Monthly Archives: July 2018

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 6 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

Accountability Is For Everybody

Last night on The Late Show, host Stephen Colbert found himself in a pickle. The man who has hammered Trump constantly, with good reason, now had to confront another rich, old, white man who had allegedly been a pu**y grabber. The problem is this man is the person who installed him in the seat he presently occupies, affording him the opportunity to succeed David Letterman (whom, yes, we will note, had an affair with a younger staffer once).

Colbert rose to the occasion.

Above, the clip….

2. 3-D Horror Show

Remember this scene from In The Line of Fire?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BW8I5gqqLQ

Well, 25 years later, it’s kind of come true. You can make your own guns using a 3-D printer and the government has yet to tackle the subject (we’ll admit, we’re with Malkovich on “Why did you kill that bird, asshole?”). It’s such a potentially horrific reality—no need for a background check, untraceable weapons, etc.—that both the Mad Libs and President Trump are united in their opposition to them.


Now, to be real here: Trump will oppose them because the NRA is going to oppose them because 3-D printer guns will make a YUUUUUGE dent in their profit margin. Stay tuned. We love where Trump types, “Already spoke to the NRA” as if they’re a federally funded group, a part of our government. They’re nothing more than a special interest group, you know, like the Sierra Club.

3. St. James School?

This will turn out to be the career-defining (and for a certain segment of the population, most dangerous) deed of LeBron James’ career. Yesterday in his hometown of Akron, funded principally by James’ foundation, the I Promise School opened its doors to 240 2nd-, 3rd- and 4th-graders.

IPS is a regular public, non-charter, non-private, non-voucher school. It fully complies with the Akron public school system. It’s just that LeBron James’ is funding it, and making sure that at-risk kids who don’t grow up to be 6’9″ will have a chance. Every student at IPS gets a bicycle, and there’s a pantry for their parents to buy food. Every student also gets a Chrome book on which to do homework and there’s a 7-week summer camp to keep them out of trouble.

Devon wants to encourage the proliferation of for-profit schools. Just like prisons.

This is truly something every athlete worth at least $50 million can easily handle and should do. Not only is LeBron James changing the lives of those children, but hopefully he is setting a standard that other rich and famous athletes and entertainers will follow. There is simply nothing more dangerous to the white status quo than the bottom-third of this country receiving a quality education. If that weren’t true, would a clown like Betsy DeVos be our Secretary of Education?

4. The Golden Bridge

If we were still doing “Where In The World” (perhaps we should), we’d ask you where this funky bridge is located. Turns out it’s in Vietnam.

The Golden Bridge near Da Nang is a 150-meter long footbridge that serves no real commuting purpose. It’s located 1,400 feet above sea level in the resort area of Ba Na Hills.

5. And Now A Few Words About The NFL, The Military and The GOP

At Yankee Stadium, you stand for the national anthem AND for God Bless America. Otherwise, you hate this country.

Yesterday we had what we can truly call a civil and respectful debate with a mutual follow on Twitter, a man named Josh from Indiana. You can look it up for yourself if you’re so inclined.

The gist of it is that he’s against NFL players kneeling for the anthem, doesn’t think it’s too big of a sacrifice considering the money they earn, that a lot of us have to do things at work we don’t like doing because our bosses tell us to do them, and lastly, that the point of protests are about winning hearts and minds. We respect Josh’s stance on the topic but simply disagree.

Wearing camo gear does not honor veterans. It’s insulting to them. Unless you’re willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, don’t bathe yourselves in their glory.

On his final argument, the hearts and minds issue, we’ll point him to a quote cited by Stephen Colbert in the clip at the top of today’s post. It comes from President John F. Kennedy: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.” That is, if you’re Cowboy owner Jerry Jones telling players that if they don’t stand for the anthem they’ll no longer be a Cowboy, then all you’re doing is asking for a nastier rebellion down the line. You’re not addressing your players VALID concerns, and that’s a problem.

Many of the same people who hate what some NFL players have been doing cite Martin Luther King, Jr., as an example of how disaffected African-Americans should protest. His protests were non-violent, they say. To which I ask, What’s so violent about kneeling?

But now let’s get to the real matter at hand: How and why the NFL (and MLB) strives so hard to equate patriotism to the military, and why Donald Trump and the GOP are in such lockstep with this idea. Because here is where the nefariousness enters, and where America has become a scary, fascist state.

What are we overcompensating for?

Since 9/11/2001, a day in which not a country, but fewer people than currently comprise the New York Yankees roster attacked the United States (using our commercial airlines as weaponry), America has forgotten its soul (which was sort of the point of the attack, so well-done, Mohammed). In the days after the attack, we’re not particularly sure which date exactly, the New York Yankees, the most recognizable brand in pro sports, began the tradition of playing “God Bless America” during the 7th-inning stretch.

In late September and October of 2001, it was a meaningful and earnest gesture. A rallying cry. Now, 17 years later, it feels oppressive. Before every playing of “God Bless America” at Yankee Stadium, the Pinstripers trot out a military veteran and his family. That’s fine, but what about other people whose jobs serve society in indispensable ways? Why not trot out a teacher, a fireman, a policeman?

Why are baseball players wearing camo caps or jerseys on Memorial Day weekend? Why are flags suddenly the size of entire fields? And why is the president conflating kneeling for the national anthem, a gesture done to draw attention to the senseless violence committed against innocent black men (Did you catch the Trayvon Martin documentary on Paramount last night?), with disrespect to the military?

Let’s back up a moment here and give you some numbers. The United States is just 12.3% black. The NFL, however, is 70% African-American. The NBA is 74.4% African-American. The American penal system is 33% black (the largest single ethnicity incarcerated).

While the military is not overwhelmingly black, it should be noted that there are approximately as many black females in the military as white females. Blacks still make up the largest minority group in the military and, more fittingly for Trump/GOP/NFL owners, only 17% of military enlistees come from families that earn more than $80,000 a year. The military is not a place for the upper-middle class or wealth class.

(Related: Read this excellent story by Howard Bryant that talks about the Pro Sports Military Complex and read about Nick Francona, Indian manager Terry’s son, who dropped out of Penn to serve in the Marines in Afghanistan. Nick was later fired by the Mets for standing up to the exploitation of veterans in MLB.)

What does it all add up to? Our favorite pro spectator sports have a disproportionately high number of African-Americans. Our military, the world’s most potent fighting force ever assembled (everyone says so), is disproportionately made up of lower-income Americans. Remember, this is a volunteer Army/Navy/Air Force, etc., and we’re not technically at war with anyone. Haven’t been since 1945.

Jerry Jones actually failed to remove his hat when the Cowboys played the national anthem before practice this weekend. Here’s the bigger question: Why are the Cowboys playing the anthem before practices?

The men in power in this nation, almost all of whom are white, understand that this nation is able to push others around, in terms of international policy, because we wield the biggest stick on the planet. And the cornerstone of that stick, to mix metaphors, is our lower-class. So how do you maintain a situation in which the bottom half of the country  continues to work against its own best interests. By creating a false narrative that the military is perhaps its most—nay, only, unless you are an uncommonly gifted athlete—attractive option to escape an adulthood of poverty.

How do you do that?

You do a few things: 1) You blow sunshine up their asses, you glorify the idea of being part of the military, 2) You continue to neglect public education so that lower-class families do not see that as an avenue of escape 3) You attack anyone who bothers to ask why the status quo as such is unpatriotic. For example, if someone wonders aloud why the United States spends more on defense than  China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, United Kingdom, and Japan COMBINED….

COMBINED

….while its public schools and infrastructure are in disarray, the default mode is to attack that person as being unpatriotic and unsupportive of our veterans. Which is of course not the case at all. As I mentioned here once before, I visited a newsstand at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport last December where the cashier (and I’m sure she was just doing what her manager ordered her to do) asked every one of us who bought an item if we wanted to donate to military families so that they could make overseas phone calls.

We’re the most overfunded military in the history of mankind and they’ve got civilians pan-handling for them?

Back to sports. Did you know that the NFL actually devotes staff to working with its owners on investment opportunities? Think about that. You round up 32 billionaires, some of the wealthiest and most influential men in America, and you get them to collectively share what insights they have on the economy (or perhaps their own businesses) with one another and you use that information to invest their money for them. And you thought they were just haggling over “What is a tackle?” in their Park Avenue headquarters.

And so you ask yourself, Why are billionaires so obsessed with having even more money? Because for them it’s no longer about having the biggest yacht or the fifth home or the wife who is 39 years younger than you are, which is to say less than half your ago (props to you, Bob Kraft), it’s about power. It’s about maintaining the status quo.

Throw that money into campaign contributions. Buy the politicians who will maintain the status quo. Keep glorifying the military and defense of our country (the last nation that actually launched a prolonged attack on these United States was the Confederacy, but that’s another story) at the expense of all other issues that this nation faces. Use pro sports as a conduit to this cause so that Joe Sports Fan equates patriotism with fandom and fandom with unquestioned support of our armed forces. So that the schmuck at Fenway equates “Yankees Suck” with “Muslims Suck” even though he’s far more likely to be gunned down by a white man with a societal problem.

And while this is all happening, while we’re honoring our veterans during the 7th-inning stretch (while never, not once, mentioning that 22 veterans per day commit suicide), the men in power let it be known that the very people who play these games for our entertainment, who serve in our armed forces to help make them great, better keep their mouths shut.

Because preserving the status quo begins and ends with keeping the disenfranchised uneducated. And the moment a player kneels in hopes to raise awareness to some injustice to this country, he will be struck down far worse than if he’s a member of ISIS. Because nothing is more dangerous to these owners, to this GOP, than if the mob gets wise to their game.

Johnny Manziel has a job in pro football. Colin Kaepernick does not. That’s how serious they are about this issue.

I know I’ve meandered here, and this is a one-time-through draft. The NFL and MLB, particularly, have been working in league with the military (and taking their ad dollars, which are your tax dollars) for years. It’s a corrupt system. The next time you see local taxpayers foot the bill for an NFL/MLB stadium, maybe this will help you understand why.  Politicians reward owners who help bankroll their campaigns, and owners pay them back by promoting the military every chance they get. It helps the owners to have players who see no other opportunity for themselves and it helps politicians because military contracts are a huge favor to be able to hand out, which in turn helps them get reelected.

This isn’t about protecting the United States from foreign adversaries. This is about protecting the white power structure entrenched in these states from the enemy within: the lower and working and minority classes that vastly outnumber them, but from whose ranks they need to draw to fill their uniforms, both in the NFL and the military.

Music 101

Woman From Tokyo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H41HMCxtMiE

Few bands were more tailor-made for Seventies album-oriented FM rock stations than Deep Purple. This 1973 song was the band’s most successful, as was the album it appeared on, but by the end of the year the British group, in its original incarnation, had dissolved. They played their final show together, oddly enough, in Osaka, Japan.

Remote Patrol

Blonde Crazy

6:30 p.m. TCM

Jimmy Cagney. Joan Blondell. You dirty rats. Dames. From 1931.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by John Walters

Tweet du Jour

A few people with whom we once worked send out these types of tweets regularly. Here’s a subtle nudge to them to maybe stop doing that (and, no, we never worked with Will Leitch but he tweets these out all the time, too).

Starting Five

Look! Another rich, older white guy behaving like a creep. Who knew!?!

Will CBS Soon Be Less Moonves?

Ronan Farrow has struck again, and this time Ronan’s arrow has struck CBS CEO Les Moonves in The New Yorker. And we thought Law & Order: SVU was an NBC show.

July 20, 1969: Man first walks on moon.

July 27, 2018: Farrow walks all over Moonves.

Actress/writer Illeana Douglas claims that when she spurned Moonves’ advances, her career suffered.

For the record, here’s the story. Six women have come forward and accused him of sexual harassment. Here’s the money graf:

Six women who had professional dealings with him told me that, between the nineteen-eighties and the late aughts, Moonves sexually harassed them. Four described forcible touching or kissing during business meetings, in what they said appeared to be a practiced routine. Two told me that Moonves physically intimidated them or threatened to derail their careers. All said that he became cold or hostile after they rejected his advances, and that they believed their careers suffered as a result.

Is Kim Richards (Paris Hilton’s aunt), the “Kim” who was a “former child actress” to whom Farrow refers only by first name?

Here’s the meat of Moonves’ response:

I recognize that there were times decades ago when I may have made some women uncomfortable by making advances. Those were mistakes, and I regret them immensely. But I always understood and respected — and abided by the principle — that ‘no’ means ‘no,’ and I have never misused my position to harm or hinder anyone’s career.

Did Les put the moves on Cagney? Or Lacey? Farrow’s story strongly implies he did.

Thinking that the CBS board will meet today and take those two sentences to mean that Moonves is copping to the accusations. The last sentence is meaningless. Moonves, 68, may be out by the time you read this. He’ll certainly be out before CBS reports earnings Thursday.

Jeff Fager, executive producer of 60 Minutes, is also portrayed as quite the scumbag (but not as bad as Moonves).

2. One Out Away From Glory, One Tweet Away From Infamy

Yesterday Sean Newcomb, 25, a pitcher with the Atlanta Braves whom we’d never heard of, pitched 8 2/3 innings of no-hit ball. Then Los Angeles Dodger shortstop Chris Taylor, the leadoff hitter, singled.

The Braves would still win, 4-1 (Newcomb’s reliever gave up an RBI base hit to Manny Machado), but soon after someone plumbing six year-old tweets of Newcomb found he’d used a few gay slurs back when he was in high school.

WHO CARES?

Please. We get it. Homophobic slurs and racist slurs have no place in society blah blah blah. They don’t. I’m not sure we want to play “This Is Your Life” with every athlete/celeb who licks fame, though, do we?

It was wrong. Newcomb owned up to it and apologized. Let’s move on, shall we?

3. McCain Enable

McCain, seated far right (of course)

We never quite understood why Xavier Prep alum Meghan McCain was on TV. Yes, we know who her dad is. And she’s bright enough. But it always seemed to us that her role on The View was to be the Republican in the room whom Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar could actually stomach.

On Friday, McCain, 33, said something that almost anyone else on TV would have been fired, at the least bit reprimanded, for. Here it is:


Correct us if we’re wrong, but has any host of any CNN or MSNBC program come right out and said on television, “I hate Donald Trump.” A host, not a guest? If so, please tell us. We don’t think anyone has and we imagine if they did so they’d be properly pilloried by the GOP.

It’s just another example of the double standard we currently live under. A CNN reporter, Kaitlyn Collins, can be prohibited from attending a White House media event because she had the temerity to ask the president a question as he was leaving a room (V.P. Mike Pence: “The administration believes in the freedom of the press…but maintaining the decorum that is due at the White House (Ha!)”). But it’s okay for Meghan McCain to say that she HATES Hillary Clinton, who by the way has never been indicted for anything, nor have any of her aides, and who unlike President Trump did sit for 11 uninterrupted hours of congressional hearings.

We understand that McCain’s father is terminally ill. That is sad. But she has always behaved and dressed a little like a spoiled little girl, the Veruca Salt of political pundits. This latest outburst is not a surprise.

4. It’s A Shame About Rays

Tropicana Field: The 8th Blunder of the World

The Tampa Bay Rays (53-53) are not a bad team. They’ve beaten the Yankees five of the last six times the two teams have played, and we don’t know any other outfit that can say that. But their ballpark, domed Tropicana Field, is awful (and located not close to the Tampa metro area; it’s actually across a long bridge and in St. Petersburg).

We checked. Between 2012 and 2017 the Rays finished DEAD LAST in attendance in Major League Baseball every single season. This year, and in 2011, they were second-to-last. You have to go back to 2010 to find a season in which the Rays finished 28th or higher, and that’s only two years removed from when they advanced to the World Series (yes, the Rays, er, Devil Rays, played in the World Series in 2008; we’d forgotten, too).

So let’s suggest that the Rays should move. And let’s further suggest that they migrate to a state that currently does not have a Major League Baseball franchise. Here are our top five suggestions:

  1. Portland, Ore. 2. Nashville  3. Indianapolis 4. Salt Lake City 5. Albuquerque

Reasons: Portland is just a beautiful city, particularly in the summer. And this quadrant of the country is least represented. Nashville is also a terrific town and was fourth in minor-league attendance last year. Indy was first overall in minor-league attendance and the only reason it’s not No. 1 for us is that there are already seven franchises within a 6-hour drive from Indy at the moment. Salt Lake City would provide a beautiful backdrop, i.e., the Wasatch Range, and this is another part of the country that is under-represented. Finally, the Duke City would provide the vista of the Sandia Crest behind the stadium and maybe everyone in town would stop cooking, selling and taking meth all summer long if they had a better diversion than the Albuquerque Isotopes minor-league team.

Portland: Lovely in the summer. Yes, there’ll be a few rainouts.

Dig: If you relocate Tampa to Portland, you move the franchise to the A.L. West, put Texas or Houston in the  A.L. Central, and move Cleveland (or Detroit) to the A.L. East. Problem solved.

For the record: The largest city in the nation without either an NFL or MLB franchise is San Antonio (brutally hot summer). The largest without an NBA franchise is San Diego (which long ago had the Clippers and before that, the Conquistadors of the ABA).

4. McNopoly

Turns out the Hamburglar is not the most sinister crook associated with McDonald’s (and it’s not Ray Kroc, either, though that’s more debatable). We only clicked on to this story from The Daily Beast after a number of recommendations on Twitter. It’s good. Take 15-20 minutes if you can spare it (maybe shut down your Twitter window).

Reserves

Just loved this…

Music 101

O.P.P.

We are not rap aficionados, so take this for what it’s worth: Naughty By Nature is the best rap group we know of. At least they’re our favorite because they have two hits that are just impossible to not jam to (this one borrows heavily from another song from another African-American group that also has three letters in its title: “ABC” by the Jackson Five).

The less said about the subject matter, the better. Phyllis still occasionally reads this. Just to say that if you are down with O.P.P., that’s a good way to incite a brother to bust a cap in your ass.

Remote Patrol

Comedy Central Roast of Bruce Willis*

9 p.m. Comedy Central

Moonlighting. Die Hard. Demi Moore. The Return of Bruno. The Sixth Sense. “Yippie ki yay, mother_____!”, Pulp Fiction (“Zed’s dead, baby. Zed’s dead.”). Did we mention Demi Moore?

Is there enough material to work with here? Do bears bear, do bees be?

*Originally aired Sunday night….

 

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

Not the Amazon we mean, but you get the picture

Amazon Amazeballs

It’s quarterly earnings season and before yesterday, FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google) had been hit kind of hard. After Netflix announced earnings late last week, the price of shares of the stock dropped more than 10%. When Facebook announced after Wednesday’s closing bell, the stock dropped roughly 20%, with Mark Zuckerberg‘s brainchild—a company that is still just a teenager—losing $119 BILLION in value. It was the single-worst day for an American company, in terms of total loss of value, in history.

Zuckerberg personally lost $15.9 billion, which means he may soon be shopping for blue and off-blue T-shirts at Marshall’s.

But then came Amazon yesterday, after the closing bell. The Bezos behemoth announced earnings had jumped 49%, and though the stock had fallen almost 3% yesterday as fearful investors assumed a Facebook redux, it was up more than that this morning (up $70 per share to $1,880). By year’s end, if not sooner, Amazon will eclipse $2,000 (which, for Susie B., means it will be at least a 56-bagger).

p.s. MH’s investment arm, Walker Capital, would also like to point you to Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which had a solid earnings report on Wednesday and is up 25% in the past two days. Plus, its buy-in per share is just a little over 1% of the cost of Amazon stock ($19.74 versus $1,867).

2. Mouthy Michaels

Two nights ago on a cable news show it was suggested that Michael Cohen‘s new counsel, Lanny Davis, 72, might have erred by releasing the first Trump tape to CNN because the more evidence that is put forth in public outside a trial, the less the Special Prosecutor will be inclined to deal with Cohen. And then a second person on the panel, a woman I believe, offered that much like Rudy Giuliani, another septuagenarian (74), maybe Davis’ best days are long behind him.

It is rather funny. Michael Avenatti, 47, has been cleaning Giuliani’s clock in the court of public opinion, and every one of his predictions thus far have come true. Meanwhile, last night Davis and Cohen leaked that President Trump was informed by his namesake son about the Russia meeting before it took place, which may not move the criminality needle much but, if true, is just one more example of Trump being exposed as a liar (how many thousands of examples do we need?).

Giuliani’s retort: “Cohen’s a liar…he’s been lying for years,” might have had more oomph if he’d only have remembered that Cohen spent the past decade or so in service to Giuliani’s current client, which is to say that if Cohen has been lying, he’s been lying to protect Trump.

Avenatti’s wife, Lisa Storie. Count the number of buoyant objects in this photo.

One last bit here: I don’t know why any of the Trump operatives are not playing offense on Avenatti, who himself is in the midst of a divorce from a woman who looks a lot like a wannabe Trump sidepiece. Avenatti’s wife, Lisa Storie, wants a divorce but claims Michael has been neglecting moving forward on this as he travels the country (or, more to the point, betwixt CNN’s and MSNBC’s Manhattan studios) in defense of Stormy Daniels and other women Trump allegedly bedded. You’d think Bill Shine would call one of his old friends at Fox News and push the narrative that if Avenatti were such a champion of women, why isn’t he listening to his own wife (who’s holed up in Newport Beach, Calif., a postively hellish place to have to endure such travails, but we digress…).

3. Where Is The Love (Where Is The Love, Where Is The Love, The Love, The Love?)

Stanford rusher Bryce Love opted to forgo Pac-12 Media Day in favor of attending class at the most prestigious university west of Princeton, New Jersey, and because most (but not all) sportswriters never took a pre-med course, some in the field seemed put off by the gesture. Love may be a Heisman hopeful, but he also aspires to become a physician.

This CBS Sports video discussing Love’s absence is rather comical. First, at around 1:14 the host commits a Freudian slip (“We love it that athletics are so important there in the Pac-12”). The writer on the scene, Dennis Dodd, says, “First of all, Bryce Love HAS to be here.”

Why? It’s freaking July.

Dodd goes on to exploit the Love no-show to throw tons of shade at both the Pac-12 and commissioner Larry Scott, sounding like little more than a Fox & Friends propaganda stirrer.

No one loses the Heisman Trophy in July. Besides, conference media days are nothing more, particularly for national writers who are just a taaaaaaaaad entitled (and this scribe was one of them), than a July junket betwixt Birmingham, Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles, where little of any real value is gleaned. Unless, of course, you troll a head coach but even then it’s not one of the national writers doing it.

Med school is intensely competitive in terms of acceptance. Every grade matters. And the people who excel in such courses are the types who prefer laser focus toward their goal as opposed to flying to Los Angeles fro the day to sit and answer anodyne questions from middle-aged men. Dennis Dodd should have simply said, “Here’s a young man whose priorities are something we can all admire. He’ll do his talking between the white lines.”

Instead, he sounded like someone who is upset that the tail isn’t wagging the dog (aren’t these the same people who write columns excoriating the dog for letting the tail wag it?).

4. Judge Benched

We won’t see this for another month?????? No!!!!!!!!

Just as the New York Yankees were welcoming All-Star second baseman Gleyber Torres back from injury, fellow All-Star Aaron Judge was hit by a pitch on the wrist last night. Jakob Junis’ 93 mph fastball came on a 3-2 count (of course) in the first inning. Judge suffered a fractured wrist and it’ll be at least three weeks before he swings a bat again. He’ll miss at least one month (and one Red Sox series at Fenway).

Judge actually remained in the game, scoring in the first and getting an infield single in the 3rd inning before finally being subbed.

The Yankees were 50-22 before the summer solstice. Since then they are just 15-14. Not coincidentally, the last time Judge, Torres and catcher Gary Sanchez (who apparently reinjured his right groin while being lazy Tuesday night in Tampa) were all on the manager’s lineup card on the same day was June 25. Now the trio may not share a lineup card again until September.

Yes, in fact we do know that Sanchez is hitting .188 and this year, at least, Austin Romine is the better call. But Sanchez is still only 25. Maybe he’ll figure it out.

5. The Tour de France Is Still Pedaling Along (Even If Susie B. Is Not Providing Updates)

Thomas: Great. White. Wales.

Heading into the final weekend of the Tour de France, and we really like France’s chances of beating Croatia. Wait. Right country, wrong July event.

Entering today’s mountain stage in the Pyrenees, Stage 19, Geraint Thomas of Wales leads Tom Dumoulin of the Netherlands by 1 minute, 59 seconds. And if you’re reading this early enough, you can see it live on NBC Sports Net.

If you’re in search of a Tour de France piece with a little more meat on the bone, here’s the New York Times yesterday taking a deep dive on the event’s renowned “podium girls.”

Music 101

Nights Are Forever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ur3_lrvDD_A

That set. Those mustaches. Those collars. I LOVE THE SEVENTIES! England Dan & John Ford Coley wrote what would become a future Yacht Rock Classic in 1976. From the album of the same name, this song would peak at No. 10 while the first cut off the album, “I’d Really Love To See You Tonight”, would hit No. 2. The duo were friends and classmates in high school in Dallas.

Remote Patrol

The Great Santini

10 p.m. TCM

Robert Duvall as Bull Meacham, an unforgettable character: Dad, husband, Marine colonel, pilot, all-around hard-ass with just enough charm (on most days) to skate by. That’s Michael O’Keefe, whom you may know better as Danny Noonan from Caddyshack, as the son. Duvall and O’Keefe would both be nominated for Academy Awards for this film, an adaptation of the Pat Conroy novel. From 1979.

p.s. Two months earlier, at least by release date, Duvall appeared in another film as a Marine colonel, a movie that you may remember him better by due to a three-word line: “Charlie don’t surf!” (Apocalypse Now).

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet du Jour


All’s well that’s Orwell.

Starting Five

NASDAQ Unfriends Facebook

Facebook announced its quarterly earnings after the closing bell yesterday afternoon, and the social network flopped. Facebook posted weaker than expected numbers on daily users and announced that its second-half revenues for 2018 would decline significantly. The stock, which closed at $217.50, fell more than $44 in after-hours trading.

The amount of value Facebook (FB) lost in after hours trading is more than the entire market cap of McDonald’s. We’ll see today how much FB’s poor showing will drag down the stocks of the other FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google) stocks.

2. The GOP 9

Nine Republican congressmen…

Mark Meadows (R-NC) Jim Jordan (R-OH) Andy Biggs (R-AZ) Scott Perry (R-PA) Paul A. Gosar, D.D.S. (R-AZ) Jody Hice (R-GA) Matt Gaetz (R-FL) Scott DesJarlais (R-TN)

…put their names on a bill calling for the impeachment of U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and even almost all of their fellow GOP lawmakers were like, GTFOH. We think Jim Jordan has bigger concerns. Matt Gaetz gets a lot of air time because he’s handsome and well-spoken. He’s also seriously dangerous. He’s Trump without all the crazy (except he does have a slew of DUI citations in his past).

3. Jenny, I Got Your Number

This is Jenny Boucek. She’s 44, was just hired as an assistant coach by the Dallas Mavericks, and she’s pregnant (via in vitro fertilization) with her first child. Boucek, a UVA alumna who was part of the inaugural WNBA season (Cleveland Rockers), has been an assistant or head coach almost non-stop in the WNBA since 1999.

Now she’s going to spend the first season of her NBA career as an assistant coach with a newborn. Between this and Luka Doncic, the Mavs just became the most intriguing beat in the NBA next season.

4. When Your Political Bubble Bursts

The New York Times (still not failing) has produced an extremely detailed interactive map of the 2016  presidential election that allows you to focus on single zip codes to see just how red or blue  they turned out. The bad news is, we think, you’ll have to actually subscribe to the NYT to enjoy it.

5. Murphy’s Lore

In which avowed Southerner Wright Thompson of ESPN advocates for avowed Southerner Dale Murphy of the Atlanta Braves, who never juiced and was baseball immortality for every Southern boy who grew up in the 1980s (for example, Wright).

Murphy won two MVP awards and twice led the National League in home runs and in RBI, but his numbers pale relative to stars in the 1990s. The most HRs Murphy ever hit in a season was 44 and we remember fact-checking a Point After in SI in 1990 in which the author, William Oscar Johnson, argued that no one would ever hit 50 home runs in a season again. Seriously.

We kinda think of Murphy as the John Stockton of baseball. But he was the All-American man. One reason Murphy, who spent nearly all 18 of his seasons with the Braves, does not garner more Hall of Fame votes? He played in seven All-Star Games, but not a single postseason game. Not one.

Somewhere at SI someone is wondering how Wright got away with posting a “Where Are They Now?” piece in July for SI’s biggest competitor.

Reserves

Spicer Racked

On a book tour, Sean Spicer gets owned by Emily Maitlis of the BBC. Don’t try that sh*t with the BBC, Sean. They’re smart over on that side of the pond and they don’t worry about ratings.

Music 101

Into Your Arms

I don’t know why the Lemonheads phased out so quickly. The first album was full of straightforward, jangly pop like this song and lead singer Evan Dando had “it.” They’re kind of the American version of The La’s.

Remote Patrol

Goodfellas

7 p.m. AMC

You’re a funny guy!

In 1991 this Martin Scorcese classic lost Best Picture to Dances With Wolves. Tatiana! And Scorcese lost Best Director to Kevin Costner. That’s how in love with Costner the Academy was at the time.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 5 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet du Jour


We’d maybe be down with your “How they gonna pay for it?” act, Victoria, were it not for the fact that tax cuts are increasing the federal deficit to never-before-seen levels AND the president just announced record-level subsidies for farmers…

Starting Five

Daddy Issues

First The Tryst, Then The Tapes

Last night Michael Cohen, prodded by his new attorney, Lanny Davis (former White House counsel), released one of his possible 12 tapes that he secretly recorded while conferring with his then client, Donald Trump. The tape captures a moment in which the two men were discussing setting up a company for “our friend, David” (Trump) in relation to paying off a person (Karen McDougal), as hush money so that she would not disclose news about their one-year affair.


(Read: No denial)

So that was money well spent, eh? According to Davis, Cohen, Mr. Trump’s fixer, is turning over a new leaf (and this recording), because he is “on a new path — it’s a reset button to tell the truth and to let the chips fall where they may.”

2. Pirate Booty

Gregory Polanco leads the Bucs in HR (18) and RBI (58), which are rather pedestrian for a team-high

While no one outside of western Pennsylvania was paying attention, the Pittsburgh Pirates have reeled off 11 straight wins and are now (53-49) back in the conversation for the National League wildcard (4 1/2 games back of the Brew Crew and 3 back of the Braves).

How? It’s been a bizarre ride. After finishing a series against the Nats with a W, the PPs hosted the Brewers for a FIVE-GAME series (we assume there was a makeup game or two in there), and have since won five straight, on the road, against Ohio-based clubs. They have one more at Cleveland tonight and then host the Mets for a four-game series. In other words, this streak might just stretch to 16 in a row if they can beat the Tribe tonight.

Corey Dickerson leads the Bucs in batting average (.318) and Jameson Taillon in ERA, even though it’s a frothy 3.80. And did we just a hear a cheer for small-market baseball?

P.S. This is Clint Hurdle’s eighth season as Pirate manager. It’s nice to be under the radar sometimes.

3. Football Fatality

Just one day after Jim Harbaugh, Michigan coach, said, “I think football is the last bastion of hope for toughness in America in men,” Darius Minor, a freshman on the University of Maine, collapsed and died during a “light” workout with his teammates. Good luck on getting the details on that light workout.

More than 10,000 young men play college football each year and the odds are that a couple will collapse under conditions of extreme heat and hard cardio conditioning. And the truth is most schools have TWO such workouts daily, one early in the morning (to keep them out of trouble) and one just before dinner. Someone’s gonna pay.

 

4. Aye, Yay, Yay, Karlie*

*The judges will also accept “Kloss Dismissed”

Model Karlie Kloss, super-bestie of pop star Taylor Swift, has gotten engaged to Joshua Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner.

5. 76 Trombones Ducklings

A photographer on Minnesota’s Lake Bemidji discovered (and counted) 76 ducklings trailing one mama duck. What’s up with that? They’re not all hers. She’s kind of like that grandmother who takes care of other people’s kids while the other hens go out to work, is what we gleaned from this story.

 

Music 101

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

This 1968 proto-hard rock tune from Iron Butterfly was written by vocalist/organist Doug Ingle after consuming an entire gallon of Red Mountain wine. When he played the song for drummer Ron Bushy, who wrote down the lyrics for him, he was slurring his words so much that “In the garden of Eden” became “In a gadda de vida.” It clocks in at longer than 17 minutes.

Remote Patrol

Comedians In Cars: Alec Baldwin

Netflix

It’s funny: Alec Baldwin has never done stand-up, but he’s far and away the most entertaining guest Jerry Seinfeld ever books (this is his second appearance). The two Massapequa, Long Island, natives return to their ancestral roots, with a stopover at Jones Beach. Stick around for Baldwin’s extended riff on playing a homosexual man in a play.