by John Walters

Starting Five

Exit Pols

Less than 24 hours after Ted Cruz suspends his campaign, John Kasich follows suit. The GOP has no other choice now but to play its Trump card.

So I was talking to a friend about this last night. And here was my thought: Remember all those times you’d tune in to The Tonight Show and host Jay Leno would do those “Jaywalking” segments in which people didn’t know how many branches of government there were or couldn’t name a single explorer but could name three Kardashian sisters?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROrtyz9v5q4

Well, those folks are becoming less and less the anomaly. Those folks are the norm. We are  increasingly not only becoming a dumber and more crass nation, but we’re almost proud of it. And so Donald Trump is not to blame.

Trump is the smoker’s cough. That’s just the symptom. The disease is emphysema, and it comes from years of smoking. Our disease is ignorance and arrogance, and it comes from decades of self-indulgence and willful ignorance. He’s the nominee we deserve.

2. The James Gang*

The Cavs led Atlanta by 36 aa the half last ni-zzzzzzzzzzz…..

Granted, it’s the Eastern Conference, but Cleveland is the only undefeated team (6-0) in the playoffs thus far. That Tyronn Lue can coach.

*The band by this name, best known for axe man Joe Walsh and the tune “Funk 49,” (seen here at MH two weeks ago), was actually from Cleveland. Wonder if the Cavs make use of that coincidence.

3. Devil Inside

We are not featuring former Sun Devil linebacker Antonio Longino here simply because we’ve never seen a football player whose britches were hiked up that far above his knees. Alas….

….Longino is being featured because, after going undrafted last weekend despite a terrific senior season, he has been arrested for allegedly tampering with evidence in a Cleveland homicide investigation. Days away from a Friday tryout with the Cincinnati Bengals (who may still be an apt fit), Longino is being held in a cell in Cleveland Heights on $100,000 bond. He is an East Cleveland native. He was due to check in at the Bengals’ facility today, but now finds himself in a much different facility, in another part of Ohio, wearing a different shade of orange.

4. It’s 2014 All Over Again

Erstwhile Medium Happy man crush Gareth Bale can’t get any love in Spain. He scored this first-half goal, the only goal in either leg, versus Manchester City yesterday. However, it goes down as an own goal against Man City’s Fernando because it deflected off his leg. C’mon, kids. This Ronaldo favoritism has reached toxic levels.

Anyway, Real Madrid advances to the UEFA Champions League final in Milan later this month where it will face neighbors Atletico Madrid. These two met in the final two years ago, when Atletico was poised to pull of the upset until Real scored the equalizer in the 93rd minute, stoppage time. A deflated Atletico allowed 3 goals in extra time to succumb 4-1.

5. Para Cinco de Mayo: Quien Es Jose Antonio de Cuervo?

Imagine if there were a Mexican drug lord, nay, a Mexican drug family, dating back more than 200 years, whose particular product enjoyed 35% market share world-wide. Would that family be a target of the federales? Or would it be one of the most celebrated corporations in all of Mexico?

In 1795 Don Jose Antonio de Cuervo first began distilling the blue agave plant in the state of Jalisco, Mexico. The product is known as tequila because that’s the name of the town where it is made (imagine if beer were simply called “Milwaukee”).

Tequila is, not unlike Scotch, a protected resource. You cannot call it “tequila” unless it is produced in Tequila. Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

Chesapeake (Bay) Watch

The stock (CHK) opened at $6.73 Monday and closed at $5.65 yesterday, a drop of 16%.

This morning, before the bell and due to its quarterly earnings report, the stock is up 73 cents, or 12.92%.

Down > 10%, up > 10%. All in less than four days.

Music 101

In A Big Country

Kids, there was a time when serious music fans wondered if U2 was just a Big Country knock-off band. There was also a time when a Scottish band named Big Country had a song named “In A Big Country” at the same time that a band named Talk Talk had a hit called “Talk Talk” off an album titled Talk Talk. The year was 1983 and it was Peak MTV New Wave era.

In 2001 lead singer Stuart Adamson, sadly, pulled a Michael Hutchence (INXS) and hanged himself alone in a hotel room in Honolulu. The Edge of U2 gave the eulogy and said that Big Country wrote the songs that he wished U2 could write.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di-_n05tppo

Remote Patrol

The Breakfast Club

AMC 8 p.m.

“Demented and sad….but sociable.” Maybe you’ve never seen it, or maybe you just haven’t seen it in awhile, but this may be the cream of the crop of the John Hughes film series, and maybe the smartest teen flick of the Eighties, a decade that was awash in them. I’ll always maintain that Judd Nelson, a.k.a. John Bender, deserved a Best Supporting Actor Oscar and Hughes definitely one for Best Original Screenplay.