by John Walters
Tweet Me Right
The (still) president of the United States getting owned by a teenager…
Starting Five
Clean-Shaven, Beautiful Cole
The New York Yankees have switched to, at least for the next five years and possibly nine, a Cole-based economy. The dude from San Diego whom they drafted out of high school ten years ago but who turned them down to attend college now cost them $324 million over the next nine years (but he can opt out after five).
Gerrit Cole is going to have to shave that mange, alas, to become a “true Yankee.” Last season the 6’4″ righty was virtually unhittable from the beginning of June onward, finishing the season with a 20-5 record and leading the A.L. in strikeouts and ERA but finishing second in the Cy Young race to teammate Justin Verlander.
Here’s what’s curious: In his two seasons in Houston Cole was 35-10 with an ERA of roughly 2.65. In the two seasons before that in Pittsburgh Cole was 19-22 with an ERA above 4.00. So who are the Yanks getting?
And the sadder part for us fans is that the Yanks waved bye bye to Didi Gregorius, who was the most beloved player on the team. It says something about how special he is that Didi replaced the most popular Yankee since Mickey Mantle and in less than half a decade had fans in pinstripes asking, “Derek Who?”
He’ll be missed.
Stay Alert
There are still some heroes in the world. Here are a few we came across yesterday. To begin, Eric Swallwell (above), the Congressman from California (Dem) who goes full Clarence Darrow on the this White House lawyer’s ass. This was just like a divine 4 1/2 minutes of cross-examination.
Next up, Scott Galloway calling out the fallacy that New York needed Amazon more than vice-versa. To be clear, we’re 100% in favor of someone starting a business from his garage and becoming a bazillionaire. We’re just not into them playing “The Bachelor” so that various cities will use taxpayer money in exchange for him tossing one of them a rose.
Third, let’s pour one out for the recently passed Paul Volcker, the 6’7″ former chairman of the Federal Reserve who left us at the age of 92 last week. Here’s an excerpt from one of his final interviews:
Spot on. Next, we have Rep. Hakeem Jefferies. Succinct and on the nose:
And finally, here’s Samantha Bee coining the apt term, “Kava-noise:”
Citizen Cane
Harvey Weinstein, who spent a Hollywood career trying to get off on sexually abusing actresses under his employ, may now get off, at least on the civil trial end of things, by promising all of them a sum total of $25 million (that will not come out of his personal funds). Really? Hell, Jeffrey Epstein got a better deal than that in lock-up than these victims are seemingly going to agree to.
And what’s up with his sudden feebleness syndrome? Or did he learn a thing or two from being around actors all these years? Is this his Willy Wonka tribute? Anyway, really hoping the victims tell him to keep the money and go to court. The criminal trial does not begin until January but one wonders how effective it will be if none of these women testify?
Wax On, Wax Off
Love this stunt by Jimmy Kimmel and the payoff, as Seth Meyers opines, is definitely worth it.
Five Films: 1973
- The Sting: This is the first grown-up film I remember seeing in a theater (translation: my parents couldn’t find a babysitter). I doubt I understood more than 20% of it and I was really sore at Sundance for double-crossing Butch until…well, you know. Winner, Best Picture. Sometimes Oscar gets it right. 2. The Exorcist: This remains, hands down, the scariest film I’ve ever seen. For some cruel reason it aired on television four or five years after its release and for some crueler reason my dad and mom let me watch it and that’s the first night of my life that I never actually fell asleep. If Linda Blair never did anything else—and really, has she?—she at least did this. 3. American Graffiti: The film that ushered in the hottest sitcom of the mid-Seventies (“Happy Days”) was a wonderful ode to one final night of being a teen in Modesto, Calif., in 1962. Check out the cast, so many of whom would go on to much bigger things: Richard Dreyfuss, Harrison Ford, Suzanne Somers, Ron Howard and Cindy Williams. Co-written by George Lucas, who would become the biggest thing. 4. The Wicker Man This may be our friend Mark Beech’s favorite pet cult movie and it’s easy to see why. The last five to ten minutes are devastating and to reveal why here would be to spoil it. See this one, the original, and not the watered-down Nicholas Cage version. 5. Mean Streets: The film that introduced Martin Scorcese, Robert DeNiro and Harvey Keitel to Hollywood.
So many other films from this year worth noting, but let’s begin with the most demented: The Baby. It’s a bizarre film about a southern Californian family made up of a mom, her daughters and an adult-aged son whom the women of the family have never stopped treating as if he’s a baby. And so they purposely keep him in an infantile state. Until a few of the sisters realize a grown man who cannot speak has some other uses. Absolutely twisted.
Here’s a plug for Bang The Drum Slowly (another DeNiro moment), Paper Moon, High Plains Drifter and Soylent Green (“It’s people! Soylent Green is people!”)
Susie B.
I hate to have yet another lovers’ quarrel before lunch time, but if you had ever bothered to watch “Breaking Bad” as opposed to just judging it sight unseen (not an attractive trait in a person, by the way), you’d know that half the time it felt like a comedy. Same with The Sopranos. You may just connect better with Butch & Sundance because they were from your youth, but they were still criminals who killed people who got in the way (much like Bonnie & Clyde, by the way). They were probably not as cute in real life as Newman and Redford, but then who is?
So I’m calling you out on your subjective idealism. Because you’re the one who created the standard and you’re also the one who deviates from it when it does not suit your whims. That’ll be 5 cents, please.
“Too much dynamite there, Butch?” As a matter of fact, I DID watch some of Breaking Bad BEFORE I decided it wasn’t for me. Largely because of your glowing reports. And I tried more times during its run (again, largely because of you) & except for a few comic moments, I found it all overwhelmingly sad, disgusting & infuriating.
As for The Sopranos, I’ve NEVER HAD HBO AS PART OF MY CABLE PACKAGE! 😉 When it finally showed up on regular cable, I knew by then that it would make me want to throw shoes at the TV & why would I want to wreck a perfectly good TV?
I don’t know why you call my dislike & disgust of (most) criminal glorification movies (my name for this “genre”) as “subjective IDEALISM”. What do you call my dislike & disgust of HORROR films? I just don’t like either of them! And ok, sure, if you threaten to smash my hand with a hammer (a common scene in such films/shows), I will admit that I think glorification of crime & criminals is dangerous to a society but it’s not like I’m going around trying to get laws passed against them. (On the other hand, if not for Hollywood’s glorification of criminals the past 40 years, would we NOW have a freakin SOCIOPATH/TREASONOUS SACK OF SHIT IN THE WH? Hmmmmm.)
There are actually people who don’t like movie musicals & do I go around calling them “unfeeling, unromantic, emotionally dead killjoys & that I would rather have a root canal than spend a large amount of time with”? Not to their faces. 🙂
No mention of the ‘dueling Jesus musicals’? I preferred Jesus Christ Superstar over Godspell & still do. However, I did enjoy belting out ‘Day by Day’ in high school chorus.
I loved American Graffiti & yes, I loved The Sting! Even though Redford & Newman were con-men in the story, they were also the GOOD guys going after the real big baddie. You can save your finger wagging & “two wrongs don’t make a right” because in this movie, that’s exactly what they did. 🙂
Never saw The Exorcist & never will. The one genre I HATE more than criminal glorification is horror. However, during Xmas vacation of 1973, I joined a reunion of my summer’s camp cabin mates & on the way back from seeing The Nutcracker at DC’s Lisner Auditorium, the dad/host drove us past “the steps” in Georgetown. My friends updated me on their ‘significance’. And that, plus Linda Blair’s revolving head are pretty much the sum gist of what I know of that movie. 🙂
I’m a little surprised how little is being made of what you pointed out about Cole, given that we now know the Astros cheated in 2017 (and Occam’s Razor would tell us that wasn’t the only year it happened) and that there have been rumblings, most notably from Trevor Bauer, that the Astros are doctoring the ball in some way that’s beefing up their pitchers’ spin rates. The Yankees are at minimum getting a horse who will put up good results, but I’d be leery of what happens if Cole goes back to normal with regular baseballs.