Monthly Archives: November 2020

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Spontaneous celebration in South Bend and…

Wake Up The Echoes!

Quite a Saturday as both President Donald Trump and No. 1 Clemson officially lose for the first time in years. The news organizations began declaring Joe Biden the winner shortly before 11 a.m. and then Notre Dame, in another contest that seemed to go on interminably long, took down the Tigers in two overtimes, 47-40.

…and Times Square

A bad day all around for orange creatures. A great day for the Irish, which Biden is. Notre Dame had not taken down a No. 1 opponent in 27 years, since Florida State in November of 1993. Brian Kelly, now in his 11th season, finally gets his first victory against a Top 5 team and moves his name closer to the plateau of Rockne, Leahy, Parseghian and Holtz. All that remains elusive is a national championship.

A Man For All Seasons

The inimitable Alex Trebek, 80, passes from stage 4 pancreatic cancer, with which he was diagnosed last year. The Canada native served as the host of Jeopardy! for 36 years and turned it into an American institution. His kindness, dry wit and genial charm will forever be missed.

It says something about the way Trebek connected with viewers, and also the simple genius of the game, that the host and the show inspired a long-running parody on Saturday Night Live (the foil to Trebek was Sean Connery, who passed just one week ago), a Weird Al song, and an entire episode of Cheers. If you want to see a beautiful tribute to Trebek, we posted one in Friday’s edition of MH at the bottom.

Trebek was taping episodes of Jeopardy! less than two weeks ago. The show has enough episodes with him hosting in the can to last us through Christmas. After that it’ll be interesting to see who succeeds him. No one will replace him.

A Man For Four Seasons

One could read shelves-ful of books that dissect the incompetence, the cruelty, the corruption and the smug self-satisfaction of the Trump presidency… or you could remember that in a final act of defiance, the president had his bag man, Rudy Giuliani, stage a press conference at what he thought would be the Four Seasons hotel in Philadelphia. Only it was a company called Four Seasons Total Landscaping, located betwixt a sex shop and a crematorium.

And for some reason, even at some point realizing the error they’d made, they still went through with the press conference. Even Sacha Baron-Cohen isn’t brilliant enough to concoct such a perfect metaphor.

Major Harris

Yes, America elected another old white man as president (he is a massive step up and in the right direction, though). But, in terms of historical impact, a woman of color and of Indian heritage who was educated at an HBCU and comes from zero privilege, well, she’s the vice president.

The American Dream is alive and well. It’s funny how much that upsets some patriotic Americans.

By the way, and we can’t remember if we typed this last week, but in 2020 Donald Trump received more votes in a presidential election than any previous candidate in any election ever had. The problem for Donald is that he received four million fewer votes than Joe Biden and also fewer electoral votes.

What does that mean? That democracy won last week, more than anything. Americans still believe in the power of the vote, no matter how hard Donald Trump attempted to crush their optimism. Americans voted, to use a phrase that Trump always like to trot out, “like they’ve never done before.” And that is in part why he lost. And why democracy, more so than Joe Biden, won.

Chapelle’s Glow

About six minutes into his 16-minute host monologue on SNL, Dave Chappelle stopped tap dancing and begin super-spreading the truth: “Don’t even wanna wear a mask because it’s oppressive? Try wearing the mask I’ve been wearing all these years. Can’t even tell something true unless it’s got a punch line behind it… you guys aren’ ready.”

And that’s when the monologue really begins… Dave eases up on them for a few more minutes but then after about 11:30 it’s just devastating. Impactful stuff. Total silence in the studio as he outlines his plan for a “Kindness Conspiracy.”

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Mapquest

As we woke up on Friday morning, Joe Biden leads Donald Trump in electoral votes, 264-217, with five states still in play: Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. The odds favor Biden as mail-in votes seem to favor Democratic candidates…because who wants to be shot at a polling place?

On Thursday night, President Trump delivered what CNN’s Daniel Dale calls “the most dishonest speech of his presidency.” That’s like saying you just spotted the planet’s largest blue whale. Wow.

https://twitter.com/RexChapman/status/1324689612518969344?s=20

This was Trump’s biggest doozy: “If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.”

I’m mortified at the stupidity of people who buy this bullshit. Here’s a simple test: Would you believe this to be true if someone you did not know said it? Of course not. So why does President Hitler always get a free pass?

Netflix’s Election Coverage

If you’ve watched The Queen’s Gambit (fantastic), then you remember this scene from the opening episode and you are able to spot the metaphor. If you’ve either watched TQG or know what a metaphor is, you probably did not vote for Donald Trump.

All The Symbolism

Election Day was Colin Kaepernick’s birthday.

Today, in a matter of hours, Georgia could be the state that puts Joe Biden over 270: and today is the 89th anniversary of Louis Armstrong’s “Georgia On My Mind” being released.

The county that may clinch it for Biden in Georgia was in Rep. John Lewis’ district.

Meanwhile, Back At The Coronavirus Ward

The United States went Tesla-stock-in-late-July on coronavirus cases yesterday, breaking new barriers as if no boundaries can stop it. More than 120,000 new cases yesterday, which is about a 20% jump from the previous all-time high the day before. You know how we’ll know when Donald Trump has officially lost? When Fox News and OAN and The Hill begin obsessing about this terrible pandemic and why can’t the government seem to do anything to control it?

They’re Not Going Away

If the past four years have taught us anything, it’s that the Trump kids have come to understand that politics is the new family business. Grifting irate and/or disenfranchised (or so they feel) white folks is so much more lucrative than Trump Steaks. So expect Don, Jr., and Ivanka and Eric to be out staging Trump rallies in support of Dad, who will be, too, stoking up white nationalism at every turn.

Who knows where this car is headedā€”off a cliff?ā€”but they’re not going anywhere.

Hallelujah Chorus

Four years ago, for the first SNL following the election, the show’s cold open was simply Kate McKinnon, costumed as Hillary Clinton, playing Leonard Cohen’s somber “Hallelujah.” She played it straight, not for jokes.

So what comes this Saturday (with the same host as four years ago, Dave Chapelle)? Here’s our guess/suggestion: the cast (and others), all in their political garb (both a Jason Sudeikis and a Jim Carrey Joe Biden, for example) singing the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah.

You heard it here first.

What Is, One Man Makes A Difference?

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 3 Comments

by John Walters

Biden His Time

While President Trump was “hereby” claiming states that had not yet finished counting votes, challenger Joe Biden was keeping a low profile and letting the vote-counters do their job. As we type this it’s late Wednesday evening and still no definitive winner. Is this what prolonged labor is like?

We don’t want to go “Dewey (Beach) Defeats Trumpman” here, so we’ll note that one candidate is throwing paradoxical tantrums (“Stop counting the votes!” “Keep counting the votes!”) while the other is sitting on the front porch playing Crazy Eights with his wife.

It wasn’t easy: voter suppression, voter intimidation, a concerted effort to delegitimize the U.S. postal service and Chevy truck caravans… and still, MORE AMERICANS voted for Joe Biden than any other presidential candidate in U.S. history (Donald Trump received more votes than any Republican candidate in history, too). By the way, in seven of the last eight elections, counting this one, the Democratic candidate has received the majority of the votes. Sounds as if the GOP is getting governmental assistance via our electoral process: is that not socialism?

p.s. Your faithful scribe moved to Arizona last March and voted here. You’re welcome, America.

Heaven-Sent

When the up-and-down history of the year 2020 is written, it should be remembered that the coronavirus was the stuff that saved democracy in this nation. Just as 405,000 American soldiers gave their lives for the U.S.A. in World War II, more than half that have sacrificed theirs in 2020 for this country.

Not following? When you see how slim the margin of victory for Joe Biden was in this election, there’s little getting around the idea that Donald Trump wins without the introduction of the coronavirusā€”and his administration’s response to itā€”last winter. And if Trump wins in 2020 the path of darkness for this country only becomes more sinister.

By no means is this country out of the woods yet. And let’s make no mistake: this is a battle between white supremacy, i.e., the patriarchal white male, and inclusion of all types of people. That’s all any of this is about. Don’t attempt to complicate it.

There will be other Trumpian figures in the future. For now, America has held him and his horde at bay. To continue to do so in the future will take vigilance. But for now, God sent down a virus to provide an assist. And again, there’s nothing more outlandish about suggesting that than suggesting that God Him/Herself exists. The evidence is equally convincing/unconvincing on either count.

And, before we leave this topic, 1,100 more Americans died of Covid-19 yesterday. With more than 100,000 new cases. America First!

Stop The Count!

No one ever said White Supremacy in America would vanish without a bitter fight. Here are some “patriotic Americans”, a.k.a. “Vanilla Isis“, in Michigan literally chanting that votes should not be counted because, you know, ‘merica. Listen: “Stop the Count!” was quite the populist expression centuries ago in Transylvania, but I’m not sure if it’s really that in modern-day Wayne County, Michigan.

Of course the funny part is that all of the GOP and Trumpism is rooted in hypocrisy. So what a perfectly symbolic end for what may be the end of his presidency:

Whose Side Are You On?

A question I posed some of my friends (we are divided) last night: Watch these two clips and determine whose side you’d rather be on. Him?

Or him?

Black people forever wondering how come they have to be twice as smart, twice as composed, twice as articulate just so that white people won’t call them radical or unhinged. You know what? They have a damn good point.

That’s WMR (White Male Rage) up top and this is what happens when you don’t realize that the Constitution is color-blind (especially after that whole Emancipation Proclamation deal).

The Manchester (Ob)Scene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctrOpTrgOL8

In the world of soccer, Manchester United was once the gold standard. But nowadays Man U. cannot even maintain the goal standard. We’re not super-sophisticated when it comes to football acumen, but based on the media reactions from punters it seems that the defense here against Basaksehir, a Turkish club, in Champions League defeat was, well, indefensible. Something you’d admonish your 10-and-under team for failing to be prepared for.

The goal was scored by that unmarked man, Demba Ba, who is 35 years old. Basaksehir won, 2-1.

IT’S STILL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 3 Comments

by John Walters

https://twitter.com/onikasgivenchy/status/1323857811734933504?s=20

Hey Now, Heyyy Now, Don’t Dream It’s Over

Not sure how long ago this was, probably in the last two weeks, but here’s Bernie Sanders, who’d have made a better president than either of the two men on the ballot, explaining almost down to the county how the 2020 presidential election would play out.

By the way, we avoided watching most of the election coverage and are still doing so. For us, no matter who wins, the mandate has been established: America, with everything it knows and has experienced, did not repudiate Donald Trump.

So this was America’s chance to say, “Throw the bums out!” and America failed. You’re going to see a whole wave of Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan and Devin Nunes (not to mention the Trump kids) in the future because for some reason, half of America is down with corruption, incompetence, grifting and bullying.

We’re not the best country. Not even close.

Bastard Out Of Carolina*

*The judges are not explicitly talking about Lindsey Graham, but if your mind went there we won’t truck with you.

It’s been a decade or two since we read Bastard Out Of Carolina by Dorothy Allison, but here is what we remember: single mom dating a total bad boy, and bad guy, who treats her daughter quite poorly. In fact, he physically abuses her and ultimately rapes her.

https://twitter.com/nhannahjones/status/1323957711919337472?s=20

But mom doesn’t leave him. She knows who he is but she’d still rather be with him than not.

This is an analogy. I think you get it.

Trump Flat-Earthers, The Coronavirus, and Austin Powers


One thing I’ve heard from Trump truthers the past month, and not just one but a few, is that “no one could’ve really contained the coronavirus.” It’s as if that routine ground ball to the first baseman would’ve gone through anyone’s legs, not just Bill Buckner’s.

But it’s simply not true. It’s false. You or I could’ve done a better job fighting the coronavirus. Seriously. Why? Because we would’ve been smart enough to let the pilot fly the plane, i.e., ask the epidemiologists what to do and follow their lead. But what about the economy? Oh, stop. Like prolonging a pandemic for another year is a wise economic move?

So for me it’s like this: Trump truthers claim the coronavirus is a meteor hurtling toward Earth and we are powerless to stop it. False. What the coronavirus is is this: it’s that very slow-moving steamroller in the first Austin Powers film that the dastardly henchman sees coming from 20 feet away but instead of doing anything about it, he simply screams in horror while, with plenty of time to elude it, freezing in place until it ultimately flattens him.

And that’s why I always think in metaphors.

Jacobellis’ing It

Remember the 2006 Winter Olympics, when all Lindsay Jacobellis had to do was jump correctly and then snowboard home for a gold medal? Instead, she tried styling during her jump, fell, and finished with the silver.

Well, the President attempted to declare victory. Prematurely. Last night. We weren’t awake for it but you’ve certainly heard about it.

https://twitter.com/JudithBenezra/status/1323923239261728770?s=20

Here’s the interesting, but also depressing thing: Neither side produced a landslide. Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell were reelected. Tommy Tuberville was elected. The point? Neither side is dominant. The political strife of the past four years will simply continue moving onward. I’m tempted to say, “I’m out.” Cuz this sh*t just ain’t worth it. Find me a beach somewhere. The beach bums have all the wisdom.

IT IS ALLLLLL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 3 Comments

by John Walters

Exit Pol?

Election day 2020 dawned with the President of the United States having erected a “non-scalable fence” around the perimeter of the White House (I’m sure that made the Secret Service feel gratified for all that they do) and phoning in to Fox News 45 minutes late to whine that they actually air video of the other candidate.

Today is Election Day. Saturday Notre Dame hosts No. 1 Clemson. I’m against everything orange this week (except Tang, of course).

Vote if you have not yet done so. Remember this day for as long as you live. And if your election lasts more than 40 hours, please consult a physician.

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Happy Birthday, Colin Kaepernick!

The former Super Bowl quarterback turns 33 today. Life is funny. There’s still time for some NFL owner to sign Kap but, hey, when you’ve got Ben DiNucci taking snaps for you, who needs a former All-Pro who’s still in his prime?

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

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Potential Scenario: Donald Trump loses, is tossed over the “non-scaleable wall,” and finds himself in a bottomless gorge of debt. But there is one way out of the predicament: write a tell-all book about the last five years of his life.

Be completely candid, and for once, truthful: What really happened to Jeffrey Epstein? What was said during the meeting with Putin? Was there a back-up Melania? What’s going on with Hope Hicks? Everything. In exchange Trump receives immunity, is allowed to be free (but not to hold rallies or appear on Fox News or OAN) and can settle up with his creditors.

*****

Are we being too hopeful here? Spiking the ball before we cross the plane of the goal line? Yes, we’ll stop. We’ve got little doubt that Biden will win the popular vote and think he’ll probably also take the electoral college. What happens after that is beyond our ken. We’ve got the cynical thoughts and also the hopeful thoughts. Who knows?

But maybe, just maybe, someone has whispered into Don’s ear that he really doesn’t want to spend the next four years being president and that he can still do his pump-up-your-ego rallies without having to live in Washington, D.C. any more. Maybe even his own show on Fox News. That actually might appeal to him more. While Ivanka prepares for a run at the Senate (in Florida) in 2022 or 2024. Who knows?

Vladimir Putin In The Sauna With The Crossbow Is The Strangest Clue Hypothesis Yet

In case you missed it, Russian oligarch Vladimir Marugov, who owned several meat-processing plants and was dubbed “The Sausage King,” was killed by unnamed assailants who entered his home and shot him with a crossbow as he and his wife were seated in their sauna. Apparently they were demanding money and the wife somehow escaped.

I’d say, “Stay tuned,” but it’s Russia and we’ll never learn the truth. Just be thankful we were given these salacious details.

Who’s A Smart Doggy?

I don’t care if this good doggy was trained to do this or not. Even if it was, then give him or her an extra doggy bone for superior acting talent.

Remember Her?

Four years later, it’s important to remember that Hillary Clinton A) is not dead (remember she was gravely ill?) and B) has not been locked up or even accused by anyone outside of a fulminating charlatan of any actual crimes.

There are voters who hate her because she’s dishonest (Is she, though, or is that just how you like to feel? Is she any more so than you or I?). There are voters who hate her because she stayed with her adulterous husband (these same voters have no problem admiring a man who cheated on all three of his wives, which seems, I dunno, rather hypocritical). Mostly, though, voters hate her because she’s a woman who stands up for herself, can out-think them, and whose primary goal in life is not to be sexually pleasing to the male animal.

She wouldn’t have been a perfect president. No one has been. She would’ve stopped this virus in its tracks, though. Literally, I feel safe saying, half as many Americans at most would have died from it. Think about that. People voted for a man whose presence in the Oval Office was likely responsible for the death of at least 100,000 Americans. And that’s a very conservative estimate.

You made the wrong choice, America. You need to be reminded of that.

When Darkness Turns To Light/
It Ends Tonight/It Ends Tonight