by John Walters

Totem Poll

Someone check Daniel Snyder’s pulse… he may be dead. Snyder, the owner of the NFL’s Washington franchise, for years famously crowed that the Redskins would change their name “over my dead body.”

Washington officially retired the name “Redskins” today, pressured not as much by political pressure but by a company which itself shortened its name years ago: Federal Express.

So they’ll no longer be named the Redskins. But will we still be allowed to refer to secondary ticket scales as “scalping?”

Woj F-Bombed

As this recovering Twitter addict knows, this is what happens when you spend your life on social media. ESPN suspended golden boy NBA news breaker Adrian Wojnarowski after he replied to an email from Missouri Republican senator Josh Hawley with a terse two-word command (anatomically impossible) this weekend.

Hawley, annoyed by the NBA/WNBA’s blatant “Black Lives Matter” support, trolled the league by sending out an email wondering why not also have players wear emblems that read “Support The Troops,” “Back The Blue,” or, as he said, “Given how much the NBA makes in China, why not ‘Free Hong Kong’?”

I think Daryl Morey would get behind that last one.

Woj, one of numerous recipients of this email, wrote back, “F*** you!.” And then Hawley’s office shared the email publicly.

Now Woj is being smartphone-quarantined, sort of, by ESPN the next week or two.

We’re giving Hawley the win on this one.

Kelly Preston

Actress Kelly Preston has died at age 57. The cause? Breast cancer.

Preston, the wife of actor John Travolta, is perhaps best known as the smoking-hot but ice-cold fiancee of Jerry Maguire in the eponymous film. She dumps him after his memorandum (“It was a mission statement!”) and not in a kind way.

Arguably Preston’s next-most scene body of work was her role in Maroon 5’s breakout video from 2004, “She Will Be Loved.” She was already 41 at this time but Preston always retained her youthful beauty.

Tech Tradewinds

About one month ago, more than a little surprised and stymied by the market (and how it just didn’t seem to be reacting to reality), I texted two friends, hands figuratively tossed in the air, and wrote, “I should just have all my money in AMZN and TSLA and not touch it for years.”

And one of the two, who’s done very well in the market over the years, simply shot back a thumbs up.

Of course, I didn’t follow my own suggestion, but here’s what’s happened since that day: AMZN is up from $2,600 a share to nearly $3,300, while TSLA is up from $990 to $1,723.

A 25% gain on one and a 90% gain on the other. It’s crazy. With no signs of stopping.

NFLX? Up from $421 to $563. I can remember having a conversation with a co-worker now national sports columnist back in 2013 and he was lamenting the fact that he’d missed the run-up to buy Netflix stock. No, he hadn’t.

So what’s the opposite of catch a falling knife? Grab hold of a soaring rocket?

Does anyone honestly think AMZN, TSLA, NFLX, AAPL or GOOGL will be lower five years from now? One year? As we all wait for their haircut to jump back in, their locks keep growing longer and more luscious.

Who knows? Not me: the guy who six months ago said that if you put your money in TSLA, six months from now you’ll be very happy? If you had you’d have at least tripled your money. In six months (I did not follow my own advice… because my little man is an idiot, Jerry).