STARTING FIVE

1.A Bot Face

Amazon has drones. Google has robots. Conan O’Brien has Pimpbot 5000. Alabama has Nick Saban. The Matrix is real.

Remember when you were in high school and you’d be required to read futuristic dystopian novels (“Where are the great futuristic utopian novels,” you’d ask) such as “1984” or “Brave New World” or “The Hunger Games?” (Yes, we were in high school for 30 years).

Aren’t we already there? Drone strikes have made Pete Mitchell, a.k.a. Maverick, a.k.a. Jerry Maguire, nearly obsolete. You can check out of most grocery stores without the use of a clerk. Same with checking in at airports and banking. By eliminating costly overhead (i.e., human salaries), corporations make themselves more efficient, that is, more profitable, which is good news for the men at the top, as the stock price soars.

It’s just like when they invented the cotton gin! Wait, what?

Anyway, if someone asks you in a few years if you’d prefer the blue pill, just say no and return to watching “Real Housewives of Eden Prairie” as you wait for your chicken-tender-stuffed pizza to arrive and you pay the delivery ‘bot in BitCoins.

2. A Rock-Solid Class

The list of inductees for this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame may not include Journey, but what a festival this would have been if you could have ever gotten them together. Not a weak link in the group. Ranking them in my personal preference, and your mileage may vary:

Nirvana….How many people in this world can say that they’ve had conversations with both Kurt Cobain and Richard Deitsch? I count myself as Zelig-esque.

Classic Tune: “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Found Gem: “All Apologies” (From MTV’s Unplugged)

Cat Stevens….Much more than Harold and Maude, but it’s a terrific start.

Classic Tune: “Moonshadow”

Found Gem: “Father and Son”

Peter Gabriel…When you’re in a band with Phil Collins and YOU are the one who gets to sing lead, you must be pretty good.”

Classic Tune: “In Your Eyes”, “Solsbury Hill”

Found Gem: “Biko”

KISS….. In the mid-1970s in New York City, everyone wondered what both “The Son of Sam” and the four members of KISS actually looked like. If I were to go back and tabulate the number of man-hours I devoted to sketching the KISS logo on the back of my notebooks –and that’s just while I was covering college football games– it would be depressing…I have to ask: When they were banging groupies backstage after the show, did they keep the makeup on? I say they did. It would’ve spoiled the effect for the ladies. Maybe Gene will answer this question during the induction speech?

Classic Tune: “Rock and Roll All Night”

Found Gem: “Shout It Out Loud” (<– My older brother was at this show; I think that’s him “wooo!” -ing. Lucky bastard.)

Hall and Oates….Famous for having people ask, “Which one’s Hall and which one’s Oates?”

Classic Tune: “Sara Smile”

Found Gem: “Kiss On My List”

Linda Ronstadt…..Famous for having dated Ryan Reynolds. I kid, but Tucson’s own had one of the blow-your-hair-back POWERFUL female voices in rock history (Taylor Swift would so totally bake you banana nut bread for a voice as potent as this). Even if she always felt a little bit more country.

Classic Tune: “When Will I Be Loved”

Found Gem: “I Can’t Let Go” (cover of The Hollies’ classic)

3. ‘boys Don’t Cry

Dallas Cowboy wide receiver Dez Bryant leaves the field prematurely (and, for that matter, immaturely) with a minute or so remaining in Cowboys’ new-standard-set-of-gut-punch-worthy come-from-ahead 37-36 loss to the Green Bay Packers.

So, yes, Dez had an outstanding game with 11 receptions. And, yes, he is a passionate player. For that you can laud him. Go ahead, laud. Laud, laud, laud.

The interesting thing about these episodes is that how we react reveals so much more about us than it does about Dez. So, yes, these are authentic, American “First Take” moments. My feeling, as someone who played on Pop Warner and high school football teams because I was not raised by Jeff Pearlman: more than anything else, Bryant is seeking attention –even if he may not realize that’s what he is subconsciously doing.

Selfish? Of course. Calculated? No.

Still, notice how Bryant is seeming unable to control his emotions and his impulses, and yet he’s lucid enough to recognize when it’s permissible, from a “Will I play another down?” standpoint, to make his exit. He knows when it’s safe to leave, so it’s not as if he is acting purely on emotion. He’s being a diva, and the reasons for that probably extend back far before he ever wore a helmet with a star on it and it’s above my ken to discern. But it’s not serving him well with his teammates. You win together, and you lose together. The individual is never greater than the team. That’s basic second-day-of-boot-camp common sense.

4. You Can’t Handle The Truth

I’ve found myself fascinated by “Lone Survivor” and, don’t worry, G.A., I won’t give away the spoilers here. But watch this interview that involves Tina Brown, the book’s titular character (and author), Marcus Luttrell, director Peter Berg and actor Taylor Kitsch (who actually plays Luttrell’s best friend in the film, Mike Murphy). You can feel the tension between Luttrell, who makes no attempt in his book to disguise his enmity toward the media, right from the beginning. But skip ahead to about the 13:30 mark, where Luttrell’s contempt for both the media and the left come to the fore and he pounces on Brown’s sheltered ideology.

And coming from a soldier who… oh, damn, I don’t want to spoil anything, who is Tina Brown or anyone to debate Luttrell on this matter? She’s wise enough not to challenge him.

It’s basically the Colonel Jesup monologue from “A Few Good Men”, but it may be better because it’s delivered by an actual soldier who served.

To catch you up to speed (okay, G.A., so this is somewhat of a spoiler alert), the turning point of the story is when Luttrell’s four-man SEAL team is happened upon by three goat herders. Should they kill these unarmed “non-combatants”, although even then their mission may be compromised, since the village may soon wonder where these men and their flock are? Or do they release them, putting themselves at risk should the tribesmen share the news of their presence? Their radio isn’t working, so a quick escape from a compromised mission is not possible. With that set-up, go listen to the interview.

5. Snow Place Like Home

 

College football’s longest win streak…a game played in a driving snow storm…and four lead changes in the fourth quarter. All of it added up to a game that surpassed the Army-Navy contest that was being shown on CBS at about he same time. Mount Union, which had entered the Division III semi-final versus North Central State with 28 straight wins and 77 consecutive victories at home, led comfortably in the third quarter, 27-16, especially considering the conditions.

However, North Central State scored three times to take a 34-27 lead.

Then Mount Union scored and converted for two to go up 35-34. Then NC State re-took the lead with less than two minutes to play. And finally Mount Union won on a 26-yard touchdown pass. Final score: 41-40. Was it Kick Six? No, but nobody who was there will forget it.

Mount Union will play Wisconsin-Whitewater on Friday night for the Division III national championship. It will mark the eighth time in the last nine years that these two schools have met in the championship game at that level.

Reserves

The Onion announces that it will go digital-only as only The Onion can.

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Jameis Winston does the “Top 10 List” on Letterman. It’s about things you overhear in the huddle which, I’m sad to say, is as outdated as Letterman is fast becoming.

I happened upon this trailer for “Days Of My Youth” and thought, Will someone make sure that whoever wins tonight’s MegaMillions drawing sees this?

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The Knicks lost at home again last night, 102-101, when point guard Beno Udrih (who took over for an injured Pablo Prigioni…and all you need to know about how bad the Knicks’ season is going is that a 36 year-old rookie point guard from Argentina has been its lone bright spot) missed a free throw, then allowed Bradley Veal to drive past him for an uncontested layup –Udrih was expecting help but these are the dumb/selfish Knicks, so that wasn’t happening –followed by CarMElo nonchalantly dribbling the ball upcourt and tossing up a three-pointer that had no prayer instead of calling a timeout.

If I’m the Knicks I’m scouring the D-League for an Ivy League point guard this morning. This is not just a bad team, it’s a sullen and disjointed team. It’s exactly the team you get when you choose to build around CarMElo. The Knicks are now 7-17.

Remote Patrol

UC Irvine at Oregon

Pac-12 Network 10:30 p.m.

Why tune in? Because the Ducks are 9-0, one of 14 remaining unbeaten programs in D-I, and because the Anteaters boast my man Mamadou Ndiaye, the seven-foot-six freshman who will get a taste of the most polished competition –and most intense fans –he has yet seen. It’s

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