by John Walters
Starting Five
Crosby’s grandfather, Bing, would be so proud of him. Wait, what?
Split-The-Uprights Citizens Brigade*
The judges will not accept “The Mason-Kicks ‘Em Line”
On a day when all four teams (Green Bay, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Kansas City) 1) showed that it’s still cool to wear the same uniforms you wore in 1970, 2) represented franchises that won Super Bowls in the first 10 years of the game and 3) commemorated the 50th anniversary of the first Super Bowl by having the Packers win and the Chiefs lose, field goals ruled.
Colorado alum Mason Crosby kicked a pair of 50-plus yards in the final two minutes as the Packers outlasted the Cowboys, 31-28. Crosby has now made 23 consecutive postseason field goals, an NFL record. Crosby became the first NFL kicker to connect on a pair of 50-plus yarders (they were 56 and 51 yards, excluding the third he made that was nullified by a timeout) in the final two minutes of a playoff game. And, yes, Dallas’ Dan Bailey made a 52-yarder in between those two to tie the game.
In Kansas City, the biggest “Killer B” for the Steelers was 6’2″, 201-pound Chris Boswell, who set an NFL record with six field goals (in sub-freezing temps, by the way) of 22, 38, 36, 45, 43 and 43 yards in a win that did a lot for kids all over to help learn their three-times table, 18-16. It was the first time in 11 years (Indy) that a team won a playoff game without scoring a touchdown.
2. Six-Ring Circus
The AFC Championship Game in Foxboro, Mass., will pit (Pitt?) Ben Roethlisberger (2 Super Bowl wins) versus Tom Brady (4 Super Bowl wins). There has never been an NFL playoff game between two quarterbacks who’ve won a combined six Super Bowl rings before. We checked. Not assiduously, but we checked.
Your four ring guys, like Brady, include Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana, who never met in a playoff game. Troy Aikman won three, but he never faced off against Montana. When the Cowboys and Steelers met in Super Bowl XIII, Roger Staubach (your author’s favorite all-time player) and Bradshaw had “only” won a combined four SB’s. Likewise, when Peyton Manning squared off against Brady in last year’s AFC title game, it only was a combined five rings because Peyton was still yet to win his second.
This will be the first six-ring playoff game.
3. Aaron Rodgers: Chico and The Man
We old souls find that Rodgers’ playoff play is similar to Roger’s (Staubach’s, that is)
The Green Bay Packers started 4-6. Since then the Pack are 8-0 and Aaron Rodgers has thrown 21 touchdowns, just one interception (nice pick, Chris Heath) and had zero conversations with his family. The New York Times (which, I haven’t yet checked this morning, may be a “dying’ newspaper or “a pile of trash” ) published a story yesterday backing up a previous Bleacher Report article about the rift between the two-time MVP and his parents back in Chico, Calif., and also his brother, Jordan, who won or lost The Bachelorette, depending on how you score those deals.
Staubach invented the postseason Hail Mary and was the king of “Don’t Give Him Enough Time To Come Back.” He led Dallas to four Super Bowls, winning every one that he didn’t have to play against the Steel Curtain (2)
Regardless, Rodgers’ play this postseason (and in the latter half of the regular season) has been Don’t-wait-for-it LEGENDARY. Yesterday, he was sacked late and by all laws of physics should have fumbled, but he held on. Two plays later he literally drew up the 35-yard pass that would allow Green Bay to kick the game-winner in the huddle, and without benefit of the dirt.
Rodgers hasn’t spoken to his family, reportedly, since he began dating Olivia Munn. We lament that, but a Super Bowl between the two greatest quarterbacks (okay, Peyton, you’re in the conversation) of the past decade, one whose SigOthers are Gisele Bundchen and Olivia Munn just needs to happen, no?
By the way, Rodgers, 33, is six years younger than Brady and grew up 182 miles due north of Brady’s hometown of San Mateo.
4. The Man In The High Tower
It is a week that begins with Martin Luther King Day (he attracted a fairly large crowd on the National Mall once) and ends with the inauguration of Donald J. Trump taking the oath of office at the other end of both the Mall and the spectrum. The Scottish newspaper The Sunday Herald decided to have a little fun with its TV listing of the event. Or maybe it was just hoping to be the subject of a tweet….
By the way, does this guy, “a bush-league fuhrer,” remind you of anyone?
Also, and this is no joke, on Friday TCM will air (5:45 pm.) A Face In The Crowd, a film that came out 60 years ago starring Andy Griffith as “a megalomaniacal TV personality, whose guitar and folksy humor take him from an Arkansas jail to national popularity. The movie offers a satire of television, pop culture and the public fascination with celebrity.”
Your life hack begins in just four days. Are you ready?
5. Un-led Vs. Unleaded
There will come a day when this site is as much of an anachronism as a hitching post…
So, let’s define the term market capitalization. It is, as I understand it, the number of shares of outstanding stock a publicly traded company has times the price of that stock. In short, the total value of that company in the price of its stock times the number of shares.
Now, from 2004 through 2014, do you know what company was consistently ranked No. 1 or No. 2 in market capitalization, or Market Cap? Exxon. Every year for 11 years in a row. Exxon. The company run by Lawrence Tillerson, the presumptive next Secretary of State.
Now, if you look at the ranks of Market Capitalization as of last Friday, here are the top seven companies in the USA by rank: Apple, Google, Microsoft, Berkshire Hathaway, Amazon, Facebook and THEN Exxon. That’s five tech companies, none of which existed before 1980, and one holding company owned by Warren Buffett, all ahead of America’s largest oil company.
Another notable Amazon
If you happen to be a non-coastal, non-elite and believe that voting for Trump will reverse the course of history, you may as well get into your wood-paneled station wagon and head to the drive-in theater. You may hate us coastal elites and our libtard ways, but you are likely reading this on a computer made by Microsoft or Apple, you likely used Amazon to purchase Christmas gifts (or something in your closet), and you will almost certainly be on Google or Facebook today if you haven’t been already.
Trump will bring some jobs back, but he’s not bringing 1975 back. Or 1955. As much as you may want him to. That’s what so much of this discord is all about. But the numbers above don’t lie. There was a time when owning a railroad was the peak of American success (or Boardwalk and Park Place). In the 21st century, the trick is to own a social media platform. Like it or not.
Music 101
Monday Monday
I’m going to make the argument here that Denny Doherty was not only the most underrated member of The Mamas & The Papas, but the most criminally neglected signature voice of the Sixties (and, thirdly, the greatest pop culture figure ever to hail from Halifax). Doherty, who passed away in 2007, sang lead on both this song and the folk group’s other 1966 hit,”California Dreamin'”: two quintessential time-capsule Sixties songs. And he is also the least-discussed member of the group, as he was not one of Chynna Phillips‘ parents (far as we know; Doherty and Michelle Phillips did have an affair in 1965, three years before Chynna was born) and he was not Mama Cass. But what a creamy smooth voice.
This song hit No. 1 in 1966 (that’s like winning Miss California in the Miss USA pageant) and also won a Grammy. I love its mournful mood. Captures the spirit of driving beneath the marine layer on the Pacific Coast Highway.
Remote Patrol
Cavs at Warriors
TNT 8 p.m.
Two of the minimum five future Hall of Famers who will be on the floor this evening….
The Amazing Adventures of Cavaliers and Klay (cont.). So do these two only meet on national holidays now? Recall that the Dubs (34-6) blew a 14-point fourth-quarter lead on Christmas Day to the Cavs (29-10) to lose their fourth straight to the LeBronskis. Should be a fun atmosphere at Oracle. The Cavs are 3-2 on this current road trip.
2. I’m truly impressed to see the MH judges working on a designated holiday! In deference to their well-honed skill sets, I submit “Hoard of the Rings” for their consideration.
Buckle up! It’s going to be a very interesting week.
1st, “6-Ring Circus'” is good, but come on, “Hoard of the Rings” made me laugh-snort! Give Ruth a high-five!
2nd, I was away for the 1st 2 days of the week & didn’t read your M-W posts until last night (Wed). I had to read #5 twice. You’re not seriously comparing XOM’s value to the highest-flying tech companies NOW? When the energy sector is still trying to recover from OPEC’s BOOT TO THE NECK? As soon as OPEC is finished playing around (i.e. with bankrupting as many AMERICAN energy companies as possible), they will once again tighten the spicket (so to speak) & oil & gas prices will SKYROCKET. What do you think will happen to the market capitalization of XOM then? I do think you are correct that ONE DAY, “gas stations” or at least the version that exists today, will no longer be, but that ain’t happening in the next 10 years. What, you think everybody’s gonna run out & buy a Tesla? What’s their cheapest model? $50,000? What is the cheapest electric car being sold in this country? Perhaps you’re thinking an alternative power source? (I personally would love a REAL “sun roof” but alas, that seems even farther off than electric cars filling up the roads). Plus, I wouldn’t bet the farm on ANY tech company. Not even my beloved AMZN. (Actually, I wouldn’t bet the farm on ANY single company or sector as that is the road to ruin, my friend). Remember, AAPL was thisclose to bankruptcy before Jobs was brought back. Google (alphabet, smalphabet!) & MSFT are goliaths right now, but who knows after the next big tech “revolution”. And I will never understand the appeal of Facebook as a time-suck or an investment. The single best thing I EVER learned about investing was in the 1st book I bought about the stock market, back in 1984. It shared a little true-life story about a particular rich man during the Gilded Age. He wrote his will & set up an unbreakable trust that ALL the family’s considerable wealth be kept in the one industry (via stock) that had made them wealthy – you guess it, railroads. Here he thought he was setting up his family for GENERATIONS & he doomed them in less than one.
I have no money in XOM. Never will (except via my mutual funds I guess). I’ve detested them since ‘Valdez’. However, I loved them when I was a kid. My Aunt owned Exxon stock & when the dividend checks arrived in the mail, whoo-hooo, trips to Juvenile Toys (the biggest toy store in town) was soon to commence! As mentioned (‘lamented’ is more accurate these past 2.5 years) here several times over the years, I do own a hefty amount in the energy sector. COP was my 1st, then I broadened into the entire sector – deep ocean drillers, refiners, equipment suppliers, pipelines, nat gas, solar. If it was energy-related, I took a look. Up until about 12 years ago, I would have sworn I would “never” invest in oil companies – “they’re destroying the environment!” I ranted. I also HATED how oil companies/OPEC DICTATED how we actually lived our lives – we were at their freakin mercy! You are probably too young to remember the “oil crisis” of the early 70s, including the gas LINES, designated days when you were allowed to actually buy gas (like in WWII apparently), & my public SCHOOL’s hours were shortened by an hour so as to save the cost of the heating oil. I was much too young to drive but I remember the gas lines & worrying if my Aunt had enough gas or if it was her gas day so we could go to a planned event/activity. And most of all, I remember getting on the school bus in the dark during the ‘adjusted period’. It was frightening & confusing to all Americans, let alone to a kid. But then one day several years ago, I was scrounging for the cash to pay more than $4.00 for each gallon of gas. Once again, our LIVES were being dictated by a foreign organization AND “big oil”. I decided right then, if I had to pay escalating prices for gas & heating oil/electricity, then *I* was going to PROFIT too.
All of this is a long-winded way of saying people’s motivations & goals may change a bit over time but when the chips are on the table, SELF-INTEREST is usually paramount. Especially right here-right now. Many of the idiots, sorry, I meant ignorant masses, sorry, I meant folks, who voted (i.e. were manipulated by a foreign power & highly compensated PR & internet hackers) thought (were led to believe after being fed lie after lie after lie…) the Sociopath would actually help THEM. Right here, right now. Not 10 years from now let alone 30. (As a short-term investor, you should, you know, relate. 😉 ).
It is my belief that when these folks realize they were duped/manipulated/screwed by the Sociopath & that his ascendancy is HURTING them in far more ways & extent than their lives pre-2017, they will get angry. VERY angry. And it will happen much more quickly than extinct gas stations. I’m thinking 2 years or under.
Ahem, it’s spelled “s-p-i-g-o-t” (spigot) not “spicket”. (Hangs head). In my defense, I was a little low on MY ‘energy source’ this morning (Diet Pepsi) & most of all, it’s been years since I’d even thought of the word let alone wrote it. (Still, good gawd).
And no, I don’t actually own any Pepsi stock. Yet. It’s been on my watchlist for quite some time & eventually I will buy some. And THEN, all my weekly purchases will pay me back (via dividends).