by John Walters

Starting Five

1. Minhaj A Triumph

I’d never heard of Hasan Minhaj before Saturday night. I know who he is now. So does The Worst Wing. Minhaj delivered the keynote address at the White House Correspondents Dinner and he knocked it far out of the yard.

Some of my favorite lines:

—“No one wanted to do this [gig]. So of course it lands in the hands of an immigrant. That’s how it always goes down.”

— “It is amazing to be among the greatest journalists in the world, and yet, when we all checked into the Hilton on Friday, we all got a USA Today. Every time a USA Today slides underneath my door, it’s like they’re saying, ‘Hey, you’re not that smart, right?’ 

–“Is Steve Bannon here? I do not see Steve Bannon. I do NOT see Steve Bannon. Not see Steve Bannon. Nazi Steve Bannon.”

And the gut punch…

—“You guys [the media] have to be more perfect now more than ever. Because you are how the president gets his news. Not from advisers, not from experts, not from intelligence agencies. You guys. So that’s why you gotta be on your A game. You gotta be twice as good. You can’t make any mistakes. Because when one of you messes up, he blames your entire group. And now you know what it feels like to be a minority.”

A list of the best lines from Minhaj, a 31 year-0ld Indian-American, are here.

2. Onward, Hayward

We’re into Round 2 of the NBA Playoffs, and Gordon Hayward, Stephen Curry and Brad Stevens are all playing prominent roles. And where is John Calipari? He’s out at some AAU tournament in Portsmouth hoping some ‘baller named Jabbaronis McDavidson hasn’t already gotten the secret business card to Rick Pitino’s go-to brothel.

The Jazz took down the Clippers in Game 7 yesterday. And yes, I don’t mean to pour even more dirt on the Clips’ grave, but LOB City is over. The Jazz are rising, the Suns are on their way up, Houston is way better, the Spurs gonna Spur, and the Warriors are the gold standard.

Blow up the team? I dunno, but Doc Rivers is going to find himself with a team too good to land a great lottery pick and not good enough to get out of the first round. It’s a conundrum. Sure, if Gregg Popovich were in charge, they’d find a way to cure this, but he’s not, so what do you do?

3. Forever Rest*

*The judges are going to go ahead and point out the pun for our wordplay-impaired audience (“For Everest”)

The Swiss Machine, Ueli Steck, fell some 3,280 feet to his death this weekend while attempting an ascent of Mount Nuptse in Nepal (Rule No. 1: Gravity always wins). Stock, who was training for an attempt on Mount Everest without the aid of oxygen later this spring, was 40. He died a climber’s death, which fits because he was arguably the world’s most famous climber.

In 2012 Steck made the ascent of Everest without oxygen and three years later he summited all 82 Alpine peaks in 62 days. He climbed the Eiger when he was only 18. He saw more than most people ever have and he realized the wonder of it all, baby.

4. Jackson Jive

“Don’t speak! Don’t–Don’t speak!”

Donald Trump went on Sirius/XM radio this morning and went fake news on the 19th century, but what else is new?

 

“People don’t ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?”

This is really something. pic.twitter.com/uOVkdNzf5t

— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) May 1, 2017

I read this and I could just picture Antonio Sabato, Jr., asking this question and Trump fidgeting as he hoped he’d done well enough in the swimsuit competition to get by. Probably no other president did more to expand slavery than Andrew Jackson, but hey, I’m sure he could have just written an Executive Order and all the slaveholders would have freed the slaves cuz we all know how swiftly paradigm-shifting EOs get passed without any fuss.

I just wish they’d have let Trump expound on this more: “And another thing, and not a lot of people know this, but I know this because I’m a great reader, maybe the greatest reader, is that the Civil War was not very civil. Buh-lieve me!”

5. Mr. Irrelevant Is Highly Relevant

The downside of quarterback Chad Kelly, whom the Denver Broncos made the 253rd and final pick of this year’s NFL draft: He’s recovering from an ACL injury and he’s kind of a jerk, having been booted from Clemson and having some sort of dust-up in social media with a  porn star, the details of which I don’t have the stomach to plumb.

The upside: He’s Jim Kelly’s nephew, he has a rocket arm, he’s one of only three quarterbacks in the past EIGHT years to have beaten Alabama in Tuscaloosa, and the other two (Cam Newton, Johnny Manziel) were Heisman Trophy-winning first-rounders, he had Ole Miss up against both Florida State and Bama by double digits last season (they’d lose both games) and, oh year, quarterbacks from Mississippi schools have a decent NFL track record (Brett Favre, Eli Manning, Dak Prescott).

Smart move, Denver.

Music 101

Magic

I LOVE the Seventies! This is Pilot, a Scottish rock band who landed in one-hit wonderdom with this song that rose to No. 5 in the USA in the glorious summer of ’75….

Remote Control

Better Call Saul

10 p.m. AMC

Okay, you can watch Game 1 of Rockets-Spurs if you like (Susie B., we all know what you’ll be watching), but this is, what, Episode 4 now of this season. I missed last week so I’ll have to be in by 9 p.m. for the double shot. It’s a tough life.