It amazes me that, three years in, anyone could ask, about any subject, “What is Trump’s strategy?” There is NEVER a strategy. He’s intellectually and psychologically incapable of strategy. He’s purely impulsive, as sociopaths an psychopaths typically are. He virtually admits … https://t.co/ccjXQTtTyC
How are these two still married? Or are they just playing all of us?
****
Also, apropos of nothing above or below but something to consider this weekend as the NFL playoffs and CFB championship game come your way: Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow is one month older than putative NFL MVP Lamar Jackson.
Starting Five
Bully, Pulpit
We’ll just let Paul Krugman of The New York Times do the talking this morning. His assessment of Trump and the current situation is spot-on.
Two of the essay’s better moments:
From his first days in office, Trump has acted on the apparent belief that he could easily intimidate foreign governments — that they would quickly fold and allow themselves to be humiliated. That is, he imagined that he faced a world of Lindsey Grahams, willing to abandon all dignity at the first hint of a challenge.
And…
“… like all too many Americans, Trump has a hard time grasping the fact that other countries are real — that is, that we’re not the only country whose citizens would rather pay a heavy price, in money and even in blood, than make what they see as humiliating concessions.”
Model U.N.
According to actual reputable news sites, Australian Instagram model Kaylen Ward (above; why else would we have a photo of this woman here?) raised $700,000 for Australia relief efforts by posing nude and sending the pics to donors. Somewhere in this tale there’s a “bush fire” joke that we’re too classy to make.
We’re not sure if this is true—how much money she raised or if there are nude pics. But if so, you’re on the clock, Elle Macpherson.
The Jokic
Denver center/power forward/point guard Nikola Jokic’s line last night: 47 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists and zero turnovers. The seven-footer has the Nuggets with the second-best record in the West, fourth overall in the NBA, and here comes ESPN with another four hours of uninterrupted coverage of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Hey, wanna see an entertaining and competitive All-Star Game? USA versus the World. Here’s your starting five’s:
USA: LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Kawhi Leonard, James Harden, Trae Young
World: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic, Pascal Siakam, Ricky Rubio
Snowballers*
*The judges will also accept “Milwaukee Buckshot”or even “A Song of Ice and Fire”
A passing motorist in Milwaukee did not take kindly to tweens tossing snowballs at his car Saturday night. So what did he do? He fired back…with a gun. Two snowball tossers were shot, one a boy (hit once) and the other a girl (hit twice). The pair suffered non life-threatening injuries and are expecting to return to sleigh riding and perhaps even making snow men once they recover.
The shooter got away and no one seems to have a good description of him, though he probably rants on Twitter a lot.
Five Films: 1988
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Is there a film character with whom I identify more than RR? Probably not. “Shave and a haircut…” What a smart and inspired film with no shortage of gags based on the premise that ‘toons are people, too. I’m not bad, I’m just built that way. Love it. 2. Midnight Run: Charles Grodin and Bob DeNiro in a sly, understated road trip. There should be an ’80s/’90s road trip film festival pairing this alongside The Sure Thing and Thelma and Louise. If you ever saw Grodin’s appearances on Letterman in the late ’80s and early ’90s you know that he’s basically playing his own annoying self, but who cares? 3. Die Hard: We’re not into action-adventure films with lots of shooting, but this has just the right amount of humor, a wise-cracking underdog hero and a perfect villain. If the idea behind any good movie is “Save The Cat,” this film takes it straight to the core and is set basically in Century City, home of Creative Artists Agency. There’s something very meta about all of it. 4. Rain Man: In the immortal words of Robert Downey, Jr., never go “full retard.” Come to think of it, this belongs in that aforementioned ’80s road trip film festival 5. Bull Durham: We never liked it as much as the other cool kids who love sports films (call us sappy but we prefer Field Of Dreams), but there’s a lot of good moments here, including the “lollygaggers” scene.
Worth Noting: Cinema Paradiso, Big, Coming To America, The Naked Gun, Beetlejuice, Working Girl, The Vanishing
Haven’t Seen But Would Be Willing: Dangerous Liaisons
Twenty-eight years ago. Nothing’s changed. Carlin: “I got this moron thing I like to do. It’s called thinking. And I’m not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions.”
Starting Five
Iranian procession for Soleimani funeral
America Worst
Assassinate a foreign leader because he was planning to do something bad (allegedly). Wait, isn’t this the administration whose anti-impeachment hole card is that they didn’t actually go through with the bad action they were planning to do regarding Ukraine? Oh, and since when does president Trump believe what our intelligence agencies are telling him? Now, suddenly?
The funeral for the guy Trump assassinated was more attended than the Trump inauguration pic.twitter.com/54zqYFmFQ1
So, assassinate a foreign leader. Threaten to do more if Iran retaliates, including bombing cultural sites. We’re asked by Iraq, a country with a democratically elected government, to leave the country and our response is, We’ll think about it. So now we’re occupying a nation against its wishes. Meanwhile, we begin our football games with flags that are as long and wide as a football field as a not-so-subtle message to every American watching that YOU BETTER F***ING BE WITH THE PROGRAM.
It took less than 20 years after 9/11, but congratulations, Osama: America is now the bad guy. Even a level-headed American can see that.
I’ll have a lot more on this in the coming days and you may very well decide not to visit this site for awhile. Or again. That’s cool. But I won’t attempt to write comprehensively on this—it’s too much—but rather to offer a tiny buffet of nuggets and observations each day.
For instance…I found it curious that on the day Soleimani was killed, every cable news outlet described him as “evil” and that the world is safer now that he is gone. I don’t know much about him. But it seems his job was to kill American soldiers, just as it would probably be our generals’ jobs to kill soldiers who started occupying this part of the planet. It’s funny to me how Americans are brainwashed into thinking that any country that doesn’t fall in lock-step with what America’s best interests are is somehow evil.
Soleimani was doing his job. He probably wouldn’t be doing that job if American soldiers were not occupying the Middle East. And why are we? Oil. “Stabilize the region”is simply a euphemism. We don’t give a sh*t, at least our leaders don’t, about human rights in that part of the world. If we did we’d crack down on Saudi Arabia, which if you don’t recall is the country where all the 9/11 hijackers come from and also still beheads people and treats women as if it’s 1020. It’s not about making the world a better or safer place. It’s about oil and a very strategically water way known as the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, whose one shore is Iran.
What made Soleimani evil? That he killed people? That’s what soldiers fighting wars do. That he killed people through “terrorism,” which is just another way of saying that he fought unconventionally, which is exactly what this country did when it was gaining independence from Great Britain because when the opposing side has far greater firepower this becomes your strategy. It’s the same reason Navy runs the triple-option or Mike Leach the spread offense.
War is war. The objective is to win. If you’re offended that someone isn’t being a gentleman about it, that’s probably because you’ve never had the misfortune of being severely outmanned and out-armed. It’s a tragedy all the American lives that were lost in Iraq and anywhere else in the Middle East due to Soleimani. It’s not less a tragedy or crime that Dick Cheney manufactured a phony excuse to go to war there in the first place and then profited immeasurably from it. Looking for a war criminal? Begin with Dick Cheney.
This morning on CNBC: Directly following an interview with Richard Engel from Baghdad, CNBC ran a seemingly unrelated graphic noting that 21 BILLION barrels of crude oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz each day, a full one-fifth of the world’s oil supply. Wow. You think those two things have anything to do with one another?
Finally, here are some Twitter threads you might want to read in full. (I only have the first tweet from each thread here) came across them on Sunday.
1. I’ve had a chance to check in with sources, including two US officials who had intelligence briefings after the strike on Suleimani. Here is what I’ve learned. According to them, the evidence suggesting there was to be an imminent attack on American targets is “razor thin”.
—By the way, the spark that seemed to light this fire was the death of a U.S. military contractor two days after Christmas. Kind of strange that his name has yet to be released. Also kind of strange that we have such profundity of “military contractors” all over the place (two of them were killed in Kenya on Sunday by a terrorist attack). Military contractors are often ex-U.S. military guys who are paid by private enterprise to go in and do military-type jobs for two to three times the price they were getting back when they were in the service. And who’s paying them? The company they work for. And where is that company getting the money? From its government contracts. That is, you and I are paying ex-military dudes exponentially more than they earned as U.S. soldiers to do jobs that are sort of outside the purview of military regulations.
It’s like having a police force but then also hiring a vigilante group of ex-cops who are paid far more than your actual cops and don’t actually have to answer to anyone. If you’re thinking, JW, that sounds f***ed up well guess what? It is.
–Someone tweeted and I agree: Are you really ready to take the word of a guy who spent three years saying that President Obama was born in Kenya about anything, much less that Soleimani was planning an attack? If there’s one thing everyone should know about Donald Trump by now it’s that his word is garbage. So why believe him now?
–There is one hopeful thought in all of this mess: Nancy Pelosi still has yet to send the Articles of Impeachment over to the Senate. The evidence has always been overwhelming against Trump and more comes out against him regarding Ukraine almost daily. The Senate has always had the evidence they need to impeach Trump, but its Republican majority has not had the will.
But what if the threat of a war with Iran turns so many (more) Americans off to Trump? And so many more GOP voters? Sure, Trump will always have his evangelical waiting’-on-that-apocalypse fringe base, and the dumbass base, but what if enough Senators realize, Hey, this guy is truly dangerous. He’s going to get a lot of people killed needlessly (even more than Cheney did). So this is their “Get Out Of Trump Free” card. Just vote to impeach him.
Ricky, Don’t Lose That Venom
If this was Ricky Gervais‘ final time hosting the Golden Globes, the bombastic Brit went out with a bang. Stay until the end. The man is fearless.
Ricky Gervais:
“…Bird Box, a movie where people survive by acting like they don’t see a thing, so like working for Harvey Weinstein…”https://t.co/Y4ENzMpte3
Less than a week into the new decade and you can feel the generational tectonic shift in the NFL as both forty-something legends, Tom Brady and Drew Brees, lost in the wild card round AT HOME. Brees and Brady are the NFL’s all-time leaders in passing touchdowns AND passing yardage (Brees is No. 1 on both lists, Brady No. 2), both are in their early forties and both are probably never going to return to the Super Bowl. At least not with their current franchises.
Will either quarterback retire? Will either go play elsewhere, a la twilight Joe Montana? We’ll see. I don’t think Tom is ready to hang up his cleats, but I’m not sure the Pats want to stick with him another year. Would he play for another franchise? Was his final pass for the Pats a pick-six?
It’s not that white-dude-with-a-headband dunked on this play. It’s the way LeBron and AD celebrated by leaping with him as he did so. The Lakers are a happy, frisky bunch who just won their fifth straight and have the NBA’s second-best record.
A Correction: 1985
When I undertake the yearly movie list each day, I begin by Googling “Best Films of _____” to remind myself of what was out there each year. Occasionally, I’ll remember some film that shows up on none of the lists that come up, usually through dumb luck.
Well, last week I overlooked a film from 1985 that may be my favorite film from any year, for purely personal reasons. I’d never claim that Fandango, starring Kevin Costner, Judd Nelson and Jason Robards (the last of whom is true Hollywood royalty: his father was Jason Robards and his mother Lauren Bacall) is a classic. But if you’ve ever had a film that seemed to reach out and speak to you, you know what I’m talking about. This was Fandango for me. I’ll tell you why.
I watched Fandango over at my big brother’s apartment in the summer of 1986. It must have been on HBO, one year after its release. Now, if you’ve not seen the movie, it’s about five college buddies from SMU who have just graduated from SMU in the spring of 1970. They’re all about to go their separate ways but Costner, the charismatic leader of this quintet who’ve dubbed themselves The Groovers, persuades his buddies to go “visit Dom.”
It’s a road trip down to the border of Mexico. It’s a reckoning. It’s five young men who are about to exit the extended childhood that can be college and enter the real world. And that means, at least for two of them, Vietnam. But the beauty of the film is its subtlety and its wackiness. Fandango has a sense of humor about it and a quirkiness that is peculiar and almost proprietary to anyone who’s had that college dorm bonding experience. The bonding and laughter I experienced with my college friends was something I’ve never come close to replicating before or since. It was unique. And Fandango captured that sensibility.
And also, let’s give credit where it’s due, the soundtrack, including Blind Faith’s “Can’t Find My Way Home” and a few Pat Metheny tunes, just fit so damn well.
Anyway, I watched this in the summer of ’86. By that time I was two years through college and here’s what I knew: my grades were going to be good enough to get me into medical school. But I just wasn’t sure that’s who I wanted to be. Watching this film I felt like Philip (Judd Nelson’s repressed character) but I yearned to be more like Gardner Barnes (Costner’s character). I’m loathe to admit that a Kevin Costner film helped to alter my path in life—not to mention making a hilariously unwise career decision from a financial standpoint—but it may just be true.
The climactic scene of the film involves a hastily thrown-together wedding that could’ve been a Marx Brothers bit. It’s funny but then suddenly it becomes very poignant with Pat Metheny’s beautiful and haunting “It’s For You” as background music. No scene gets to me more and for the number of years that I was lucky enough to travel the country covering college football and experiencing those wondrous environments and college towns and games, I always felt as if I were Gardner Barnes setting up that wedding on the fly: How had I gone from an overly studious and anxiety-addled pre-med to a Sports Illustrated college football writer in a few short years? I felt so damn lucky.
Anyway, if you have a movie that means as much to you as this one does to me, lucky you. So let’s amend the record and put this as my top film from 1985. Here’s to life and to the privileges of youth.
Five Films: 1987
Broadcast News: What happens when you get a brilliantly written screenplay and a few perfectly cast actors together? This, from someone who has worked in sports television, is the most accurate portrayal of TV news I can imagine. It’s also a heartbreaking love triangle in which the two who are ideal for one another can’t work cuz she has eyes for the hotter guy. This just in: It’s one of the world’s oldest stories. A classic 2. The Princess Bride: What? You think this should be ranked first? As you wish. 3. Fatal Attraction/Wall Street: Michael Douglas owned this year so we put both of his films in. 4. Moonstruck: A wolf without a claw. Who knew that putting Cher and Nicholas Cage together in a film about a family in Brooklyn Heights could work so well? 5. Raising Arizona: “I’ll get that child back or else my name isn’t Nathan T. Arizona!” “Y’ate sand?” “We ate sand.” Come to think of it, Nicholas Cage had a pretty good year as well.
Yes, I put Baby in a corner. Would have liked to have included Dirty Dancing as well as The Untouchables, Full Metal Jacket, Good Morning, Vietnam, No Way Out and The Last Emperor. We’ve honestly never seen Planes, Trains and Automobiles , Adventures In Babysitting, Lethal Weapon or Predator. Really.
Life is a never-ending succession of NFL teams adding ping pong tables w/stories about how they're finally coming together as a family and enjoying each other's company, and NFL teams removing ping pong tables w/stories about how they're finally taking football seriously.
The White House, without authorization from Congress, has assassinated Qasem Soleimani. He was basically the No. 2 dude in Iran behind the Supreme Leader, the dude who directed all acts of war, terrorism, foreign policy skulduggery behind the scenes.
The rationale—that Soleimani was directing imminent attacks against U.S. troops and/or civilians in Iraq—has only been true for, oh, about the past 17 years. So why now? And what’s the plan going forward besides tweeting?
And why did Eric Trump tweet “Bout to open a big ol’ can of whoopass” and #DontMessWithTheBest on New Year’s Eve, two days before the strike occurred? Did he know about this 48 hours before anyone in Congress, most of whom learned by Twitter, did?
Anyway, Soleimani is dead. He was a bad, bad man, particularly where U.S. interests are concerned. But of course, this is the beginning, not the end. I think we can all use our imaginations and consider what array of responses Iran might use, what targets (human and cyber and geographic) they might go after in response.
Remember when I said that starting a war with Iran was a great way for a weak and ineffective President to get out of a political jam and win re-election? It’s foolproof! #ThrowbackThursday#WWIIIpic.twitter.com/1twq0jZyzD
But it’s also an opportunity for Donald Trump to deflect from the impeachment process. To perhaps declare martial law. To behave like a tough guy. Has he thought three steps down the road? No. Trump plays checkers, not chess.
Stay tuned. The “Toots” (2020s) just got interesting, a whole two days in.
One last thing: Isn’t it a little funny that the U.S.’ rationale for killing this man is that he was “in the planning stages of attacking U.S. interests” yet this same administration uses as its defense in the Ukraine impeachment case that it never actually accomplished what it is accused of setting out to do?
Jones’ing To Be Fired
After yet another 8-8 season with all that talent, Jason Garrett was fired by the Dallas Cowboys (four days and like, three meetings with Jerry Jones after the Cowboys’ last game, a meaningless blowout of the Washington Redskins). We were curious why the ESPN crawl and the SportsCenter promos and even espn.com kept repeating the same stock phrase: “Cowboys To Move On” from Jason Garrett.
When you’re being spun as a fan, it’s important to be aware of that fact. Someone in Dallas (J.J.) wields a lot of power with the ESPN folks (and uses Ed Werder as his conduit?) and as long as ESPN was going to break this story, maybe they had to agree to word it Jerry’s way? Just a conspiracy theory, but then again this is an event that took place in Dallas, the epicenter of conspiracy theories, so the judges will allow it.
Just a reminder that with a ton of talent and two games apiece versus the Redskins and the Giants, plus games against the Dolphins and Jets, the Cowboys were unable to win enough games to make the playoffs. Incredible.
Bring on the “Urban Cowboy?” heds. And wouldn’t it be something if Coach Meyer had yet another chance to under-use Ezekiel Elliott?
Five Films: 1986
Platoon: Finally, a good six years into the decade, a film that is both popular and critically praised. A movie movie. Oliver Stone’s semi-autobiographical tale about a privileged kid who volunteered to serve in Vietnam and barely made it out alive felt, at the time, like a very, very accurate account of what it was like without all of Apocalypse Now‘s Heart of Darkness varnish. Sergeant Barnes: “I AM reality.” 2. Hoosiers: Seeing this film as a college student in Indiana, it felt as if someone had made the love letter to the state that I was feeling inside. Gene Hackman probably never quite knew how much this film would blow up as he was filming it. Credit writer/director Angelo Pizzo for not going overboard with the maudlin, for understanding small-town Indiana, for some wonderful cinematography, for a thrilling score to accompany those action scenes, and for just the right amount of comic relief…in the form of Dennis Hopper. And wouldn’t you know a kid named Steve Alford would lead the Indiana Hoosiers to the NCAA title that year? 3. Stand By Me: For as much credit as Rob Reiner gets, he still does not get enough. In the 1980s he made This Is Spinal Tap, this, The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally. Not bad, Meathead. Not bad. River Phoenix embodies precocious. Could’ve been the next Brando. 4. Top Gun: I mean, yeah, so manipulative and formulaic (it’s All The Right Moves at a Navy flight school) and so, so closeted (“I’m on YOUR tail!”) but it delivers and the dog-fight scenes are incredible. And that’s Meg Ryan before she was really, really big. Tom Cruise has still never won an Oscar. Incredible. Still get a chuckle seeing topless dudes in jeans playing volleyball. 5. Hannah And Her Sisters: So many films could’ve landed in this final spot, so let’s recognize ones we loved here— Blue Velvet, Something Wild, Back To School and Pretty In Pink. We’ve never been a fan of Ferris Bueller because as, I believe it was Gene Siskel pointed out, if you look at this film through the lens of “Ferris is just an incredibly narcissistic and self-serving ass,” you may see it differently and, oh, by the way, that is the correct lens. We’ve always wanted to see Mission and hope someday that we will. As for this film, it’s a sign of Woody Allen’s maturation (as a film maker…don’t Soon-Yi me; I know). This and Crimes and Misdemeanors are almost impossible to tell apart from one another, but they’re both dark and also funny.
OUT OF CONTROL: An Amazon truck struggles to stay on an interstate at the Colorado-Wyoming border during powerful wind gusts, ultimately forcing it off the road. https://t.co/Z57s94xZmlpic.twitter.com/eFuHiPGjzz
We’re not going to give you “20 Things For 2020,” as the CNN list was rather lame. But here are a few events/moments to anticipate this year, after a year with no Olympics, no elections, and no men’s World Cup (now Twitter will roast me for being sexist):
1.) The presidential election (November) and all the chaos that will precede it. As for the Senate Impeachment trial, who knows?
2) The Tokyo Olympics, the first summer games in Japan in 56 years.
3) The Yankees and the White Sox will play an MLB game on the Field Of Dreams baseball diamond (or, directly adjacent to it) in August.
4) The 400th anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower (November 11, Cape Cod–and not Plymouth Rock).
5) The reopening of the Washington Monument. For the first time in more than three years, visitors can travel up to the top.
6) The 50th anniversary of the Glastonbury Music Festival (headliner: Taylor Swift and Sir Paul McCartney). The initial Glastonbury fest had The Kinks as its headline act and was staged one day after the death of Jimi Hendrix (not because of that). Tickets were one pound and about 1,500 attended.
Eden Hazard (and brother Thorgan) will make Belgium one of the favorites to advance to Wembley Stadium
7. The European Cup, a.k.a. Euro 2020. Ironic that the first Euro after the Brits ratify Brexit will be formally hosted by the U.K. but staged all across the continent. Two dozen nations have qualified and early round matches will be held in the following cities: Munich, Rome, St. Petersburg, London, Baku, Budapest, Bucharest, Amsterdam, Bilbao, Glasgow, Dublin and Copenhagen.
Sounds like a solid road trip. Who’s with me? The final will be held at Wembley on July 12 in London.
8. The Champions League final will be held on May 30th in Istanbul, by the way. Sort of an exotic location.
9. The 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770) could reignite a craze for classical music. He was born in December of that year, exact date unknown.
Hide your daughters and your Aqua-Net
10. Hair Nation fans, unite! A 2020 summer tour with these three acts on the bill: Motley Crue, Def Leppard and Poison. I LIKE TO ROCK! (We’re more stoked about the rumors of an AC/DC reunion tour. We’ll be there for that).
The Next Bitcoin?
Almost a decade ago the Winklevi took their Facebook settlement and invested a chunk of it in Bitcoin. Who’s laughing now? Sure, they’re rich, but if only they were tall and handsome and well-educated…
We honestly never heard of Bitcoin until early 2014. That’s when Newsweek, where we toiled at the time, re-launched itself as a magazine (a monthly, I believe) and devoted its first cover story to uncovering the person/persons who’d created the crypto-currency. We honestly had no idea what the mag was talking about, as we were still getting up to speed on MySpace and the Blackberry in 2013.
However, if you were smarter than we are (no great feat) you could have owned one Bitcoin for as little as $1 in the winter of 2011. Historians should note the following, and we are not making this up: “On 22 May 2010,[141]Laszlo Hanyecz made the first real-world transaction by buying two pizzas in Jacksonville, Florida, for 10,000 BTC.”
Now, let’s say you had put $100 down on Bitcoin in February of 2011. What would that $100, or 100 Bitcoin, be worth today? $712,900. Not a bad jump, that.
So what’s the Bitcoin, not in terms of currency but in terms of an investment opportunity, for this decade? We don’t know. But we will not be surprised if it has something to do with water or renewable energy or a paradigm shift away from carbon-based fuels. Our safe bet here is Tesla, although we know it won’t skyrocket anything like the way Bitcoin did. But we definitely believe it’ll double to treble over the next decade.
David Stern And Don Larsen
Two sports icons passed away on New Year’s Day. Former NBA commish David Stern died at the age of 77 and former MLB pitcher Don Larsen, still the only human ever to throw a perfect game in the World Series, left us at age 90.
Larsen’s perfecto came against a Dodger lineup that featured four future Hall of Famers
A note on Larsen that you may already know: His first time back to Yankee Stadium after his 1956 gem, at least formally, was for Yogi Berra Day in 1999. On that Sunday afternoon Yankee pitcher David Cone tossed a perfect game. I’m not sure what the odds of throwing a perfect game are, but they happen at about the rate of one every five years. So that’s pretty wild.
As for Stern, it was somewhat serendipitous that he took the helm of the NBA as Magic and Larry were in their primes and Michael Jordan was in his rookie year, but he was no dumb luck ride-along. Stern was brilliant and tough and a visionary. Much like Pete Rozelle in the NFL, he took his league to a next-level status no one before could have foreseen. Only four years before he began NBA Finals games were still being aired on tape-delay on CBS.
As for the above video, I love this effort by Stern. It’s not proportional to everything he did in his career, but I love that he’s this tenacious. He’s not overly circumspect. He punches back at Rome.
What will we remember most about the 2020 Rose Bowl a few years from now, if anything? Will it be Oregon quarterback Justin Herbert’s three touchdown scampers, including the game-winner? Safety Brady Breeze’s fumble recovery touchdown or the game-changing fumble he forced in the 28-27 win?
Nah. It’s gonna be the way the sunset reflected off the Ducks’ chrome helmets. You win, Phil Knight. You win.
Five Films: 1985
Fandango: See our January 6 post. 2. The Breakfast Club: Not only do I think of this as John Hughes’ best film, but that Judd Nelson should’ve won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar (neither were even nominated…you won’t remember a single nominee from the Best Supporting list). It’s a film that, as Jonathan Bender would argue, is “demented and sad…but sociable.” 3. Witness: Harrison Ford in the ultimate hiding-out-in-Amish country film. Remember when Kelly McGillis nailed the two biggest female love interest roles in America in back-to-back years? 4. After Hours: Always loved this film and when I saw it back in college I never imagined I’d soon be a young, single guy in NYC. No film better captures what unknown adventures wait in the Big Apple on any given night. 5. The Sure Thing: No one was a more charming teenaged male than John Cusack. He also starred in Better Off Dead this same year. I still think about naming my son Nick. ….That’s right, I’m going to leave Back To The Future (plus all the Oscar nominees) off this list. As well as Fletch. Put it on the Underwood account.
Music 101
I Can’t Let Go
Catching parts of the Linda Ronstadt doc on CNN last night led us to discover her cover of The Hollies’ “I Can’t Let Go,” one of our all-time favs. Only, in searching around we learned that the Hollies’ version was also a cover of a song written by Chip Taylor and first performed by Brooklyn-born Evie Sands a year earlier in 1965. Now here’s the thing about Chip Taylor. His given name is James Wesley Voight. He’s Jon Voight’s brother (and Angelina Jolie’s uncle) and he also wrote “Wild Thing” and “Angel Of The Morning.” One brood shouldn’t be allowed to have that much talent.
The Hollies’ version remains our favorite, but we really wanna know how Sands seems to have slipped through the cracks of Sixties pop legends? This performance was from a TV show called “Hollywood a Go Go” in January of 1966.
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