by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

This is the best – and most frightening – weather report I’ve ever seen. [via @BeardedGenius] pic.twitter.com/03UQeviHNt

— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) September 13, 2018

We’ve seen two different anchors putting themselves into this live-action animation model. Is this a hurricane or a Universal Studios ride (notice the waves crashing audio)?

Starting Five

Mass. Hysteria

We turned on the TV last night to see dozens of homes in suburban Boston up in flames and wondered, How many Branch Davidians live in New England, anyway (Too soon? Okay, too soon). At least 70 explosions or fires, all gas-related, broke out in the towns of Andover, Lawrence and North Andover, shortly before 5 p.m. A teenager was killed as he sat in a driveway when an explosion caused a chimney to topple over onto the vehicle.

Earlier in the day Columbia Gas of Massachusetts had sent out a releasing saying it was “upgrading gas lines throughout the state” and if you’re their in-house counsel this morning, man, what a headache your life is about to become.

2. American Metaphor

This was the view from the camera perched atop Frying Pan Tower, which is located about 40 miles off the coast of North Carolina and has been previously profiled in MH.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydvHXDRVFG4

As the swells from Florence rippled in an infinite abyss, a tattered American flag waved in the 100-plus m.p.h. winds, while meanwhile an American president was butt-hurt about the death toll of the last great hurricane, his former campaign chairman was preparing to make a plea deal with Robert Mueller, and his son was questioning the comedic stylings of Kathy Griffin, which would make a funny Seinfeld sub-plot if only it hadn’t already been one nearly 25 years ago.

3. Davidson 91, Guilford 61 (Yes, football)

We don’t know why an FCS school (Davidson) was playing a Division III school (Guilford), but what happened when the two met last night was 152 points and 1,662 yards of total offense. For the record, the two schools, who moved up their contest because of Hurricane Flo, combined for 22 touchdowns, one safety and zero field goals.

Davidson (3-0) set FCS records for rushing yards (685) and total yards (964) in a game. The Wildcats attempted just eight passes, all of which were completed.

As for Guilford, they’ve scored 61 points in each of their two games this season.

4. Tucker, A Man And His Schemes

Last night on Fox News (the national Fox News, not the creepy Fox News 4 that reports on the contents of murdered men’s apartments), Asshole Extraordinaire Tucker Carlson interviewed and interrupted Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels’ lawyer. It’s not that Avenatti isn’t a media opportunist, but he’s correct that Carlson is a tremendous hypocrite (and might we add, with all sincerity, an unabashed asswipe of a human being).

And isn’t it funny that the Fox folks identify Avenatti as a “Creepy Porn Lawyer” but have never ID’ed the commander-in-chief as a Creepy Porn President? This remains our favorite moment in Carlson’s turd-to-turd career…

Oh, and by the way, Tucker’s been interrupting people for years.

5. Steeple Chasing

On Sunday Emma Coburn competed in the Fifth Avenue Mile, where one of her closest friends, Jenny Simpson, won for a record seventh time. Afterward Coburn, who finished fourth and ended her competitive 2018, was asked about the world-record time in her event, the steeple chase, posted this summer in Monaco by Beatrice Chepkoech of Kenya. In setting the WR of 8:44.2, Chepkoech smashed the existing WR by eight seconds and her own PR by 15 seconds.

“I think it’s important to look at history and look at what happened with Ruth and I do think a woman can run 8:45, but I don’t think a woman can run 8:45 when for a whole season she runs 9 minutes and then runs 8:45. I don’t think that’s really possible,” said Coburn, the American record-holder and the first American female to medal in the event at the Olympics (bronze, 2016). “I think 9 minutes is still the holy grail of women’s steeplechase and I think that’s a time — that right under 9 minutes athletes can run clean, so hopefully there’s enough of us to get near that.”

The last two Olympic champions in Coburn’s event have tested positive for doping. First, 2012 gold medalist Yuliya Zaripova of Russia, who was stripped of her gold, and later Ruth Jebet of Kenya (2016), who held the world record prior to Chepkoech. Asked her reaction when Jebet tested positive, Coburn bluntly stated, “My reaction was duh…I think in 2014, she ran, the first time I really noticed her and remember her was at the Continental Cup. And I beat her there and I think the following year, her best was in the 9:20s. I’m trying to remember, but I don’t remember her stats fully (it was 9:21, though she ran 9:20 in 2014). And then the next year, she runs 8:52.”

https://www.facebook.com/elkrun5k/photos/a.777645615729015/974590596034515/?type=3&theater

We love Coburn at MH because she’s not afraid to be candid. And if you happen to be near Crested Butte later this month, the Emma’s Elk Run 5-K, a race she and her husband launched last year, will be taking place. How many other races give you a course preview by having an American record-holder pace it for you while soft John Denver-y guitar music plays in the background?

Music 101

Scenes From An Italian Restaurant

1970s Billy Joel was vintage Billy Joel. We’re not saying Christie was his Yoko, but he didn’t put out more than one or two great tunes after meeting the Uptown Girl. This song, which appeared on his 1977 breakout album The Stranger, was never released as a single, but has become one of his most popular tunes among the hardcore fans at MSG. This performance took place on May 6, 1977, before the album’s release, at C.W. Post University on Long Island. The restaurant to which he gives the shout-out, Christiano’s, was located in Syosset and only closed its doors four years ago…listen closely and you’ll feel some touches of early Springsteen in this tune. Also, notice how closely the beginning of this song mirrors the start of of this album’s title track.

Remote Patrol

Neil Simon Fest

TCM

8 p.m. The Odd Couple

10 p.m. The Goodbye Girl

12:15 a.m. Lost In Yonkers

Neil Simon, the male Nora Ephron, passed away a few weeks ago at the age of 91. No writer ever received more Tony and Oscar nominations, and it’s worth noting that as a young man he was in the writers’ room for Sid Caesar’s Your Show Of Shows with Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks. He was born in New York on the Fourth of July, 1927, a quintessential American.