by John Walters

Opening Act

Let’s begin with this today. I ‘m referring to it as…

DeAngelo Blow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdi9YzmynSM

Starting Five

The Suns of Anarchy (Part 9)

The Phoenix Suns are a lot like the price of oil: Every time you think they’ve hit bottom, they reach a new low. During Wednesday night’s loss to Golden State, Markieff Morris, who ought to be traded by two months ago, choked teammate Archie Goodwin. What a total punk? Is this really the same franchise that once did this (and the star of this video was playing on the other team tonight)? No wonder Steve Nash has no interest in being associated with them.

Short of selling the team (please do, Robert), owner Robert Sarver needs to ship out Markieff Morris to the worst NBA outpost possible (well, he is from Philadelphia, after all) and hope to land draft picks in return. It’s a crime what has happened to this franchise since they showed Jerry Colangelo the door. The coaches told Sarver to trade Morris after he tossed a towel in Hornacek’s face, he didn’t listen, and this is what he has wrought.

This was the worst choke job by a Sun in that arena since Game 7 of the ’95 Western Conference semis versus Houston (Phoenix led by 18, lost by 1, and Houston tra-la-la’ed to an NBA championship.

2. 77 Pounds for a Match Ticket? Bollocks!

Remember that glorious story of a bunch of American colonists rising up against King George in he 1770s, barking about “taxation without representation,” and dumping some tea leaves into Boston Harbor? Well, history has a sense of humor.

Last week the Fenway Sports Group, an American sports ownership group, announced that they’d be raising ticket prices for the priciest seats at Liverpool’s Anfield ground to 77 pounds next season (meaning the season ticket cost would, for the first time, exceed 1,000 pounds). This despite the fact that Premier Clubs will be seeing an $8.3 billion windfall next season due to a new television contract.

(Part of the lesson here: If it says “Fenway,” it’s evil.)

This, the team’s supporters decided, was the final insult. So last Saturday some 10,000 of them (nearly 1/4 of the 44,000 in attendance) staged a walkout during the 77th minute of Liverpool’s match versus Sunderland. Black flags were waved throughout the venue. The message was received.

FSG promised not to raise ticket prices next season and the three-man ownership group sent an open letter to fans in which they actually wrote, “The three of us have been particularly troubled by the perception that we don’t care about our supporters, that we are greedy, and that we are attempting to extract personal profits at the club’s expense. Quite the opposite.”

Whatevs. Either way, I hope someone forwards this clip to the Steinbrenners. They lost me when they built the New Yankee Stadium seven years ago. Haven’t bought a ticket since.

3. To Dine For

Yelp just released its list of the Top 100 Restaurants in the USA.

The top 5: 1) Porto’s Bakery & Cafe in Burbank, Calif. 2) Cheese Board Pizza in Berkeley 3) Paseo in Seattle 4) Joe’s Kansas City BBQ in, you guessed it, Kansas City 5) TKB Bakery & Deli in Indio, Calif.

No. 13, by the way, is Little Miss BBQ in Tempe, Arizona, which is located in a swank-free industrial area. But the smoked meats is plenty good.

4. The Blind Slide

As sequels go, we’ve all seen better, but this really is pretty incredible. Michael Oher, whose adolescence was immortalized in The Blind Side, becomes a blocking sled for I believe DeMarcus Ware in the third quarter of Super Bowl L. How does this happen? Meanwhile, check out Oher’s teammate at right tackle, Mike Remmers. He jumped. False start. No flag.

5. American History Lesson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mOC_GqgCjM

Was it just me, or was the Super Bowl L halftime show a 15-minute lesson in the United States’ history of race? We begin with a white, British man on American soil (why, hello, Pilgrim, a.k.a. Chris Martin of Coldplay),   sprinting on to the stage and singing, “And that was when I ruled the world.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_Hgh7sPDLM

Eventually, of course, he just seems dorky and uncool. And that’s when a man of color (Bruno Mars) with a much better set of moves and a stronger beat takes the stage for a little “Uptown Funk.” And then he lets a woman of color (Beyonce) who is also a badass have her moment before the two of them share the stage. And then finally they let the dorky white guy tag along but we all know that he’s really just lucky they don’t decide to cut him out altogether.

Was this intentional, or just a coincidence? Will people be writing American Studies PhD papers on this some day? I hope so.

And Finally…

Notre Dame wide receiver Corey Robinson was elected student body president yesterday. The Admiral’s son may be the first Fighting Irish football player to hold the office of president since Ronald Reagan.

Music 101

Relax

Frank Say….What The F–? I cannot prove it, but I’m going to say that Frankie Goes To Hollywood was the final straw for many of us who were beginning to think that New Wave was just becoming a little too…weird. I don’t think the genre ever recover from his bombast, although this 1984 release, which would climb to No. 10 on the Billboard charts, always was liquid fuel to light a fire under a dorm party.

Remote Patrol

Iowa at Indiana

ESPN 9 p.m.

A loss at Penn State last weekend helped get the Hoosiers (19-5) dumped from the AP poll, while the No. 4 Hawkeyes (19-4) have just one B1G loss. You can also flip to ESPN2, where No. 11 Oregon (20-4) visits Cal, which has yet to lose at home this season. Hoping Big Red will be calling that game for the WWL.

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