by John Walters
Tweet Me Right
Life, death, fire, Iggles.
Starting Five
Red Light District
Sanford Stadium and Georgia wholly disregarded the advice of the Police on Saturday evening (“You don’t have to put out the red liiiiight”) as Notre Dame came to visit for the first time. The Irish acquitted themselves well, but in what has became a near-annual tradition, came away with a respectable loss versus a highly-ranked team (USC ’05; Florida State ’14; Clemson ’15).
BRUUUUUUUUUCE!
Turns 70 today. So much has already been said and written, so much more should be. Everyone has their pop culture/artist heroes. For me, it’s Roger Staubach, David Letterman and Bruce. All of whom are now septuagenarians.
Fleabag’gin The Emmys
The TV show Fleabag, which is written by and stars a female with a hyphenated name, is filmed in London and appears on Amazon Prime, cleaned up at last night’s host-free Emmys. Creator and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge hauled in three Emmys, including upset wins against Veep and fellow hyphenated star Julia Louis-Dreyfus for Best Comedy and Best Lead Actress in a Comedy.
Our favorite televised thing of the year, Chernobyl, also picked up three Emmys. It was also the target for snarky filler lines such as “Chernobyl was filmed i Studio City in front of a live audience” and “Chernobyl, the little nuclear disaster that could.”
Game Of Thrones won Best Drama and like 11 other awards but, just like in the show, the women were treated callously and without mercy. The only individual acting award went to The Imp, Peter Dinklage.
Pandemonium In Pullman
For one half in Pullman, it felt like a baccalaureate exercise. Mustachio’ed man of the hour Gardner Minshew had flown 2,800 miles to return, in jorts, to the stadium that made him famous. His successor, Anthony Gordon, was on the way to breaking Minshew’s school-record 7 touchdown tosses in one game. The ESPNers were talking up Gordon’s Heisman chances and Mike Leach’s “Insurgency In Warfare” course.
And then suddenly Chip Kelly and UCLA authored their own episode of Pardon The Interruption. Trailing 49-17 early in the third quarter, the Bruins stormed back for an incredible 50-second half points and defeated the Cougs, 67-63. We’ve lost sleep over many a Pac-12 After Dark contest, but this was by far the Pac-12 After Darkiest.
Giant
Send your apologies to New York Giant general manager Dave Gettleman, who used the sixth pick in last spring’s draft to select Duke quarterback Daniel Jones, was roundly pilloried for it, and now appears to be having the last laugh.
In his first career start yesterday, on the road in Tampa, Jones led the G-Men to a 32-31 victory. Jones, with two fewer starts in 2019, has one more win than Kyler Murray, the first overall pick in the April draft.
Killer Cliff of Connecticut
Both a father and son perished after falling 75 feet off a cliff in Connecticut, a state that is not ordinarily infamous for its craggy promontories. Steven Price, 71, and his son Mark, 30, had been riding ATVs in a quarry in Farmington, Conn., a lovely town about 20 miles northwest of Hartford.
This happened last Wednesday night. The dad had gone over to peer off the edge of the cliff (never a good idea) and tripped. His son moved to save him and they both fell. Rule No. 1, quarry-style.
Music 101
Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’
There we were at the Fairway market yesterday, groping avocados (not a euphemism), and an old-timey song came over the speaker system. It could’ve been a Sam Cooke song. Not sure. The refrain went something like, “Nothing, nothing, nothing could keep me…” and now I forget the rest. I mention all of this because A) I’m commissioning one of you to locate the song and B) because now I know from where Journey stole the melody to its 1978 breakout hit. The “nothing, nothing, nothing” lyric is “lovin’, touchin’, squeezin’.”
For perspective’s sake, Journey had been a band before this song, but Gregg Rolie had done the vocals. Then they brought in Steve Perry, who sang lead vocals here, and the band exploded. We remember it well, early autumn of 1979. And this song got wall-to-wall play on the radio. It was Journey’s first Top 40 hit. Rolie, who had co-founded both Santana and this band, did not take the demotion well, leaving Journey a year later. Then they released Escape. Maybe shoulda stuck around.
Yes, but did it have legs? Ask the producers of Glee:
Remote Patrol
Bride Of Frankenstein
11:15 p.m. TCM
In which the producers pose the age-old question, What’s more terrifying than a 7-foot tall corpse come to life with the brain of a mental patient? Being married. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
Your mention of Roger Staubach … not to sound like a Steve Rushin memoir, but every boy in the 1970s had a Sears/JC Penney’s/Montgomery Ward football jersey, and that jersey almost certainly had a “12” on it as Namath, Stabler, Bradshaw, Griese and Staubach all wore that number at the same time. For me, Staubach was at the head of this group. I’m not sure where Roger rated among this group as a QB (or among all QBs in Canton or headed there), but the combination of Heisman winner from a service academy, followed by military service, followed by golden boy leader of America’s Team at its pinnacle, can’t be topped. Add in the post-career real estate empire and you’ll never find another Roger Staubach.
Sports pundits are notorious for taking one game and extrapolating it out as vindication of a prior belief.
Daniel Jones seems to be a cool guy and he may turn out to be an excellent quarterback in the National Football League. With that said, saying Dave Gettleman was a genius for taking him at #6 in the draft seems premature (just as is saying he is stupid for taking him at #6. Guess what? ONLY TIME WILL TELL.).
On a much more important note, I’m not sure I’m comfortable living in a world in which the masses love Duke guys (Zion, now Daniel). What’s next? Are we all going to be Bostonian homers now, too? Go, Cowboys!? Dotting the eye? Rolling with the Maize and Blue? Hook ’em?
And you’re favorite Bruce album is?
Born To Run because it is the first album I completely fell in love with as a high schooler. Darkness is a very, very close second. Tunnel of Love is my sleeper fave in that I think it’s underrated. And The Rising ahoul’ve cut about 4 songs out because 2 of the songs in there are as good as anything he ever put on vinyl.
For the 1st time since I was about 9 years old, I watched NONE of the Emmy Awards. I meant to watch at least a little but I glanced at the list of nominees last week & sadly realized I had seen less than 20% (!) of them. And of course, last night was Episode 5 of Country Music! We’re’ finally up to the years where *I* was not only alive but actually remember some of the songs & singers when they were on the radio; the so-called “cross-over” hits of “Harper Valley PTA”, “Ode to Billie Jo”, “Kiss an Angel This Morning”, & Johnny Cash songs that weren’t “new” but were new to our “pop” radio station. It also discussed Porter Waggoner, who had a TV series of which my mother was a fan & my sisters & I all thought was god-awful. We made fun of the outfits & the beehive-like hairdos of the women. Dolly Parton had her start on that show apparently, but I never saw her since my sisters & I would actually leave the room whenever that show came on the TV. 🙂 They also talked about the emergence of the “Bakersfield sound” last night, specifically Buck Owens & Merle Haggard. I wasn’t aware of any of that until 20 years later (the 80s) when I actually became a listener & fan of ‘country music’. Thanks to Randy Travis & Reba McEntire, I started buying other country music at the “record stores” too : Willie, Waylon, Patsy, George Jones, Dwight Yoakim, Merle, & Johnny of course. Mostly just “The Best of” compilations, but some others too (luuuved Willie’s ‘Stardust’).
Did you ever listen to any era of country music, jdubs? Country music taught me that one can ‘hate’ something during one phase of life & love it during another. I would have bet a million dollars (back when a million was a LOT of money!) when I was a 12-13 ‘know-it-all’ that I would “NEVER” listen to let alone weep over any song by George Jones. Thank goodness no one ever took up that bet as 20 years later, I wore out my cassette tape of “He Stopped Loving Her Today”. Even now I get the sniffles!
George has yet to be featured in the series & I’m guessing that’s rectified tonight.
And for the record, you SHOULD have answered my question last week that ND had a “good chance”. 🙂
Wait, are you saying a million dollars is not a LOT of money?
I haven’t had much time to watch the country music doc, Susie B, but I will. Momma Walters has also been extolling it.