Monthly Archives: August 2019

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 4 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Death or glory? Watch and see.

Starting Five

The 1619 Project

Five hundred years from now, if man is still alive (now we’re just channeling the song “In The Year 2525”), it feels to me as if the United States of America will be paired alongside ancient Rome among the historians. There’s no denying the technological advances that the USA has been responsible for, or that its ideals about democracy and liberty advanced society/societies in every hemisphere.

On the other hand, the two ugly truths about America is that it is land that was stolen from indigenous peoples and claimed via coast-to-coast genocide. And, second, that it was built on the backs of slaves who, as this new project from The New York Times accurately accounts, actually predated those Plymouth Rock Pilgrims on our shores.

“I love the poorly educated,” Donald Trump once said and he’s sincere. The poorly educated do not read. The poorly educated are happier to buy the myths that make them feel good about themselves rather than learn the harsh truths. The poorly educated prefer power to truth. There’s no crime in being poorly educated, since it’s normally the fault of those adults responsible for educating you. But, as an adult, it is a poor trait to willfully be opposed to learning more about what the truth is.

We don’t know how much traction this series from the NYT will gain beyond the “coastal elites.” Surely, if Trump even deigns to spend a moment responding to a question about it, he’ll call it “fake news.” But, capitalism flourished due to slavery (the way it does now via workers in Asia and workers from Central America) and America was built by capitalism. No way around that.

The Man From The Train

If you’ve read Devil In The White City, you know that serial killers in the U.S.A. existed long before Zodiac or Son of Sam or Ted Bundy. What you may not have known, what I certainly did not know, is that there may have been ONE brazen and prolific serial killer using railroads as his entry and egress for murder nationwide in the first decade of the 20th century.

The Man From The Train, whose author is Bill James, better known as the godfather of baseball saber metrics, investigates a series of murders that took place from Portland, Oregon, to the Deep South to Colorado Springs to Iowa and the Midwest. The M.O. was similar and chilling: the killer enters the home of a family after midnight and murders everyone, never using a gun but rather an axe handle, smashing heads as his victims slept. The homes are usually in rural areas and within half a mile of a railroad track.

Bill James and his daughter, Rachel

What makes James’ book (his daughter Rachel gets a co-author credit thanks to her copious research) fascinating is how easy is was to get away with murder a century ago. There was no FBI. Most small towns could not afford to investigate a murder—victims’ families were responsible for raising the money, which meant murders of lower-class people went uninvestigated (have times really changed?)—and without the internet or even a sophisticated newswire network, a mass murder that took place in Colorado that had shocking similarities to one in Iowa, well, those two murders would likely never be connected.

We’re not quite finished reading this book yet, and we hear that James and his daughter will eventually posit a prime suspect. If you enjoy true crime, this is one highly enlightening, and yet very disturbing, read. The good ol’ days weren’t all that good, it seems.

The Walton

Loved the idea of and, from what we saw, the execution of pairing Jason Benetti and Bill Walton in a baseball booth for a White Sox-Angels broadcast on Friday night (Benetti, whom ESPN viewers know as a precociously talented college football broadcaster, is the White Sox play-by-play guy). Which happened to be, coincidentally, the 50th anniversary of Woodstock.

“There’s no time limits, and you just go until somebody says, ‘It’s over,’” Walton, sounding not unlike George Carlin, said of baseball. “Sounds very much like a Dead show.

Okay, hate to be That Guy, but the record is actually FOUR and 88 different pitchers hold it. That’s because of the passed ball/wild pitch strike three that allows the player who struck out to safely reach first. But it’s never been done TWICE in one inning plus three other strikeouts (Rule No. 7 waiting to happen).

Here’s for us, the funny thing: the renaissance of Bill Walton has almost nothing to do with the fact that he’s arguably the greatest college basketball player to ever touch the hardwood (you can make an argument for his UCLA predecessor, Lew Alcindor, or for Pete Maravich, sure). For us, it’s all about his infectious attitude toward…living! Bill gets it: the ride ends for all of us, and all too soon. Enjoy the ride! And be a positive force while on that ride.

One thing we’d like to add: at the apex of Walton’s basketball glory, in the early to mid-Seventies, one of the two to three most popular shows on television was a show that just happened to be called The Waltons (“Good night, John Boy” was America’s most popular catchphrase—a precursor to memes—in the early Seventies before giving way to “Kid Dy-no-MITE!”).

The biggest name in basketball was Walton. One of the two to three biggest names in TV was Walton (after Bunker, perhaps). And while Sam Walton’s first Walmart had already been open for a decade (in Rogers, Arkansas) it was nowhere near yet being part of the American consciousness.

Slurry Kudlow

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow had us harkening back to Johnny Cash’s classic “Sunday Morning Coming Down” as he answered questions on Fox News (and on NBC’s Meet The Press) Sunday morning with what appeared to be a vodka-infused speech impediment. Save the Bloody Marys until after the TV hits next time, LK.

Google Turns 15

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who killed the encyclopedia, among other pre-21st century conventions

Literally, Google began in a garage in California. Fifteen years ago today, the company went public. I remember this fairly well because in the company’s early days, CNBC’s Joe Kernen skeptically asked, “Yeah, but how are they going to make money?”

The company’s stock is up 2,701% since its IPO. And if you happen to care, Google absolutely controls the fate of print media because Google controls how high up a story appears on a Google search.

Google opened at $85 per share on August 19, 2004—the company approached Berkshire Hathaway, i.e. Warren Buffet, with an investment prospectus, and he turned them down. It’s now worth $1,193 per share after one 2-for-1 stock split a few years back.

Remote Patrol

Mindhunter

Netflix

Hello, bingewatch! The first season of Mindhunter, based on the real-life beginnings of the FBI’s serial-killer profiler unit, was hypnotic and addictive. Special agent Holden Ford (based on John E. Douglas) and his partner, Bill Tench, go around interviewing serial killers (the term had yet to be coined, but they’d do it) when not giving seminars around the nation to law enforcement units. Ford comes off as college boy-type while Tench is a man’s man to other cops, but the duo work well together–and in interviews with psychotic killers, Ford demonstrates an uncanny ability to see through his subjects and manipulate them into confessing things they’d never expect to do (he’s like the Roy Firestone of serial-killer interviewers).

So here comes Season 2, which dropped on Friday night. We’ve only seen two episodes, but BTK is going to finally play a prominent role (he was teased in the pre-credit scenes of most episodes in Season 1) and there’s a terrific interview with David Berkowitz. If you say this is the best original series Netflix has yet produced, we’d not argue. For us, only The Crown is on its level.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 8 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Mooch! You figured it out! Look at you. Good boy.

Starting Five

The water hazard on the 7th hole of Trump International Greenland

Greenland Day

Of all the idiotic ideas Donald Trump has had before and after becoming president, this is NOT one of them. Of course the USA should purchase Greenland if the Danes put it up for sale. What with climate change and all Greenland will be Charleston in a few decades.

See how close this would put us to Russia, strategically

What we don’t understand is why the White House would bother to purchase it. Why not simply claim that ISIS has set up a base there and then deploy our military there for an indefinite period of time.

It Was Almost Over, Dale (Jr.)

On a sunny afternoon at the Elizabethton, Tenn., airport, Dale Jr.’s plane ran past the end of the runway and crashed through a retaining fence. Dale Jr., his wife, daughter and (most importantly) a dog, plus two pilots, were able to escape before the plane caught fire. There was retaining fence wrapped around parts of the plane, but lucky for Junior the cabin door was not restricted. Or else the Earnhardts would have been toast. Literally.

Now, as to how another airplane was able to bump Dale’s plane from behind, we still don’t understand. But that’s flyin’.

Bryce Capades


Bryce Harper may not be as good of a day-to-day player as Mike Trout (breaking: nobody is), but he can still do this. The Phillies entered the 9th inning against the Cubs down 5-1. Then two runs scored and the bases were loaded with one out when Harper came to the plate. That ball was last seen drifting past Jupiter.

Meanwhile, Harper’s grand slam capped a three-game sweep of the Cubs for the Phils.

Must We Revise Rule No. 1?

Frequent readers of this site are familiar with Rule No. 1: Gravity always wins. And then some skydiver chick in Quebec falls 5,000 feet when her parachute fails to open, survives, and compels us to rethink our entire existence.

Gravity almost always wins?

The 30 year-old female fell into a wooded area and suffered multiple fractures, including to vertebrae, but apparently her life is not in danger. No word on any paralysis.

This is the fastest and most precipitous anything has fallen in the past week that was not a result of an inverted yield curve.

$20 Bet

After Guerrero pressed the lyrics into Burns’ hands, he wrote the melody

It began about 10 years ago. Former Fox Sports reporter and ABC Monday Night Football sideline reporter Lisa Guerrero was at a charity golf event with her husband, former MLB pitcher Scott Erickson. The event, held in Kentucky, was overpopulated with country music types.

On the first night, filled with courage and perhaps a libation or two, Guerrero opined that it couldn’t be that hard to write a country music song (and this was long before Lady Ga Ga did so in A Star Is Born). That boast prompted a bunch of “little darlin'” responses but one man bet her $20 that she could not do so.

The next day, Guerrero sat down and wrote a country music song. The title: “Everybody Loves A Comeback.” She turned in the lyrics to the man (she forgets his name), who read them, did not quite believe she’d written the song, and then reached into his pocket and pulled out a Jackson.

Fast forward to this morning: country music artist Keith Burns has recorded the song and legendary Nashville producer James Stroud (credited with discovering Taylor Swift, among other achievements) has produced it. “Everybody Loves A Comeback” is out, under the Sony Music label, as of this morning.

Guerrero, who has a regular gig as an investigative reporter on Inside Edition (everybody really does love a comeback) is one of three backup singers on the song, along with sisters and budding artists Presley and Taylor.

*****

Yesterday. Phyllis phones. “I’m at church. Today is the feast of the Assumption.” Well, of course, Mom, everybody knows that!

“And tomorrow,” she says, “is the anniversary of the beginning of Medium Happy.” Phyllis never fails to astound us. Today is our 7th birthday. All the wealth and fame, sure, but we promise to remain humble.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

How can we be sure this is just not a very tiny human?

Starting Five

Hutchings: no mas

For Whom The Taco Bell Tolls

Holy mole! When we wake up and the most intriguing headline we see is “Man Dies During Taco Eating Contest,” we feel that, in these times, we should be grateful. Dana Hutchings, 41, was partaking in a taco eating contest during a minor league baseball game in Fresno and apparently you best leave accelerated mastication to the pros.

Cell Shock

Well, at least the autopsy of Jeffrey Epstein appears to be on the up and up. Coroners found multiple broken bones in Epstein’s neck, including in the hyoid bone. According to The Washington Post, citing experts, “Such breaks can occur in those who hang themselves, particularly if they are older, according to forensics experts and studies on the subject. But they are more common in victims of homicide by strangulation.”

Just out for a friendly chat with the warden

Oh. Put that piece of information side by side with the shrieks emanating from Epstein’s cell, the news that TWO guards fell asleep while on duty and, I’m sorry, is there not any video even from the hallway outside Epstein’s room? None? Where is it?

Blurred Lines

This, above, represents why Wall Street was in such a panic yesterday. It’s a Yield Curve Inversion and it apparently is a reliable omen that a recession is on the way?

You don’t even know what a yield curve inversion is, do you? No, but Wall Street does and they’re the ones panicking! Or maybe it’s just because the Mets now have Joe Panik. I dunno.

Here’s what we know: an inverted yield curve means that the long-term rates on bonds have now become lower than the short-term rates. You’d get a higher rate of return holding a bond that matures in a shorter rate of time. According to the first thing we Googled (so it must be correct), “An inverted yield curve, or a situation in which long-term rates are lower than short-term rates, may suggest that markets expect a recession and thus lower interest rates in the future.”

The bad news is that the Dow dropped 801 points yesterday, its worst day of 2019. The good news is that this should not impact your Fantasy Football Draft and, really, what else matters?

How’s It Gonna Be?

Third Eye Blind toured this summer with Jimmy Eat World, which means there were at least five to eight turn-of-the-millennium era songs you’d really love to hear at the show. At least we would. Apparently, the bands themselves did not love one another. The following tweet is from JEW drummer Zach Lind, tweeted out just after the tour finished, regarding TEB lead singer Stephan Jenkins:

There were probably worse transgressions Lind witnessed, but what he did choose to tweet about was TEB’s insistence that they, and only they, be excused from having to wear backstage laminates for security purposes (Guys, you’re not Freddie Mercury).

Keyboard Cubicle Cowardice

I’m old enough to remember when Will Leitch wrote a piece for his main employer, New York Magazine, titled “The Era Of The Old Athlete Is Over.”

This appeared on April 3, close enough to the date to be considered an April Fool’s joke, but he actually meant it. If you’re scoring at home, this story was released two months after 41 year-old Tom Brady led the New England Patriots to yet another Super Bowl victory and less than two weeks before Tiger Woods, 43, won the Masters. Soon after Rafael Nadal, 33, won the French Open and Serena Williams, 37, advanced to the Wimbledon final. Justin Verlander, 36, is arguably the most dominant pitcher in baseball this season.

But, yes, Will, your point is well-taken. What was it based on again?

So when it comes to Leitch, I’m pretty much in the H.G. “Buzz” Bissinger camp, who once told him to his face on TV, “I gotta be honest with you, I think you’re full of shit.”

The beauty of that moment is that Bissinger had the balls to tell Leitch what he thought of him face to face. Leitch, as he does with yesterday’s hit piece on Dabo Swinney, has fashioned a career of hiding behind his laptop and ripping people, occasionally, without even speaking to them. On the few times he has been called out by his subjects, he usually acts somewhat contrite (See: Roger Ebert hit piece) or attempts to equivocate, post facto.

There’s certainly a point to be made that the beatification of Dabo by College GameDay, in particular, and many college football writers is way overdone. He’s made plenty of gaffes (“Osama bin Dabo”) and some of his opinions (being paid $9 million per year but then being outraged at the idea of college players being paid) display a total lack of self-awareness, not to mention of irony. Leitch uses Dabo’s latest affaire du controverse, a stupid dispute over whether a player who quit the team after four games deserves a national championship ring, as his launchpad to character-assassinate Swinney.

Here’s the thing: Leitch has discovered that he can write columns like this for a magazine based in New York City whose editors don’t consider sports a main course. My guess is that most of them are more familiar with the latest Bluestone Coffee (rip-off) to open up in Park Slope or Carroll Gardens than they are with who’s leading the National League East (Atlanta). And they’ve invested in Leitch as their sports guru because he’s made himself into a brand and apparently they feel as if he’s an expert.

But this, this Dabo piece, is what he is truly expert at: cherry-picking the facts or anecdotes that suit his polemic so that he can produce a piece that gets plenty of attention and/or clicks even when the totality of the argument, i.e., the truth, is usually something very different. If this were his first time doing it, I’d give him a pass. But it’s really the pattern of his entire career.

Even Leitch has acknowledged he does this. And while you may think, well, that shows some character that he was willing to make this confession, what comes across to me is 1) that he ever did something so low and 2) it feels as if he’s appealing for our, the readers’, sympathy as to why he behaved like such a jackass.

But NY Mag (and SI.com) will continue to provide him a platform.

Reserves

Pardon my retweeting myself–it’s online onanism–but this had to be inserted somewhere today:

https://twitter.com/jdubs88/status/1162000244248338433?s=20

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 11 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

https://twitter.com/InactionNever/status/1161347759825457155?s=20

Nature: The Greatest Show On Earth.

Starting Five

A Second Chernobyl?

What’s that old Russian saying? Those that whitewash history are condemned to repeat it?

Apparently, no one at the Kremlin gets HBO or none of them watched Chernobyl, because Russia appears to be sliding down the same radioactive path that it did back in 1986. Here’s what we know: a failed missile test on an offshore platform in the White Sea in northwest Russia, near the small city of Nenoska, took place last Thursday. The above explosion is the result. That much is for certain.

At the time the Russians announced that two military members died in the blast and that there was no spike in radiation (that you even need to announce that sets off bells and whistles). Now, four to five days later, we know that an additional five people, all of them nuclear scientists, also perished in the blast (word to the wise: whenever you get five nuclear scientists together and it isn’t a scholarly symposium, chances are it’s not for a softball game, if you know what I mean). We know that even Russia is admitting that radiation spiked four to 16 times in the aftermath (and this is just what we’re admitting; who knows if it’s the truth?). We know that the Russians ordered Nenoska to be evacuated and then suddenly said, “Naw, don’t worry about it.” We know that doctors and nurses who treated some of the injured have since been transferred to a hospital in Moscow.

That last one is a big UH-OH.

The best onscreen buddies of 2019 may need to reprise their roles (they’ll appear as their bastard sons that no one knew about)

Seriously, Vlad. Please go back and watch Chernobyl. But don’t watch the “Killing All The Pets” episode. That’s excruciating. Anyway, they’re making all the same mistakes all over again.

Tiger Beat

For all the negative pub the Orioles receive for being so bad this season—losing 15 straight to the Yankees and falling by the score of 23-2 to the Astros on Saturday don’t help—the Detroit Tigers actually have baseball’s worst record (35-81) this season.

The above outfielder-assisted home run for Seattle’s Kyle Seager is the 10-second byte that tells you the story of Detroit’s season.

Poetry Emotion

I’d advise you to watch this entire clip before coming to a Twitter-ian judgment as to whether Ken Cuccinelli is a monster or not. A couple weeks ago I saw a Ricky Gervais tweet, not sure how old it is, in which the British comedian (he’s so much more than that, but okay) wrote, and I’m paraphrasing, “Civilization began to go downhill when feelings replaced facts.”

Exactly.

The Extreme Left is wrong on this one because, I’m sorry, no one gets to enter my country or my home without at least doing a fair share of the chores. If they expect that, then they are a GUEST and not a MEMBER. So, yeah, no one should expect to come here from another country and suck the teat of the hard work of their neighbors.

Of course, the Extreme Right is even more wrong on this one for two reasons: 1) because those of us who work with immigrants know first-hand that they’re the humblest, hardest-working people around (I don’t think the eye roll at a boss’ or customer’s request becomes a thing until at least the second or third generation) and 2) countless immigrants come here exactly because they are in search of work and a better life. But they may come here with almost no money and prospects. If they had money and prospects in their native countries, they’d probably not be very prone to leave.

I work with a Mexican busser named Janet. We all love her. She’s ALWAYS smiling. She’s always happy to do whatever needs to be done. On Saturdays she brings the entire staff tamales from a joint in her Harlem neighborhood. This week Janet and six family members are all driving down to Florida to visit Disney World which, for countless immigrants, represents the very best of what America is supposed to be about (I’d have told her to go hiking in the Adirondacks, but that’s me). They’re taking one vehicle. They’re SOOO excited.

We were joking at work yesterday that Disney World, the “happiest place on Earth,” is about to greet the happiest person on Earth. I can only go off my own experiences, but man, give me a thousand Janets. I also work with a white woman Janet’s age (early 20s) who earlier this summer skipped out on us as we were all doing our mandatory duty of cleaning up after bartending a party for 500. When one of our co-workers, a Haitian immigrant, asked this native Manhattanite if she was not sticking around (at that moment she was clocking out; we all had an hour’s work ahead of us), her response was, “Fuck that sh*t.” Then she headed out to a bar. If I were the manager I would have fired her on the spot.

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

But please, let’s make a trade. You take our entitled and spoiled masses yearning to piggyback off their parents’ and grandparents’ efforts.

Friends and Neighbors

We saw Once Upon A Time In Hollywood last night, and while these next two items won’t have any plot spoilers, if you are yet to see it and want to enter completely blind, then stop reading now. This is why we put the final two items, both of which deal with the film, at the end of today’s IAH!.

On to the thoughts…

–Of the few reviews we’ve read, the one that for us is the most spot-on comes from Owen Glieberman in Variety. He writes:

 It’s been a decade since Quentin Tarantino gave us an unambiguously great Quentin Tarantino movie (Inglourious Basterds).

You know the difference as well as I do, because it’s one that you can feel in your heart, gut, nerves, and soul. It’s the difference between a Quentin movie that’s got dazzle and brilliance and a number of hypnotic sequences, and is every inch the work of his fevered movie candy brain, and a Quentin film that enters your bloodstream like a drug and stays there, inviting (compelling!) you to watch it again and again, because it’s a virtuoso piece of the imagination from first shot to last, and every moment is marked by a certain ineffable something, the Tarantino X Factor that made “Pulp Fiction” the indie touchstone of its time.

Gliebermann’s verdict is that Once Upon… falls short of the Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds standard. Agreed. It is a film that is far less than the sum of its parts, and while a number of those parts are delightful, the 2 hour, 39-minute film is proof positive that everyone needs an editor. No director should have total final cut on a film he’s written.

Plenty of scenes like this that, while fun, were far from necessary and left us feeling bloated.

Tarantino has made a 159-minute film in an era in which audiences fill up on 32- to 40-ounce sodas during the movies. Human kidneys were simply not built for this. I gave myself a pat on the back for having sat through this film without having taken a pee break, but I wonder how many fans will be able to do the same.

–If this is not Brad Pitt‘s best performance, it’s my favorite of his since Thelma & Louise. These are the roles he was born to play. Also, I can see that Champion spark plugs shirt becoming a popular item.

–Whoever did the makeup on Damian Lewis to become Steve McQueen deserves a raise. In the scene where McQueen is talking to a blonde actor I suppose to be either to Goldie Hawn or Joey Heatherton or Connie Stevens (which is what IMDB seems to be suggesting), he’s absolutely convincing. Now I want to see a Steve McQueen biopic with Lewis starring.

–There are a plethora of auto and L.A. traffic scenes in the film, and like me you’ll probably scan them to see if all the vehicles are authentic to the period. Tarantino knows that we live in the digitalized world of screen grabs, so he can’t hope to think he could avoid fans Zapruder-ing such scenes. From my cursory inspection, all of the cars and trucks were of the era, which must have been a herculean feat to pull off.

–For as much of a pretty boy as he can be, you have to admire Leo for going in such a different direction in this film. There’s a scene in which, at the end of it, his young co-star whispers a kind word to him. And we couldn’t agree more.

–Burt Reynolds was slated to play George Spahn but died a month before production began. Bruce Dern stepped in for him. Luke Perry does appear in the movie in a small role.

–Of course it was a satisfying scene, but nobody but nobody beats Bruce Lee in hand-to-hand combat. C’mon, Q.

–Was the Spahn Ranch scene the most compelling one in the movie? For me it was.

–The dialogue lacked the snap, crackle and pop of the best Tarantino efforts. For me the freshest line, the most classic Q moment, was the opening scene that involved the TV interview. Pitt gets off a funny line that invites you to think there are plenty more such moments to follow. There aren’t.

–Props to Tarantino for getting the little details of the history correct (you can Google Map Cielo Drive to see what I’m talking about), right down to where Sharon Tate and friends ate their final meal and also that her sister visited her on the afternoon of August 8th.

–So much I’d love to say about the climax, but any words are spoilers. So I’ll leave it alone and perhaps we’ll revisit next month. What did you think of the film, without giving anything away?

Pussycat Doll

For me, the biggest revelation of Once Upon A Time… was the big-screen debut of Margaret Qualley, who is enchanting as Manson family member Pussycat (not based on an actual person). The easiest way for me to quantify her screen presence is 50% Elizabeth Taylor (in Giant) and 50% Krysten Ritter (from Gilmore Girls).

Qualley, who trained as a ballerina and it shows, dances across the screen in every scene she has (note her footwork on the railing during the dumpster dive scene). I had no idea until after the film that she’s the daughter of Andie MacDowell and, oh my, is she everything as an actress actor that her mom never was. Mom was always a model trying to persuade us, unconvincingly, that she was her character. Qualley, 24, absolutely inhabits Pussycat (as does Margot Robbie inhabit Sharon Tate, for that matter; her performance, though short on lines, is terrific. Tate was a joyful and unself-conscious beam of sunshine, and Robbie nails it).

It must have tickled Brad Pitt, who entered the lives of filmgoers as a young, lanky and mischievous hitchhiker in Thelma & Louise, to play the person behind the wheel as Qualley portrayed the distaff version of the same. By the time she steps up to the Cadillac to utter her first line, she’s already won us–and Pitt’s Cliff Booth–over.

Qualley had a role in Showtime’s Fosse/Verdon, but this is her big-screen intro. And she was electric. We’ll all be seeing more of her.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 5 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

https://twitter.com/BillyDomineau/status/1161263724528840704?s=20

Starting Five

Hang Time*

*The judges respect the New York Post’s “Caught Off Guard” headline, too.

On the one hand, maybe a guy who lived in a metropolitan Shangri La-type mansion, only flew private jets, and had his very own “Bachelor In Paradise” island, couldn’t take any sort of confinement and wanted to off himself. And maybe the guards were either incompetent or for whatever reason ($$$…?), complicit.

On the other, what better time to off a dude then early Saturday morning, in terms of the news cycle? What more expedient time than after a giant document dump (unsealed depositions, allegations) and hours after a six-figure fundraiser in the Hamptons in which potentially some of the malefactors would have opportunity to converse and conspire, in a non-digital, non-traceable fashion? If you were building a Manchurian Candidate-type plot, all the pieces fit.

The current White House administration, in quite the Orwellian manner, is attempting to make truth extinct in our country (thanks to Richard M. Nixon for getting the ball rolling on that one). At least in terms of government and justice. So who the hell knows? You’ve heard by now that there were shrieks coming from the vicinity of the 66 year-old Epstein’s cell last Saturday morning: were they from him or from the non-trained officer who was supposed to be guarding him?

Other questions: what type of cell and bedding was it that Epstein could still have an opportunity to hang himself? Why would officers responding to the scene not KNOW that he had hanged himself, as opposed to “thought to have?” Is that just incomplete reporting or another weird twist to the saga?

Middle Age Crazy

Thinking of the Epstein-Barr (Jeffrey, William) virus, and all of the powerful and moneyed men potentially entangled in it, it led me to think of two films and, particularly scenes from those films.

The first is The Philadelphia Story. A true American classic from 1940 that is 98% romantic comedy, its other 2% is rather a record scratch when it attempts to mansplain middle-aged philandering. There’s a scene where Tracy Lord’s (Katharine Hepburn’s) wealthy but wayward father, Seth (John Halliday), returns to the family after a heavily implied adulterous relationship in New York City. And his wife takes him back, no questions asked.

Tracy is appalled (irony of Hepburn’s arguably greatest film character being named Tracy) and her father, with her mother approving of him, scolds her prudish ways. I don’t have the quote directly in front of me, but Seth Lord explains that a wife understands that her middle-aged philandering husband isn’t doing it as an affront to her, but that he is simply seeking the glory of his youth. And that makes him feel more alive. He tells Tracy that she has everything in the world except one main ingredient: an understanding heart.

The second film is Moonstruck, which 47 years later again brings us around to an adoring daughter (Cher), a philandering father (Vincent Gardenia), and an understanding, to a lesser degree, wife (Olympia Dukakis). After the husband is caught having an affair with a much younger woman, the wife sagely explains to him the misbegotten intent behind his adultery and the lost cause stirring it. Again, not verbatim, but she says something to the effect of, “No matter how many nubile young women you sleep with, it won’t prevent you from getting old.”

Which brings us to Jeffrey Epstein and his “friends.” Who knows how many of these powerful men had the opportunity in the bloom of their youth to, um, take advantage of their masculinity? Maybe some did, maybe others were nobodies or too busy working their way up the corporate or political ladder. Then here they are, middle-aged and wealthy and used to getting what they want. And what they really want is to have the allure of that 21 year-old lifeguard, Baywatch-type. But they never will. What they do have, however, is money and power. And Jeffrey Epstein was just the sort of man who could make their sexual and sinister dreams come true (as these young women and often underage teens) were procured for their wants.

And let’s not forget that it was only seven months ago that Robert Kraft was taking advantage of just such a relationship when, as a 77 year-old billionaire (or near to it), he was getting pleasured by someone for pay. On a Sunday morning. Before flying to watch his Patriots play the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC title game. Kraft IS exactly the type of man who thrived in Epstein’s circle.

Finally, if it ever comes out just how Epstein acquired all of this wealth…if it turns out he was the ultimate pimp in terms of procuring underage girls for the wealthy and powerful, if that is demonstrated to be true, well, it’s only too bad that Stanley Kubrick is not around to make a sequel to Eyes Wide Shut.

Tatis All, Folks

https://twitter.com/dieter/status/1161117531060371457?s=20

As rookies go, Padres shortstop Fernando Tatis, Jr., was somewhat overlooked in the season’s opening third. After all, San Diego had a lights-out rookie phenom pitcher named Chris Paddack who had a 1.93 ERA after two months—until he visited Yankee Stadium.

Paddack has since shuttled back and forth between AAA Lake Elsinore. Tatis, who does not have enough official at-bats to qualify for official stats, has played 83 games (about 2/3) and is batting .316 with 22 home runs. The 20 year-old is a star in the making.

Kong Blockers

This is a photo of yesterday’s massive and peaceful protest at the Hong Kong Airport that caused all flights to be suspended. Oddly enough, the Wolfgang Puck’s in Terminal 2 still had plenty of available seating.

We’re with the protesters, 100%. China tried to sneak through extradition legislation that in effect would give BIG BROTHER the power to extradite any independent Hong Kong citizen to the mainland and thus render these free people unto the totalitarian state. That’s when these people (Hong Kongers?) recognized their freedom was at stake and moved into action.

What’s the next move on the chess board, we wonder? And would Iron Mike Pompeo just mansplain a massive Chinese attack by saying, “Look, every government gets its hands dirty, but what truly matters is that the U.S. is still independent and our oil barons and other business tycoons are sated.”

Who’s A Fredo Whom?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqb5H5iF7lU

Some dumb Moe Greene type (Moe Greene wasn’t actually dumb. He was “a great man!”) made the mistake of referring to CNN’s Chris Cuomo as “Fredo” and Cuomo almost went full Sonny Corleone on him. Love it. And if you’ve met Cuomo, he’s pretty jacked and I think this would have gone very poorly for the dope.