The Federal Reserve Bank which, to our knowledge, does not even have an ATM in the lobby
Fed X
As Fed Ex stock was tanking (a friend observed that this is the company’s worst week since Tom Hanks’ plane ditched in the Pacific), the Federal Reserve, ignoring the pleas of President Trump and investors, raised interest rates for the fourth time this season. This would be extremely troubling news, we decided, if we knew what it meant. So we decided to look it up.
Without getting all Alan Greenspan on you, the federal interest rate is the lending rank between banks. All U.S. banks must maintain a certain amount of cash on reserve, and Susie B. and her Amazon windfall cannot fund all of them (especially not now). So they lend and borrow between one another, and yesterday, for the seventh time since Trump took office, the Fed voted to an incremental raise in rates.
The Fed almost never, if at all, raised rates during the Obama presidency as the country was struggling to recover from the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Curiously, raising the federal interest rate has the most profound effect on mortgage (and to a degree, credit card) rates.
Okay, we may have gotten at least half of this wrong. We know. We know. We KNOW! Stick to sportsball.
2. Who’ll Stop The Rain Suns?
How often does this happen? An NBA team that has won 14.3% of its games nearly midway through the season DOUBLES its win total in one week. Ladies and gentleman, your 2018-2019 Phoenix Suns, who won their fourth in a row in Boston last night to leap from 4-24 one week ago to 8-24.
Playoffs!
The return of All-Star caliber guard Devin Booker from injury has had something to do with Phoenix’s resurgence (if only there were a mythical figure that could serve as a metaphor here), as he scored 25 (he scored 38 at MSG two nights earlier). What Suns fans should love is that rookie DeAndre Ayton put together an impressive 23-18 night. Oft-overlooked T.J. Warren had 21 and for the second year in a row is averaging better than 18 ppg.
–
The Suns had lost 10 in a row before this win streak began. What happened? Well, the W streak does coincide with 90 year-old fan Greta Rogers tearing owner Robert Sarver a new one. Makes us wonder why Gov. Ducey appointed Martha McSally to take John McCain’s place and not Greta?
3. Syria Later
Our work here is done
In the last 24 hours, the White House has apparently caved on its demands for funding the border wall or else and has announced that the U.S. military will pull out of Syria. Someone just wants to get away to Florida and play golf, no?
In a video message posted yesterday our Supreme Leader said, “We have won against ISIS. We’ve beaten them and we’ve beaten them badly. We’ve taken back the land and now it’s time for our troops to come back home. I get very saddened when I have to write letters or call parents or wives or husbands of soldiers who have been killed fighting for our country.
“So our boys, our young women, our men, they’re all coming back and they’re coming back now. We won, and that’s the way we want it.” Trump then pointed to the sky and said, “And that’s the way they want it.”
Seriously. Is this any way to run a massive Military Industrial Complex???
Everyone, even the president, has a boss. And you know who his boss may just be? Vladimir Putin, who’s thrilled that the U.S. is exiting stage alt-right. And certainly this other maneuver is just a coincidence?
4. The Year In Pictures: New York Times Edition
Today’s edition of 2018 In Pictures, compiled by The New York Timeshere and including this iconic shot by Joe Raedle of Getty Images, is incredible. Give yourself five minutes and peruse.
5. Leo!
Gay. Vegetarian. Never married. Animal lover. Lefty (in terms of dexterity, but possibly politically). Often out of work. No, we’re not talking about us (I’m a righty), but instead Leonardo da Vinci, whose biography, by Walter Isaacson, we’re currently working our way through.
Funny anecdote: When he turned 30 Leonardo wrote the ruler of Milan looking for a job. In the first 10 paragraphs of his missive he noted most of his manifold skills, e.g. technical, engineering, etc. Finally, in his 11th and last paragraph, the man who’d go on to create the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper wrote, “Also, I can paint.”
Buried the lede there, Leo.
Music 101
Friday I’m In Love
Robert Smith likes to say of this 1992 hit by The Cure that it’s exactly the kind of happy, poppy song that is for people who are NOT fans of The Cure. “I don’t care if Monday’s blue” is a direct reference to the song from a decade or so earlier by New Order. Yes, we are aware that today is Thursday…
Remote Patrol
A Charlie Brown Christmas
8 p.m. ABC
Feels as if this has already aired this season, but who cares? If there can be non-stop sappy romcom Christmas films on The Hallmark Channel, why isn’t there a channel designated to air your favorite childhood Christmas specials THE WEEK BEFORE Christmas? For now, bravo, ABC! There may be no Christmas special that treats its prepubescent viewers more like adults than this one. There’s even great jazz piano and a gospel reading.
“Here come the judge, here come the judge, here come the judge…”
1. The Wrath of Emmet
We’ve heard of crooks receiving suspended sentences, but rare is the moment when the sentencing itself is suspended. That’s what happened in a D.C. courtroom yesterday when 71 year-old federal judge Emmet Sullivan went off on an 8-minute screed against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, saying, “You sold your country out” and “I’m not going to hide my disgust, my disdain…”
Then again, who better to be judgmental than a federal judge (answer: your mother-in-law)? After a recess it was decided that Flynn will not be sentenced until March, while Sullivan hinted there will likely be jail time. Flynn must surrender his passport and will no longer be able to travel more than 50 miles outside of D.C. So he may still attend Wizards games (that may be the punishment, actually).
If you’re scoring at home, Cohen guilty, Manafort guilty, Flynn guilty. Where there’s fire, there’s fire.
2. Penny From Heaven
Marshall directing Hanks in “Big”
You may know her primarily as an L.A. Laker fan, but Penny Marshall, who passed away yesterday at the age of 75, was a comic actress who had a highly successful foray into films behind the camera.
It all began for Marshall, as it did for Robin Williams, with a guest-shot on Happy Days. There she and Cindy Williams (as Laverne DeFazio and Shirley Feeney) appeared as either blind dates for Richie (Ron Howard) and Fonzie (Henry Winkler) or backup singers for the Fonz or maybe both. I forget; I barely was allowed to stay up that late. The year was 1975.
The episode was a smash, Penny’s big brother happened to be the creator of Happy Days (which was for a few seasons THE hottest sitcom in America back when that really, really mattered) and by next season a spin-off, Laverne & Shirley, which aired immediately after Happy Days on Tuesday nights, was on the air (which provided the big career break for Michael McKean). It was “just a spinoff,” but it was also the top-rated show on television for two consecutive years in the late Seventies.
Marshall went on to direct Bigand A League Of Their Own (the latter of which resurrected Tom Hanks career and remains our favorite performance of his).
3. Antarctica Adventure Race
Not sure if you were following this story, but American Colin O’Brady and Brit Louis Rudd are racing one another across Antarctica because, after all, it’s late spring there and positively balmy. As one of the (ahem) few bloggers you know who (humblebrag alert) has actually raced across Antarctica, I can assure you this ain’t easy (although just getting there is half the challenge).
O’Brady an Rudd are 46 days into their odyssey across Antarctica, which we remind you is a continent larger than the United States (Alaska included) or Europe (although somewhat less populated than either). As this New York Times story details, the two disembarked from the same plane on November 3rd and started their treks across the bleak, desolate and wind-swept landscape about 10 minutes apart.
Whoever wins, assuming one (or both) finishes, will become the first man to have trekked solo across the continent.
4. Photo Shoppe
Photo editors from ABC News selected 38 favorite photos from 2018 because nothing works on the web quite like a slide show. This one, shot by Andrew Carter of the Raleigh News & Observer during the North Carolina floods earlier this autumn, stands out. But then we do love kitties.
5. Brooklyn Block Party!
We’d like a poster of this, please. The Nets’ Jarrett Allen gives an early Christmas present to Susie B. by blocking this attempted dunk by LeBron “Sweet Pea” James. Talk about skyscrapers. The Nets (8-14) defeated the Lakers in Brooklyn, 115-110, for their sixth straight victory, giving them the longest current win streak in the NBA .
Meanwhile, the Denver Nuggets are atop the Western Conference, and someone really ought to inform ESPN and The Big Lead about this development. Me, I’m just going to wait for The Ringer’s 5,000-word think piece on how the public/media aspirational obsession with the Lakers is just a Samuel Beckett play being transferred to sport.
Music 101
Little Drummer Boy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADbJLo4x-tk
I remember being an 11 year-old boy for Christmas ’77 and seeing this pairing, near the end of Bing Crosby’s Christmas special (the Christmas special that did not introduce the AP All-America team), and not quite being able to understand it. I mean, Was this the same guy?
You gotta hand it to Bing, though. The Gonzaga grad did iconic duets over the years with Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra and here, Ziggy Stardust.
Remote Patrol
Relatable
Netflix
Ellen DeGeneres‘ first stand-up gig in 15 years. What’s she been doing with herself all this time? According to The New York Times, she’s not as nice as we thought. Horrors!
In famed Nazare, Portugal, 29 year-old Tom Butler of Great Britain rides what may have been the tallest wave anyone has ever surfed. At least with video evidence. Butler rode this monster, which he believes may have measured in at 100-feet tall, last Saturday.
Butler has yet to receive confirmation as to whether he broke the world record. He’ll probably learn of it at the Big Wave Awards in April. Still, how will they fit both Butler and his cojones in the same hall?
2. Strawberry Fields? Forever. Justin Fields? For One Season
The nation’s No. 2 quarterback recruit from a year ago, Justin Fields, is planning to transfer from Georgia, according to our pal Dan Wolken of the USA Today. Fields was last seen not aborting a midfield punt-fake on 4th-and-11 with the score tied at 28 versus Bama, though perhaps it wasn’t the Kirby Smart-est maneuver to even put a true freshman in that spot?
Fields backed up true sophomore Jake Fromm all season and Fromm will definitely be in Athens at least one more season, if not two.
The No. 1 QB from a year ago, Trevor Lawrence, will start for Clemson in a national semi.
If you’re wondering where the QBs on the final four teams were ranked nationally overall as players coming out of high school, Lawrence was first, Tua Tagovailoa of the Tide was 32nd, Kyler Murray of Oklahoma was 34th and Ian Book of Notre Dame was 514th. ‘Cruitin!
3. Did Dassey Do It?
Bobby Dassey
(SPOILER ALERT: This item concerns Season 2 of Making A Murderer. If you plan on seeing it, skip).
We finished Season 2 of Making A Murderer in a huff of suspense late last night and we feel compelled to ask: How many people besides Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey, who are innocent, were involved in the murder of Teresa Halbach?
Here’s what our gumshoe-ing produces: Manitowoc County had 36 million reasons to pin this murder on Avery. Brendan was collateral damage, as the prosecution needed a witness to bolster its case.
Knowing what we now know, that his older, intimidating and torture-porn obsessed brother Bobby probably did it, we can understand why Brendan was so loathe to share detail during his police interview. Maybe he knew that his big brother had done something to Halbach, and maybe he was afraid of his brother. The special never offers this interpretation, by the way, that perhaps all along Brendan figured he was fingering his brother as opposed to his uncle.
Colborn: Dirty cop
But what about ex-boyfriend Ryan Hillegas? He’s certainly involved in some fashion, because he had access to the day planner in Teresa’s RAV 4 before it was found in the Avery salvage yard. And Avery’s brother-in-law Steven Tadych, not relate to him at the time of the murder, certainly seems to know something. And then there’s good ol’ Sgt. Andy Colborn, who for the second consecutive Avery case, passes on offering exculpatory information on Avery (he’s told by someone that they spotted the RAV4 parked off the highway two days prior to it being discovered in the Avery lot).
Our best guess: Bobby Dassey did it. The cops somehow got involved with Hillegas to frame Avery. Tadych, we’re not sure if he was part of the conspiracy. Again, 36 million reasons for the County to want to see Avery in jail and never leave. He’s now 56 years old and has spent more than 30 years of his life in jail for not one but two crimes he never committed.
And yes, that coroner interview near the end of the final episode is chilling. Proof of the conspiracy that Ken Kratz was also in on, and perhaps even the judge in the trial.
Two more things: Most of the 10-part Season 2 is overly drawn out and highly forensic. Coulda been about three episodes shorter, but it really begins cooking midway through Episode 8. Two, as much as we liked and rooted for the Northwestern law professor, she got her ass handed to her in the en banc hearing. Painful to listen to.
4. Traitor
As we type this, former National Security Adviser and four-star general Michael Flynn is being sentenced for his role in working with the Russians post-election of Donald Trump. Judge Emmet Sullivan admonished him, “You should your country out” and then asked prosecutors if they felt Flynn’s actions rose “to the level of treasonous activity.” They declined to affirm or refuse.
The sentencing is coming this afternoon. Hanging used to be the punishment for treason. We haven’t had a good hanging in awhile.
5. Lunar Letter To Steph
Note: An old and good friend of ours, a high school buddy who started on a very talented varsity hoops squad and then graduated from Stanford and became a lawyer, has long held that the moon landing was a fraud. His primary argument, as we understand it, is that the reentry vehicle was traveling at far too great a velocity to reenter the earth’s atmosphere without burning up and that if it attempted to do so at a less direct angle, it would bounce right back out of the atmosphere (Do we have that correct, Mike?) He’s written an open letter to Stephen Curry:
Dear Steph Curry,
I understand you have doubts (or “jokes”) about the Apollo Lunar Landings. I am just writing to tell you that you need to be a little more discreet and circumspect when expressing the obvious. You see, when you state your true humorous feelings (i.e. that the official Lunar Landing story might be fantastical and ridiculous) you will receive immediate backlash from people who will call you crazy.
Even your good friends will start to question your sanity. They will talk to you about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, whether the Earth might be flat, and UFO’s. So, in the future when you question the Lunar Landings, please express your doubts in the form of a question. Asking a question is a much better way of expressing your justified disbelief.
Thus, instead of saying that the Lunar Landings were faked, ask a question like this: How could it be possible for the Apollo 11 Command Module to utilize the re-entry corridor when the Command Module was traveling at escape velocity after the Trans Earth Injection? Seriously, there are professors in astrophysics who will not know the answer to that question above, because some astrophysicists simply never bothered to discover that the so-called re-entry corridor was nothing more than an elliptical orbit with the perigee inside the Earth’s atmosphere. The problem is that the Command Module cannot be in orbit around the Earth while traveling at escape velocity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dmJdixbHCk
When you ask questions like this, you make the scientists think, and you make the morons shut their mouths. So, it is a win-win. Even though your ultimate conclusion might be incorrect, you would still be advancing science by asking a relevant and important question.
Also, do not be fooled by NASA offering you the opportunity to see the Moon rocks up close. The Moon rocks are almost identical to Earth rocks. Most theories about the formation of the Moon posit that either the Moon broke off from the Earth, or else the Moon and Earth were both formed out of the same cataclysmic collision.
And, do not be fooled by the uproar from certain people who are suggesting that asking questions about the Lunar Landings will hurt science. That is hogwash, because the scientific method is all about asking questions and discovering the truth. You cannot hurt science by asking questions. Indeed, you should never trust anyone who tells you to stop trying to learn.
Here are some more questions that you should ask NASA: What was the terminal velocity of the Apollo 11 Command Module at an altitude of one hundred thousand feet above the Earth? How were you able to measure Apollo 11’s angle of Earth entry with such precision? How were you able to measure Apollo 11’s velocity at Earth entry with such precision? What were the margins of error for your angle and velocity and altitude measurements for Apollo 11’s Earth entry?
Anyway, Steph, I wish you luck.
Yours Truly, Michael Thomas DePaoli
Note: Our friend, despite having been a liberal arts major, developed two engineering inventions that have been patented. He’s no dummy. And this writer is not edjumicated enough to tell him why he’s wrong, or right. So if you or anyone you know dabbles in astrophysics and is able to clear this up, it would save we, his friends, a lot of hours of discussing the film Capricorn One and what-not in the future. Thanks.
Music 101
Walkin’ On Water
When we were growing up in Arizona, an annual New Year’s Eve tradition was the Jerry Riopelle concert at the Celebrity Theater. We never went but you can still see Riopelle, who must be in his 70s, play in Scottsdale on the 28th and 29th later this month. Riopelle patented something called the Beamz music system, which involves lasers and we don’t understand it, but he owns homes in Hawaii and Scottsdale, so he’s doing okay.
Remote Patrol
Springsteen on Broadway
Netflix
We could write 5,000 words about how intimately we connect with the Boss and this show, how we both hail from Monmouth County/the Jersey Shore, how we both had tough but caring fathers (“He was my hero, and my greatest foe”), how we both have moms who “would talk to a broom handle” and were legal secretaries and could light up any room, how one of us is internationally acclaimed and the other just wrote “Thunder Road.” How we were able to see this show (thanks, Paula!) and found ourselves seated next to Ed Sheeran (seriously).
Be forewarned: This is not a concert film. This is closer to VH1: Storytellers on steroids. Bruce will play many of his hits, but almost none in the way in which you are used to listening to them. The humor, the pathos, the history of the man is what should compel you to view this.
Anyone, as incredible a performer as Springsteen is, he’s a better person. And writer. Let the broken hearts stand as the price you gotta pay…
*The judges feel confident that at last they nailed a headline.
The Miss Universe pageant aired from Thailand last night (It couldn’t have aired live, could it? Would it be like, what, 9 a.m. over there?) and let us tell you, you just can’t strut onto that stage with your hourglass figure any more and hope to compete.
Miss Venezuela? Law student.
Venezuela
Miss South Africa? Medical student.
Miss Vietnam? Donated all her winnings from winning the Vietnam pageant to building a library in the jungle. That is SUCH A POWER MOVE.
All three of them were in the final five, but none of them won. Miss Philippines won, although our scorecard had it South Africa, Venezuela and Canada (top 10, but eliminated after the evening gown competition). We wonder if South Africa finished 2nd because the reigning Miss U. is also from South Africa. These are the types of rulings that keep us up at night; we don’t concern ourselves with whether someone completed the process of the catch. This is more important.
2. Hostmaster General
Matt Damon hosted Saturday Night Live for the first time since 2001 this past weekend (we mistakenly thought it was his 2nd time this season, forgetting that he did not host when he played Brett Kavanaugh in an October cold open) and he rocked. It was easily the strongest episode of the season.
The cold open, “It’s A Wonderful Trump,” imagined a world in which Trump had never been elected and Damon even had a role in that (hosts rarely if ever appear in cold opens). He then put together a heartfelt monologue and tore it up in every sketch he was in, including “Westminster Daddy” and the “Weezer Argument.” He even played Will Hunting in one sketch and appeared as Tommy, the fighter husband/boyfriend to Heidi Gardner’s recurring Angel character on “Weekend Update” (“I’m taking the kids to my sister’s”).
Also, Colin Jost dared to tell the most politically incorrect joke of the season on WU. Noting that Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari had been embroiled in a controversy as to whether he is a body double of a dead version of himself, Jost said, “See? Even Africans can’t tell black people apart.”
Michael Che laughed. So did we.
3. Biden His Time
According to a poll of potential Iowa caucus-attendees (And by the way, is this any way to run the world’s most powerful country?), Joe Biden is the top Democratic nominee for 2020. Folks are already discussing a potential Biden-Beto ticket, which would be almost the exact inverse of The West Wing‘s Matt Santos-Leo McGarry ticket (that won; oops, spoiler alert).
They’re even both from Texas!
If you saw “Weekend Update” do a riff on this item, they noted that the boxed set of The West Wing would finish in the top 10 of this poll. I’d say Top 5.
4. White House Coverup
Here’s West Wing Aryan Nation sadist Stephen Miller appearing of Face The Nation yesterday morning. And here he is earlier this year…
As some tweep noted on Sunday: “He was hoping we would Nazi the difference.”
So we sat down and viewed Roma over the weekend (you can see it on Netflix). If we were teaching a film class, we’d assign a 10-page paper comparing and contrasting Roma and Shoplifters. Both are foreign films centered around non-traditional family units where near the end of the film everyone goes to the beach so that we can all symbolically acknowledge where we originated from as a species. The sea is home.
Okay, so Roma. We’ve asked our resident film critic, Chris Corbellini, to review it and let’s hope he can find some time during the holiday season. For us, the overarching themes are that men are bad people and women are bad drivers. But we’ll give you one scene to illustrate what Alfonso Cuaron does in a plethora of scenes: Cleo, our knocked-up house maid protagonist, travels to a rural enclave of Mexico City to confront the deadbeat who knocked her up. As she walks from the train, some sort of political rally is taking place and in the background you see a man being shot out of a cannon into a net. The camera does not focus on him and if you only focus on Cleo you miss it.
Stuff like this happens throughout the film (the fire scene is the best; pay attention to everything happening in the background). Most of the shots are panoramic tracking shots of a main character but there is so much going on in the background, intricately staged and choreographed but made to look happenstance. This is Cuaron telling a larger story but also, let’s face it, showing off. This is why the critics are agog over this movie. Hints of Fellini.
We found the story rather languorously told and, well, meh. But you can appreciate the artistry of it all. SPOILER ALERT: We mean, the final scene of the film is of our beloved Cleo doing something so incredibly, well, domestic. As a jumbo jet flies overhead (how did Cuaron cue up the planes to fly overhead at just the right times???). That’s the big finish.
It’s no Spider-Man Into The Spider Verse.
Note: The woman who plays Cleo is a pre-school teacher. She had never acted before. She’s magnificent in the role. How difficult is this acting thing, anyway?
Music 101
Crooked Teeth
Ben Gibbard, lead vocalist and spiritual center of Death Cab For Cutie, wrote this 2006 song as his quasi-ode to short story master Raymond Carver.
Remote Patrol
8 p.m. TCM
Lady On A Train
There’s this woman, see? And she’s on a choo choo. What’s not to love?
–
