Monthly Archives: April 2018

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 4 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet du Jour

 

Starting Five

Marked Man*

*The judges will also accept “What The Zuck!”

“Senator, we run ads” –Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg went to Capitol Hill yesterday and answered questions from the Commerce Committee. The Zuck began by stating, in part, “It was my mistake, and I’m sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here.”

The key moment was when Senator Orrin Hatch, I believe, rhetorically asked The Zuck how Facebook makes money if they don’t charge people to be on it. And The Zuck gave the above reply, which is basically the line Aaron Sorkin would have written if they let him script this day.

Woody Allen in “Sleeper.” Separated at mirth….

Senator Lindsey Graham delivered the nastiest punch, though, asking The Zuck who Facebook’s biggest competitor is. After a minute or so The Zuck really hadn’t named anyone which, as NBC’s Kasie Hunt tweeted…

 

Meanwhile, a reminder that notorious anti-tech activist (and murderer) Ted Kaczynski and Mark Zuckerberg both attended Harvard. And only one of them graduated.

But here’s what we don’t get: Why is Zuckerberg in Washington, D.C., and what does he have to apologize for? When you choose to have a profile on Facebook, if you don’t recognize that your information is their product, is what makes them such a hugely profitable company, then you’re an idiot. And if they sell that information to a third party who then uses it to target you with fake news and you BELIEVE that fake news, guess what? You’re an idiot again.

Zuckerberg is not an idiot. He’s a highly intelligent and enterprising young man who created a platform that, for better and for worse (usually for worse), has changed the world. And the “for worse” aspect is because too many of the people using Facebook are indulging themselves in self-glorification, which once more is not Zuckerberg’s fault (just because Thomas Edison harnessed electricity is no reason to blame him for autotune).

It’s almost as if Congress wanted to find a scapegoat for the fact that Donald Trump was elected. Why not publicly denounce Cambridge Analytica or better yet the Trump campaign, which deployed them? If PRIVACY is your big concern, let’s abolish most of the Patriot Act. And get rid of government contracts to the types of places where Edward Snowden worked. This was no less of a grandstanding dog-and-pony show than what was taking place simultaneously yesterday afternoon: President Trump hosting Alabama on the South Lawn.

UPDATE: In all this talk about Facebook and privacy, CBS This Morning ended its coverage of the Zuckerberg appearance on Capitol Hill by noting that a photographer had been able to snap a shot of Zuckerberg’s notes, and then detailed what a few of the messages on that page of paper said.

Read this piece by Andrew Ross Sorkin in The New York Times. He sorta nails it: we don’t, by and large, care that our privacy is being sacrificed.

2. Jian Yiang!

I mean, of course he’s credible

You have to wonder where the line between T.J. Miller ends and his reckless alter-ego from Silicon Valley, Erlich Bachman, begins. Yesterday Miller was arrested at LaGuardia Airport after allegedly phoning in a bomb threat to Amtrak about a train en route from Washington, D.C. to New York City.

Details: the incident in question actually occurred more than three weeks ago. Miller, who was riding on Amtrak 2258, made an emergency call about Amtrak 2256. The latter train was evacuated; then when authorities realized Miller was on 2258, they evacuated that, too. There was no bomb, but Miller himself was bombed (intoxicated) and perhaps his behavior was off the rails.

3. Pep Talk

It was a wild Wednesday, or as editors at SI used to write, a “wacky” Wednesday, in Champions League play. Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola (far left) was sent off after expressing some halftime vitriol to the referee and had to watch the second half of his side’s 2-1 defeat from the stands. How often does that happen?

What got under Pep’s skin? A disallowed goal that would have put Man City up 2-0 at half. They’d lost the first leg 3-0 so they needed to win 3-0 just to force extra time (yes, I write this stuff just sort of to explain soccer rules to myself; I’m learning as I go).

 

Man City may clinch the English Premier League this weekend, the earliest in terms of number of matches remaining (5) that any club ever has, and they’d be doing it against their rival, Manchester United in the derby. But they’re out of the Champions League.

So too is F.C. Barcelona, who lost at A.S. Roma yesterday. Barca has won five Champions League titles in the past dozen years, but Lionel Messi and amigos are out. Barca had won at their home 4-1 but lost 3-0 in Rome last night. By aggregate goals the teams were even, 4-4, but A.S. Roma won the tiebreaker: away goals.

Finally, the top player in both the English Premier League and the Champions League this season is an Egyptian prince: Mohamed Salah. In his first season with Liverpool, the 25 year-old striker is leading the EPL in goals (29) and yesterday he scored his eighth goal of the Champions League tournament in Liverpool’s 2-1 win versus Man City.

4. The Elememt of Surprise

Donald Trump five years ago….

 

Donald Trump this morning…

 


Meanwhile, President Trump is testing the waters to see if he’ll be able to get away with firing Robert Mueller. As congressman Trey Gowdy (R) recently said, “If you’re innocent, act like it.”

I think that Amtrak train has already sailed, Trey.

You can jump right to the 6:24 mark of Saturday Night Live‘s Baltic States cold open last weekend. It’s blunt and the most candid assessment of Trump you’ll hear.

5. Oh, The Places She’s Gone

Let’s check in on Jada Yuan, the writer who was selected to be The New York Times “52 Places” traveler and chronicler for 2018. We mistakenly assumed she’d hit all 52 spots and nearly kill herself doing so, but the editors at the NYT have given her a somewhat more manageable schedule (as opposed to our old college football editors at SI, who’d dispatch us to a different locale for 16 consecutive weekends; thank God all the sacrifice turned out to be worth it…. (: ).

This week Yuan is in Bogota, Colombia. Thus far in 2018 she has sent dispatches from (deep breath) New Orleans, Chattanooga, Montgomery (again, I covered those three spots in my first 3 weeks covering the SEC for SI), Disney Springs (Fla.), Trinidad and Saint Lucia, San Juan and Costa Rica.

Are they ever going to let Yuan out of this hemisphere? She’s probably wondering the same thing. And will she cover the Iron Bowl this November?

The Times says that Yuan will be traveling to every spot on its “52 Places To Visit in 2018” list. Either she’d better kick it into gear or we’re just going to assume she’s not obliged to write about all of them.

Music 101

Running On Empty

If you were to request a song that came along during and also embodies Peak ’70’s mood, this Jackson Browne classic would be my answer. Although it never went to No. 1 after being released in August of 1977, it remained on the chart for 17 weeks. The Bicentennial was still a fresh memory and the Iran hostage crisis was still a couple years off; Charlie’s Angels and Three’s Company were hits; and the New York Yankees were about to win the World Series, Notre Dame was going to win the national championship abetted by a former backup named Joe Montana, and the Dallas Cowboys were going to win the Super Bowl. Okay, so maybe it was MY Peak ’70’s mood.

Remote Patrol

Real Madrid vs. Juventus

2:30 p.m. FS1

Yes, Gareth Bale is still alive

Juventus travels to Madrid, down 3-0 after the first leg against the two-time defending Champions League champs. As that kidnapper dismissively said to Liam Neeson, “Good luck.”

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by John Walters

Tweet du Jour

 

 

Starting Five

The fixer appears to be broken

Cohen Feds

“Says who?”

“This warrant.”

“Says who?”

 “This warrant—I answered your question—from the U.S. Attorney’s office, Southern District.”

Trump lawyer/fixer Michael Clayton Cohen, whom we first met nearly two years ago versus this classic exchange…

…is now in some serious scalding liquid. Last Thursday aboard Air Force One his boss, Donald Trump, told reporters, “You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen.” And the Special Prosecutor, Robert Mueller, thought, Great suggestion but we’ll do you one better: we’ll seize his documents and emails going back years, and so the FBI raided Cohen’s office and hotel quarters.

Trump, predictably, is furious, calling the raids a “disgrace” and that “it’s an attack on our country…an attack on what we all stand for.” Weeeeelllllllllll, I don’t know about that, Donald. It may be an attack on your Corleone-like empire, but we’ll see if the Feds do better this time around than they did in The Godfather Part 2.

Trump Tower: Where there’s smoke, there’s “You’re Fired!”

We suspect Trump is not much of a chess player, but Mueller just put him in check and also cut off Trump’s most obvious escape move. He’s going to have to sacrifice more than a pawn this time to stay alive. Does Trump “fire” Mueller, or more pertinent, does he fire Rod Rosenstein for not firing Mueller? If one or both go, do we go full-scale authoritarian dictatorship with Trump donning the Qaddhafi-style military uniform, or do we just let Putin run the country from afar (as if he hasn’t been for months now)?

It may be time to go back and re-watch Michael Clayton. In that film the fixer belatedly discovers his integrity.

How close are we to the entire government being run by Long Island goombahs who all were raised within 20 minutes of the Roosevelt Field Mall? Will Sean Hannity ever appear on “Mean Tweets”? How’s the cyber-bullying campaign going? And does the Trump Hotel employee handbook actually include a directive to supervisors that they not hire their own relatives? Ba ha ha ha ha ha.

2. Chicago: Opening Day

The Chicago Cubs played their first nine game away from home, which sounded like a good idea because you want to avoid that capricious and often cruel early April weather. But if you know Chicago, you know that Mother Nature is going to take her shots and you can’t do anything about it. Yesterday’s Wrigley Field opener against the Pittsburgh Pirates was snowed out.

The White Sox, who already had played three games at home, weren’t afraid of a little white substance and played on, losing to the Tampa Bay Raymonds at U.S. Cellular Field. The Sawx have won as many home games (zero, in four tries) as the Cubs to this point in the season.

3. Patriots Daze

Flanagan broke the tape in Central Park last November

In 1983, American-born runners won both the male and female divisions of the Boston Marathon. That hasn’t happened in either division since.

For the first time in 35 years, there is both a male and female American running in Monday’s Boston Marathon who should draw your interest. On the distaff side, reigning NYC Marathon champ Shalane Flanagan, a Massachusetts native, will seek to cap off a brilliant career with a victory. Flanagan, 36, earned a silver medal in the 10,000 meters in the Beijing Olympics and is immensely popular with both fans and her peers.

Then on the men’s side there’s Galen Rupp, arguably the greatest native-born American distance runner ever. A bronze medalist in the 2016 Olympic marathon, Rupp finished second in Boston last April. And he won the Chicago Marathon last October. But accusations of blood doping and other shenanigans via his coach Alberto Salazar (the 1982 Boston Marathon champ) and the Nike Oregon Project, have dogged him for a few years now. Here’s what a high-level running coach, who wished to remain anonymous, told LetsRun.com about Rupp a couple days ago:

Salazar (left) and Rupp have found glory together while alienating many other Americans in the running community

“Honestly, I couldn’t give a shit. The approach and all of the nonsense that the Nike Oregon Project has been up to, it just leaves such a bad taste in my mouth that I couldn’t care less. … No, I’m not [rooting for Galen Rupp]. I’m rooting for anybody but [him], to be honest. Listen, I respect Galen. He’s got a lot of courage, he races with a lot of courage. And I respect that they’re willing to push to the limits of every single thing you do in life to get there. [But] number one, that’s never been my approach. And number two, from what I’ve read to this point, facts that I’ve read to this point, I don’t believe they’re doing it on the right side of the line.”

4. Low Post

This is the Denver Post. That is not Coors Field, where the Colorade Rockies play, but in fact Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. Swing and a miss. This is what happens when a private equity firm purchases a newspaper and immediately guts its staff. The Denver Post, though profitable, is owned by Alden Global Capital, whose president, Heath Freeman, appears determined to undermine its mission: to keep its readers informed.

How bad is it? Someone wrote a scathing editorial on Freeman that appeared in…The Denver Post.

5. Silo, Uh-Oh!

Vordingborg, Denmark. Silo implosion. Physics is hard.

Reserves

A Closer Look At Seth Meyers’ Wife Giving Birth In Their Lobby

So this happened.

Did they name the boy Doorman?

Music 101 

When I Fall In Love

I mean, Nat King Cole. Has there ever been a better voice than his? Born in Montgomery, Ala., in 1919. He was not the first to record this tune, written in 1952, just the best (his version came out in 1956). Decades later Rick Astley covered this song because he has no shame.

Remote Patrol

Point Break

11 p.m. AMC

Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze, John C. McGinley, Gary Busey, Lori Petty and even Anthony Kiedis. Nobody puts Bodhi in a corner.

or

Zuckerberg Testifies

2:15 p.m. Cable News Networks

Al altogether different kind of Facebook Live event…

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

For news on the Humboldt hockey crash, read this report by Moose from yesterday.

Tweet du Jour

 

It may just be a coincidence, but the film Wall Street was released in 1987. They all became Gordon Gekko.

Starting Five

The Champion Nobody Likes

Yesterday, Pat Reed, 27, won his first major, The Masters. His parents, who live in Augusta, watched from home with his sister. He has not spoken to them in years and in fact, the last time they attended a major and attempted to follow him, they were escorted from the grounds. SI’s/Golf.com’s Alan Shipnuck details the family rift.

Rory, Saturday, in bloom.

Reed, who was expelled from Georgia and the led Augusta State to a pair of national championships, finished at 15-under. Rickie Fowler finished -14 under. Jordan Spieth shot  an 8-under in the final round and almost made up the entire 9-shot deficit when Sunday began, but finished at 13-under. Rory McIlroy, who began the day three shots back but shot a 2-over on Sunday to finish 9-under, is still seeking his first Masters.

2. Chappaquiddick

We haven’t seen Black Panther yet (Wakanda fools you think we are?!?), so the best film of 2018 that we have seen is Chappaquiddick. Better, in our opinion, than any Oscar-nominated film from 2017.

If you’ve seen Zodiac, there are a few similarities you should recognize: based on actual events; it opens on a fateful evening in the summer of 1969; a guy and a girl go for a drive; she ends up dead. Director John Curran must be a fan of David Fincher’s, as there’s a memorable ground-up shot of Senator Ted Kennedy’s car, as the youngest Kennedy brother and the ill-fated Mary Jo Kopechne sit on the front hood, that is eerily reminiscent of Zodiac.

If you are like us, you probably are vaguely familiar with the events surrounding Kopechne’s death but are no scholar. Curran’s film fills in the details and portrays Kennedy, who passed away in 2009, as a somewhat sympathetic but ultimately craven figure. As Owen Glieberman calls him in this excellent review in Variety, a “weasel.”

Chappaquiddick: Bridge over troubled water

Jason Clarke, who is Australian and was born one day before this event took place (July 18, 1969) is Oscar-worthy here. It helps that he’s not so famous that you think of the actor instead of the character (one of many reasons we never bought Woody Harrelson as LBJ). Bruce Dern, as stroke-addled octogenarian patriarch Joe Kennedy, is chilling. What stands out, though, is how authentic it all feels: it’s the summer of ’69 in Martha’s Vineyard and a carefree beach party, a salve on the still-fresh wound of RFK’s assassination 13 months earlier, becomes yet another Kennedy-associated tragedy (Note: almost 30 years to the day later, John F. Kennedy, Jr. would perish in a plane crash a few miles west of Martha’s Vineyard).

“Better Ted Than Dead” would have been a cold presidential campaign slogan

This Op-Ed that ran in The New York Times last Thursday, refuting the validity of the film, is pathetic. First, the author, Neil Gabler, is working on a biography of Senator Kennedy, who passed away in 2009. Worse, his essay never does what he claims that it will do: illustrate that the film “distorts” the tragedy. In fact, the film never sensationalizes it and is extremely meticulous in terms of telling the story. What it never does, what no one has ever adequately explained, is how Kennedy was able to extricate himself from the vehicle once it went off the bridge and yet Kopechne was trapped (with an air pocket, which suggests that all the windows were closed; that detail died with the senator, who always claimed that he had no idea how he came to find himself outside the car).

Ultimately, Chappaquiddick is not only the big-screen portrayal of a tragic and unnecessary death—Kennedy left the scene of the accident and there is compelling evidence that Kopechne was alive in that car for hours, that she did not drown but did in fact suffocate—but of how men in power will break every possible rule they are sworn to enforce in order to remain in power.

By the way, Ed Helms is fantastic as Teddy’s ethically ill-at-ease fixer, Joe Gargan. And pay attention to the one line in the entire film that is given to Kennedy’s wife, Joan (Andria Blackman). It pretty much sums up the way we felt about Teddy by the end of the movie.

3. SNL Hits

Saturday night’s episode with guest host Chadwick Boseman (Black Panther) took the well-worn Black Jeopardy sketch and made it fresh. Stick around for Kenan Thompson’s final line, which is a great commentary on gentrification (have you been to central Harlem lately?).

And this parody commercial on a DACA-inspired version of the game of Life was obviously written by someone born before 1980 but was giggles aplenty. Why did they bury it in the show’s final 15 minutes?

p.s. We’re old and white so we don’t get what all the Cardi B. fuss is about.

4. A Noble Project

The young man on the right is Rishi Sharma, 20. When he was still in high school in southern California he began interviewing World War II veterans. “It’s amazing how much history and knowledge is encased in each one of these individuals and how much is lost when one of them dies without sharing their story,” Sharma has said. “The fact is I wake up every day to obituaries, guys who I wanted to interview and I have to find out they died.”

Two years later Sharma is still interviewing World War II vets, traveling all over the country doing so. He has interviewed 870 or so of them, making a video of their talk and giving a copy to each vet or his family. This is a priceless undertaking and Sharma, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from India, appears to be doing it all out of sincere gratitude.

This will be a movie some day. Count on it.

5. Towering Inferno

A Saturday fire at Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue between 57th-56th Streets leaves one older male resident (don’t get your hopes up) dead. While the president tweeted that it is a “well built building” the Fake Liberal News media are reporting that Trump actively lobbied against sprinklers being installed in his high-rises (this one didn’t have one). Trump’s logic was that iIf you look at the fire deaths in New York, almost all of them are in one-or two-family houses,” which conveniently ignores that more people live in such structures than in high rises and, secondly, may not even be true.

Reserves

The Shohei Kid?

Baseball!

—Shohei Ohtani, in his second Major League start, becomes the only other pitcher in Angels franchise history besides Nolan Ryan to allow one hit while garnering 12 strikeouts in at least seven innings of work.

—Giancarlo Stanton goes 0-for-7 with another Fun Run (5 Ks). The 2017 NL MVP becomes the first player in the modern era to strike out five times in a game TWICE in one season and it’s only April 9th. Stanton either needs an optometrist, a psychiatrist or temps above 50 degrees. The Yanks, down 8-7 to the Orioles in the bottom of the 12th, had bases loaded and no outs with Aaron Judge and Stanton coming to the plate. They lost.


–The Padres lose to the Astros on a walk-off infield fly right in front of home plate (Rule No. 7)

Awaken The Misogynist Within

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74YILhy4RgE

Tony oh no! The words, they’re coming right out of your mouth, and you’re speaking them, in public, like a complete and total idiot. Men.

Watch the very beginning as she begins to speak and then he interrupts her immediately. Mansplaining 101.

At the end of this March 15 exchange, Robbins tells the woman who dared to challenge him, Nanine McCool, “”I’m not gonna be inauthentic and say I’m sorry about something I’m not sorry about.”

So today, of course, he’s apologizing. No one’s buying it, Tony. Including the founder of the #MeToo movement, Tarana Burke, who claims that Robbins’ reps reached out to her this past weekend: “They wanted to ‘give me context’ apparently,” she said. “I don’t need any. I have eyes.”

Florida Woman

Thank you, life.

She was arrested and her name is Crystal Metheny…

Music 101

Feel Like Makin’ Love

The British supergroup Bad Company was formed from the entrails of Free, King Crimson and Mott the Hoople. Their manager, Peter Grant, also managed Led Zeppelin and you can see a brotherhood in their affinity for tasty power chords. This tune shot to No. 10 in 1975 and will survive as long as classic rock FM radio stations do.

Remote Patrol

TCM Fest

8 p.m. Sunset Boulevard

10 p.m. Stalag 17

12:15 a.m. The Bridge On The River Kwai

Leading man

What do these three films that won a combined 11 Oscars have in common? William Holden in the leading man role. Holden won a Best Actor Oscar for the German POW film role, which is the only film of the three in which his character survives (in the other two, he dies in water).

Tragedy in Saskatchewan

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by Moose

Canada and hockey are like peanut butter and jam, gin and tonic (or more likely rye and Coke), pins and needles, Batman and Robin. Canada ranks first in the world with registered hockey players. The stats show that one in 55 Canadians plays hockey on some kind of registered team. That doesn’t include school teams or the hundreds of social leagues – the local 50-year-old lawyers squaring off against the local 50-year-old teachers at 1 a.m. because it’s the only available ice time. Canadians do not go gently into the good night where hockey is concerned. We just are not that good at hanging up the skates.

Across Canada, there are thousands of buses full of hockey players travelling to and from games everyday. For the towns they visit, they are the biggest ticket around. There are as many hockey parents as there are billet hockey parents, who take a player into their homes so they can play on a team far from where they came from.

For most Canadians there is something magical about the sound of the blade hitting clean ice and gliding away. It signals the beginning of a game that could be between 8 year olds or 80 year olds. It matters little to us. It’s still hockey.

The Humboldt Broncos are part of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League and will proudly tell you they have been the launching pad for six NHLers. Humboldt boasts a population of 6,000. The team is made up of kids from Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Friday night, players and coaches of the Humboldt Broncos, plus the local radio host were aboard one of those hundreds of team buses that criss-cross the country every day. They were headed to Nipawin, Saskatchewan, for game 5 of the semifinals. The players, 16-21, would have been napping, listening to music, playing cards, joking around, or visualizing the game ahead. They would all have been dreaming of playing in the NHL. Ask most NHLers and they will tell you that some of their best times were spent on bus rides just like this one. Toronto Maple Leaf Morgan Reilly said, “Even for me, my best memories are riding the bus, and doing what junior hockey players do: Talking, playing cards, watching movies.”

It was was around 5 p.m. and, after many hours on the bus, they were getting close to their destination. As they passed through the intersection of two remote highways, their bus collided with a semi-trailer truck. When the dust cleared the team bus was crushed in the front and the roof looked as if it had been removed by a can opener. The wreckage littered the ground, horrifying against the contrast of the iconic blue Saskatchewan sky. Fifteen of the 29 aboard were dead. The remaining 14 were rushed to the hospital, some by helicopter, where 3 are still in critical condition. The head coach, the team captain, the local radio host are among the dead.

Like all tragedies, it’s hard to comprehend, hard to wrap your head around the loss and there are no answers to the question why.

The local arena and church was filled with families and billet families alike, waiting to hear any news. Locals, are opening their homes for those that need a place to stay, a shower, some quiet. The town hotel offered free rooms and there is a non-stop flow of people bringing food and drink to the waiting. It’s what we all do, around the world, when there is a tragedy like this.

Canada may be the 2nd largest country in the world but today we are one small town struggling to pick up the pieces and hold it together.

Mike Babcock, coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs and a native of Saskatchewan, grew up not far from the accident site. He said he knew that road well and had talked to his buddy back home, a fireman. He had trouble keeping his emotions in check in a pre-game press conference on Saturday. “It’s got to rip the heart out of your chest,” Babcock said.  We pray for those families and we’re thinking about them. I don’t know what else to say. Horrific, horrific accident. Tough day.”

“Almost 100 percent of NHL players played on a youth team at some point that rode a bus to a game,” San Jose Sharks center Chris Tierney said. “It hits home. It definitely hurts to see news like that.”

Maybe the best example of the connection between Canadians and hockey lies in a couple of tweets. Ex-NHLer, Colby Armstrong, tweeted just after midnight, “Please contact my mom or let any other families involved who need a place to stay or help in Saskatoon. #hockeyfamily 🙏.” His mum, Rosemary, had already tweeted, “I am a hockey mom in Saskatoon. If you or family members need a place to stay or any other assistance please contact me.”

Soon after word of the accident got out last night a Go Fund Me account was set up with a goal of 10k to help the families with expenses. By Sunday more than 49,000 people had contributed $3.2 million.

There is something special about belonging to a team. Bonds get formed that don’t break so easy. For hockey players, much of that bonding happens on those long bus rides. The Broncos were a team like any other. They had all dyed their hair “golden”, (most looked yellow,) for the playoffs. Their unofficial anthem was Jason Aldean’s Dirt Road.

In the hospital, they have put some of the survivors together. They need each other now more than ever. A picture of three bandaged players, lying on gurneys, clutching each other’s hands, says everything.

Saturday, as the last regular season games of the NHL were being played, we heard the names of the dead, and mourning all that could have been, as sorrow ripples across Canada from sea to sea. We may not have know them personally, but every Canadian knows players, boys, young men, coaches like them. Wherever those who died on that unremarkable stretch of Saskatchewan highway have gone, there will be an ice rink. In our hearts, they’ll be lacing up their skates soon, and hitting the ice as Jason Alden’s sings…

“I can take ya’ll where you need to go

Down to my hood and back in them woods

We do it different ’round here that’s right

And we sure do it good and we do it all night

So if you really wanna know how it feels

To get off the road with a truck and four wheel

Jump on in tell yo’ friends

And we’ll be raising hell where the black top ends

I’m chilling on a dirt road

Laid back swervin’ like I’m George Jones

Smoke rollin’ out the window,

An ice cold beer sittin’ in the console

Memory lane up in the headlights

Has got me reminiscing on the good times

I’m turning off the real life, driving, that’s right

I’m hittin’ easy street in mud tires that’s right”

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 7 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet du Jour

Starting Five

1. Splash And Burn

This is why we love Sergio Garcia. The reigning Masters champion took a 13 on Augusta’s notorious 15th hole after basically reenacting the climactic scene from Tin Cup. This is still not as inconceivable as Ernie Els’ carding a 9 on the first hole of the 2015 Masters, when he five-putted. But it’s still pretty incredible.

Garcia hit five consecutive shots into the pond on his approach shot on the par-5 hole. In Sergio’s defense, none of them landed in the drink on the fly. All landed on the front of the green and then rolled back down the hill and into the water. “I felt like I hit a lot of good shots and unfortunately the ball just didn’t want to stop,” said Garcia, who immediately after holing out was embraced by Rene Russo, who is even happier now that she dumped Don Johnson for him.

(This is just what he do…)

By the way, last year on Sunday at Augusta, Garcia shot a 3 (an eagle) on this hole. Yesterday he needed 10 more shots.


Garcia ended the day tied for 85th place (out of 87 golfers), having shot an 81. If he’d just parred that hole, he’d have finished one-over par for the day (which is what Tiger Woods shot). It’s going to be awfully tough for everyone’s favorite Spanish golfer to make the cut, but he has to stick around until Sunday night anyone to put the green jacket on Jordan Spieth the 2018 champion.

2. Hair Force One

Note: This, by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, 80, is the best thing I’ve read today.

President Trump knows of no more pernicious foe than the wind that besets him when he boards Air Force One at Andrews. We foresee an Executive Order in which a terminal and jet way will be installed there.

So yesterday onboard, Trump was feeling brazen enough to field reporters’ questions onboard. When asked if he knew about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, he replied, “No.” Next he was asked why Michael Cohen made the payment, the truth of which is not in dispute: “You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen,” Trump said. “Michael is my attorney. You’ll have to ask Michael.”

So let’s unravel this: 1) There WAS a payment. 2) For what? According to Donald, How would he know, he didn’t know about it. 3) Also according to Trump, nothing ever happened between he and Stormy. 4) So Michael Cohen paid $130,00 out of his own pocket and did not tell his client that he was doing it or why he was doing it, but apparently it was to silence someone from talking about something that never took place. 5) And now Team Trump wants to sue her for breaking the terms of the agreement that they paid her to agree to so that she would not discuss the thing that never took place.

Pardon me, I have to get a square of toilet paper, as I just cut myself on Occam’s Razor.

“This is killing me”

Meanwhile, about the Tirade War (you read that right) with China. After the Beijing gang saw Trump’s raise, he has now re-raised with a $100 billion tariff proposal (remember: none of these have actually been implemented yet). I don’t need Jim Cramer and David Faber on this; I need Lon McCeachern and Norman Chad.

While I don’t like the stock market behaving like the Colossus at Magic Mountain any more than you do, at least I can see what Trump is doing here: he sees a trade imbalance with China, our economy is as healthy as it’s ever been, and while this may not be the best way to level the playing field, if you’re ever going to do something that adversely affects the stock market, do so while everyone is up about 30-40% on the year.

Again, this all may just be posing. Recall what legendary old New York Stock Exchange grinder Art Cashin recently said: “Trump’s M.O. is to say, ‘I’m going to kill you!’ Then you say, ‘Oh no!’ Then he says, ‘I’m only going to break your arm,’ and you say, ‘Thank you.'”

The Amazon animus is far more troubling because Trump is literally disregarding the FACTS that his own advisers (much less anyone who covers business in the media) give him in favor of attacking founder Jeff Bezos, because he’s so upset about the WaPo coverage on him. He’s literally committing a crime, by spreading false rumors about a company in order to knock down its stock price.

Add that to the list…

3. Officially Back: The Luck of the Irish

The winning goal

It was close to midnight last night when we recalled that we’d recommended you watch Notre Dame-Michigan in the Frozen Four, so we checked on line to see who had won. We couldn’t find a score. We quickly flipped to the ESPN2 where there were about 17 seconds remaining in a 3-3 deadlock.

The announcers said something about how the Irish, with the puck in their end, needed to protect it to get into overtime or how they might have a chance at one last scoring opportunity. Suddenly the puck squibbed out, Notre Dame’a Cam Morrison was skating across both blue lines with it to the left, and Jake Evans was trailing him in the center. When Morrison could not elude his defender, he dropped the puck behind him to Evans, who dinked it through the wickets of the Skunkbear goalie with 5 seconds left for the 4-3 win.

Notre Dame, in the past three weeks, has now won the NCAA Fencing championship, the NCAA women’s basketball championship and is now one Saturday night contest versus Minnesota-Duluth (like Mississippi State, they are also the Bulldogs) away from winning the NCAA men’s hockey championship. Plus, they’ve had three buzzer beaters in the past week and the men’s hockey team is 14-3 in one-goal games.

Notre Dame to the rest of Division I athletics: “I’ve found me lucky charms!”

And I haven’t even mentioned Miles Boykin yet. Or the 21-point second-half comeback in the ACC quarters versus Virginia Tech. In 2018, Notre Dame athletics definitely has the clutch gene.

Jack Swarbrick can and should tell all the message board trolls on NDNation to suck it. More importantly, enjoy the good times, Irish fans. They never last (unless you’re Nick Saban). Savor them while they’re here.

4. Wild, Wild, Wild, Wild, Wild West

Who had Donovan Mitchell (20 ppg) as their NBA Rookie of the Year when the season began?

While we were not paying attention (we only look at the BOTTOM of the Western Conference standings), the NBA’s Western Conference playoff situation became verrrrrry interesting. Six clubs, none of whom are the Los Angeles Lakers or cumulatively receive half the attention that the Lakers do from certain cable networks and websites, are all within TWO games of one another for the final five playoff spots.

The Utah Jazz (46-33), who are in fourth position, are just two games ahead of the Denver Nuggets (44-35), who are currently on the outside looking in to the playoff picture. Betwixt them, in descending order, are the Spurs, Thunder, T-Wolves and Pelicans. Of those six teams, no one outside of the Jazz have been particular hot of late.

What would be most intriguing? If the Thunder were to finish seventh or eighth and meet Houston (1st) or Golden State (2nd) minus Stephen Curry in Round One. That’s what we’d most enjoy: a Round One Thunder-Dubs match-up with the defending champs having to get by without their two-time MVP. Could get interesting.

5. Biiiiii-sickle! Biiii-sickle! I Want To….

Even the snarkiest of us has our sincere (or weak) spots. For me it’s wildlife. For the WSJ‘s Jason Gay, who is far funnier and snarkier, it’s cycling. Here he is writing about this weekend’s other major sporting event, the Paris-Roubaix bike race. You’ll need a WSJ subscription.

The event was first staged in 1896 and has only been suspended due to World Wars. The course, much of which is over cobblestones, is approximately 150 miles long.

Reserves

Oops

 


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It’s too soon to know if this is going to become A Thing, but we’ve noticed that when we watch an episode of The West Wing there seems to be at least one unintentionally hilarious allusion to The Worst Wing. 

Season 1, Episode 3: Josh notices a typo on a speech that Donna hands him. “Insuccessful?” he asks. “We can’t just make up words. This is the White House, we have to be better than that.”

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If you’re still reading: Our fictitious private equity (so private that I’m the only one with equity in it!) firm, Walker Capital, just sold EVERYTHING. All of our stock. Yes. And we’re even shorting AMZN for at least the time being. We think this China Tirade War will get worse before it gets, as The Tweet of God so eloquently put it yesterday, even worse. 

Music 101

Rock ‘n Me

Q: Name three big-name rock bands that used Arizona towns in their songs, the names of the songs, and the towns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIF9hCgImTY

A: The Steve Miller Band, “Rock ‘n Me,” Phoenix; the Beatles, “Get Back,” Tucson; and of course the Eagles, “Take It Easy,” Winslow.

We’re still waiting for someone to write something with Tuba City in the lyrics. This song went to No. 1 for a week in 1976.

Remote Patrol

Cavaliers at Sixers

7 p.m. NBA TV

Ben Simmons is likely your NBA Rookie of the Year runner-up after Mitchell (above, No. 4)

We don’t have NBA TV, but perhaps you do. The Cavs (49-30) are one half game ahead of Philly (48-30) with three games remaining for “The Land” (and two for the BroLuv). The Cavs can probably lock up the third spot in the East with a W, which would mean a Kyrie-less Celtics in the second round. Why do we care, though? Cleveland’s going to the Finals this year. Maybe Philly next year.