by John Walters

Starting Five

1. No Spinster Zone?*

The judges will also accept “Oh, Really, O’Reilly” and “No Skin Zone” and “Wild Bill (Hi)ckock” and even “Bye Bye O’Reilly” (We really should have put that up top) but draw the line at “The O’Reilly Facked Her”

Will Fox News really sack the top-rated host in cable news, Bill O’Reilly, now that sexual harassment claims are growing daily against him? This in the wake of Saturday’s New York Times piece asserting that he has paid out $13 million in settlements to Fox or former Fox employees?

CNN’s Don Lemon refuses to cover Susan Rice story https://t.co/DATs2WMIX2

— Bill O’Reilly (@oreillyfactor) April 4, 2017

My guess is that it’s going to take a little more pressure than what is currently surrounding him. And let’s not forget where we were one week or so ago. O’Reilly was in hot water because of his comments surrounding Maxine Waters (“the James Brown wig”). I imagine the NYT had been working on the story long before that happened, but man, karma is a bitch, eh, Bill?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuCkX1AAVgA

Fox can easily weather the lost sponsors to The Factor because it earns so much on the cable subscription rates. And my guess is also that not a small amount of Fox viewers are chauvinists or misogynists who believe those sweethearts should just deal with or go back to doing USO shows or being nurses. Whatevs. I do love that O’Reilly chose to mix it up with Don Lemon, of all people, a gay man of color against whom he’s got no weaponry. Dumb tactic, Bill.

2. Rudy Can’t Fail

As we head nearer to the end of the NBA regular season, there are a few dudes who are in the top five in the league statistically in two categories: Russell Westbrook and James Harden are both in the Top 5 (Top 3, actually) in Scoring and Assists. John Wall is in the Top 5 in Assists and Steals. Dwight Howard and DeAndre Jordan are in the Top 5 in Rebounds and FG%, while Anthony Davis is in the Top 5 in Scoring and Blocked Shots. Hassan Whiteside is in the Top 5 in Rebounds and Blocked Shots.

Only one player is in the Top 5 in three categories, however: Utah’s Rudy Gobert, who is in the Top 5 in Blocked Shots (1st) , FG % (2nd) and Rebounds (4th). The 7’1″ fourth-year Frenchman is someone to keep an eye on in the playoffs, when he’ll likely have some good battles against DeAndre Jordan.

3. Stay Coke

So I once worked with a good dude at Sports Illustrated who, when our managing editor called a meeting to solicit fresh ideas for the swimsuit issue, suggested we pose a black model at Jackie Robinson’s grave (like I’d make that up). Anyway, this Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad may be a worse idea.

And right now there are two writers at SNL working on a parody of it, you can bet.

 

From the archives: a picture of the very first Pepsi challenge pic.twitter.com/eICm6jWgpc

— Woko Haram (@wokieleaks1) April 5, 2017

4. Season’s First Steal at Fenway Goes to Gronk

This had to be staged, but who cares? It was fun. It’s a long eight weeks in New England between Super Bowl Sunday and Opening Day. The fans deserve to celebrate spring.

5. Another Day of Valley of the Sun

Okay, I’m totally over high school kids asking celebrities to prom—or I thought I was until I saw the video Scottsdale Arcadia High School student Jacob Staudenmaier made on Sunday (while all of us covering the Final Four missed it). A few things that are great about this besides the video itself:

A. He alludes to it in the video, but yeah, Jacob does kinda look like Ryan Gosling (especially when they were both that age).

B. Emma is right from the Arcadia neighborhood. She probably would have attended Arcadia (perhaps Saguaro High?) had she stayed in high school (as it was she started out at Xavier Prep, an all-girls school in Phoenix that for decades has welcomed young lasses from the orange-grove Arcadia neighborhood).

C. You know what filmmaker before Staudenmaier DID attend Arcadia High School? Steven Spielberg. So, Emma, it might be against the laws of Hollywood to deny a filmmaker from Arcadia High. Besides, it’s not as if someone is asking you to spend a night in Paducah. It’s Scottsdale in April. (pssst: I’ll throw in the hotel room at the Valley Ho on the MH staff).

Where In The World?

Music 101

Tesla Girls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4z24GZd-eA

Loved Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, or OMD, the unofficial house band of every John Hughes film. Roam the floors of Dillon Hall on any Friday night when I was in college, and you’d hear at least one room playing OMD (Is this why I’m still single???). This 1984 song, while not a big radio hit, was a big club hit at the time and also appeared in Weird Science.

Remote Patrol

Inside World War II

7 p.m. NGC

I’m a sucker for a good WW2 doc, and this three-hour special on NatGeo promises to deliver the goods. Spoiler Alert: We win…at least for the first 72 years.