkout. Meanwhile in Seaside, California…

2. A Good Guy With A Gun!

While giving a SAFETY demonstration to a class at Seaside High School, teacher and reserve police officer Dennis Alexander told the class he was just going to check to confirm that his gun wasn’t loaded and, guess what? It was.

Alexander was pointing the gun at the ceiling, and fortunately there was only one minor injury: a student had a bullet fragment lodged into his neck when it fell as a debris. Now, multiply the number of “safety demonstrations” by 500 or 5,000 and, as MH predicted a month ago, you’ll have far more “accidents” leading to fatalities.

Guns in schools is insanity.

3. Upstate New York 2, Pac-12 0

Jim Rat

After two days in Dayton, UCLA and Arizona State are out of the NCAAs while St. Bonaventure and Syracuse, respectively, advance. The Pac-12 has one remaining team in the tourney (Arizona), even though ESPN pronounced its coach’s career as finito a few weeks back.

The good news is that the Pac-12 is 5-0 in the NIT right now.

The only thing worse than the Pac-12’s performance in Dayton is the committee’s decision to make the Wildcats a No. 4 seed. They’re going to likely play Kentucky and then Virginia just to get out of their region. U of A-UVA is a de facto Final Four contest, if not a national championship-caliber game.

4. Hello, Larry

Trump taps CNBC analysts and guy-who-talks-as-if-he-has-a-separate-room-just-for-his-monogrammed-cufflinks Larry Kudlow to replace Gary Cohn as his chief economic advisor. Kudlow, 70, has been married three times and is a recovering cocaine addict, so maybe CNBC is not sending us their best people (we’d do better with Downtown Josh Brown).

Like Cohn, Kudlow is for free trade, tax cuts and a strong dollar, and is Jewish. So you can see why Trump was so eager to pivot from Cohn to Kudlow.

If you’re keeping score at home, Kudlow is a TV personality who had a cocaine problem, as opposed to former ESPN skipper John Skipper, who revealed that cocaine abuse and an extortion plot led to his sudden retirement a few months back.

5. Crowded Isle

The BBC headline blared “World’s Most Densely Populated Isle” and we thought, Manhattan? Hong Kong? Nope. Its Santa Cruz Del Islote, off the northern coast of Colombia. Here, more than 500 people live in 115 houses (have they considered high-rises?) on a spit of land no larger than a soccer field. We would definitely take up snorkeling if we lived here, just for the privacy.

Reserves

Donald Trump, Jr., reportedly headed for divorce. Like father, like son… Fox News host Jesse Watters went to HR and told them he was having an affair with a 25 year-old associate producer on his show: he was not punished, while she was transferred to Laura Ingraham’s show. Does she have any idea the pay day $$$$$ she’d be in for if she raised just the slightest stink? Roger Ailes? Bill O’Reilly? Hello!

Emma DiGiovine…occupied Watters’ World

Music 101

Payphone

Post-millennial stars Maroon 5 know the drill: good-looking, talented lead singer (Adam Levine) and catchy songs with great hooks. This single, which sounds as if it was stolen from Train’s notebook, was released in April of 2012 and shot up to No. 2 on the Billboard charts.

Remote Patrol

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 3 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet du Jour

“Core.” What a maroon.

 

Starting Five

From Exxon to RexGone*

*The judges wish we had thought of this…

As someone tweeted yesterday, “Rex Tillerson successfuly led one of the largest U.S. companies (Exxon), you asked him to leave and come work for you, he bought a house in D.C., moved his family, & you don’t have the decency to call him before you tweet that he’s fired?”

On the same day that Secretary of State Tillerson learned that he’d been fired via tweet, President Trump spoke to a group of Marines and said that his administration is “stacked with Marines because Marines are the kinda people you want at your side — and trust me, you don’t ever want to be on the other side of a fighting Marine; it’s trouble.”

Special prosecutor Bob Mueller is an ex-Marine.

I guess what we’re trying to say is, Is Donald Trump completely immune from karma? Or will it one day bite him in the tush harder than anyone has ever been bitten? The Trump existence/presidency is a litmus test for the Buddhist and Hindu principle and to this point the Eastern religions are getting whacked.

 

There was that, however. The reporter who asked was Kaitlan Collins of CNN.

2. We Are All Made Of Stars

Rest in peace, physicist Stephen Hawking, who died at the age of 76. Long ago we purchased A Brief History of Time and some day we may even read into the second chapter. Or maybe we’ll just rent The Theory of Everything (or own it on Blu-Ray!).

For the last few decades of his life Hawking, who had a rare early-onset and slow-progressing form of ALS, was able to communicate via one cheek muscle that was attached to a speech-generating device.

If you believe in such things, today he is no longer a prisoner of his body and he is playing among the stars he knew so well.

3.  Pass Over

Cousins is one of four QBs signing big deals this week who is not headed to Canton

It’s the first day of NFL free agency, which means quarterbacks are on the move:

Sam Bradford….headed to the Arizona Cardinals.

Case Keenum…off to the Denver Broncos.

Both of those guys began last season with Minnesota, who almost certainly will sign Kirk Cousins, since his latest team, the Washington Redskins, signed Alex Smith.

None of these four have ever taken a snap in a Super Bowl, and yet none is signing for less than a guaranteed $20 million. Times change, of course, but Terry Bradshaw led the Pittsburgh Steelers to four Super Bowl championships in the Seventies and 1980 and never earned more than $470,000 in a season.

4. Incog-Neato!

That woman (are we sure it’s a woman?) in New Hampshire who won $550 million in the Powerball lottery will not be compelled to reveal her identity, a judge ruled. But if you happen to see a woman at a Shaw’s in Laconia or Meredith pay for a Slim Jim with a $100 bill, you may be on to her.

5. Hero In The Darkness

While craven villains such as Devin Nunes get a lot of pub, it’s nice to know that there are people in public service who are willing to pay for truth with their jobs. James Schwab, a spokesman for ICE in San Francisco, resigned, saying that he no longer wished to bear the burden “of spreading falsehoods” for the Trump administration.

You may read the details here. Basically, Schwab disagreed with Attorney General Jeff Sessions

Here’s hoping James Schwab gets a gig with Charles Schwab, or better yet, is a relative.

Reserves

Thomas Welsh, who had 17 points and 17 boards against Arizona on Friday night, had 15 boards but only 2 points vs. the Bonnies

See UCLAter

The Bruins, who came within a makeable three at the buzzer of beating Arizona in the Pac-12 semis Friday night, are ousted in the play-in game by St. Bonaventure. UCLA are the rightful blue bloods of college hoops, with 11 national championships and at least one visit to the Final Four in every decade from the 1960s until…last decade.

With one season left, this would be UCLA’s first Final Four-free decade since the Fifties. On the plus-side, they’re Ball-free forever.

The Bonnies, meanwhile, win their first NCAA tournament game since 1970.

****

Peak Kornacki

 

MSNBC’s resident election-tallying whiz kid and reputed older brother of Harry Potter, Steve Kornacki, was in peak form running the numbers last night during the Pennsylvania special election.

 

Music 101

Last Song

There’s acid rock, and then there’s flaccid rock. This 1972 soft-rock tune by Canadian one-hit wonder Edward Bear (a group, not a dude) shot to No. 1 in the Great White North and went to No. 3 in the States, while also going gold (1 million in sales).

Remote Patrol

Humanity 

Netflix

Ricky Gervais is back with his first special in seven years.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 4 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet du Jour

This…

…followed by….

Starting Five

 

BREAKING!!!!!!

 

“Tyrant Is Sore At Rex” or “REXIT”

The president fires Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. One a week, folks. Trump didn’t even notify him personally. At least on The Apprentice he’d cut people face-to-face. Now it’s like getting a phone call from the receptionist while you’re out doing a challenge with Donny Deutsch.

 

CIA director Mike  Pompeo is expected to replaced Rex, and Gina Haspel is supposed to replace Pompeo.

 

Also, Trump’s personal assistant John McEntee was escorted from the White House yesterday and has reportedly been fired.

A Saturday Night Massacre every week!

  1. Sister Act!

For its “Race” issue, National Geographic profiled 11 year-old twins Marcie and Millie Biggs, and probably got a “Cancel My Subscription!” card from Clay Travis. Oh, well. Their point is that race is just a made-up construct. There’s no real genetic basis in it.

2. See No Evil

“Hello, House of Un-American Activities, have I got a dude for you…”

The Republican-run House Intelligence Committee, overseen by Devin Nunes (R-Cal), has ruled that there was no Russian collusion with President Trump before the election. The HIC basically opened the basement door, looked down the stairs, and asked, “Is anyone hiding down there?” and when no one answered—or maybe they’d been knocked out by a Russian-made military-grade nerve agent—simply concluded that no one must be hiding in the basement. You know…

 

3. Valentine’s Day of Reckoning

Teddy Valentine, one of those celebrity officials, won’t be working the NCAA tournament this March. It’s because of the incident (video here), which happened in early January, when Valentine turned his back on North Carolina’s Joel Berry at the start of a dead-ball timeout. Berry had a legitimate gripe that he wanted to discuss with Valentine and, oh, Berry just happened to be the MOP of last year’s Final Four so maybe you give him the time of day.

We don’t feel sorry for Valentine. The world doesn’t need arrogant referees; just impartial and conscientious ones.

And, yes, the MH Knockout Pool will commence on Thursday morning, but you may send your Day 1 Pick (in the comment section) as soon as you like. Remember: You pick one team per day beginning Thursday and you cannot use the same school twice. Last one alive gets the $100 pool.

4. Conductor Unbecoming*

Levine overcompensated for his tiny baton….

*The judges will not accept “Oh, Maestro” or “Aria You Kidding Me?”

Like something out of an Italian verismo, the Metropolitan Opera fired music director emeritus James Levine, 74, yesterday. Levine was canned after an investigation found credible evidence of continued sexual abuse and harassment of vulnerable talent in the early stages of their careers. The Met interviewed at least 70 people before concluding its investigation.

Levine had been artistic or music director at the Met from 1976 until 2016, so that’s potentially 40 years of grabbin’ ’em by the Puccini. Stay tuned for more stories to emerge.

5. East River Tragedy

Five people perished—only the pilot survived—when this helicopter ditched in the East River south of the U.N., near Stuyvesant Town, on Sunday. All the victims were between 26 and 34.

The pilot, Richard Vance, told investigators that a passenger’s bag may have inadvertently hit the emergency fuel shutoff button. But that’s unlikely.

Meanwhile, this was a doors-off flight that allows passengers to take cool Instagram-ready pics but is a recipe for catastrophe when the flight, which landed softly enough for all passengers to survive, goes down. The passengers were unable to free themselves from the harnesses, the helicopter turned upside down, there was likely plenty of PANIC, and the upside-down craft drifted 50 blocks in the cold, swift current. Everyone likely drowned while strapped into their harnesses.

Just awful.

Music 101

Tea For The Tillerman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHlo_N34vuo

The closing track off the eponymous 1970 album that The Village Voice gave a B-minus. Related: The Village Voice is no longer around. You may recognize this 61-second ditty as the theme song from “Extras,” in which case, good for you cuz you know quality.

Remote Patrol

NIT: Hampton at Notre Dame

9 p.m. ESPN

Is it bedtime for Bonzie? We hope not. Oh sure, go ahead and watch the play-in game if you must. We’ll watch the Irish try to get to .600 on the season.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 8 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet du Jour

 

versus…

 

Starting Five

Bahamas native DeAndre Ayton: The best Caribbean big man since Tim Duncan

Let’s Dance

One seeds are Virginia, Villanova, Kansas and Xavier.

Just missed, or “snubbed”: USC, Louisville, Oklahoma State, Baylor, Notre Dame.

Schools that screwed them: San Diego State, Davidson (by winning conference tourneys).

Happy/Surprised to be in: Oklahoma, Syracuse, Arizona State, UCLA

Toughest Bracket? People gonna say Midwest (Kansas/Duke/Michigan State) but I’ll go with West, where Xavier is a tenuous 1 Seed having to share bracket with North Carolina, Michigan and Gonzaga.

MH Final Four picks: Arizona, West Virginia, Duke, North Carolina.

2. Tiger Tough

At the Valspar Open in Florida, Tiger Woods flirted briefly atop the leader board and finished in second place, one stroke back. A 50-foot putt on 17 on Sunday made it possible for the winner of 14 majors, who last won a tourney five years ago, to force a playoff with a birdie on 18. Alas, he shot par.

But the first round of the Masters will be must-see TV next month…

3. Oral Exam

 

One can imagine Betsy DeVos’ inner monologue during this exchange be like, “Nobody told me this would be on the test.”

4. The Next Bold Step of Fascism

He’s actually even uglier on the inside

Speaking to a crowd in France, former White House—what was his job title, anyway?—resident white supremacist Steve Bannon exhorts them, “Let them call you racists. Let them call you xenophobes. Let them call you nativists. Wear it as a badge of honor.”

5. You Go, Girl!

 

That’s Harvard junior Gabrielle “Gabby” Thomas setting a new collegiate indoor 200 record (22.38) while winning the indoor national championship this weekend. Yes, Harvard. Hot damn!

Music 101

Mirror Man

After returning from their 1981 world tour to promote breakout No. 1 hit (in the U.K.) “Don’t You Want Me”,  The Human League returned home to the British Isles and followed up with this No. 2 in 1982. More than a decade letter the band would confess that the song was about their contemporary, Adam Ant, about whom they feared (rightly) success had gone to his head.

Remote Patrol

Charlie Wilson’s War

9:35 p.m. TMC (not TCM)

We’d argue that this 2007 film is Tom Hanks’ last great role, and that Philip Seymour Hoffman definitely should’ve won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for the work he did here as the son of a soda pop salesman from Aliquippa, Pa. This was director Mike Nichols’ final film and the reason the script zips and zaps so well is because Aaron Sorkin wrote it. If you’ve never seen this, it’s from the same era as Argo and so much more deserving of a Best Picture Oscar. Never understood how this was so overlooked.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet du Jour

 

Starting Five

Let’s Get Together!

North Korea and “Little Rocket Man” invites frenemy-in-chief Donald Trump to meet. The White House accepts. Time and place to be determined. This is beginning to look a little too much like the plot of The Parent Trap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1IyrZZQd0g

Where will these two meet, and will Dennis Rodman be in the room?

2. Bodacious Bagley in Brooklyn

In the ACC quarters, Marvin Bagley III put up a dominant and mesmerizing 33 points and 17 boards in Duke’s 88-70 shushing of Notre Dame. What stood out about the 6’10” freshman from Tempe, Arizona, is his soft touch and his ability to either shoot the three or create off the dribble. But mostly the soft touch. Here’s your No. 1 overall draft pick, NBA fans.

Astonishing stat from ESPN’s Dan Schulman: In the Mike Krzyzewski era a player has gone for at least 30 points and 15 rebounds five times. Once it was Christian Laettner. The other four times it’s been Marvin Bagley III. Again, he’s a FRESHMAN.

3. Crosson The Finish Line*

*The judges thank unpaid stringer @okerland for the tip and will accept “First Place In her First Race” (Does this fulfill our International Women’s Day mandate?)

Finishing your first marathon is quite the feat of feet. But winning your first marathon? That’s what 19 year-old Casey Crosson did at the Napa Valley Marathon last Sunday, crossing the finish line as the women’s champion in 2:50:49.

Crosson, a Los Angeles-area native who is a freshman at Vanderbilt in Nashville, flew home for spring break, then drove seven hours north to wine country to compete. A cross-country standout in high school, she nevertheless apparently lacked the chops to compete for the Commodores in track, so at the ripe old age of teenager has turned her attention to the 26.2-mile distance. So far, so good.

4. The Odd Couple

Retread Oakland/New Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden and his boss, owner Mark Davis, take in a Warriors game. “I’m not sure those colors work on you, big guy.”

5. And Now A Quick Word About Evolution

Hell yeah we’re related

Apropos of nothing, other than a thought we had earlier this week: Let’s imagine that you’re 60 years old and you flat-out don’t believe in evolution because there’s no way, looking at man, that you are able to connect the dots between yourself and, say, an orangutan (even though we now know orangutans know how to smoke).

Consider this: Look at a picture of yourself at age 60 and a picture of yourself at age 3. Can you see any similarity between the two creatures? Other than that you both have the same body parts? Just consider the MASSIVE transformation that has taken place in one organism over the span of less than six decades.

Now, think about this: primates began around 75 million years ago, while anatomically modern humans began around 300,000 years ago. Now imagine that the furthest memory we have of man is when man first began those 300,000 years ago (even though recorded history is less than 10,000 years ago, but we’ll be generous and go with 300,000 years).

Ron Howard as a lad, age 8, in The Music Man

So, if the 3 year-old in this analogy is the primate and the 60 year-old modern man, imagine being the 60 year-old and having no memory of your existence, no proof of it, dating back to more than two months earlier. Because that’s the parallel between 300,000 years and 75 million years.

You have no proof or memory of your existence before New Year’s Day 2018 and yet people are showing you photographs of yourself at age 3 (or age 13) and telling you that not only are you related to that person, you ARE that person. And you are.

And Ron Howard age 63

That’s evolution.

The reason the average person cannot understand evolution is because they cannot appreciate time and how much of it has passed. And it’s just easier to believe a story about God putting the planet together in six days.

Evolution does not prove that God does not exist. It only proves that if God does exist, He is extremely patient.

Reserves

Juliet Macur of The New York Times on opioids, a small Indiana town and a high school football coach. A terrific read.

As The Daily Beast releases yet another taped conversation of a Newsweek editorial meeting, Newsweek‘s own talented and whimsical Zach Schonfeld interviews Bob Woodward about Watergate, investigative journalism, and his own employer.

Music 101

The Invisible Man

In the late Seventies and early Eighties Elvis Costello and the Attractions put out a slew of fantastic songs, too many of which were ignored by mainstream radio in favor of crap from the likes of .38 Special and Loverboy. This is one such song. From 1983.

Remote Patrol

SUNDAY

NCAA Selection Show

6 p.m. TBS

Trae Young led Division I in Scoring and Assists as a freshman and may be relegated to the NIT. Most likely.

Remember, it’s in alphabetical order first, so don’t freak out, Villanova and Xavier fans. One of both of you will likely be a No. 1 seed. Interesting bubble questions: Arizona State, Notre Dame, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.