Monthly Archives: November 2020

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 5 Comments

by John Walters

Lollapaloser

If your local Home Depot or Ford dealership seemed somewhat vacant Saturday, here’s why: thousands of C U Last Tuesday (i.e. C.U.L.T. 45) denizens showed up in our nation’s capital to protest the results of the November 3rd election.

If you hadn’t heard, Joe Biden won with 306 electoral votes to Donald Trump’s 232. When Trump won by the same number of electoral votes in 2016, he referred to it as a “massive landslide.” Of course, in both 2016 and 2020, Trump received far fewer actual (popular) votes.

With an era that has seen a surfeit of symbolic moments, Saturday provided another one. The march was interfered with by an elderly white man in the back of a limousine who wanted to cut through the protesters so that he could play golf. That man? Donald Trump.

Welcome to TrumpWorld.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghhB9Xg781o

True Detective foresaw this years ago.

Fail! Fail! To Michigan

Playing in Ann Arbor against a Wisconsin team that had not played in three weeks and had literally had its program shut down for 10 days in the interregnum due to COVID-19, Michigan got walloped on a rainy Saturday night on national television, 49-11.

Ouch.

Less than 13 months ago, on a rainier night in Ann Arbor against No. 8 Notre Dame, the Wolverines pasted the Irish 45-14. In the interim Notre Dame has gone 14-0 while Michigan is 4-5. The Wolverines are 1-6 in their past six games and are the only team in FBS not to have won as an underdog in the past five years. The only one.

As natural a fit as Jim Harbaugh seemed six years ago, his tenure has devolved into an unmitigated failure. The Wolverines have not beaten Ohio State, are 3-3 versus Michigan State and are 6-14 versus opponents in the Top 15. What’s worse, the talent level appears to be dropping off and Michigan doesn’t bully anyone on either side of the ball. They’re not intellectual and they do not impose brutality.

Unless Harbaugh wins in Columbus on December 12, we don’t see Harbaugh remaining in Ann Arbor. There’s nothing about these Wolverines that suggest they are well-coached or enthusiastic. We did like the snippet of QB Cade McNamara we saw late in the second half, but how far can he take a squad this soft? And yes, the Victors were without defensive studs Qwity Paye and Aidan Hutchinson on Saturday night. Still…

…The Buckeyes have slapped 62 and 59 on the Wolverines the past two years, both 20-plus point wins, and we don’t see it being any prettier this season. Count us among many who thought this was a perfect marriage when it began but have seen it disintegrate beyond repair.

Hoops Headliners

Above, that’s 6’9″ Emoni Bates of Ypsilanti (Mich.) Prep. Bates, a junior, is considered the top recruit in the Class of ’22. If he attends college.

Below, that’s 7’1″ Chet Holmgren of Minnehaha (Minn.) High and also AAU team Sizzle. Holmgren is considered the top recruit of the Class of ’21.

Last Thursday, in a televised ESPN exhibition game that received little fanfare, Holmgren’s Team Sizzle out-dueled Bates’ Ypsilanti squad, 78-71. Bates outscored Holmgren, 36 to 31, but Holmgren, who has trimmed his list of schools down to seven, also grabbed 12 boards and blocked six shots. Someone get him a protein shake.

Stay In Your Lane


Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin was once our least-favorite college football coach. Now he may be our most favorite. Look at this play from Saturday night. It’s glorious.

That clipboard soaring to the heavens? That’s Lane’s as he realizes his Rebels are about to score on a 91-yard pass play (that USC forgot to cover). The player who made the grab, Elijah Moore, also knows something about redemption. He’s the one who made the peeing gesture during the Egg Bowl last year that cost Ole Miss the footbaw game.

Vax Populi

Just one week after Pfizer says that it has a vaccine that is 90% effective (a solid “B”), Moderna announces that it has a vaccine that is 94% effective (probably a low “A”). Can’t any of these pharmaceutical companies give 110%?

Might be worth noting that Pfizer’s CEO sold nearly $6 million in PFE stock the day after the announcement lat week. And that Moderna’s executives initiated their own huge sell-off on good news months earlier. But maybe we’re just bitter because we bought a &%$-load of MRNA back in late February at $22 and sold it at the tiniest of profits.

That’s showbiz.

Meanwhile, 2,321 Americans died from COVID-19 between Friday and Sunday. That’s a lot of plane crashes, Mr. President. Though, one must agree with Dave Chappelle that the coronavirus has brought a virtual halt to mass shootings. So thank God for the small favors.

Hail Murray Pass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rEOlSzxrhM

The Cardinals win, 32-26. Kyle Murray’s commercial with Tim Tebow just got more airplay.

By the way, that negates a terrific comeback by the Buffalo Bills that included tremendous catches by both Cole Beasley and Stefon Diggs.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

Case Load

November 12: 161,541

What is it they always say? “Lead, follow, or get the f**k out of the way.

Get the f**k out of the way, Donald. Because lead or follow are not options for you.

That’s your leader. THAT’s your leader. What kind of man does this? Let’s his friends suffer while only thinking of himself?

The Combover Presidency

Has a hairstyle ever better defined a presidency? The color is fake and it’s covering up a lot of bald(-faced lies). There will always be Trump loyalists who’ll attempt to persuade Americans to see what they pretend to see: Mike Pompeo, William Barr, Peter Navarro, the Trumpkins.

But when even China and Fox News have bailed on him as well as Arizona (you’re welcome, Susie B.), it’s time to intubate this presidency: shut him up and wait for the inevitable end.

Love The Drake

Before this week I, like most of you who have never spent much time in Lincoln, Neb. (Hi, Jacob), had no idea who Leta Powell Drake was. But then this Twitter clip of her celebrity interviews was posted and, for good reason, went viral:

https://twitter.com/JFrankensteiner/status/1326748637603516417?s=20

So here’s Vulture, who landed an interview with Drake, an 82 year-old living legend who still resides in the Cornhusker State.

You Tackle Him

This is Howard Brown. He’s a senior quarterback at Lincoln Prep Academy in Kansas City, Missouri. Brown carries three bills and change on his 6’2″ frame.

Brown has accepted a scholarship offer to Iowa State, which plans to put him at defensive tackle. Is there any good reason for him to change positions?

Heedless Horseman

You’ve probably read about how Steve Bannon, on Facebook, suggested that both Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Chris Wray be “decapitated,” and you’ve probably further heard that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, in a staff meeting, explained to Facebook employees why Bannon’s account was not suspended:

โ€œWe have specific rules around how many times you need to violate certain policies before we will deactivate your account completely. While the offenses here, I think, came close to crossing that line, they clearly did not cross the line.”

You have to wonder how many times the Winklevi wonder why they didn’t plant Zuckerberg at the bottom of the Charles River when they had the chance.

This always rings true about Mark Zuckerberg. One of the greatest opening scenes ever written.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 6 Comments

by John Walters

Kicking And Scheming

On the same day that the U.S. set a new record for coronavirus cases (142,000-plus) and 1,478 Americans died from the virus, there was a report that “Donald Trump does not seem to be interested in his work.”

Has he ever been?

In an interview with Anderson Cooper of CNN, the NYT’s Maggie Haberman, who would rent space in Trump’s soul if he had one, noted that the president doesn’t really have a grand strategy to defeat Joe Biden (problem 1 being that Biden just defeated him), but that he’s willing to keep pushing the envelope, i.e., keep grabbing America by the pussy, to see just how far he can go. When you’re famous, after all, people let you get away with it.

Truly, I’m flummoxed that anyone with a brain is taken in by him. And yet so many are.

A Trump campaign advisor said, ” ‘Concede’ is not in our vocabulary.” Neither are grace, humility, honesty or integrity. But we already knew that. Trump will eventually back down but he’ll act as if he were robbed (he loves playing the aggrieved billionaire and, again, dumbasses buy it) and attempt to make a comeback in 2024. We’re thinking the obesity and the virus and the high blood pressure will do him in by them. We can hope.

The Upside Down

https://twitter.com/marceldirsus/status/1325822934502543360?s=20

So there it was, Veterans Day, and certainly countless Americans were thinking of their fathers, their uncles, their grandfathers who had fought in World War II. Who had sacrificed their lives or at least put them on the line in order to fight Germany, to fight fascism.

And here we are, 75 or so years later, and the leader of Germany, currently the world’s most stable and economically viable democracy (you read that right), is reaching across the Atlantic to help rescue America from fascism.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.

80 From ’80

If only Peter Gabriel had saved “Games Without Frontiers” and “Biko” for his former band, Genesis’ Duke album of the same year would be an all-time classic.

Rolling Stone has compiled a list of “The 80 Greatest Albums From 1980” while making the claim that there may have never been a single better year in terms of worthy albums. As someone who was in his 8th grade/freshman year at the time and experiencing my first real crush with pop and rock music, I cannot disagree. As I went through the list, here are just a few of the songs that stick with me to this day:

“Kiss On My List,” (I’m not kidding), “Against The Wind,” “Turn It On Again,”
“Games Without Frontiers,” “Oh Yeah”, “Pulling Mussels,” “The Spirit of Radio,” “Girl U Want,” “She’s So Cold,” “Crazy Train,” “I Will Follow,” “Private Idaho,” “Brass In Pocket,” “You Shook Me All Night Long,” “Once In A Lifetime” and “Death or Glory.”

If I had to pick a Top 3 that was representative of what my Brophy classmates cranked up most often that year, a Phoenix faves list, I’d go with “Crazy Train,” “You Shook Me All Night Long,” and anything off Zenyatta Mondatta. If I had to make my own, I’d go with “Once In A Lifetime,” “Oh Yeah” and “Turn It On Again.”

But five minutes from now I’d probably give you a completely different list. Suffice it to say that back then the hardest part of picking 13 albums for a penny from the Columbia Record & Tape Club was winnowing it down to 13.

A Christmas For Christmas

Don’t you hate when a couple this good-looking (Penn and Kim Holderness are married in real life with a cute son and cute daughter) is also this witty (they wrote this)? They’ve set a new, er, Hallmark for holiday film parody.

A Whale of A Story

This feels as if it should’ve happened on WKRP In Cincinnati, or perhaps it inspired the famous WKRP Thanksgiving episode.Whatever. Today is the 50th anniversary of this event that will leave you blubbering with mirth. Enjoy.

MAC-tion is BACK-tion

The MAC returned to November week night viewing (as it does annually) and last night’s finish between Toledo and Western Michigan did not disappoint.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 3 Comments

by John Walters

Axis of Evil, circa 2020

Coup de Twats

Lie, lie, lie.

Deny, deny, deny.

Decry, decry, decry.

That’s it. That’s the GOP’s entire plan to steal the election.

We’re not even going to give any more oxygen to Mike Pompeo’s absurd statement from yesterday other than to say what we said months ago: at some point in time push is going to come to shove.

There is nothing in Donald Trump’s past to suggest that he will ever admit defeat or do the right thing. He will obstruct and delay, and then obstruct some more and delay longer. So at some point by January 20th some MUSCLE is going to need to come in and order him out of the White House.

And now that it seems that William Barr and Mike Pompeo are also in bed with Trump on this denial of election results, that means that some active resistance must take hold. Resigning if you work under Barr or Pompeo or in the military is one thing, but perhaps some MUSCLE from the National Guard or the military or Secret Service is going to have to storm the castle.

And what happens, by the way, if Trump fortifies the White House with the very right-wing, white supremacist militia types who are so eager to defend him?

The latest Banana Republic outlet just opened on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

One Minute Of Truth

Cannot wait to see where this young man is in 20 years. #NotSafeForPhyllis

Amen Corner

This is Jon Rahm on the 16th hole during a practice round at The Masters yesterday. They didn’t even think to try and attempt this in Caddyshack. You may ask how come one of the world’s best golfers duffed a shot so horribly and for that we have no answer.

No-Fraud Zone

The New York Times contacted the top election official in each of the 50 states. Here’s what they heard back:

–directly from the top official in 49 states, NO EVIDENCE OF VOTER FRAUD.

–from someone speaking for that top official in four other states, NO EVIDENCE OF VOTER FRAUD.

–from Texas, a state that Donald Trump won, no reply.

Of course, you may want to ask your favorite GOP tin-foil hat wearer why it is that people such as Mitch McConnell and Tommy Tuberville were legally elected on the very same ballots on which Joe Biden was illegally elected, but it’s exactly that type of logic that proves too unwieldy for them to embrace.

Which is not to say that there has not been election fraud in the past two weeks. This, for example:

And you have to wonder if this person in silhouette actually works at Nevada Pole & Total Landscaping:

So at this point you have to wonder what it’s going to look like when Donald Trump is frog-walked out of the White House in handcuffs.

But here’s an epiphany I had this morning: What if this is all part of Trump’s plan to avoid jail. He’s going to keep ratcheting up the 3rd World Dictator schtick in hopes that eventually he can approach the Biden camp and say, “Look, I’ll leave the White House peacefully if you’ll just pardon me on everything else.” At which point, if I were Biden, I’d simply start laughing.

The SEC’s Day Off

Due to Covid-19 testing, this weekend’s Alabama-LSU contest and Texas A&M-Tennessee game have been postponed. This is probably the best news LSU fans have had all season.

Leo at 46

To celebrate Leo DiCaprio’s 46th birthday, let’s post five favorite performances:

  1. Arnie in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (still his best)
  2. Billy in The Departed (where Matt Damon plays the a-holeโ€”in Boston! These two could easily have swapped roles and it would’ve played just as well if not better).
  3. Jack Dawson in Titanic (yes, it’s schmaltzy in moments, but he’s fantastic)
  4. Rick in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (an imperfect film but he and Brad were phenomenal)
  5. Frank in Catch Me If You Can*

*honorable mention to Danny in Blood Diamond, another film (like Nos. 2 and 3) where Leo does not survive.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 4 Comments

by John Walters

Jet Downer

There have been no major domestic airline catastrophes in more than a decade… with the exception of the New York Jets.

How did the Jets manage to lose last night on Monday Night Football? When we tuned in there were fewer than seven minutes remaining and New York (0-8 entering) led the putrid Patriots (2-5) 27-17.

Then New England kicked a field goal.

Then Joe Flacco (now a Jet) threw an ill-advised bomb on first down (a tight end was WIDE OPEN 10 yards downfield) that was picked. Then New England got 19 yards on 3rd-and-19. Then New England scored a TD. Then the Jets, getting the ball back with under 2 minutes, took a sack and threw an INC and, again, 0-8, decided to punt on 4th-and-3 from their 41 with the score tied.

New England then threw about a 20-yard completion with just a few ticks left, which put former Jet Nick Folk in position to kick a 51-yard field goal, and, yes, never even a question.

Pats 30, Jets 27.

The misery continues for football’s worst team.

White Supremacy’s Last Gasp

In the past 24 hours alone:

*Lame-duck president Donald Trump fires Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. This is his replacement below, in his first day on the job.

*Lamer still Attorney General William Barr orders prosecutors to look into voter fraud during the election with absolutely no evidence to sustain why he is doing so. While you’re at it, Bill, let’s investigate whether Matt Gaetz is a serial-killer. I mean, he could be, right?

*In response to Barr’s order, Richard Pilger, director of the elections crimes branch in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, resigned. Perhaps Pilger is smart enough to realize he’ll have his job back in less than three months.*

*This, by the way, must be the strategy to counterattack Trump and Barr and the rest of them. Trump will attempt to rid the top levels of government resistance (see: Sally Yates, James Comey, etc.) and is rumored to be considering firing FBI director Chris Wray. But even if he installs henchmen such as Barr atop key agencies (including the military), those people still need underlings to carry out their orders. And as long as people refuse to do so, there’s absolutely no way Trump’s nefarious plan will work. It’s kind of bizarre to see “Hamilton” in real time, but here we are.

*Georgia’s two Republican senators, Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Klansman, have told the state’s Secretary of State, who happens to be Republican but apparently did not give the ball a favorable spot, to resign. He oversees the election results in Georgia. He is refusing to do so.

*Lindsey Graham went on Fox News and said, and I quote, “Republicans win because of our ideas and we lose elections because [Democrats] cheat.” Sadly, there are plenty of Republicans who’d rather buy this logic than face the truth.

I keep returning to what Dave Chappelle said near the end of his SNL monologue the other night. Referring to how Trump got himself A-plus health care while letting friends/sycophants Chris Christie (wither in ICU) and Herman Cain (die) suffer, not to mention one million-plus Americans, Chappelle said: “That’s your leader. For four years…THAT’S your leader. What kind of man does that? What kind of man makes sure he’s okay while his friends fight for their lives? Die?

“A white man. And I don’t mean to put this on the whites, but I’ve been black a long time, I’ve noticed a pattern.“

Stop The Count!

Meanwhile, the coronavirus rages out of control even after Pfizer announced that it has produced a vaccine (without government assistance) that is 90% effective. Yesterday the U.S. had yet another new record of coronavirus cases (125,000-plus) while leading epidemiologists are predicting the next few months will be “coronavirus hell.”

One went on TV this morning and predicted at least 100,000 more deaths before inauguration day.

And your president? He has not sat in on a coronavirus briefing in 12 weeks. Frankly, they’re boring to him. Hey, if you didn’t want to die from the ‘rona, you should’ve gotten your ass elected president, no?

When The Witch of November Comes Stealin‘

Forty-five years ago today (November 10, 1975), the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald sank in a massive gale on Lake Superior. The freighter, 790-feet long, took down 29 men and 26 short tons of iron ore with it shortly after 7 p.m.

One year later Canadian musician Gordon Lightfoot (still living, by the way) wrote his classic ballad, “The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald.” Lightfoot has said he was inspired to pen the tune after seeing a story about the disaster in Newsweek and noting that the ship’s name had been misspelled “Edmond” (where were the fact-checkers??? Or even Micah Sage?). He felt that the typo dishonored the 29 lost souls and wanted to correct the error.