Starting Five

1. Allow me to don my Felix Unger cap and wail, “Oscar. Oscar. Oscar.” (Felix, by the way, was television’s first metrosexual). Oscar Pistorious appears in court in Pretoria, where he has been charged with premeditated murder of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. You have Africa’s most famous athlete (more so even than Didier Drogba), the world’s first double-amputee to compete in track and field at an Olympic Games, and a victim who was once an FHM South Africa cover girl. This story has, um, legs.

2. So, a meteorite lands in Russia, and this video is astounding because… apparently the sun DOES shine in Russia (every time The Big Lead runs one of those “Incredible Traffic Accident” videos from Russia, it’s always gray and miserable and Duluth).

3. The Clippers jumped out to a 15-0 lead and cruised to a 125-101 victory. A few notes: The Clippers are 3-0 against their Staples Center co-tenants this season and have led all but 63 seconds of those 144 minutes of play. The Lakers’ largest lead versus the Clippers? One point…Near game’s end Mike Fratello and Kevin Harlan, reacting to a shot of a laconic Kobe on the bench, wondered aloud what was going through the Mamba’s mind. We all know what he’s thinking: this roster blows. Steve Nash is over the hill and Dwight Howard is either too hurt or too busy making friends (TNT cameras showed Howard smiling and talking with Clipper players after the game while Kobe had presumably already retreated to the locker room and bitten the head off a beat writer from Riverside). I wonder if it’s too late for me to get traded to the Knicks.

4. In other Golden State hoops news, St. Mary’s took a one-point lead into halftime versus Gonzaga on the strength of Matthew Dellavedova’s 19 first-half points. The Zags owned the second half, though, outscoring the Gaels by 18 in a 77-60 win. Kelly Olynyk earns all the ink (I’m guilty, too), but Kevin Pangos and Mike Hart are ultimate glue guys. Oh, and Memphis transfer Drew Barham is, I think, the dad in Modern Family. Or the best sixth man in the nation. And, yes, a white dude once played for Memphis.

Barham, who was the same coif as the dad in Modern Family

And our favorite 7-5 ‘baller, Mamadou Ndiaye, is nursing a bone foot bruise so he did not play in Brethren Christian’s first-round 5AA playoff game versus Public Safety Academy (seriously, that’s their name). BC won 80-28 without him.

5. “On the good ship, Lollipoop…” Carnival Cruise liner Triumph finally docks in Mobile (that’s ironic, seek, cuz it was immobile) and passengers are then ferried directly to New Orleans by bus because the only thing worse than being stranded aboard a floating fecal barge is being stranded in Mobile (I’ve been there; I know). And of course one of the buses breaks down…

I really enjoyed this essay by Paul Whitfield of the Los Angeles Times, who points out that as horrific as this cruise seemed to be (passengers were forced to eat lobster and chocolate cake!), it was still a five-star indulgence compared to what the pilgrims endured back in 1620.

And speaking of Triumph and Carnival Cruises, the company’s CEO is Micky Arison, who also happens to own the Miami Heat, which recorded its seventh straight triumph, at Oklahoma City, as LeBron James went for 39 points (even if he failed to shoot 60% from the field)

Reserves

Carl Icahn versus Bill Ackman is perhaps the best feud outside of sports. Two billionaires wrestling over a company, Herb-A-Life, that otherwise no one would care about. Ackman is shorting it. Icahn just revealed earlier today that he owns an 18% share of it. What is this really about? The CNBC talking heads say it’s about nothing more than money, but having spent enough time around Wall Street types, here’s my opinion:

Icahn and Ackman represent the two polar opposite Wall Street alpha-male stereotypes. The former is a brilliant guy who only got where he got on his sheer finance acumen. The latter represents the type all too prevalent on Wall Street: the handsome banker who gets by on some intelligence but equally on his ability to look spiffy in an Armani suit while tossing back Hendrick’s & tonic at the Bull and Bear. That banker played by Christian Bale in “American Psycho”? Michael Douglas in “Wall Street”? That’s closer to reality than you might imagine.

Guys like Icahn loathe guys like Ackman because in their opinion, they just haven’t earned it. Guys like Ackman just smile and board the seaplane or helicopter just after lunch on Friday for the Hamptons. This will get uglier.

Smart vs Handsome (Aren’t some of us lucky to be both?) 🙂

ESPN’s Wright Thompson obtained Jack McCallum-like access to Michael Jordan and he certainly did not squander the opportunity. Great piece here. Me, I’m thinking that Quinn Buckner basically has all-VIP access to Michael Jordan AND Larry Bird. How come we don’t all find Buckner, who played on a national championship team at Indiana and whom his coach, Bob Knight, has often referred to as his favorite player, more intriguing?

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On Late Show Jerry Seinfeld not only appears but does a six-minute set focusing on his annoyance with people reminding him to stay hydrated, movie theaters asking us to pick up our own trash, and the obsession with cold beer (“Beer is never cold enough for Americans. Every commercial: Frost-brewed, cold-filtered, ice-bottled. We pack it in a glacier put it in the back of a frozen truck driven by a polar bear. By the time it gets to you it’s one degree below room temperature. Sorry, that’s the best we can do.”). Years ago Seinfeld told Bob Costas, “My entire act is about paying attention.” He still does that better than anyone else.

Former San Diego mayor Maureen O’Connor, 66, wagered more than a billion dollars at Las Vegas casinos over the past decade and ended up with net losses of $13 million. And it’s not as if she has the assets of, say, Kelly Lundy, to just recoup that money via the world’s oldest profession. She’s actually a dead ringer for Susan Boyle. O’Connor came by her initial windfall by being married to the founder of Jack In The Box.

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Highlights from last night’s set list on the Papal Farewell Tour: Benedict opens with the Our Father (who does that!?!) and then takes a gospel reading from the Book of Luke. Baptizes AND marries a Ukrainian couple just after the homily. Burns incense and announces after communion that a second collection will be taken up for the U.S. debt, which draws huge laughs from the Euro congregation. Dave Grohl sits in with the band. It was a tight set.