Starting Five
1. So, yeah, the New Orleans Pelicans. The first NBA franchise inspired by a Haircut 100 album. Okay, the pelican is the state bird of Sportsman’s Paradise, and we applaud the idea of a team’s name having a relevant local connection (Are you listening, Memphis Grizzlies, Utah Jazz, Los Angeles Lakers, etc?). And it isn’t as if they could call themselves the New Orleans Show Us Your Tits.
The Pelicans will be wearing our Favourite Shirts
2. A day late here, but the surviving trio of Led Zeppelin appear on Letterman (all four were Kennedy Center Honorees over the weekend). Bass player John Paul Jones steals the appearance with Monty Python-esque quips and deadpan humor. Dave: “To be in London when you guys were kids…you, the Rolling Stones, The Kinks, the Beatles, The Who. There’s never been anything like that, has there?” JPJ: “Were there other bands? I don’t remember.”
Tongue firmly in cheek, Jones was pithy; he did not Ramble On
3. ESPN sideline reporter Samantha Steele is engaged to Minnesota Viking quarterback Christian Ponder. The question is, if Steele says, “He went to Jared” does she mean a jewelry store or this guy?
4, House Speaker John Boehner: “The President’s idea of negotiation is, ‘Roll over and do what I ask?'” Boehner said this to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. If this had been an actual journalistic enterprise, the host might have asked the titular head of Congress what he meant by “roll over.” Like, roll over tax cuts?
5. Bret Bielema is going from “Jump Around” to “Woo, pig, sooie!” As our pal Michael Felder, alias @InTheBleachers tweeted, “On the surface it seems they’re going to try & play same style of football as Alabama, defense/run the ball, except w/ not as good players.” Good luck with that. We’d like to add that the Wisconsin athletic director is Barry Alvarez, who before that was the Wisconsin coach, and who before that was the defensive coordinator of a Notre Dame football team that went 12-0. And, well, what do you know, Wisconsin has a vacancy, Notre Dame is again 12-0, and its defensive coordinator (El Diaco) was just given the Frank Broyles Award as the nation’s top assistant coach. Hmmm.
El Diaco: Can you be too handsome to hire (questions we’ve often pondered ourselves)?
Reserves
Three ESPN moments from in the past 24 hours. Two bad, one good (Who do I think I am, Richard Deitsch? The Poynter Institute? The Pointer Sisters? Twisted Sister? Sister Sledge?). ANYWAY…
1. Wednesday, a.m. Sara Walsh draws the short straw and must feed Screamin’ A. Smith his questions about the Loss Angeles Lakers. The third and final question is basically, If it comes down to a last shot, would you rather have LeBron or Kobe shooting it (I know, original). What happens is that midway through the question, SAS interrupts Walsh. “STOP! Just stop!” Acts insulted that she would even ask.
Now, first of all, the genesis of this question is probably the producer in the production meeting saying, “We need one final question to make it to three.” And, for lack of inspiration (because the truly inspired are off serving steaks), this is the best he can do. More importantly, Screamin’ A and Sara W. are in that production meeting. He knows that this question is coming. He has already signed off on it being asked. So the entire theatrics of being surprised and, well, insulted by the question is just an act. Is SAS smart? Yes. Does he make legitimate points? Yes. Must he behave like a complete and total putz? No.
2. Tuesday, 6 p.m. SC: ESPN brings in College Football Insider Joe Schad, by phone, to discuss Arkansas’ hiring of Bret Bielema. Schad informs us, the audience, that he had spoken to Bielema the previous evening. However, since Schad did not break the news of Bielema’s hiring (John Daly did, after all), are we not left to infer that Schad’s conversation with Bielema left him completely unaware of what was about to happen (or else he would have reported it first, no?)? So why is Schad telling us he spoke with Bielema? Is that so his bosses know that he is doing his job? Although, in this instance, he might have been better off never mentioning he spoke to Bielema. Obviously, he was as blindsided by the news as those of us who hadn’t spoken to BB were.
3. A highly underrated ESPN analyst, Tom Penn, appears on ESPN14 or some such network two hours before the 12-3 Miami Heat are due to tip off at the 1-13 Washington Wizards. Penn predicts a Wizards win. Ultimately, he will be proven correct. Well done, Penn, and kudos to ESPN for noticing such this morning.
Tom Penn: He’s like a psychic… that Lindsay Lohan has not punched.
I pine/You pine/We all pine/for Alpine: According to something called the Mercer Survey, six of the world’s ten most livable cities are located in Austria, Germany and Switzerland (No. 1? Vienna). No American city made the Top 25. Okay, sure, but at least our currency still works.
Last night, 21 days before Christmas, CBS aired “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” And, “A Charlie Brown Christmas” aired a few days before that (“Auuugghh!”). War on Christmas? War on Christmas!?!
Want people to think you’ve finished an Ironman without actually doing one? Without even paying 50% of the retail price of an Ironman finisher’s jacket? Then have we got the Christmas bargain for you!