Monthly Archives: October 2019

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 4 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Don’t know if it’s real. Don’t care.

Starting Five

Kicking Their Astros

The natty nat Nats won their 8th consecutive postseason game, blasting open a tight World Series Game 2—it was 2-all in the top of the 7th at Minute Maid Park—with a 6-run frame that was jump-started by a solo home run by 36 year-old catcher Kurt Suzuki. He’s part of the team’s Los Viejos (“the old men”).

Justin Verlander, who allowed that homer, is now the first pitcher in Major League history to be 0-5 as a World Series starter. Also the Astros, the first MLB team since 1955 not to issue even one intentional walk in an entire season, did issue one in the top of the 7th—to Juan Soto—and it backired (although 3rd baseman Alex Bregman’s inability to handle an infield hit to his left did more damage).

You hate to see it

The Nats also won eight in a row to close out the regular season. Meanwhile, Astros’ aces Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander have lost in consecutive starts for the first time all year. The last team to lose its first two home games in the World Series and recover to win? The 1996 New York Yankees.

Unwelcome Matt*

*The judges will also accept “Storming The Gaetz”

In the GOP’s latest edition of “You Can’t Do It But I Can,” Congressman Matt Gaetz (Reprehensible—Florida) led two dozen junior colleagues on a bum rush of the Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility (SCIF) where the House impeachment inquiry was taking place.

Gaetz & Friends’ ostensible stated goal was “transparency,” but the real goal was intimidation and distraction. The very reason that the hearings are held in private—even though half the committee are Republicans, a fact that Gaetz and his cronies pretend to be unaware of—is to prevent witnesses from corroborating stories based on previous testimony they’ve heard and to allow the investigating members to do their jobs without outside interference. It’s the same reason the public isn’t allowed into a grand jury hearing.

Of course, all of these rules were fine when Bill Clinton was being impeached. But suddenly Gaetz and Co. behave as if they’re here protecting the American way. The question here is simple: Why are so many Republicans so hell-bent on people not knowing the truth?

Kyrie Eleison

Brooklyn is gonna love Kyrie Irving. And he’s gonna love the borough right back. In his Nets debut last night, Kyrie Irving puts up 50 points, although the Nets fall by one in overtime to Minnesota. Irving was 7 of 14 from beyond the arc and 17 of 33 from the field overall. Wethinks Kevin Durant’s Achilles’ healing process just sped up two weeks off last night’s game alone.

The Doctor was way ahead of his time

Kyrie’s still not the greatest Net named Irving (or at least pronounced that way), but it was a good start. Also, not only did he score 50 but he now looks 50.

While we are talking NBA, we love Michael Jordan and always will, but he’s flat-out SO wrong about what he said about Stephen Curry (not a Hall of Famer yet). Forget the five straight NBA Finals visits (and three championships) and the two MVPs for a moment. Curry’s three-point shooting single-handedly (with some guidance help from his left hand) transformed the way the NBA game is played.

Before Curry no player had ever hit more than 243 threes in a season. While leading the league in three-pointers for five straight campaigns, Curry took the single-season mark not only just above 300 but above 400 (402 in 2015-2016). He did for the three what Babe Ruth did for home runs and look how baseball has changed since Ruth. And within two years, three tops, he’ll surpass Ray Allen as the NBA’s all-time leader in threes and become the first player to reach the 3,000 career threes mark.

Love Jordan. That statement is asinine. Let’s move on.

Tesla Soars, While Twitter Tumbles

In millennial stock news, shares of Tesla (TSLA) soared nearly 20% ( $254 to $299) after an earnings beat after the bell yesterday, which will make your battery-powered drive to your favorite avocado toast outlet so much more cheerful this morning.

Shares of Twitter (TWTR) did just the opposite, after a pre-opening bell earnings report. It’s down almost 20% ($39 to $32).

In other millennial stock news, Bitcoin is taking a pounding of late and Chipotle is down about 8% from last month’s all-time high.

At The Movies: 1940

Is this the funniest final shot in cinema history?

A continuing series in which we list our highly subjective choices of the five best/favorite/most watchable films from every year in cinema, beginning in 1939:

  1. The Philadelphia Story : Three all-timers (Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart at the top of their craft) and Stewart wins Best Actor as a make-up call for the previous year’s snub, in the process snubbing his life-long friend Henry Fonda, who deserved it for No. 3 on this list) 2. His Girl Friday : Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, back when newspapering was cool and stylish. One of the best snappy banter films ever made 3. The Grapes Of Wrath There’s no place like home, but this time you have to remain in Oz and it ain’t pretty 4. The Great Dictator After 13 years, Charlie Chaplin finally does a talkie and lampoons Adolf Hitler (in 1940!) while so doing 5. Rebecca Alfred Hitchcock’s first American production yields him a Best Picture Oscar even though this is not one of his five most well-renowned films.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Starting Five

Taylor-Made For Impeachment

I’m just a Bill,

Yes, I’m only a Bill,

Testifying up on Capitol Hill,

But I’m a 50-year public servant

And I kept meticulous notes

And when the Senate reads my statement

Then we’ll get the impeachment votes

And they’ll put it in a public box,

Yes, I hope and pray that they will,

But today I am still just a Bill…

https://twitter.com/jdubs88/status/1186814438084694016?s=20

Forget the nine-plus hours of answering questions from the impeachment inquiry. Ukraine ambassador Bill Taylor, a Vietnam veteran (apparently it was not inconvenient for him to serve) who has a half-century in public service, laid down a 15-page opening statement that nails Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence and Bill Sondland dead to rights.

It’s all over but the shouting now. Seriously.

Nats Ding Cole*

*Don’t credit us for that headline; credit The Houston Chronicle, which is running it this morning.

The Nationals, who’ve now won like, what, seven consecutive games or something, were unintimidated by Astro starter Gerrit Cole, who had won 16 consecutive starts and had last lost a game on May 22nd.

Speaking of May 22nd, on that day the Nats were 19-30 and would lose again the following day before mounting the long uphill charge that would lead them to a 5-4 Game 1 win in Houston.

https://twitter.com/jdubs88/status/1186848798947119104?s=20

Notes: 1. Ryan Zimmerman connected on a two-out solo home runs for the Nats in the second. It was the first home run in World Series history by a Nationals player and it was hit by the first player the Nats selected in the draft, 15 years ago (give the dude who made that call a raise). Also, it was the first home run in World Series history struck by a player whose surname begins with a Z. 2) Juan Soto, who turns 21 on Friday, had a home run, double and single after striking out in his first at-bat. “I’m not gonna lie, my legs were shaking my first time up,” Soto told Ken Rosenthal afterward 3) Late in the game Fox’s Joe Buck noted that the Astros pitching staff is comprised entirely of righties and then informed the audience that the last time a World Series staff had not a single southpaw was 1903. What Buck did not add, yet should have, is that 1903 was also the very first World Series.

The 1903 World Series, by the way, featured pitcher Cy Young of the victorious Boston Americans and outfielder Honus Wagner for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Americans won 5 games to 3. Also of note is that Pittsburgh’s Exposition Park used a rope to hold back outfield spectators and it was ruled that if a ball rolled under the rope and into the crowd it would be a ground-rule triple. There were 17 ground-rule triples hit in the four games at Exposition Park.

Miami Heat

Four flight attendants for American Airlines were arrested at Miami International Airport yesterday primarily because one of them is a terrible crook. When a customs agent asked Carlos Aberto Munoz-Moyano how much cash he had on him, he initially replied, “$100,” then got nervous and told the truth: $9,000.

Customs agents quickly rounded up other flight attendants on the same flight from Chile and found more than $22,000 of spending money on them. If you’ve spent any time around flight attendants, you know this isn’t casual walking-around-money for them. So they’re most likely drug mules, no? Carrying not the supply but the payment?

The next time you fly American international, ask your flight attendant if he or she has change for $10,000.

The Battle Of L.A. Begins

kWh put up a game-high 30 in a game that had a classic ’70s NBA feel and look

On the NBA’s opening night, the Clippers outlasted the Lakers 112-102. Never mind that two of the top five players on the squads—the Clippers’ Paul George and the Lakers’ Kyle Kuzma—were injured and unavailable. And even with that LeBron James, age 36, may have been the third-best player on the court after teammate Anthony Davis and Clipper Kawhi Leonard.

Also, new Laker acquisition Danny Green had 28 points. Keep an eye on the seasoned pro who, as you may recall, was Kawhi’s teammate in Toronto last season.

Horror In The U.K.

A trailer was found in Grays, England (about 25 or so miles east of London along the Thames) with 39 dead bodies in it. The truck is from Bulgaria and it entered the U.K. through Wales on October 19th. The driver is a 25 year-old from Northern Ireland. Seems what we have here is human smuggling gone awry.

Between this, Bill Taylor and the American Airlines item, it’s incredible what takes place every day that most people will never find out about. Only occasionally when something goes wrong or someone says something they’re not supposed to does the skulduggery get exposed. Conclusion: I’m living an extremely boring life.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 3 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

Lost in N.J.

New York Jest

If you thought the Jets could never get a worse performance out of a USC-drafted quarterback than the Butt Fumble drama of 2012, think again. Last night, against the same New England Patriots that inflicted Mark Sanchez’s infamy on Thanksgiving night seven years earlier, 2nd-year quarterback Sam Darnold tossed four interceptions. He finished 11 of 32 passing.

The Jets lost 33-0 and Darnold’s QBR was 0.7. By comparison Tom Brady’s was 79.1. The Pats move to 7-0, although three of those victories are against tenants of Met-Life Stadium. Still, we think that Belichick and Brady are on a quest to avenge the 2008 season, which finished one victory shy of perfection. Is this the year?

Nothingburger

The State Department statement was released Friday afternoon in hopes that it would be buried and it mostly was. But here it is: in a nine-page unclassified report that was completed last month and was three years in the making/investigating, the State Department has concluded that “while the use of the system for official business increased the risk of compromising classified information, there was no systemic or deliberate mishandling of classified information.”

In other words, Hillary’s private email server and those 33,000 emails that President Trump railed on endlessly about during the 2016 campaign were a big nothing. Now that we’ve put that to res—wait, what? He’s still railing about them? Even last night?

Um, yes. Apparently the State Dept. is now also committing Fake News, at least in the mind of Our Great Leader.

By the way, this is the same woman who sat for an 11-hour Congressional hearing about Benghazi where, again, it was ultimately found that she did no wrong. No matter how many times Congress, the GOP and many of the public try to burn this witch at the stake, the flames never seem to rise. I wonder why.

Pelican Rest

The NBA season kicks off this evening, but it will do so without everyone’s favorite bull-in-a-china-shop, Zion Williamson. The most heralded rookie in years will miss 6 to 8 weeks due to surgery on a torn meniscus.

The season is tipping off with two games this evening, the first being New Orleans at NBA champ Toronto. But Kawhi is now a Clipper and Zion is recuperating. The question every NBA fan is asking is, Does Zion’s go-hard-to-the-rim, Rex Burkhead style of hoops put his longevity at risk. He’s only 19 years old, after all.

Salzburg But Not Williamsburg?

The MH staff has visited Salzburg; it’s nice

The Lonely Planet has just released its Top 10 Cities to visit in 2020 and no, Brooklyn is not one of them. Here’s the list:

–Salzburg, Austria

–Washington, D.C.

–Cairo, Egypt

–Galway, Ireland

–Bonn, Germany

–La Paz, Bolivia

—Kochi, India

–Vancouver, Canada

–Dubai, UAE

–Denver, Colorado

Then again, what do they know?

At The Movies


We’ve all heard that 1939 was the very best year for films, but then Eddie Mueller (TCM’s Noir Alley host) decided to stir the pot and say 1950 was best. And we’re no experts, but we do like films, so we’ve decided to grade years the way we do college football conferences: not by the totality of a year’s films, but by assessing the best from that year (i.e., the Alabama, LSU, Georgia, Auburn and Florida of a year).

Toward that end, and beginning with 1939 itself, we’re going to do a daily list of our five favorite films from a given year (now don’t go jumping ahead years on us, Susie B.). We won’t claim that these are the five objective best of any year, just the five we’d see (again). Your mileage may vary and you will be welcome to tell us one we’ve missed.

We’ll begin with 1939, the year that many experts believe was the zenith of the studio system in Hollywood. It’s hard to argue with the results (we may go back earlier in the decade later, but not yet):

  1. The Wizard Of Oz a true original with an incredible story and perhaps also a subtle political message, given the year, of the joys of isolationism, 2) Gone With The Wind overrated in our mind, as far as story goes, but the cinematography is outstanding, 3) Mr. Smith Goes To Washington a reminder that all the corruption you see now was on hand in D.C. 80 years ago; Jimmy Smith Stewart deserved an Oscar but lost it to George Donat, arguably Oscar’s first major screw-up 4) Ninotchka Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas in a smart and comic love story involving Communists in Paris 5) Stagecoach considered the original Western, with John Wayne in his breakout role under the direction of John Ford.

Most years won’t require this, but these films also deserve mention and were just off the list: Goodbye, Mr. Chips; Dark Victory; The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Charles Boyer also deserved the Oscar for Best Actor, perhaps even more than Stewart).

Music 101

Baby, Let Me Follow You Down

When the American Bard plugged in at the Royal Albert Hall in May of 1966, shouts of “Judas!” emanated from the audience. How dare the king of folk music go electric! But we love this version of Bob Dylan‘s classic (which he did not write, as he acknowledges), the crunchy guitars. And if you want to compare, here’s the acoustic original.

Remote Patrol

Lakers at Clippers (or whatever)

10:30 p.m. TNT

Let the turf war over the freeways of L.A. commence. LeBron and Anthony Davis versus Kawhi Leonard and Paul George are the headliners. Keep your eyes on Laker Kyle Kuzma, a budding superstar entering his third season. These two are the NBA preseason favorites to win it all according to Vegas.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 4 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Starting Five

Bring On The Nastros

Our guy D.J. LeMahieu ended an heroic 10-pitch at-bat in the top of the 9th inning with an opposite field two-run game-tying homer. Then in the bottom of the 9th with two-outs Yankee closer Aroldis Chapman gave up a home run to Jose Altuve to end the season.

Aaron Judge called the season a “complete failure” and he’s correct. And hopefully the Yankees will learn and move on from Edwin Encarnacion and Giancarlo Stanton (impossible, I know) and maybe even Gary Sanchez. Also, they need an ace on the mound.

Nats-Astros will at least give us outstanding pitching match-ups with Gerrit Cole vs. Max Scherzer followed by Justin Verlander vs. Stephen Strasburg.

Champaign Nirvana

One of the better sports photos of the year

This is what NFL types will never understand about college football: Illinois has no shot at “the playoffs” but who cares? On Saturday a bunch of 18-22 year-olds overcame being 30.5-point underdogs and beat No. 6 Wisconsin thanks to a last-second game-winning 39-yard field goal by the dude above (James McCourt). Illinois trailed by 9 points with under 6 minutes to play but then a TD followed by an interception at midfield gave them the chance they needed.

Illini coach Lovie Smith is an easy dude to love and no one on the Illinois team will ever forget what they did and overcame Saturday. And that’s why Saturday rules.

Pompous Pompeo

With so many blustering and deceitful egos to choose from (Mick Mulvaney, the president, Stephen Miller, etc.), no one in the Trump administration comes off as more imperious and pompous and if-these-cameras-were-off-I’d-choke-you-out than Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. I truly wonder why he ever sits for a single interview.

Above, Pompeo sits with News4 pro Nancy Amons out of Nashville. Go to the end of the interview. You can just see the rage seething just below the surface.

Meanwhile, as many have said since Mick Mulvaney’s presser last Thursday, no three words better describe the Trump administration’s cavalier attitude toward democracy, toward the rule of law, toward ethics and toward the Constitution than “GET OVER IT.” It should be Trump’s 2020 campaign slogan if he is still in office. “GET OVER IT.” We’re going to do whatever it takes to remain in power, to make sure America wins, to keep rich men in white power. Get over it.

Was It The ROY Bus, Though?

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney likes to joke that for years Alabama rode in one vehicle and the rest of college football rode in the “Rest Of Y’all” or ROY Bus. On Saturday Tiger defensive back Andrew Booth had to ride a bus home after the team’s 45-10 win at Louisville, a 450-mile journey.

Booth was kept off the team plane as punishment for throwing this punch, above. He news ejected from the game and Swinney opted to give him some good ol’ fashioned discipline by making him ride the team bus home.

Where The Buffalo Roam

I mean, it’s a start. Good to see.

Music 101

Now You See It

We were watching the 1942 film This Gun’s For Hire (TCM’s “Noir Alley” pick) late Saturday/early Sunday and came across this little Veronica Lake number in the midst of the movie. Lake was only 4’11” and like her co-star in this film, Alan Ladd, would die at the age of 50. Lake battled alcoholism and in her later years worked as a waitress in a cocktail lounge in midtown Manhattan (note: we are not alcoholics and are over 50) under an assumed name.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Funny, but where were you when it mattered?

Also a must-view:

Starting Five

Houston Spanks Yanks

Broadway legend Kelli O’Hara sang the national anthem before Game 4 at Yankee Stadium last night. That was pretty much the highlight of our evening as we sat in Section 207. Once again the Bombers loaded the bases in the first inning and, as with Game 3, could not take advantage. The Yankees are 0-13 with runners in scoring position, either last night or the last two games or something like that.

Timely hitting, from Game 2 late through the next two games, has been the difference in the ALCS. Houston, which won 8-3 last night on the strength of two three-run homers and four Yankee errors, can end it tonight.

Mick’s Message*

Mulvaney revealing just how much integrity is in this administration
  • The judges will also accept “Quid Pro Quotable”

Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, speaking in a televised press conference, made the most LeBron-ian statement of the week when he said, “Did [President Trump] also mention to me in passing the corruption related to the D.N.C. server? Absolutely. No question about that. That’s why we held up the money.”

So, quid pro quo?

Later in the day, of course, Mulvaney said that the Fake News Media had misconstrued what he had said (by airing what he had said) and that “there was absolutely no quid pro quo between Ukrainian military aid and any investigation into the 2016 election.”

C.C. Ya Later

Back to the Yankee debacle, we did see C.C. Sabathia enter the game in the top of the eighth and record two outs before apparently straining something. The large lefty took one more practice throw off the mound and then departed the game, his face in his glove, knowing that was likely the final pitch of his professional career.

This from national baseball writer Tim Brown examines the impact of this changing of the guard:

More Jive Turkey

The two Mike Ps, Pence and Pompeo, traveled to Turkey because apparently President Trump’s letter (“Don’t be a fool!”) failed to have the desired impact on Turkish president Erdogan. So they went over and in person gave away the store.

So, if you’re scoring at home, Russia benefits, Assad benefits, blowhard American businessman with a hotel in Turkey benefits, ISIS benefits, and Turkey benefits. Kurds lose. Oh, and the G7 Summit that is to be held in the U.S. next June has now been scheduled to be held at a Donald Trump resort in Florida because who doesn’t love to spend June in south Florida? Oh, and that’s a direct violation of the Emoluments Clause, but who has time to enforce the Constitution any more?

So basically, the Turks agreed not to fire on the Kurds for 120 hours. After which time they will, to use Trump’s words, “clean out the area,” which is ethnic cleansing, which is a nice way to say genocide, which is a nice way to say slaughter. There is no negotiation. The United States basically got involved to give the Kurds time to get their money out of the ATM before the Turks mug them.

These are the same people who helped the USA in its fight against ISIS and Al Qaeda and lost more than 10,000 people doing so. You know what happened the last time the US left a major area after it had allied with the locals and then just deserted them? It’s called Afghanistan.

Chief Sitting Bullsh–

Kansas City Chief QB and active NFL Most Valuable Player Pat Mahomes dislocated his kneecap on a quarterback sneak against the Broncos last night. He’ll miss six weeks. The league office is pissed because there isn’t a defensive player they can eject, or suspend for the rest of the season, due to the injury. They are mulling making any contact with a quarterback illegal, though.

Last year it was two-time MVP Aaron Rodgers (2011 and 2014) being lost part of the season due to injury. Now it’s Mahomes. The State Farm Agent Curse may be real.