by John Walters

Starting Five

1. 2-0 For 20

Behind a five-hit, complete game shutout from Cy Young hopeful Corey Kluber, the Tribe Moneyball’ed its way to a 20th consecutive win (they’re now 89-56). That tied the 2002 Oakland A’s’ mark and is one behind the 1935 Chicago Cubs, the longest MLB win streak. The Indians go for their 21st in a 12:10 matinee at home this afternoon versus the Tigers (Is ESPN going to televise this?)

Oh, and the Dodgers finally won, breaking an 11-game losing streak, with Clayton Kershaw on the mound. He’s 17-3.

2. Teddy Bare

It’s funny. During his ill-fated presidential run, Republican senator Ted Cruz was quick to note his fondness for The Princess Bride. He even quoted it, ahem, liberally. Turns out that Cruz also likes (or so his Twitter feed tells us) the film Mom Bang Teens 20. The film’s star, Cory Chase, is upset not that Cruz, who once proposed a bill to ban sex toys in the Lone Star State, watched her film but that he apparently pirated it.

Cruz has blamed his curious choice of film preference to a “staffing issue.” Can’t disagree with that.

3. Football Fright In America

You go to a Dallas Cowboys game-watch party in Plano, Texas, and you wind up one of Spencer Hight‘s eight murder victims. Hight, the estranged husband of one of the viewers, Lara Hight, who was hosting the Giants-Cowboys viewing party, mowed down an octet of viewers before being shot and killed by a policeman. Lara was one of the victims. She had filed for divorce earlier this year.  Monday would have been their sixth wedding anniversary.

4. Wily Coyote

Now 48 years old, former USC and Oakland Raider quarterback Todd Marinovich is back slinging it with the SoCal Coyotes and looking eerily like Woody Harrelson. The erstwhile wunderkind threw seven touchdown passes in his debut two weekends ago in a 73-0 win against the California Sharks. Despite a dozen or so drug arrests in his past, he’ll probably still get a nibble from the NFL before Colin Kaepernick.

5. Love Him Do

There are stars, there are superstars, and then there are Beethovens. Count Sir Paul McCartney in that last group. The MH staff took a field trip to Newark to catch McCartney and his band, which is playing NINE shows in New York/New Jersey this month, last night and we were absolutely GOBSMACKED.

The set list was historic: McCartney and his four band mates (the two guitarists, southern California natives Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray, are TOO good-looking) led off with “A Hard Day’s Night,” “Junior’s Farm,” “And I Love Her” and “Jet.” They closed with “Band On The Run,” “Let It Be,” “Live and Let Die” and “Hey Jude.” Imagine (sorry, John) singing along at the end of that tune (“Na, Na, Na, Na-Na-Na-Na, Na-Na-Na-Na, Hey Jude”) with the actual dude who wrote it. The encore included “Yesterday,” “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” a scorching “Helter Skelter” and, at last, a triumphant and transcendent “Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End.”

Also mixed in: “Maybe I’m Amazed,” “Something,” “Eleanor Rigby” and “Lady Madonna,” and we’re sure we’re forgetting a few. McCartney, 75, remains a humble and gracious and humorous master showman, and he sprinkled the set with fascinating and often very funny anecdotes about Jimi Hendrix and Mick and Keith, for starters. He is funny. McCartney noted at one point that Sgt. Pepper’s was released “fifty years ago” then held out his arms as if to say, “WUT?!?” After a beat he quipped, “That was before my time.”

If you’ve never seen this founding member of the Beatles, and perhaps the most fabulous member of the Fab Four, and you have a chance to make one of these shows, do it. Any amount spent under $300 for a ticket, for a true music fan, is an absolute steal.

Music 101

Doctor, My Eyes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsM7qCulsRM

We’ll note it again, but if you watched the Eagles documentary, the late Glenn Frey tells an excellent anecdote about the genesis of this tune from a piano and a cup of tea in a small apartment in the MacArthur Park section of Los Angeles. This song, released in 1972 on Jackson Browne‘s eponymous debut album, peaked at No. 8. His signature song, “Running On Empty,” released three years later, peaked at No. 11.

A Word, Please

ephemeral (adj.)

lasting for a very short time