Biden, His Time

Grampa Joe wins the primary in South Cackalacka…. Biden versus Bernie? The Dems need to mass-produce baseball caps inscribed with “Make America Gray Again.”

Mayor Pete Drops Out

Not the first time a group from South Bend sees their season come apart in SEC Country.

— Andrew Hammond (@ahammALDC) March 1, 2020

Mulaney Knocks It Out Of The Park—Again

For a third time in less than two years, John Mulaney returned to his old haunts at 30 Rock to host Saturday Night Live, And, as with his other two hosting gigs, the sketches were sharper and funnier. And Mulaney has an affection for old Hollywood. The first time he hosted, he and Kate McKinnon did a send-up of To Have And Have Not’s iconic scene (“You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve?”). This time he and Cecily Strong sent up a famous tune from The Sound Of Music.

Speaking Of Knocking It Out Of The Park…

Mike Trout hitting rockets isn’t exclusive to the baseball field. pic.twitter.com/tuEyIzxqQ5

— Los Angeles Angels (@Angels) March 2, 2020

Mike Trout is ready for the Pebble Beach pro-am, and probably for baseball season, too. This ball was likely launched at Top Golf in Gilbert, Ariz., and if you’re familiar with the area, then it probably landed in Apache Junction or ricocheted off Superstition Mountain.

How Big Is The B1G?

In the latest AP poll we’ve seen, the Big Ten placed six schools in the Top 25: Maryland (9), Penn State (16), Iowa (18), Michigan (19), Ohio State (23) and Michigan State (24). A few oddities about that:

–In the preseason rankings, the last school on the above list, Sparty, was ranked No. 1 overall in the nation.

–Two schools that are 3rd and 4th in the league standings, respectively, Illinois and Wisconsin, did not crack the Top 25.

–Six teams in the Top 25, but none in the top eight.

–The best school in the Midwest this season, both by record (25-2) and the rankings? Dayton. The best player in the Midwest? Markus Howard. Neither are affiliated with the B1G.

–Are any of these B1G schools Final Four material? Will any of them even get a No. 1 seed? It seems anathema that a conference with six ranked teams couldn’t place its conference champ as a No. 1 seed, but this might just be the year. We’ll see if the committee favors the outliers with the great records (Gonzaga, SDSU, Dayton, etc.) or goes with more traditional Power 5 schools. Maybe Kirk Herbstreit will be asked to weigh in.

Today would’ve been Lou Reed‘s 78th birthday. Reed, the founder of The Velvet Underground who then went on to a solo career, was never as commercially successful as his music was memorable. Born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island, Lou Reed created a sound that is New York City. At times it’s the bleakness and despair of waiting for the D train to take you back to Brooklyn at 4 in the morning and wondering if you’re going to fall asleep (or worse) on the platform; at times it’s the sound of heading out for a gonzo night on the Lower East Side, or being in the midst of it.

It’s raw, it’s pure, it’s authentic and it’s messy. It’s New York. And Reed’s look was as inimitable as his sound. Sunglasses, black leather jacket, that massive rug of thick dark hair. He was his own caricature, his own character.

Last night we took a walk on the wild side and saw a Lou Reed/VU tribute band play a set down at the Bowery Electric. On a dirty boulevard. Here are five songs by Andy Warhol’s favorite band/artist worth listening to on this day:

5. Femme Fatale (1967): Sung by Nico, the lovely German model who was part of the Velvet Underground, but written by Reed. Inspired by Warhol, who gave Reed the line, “Oh, don’t you think she’s a femme fatale?” about one of Warhol’s top film sirens, Edie Sedgwick. Only four years later, in 1971, Sedgwick herself would die at age 28 of a drug overdose.

4. Heroin (1967) : Released on the band’s debut album, it was actually written by Reed in 1964. Here’s Reed describing how it came about: “I was working for a record company as a songwriter, where they’d lock me in a room and they’d say write ten surfing songs, ya know, and I wrote “Heroin” and I said “Hey I got something for ya.” They said, “Never gonna happen, never gonna happen.'”

3. Oh! Sweet Nuthin (1970): The final track from the band’s fourth and final album, Loaded. The album’s title comes from their record company’s request to come back with a record “loaded with hits.” The Velvet Underground never wrote hits; they just wrote songs that future musicians (R.E.M., Nirvana, Billy Idol, the Black Crowes, etc.) would cover over and over and over. This song could’ve been written and sung by Lynyrd Skynyrd or the Allman Brothers.

2. Walk On The Wild Side (1972): From Reed’s second solo album, and produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson. His best-known song and most commercially viable, climbing to No. 16 on the Billboard charts. Doo, da-doo, da-doo-doo-doo….

1. Dirty Blvd (1989): From Reed’s album New York, this hit No. 1 on the Modern Rock charts.

Further Listening (We couldn’t stop at 5):

1. Sweet Jane (1970), also from Loaded:

2. There She Goes Again (1967) : Later covered by REM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3E5YIP-DvU

3. I’m Waiting For The Man (1967):

Scary, scary monsters! As if the Depression wasn’t horrifying enough.

Have Seen:

1. Frankenstein: Mel Brooks talks about seeing this film as a lad in Brooklyn and being convinced that Dr. Frankenstein’s monster was going to cross over from wherever he was in Europe and wreak havoc on his block. This film inspired Brooks to make movies. Boris Karloff in a defining role as the bolt-necked brute.
2. Dracula: The Vampire Strikes Back. The horror film that would set the mood, and standard, for all that followed. Bela Lugosi is the original bat man.
3. M: Starring Peter Lorre as a psychopath who preys on little girls in Germany. In many ways a scarier monster than the first two on our list.

Wanna See:

4. City Lights: Considered Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece, and the final silent film he made.

5. The Front Page: The original version of the story that would be remade eight or nine years later and achieve greater acclaim as His Girl Friday.

6. The Public Enemy: Jimmy Cagney in his ultimate tough guy/gangster role, see, you dirty rat! With Jean Harlow and Joan Blondell.

Lots of fans are, and rightfully so, praising SNL’s “Airport Sushi” sketch. For me, though, it was host John Mulaney‘s monologue that was the high point of last night’s show. It was meta-Mulaney: a riff about his dad (who is truly his comic inspiration), followed by a riff relating a real historical event to the comedy that no one has thought to squeeze out of it before. And finally, a funny riff that is both sweet and takes aim at the joke-teller himself.

Every show Mulaney hosts (this was the third for the former SNL writer) is like flying first-class as opposed to coach. And by the way, a signature of all three of his appearances as host is taking a dedicated New York City space (e.g. bodega, LaGuardia Airport) and writing a mini-musical (using parody versions of classic show tunes) about it. I’m wondering what he’ll do for his fourth hosting gig: The L train? Penn Station? The High Line?

Michael Che was also in classic form on “Weekend Update,” by the way.

If you spend a lot of time following college football and not a lot of time following the presidential electoral process, the first thing I have to tell you is: Good for you. You’re lucky. And probably a lot happier than if it were vice versa.

However, maybe you want to follow the election a little more intensely. Maybe you’re in college and want to understand how this Bernie guy is going to help you avoid paying off your student loans, and how come Garth Brooks is so fond of him. I’m here to help.

The first thing to understand is that the primaries are sort of like bowl season. It begins with a trickle with relatively unimportant and (save for one) underpopulated states. Iowa. Then New Hampshire. Off to Nevada. And now South Carolina. These state primaries are sort of like those pre-New Year’s Day bowls. They’re your Pinstripe, Gasparilla, Boca Raton and Military (not to be confused with Armed Forces, and why would you?) Bowls.

Then comes “Super Tuesday!” That’s when 14 states hold their primaries all on the same day. It’s like New Year’s Day and just like New Year’s Day, you’re best equipped to deal with the results if nursing a hangover (or nurturing one) and in flannel pajamas. Do not go outside. Do not stand near Chris Matthews (particularly if you’re a female).

Now, just like our current bowl system, New Year’s Day is not the be all and end all of the bowl season as it once was. And Super Tuesday is not the end of primary season. While the two most populous state in the union (California and Texas) vote on Super Tuesday, you’ve still got Florida and Illinois (March 17), New York and Pennsylvania (April 28), and a host of other states afterward.

And then, just like college football, the primaries end and it all goes dormant for too long a period and just when you think you’ve emotionally moved on, they stage the national championship. And while it always seems as if it’s the same two teams (Bush and Clinton), there’s been some new blood lately.