Monthly Archives: June 2019

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 3 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

https://twitter.com/lachlan/status/1142066116262531073?s=20

I mean, what a tragically uninformed thing to write. These are basically in-time (no pun intended) chronicles of the past 90 years.

Starting Five

Tobin Heath (17) gonna mess you up

Girls Just Wanna Have Run

The U.S. women scored less than three minutes into their final group stage match yesterday, versus Sweden, the nation that knocked them out of the 2016 Olympics. The Yanks won 2-0, meaning they exited the group stage round with 20 goals for, zero against. Are you paying attention, Michigan? THIS is how you do a Redemption Tour.

Next up for the U.S. women? Spain, Monday, in the Round of 16. The knockout stage begins tomorrow. The breakdown: eleven European nations or present/former British colonies, two squads each from Asia and Africa, plus one from South America (Brazil).

Men Without Hats (That Depict The Team They’ll Actually Be Playing For)

The latest fly in the ointment for the NBA draft, held last night, is the obsolete custom of marching young men up to the stage wearing the baseball caps of the teams that technically drafted them, but for whom they will not play since behind-the-scenes trades that cannot officially be announced before July 6 preclude them from donning the caps of the franchises for whom they will actually play (got that?).

De’Andre Hunter, Lakers (really Hawks). Jaxson Hayes, Hawks (really Pelicans). Cameron Johnson, Timberwolves (really, Suns). And that was just in the first 11 picks. There were more. It’s not a big deal, but everyone involved knows where these players are actually heading. Until some team reneges on an unofficial back-room deal, why pretend?

London Galling

Next weekend the Red Sox and Yankees will trek to London to play a pair of games (why not a three-game series?) at West Ham’s London Stadium. That’s all cheerio and brilliant and all, but soccer pitches are rectangular or oval, in terms of fan access, and baseball stadiums more triangular. What you are left with, as you can see here is an ENORMOUS foul territory that is in play. Gonna be an inordinately high number of foul ball put-outs, and truly, is there a more exciting play in baseball than that?

By the way, if you head over to Europe next week, you can criss-cross the English Channel and see the Women’s World Cup, this series, Wimbledon (begins July 1) and then the Tour de France (starts July 6 according to Susie B.). Not a bad sports holiday.

Blink

We’re actually relieved that President Trump acted with uncommon discretion regarding Iran, even though we were “cocked and loaded.” The first hint (and the latest insertion into our overflowing catalog of Trump misstatements for the eventual “The Worst Wing” tome) that something was amiss was when the president went out of his way yesterday to inform the public that “we had no one in the drone.”

https://twitter.com/jackODspeaks/status/1141804361019822080?s=20

Yeah, that’s kinda what made it a drone. It’s like announcing, “This bird had wings.”

Anyway, leave it up to you on whether to take Mike Pompeo and the lads at their word as to whether the drone had crossed the plane of the goal line or not (i.e., was in international waters or not) and we’ll commend Trump for not, for once, following what his Fox News and/or Fox & Friends cohorts want him to do. And you can call him a chicken hawk if you like, but Donald Trump is smart enough not to start a war with Iran on the same day the S & P index hits an all-time high.

Or maybe it’s just that Iran shot down a U.S. drone and the White House turned around and attacked Philadelphia? That is, after all, the city where the Dems held their 2016 presidential convention.

The Ex-Rays?

Now it’s one thing to float the idea, as a professional franchise, of splitting time between two neighboring cities. Once upon a time, after all, there was a “Kansas City-Omaha Kings” and the Boston Celtics used to regularly play a couple games per season in Hartford (as the UConn Huskies still do).

But what the Tampa Bay Rays are now exploring, with the MLB’s permission, of splitting time between south Florida and Montreal, well that’s just goofy. Two cities more than 1,000 miles apart, in different countries with different languages? I can just see the fan t-shirts “WE THE NORTH—AND SOUTH.”

It’s kinda like your parents telling you, “We’re not getting divorced, but your father and I are going to start seeing other people. Oh, no, it’ll be great. Twice the number of trips to Six Flags.”

Baseball in Florida after April Fool’s Day don’t really work, despite the large population base. Four cities to which Tampa should seriously consider relocating: Nashville, Indianapolis, Salt Lake City, Portland. Any and all of them would support baseball better.

(Also, while “Ex-Rays” is the go-to name for this team, should it come to pass, we also like “Inter-Nationals.”)

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Starting Five

Guarded Optimism

The consensus is that the first three picks in tonight’s draft will be, in order, Zion Williamson, Ja Morant and R.J. Barrett. As many have said, “The draft begins at the No. 4 pick.”

And when that does happen, look for three guards to be among the next four players taken, if not the next three. They are: Darius Garland, Vanderbilt; Jarrett Culver, Texas Tech; and Coby White, North Carolina.

Quick notes on all three:

–Culver, 6’5″, has a dad named Hiawatha who was Texas Tech’s team chaplain and said the pre-game prayer. His older brother Trey tied the fourth-best high jump mark in NCAA history as a track and field athlete for the Red Raiders (teams wondering if Jarrett can take his big brother’s hops).

–White, also 6’5″, is the top prep scorer in North Carolina history, which bears noting because Michael Jordan, among others, played his high school hoops in that state. White is also the top freshman scorer in Tar Heel history (again, M.J.). A lot of folks think he’s being seriously undervalued in this draft as opposed to say, Morant, who played in a far easier conference in his collegiate career (whereas White played in the nation’s toughest).


Culver came within an overtime session of a national championship

–Garland, 6’2″ish, is the son of former NBA player Winston Garland. He led his high school team, Brentwood Academy, to four state championships and he was a three-time Mr. Tennessee Basketball. He played only five games for Vanderbilt before a meniscus injury ended his season/collegiate career, but many folks believe he’s the best pure shooter/one-on-one player in this group.

Hope and Chains?

Former White House minx Hope Hicks kickstarted the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots about 10 days early by stonewalling a Congressional subcomittee hearing yesterday. From The Washington Post…

During a closed-door interview with the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, a White House attorney and Justice Department lawyer kept Hope Hicks from answering questions about her tenure in the West Wing, claiming immunity for the executive branch — although Hicks is a private citizen.

If you’re keeping score, this is the 17,849th time that the current administration has plowed over a “They Can’t Do That, Can They?” standard of the past. Hicks is literally obstructing justice, but the DOJ is doing a “We’ll allow it,” which is going to compel House Democrats to take it to the courts, which will take forever (or at least until close to the 2020 election). Justice delayed is justice denied, and few understand that better than Trump and his lawyers.

This is where you have to hand it to T-ball dads. When they don’t get a judgment they like, at least they take steps to resolve the issue swiftly.

Passing The Snell Test

Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Blake Snell, the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner, took the mound at Yankee Stadium at around 1:15 p.m. yesterday. One out, two hits, three runs, four walks and thirty-nine pitches later, Snell got the hook. He’d eventually be charged with six earned runs in the first inning in what would become a 12-1 Rays defeat.

Snell becomes the first reigning Cy Young Award winner to give up at least six runs and get no more than out in a start. The 57 pitches Tampa Bay needed to get through the first inning were the most in any inning in more than 30 years.

A famous denizen of the old Yankee Stadium was known to have said, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” This one was over in the first inning, Yogi.

What Ever Became Of ‘Big Time Timmy Jim’?

There are two pitchers in the entire history of baseball who have thrown two no-hitters, won two Cy Young Awards, and played for multiple World Series champions and been voted to play in multiple All-Star Games. The first is Sandy Koufax, widely considered to be the greatest living starting pitcher (although your Bob Gibson cries are being heard).

The other? Tim Lincecum.

The lithe Lincecum, who stands just 5’11” and seemed to have been made out of the same material as Gumby, turned 35 years old last week. Lincecum is technically listed as a free agent, but he has not pitched in a Major League contest since 2016. And would you believe that his career record is a rather unimpressive 110-89?

This story from a year ago is the most recent piece I could find on the phenomenon they called “The Freak.” As for Cooperstown, I believe we’ve entered an era where the anayltics nazis are more about spreadsheets than, you know, actual “Wow!” factor of players. Tim Lincecum definitely belongs in the Hall of Fame not because of his career numbers but because, for a brief five-to-six year spell, he was an MLB phenomenon. He was fascinating, exceptional and genuinely unique. It’s a Hall of Fame, not a Hall of Stats, no?

The Carls

Every neighborhood has an intersection that is the heartbeat of said ‘hood, and for me that is 79th and Broadway (where the 1 train stops). For a few years now, at least four or five, the unofficial mayor of that intersection has been a tall, homeless man named Carl who patrols the south median most hours.

Let me tell you about Carl: he’s a very handsome, athletic-looking black man about 40 years old. I’d say he’s about 6’3″ and toned, with green eyes. Seriously, you could clean him up and he could be an actor, easy. He’s usually howling at the wind, which scares some passersby, often while wearing a tank top and holding a 40 in one hand.


The Apthorp, decades ago. Carl’s “home” is a little entryway on the building’s right side in this photograph

In the past three years, Carl and I have become friends, which is to say that I bring him a to-go box of food after my work shift and he knows my name and says, “Thank you, John.” I’m not under the impression that Carl sees me as anything more than a Seamless-for-the-Homeless, and I don’t want any credit for this nightly altruism, as I have to pass him on the way to the bodega for my post-shift “You-earned-it” Modelo, so it’s just easier to drop off some food as opposed to telling him why I won’t give him money.

Like a lot of Upper West Siders, Carl keeps two residences. Unlike many of them, he pays a mortgage on neither. His “primary” home is a little outdoor vestibule on the side of The Apthorp, a beautiful and iconic pre-war apartment building that takes up an entire city block (78th to 79th, Broadway to West End) and is the home of Cyndi Lauper and formerly Louis C.K.

Carl’s second home is beneath an archway in Riverside Park, two blocks away. Whenever I see Carl I’m amazed that he seems to have changed his clothes, gotten a shave and, like I say, looks pretty damn good. I’m not the only one who has noticed, as this spring he seems to have gotten himself a girlfriend (I’ve dubbed her “Mrs. Carl.”). What she has brought to the party besides love and affection is a futon, which the couple often keeps with them on the median as they go about their daily business (I’ve wondered if Carl should start writing a blog, Median Happy).

So here’s Carl: two residences, no work headaches, a beer whenever he likes, and a woman who loves him. I don’t know anyone on the Upper West Side who’s living a better life than Carl. And I have told him this. I’d show you a photo of him but maybe after I ask him permission. Not yet.

A work friend has joked to me that I’m feeding two now while I joke back that if The Carls want to start a family, they’re going to have to start looking at stoops in Park Slope. That’s just the way it works in New York City.

The other day I was approaching the intersection to do my laundry and a very nice, very white young man, well-dressed, stopped me. He was one of countless solicitors we get in this neighborhood (there are a lot of very wealthy, guilt-ridden folks where I live) for various causes. Before he got three words into his schpiel I stopped him. “See that man over there?” I asked, pointing at Carl about 20 feet away, who was railing incoherently about something. “He’s the only person at this corner who gets to shake me down.”

And with a smile (I think), I took my leave.

Paint Misbehavin’

The Persistence of Memory

Salvador Dali, 1931.

Well, hello, Dali. No one made the surreal more sublime than the Catalonian artist, and imagine what he might’ve done with the help of LSD. Off the charts! This painting was given to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City by an anonymous donor (was it Ted Danson?), where it still resides. Note to self: visit MoMa soon.

Remote Patrol

Women’s World Cup: USA vs. Sweden

3 p.m France

Fox should do a recurring “Go Ask Alex” segment, but they don’t. I don’t know why not.

From Le Havre, France, along the Normandy coast. Both squads are 2-0 in Group play so if the Yanks win or draw (goal differential, big advantage) they’ll play the second-place team in Group B, Spain. If Sweden wins outright, the Americans will face the second-place team from Group E, Canada. None of this makes sense as most feel that Spain is a superior squad than Canada. These women soccer players never get treated fairly.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 4 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Starting Five

2020 Vision

Last night Donald Trump kicked off his 2020 presidential tour, a.k.a. “BumpkinFest,” by playing all the hits off his 2016 breakthrough album: “Hillary’s e-mails,” “The Wall,” and of course, “Drain the Swamp.” The new album is titled Keep America Great, but we’re going with K.A.G. and pronouncing it “cage.”

Video showed a parade of “Proud Boys,” self-avowed white supremacists, marching to the rally in Orlando yesterday. It’s doubtful any of them read the Orlando Sentinel editorial that ran that morning declaring an endorsement for literally any candidate but Trump. The op-ed declared that “I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it” is the truest thing Trump ever said amidst his more than 10,000 lies while in office, but we must disagree. Judging from the continued support and a full arena of 20,000 mostly yokels, we maintain that “I love the poorly educated” is the truest thing Trump has said in the past four years.

So many are so confounded that no matter what Donald Trump says or does, he still maintains a rabid base of support (even if his approval ratings forever hover in the 40% range). Saturday Night Live even did a skit on it this spring in which it imagined a Meet The Press episode in which Chuck Todd presents scenarios that would compel prominent Republicans to once and for all denounce Trump. Absolutely nothing would sway them, nor the types who showed up in Orlando last night, never mind all the hypocrisy that’s staring them in the face (he’s a trust-fund kid from New York City who had everything handed to him, lost it time and again, cheated on his wives, never attends church, etc., etc.).

Anyway, here’s one scribe’s humble answer for why the support NEVER wavers, and we bring it up because it rarely, if ever, gets mentioned: during the peak years of the Obama presidency, while there were a number of GOP pols who obstructed Obama, there was only one man who figuratively called him, “boy.” And that man was Trump. Every single time Trump raised the birther issue, he was basically calling the President of the United States “boy.” And that awakened in many a visceral response: here was one dude who wasn’t going to let America slide down a path of diversity and LBGTQ freakishness and Mexicans, etc. It’s never really said out loud, but that’s what the birther issue is all about. You may be the Commander in Chief and occupy the Oval Office, but I still get to call you ‘boy.’

It’s all backwards, Jethro

For many, millions in fact, Trump was the one person in public life who was saying what they were feeling. Which is, of course, sad. And no, you’re not a racist if you like Donald Trump. But if you are a racist, you definitely like Donald Trump. So for the non-racists out there, please understand whose side you’re on. Because it’s really that simple.

Demaroo

Meanwhile, one week from today the Democrats will kick off a two-night, 20-candidate debate and we just wonder why someone with better graphics skills than ourselves has yet to create a poster that resembles those lineup posters Coachella and Bonnaroo put out each year.

Like, the biggest names on the first night, the ones that would belong on the top line, would be Elizabeth Warren and Beto O’Rourke. Night 2 has a much more loaded lineup, with Bernie and Biden, Kamala Harris and Mayor Pete (he’s like The Hold Steady of this DemFest).

Something like this, please

Twenty candidates. It’ll be winnowed down to five—everyone mentioned above except Beto—soon and then the people not wearing red baseball caps are going to need to decide if they want a septuagenarian white dude, a female senator, or a gay military veteran who just happens to be the smartest guy in the room, to take on Trump. Purely from a sports matchup perspective, we’d love to see Mayor Pete because he seems most impervious to the Trump mud-slinging strategy.

You think they’ll be serving vegetarian avocado toast empanadas at Demaroo?

Definitely Maybin

Maybin stroked a 429-foot, upper-deck bomb last night

Last night the New York Yankees won their fourth consecutive game and, not coincidentally, outfielder Cameron Maybin hit a home run in his fourth consecutive game. The Bombers have now hit one over the fence in 21 consecutive games, their second-longest streak of all time. The longest came in 1941 and overlapped with Joe DiMaggio’s epic 56-game hit streak.

In short, this team can rake and Maybin can rake right with them. Here’s where the quandary begins. The Yanks acquired the 13-year veteran purely as a stopgap during the April epidemic of injuries, kinda the way your mom or dad buys Pei Wei for dinner until she has time to do a real grocery store run. On Monday the Yanks added Edwin Encarnacion to the lineup (buh bye, Clint Frazier), then last night Giancarlo Stanton (see ya, Mike Tauchmann) and later this week Aaron Judge will return.

Encarnacion walked the parrot for the first time as a Yankee last night in a 6-3 win

So, outside of the starters, the 13 pitchers on staff and backup catcher Austin Romine, you have three players vying for two spots: outfielder Brett Gardner, infielder Gio Urshela and Maybin (and we haven’t even addressed what will happen when Miguel Andujar and Greg Bird return at some point; or what the Yanks will do when Kendrys Morales returns from the 10-day IL). So here’s Maybin, halfway to equaling Don Mattingly’s epic 8 consecutive homer games streak, the one that inspired Yankee fans to forever beatify him, in danger of being sent down just as he, or even just before he, potentially equals it. Because the Yanks can’t demote Urshela and they won’t hustle Gardner into retirement.

Is there another option? Yes. Here’s what the Yanks will do. They’ll send down a middle reliever to Scranton-Wilkes Barre and then spend the foreseeable future shuttling middle relievers back and forth between the Bronx and eastern Pa. So, yes, they’ll only have a dozen pitchers on staff but they’ll never be left hanging because as soon as one arm peters out they’ll just rotate that arm down and bring another one up.

Maybin stays. He’s more than earned it. And there’ll probably be another injury soon, anyway.

Take Your Ball And Go Home

For reasons that will always remain unclear to us, an NBA parent appeared yet again on an ESPN sports bloviation show Monday. During this appearance the show’s host, Molly Qerim, attempted a segue by saying, “Switching gears, I’d like–” and then was interrupted by the dad, who creepily said, “You can switch gears with me any time.”

Seated right next to the NBA Dad when he said this was ESPN’s highest-paid employee, Stephen A. Smith, who said nothing but smirked with chagrin. What’s notable about this, beyond the creepiness of it, is that Qerim’s husband is Jalen Rose, a dude who actually could ball and is now a highly valued member of the ESPN family.

Actually, you never needed to

So how did ESPN respond? It put out a statement that read, ““LaVar Ball’s comment to Molly Qerim Rose was completely inappropriate and we made him aware of that.” Which is not the same from noting that he will not be welcome back on their air any time soon.

This is kinda where we wish Jalen Rose had a little more Matt Barnes in him, because you just know Barnes would hunt down Ball and go Temecula on him. At the very least, Rose should place a phone call to Barry or Fuches, no?

Meet The Blacks

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

More than 1.6 million views thus far…

Two very viral videos of late, both featuring African-American parents and their pre-school kids, each effecting completely different reactions and in completely different situations. We don’t have any overarching wisdom to add to this incongruity, a lesson that we can tie up in a bow for you, other than to show them both to you and perhaps have you come to some epiphany that you will reveal to the rest of us.

Roughly 75,000 views thus far…

Reserves

Nosebud

Max Scherzer, meet Marcia Brady…



WENDELL’S WISDOM

by John Walters | Leave a comment

Whenever Wendell Barnhouse is inspired, we are happy to feature his thoughts on this site. Here’s his latest…

by Wendell Barnhouse

Your Veteran Scribe spent most of his professional career as newspaper writer and editor. For those unfamiliar with that medium, it was a daily deliverance of words, pictures and advertising with local, state, national, international news plus sports, business, obituaries, comics, crosswords and either Dear Abby or Ann Landers*.

In addition to unpaid overtime and crappy salaries, the banes of newspaper professionals’ existence were the typo (short for typographical error) and the correction. A typo could be a dropped word, a misspelling or an incorrect conjugation.

The correction was far worse. If an error of fact was made and later discovered, the paper would print a correction. Often, the reporter or editor who made the mistake would have to provide a superior with an explanation of how and why the error made it into print.**

Newspapers don’t carry the weight (literally or figuratively) of Moses’ tablets, but each day they are figuratively carved in stone. Typos, errors and subsequent corrections are forever preserved. Had God’s hand or concentration slipped, one of the Commandments could have been “Thou shalt not chill.”

Current digital delivery systems make newspapers quaint and antiquated. Compiling and writing content, crafting headlines, selecting photos and putting ink to newsprint 365 days a year is a process that once provided the public with a daily dose of digestible information.

Thanks to Bill Gates, Al Gore and microchips all – emphasis on ALL – the information is just a click away. To borrow from Hedley Lamarr***, “a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.” YVS likens the instant and incessant information flow to drinking from a fire hose.

(We pause here to admit that most editors YVS worked with would have reached this point and asked, “When are you getting to your point?”)

The web sites that post news stories provide great opportunities. Unlike newspapers, there are no space restrictions. Plus, if there is a typo, the post can be corrected and reposted. Same with a correction – though truth be told those corrections won’t be read or noticed unless the reader revisits that post.

The convenience of correction combined with the hellbent desire to post posts now plus the business model that basically ignores the editing process has turned digital journalism sloppier than a teenager’s bedroom.

Because of the etched-in-stone nature of newspapers, the editing process in the “good ol’ days” was tedious. A story would be submitted, and an editor would comb through each sentence, making corrections and edits for clarity (and, sometimes, length). The story would then be sent to the “slot” (a term from the main hands-on editor). He/she would edit the editing. Then, after the composing room would finish putting together a page, a before-print facsimile of the page would be “proofed” by yet another editor. At least three sets of eyes would examine stories varying in length from 75 words to 1,000 words.

YVS, who admits to spending an appalling amount of his semi-retired time perusing the “interwebs,” reads stories with an editor’s eyes. Those eyes see far too many typos. Three examples – all from major, well-financed web sites – from the weekend:

  • A story in The Athletic after the third-round of the U.S. Open: But even as Woods electrified the galleries and charged up the leaderboard, Woodland rallied with three birdies in his last eight hole to tie for sixth, his best finish in a major. (Holes, not hole.)
  • A story on CNN’s website about the Nxivm sex cult trial: “… said he was revered by his students and some saw him as the smartest men in the world.” Either “one of the smartest men in the world” or “the smartest man in the world.”
  • A story on ESPN.com about the ill-fated and short-lived Alliance of American Football: “Neuheisel and Ebersol dropped the conceit.” Concept?

YVS can imagine you, Dear Reader, imagining the author as a combination of “old man yells at cloud” and “get off my lawn.” Guilty.

Also, Dear Reader, you might be asking, “What’s the big deal? One typo in an otherwise excellent 1,000-word story is not a felony.”

True. And false. While the angst over a minor mistake shouldn’t detract from the story, it does indicate a lack of care and feeding. Accuracy and integrity are two of the major support beams for journalism.**** Discerning readers should give pause and ask, “If the verb isn’t properly conjugated, can I trust the reporting and the writing?”

The answer, 99.9 percent of the time, is “yes, the reporting and writing is trustworthy.”

But slippery standards and decaying due diligence might soon drop 99.9 to 99.8 and then 99.5. Failing to strive for accuracy and integrity can lead to real-life Idiocracy.

Anyone who questions the danger of accepting low-bar clearance only need to keep daily tabs on the man living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

______

Editor’s Notes:

  • *Who were sisters! Crazy, no?
  • **At Sports Illustrated, we had to file a written statement to our boss that would include the error, the correct fact, and an explanation as to why the error occurred. Most of the time this only occurred after a reader wrote in to correct us—known as a “challenge.” My favorite challenge was when a reader wrote in to correct our story as to how many brothers Brett Hull had. As the reader in question was Brett Hull’s mom, our reporter knew that he was going to have to take the L on that one.
  • ***Who doesn’t love a Blazing Saddles reference, but Wendell’s editor would probably advise him to name-check the classic comedy since it’s more than 45 years old and most millennials have no idea what it is.
  • ****At SI, our lawyers knew that the first step the opposing side would take in a libel suit would be to demonstrate how lax SI could be with facts and typos, etc. Hence, the SI Reporters bureau, colloquially known as “the bullpen,” where mostly twentysomethings fresh out of college or J-school cut their teeth as fact checkers. Hey, we all wanted to go out there and kick some Cobra Kai ass but the higher-ups thought we needed to learn how to paint fences and sand doors first. Ultimately, they were right.

You may recognize some former SI fact-checkers. A partial list: Jeff Pearlman, Seth Davis, Jon Wertheim, Grant Wahl, Josh Elliott, Steve Rushin, Paul Gutierrez, Ashley Fox, Dave Fleming, Tim Crothers, Chad Millman, Mark McClusky, Chris Stone, Steve Cannella, Austin Murphy, Ivan Maisel and Pablo Torre. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some other big names in the biz.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right


Ebert’s autobiography, Life Itself, is a terrific read. MH staff recommends.

Starting Five

Fox Hunt

Dallas Morning News photographer Tom Fox was on his way to a federal courthouse to do what he gets paid to do, shoot photos. Just before he walked inside Fox encountered a shooter of another type. Instead of running, he took the shot of his life.

Fortunately, police gunned down the man as if he were a four year-old who’d stolen a Barbie and no one else was hurt. Also, because he was white, you won’t hear the words “radicalized” or “terrorist” about him from anyone in the White House, if they even mention this incident at all, which they likely will not.

The shooter, a former U.S. Army infantryman, was fatally wounded by police.

Crowd Strike

Hong Kong, which didn’t even make the playoffs

If you’re scoring at home, some two million people in Hong Kong assembled to protest a new bill that would allow mainland China to extradite suspected criminals for trial. Public protesting in Hong Kong is itself a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison and yet some two million of the territory’s seven million citizens proudly took that risk.

Toronto, before shots rang out

Meanwhile in Toronto, hundreds of thousands gathered on a sunny and warm Monday to cheer the Raptors’ first NBA championship and watch a parade.

In one of the two mass gatherings, three people were shot (none fatally) and four arrested. We’ll let you guess which gathering (and no, David Ortiz was not at either event).

A New Zodiac Killer (and in the Bay Area, too)

We’re enjoying Ben Mezrich’s book, Bitcoin Billionaires, in which the Winklevi (twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss) disprove F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous dictum that “there are no second acts in American life.”

In fact, what this week’s events prove is that what happened before can and will happen again. In the past week Facebook, founded and still run by Winklevi nemesis Mark Zuckerberg, announced that it is launching its own cryptocurrency exchange named “Libra.” What makes that funny is that the Winklevi launched a cryptocurrency exchange a couple years ago named Gemini.

(For what it’s worth, the Winklevi were born under the sign of Leo, although the Gemini are famous twins in the Zodiac calendar, while Zuckerberg is a Taurus…and probably has never driven one.)

The address of Facebook’s headquarters, no kidding, is 1 Hacker Way

Anyway, you may recall that the Winklevi really did have the idea for Facebook first, but that Zuckerberg had the coding know-how that they lacked and he took their idea and ran with it. A few years later, using the funds they’d gotten from Zuckerberg in the settlement, the Winklevi were very early investors in Bitcoin, definitely the first high-profile investors, and made hundreds of millions as the cryptocurrency went from below $10 per when they bought it to where it is now, more than $9,000 per.

And now here comes Zuckerberg, who has even more money, trying to take over their new corner of the world. Wouldn’t it be funny if somehow he puts them out of business but at the same time is found to have somehow infringed upon their space and has to pay them off bigly in order to rid himself of them yet again?

Worth noting, as reported in Mezrich’s book: the Winklevi only turned to Bitcoin when every Silicon Valley start-up in need of cash turned down their offers of being investors. Reason: most start-ups end-game is to eventually be purchased by Facebook (see: Instagram) and if you’re backed by Winklevi money, there’s no way Zuckerberg is ever going to touch you. In fact, he’d likely actively try to hurt you.

Isn’t irony the best?

Disappearing Act

This is Indian magician Chanchal Lahiri, who over the weekend was chained and bound and lowered into the Hooghly River in order to attempt to replicate Harry Houdini’s famous escape trick.

It either did not go so well or it went even better than planned (as in, not only did Lahiri escape but he also made himself vanish). Alas, the authorities are going with the former and are presuming Lahiri drowned, although his body has yet to be recovered.

Onlookers, which included family and friends, waited a reported 30 minutes before launching a frantic search for Lahiri. Did they think he was a man or a sperm whale?

D-Day, Before We Forget

We forgot to post this incredibly well-done and meticulously reported story from The Atlantic, which first ran in 1960, when we saw it a couple weeks back. If you want to move past the heroic tales and the jingoistic fervor and simply appreciate what a miserable and deadly day D-Day was for countless GIs, read this account by S.L.A. Marshall titled “First Wave at Omaha Beach.”

The story is promoted as an “epic human tragedy” and that about gets it right. It doesn’t make their sacrifices any less significant, but it just goes to show you how cheaply human lives were squandered on that morning.

Paint Misbehavin’

The Birth of Venus

By Sandro Botticelli, mid-1480s.

She’s got it. Yeah, baby, she’s got it. Housed in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, this is one of the earliest of the great Renaissance works and was likely commissioned by the Medici, since painters at the time needed patrons to survive (apparently there was an internet disruption in the 15th century, too?).

Remote Patrol

Taken

8 p.m. AMC

The 2008 movie that was supposed to scare your daughter from ever wanting to summer abroad in Paris (and yet failed spectacularly: look where they’re holding the Women’s World Cup!). I have a particular set of skills is one of the better film lines of this millennium, no?