Starting Five

Honestly, though, wouldn’t it be cool if one year we threw America a surprise birthday party one week early? It’s so difficult to book a room on the 4th.

1. Egypt Sacks President; Hires Butler’s Brad Stevens

Morsy: Viva La Hate

We interrupt the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin trial to bring you this update on the events from Tehrir Square Garden. The Egyptian people, abetted by the nation’s military, have fired incumbent and democratically elected president Mohamed Morsy (Morsi?) and replaced him with Butler basketball coach Brad Stevens, 36. The DePauw alumnus led the Bulldogs to a pair of Final Fours in just six seasons as coach at the relatively tiny Indianapolis school.

Egypt’s top military officer, General Abdel-Fatah El Sisi, was interviewed by Shelley Smith shortly after Morsy/Morsi was ousted from office and the constitution was suspended. “Morsy-Morsi did not achieve the goals of the people,” said El Sisi, “which included advancing to the Eastern Conference finals.”

Who’s going to lead Egypt back to prominence? I’m going to lead Egypt back to prominence.

ESPN’s Bill Simmons criticized El Sisi both for suspending the nascent Egyptian constitution and for staging a coup.

“I’d call Bill an idiot but I have too much class for that,” said El Sisi, as Smith snorted out bursts of laughter. “This was not a ‘coup.’ It was a populist insurrection.”

“The truth keeps changing,” replied Simmons. “First, we had a deadline to accommodate the people, then Richard Engel was going to host the revolution from Tahrir Square, then fun. was slated to perform, then CNN realized that it’s new morning show “New Day” sounds a lot like “Nude, Eh?”, which is why it’s so popular in Canada, then House and J. Bug promised to do a podcast comparing Morsy-Morsi to Yul Brenner. All I know is that Egypt is tanking for Andrew Wiggins.”

A crowd this large would only assemble in America for 1) a music festival 2) an NBA championship victory parade or 3) the iPhone 6.

Stevens briefly met the press and the million or so gathered in Tahrir Square after the announcement. He informed them that Morsy-Morsi’s coaching staff, the Muslim Brotherhood, would not be retained, and that instead he’d be enlisting the services of the Funk Soul Brotherhood.

2. Yankee Doodle Movie Scenes

Three memorable movie scenes that take place on our nation’s birthday, none of which include Will Smith or Tom Cruise:

1)  The “Get Out of the Water” scene from “Jaws”. We got trouble/Right here on Amity Island/With a capital “T” and that rhymes with “sea”/And there lives a shark.

2) The Plaza Hotel scene from “The Great Gatsby” (Redford version). Nick Carraway realizes that it is not only the nation’s birthday, but that it is his 30th birthday, and then a giant sign reading “SYMBOL ALERT” drops from the ceiling. Okay, not exactly, but you get the picture, right? (“30” was the 1920s version of “45”).

3) The “4th of July” party scene from “The Great Escape”, starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, Charles Bronson and a bunch of other dudes who were neither bald nor fat. Fittingly, it involves alcohol and gun shots, although this clip cuts out before the firing begins.

“Keystone Light?!? Seriously?”

3. Trouble Bruin in Westwood

Sondheimer, as reporter David Goldstein attempts to interview him.

Eight days ago, June 27, and with almost zero fanfare, inveterate UCLA associate athletic director Michael Sondheimer resigned. A 1977 UCLA alumnus, Sondheimer had worked his entire adult career, 36 years, at his alma mater. Twenty-four days earlier, on June 3rd, Sondheimer had been placed on administrative leave from the school after a sting operation by a group called “Operation Riptide” had found him to be sending wildly inappropriate messages to what he thought was a 13 year-old girl.

Among the printable things that Sondheimer is alleged to have typed are:

“13? Good”

“Love ghetto girls U are so real and so cool”

and

“Want to do anything to your hot body”

Sondheimer’s principal duties were overseeing on-campus recruiting (“Well, hellllllo, Mr. Vanderdoes!”) and working with compliance.

A few factors here:

1) Perhaps it’s because UCLA is located in such a small market, a media backwater if you will, that this story has not gone viral. Kudos to the local CBS affiliate, KCBS, and reporter David Goldstein for exclusively pursuing it with gusto and for going all Carl Monday on Sondheimer. That Goldstein actually located Sondheimer on a computer at a Los Angeles public library is just creepy. Still, isn’t this the type of story that Deadspin lives for? Where have they been on this? Too busy fisking female columnists?

2) Was this a widely known secret inside the J.D. Morgan Center, UCLA’s athletic administration building? Consider:

—Glenn Toth, a senior associate athletic director and a 1976 UCLA alumnus, had worked in the same department as Sondheimer since 1978.

—Ken Weiner, a UCLA class of ’78 and also a senior associate athletic director, had worked in the same department as Sondheimer since 1981.

–Former associate athletic director and longtime sports information director Marc Dellins (any writer who covers college sports has dealt with Dellins, who was the portal to UCLA athlete access for decades), is a 1976 alum who had worked in the athletic department from his freshman year in 1972 until Dellins retired on May 31st –just three days before Sondheimer was placed on administrative leave.

Dellins, left, with former Bruin football coach Karl Dorrell.

Were any of these three men aware of Sondheimer’s criminal habit? Each had worked with him for more than three decades. How long had Sondheimer been attempting to contact minors via the internet? Will the righteous indignation from our nation’s sports columnists commence after the 4th of July holiday? When will the police get involved?

3) Why did UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero –yet another Bruin alum from the 1970s– allow Sondheimer to resign instead of firing him? How does that maneuver affect Sondheimer’s state pension and retirement benefits? Guerrero, curiously enough, jetted off for an Italian vacation after Sondheimer’s resignation.

4) As an aside, but potentially a sticky situation: Sondheimer’s brother, Eric Sondheimer, has covered high school sports for the Los Angeles Times since 1997. Thus far the Times, the paper of record in the Southland, has had less coverage of this story than Bleacher Report, which after this posting, has now had less in-depth coverage of this story than Medium Happy. KCBS and Goldstein have been out front on this, and they should remain so. This is a story that should not go away –once it eventually appears, that is.

5) Will UCLA alums in sports media offer any insights on this story? Former staffers at The Daily Bruin include KNBR morning radio host Brian Murphy and Sports Illustrated senior writer Alan Shipnuck, among others.

(By the way, did you know that James Dean, Jim Morrison and Anthony Keidis attended UCLA — as well as Turtle, of course?)

4. All You Zombies.

“World War Z”. “The Walking Dead.” “Shaun of the Dead.” “28 Days Later.” “28 Weeks Later.”

Zombie movies have been around for as long as movies have (you don’t recall “White Zombie” in 1932 or “Revolt of the Zombies” in 1936), but certainly the zombie genre has never been more popular than in the last decade. In the last half-decade alone, besides the aforementioned and better-known films/TV show, the following have either been released, filmed, or set for production:

–“Bath Salt Zombies” (2013)

–“The Harvard Zombie Massacre” (2013)

–“Zombie A-Hole” (2012)

–“Attack of the Vegan Zombies” (2010)

–“Onechanbara: Zombie Bikini Squad” (2008)

“The Harvard Zombie Massacre”: They’ll make hasty pudding out of your brain!

So, the question becomes, How come? Why are the undead thriving so much in popular culture? Is it simply a product of Max Brooks’ brilliant book, “World War Z”, which was released in 2005? That’s part of it, but here’s my dime-store sermon on it all.

Zombification does not scare us solely because of the potential for death, but also because of the potential for conversion. Humans possessed of good health and free will are overtaken by the zombie movement and converted into one of them: an individual with a sole determination to survive by converting others to the same mass movement that robs them of their free will and ability to think independently, as well.

Hence, your garden variety zombie may as well be the Third Reich, the Scientologists, the Tea Party or Rachel Maddow/Bill O’Reilly. Your thoughts?

When you look at it that way, zombie movies don’t necessarily even need zombies. “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” was a zombie film. So was “The Blob”, the quintessential Fifties horror flick (“Why are they just standing still and shrieking!?!? Why don’t they run away???”).

Seriously, kids, this hyper-steroidal Tootsie Roll pop scared Eisenhower-era audiences.

Also, if you are going to see just one zombie flick –and you’ll probably see more — see “Night of The Living Dead” from 1968. It’s simple and straightforward, a “Twilight Zone” episode writ large.

And, of course, Season 4 of “The Walking Dead” premieres next week.

5. And Now, A Message from Moose

A good, dear friend of ours, who goes by the sobriquet of Moose, recently took a visit to Bali. She sent a letter, portions of which I have excerpted (without her permission, as she is en route back to North America at the moment) for you. Why? Because, as another UCLA alum, Randy Newman, once lamented, “It’s Money That Matters”, (with a guitar assist from Mark Knopfler) and as Americans I feel that we’ve lost our way so badly in proving the verity of this song.

My guide on the trip is named Nova.  He went to university and he is married and he lives with his wife and his mother-in-law.  He has a good job by Indonesian standards and a face that lights up with his laughter.  We all thought him shy at first, as he bumbled his way through the opening meeting.  But he is one of the most lovely people I know.  His only failings on the job were being baffled by some of the requests made by pampered Westerners.  Someone who did not want to sleep in a room with someone else because she might snore, the lack of hot water at one hotel.  In a country where 80% of the people still bath in the rivers, where squat toilets that you then scoop water into are the norm and the temperature and humidity usually top 100 degrees, how do you compute a complaint about hot water? 

There was a terrific segment on last night’s “Colbert Report” (original air date: June 26)  in which the host interviewed Bill Moyers, who has just come out with a documentary in which he follows two families whose principle earners have been laid off from their manufacturing jobs. Stephen Colbert, who is peerless in playing the devil’s advocate for laughs, asks Moyers, “Why do we need a middle class? They have other options. They can either choose the wealth class or the poverty class. It’s up to them. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.”

Sadly, too many Americans actually agree with this viewpoint. Moyers attempts to explain that most Americans just want to work and make a decent living, and that being part of the middle class represents at least HOPE for them. Moyers points out that when he was a lad in Texas and Colbert was a boy in South Carolina, they prayed, “Give US this day OUR daily bread”, not “Give ME this day MY daily bread.”

So, yes, I’m preaching here.

Colbert explained that the middle class did it to themselves, what with their whining about health care and better work conditions. Companies were FORCED to outsource labor in order to stay competitive in a global economy.

Moyers concludes: “The question shouldn’t be why so many Americans are falling through the cracks. The question should be why are there so many cracks?”

Something to think about on Independence Day. This land is your land. But this land is also our land. It’s a country with gated communities for the ultra-wealthy and for the far more numerous poor (prisons). It doesn’t have to be that way.

 Reserves