STARTING FIVE
The bad news: still no Katie. Let’s chalk it up to Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD) or the fact that Tig Notaro was rushed to the hospital with an undisclosed medical emergency or that she’s busy feeding Neil Sampat classified documents on an air computer. The good news: We’ve got pictures again! Yayyyyy!
We’re going to keep doing this Tracy-and-Hepburn thing ’til we get it right…
1. Smart and Smarter, Two
They’re back. The whole gang from ACN News returned on Sunday night, and even if they are in fourth place, who cares? I don’t hate-watch this show; I love-watch it. A few thoughts as opposed to an all-encompassing roundup:
— The most unrealistic moment in the episode, for me, was a Wall Street guy even bothering to ask Sloan Sabbith if she were involved before he hit on her. They simply don’t care.
–The John King-Is-Actually-a-Credible-Reporter infomercial was sponsored by Dumb and Dumber, To, in theaters this weekend.
–I noticed in the closing credits that Andrew Ross Sorkin was listed as a consultant for the episode. It’s the Sorkin-est episode of The Newsroom yet.
— Sorority Girl: “You’re nine-feet tall. You cannot just wear any suit.” Will: “She’s starting to get the hang of this place.” My favorite exchange of the show.
–“Let’s do sports,” says Will MacAvoy and yet again we are reminded of the similarities to Keith Olbermann.
–Gary Cooper getting a lot more lines, no?
–Neil Sampat just went Michael Corleone, no? They should’ve made it an Italian restaurant in the Bronx.
2. How Swede It Is!
As long as this trio calls the WSOP final table, I’m all in….
A Swede and a Norwegian battled to the Finnish at the World Series of Poker final table last night/this morning. Martin Jacobson, 27, flopped a set of 10’s on the 328th hand of the final table against Norway’s Felix Stephensen, who had gone all-in out of desperation, to win the Main Event and the $10,000,000 prize. Good work if you can get it.
As always, the long hours of watching the Final Table are rewarding because of the fantastic banter between host Lon McEachern and analysts Norman Chad and Antonio Esfandiari.
Also, I think Chad noted that the last seven winners of the Main Event have been dudes in their 20s. It’s a young man’s game. Not sure why it is not yet a woman’s.
Finally, I believe Jacobson entered his first Main Event three years ago and busted on his THIRD hand of the entire tournament. So there’s hope for all of us…as long as we don’t mind paying the $10K buy-in.
3. Lawn Seating
There was a major American musical event in 2014 and Taylor Swift was not included?!?! What the hell? I haven’t yet had a chance to see last night’s Concert for Valor, the free Capitol Mall show that reportedly drew 500,000 and also aired live on HBO, but I did read that Port-a-Pottys were hard to find.
4. Kobe Misses Mark, Sets Mark
Kobe Bryant misses 16 of his 26 shots in the LOLakers’ loss at Memphis, breaking John Havlicek’s career record for Missed Field Goals. You know what? Mamba and Hondo are two of the top 20 or so players in league history, and when it comes to guys you absolutely want as teammates, they’re in my top ten.
Kobe now has 13,421 missed shots. “Well, I’m a shooting guard,” Kobe said, and then we imagined he gave a Joey Bosa shrug while flashing his five NBA championship rings.
5. Do You Believe in Septuagenarians? YES!
Al Michaels turns 70 today. That’s not a miracle, on or off ice. Here’s Richard Deitsch’s interview with him from earlier this week on (and here’s Part 2) on SI.com. The only thing I think RD left out were a few questions about the stock market. Al is far more obsessed with following NFLX than he is the NFL.
Remote Patrol
Jimmy Kimmel Live!
ABC 11:30
In honor of the 30th anniversary of “Songs From the Big Chair,” Tears for Fears will perform live outdoors at JKL. Here’s hoping they do the “Head Over Heels/Broken” medley. In the spring of 1985, this pair and Howard Jones ruled. I know. It was a strange time.
Enjoyed Richard Deitsch’s interview with Michaels. I’ll never forget how red-faced Michaels became in 2002, confessing his pranks while a student at ASU, in front of at least 1,000 people, including Walter Cronkite himself:
“I made up a guy named Clint Romas, and called the Arizona Republic, and had this phony guy in like four box scores,” Michaels said. “Then (the university) gave me the Walter Cronkite Award, and Walter is there, and I’m going, ‘Wait a minute . . . I’m the guy who created this farcical thing with the Republic.’ ”
Then there are other juicy Michaels stories about a certain Animal Checklist that will just have to wait for his retirement. 🙂
It’s that time again, where I have to carefully page-down, page-down to avoid Newsroom spoilers. I’ve finished Season 1, so now I can go back to the historical equivalent in Medium Happy and now get the jokes I carefully avoided back then.