by John Walters

 

Starting Five

Lost And Found

“Ohhhhhhhhh, I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I’m still alive/Yeah, I-I-I-I-I-I’m still alive” The 13 year-old Wisconsin teen, Jayme Closs, who’d been missing since the mid-October evening when her parents were murdered in their home, is found, ALIVE and well as can be suspected, in a remote northwestern Wisconsin town.

Late yesterday afternoon, Closs walked out of the woods near the town of Gordon, about 70 miles north of where she’d been abducted on October 15, and approached a woman walking her dog. She asked for help. The woman immediately knew who she was and they ran to the nearest home. When the lady at the house, Kristin Kasinskas, opened the door, she said “it was like seeing a ghost.”

They phoned 911 and within 10 minutes the suspect was abducted. At the moment all that is known about him is that he is 21 years old.

UPDATED: This is the loser who abducted Closs and killed her parents. He doesn’t look like someone who illegally crossed the border from Mexico.

2. Lord Wall-demort

In a potential maneuver that could only be described as wildly popular among his MAGA base, President Trump is considering diverting funds that are slated for disaster relief in Puerto Rican (brown people) and California (libs!) in order to construct his southern border wall.

We’re anti-wall, but we almost want to see it constructed just so MAGA land can learn that the drug situation won’t change one bit because of it. The wall’s chief function would be to keep a few walk-thrus who would probably wind up working as the best domestic servant, landscaper or back-of-the-house kitchen help you’ve ever had, from getting through.

This ultimate showdown over The Wall has all the most essential elements of Trumpism: The utter disregard for reality, the hostility towards democracy, the lying, the chauvinism, the cruelty, the lawlessness, the resentment. https://t.co/IdrDMoXw3F

— Jack Holmes (@jackholmes0) January 11, 2019

You can keep out a few people who are risking everything for a better life with a wall. You can’t keep out the future.

3. Spurs 154, Thunder 147 (2 OT)

In case you missed it…the 301 points are the most in an NBA game since December of 2006, when the Suns beat the Nets in double OT, 164-157…LaMarcus Aldridge scored a career-high 56 points without attempting a single three-pointer. That’s the first 50-point game without a three since Shaq did it in 2000…the Spurs made their first 14 threes and finished 16-19 from beyond the arc, setting an NBA record for proficiency (minimum 15 attempts) in a game at 84.2%…Russell Westbrook had an insane triple double (24-24-13) but it wasn’t enough…Aldridge finished 16-16 from the free throw line while teammate Marco Belinelli was 5-5 from beyond the arc (the Spurs just refuse to play without an off-guard of Italian descent, don’t they? Will Sir Charles start proclaiming, “Be-li-NEL-li!?”

–Elsewhere: UCLA overcame a 9-point deficit in the final minute in Eugene and Bill Walton was calling the game (we switched away when the Ducks were up 65-50 with about five minutes left). Can ESPN simply air that final minute on a continuous loop today?

4. Buster And Friends

A day later and we are still marveling over Buster Scruggs‘ six tales of the Old West, served up Coen Brothers style. We’ve decided to rank our top 10 favorite characters from the film:

–Bank Teller (Stephen Root) in “Near Algodones”

–Buster Scruggs (Tim Blake Nelson) in “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”

–Artist (Harry Melling) in “Meal Ticket”

–Mr. Knapp (Bill Heck) in “The Gal Who Got Rattled)

–Englishman (Jonjo O’Neill) in “The Mortal Remains”

–Prospector (Tom Waits) in “All Gold Canyon”

–Mr. Arthur (Grainger Hines) in “The Gal Who Got Rattled”

–The Canyon (Telluride Valley) in “All Gold Canyon”

–Alice Longabough (Zoe Kazan) in “The Gal Who Got Rattled”

–Trapper (Chelcie Ross) in “The Mortal Remains”

You’ll notice we left out almost all of the famous actors attached to the project: Liam Neeson, James Franco, Tyne Daly, even Brendan Gleeson. All good, but it was almost better not having much prior recognition of them.

Ranking the vignettes (and this is not an easy task): The Gal Who Got Rattled, Buster Scruggs, The Mortal Remains, All Gold Canyon, Meal Ticket, Near Algodones.

An unofficial 11th-best character, by the way? The jargon. If you are a lover of language (and we certainly qualify), the script here is gold. “My cognomens” or “pardon my apothegm” or “I’m comin’, Mr. Pocket!” I don’t know if Oscar will ignore this film, even though it’s the Coen Brothers, because it’s mostly on Netflix and it’s six separate pieces, but I’d give it Best Screenplay (and Best Score, as well).

5. Yakt-y Yak

Go pull up your Google. We’ll wait. Now type in “Yakt, Montana.” There it is, see, right along the Kootenay River in the northern part of the state. Now scroll up and to the right and you’ll find “Yaak, Montana.” See the Yaak River Tavern?

So far, so good. Now scroll up and to your left, over the border into Canada, in the southeastern corner of British Columbia, and you find Yahk, B.C.

Yakt, Yaak, Yahk.

So we’re announcing the First Annual Medium Happy Field Trip (TBD) on which we travel to the trio of Yakt/Yaak/Yahk and get the what-for on this. Bring your passport.

Or you can kick back in Yahk.

Music 101

Bust A Move

This 1990 tune by Young MC won a Grammy for Best Original Rap performance and remained in the Top 40 for 20 weeks. Sure, the rhymes are rather pre-pubescent (She’s dressed in yellow/She says hello/Come sit next to me you fine fellow)  but you keep listening, no? An undeniable classic in the early years of hip-hop.

Remote Patrol

Young Mr. Lincoln

8 p.m. TCM

Young Winston

10 p.m. TCM

I’d argue the singular greatest men, in terms of what they did to advance the highest ideals of freedom and liberty, of their respective centuries. Lincoln here is played by a young Henry Fonda, in a breakout role. Churchill is portrayed by Simon Ward, and if you don’t already know his story as a young man, by the time he was 30 Churchill had fought in Cuba, India, northern Africa and South Africa. He also succesfully escaped from a POW camp in South Africa. For years I’d advocated that someone should make a film about his early years. Turns out Sir Richard Attenborough already had in 1972. My bad.