by John Walters
Thought du Jour: With all that’s going on, does anyone else think The Newsroom ended way too soon?
Starting Five
Harden probably does this at least once per half, if not more often. Refs ignore it.
1. “Crowd Wanted A Travel”*
*The judges suggest this should be the new NBA slogan
Russell Westbrook has 20 triple doubles this season. James Harden put together his 13th last night, a 40-point, 12-rebound, 10-assist night (ESPN’s anchors were so busy splooging over the feat that they barely remembered to tell me who won).
Westbrook and Harden are two of my favorite NBA players to watch. But I’ll submit this: If NBA referees actually called traveling, they’d each have half as many triple doubles at most (and, to be fair, Harden travels far more often than Westbrook does).
They’re not the only two NBA players who travel. LeBron travels a lot, too. It’s mind-numbing to me why the NBA does not police traveling (or hugging players around the waist who are standing away from the ball). I’ve hit this note before but no one at the NBA continues to listen (Phil, if you’re reading this, can you please ask your son-in-law, and I mean this with all due respect, “What The F&$k?”).
Kids emulate their favorite NBA players (I had the Earl the Pearl spin move down at age eight). All the NBA is teaching kids is to take an extra step on their way to the bucket, which is not basketball. As I wrote in this piece three years ago, the reason I know it’s traveling is because when I watch a pre-game lay-up line, no one is taking two steps after picking up their dribble. They only do that in games.
2. “Woke Up, It Was A Chelsea Manning”*
Brilliant, dis guy’s
*The judges are considering “Chelsea Lately” but are unlikely to approve
I’m just going to make a word salad of this news and you kids pick out what you’re allergic to: Transgender Leavenworth Commuted Sentence WikiLeaks Edward Snowden Wut WUT!? Obama The Fifth Estate Bradley Manning Attempted Suicide Julian Assange Joey Heatherton (I’m not sure what Joey Heatherton has to do with any of this, but I mean, c’mon, Joey Heatherton!).
3. Nigerian Nightmare
From FoxNews.com: “A Nigerian air force fighter jet on a mission against Boko Haram extremists mistakenly bombed a refugee camp on Tuesday, killing more than 100 refugees and aid workers.”
Nigerian military commander Major General Lucky Irabor confirmed the strike. No, you can’t make this stuff up.
It’s a tragedy, and yet the first thing I thought of was the closing scene from Das Boot. The next thing I thought of was the opening scene from The Gods Must Be Crazy. Either way, that blows.
4. This Is What Happens When Your Humanities Teacher Shows The Revenant During Fourth Period
You’ll never believe this, but a Trump cabinet nominee is a complete joke. This is Betsy DeVos, who is up for Secretary of Education. You can watch all of Senator Chris Murphy’s interrogation here. It’s…what’s the word….deplorable.
And here’s Senator Bernie Sanders, who notes that Devos’ family has given roughly $200 million to the Republican party over the years (she said, “That’s entirely possible”), asking, “My question, and I don’t mean to be rude, but do you think if you were not a multi-billionaire, if your family had not made hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions, that you’d be sitting here today?”
Listen, we’ve gone over the game plan before, but one more time: Rich people wanna stay rich (and get richer). To do that they need to stay in power. To do that they need to fool poor people into voting for them. To do that they must 1) keep them ignorant and/or poorly educated and 2) tickle that spot that poor people have about darkies or non-Christians, you know, people who aren’t “real Americans,” being responsible for all societal blights. Right now the game plan is working wonderfully.
5. Democratic, Republican and Birthday Parties
Chief presidential agitator Bill Maher tursn 61 on Friday, inauguration day. His friend and erstwhile guest on both shows that he has had, chief presidential manure peddler Kellyanne Conway, turns 50 on Friday. Maher will be hosting the premiere of the 15th (and last?) season of Real Time on HBO that night. Kellyanne will be doing the boogie up to 3 Doors Down.
Music 101
Cathy’s Clown
Don and Phil Everly, the Everly Brothers, were the biggest American recording artists not named Elvis Presley during the Kennedy years. The Kentucky-born duo were the first band signed to a fledgling label named Warner Brothers, in 1960, and this was their first single. It sold eight million copies and spent five weeks at No. 1. If they sound similar to Buddy Holly, he was a good friend. Don Everly, the older of the two, was so broken up by his death that he stayed in bed during the funeral.
Side note: Don had a daughter named Erin who would later become the inspiration for the Guns ‘n Roses hit, “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” She would marry Axl Rose in April of 1990, but the marriage ended ten months later.
Remote Patrol
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
TCM 10 p.m.
I already know you’re going to tune into Thunder at Warriors (Can we have 73 ESPN segments analyzing whether or not this is a rivalry, pretty please?) on TNT, but I may check this out. Never heard of this melancholy Sixties French musical (your’e saying, “After those last four words, I’m SOLD!”) a month ago, but it is referenced in nearly every review of La La Land. Even critics who’ve never seen it reference it just to let the other critics know they’re legit. Is it any good? It’s French and it has umbrellas. Sure, why not?
Tip of the cap to the programmers at TCM for noticing the trend and airing this.
Crowd Wanted A Travel: Does anyone remember how Michael Jordan would palm the ball while dribbling, take three steps as he drove to the basket, plow into a stationary defensive player, miss the shot, and after the show was missed the referee would blow the whistle and call a blocking foul on the stationary defensive player, and then the television announcer would say, “A rookie is not going to get that call against Jordan,” and then Jordan would make two free throws and go back on defense where he would foul all the time and never be called for it, and then he won like a million NBA titles? Does anyone remember that?
All true.
What’s more insidious about this is that refs aren’t letting league’s Golden Ticket get away with it, they’re letting everyone. It’s not about The Star, it’s about The Rule.
I just unloaded on another ‘shameful’ topic (see previous post) & here’s a two-fer. Yes, my Cavs & beloved Sweet Pea were at the end of the road trip from, well, not quite Hell, but let’s say Trumpville (close enough) & they were tired. AND the Superteam Villains had basically been HOME since Xmas, just lickin’ their chops for the team of Champions to enter their noise-polluted arena. I even expected a loss. But good god, THAT was horrific! LeBron & Kyrie exhibited a few plays of greatness but overall were mere SHADOWS of themselves! Kev actually played well until his back started acting up & he missed the entire 2nd half. Newly acquired KK was the antithesis of a “sharp shooter” for most of the night. All the guys committed turnover after turnover. The offense was not clicking & the defense (DEFENSE, HAH!) was almost nonexistent. At the end I had just one question – whether this debacle or the 1st two games of the 2016 Finals was worse. Fittingly for basketball, it’s a toss-up! (nunh, nunh, nunh). But, as you said yesterday, it was meaningless. Well, except for humiliation. And wonder what former HC Blatt thinks! The poor guy lost his job after last year’s Cavs-Dubs debacle & some could argue this was even worse.
I think the team is missing Swish (J.R.) terribly. Not just his timely 3-pointers but his defense.
On the other hand, perhaps this was an ingenious ploy to get Vegas to raise the odds even higher for a Superteam Villain 2017 championship! Yeah, being the defending champs & beating the Dubs on Xmas wasn’t enough to be the Vegas favorite , noooo, the SV were already something like 3-1 odds to win it all. Heck, after the MLK Massacre, they must be 10-1 faves now! SOMEone will make a ton when the Cavs win once again. 🙂
As for me, I’m blaming the beard! Shave it, Sweet Pea! Save yourself! Save the team!
And ahem, Draymond got LeBron in the shoulder AND the neck with his FOUL. Maybe LBJ exaggerated a teensy bit, but Green still fouled him! On anyone else, that foul would have knocked them out of the game. Just because Sweet Pea is 260 lbs of magnificence, opponents are allowed to foul him HARD & it’s not right!