Monthly Archives: November 2018

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 7 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right


Quenton Nelson played football at Notre Dame, where former teammate Jaylon Smith (now with the Dallas Cowboys) was nicknamed Murder Train. Why not both of them?

Starting Five

California Nightmare

People who live in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties, and we know a few, are extremely pleased with their choice of where to live. They’re living the California dream, after all, and if you’ve ever visited there from the Northeast between, say, now and April Fool’s Day, you get it. You wake up on a lovely, sunny, warm December morning and, especially if it’s after a hard rain, you can spot the ocean in one direction and the snow-capped San Gabriels in the other.

It’s heaven.

But not in the past week. A shooter took 12 lives in Thousand Oaks and then wildfires have turned Malibu and Zuma Beach into a hellscape.

2. Deluge

This dude knew he wouldn’t melt….

Saturday marked the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War, known at the time as The Great War or The War To End All Wars. World leaders convened in Paris with the plan being to attend a wreath-laying ceremony at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in Belleau, approximately 60 miles from Paris.

The site was picked as a way to commemorate the Battle of Belleau Wood, where 1,800 American soldiers lost their lives fighting alongside British, French and Canadian allies. There was just one problem: il pleut.

(Trump’s actual fear)

Yes, rain. And that was enough to keep our Commander in Chief from attending. Consider this: Angela Merkel made it, and she is the leader of the country that was the enemy that day. And yet she found the will to brave the rain. But not Donald, the man who once publicly opined that “STDs are my personal Vietnam.”

Trump’s latest foray into hypocrisy (“I love the troops!” followed by “Cant’ get my hair wet”) opened the door for some world-class trolling. Here’s Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, by far the greatest leader in North America whose last name begins T-R-U…


And here’s the French Army Twitter page, acting as if a little rain is a life-or-death measure.

Last thing: On Friday afternoon TCM aired an old war movie, The Fighting 69th. Draped around a World War I backdrop in the French trenches, Jimmy Cagney plays a tough-talking outer-borough New Yorker who is actually a first-rate coward whose craven behavior gets many of his fellow soldiers killed and whom no one in his outfit can stand. That film was made nearly 80 years ago but, wow, so prophetic.

3. “Lieutenant Dan”

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

It’s always nice to see a simple-minded yokel and a Lieutenant Dan bury any past grievances and make peace, don’t you agree? We can’t commend Lieutenant Commander Dan Crenshaw enough for showing up and for accepting Pete Davidson’s apology, which absolutely was owed. It was a powerful moment and a funny moment and it took us back 40 years ago to our childhood when people were actually nice to one another and yet still funny on TV.

Above: That’s a two-time Best Actor Oscar winner, our nation’s current fictional president (I’d take her in a swap without a second thought), the country’s fiercest advocate for veterans’ rights (who puts his time and money where his mouth is), and an Asian actress whom if our actual president met her his first question would be, “Where are you from?”

4. Carmelodrama (Cont.)

When we read over the weekend that Houston Rockets officials and Carmelo’s people were in discussions as to how this arrangement could work out, we chuckled. Here’s how it works out: shut your damn mouth and listen to your coach. But of course, that’s so GOML of me.

This is exactly why I would’ve never wanted Carmelo to play on my team. You wanna be your own brand? Fine. Prove that you can win first. And not just at Syracuse for one year. That was then. This is the NBA.

Anthony is 34 and he’s the fifth-leading scorer on the Rockets at 13.4 ppg. That’s not horrible at his age. We’re not sure what he wants. When he retires, people are going to lobby for him to be in the HOF and he’ll probably make it, primarily because he salvaged his rep in the Olympics. But here we are in his 16th season and, with all that talent, he’s only taken a team to the conference finals once.

So much talent. So much attitude. At least that’s what it’s always looked like to us.

5. “I’m Melting!” (Part 2)

Here’s the BBC with another disturbing story on climate change. This is the northernmost town in Greeland, Qaanaaq (automatically, as a lover of adventure and palindromes, this must move to the top of Steve Rushin’s bucket list), and what you don’t see here that you should is…SNOW. Or ICE.

Here’s Qaanaaq as it should look:

The good news about the end of days is that you’re not going to have to worry about credit-card debt.

Music 101

God Only Knows

This 1966 song by the Beach Boys (really, by Brian Wilson and a crew of talented session musicians while the rest of the band was touring in Asia) is as close as we’ll ever get to knowing what heaven sounds like. But you just can’t create heaven on a lark. This video provides some context as to how much effort went into it. For such a tortured soul in real life, Wilson knew exactly what he wanted and needed in the recording studio. A genius. He was 23 years old.

Remote Patrol

Into Alaska

10 p.m. Animal Planet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-B0heZjq5M

It’s a brand new show about Alaska and wildlife and we’ll just get high on the fumes.

 

CHRIS PICKS (WEEK 10)

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by Chris Corbellini

Week 10 Picks: The Goff-Jobs Theory

I’m a big believer in Steve Jobs’ famed Stanford commencement address. Watch it right now on YouTube, if you haven’t seen it. His main thesis is hardly a novel idea – do what you love. But the tech innovator, gone too soon at 56, crafted one passage within the speech that struck me deeply the first time I watched it, and it has stayed with me for the last decade of my football life. In not-so-great times, it had to: “Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So, you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

Let me take you back five years now — I was crashing on the couch of a friend’s apartment in Los Angeles, working freelance and hoping to land full-time at the NFL Network – watching a skinny true freshman at Cal named Jared Goff. He was, to put it nicely, getting his ass kicked by Northwestern. I couldn’t even stay awake to see the finish. But I remember thinking this kid had something special. He was an overwhelmed 18-year-old, but at times on pure muscle memory alone the QB made some lightning-bolt throws.

I took a mental note. Goff. Real potential. Cal went 1-11 that season, but, somehow, I didn’t see it as a negative for him. I thought if this quarterback could shake all that shit off, he’d be the perfect pick for a rebuilding NFL team one day. He had thick skin, electric stuff, and all the intangibles a scout cannot see.

Things went well for me out in LA, but I didn’t land a full-time job out there. Things went well for me at another big network last year on the East Coast (Goff, now a pro, even played on that network during the NFL playoffs, a wild-card loss to the Falcons), but their football broadcast package was then cut in half when a rival outbid them for Thursday Night Football. So I didn’t land anything there, either.

And this season? I faced the possibility of not working at all. You are an ant in my industry if you have no say over a budget, and I didn’t. My current accounting professor at Columbia more or less confirmed this to me with his theory that the ginormous rights deals that ESPN signed (NFL, NBA, etc.) were in part to give the company a built-in excuse to let a generation of employees go in the years that followed (editor’s note: !). This professor is not a conspiracy theorist. He handles budgets for another brand-name sports company, and the assignments he gives us each week are rooted in real situations. I believe his theory. That is what working in sports today means. Your layoff is planned in advance.

Still, I believe in The Jobs Speech more.

With no safety net to speak of, and no feature producer gig available, I cannonballed into daily fantasy sports and sports betting. A total “fuck it, this is fun” move. And after a long Saturday night where I painstakingly plowed through game film and analytics research on an Excel sheet (and wrote for John Walters here), I had to make a final decision: Is Goff my QB for Week 9?


I considered Goff’s opponent — the Saints and their atrocious pass defense. I looked at the Vegas O/U — the highest that Sunday. But mostly, I thought back to his first game as a Cal freshman. Thick skin, electric stuff, and all the intangibles a scout cannot see.

I went with a Rams pick (+1.5) in this space a week ago, and entered Goff as my quarterback in an LA-heavy DFS lineup. And while I got the bet wrong … I qualified for a World Fantasy Football Championship. I’m playing for a $500k grand prize against 73 other qualifiers, and Barstool’s founder, Dave Portnoy. By qualifying for the WFFC, I was also automatically entered into a fan championship which has a larger competitor pool, but nonetheless has a first-place prize of one million dollars.

In the words of Simon Pegg: “How’s that for a slice of fried gold?” And so I spent this week thinking about the Goff pick and The Jobs Speech in the Miami sunshine while working for The Spring League, which featured NFL hopefuls in a game setting and got the attention of scouts from the NFL, CFL and AAF. And I wonder if that experience will help me in the future — hopefully, you know, this week, while making my picks.

As always, home team in caps. William Hill odds. I also added some percentages to correspond with the winners I picked – they represent the calculations made by The Quant Edge that those teams will cover the Vegas line. Full disclosure: I currently work at TQE as an advisor. Another great gig that happened because a great gig in sports television didn’t happen.

BUCS (-3) over Redskins (60.1%)

Some sound advice that I overheard from a defensive coach this week: “What did I say? Remember? On the seam [route]? Outside leverage on the seam.” And it’s a shame the player he was coaching up didn’t absorb it, because that linebacker then let a Spring League tight end slip inside to score off a seam route the following afternoon. I see parallels here with the Bucs defense, who seemingly forget that the tight end position even exists, as the unit is ranked 29th against the position (courtesy pro football outsiders). This would suggest happy-fun times are ahead for Redskins tight ends Jordan Reed and Vernon Davis, but it won’t be enough.

Washington is hurting on offense, especially up front, and is just average defensively. The Bucs passing game will likely pick away at the left side of the field, where the Redskins D has allowed the most yardage. Receiver DeSean Jackson complained to reporters about his role in the offense this week, and so it’s not hard to imagine Tampa Bay force-feeding him short completions to the left flat, and in one case at least, I see him spinning out of a tackle and sprinting for a score to give the Buccaneers a win by 7.

Patriots (-6.5) over TITANS (62%)

So, anyway, yeah, New England is now the best team in the league. Color me shocked. The victory over the Packers last Sunday night confirmed it — the Pack were hungry, boasted an elite QB, and didn’t stand a chance. Former Patriots player and current Titans HC Mike Vrabel might know Bill Belichick’s tendencies better than most, but he doesn’t have the personnel to keep up at the moment. I don’t need to do the math on this one. With Julian Edelman back from suspension and Josh Gordon acclimating nicely to The Patriot Way, the offense is rolling.

Saints (-5.5) over BENGALS (63.2%)

It’s Alvin Kamara in a big way in this one, as the Bengals linebacker group is a good 2-3 adjectives worse than awful. Before this game is over we may be calculating what it’ll take for Kamara to get a 1,000-1,000 season. He’s everything we thought David Johnson would be for the Cardinals this year, and on a playoff-caliber team to boot. If the Saints only had a respectable defense to go along with the Brees-Kamara pass parade, Super Bowl LIII would be theirs to lose.

Chargers (-10) over RAIDERS (64.7%)

You can’t say the Raiders don’t do their due diligence when looking for players. Down in Miami, a member of the team’s scouting department got the measurables for all 153 Spring League players — height, weight, hand size, arm length, and wingspan. He plowed through it all in one night with a tape measure and a wall sticker. The organization certainly doesn’t cut corners. I was impressed. It won’t result in a win this week. Not nearly. Not against Philip Rivers. But he might have connected the dots with someone, and for someone. It happens.

Last week: 2-2

Overall: 14-19

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right


Today’s post is almost entirely about Matt Whitaker and Bob Mueller and gloom and doom and HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND, EVERYBODY!!!

Starting Five

Unwelcome Matt

A few years ago Matt Whitaker sat on the board of World Patent Marketing, a company that promised inventors it would help get them patents and make them rich. Last year the Federal Trade Commission recognized the company as a total scam and ordered it to pay $26 million in fines.

By that time Whitaker had moved on to FACT (the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust), which claimed to be a “non-partisan ethics watchdog which holds accountable government officials from both parties.” The problem is, it was actually a front for Whitaker to appear on television spouting anti-Mueller investigation talking points.

There was no FACT beyond Whitaker. He was the entire staff of FACT (imagine that, a singular person behaving as if he’s part of a larger organization so as to inflate that org’s importance; when I shared this with the MH staff, we all enjoyed a hearty chuckle). Someone with deep pockets bankrolled him, the sole purpose being so that he could appear on conservative talk shows and even CNN as FACT’s Executive Director as opposed to “Matt Whitaker, bald conservative lawyer who once played for Iowa but now tries to sell jacuzzis in infomercials.”

So that’s your cousin Jeffery…

2. Forced Whitaker

Sally Yates was the first of Trump’s three Attorneys General in less than two years in office. She lasted about a day.

Whitaker, you see, has been appointed acting Attorney General by President Trump after Trump fired Jeff Sessions on Wednesday. He got on Trump’s radar by constantly getting himself booked on CNN and other shows to spout the contrarian view on Mueller, and while there laid out a blueprint for how to combat Mueller that was actually better than any one Bannon or Miller or anyone else had conjured. The point is, you can land a Cabinet position these days simply if you’re a compelling enough cable news guest.

Trump’s motive for firing Sessions may or may not be unconstitutional (it depends if you can prove Trump was trying to obstruct justice by firing Sessions). That’s funny because the reason he fired Sessions is because the erstwhile Senator/Trump’s-most-raucous-cheerleader-among-that-body recused himself from the Mueller investigation, an investigation that was only launched after Trump fired the head of the FBI, and Congress decided we had to investigate whether or not THAT was an obstruction of justice.

There has to be one farewell Sessions skit left in Kate McKinnon

So, if you are following: Trump fires Comey —-> special investigation headed by Robert Mueller to determine whether or not POTUS obstructed justice———> Mueller’s putative boss, Sessions, recuses himself because he was appointed by Donny——–> Donny vewwwwy unhappy (“Why in the hell do you think I appointed you AG in the first place?!?”) ——-> Donny eventually fires Sessions ——-> installs his latest lapdog, Whitaker, to succeed Sessions ——> the last thing Whitaker is going to do is recuse himself, i.e., he’s now Mueller’s boss.

(And let’s be honest here, the entire reason for that last graf was me working this out in my own brain). 

So you can see the irony here. It’s kind of humorous, no? President fires guy, investigation launched over obstruction, guy who could squash investigation takes a flier on it, so he gets fired, too, which could trigger a second investigation. Henchman who resembles SS Stormtrooper installed to curb all of it.

3. So What The Hell Can Matt Whitaker Do, Anyway?


Well, until Congress reconvenes in January, a hell of a lot. He can bleed Mueller’s investigation dry of funds. He can fire Mueller (something Sessions refused to do and something Rod Rosenstein refuses to do, but if Whitaker is not recusing himself, then Rosenstein’s role as buffer between Mueller and Trump disappears). At the very least he can look over Mueller’s shoulder, peruse all the evidence, and report back to Trump. It’s like playing the Patriots (or the Faithful Patriots) but having to run every play past Bill Belichick before you run it in the game (which reminds us of the TapeGate Pats).

Let’s be real here: in the Beltway, Matt Whitaker is a TOTAL NOBODY. A MEATHEAD. He was a walking ad for road rage before Trump rose to power and he’ll probably revert to that afterward. He’s not a Senator. He’s not a Supreme Court justice or even a federal judge. He’s not even a Rep. He’s a fixer and he’s basically volunteered to assassinate, politically, Robert Mueller and end the special investigation.

And that will make him a hero to Trump. It may make him a hero to Iowans who, after all, reelected avowed neo-Nazi Steve King for another term as a Representative. So this may be a brilliant career maneuver for Whitaker. Who knows?

Now, when any and all of this has happened in the past, we’ve always heard the same thing from the well-meaning Democrats and cable news hosts: “TRUMP CAN’T DO THAT!”

Technically, Trump cannot. As Kellyanne Conway’s own husband wrote in The New York Times yesterday, Trump cannot appoint an Attorney General without the Senate’s consent because that is a job in which you report to one man and one man only, the President. The Constitution set it up so that in those jobs you need Senate consent so that the President can’t just fill out all the important roles with people who are his (cough, cough, Brett Kavanaugh) lap dogs or just the cast of Fox & Friends.

But so what??? Who’s going to stop him? The Senate? Nope, he owns them and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The Supreme Court? Nope, not with everyone’s favorite drinking buddy now wearing a robe. So who? You, Lieutenant Weinberg?!?

This is Invasion of the Body Snatchers all over again. When the entire organism is corrupted, democracy cannot work. You have to hand it to Trump and his gang for the brilliance, and also the malevolence, of their plan. To wit…

A) Hijack the Republican party by appealing to its fringe elements.

B) Get McConnell and Paul Ryan, both of whom can see the Mack Truck headed right at them, to bend the knees in exchange for tax returns and the promise of SC judges.

C) Fire anyone who gets in your way…

D) Keep the Senate red so that impeachment is impossible.

He’s fully protected. You’re not going to get two-thirds of the Senate to impeach and you’re not going to get the Supreme Court to overrule any of Whitaker’s misdeeds. They’re all in cahoots and at least for the remainder of their careers, they’re protected. Who cares if the plane slams into the side of the skyscraper eventually? They’ll all have parachuted out by then.

4. Is There Any Hope?

Well, let’s discard the possibility of honor, integrity or love of our Constitution. They all took an Uber home with Vlad Putin.

So what’s left? In our minds, because you almost certainly CAN count on Mueller being gone soon, the best bet is the same thing that brought Richard Milhouse Nixon down.

The goddamn fourth estate. That’s right: newspapers.

Whatever Mueller is unable to present to Congress, should Whitaker thwart him, may certainly be leaked to The Washington Post or The New York Times, perhaps late at night (what’s the current parking garage situation in D.C. like), perhaps by someone who looks like Hal Holbrook. We’re somewhat kidding here, but the point is this: if the evidence is damning enough, and definitive beyond any reasonable doubt, America will be mad. Or at least a great portion of it will be.

And at that point it will be up to Senator Doubtfire, a.k.a. McConnell, and the other lizards in the Senate whether or not they truly want to go down in history as leaders who abandoned any pretense of being against treason so long as white supremacy remained intact.

Hey, maybe there’s no evidence at all. Maybe Donald is innocent (that would certainly explain why he fires anyone who gets to close to unearthing the evidence or refuses put a curb on those who do), but probably not. What exactly he is guilty of, or how deeply he went in with the Russians, we don’t know. But there’s almost certainly something there, something Donny desperately wants to keep hidden. The appointment of Whitaker was his most desperate move, and boldest stroke, yet.

One more item: Whitaker has continuously said, in his guise of executive director at FACT (remember, an entity that does not actually exist outside of his own existence), that he does not think it is fair to investigate any of Trump’s finances before he was president. This is either Whitaker being obtuse or just plain stupid, but we’ll go with the former.

The reason Trump’s finances are pertinent is because it goes to motive. There may have been a strong fiscal motive (either Donald being deeply in debt to and/or the Russians bailing him out by overpaying for real estate in exchange for favors) that forced Trump to get in bed with, or have golden showers performed by, the Russians. Of course being a former U.S. Attorney, Whitaker knows this. He’s just trying to fool American Gothic Overalls voters. Again.

5. And Finally…

We endorse this piece by Paul Krugman on Real America versus Senate America. It outlines why so few American citizens are having such a gigantic effect on the many.

Music 101

Sideshow

You couldn’t grow up in the early Seventies, nor would you have wanted to, without being exposed to the peak of soul/R&B music: The Temptations, Spinners, O’Jays, Isley Brothers, Sylistics, Earth, Wind & Fire, Commodores, Hall & Oates (!), Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross…you get the picture. Blue Magic was a lesser known act, but this song sold more than a million copies and rose to No. 8 on the Billboard charts in the summer of 1974. One of many songs that takes you back to that era.

Remote Patrol

Fresno State at Boise State

ESPN2 10:15 p.m.

I’ll confess: I’m way over the blue turf. Like, waaaaaaaaay over it. Especially as a TV viewer, half the players on the field just blend into it. Anyway, the Broncos are only 7-2 this season while the Bulldogs are 8-1, so this is a rather big game for Group of 5 fans (Fresno State has a decent chance at that New Year’s 6 bowl berth). Also, Irish fans may want to tune in early for the undercard, Louisville at Syracuse.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 9 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right


Send in your suggested quote. Here’s ours: “I too have a blind eye I’d like you to see…”

Starting Five

Out Of Sessions

You have two choices once you accept Donald Trump as your lord and savior: You either do everything he wants you to do, i.e. express complete fealty, or you eventually end up in the gutter. Beside your career.

Former Trump sycophant and U.S. Senator from the great state of Alabama discovered that the hard way when, as newly installed Attorney General, he recused himself from the Mueller investigation. For 20 odd months since, the guillotine has been hovering over the back of Sessions’ neck.


Today it came down faster than you can say, “You’re a rude and terrible person.” Trump will install Matt Whitaker, a former tight end on the Iowa Hawkeyes who the president hopes will serve as a lead blocker agains Robert Mueller.

Whitaker got here by being an outspoken critic of the Robert Mueller investigation and offering a solution: bleeding it dry by withholding funding.

Kind of funny how less than 24 hours after the Democrats take over the House of Representatives, Trump fires the dude who was the firewall against Trump firing Mueller. In the immortal words of George Costanza, “WE’RE TAKING IT UP A NOTCH!”

2. Acosta Accosted

Here’s CNN’s Jim Acosta versus President Donald Trump, the high—or low- —light of yesterday’s 86-minute White House press briefing. In our opinion, there are no winners here.

Trump is being Trump, of course (“Oh, here we go…”) but Acosta isn’t exactly being respectful when he lectures the president on the difference between an “invasion” and “immigrants.” No one likes a pedant (trust us, we’re as pedantic as anyone we know).

We don’t agree with the the fear-mongering the White House is engaged in (and you’d be wise to note that yesterday, for the first time in more than a week, Fox News had no footage of the caravan; hmm, wonder why not?), but we think Acosta had more than enough Q&A time by the time the president cut him off. There were dozens of other reports in the room who likely wanted to ask a question, too. It’s one thing to request a follow-up, it’s another to clutch the mic so long that the home viewer wonders if you’re about to announce that “Now we’d like to do a deep track from our first album.”


(The Magic Loogie video: Back and to the left. Back and to the left. Baaaaaaaack and to the left.)

Acosta simply refused to surrender the microphone. He’d already asked a question or three and maybe if he wasn’t satisfied with the answers, that’s too bad. I’m not in the habit of defending Donald Trump, as you know, but what was the president supposed to do? If Trump had simply refused to answer any question by Acosta, I’d take his side. But Acosta actually got the president to react to three different questions, or at least questions interrupted. This wasn’t a one-on-one.

At a certain point the president is allowed to move on. And it is the president, not Jim Acosta, who sets those parameters. By refusing to relinquish the mic, Acosta was hijacking the presser. And from what I’ve seen, he’s not about to apologize for that. That’s why CNN loves him. He’s a bulldog, albeit a polite and respectful bulldog.

But he often treats pressers as an extended debate between himself and Trump (or Sarah Sanders). From our vantage point, there’s a wide spectrum between being the president’s lap dog and refusing to play by the rules, as he was.

Acosta left the president little choice but to step away from his own mic, as that poor White House intern tried to intervene. And my Twitter timeline, which is full of journalists, are all taking Acosta’s side. But I’m not. He asked his questions, and Trump rudely and condescendingly, as is his nature, gave his answers. At some point Trump gets to move on. And Acosta doesn’t get to say when.


As for Sarah Sanders later justifying the revocation of Acosta’s pass because he put his hands on the female staffer (and Corey Lewandowski, of all people, tweeting out his support of this censure) we’ll roll the tape and send it over to Dean Blandino in the replay booth. Still, if you peruse both videos, you’ll notice the White House version is chop-shopped. Wonder why…


Let’s be clear, because I can already see the sparks shooting up from Susie B.’s keyboard. I don’t think the White House has any justification to suspend Acosta’s hard pass (but then I don’t think they have any justification to fire Sessions, or to do most of the things they do every day), but I don’t think Acosta adhered to decorum, either. He was going to continue asking questions until someone forced him to stop. He, too, was out of control.

3. Borderline Insanity

Here’s the drill that we’ve all become accustomed to…

Where? Thousand Oaks, Calif., a nightclub called Borderline.

How Many?  12 dead

Who? Not Honduran immigrants, so that’s a relief.

What Next? Thoughts and Prayers; President Trump praises law enforcement in a tweet and since the gunman was Caucasian, makes no mention of him; “It’s Too Soon To Talk About Guns” timer is automatically reset.

4. Overdue Book

Saturday night’s sub-freezing Florida State-Notre Dame data point just got a little more interesting. Fighting Irish quarterback Ian Book, the nation’s completion percentage leader at 74.5%, will apparently miss the data point with, as Al Michaels would put it, “a rib.”


How seriously injured is Book? Will he also miss the Syracuse data point, or is the coaching staff holding him out of FSU (a very winnable game) so that he’ll be ready for Syracuse, a more daunting foe, at Yankee Stadium on November 17? And will it be all Brandon Wimbush come Saturday, or will Brian Kelly sprinkle in a little of freshman Phil Jurkovec?

Stay tuned.

5. Two Generations Of Dickersons

You never hear them mention it on CBS This Morning, but host John Dickerson is the scion of a White House reporter (Hooray, Nepotism! Part 674) who had plenty of experience covering a president who would ultimately resign due to a scandal. Dickerson, who formerly hosted Face The Nation on CBS on Sunday mornings, is the son of Nancy Dickerson, a pioneer among women in on-air political coverage.

Nancy with John Chancellor, Harry Reasoner, and I don’t know who that dude on the left is…

Nancy Dickerson, who died in 1997 at the age of 70, is truly worthy of one of those slow-paced, historical CBS Sunday Morning profiles. A school teacher in Milwaukee, Nancy Hanschmann set off on her own to Washington, D.C.. with the dream of becoming a broadcaster. A single lady, she landed an associate producer’s gig at…Face The Nation.

In 1960 she became CBS’ first female correspondent (she covered Kennedy’s corpse being returned to Andrews Air Force base) and then from 1963-1970 worked for NBC. In 1962 she married a wealthy industrialist, C. Wyatt Dickerson, and they had two sons. They lived on a 46-acre estate in McLean, Va., called Merry wood, that overlooked the Potomac.

Dickerson then went on to work for PBS and produce independent pieces. She is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. We can understand why her son doesn’t want to bring up his mom’s name too much, but she is sort of a legend in the biz, particularly when it comes to women who cover the White House.

Music 101

Waiting

Sometimes it’s best to cleanse your musical palate with a simple garage rock classic. Here’s Green Day with a simple four-chord ditty (A, D, B minor, E, repeat) from the year 2000.

Remote Patrol

Bucks at Warriors

10:30 p.m. TNT

Get me to the Greek….Freak

Okay, even I’m interested in this one. Giannis and Dante take on the Splash Brothers. A moment of silence, please, for Milwaukee beat writers who have to type Antetokounmpo and DiVincenzo in all their gamers. These two squads are a combined 18-3 and the Bucks are the most exciting new super team in the league (I’m far more intrigued by them than the LeLakers).

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right


A blatant plug.

Starting Five

American Stalemate

The Democrats, after an eight-year absence, regained control of the House of Representatives. The Republicans gained three seats in the Senate, extending their majority. The darlings of October, at least with the liberal media—Stacey Abrams, Andrew Gillem and Beto O’Rourke—all lost. Voter turnout was up over 35% from the last midterm elections.


The intensity and passion was there, but it wasn’t quite a Blue Wave. The more rural a state or area, the more likely you are to see MAGA out in support of Trump and white nationalism. The more urban or educated a state or area, the more likely you are to see people out in support of Democrats or diversity.


It’s a culture war and the battle lines have been drawn. I’m not sure how we ever unite over this. The jobs are in the cities, as are the educational opportunities or the opportunities for those who are educated. But there are still plenty of votes in rural America (and Florida, Texas and Ohio), enough to keep the Senate red and enough to win the electoral college. It’s a republic, not a democracy, after all, and Trump and Mitch are playing this game to win. And you might not like their tactics, but they do know how to play this game.

2. Dead Pimp Scrolls

Some of the weirder nuggets from yesterday’s mid-terms:

–Iowa goes “full retard,” as well as full neo-Nazi, by reelecting Senator Steve King.

–Nevada elects Dennis Hof, the rooster from the Cathouse series in which he openly boasted about owning seven brothels in Nevada, to a state assembly seat. The only problem is that he died 21 days ago. Hof is a true HOF’er.

Cortez: From concrete jungle to the swamp…

–Americans elected their first openly gay governor, in Colorado (Jared Polis…yes, they went to Jared), its first Muslim woman representative, its first Native-American female rep (two, actually) and its youngest-ever female representative, who happens to be Latina (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 30).

3. Revenge Tour?


The Selection Committee’s new top four: Alabama, Clemson, Notre Dame, Michigan. We gots no problem with that, but we are curious as to why so many members of the media have fallen in thrall with the Wolverines’ self-proclaimed “Revenge Tour.”

Revenge Tour? The band has only traveled to South Bend, Evanston and East Lansing. Hep Alien did more dates over a greater range. This is only a tour Bob Seger could love.

You’re not really a great team until you win a meaningful game on the road (ask Alabama, 29-0 winners at LSU on Saturday; better yet, ask No. 5 Georgia, who lost badly in Baton Rouge last month). Michigan’s trio of road games: a loss in South Bend, a win Evanston that required a comeback from a 17-0 deficit, and a win at Michigan State in a game that was in doubt until the fourth quarter.

Have the Wolverines looked impressive in the Big House? Damn right they have. Are they better than they were on Sept. 1? Yes.

The funny thing is that right now they may get their wish and ours: a date with Alabama.

4. “The Call On The Field Is Targeting”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0O392ZEUpc

One man and some tape versus millions of years of evolution? Yeah, I’m going with the gator, too. Good for him.

5. ‘Heat’ Check

So the other night we watched Heat for the first time and it was pretty much as Michael Mann-ish as we feared it would be. It’s as if someone decided to make a three-episode arc of Miami Vice, except they wanted to set it in Los Angeles and then populate it with some of the best actors of that or any era: Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, William Fichtner, Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, Dennis Haysbert, Hank Arazia, Mykelti Williamson, Natalie Portman, Ashley Judd, Amy Brenneman, even Jeremy Piven, etc. Then they tossed in Tone-Loc and Henry Rollins because why not?

Heat was released in 1995, so Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs had both already been released. Mann was still drawing stick figures while Tarantino was doing sketches of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Also, it’s kind of difficult not to think of Mann as a misogynist and well, maybe, a little narrow in his views. All the women live only to be used and abused by their men (and they still stick by them, to the point of absurdity) and the only black character is an ex-con.

(This is the most famous scene from Heat, but there are at least two others, when Pacino is irate, that are even better)

The saving grace: Al Pacino just chews the f***ing paint off the scenery and is simply so fan-damn-tastic. If you haven’t seen it, it’s on Netflix. Re-watch the scene where he’s shaking down his informant in the junkyard. It’s a joy. And of course the scene in which DeNiro, the head of a crew of bank robbers, meets Pacino, the detective pursuing him, at a diner for a summit meeting is a time capsule scene. Here are the two most acclaimed actors since 1970 finally, finally sharing a scene together.

Honestly, the Pacino is the very, very best thing about Heat. He really did have quite a renaissance in the early ’90s.

As good as Pacino was, Val Kilmer was simply that bad. Everything about his performance screamed, “It wasn’t in our budget to get Brad Pitt.” Anyway, there was this scene at DeNiro’s Malibu hideout that I noticed and apparently I’m not the only one. To wit, what the hell is going on with Val’s left elbow here??? And why is it never explained? And why didn’t they just shoot the scene differently, or ask him to put on a long-sleeved shirt, to hide it? Ewww.

 Music 101

I’m A Believer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W83InivbUSQ

When you think of the bands that were making music in 1967—The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, The Byrds, The Band, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Mamas and the Papas, The Doors, The Who—it’s rather astounding that The Monkees had the top-selling record that year: This record, written by Neil Diamond. That’s Mickey Dolenz on vocals, which have never been given the credit they deserve. That’s what happens when your band is also a TV show. But they made some memorable music.

Remote Patrol

22 July

Netflix

“You will die today. Marxists, liberals, members of the elite.”

The events of July 22, 2011 shook Norway and all of Europe to the core. And sadly, the violence unleashed by a solitary individual that claimed 77 lives in a pair of coordinated attacks (the second a killing spree of teen youths on the tiny island of Utoya) has become a harbinger of the bloodshed we have seen here, as it was precipitated by a white nationalist who saw himself as a soldier in a race war.

Less than half of this film is the attacks. The second part is how a few survivors, particularly the teen above in the middle (played remarkably well by Jonas Strand Gravli), recover and deal with the trial of the murderer. The chilling scene that stayed with me is from the courtroom, when an avowed older white nationalist is called as an expert witness on the phenomenon. He explains that white supremacists are completely in line with the murderer’s ultimate goal, they just think that his tactics undermined their crusade. That the way to win this war is to wage a far more clandestine battle. As we have seen take place in the U.S.A.

“The alt-right, the far right, you can call us whatever you want,” the man says. “We’re deadly serious about seizing power, about changing society completely. But a single man’s violent act won’t help us to reach that goal.”