by John Walters
Triage
Here’s a pet theory I’ve been mulling for a few weeks now: the Biden administration is not ultimately going to ignore the pernicious and treasonous acts of everyone from Donald Trump to William Barr to Mike Pompeo to Rudy to those various members of Congress. They will get around to dealing with it. Just not yet.
It’s a lot like… triage. In triage patients are assigned one of four tag colors: RED means immediate attention (life-threatening injuries), YELLOW means delayed attention (no threat to life or limb), GREEN means minor injuries and BLACK means dead.
My intonation is that the first 100 or so days of this administration has been about RED issues: stomping out the pandemic, getting Americans vaccinated, keeping the economy robust and simply creating an atmosphere of stability and calm. That Joe Biden’s at a 63% approval rating right now while the worst the GOP can bring up is “they’re canceling Dr. Seuss” and “bamboo fibers” tells you that the plan is working.
Eventually, I believe, Biden’s administration will get around to the yellow tag issues: properly dealing with the January 6 insurrection (the DOJ has been quietly working on this already, and hundreds of arrests have been made) and holding its principles accountable.
I thus far do not see this administration as anything close to incompetent or unaware. They know what’s up. They know the Republicans will do everything possible to return to power and manufacture an autocracy. They know the lesson of Hitler’s failed Beer Hall Putsch, his minor punishment (at least he did do jail time), and his ultimate victory one decade later. These are not oblivious or obtuse folks in this administration. They have just opted to tackle the red-tag issues before the yellow-tag issues. You might say they’re…
…Biden their time.
TE bow?
Heisman Trophy winner. National champion. Lightning-rod cultural icon. NFL quarterback. New York Met. ESPN personality who has never quite clicked. And now… Jacksonville Jaguar tight end?
New JaxJags HC Urban Meyer, TT’s college coach at Florida, has signed Tim Tebow to a one-year contract to play tight end for his hometown team. Meyer just bought a home in Tebow’s neighborhood.
It has been eight years since Tebow, 33, played in the National Foo’baw League. If nothing else, it makes the offseason more interesting. Florida now has Tom Brady and Tim Tebow on NFL rosters. It’ll be interesting to see which one is the most popular in The Villages.
Mulaney
Lots of John Mulaney news yesterday. First, returning from a 60-day rehab stint for addiction to alcohol and cocaine, Mulaney announced that he and his wife of seven years, Anna Tendler, were divorcing. Then he hopped right into the first of five sold-out shows at the City Winery down in NYC’s TriBeCa district.
As I’ve mentioned here before, I spent a good two hours one-on-one with Mulaney back in 2013 (or ’14) at a West Village coffee shop. The person you see onstage is not the person I met (granted, I’m a journalist, not a buddy or an audience). I found the overall mood to be… somber/depressing. Not the manic, wildly creative and funny person I see onstage. And I only met him because I was, and continue to be, a huge fan and lobbied hard for Newsweek to let me do a profile of him (to my editor Bob Roe’s credit, he trusted my judgment here).
Anyway, who knows what happened in the marriage? I dunno, but start on 4:30 above and continue to the end. Stephen Colbert should’ve charged the going therapist rate for this session. He completely peeled the onion.
There’s some wisdom Mulaney provides at the end that I’ll share here in case you choose not to watch: “The worst dancer at a wedding is the one who’s not dancing.”
Who Killed Kenny?
In his typical deadpan style (“salary-cap hit”), ESPN’s Kenny Mayne announced on Twitter yesterday that he was out at the WWL after a 27-year run. Mayne arrived in Bristol right as the SportsCenter phenomenon was peaking. Keith and Dan (and Chris and Bob and Linda) had already turned the broadcast into zeitgeist viewing, but then Kenny and John Buccigross and Craig Kilborn and John Anderson and Steve Levy and Stuart Scott would carry it further.
There’s simply no one like Mayne, 62, although Patrick was the most similar. And Neil Everett is the closest thing to him now. The former UNLV backup QB was committed to not sounding cliche and also to not sounding as if he cared too much about any of the results of which he was reporting. A true original, from “tastes like chicken” or “sounds like Pearl Jam” (metaphors to represent the fact that he was subbing in a phrase that is tired and worn for a sports phrase that would be so, too) to “this tiny ballpark cannot handle my gargantuan blasts, bring me the finest meats and cheeses,” Mayne was sui generis.
(from left: Anderson, Buccigross, Levy, Mayne)
He did get away with barely working, or so it seemed, for more than a decade while he relocated to the Sea-Tac area. You gotta respect that. In the end, though, you have to imagine that his quasi-Yossarian personality, his penchant for being the anti-Mike Greenberg, never served to ingratiate him with the suits (i.e., Norby). And so his run has ended.
The Kid
So we are going to attempt to launch a new segment here, a wagering segment. I will not be doing the wagering. I’m no expert.
However, we do know someone, we’ll call him “The Kid” until we come up with something better (“the Better Bettor?”) who has supported himself for a few years gambling professionally. This line of work is not for just anybody, but The Kid is uniquely suited to it: he’s a sports nut (and a superior athlete, by the way) who devours and processes information and data unlike almost anyone we’ve ever met. He’s near Rainman-scale in terms of this.
So what the MH staff has done is to ask him to begin with an imaginary bank of $1,000 and to give us his picks. Never more than one per day and if he misses a day, that’s okay. Here’s his first pick:
$100 on the Dodgers -215 versus the Mariners.
That’s a moneyline bet. If the Dodgers win, The Kid gets $100. If they lose, he’s down $215 (if I understand it correctly).
Current bank: $1,000
Betting at -215 means The Kid is betting the favorite. A $215 bet would win him a profit of $100. A $100 bet would win him $46.51, I believe. If he loses his bet, he just loses $100. (All of this assumes no vig).
Unfortunately, The Kid is smart and we won’t be seeing any crazy parlays.