The number one single today in 1962:
The number one single today in 1973:
The number one British single today in 1979 does not make one think of Pat Benatar:
Today in 1984, Michael Jackson recorded a commercial for the new flaming hair flavor of Pepsi:
Almost a year ago I wrote about a few books, two of which were turned into movies, about fictional sports teams.
One of those was North Dallas Forty, a thinly veiled retelling of the 1960s Dallas Cowboys, which became one of those movies:
It turns out that ESPN.com wrote a more detailed comparison of the, uh, North Dallas Bulls and the Cowboys:
“North Dallas Forty,” the movie version of an autobiographical novel written by former Dallas Cowboy receiver Pete Gent, came to the silver screen in 1979. The book had received much attention because it was excellent and because many thought the unflattering portrait of pro football, Dallas Cowboys-style, was fairly accurate.
The film reached many more people than the book, and was, in many ways, a simplified version of the novel. But did it portray the NFL accurately? In the Sept. 16, 1979, Washington Post, offensive tackle George Starke wrote, “Most of what you see is close to what happens, or at least did happen when Pete Gent played.” Others disagreed. What do you think?
In Reel Life: The movie’s title is “North Dallas Forty,” and the featured team is the North Dallas Bulls.
In Real Life: Why North Dallas? Gent, a rookie in 1964, explains in an e-mail interview: “I was shocked that in 1964 America, Dallas could have an NFL franchise and the black players could not live near the practice field in North Dallas — which was one of the reasons I titled the book ‘North Dallas Forty.’ I kept asking why the white players put up with their black teammates being forced to live in segregated south Dallas, a long drive to the practice field. The situation was not changed until Mel Renfro filed a ‘Fair Housing Suit’ in 1969.”In Reel Life: In the opening scene, Phil Elliott (Nick Nolte) is having trouble breathing after he wakes up; his left shoulder’s in pain. He struggles to the bathtub, in obvious agony.
In Real Life: Jim Boeke, one of Gent’s Cowboy teammates (who also plays Stallings in the film), said this scene rings true. “I can’t say it happens to every player every morning after every game,” he told the Washington Post in 1979, “but the older you get, the more it happens to you.”
In Reel Life: As we see in the film, and as Elliott says near the end, he can’t sleep for more than three hours at a stretch because he’s in so much pain.
In Real Life: Elliott is, obviously, a fictional version of Gent. “When I was younger, the pain reached that level during the season and it usually took a couple months for the pain and stiffness to recede,” says Gent. “Usually by February, I was able to sleep a good eight hours. As I got older, the pain took longer and longer to recede after the season.”In Reel Life: Mac Davis plays Seth Maxwell, the Cowboys QB and Elliott’s close friend.
In Real Life: Maxwell is a thinly disguised version of Gent’s close friend, 1960s Cowboys QB Don Meredith. According to Gent, Meredith was offered the role of Seth Maxwell. “Don was at Elaine’s one night talking with Bud Sharke, [Frank] Gifford, and several others, and Don said, ‘I just don’t want others to think that’s me.’ And Gifford said, ‘Well, it is you.’ ”“Gent would become Meredith’s primary confidant and amateur psychologist as the Cowboys quarterback’s life would become more and more topsy-turvy as the years went on,’ writes Peter Golenbock in the oral history, “Cowboys Have Always Been My Heroes.”
In Reel Life: Throughout the film, there’s a battle of wits going on between Elliott and head coach B.A. Strothers (G.D. Spradlin).
In Real Life: B.A. bears some resemblance to Tom Landry, who coached Gent on the Cowboys. “The only way I kept up with Landry, I read a lot of psychology — abnormal psychology,” says Gent in “Heroes.”Though sometimes confused by Landry, Gent says he admired the man: “Over the course of a high school, college and pro career, an athlete is exposed to all sorts of coaches, (including) great ones who are geniuses breaking new ground in their game. Tom Landry was like that … When you are young, you think you are going to meet men like this your whole life. You think the world is full of genius, and it isn’t until you leave the game that you found out you may have met the greatest men you will ever meet.
In Reel Life: Jo Bob Priddy (Bo Svenson) and O. W. Shaddock (John Matuszak) interrupt Elliott’s relaxing bath, entering the bathroom with rifles blazing. Along with Maxwell, off-a-hunting they go.
In Real Life: Former Cowboys Ralph Neely (a tackle) and Larry Cole (defensive end) told Washington Post reporter Jane Leavy that the trip was real. “Football players have only one day off a week and if they go hunting, they’re sure as hell going to shoot something,” Cole said in 1979. “We shot butterflies, field larks …” And, Neely added, a mailbox.In Reel Life: Everyone’s drinking during the hunting trip, and one series of shots comes dangerously close to Elliott and Maxwell.
In Real Life: “In Texas, they all drank when they hunted,” says Gent in “Heroes.” “That story in ‘North Dallas Forty’ of being in a duck blind and getting sprayed by shot was a true story. (Don) Talbert and (Bob) Lilly, or somebody else, started shooting at us from across the lake!” …In Reel Life: Maxwell says, “Son, you ain’t never gonna get off that bench until you stop fighting them suckers. You got to learn how to fool them. Give ’em what they want. I know. I’ve been fooling them bastards for years.”
In Real Life: Meredith never really stopped fighting “those suckers,” meaning, really, Landry. The quarterback suffered through the early years with the Cowboys and Landry, and ended up leading Dallas to within minutes of NFL championships in 1966 and 1967. Still, Landry replaced Meredith with Craig Morton during a 1968 playoff game, and that was, apparently, the last straw. Meredith retired at age 29, hoping that Landry would ask him to continue playing. Landry didn’t, saying. “Don, I think you are making the right decision.” …In Reel Life: Elliott and Maxwell go to a table far away from the action, and share a joint. A man in a car spies on them.
In Real Life: Gent says he was followed throughout the 1967 and 1968 seasons (more about this later): “One time a neighbor told me, ‘Pete, now don’t look, but there is somebody sitting in our parking lot with binoculars,’ ” he says in “Heroes.”In Reel Life: At the party, and throughout the movie, Maxwell moves easily between teammates and groups of players, and seems to be universally respected.
In Real Life: Meredith “was greatly respected by his teammates for his great skills and his nerve on the field during a period of time in the NFL when knocking out the quarterback was a tactic for winning,” says Gent. He “would take awful physical beatings and somehow keep getting up and taking the team to wins … He was one tough SOB.”In Reel Life: The Cowboys are worshiped. They are, as Maxwell puts it, “genuine heroes.”
In Real Life: The Cowboys were small time during the first half of the 1960s, but when they started winning under Landry, everything changed. “In 1964, if you bought an adult ticket, you got five kids in for nothing and a free football,” says Gent in “Heroes.” “The only time we filled the stadium was when Green Bay came. By ’66, we were sold out every game. In just two years, we went from our not being able to get a seat in a restaurant in Dallas to literally being America’s guest.”In Reel Life: Elliott meets with B.A. The coach sits down in front of a computer, scrolling through screen after screen of information. He stops and points to the monitor. “Now that’s it, that’s it,” he says. “Phil, that’s what it all boils down to, your attitude.”
In Real Life: Clint Murchison, Jr., the team’s owner, owned a computer company, and the Cowboys pioneered the use of computers in the NFL, using them as early as 1962. “The Cowboys initially used computers to do self-scouting,” writes Craig Ellenport at NFL.com. “Were they too predictable on third-and-long situations? What was the average gain when they ran that trap play last season? As the Cowboys’ organization learned more about computers, they become a greater factor in the game-plan equation. ‘It was just another weapon that we had to do the job that had to be done,’ said Landry.”In Reel Life: Elliott, in bed with Joanne Rodney (Savannah Smith), says he’s got the best hands in the league. Elliott’s high regard of his own abilities is a continuing theme throughout the film, and there’s plenty of screen action to back up the assessment.
In Real Life: Many of Gent’s teammates have said he wasn’t nearly as good as he portrayed himself in the book and the movie. “If I had known Gent was that good, I would have thrown to him more,” said Meredith, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, after reading the book.Gent stands by his self-assessment, and says that Landry agreed about his ability to catch the ball. “Tom actually told the press that I had the best hands in the league,” says Gent. “And I did.” Gent, who played basketball in college, adds, “Catching a football was easy compared to catching a basketball.”
Gent, who was often used as a blocker, finished his NFL career with 68 catches for 898 yards and four TDs. In his best season, 1966, he had 27 catches for 484 yards and a touchdown.
In Reel Life: During a meeting, the team watches film of the previous Sunday’s game. In the film, Elliott catches a pass on third down, and everyone cheers. Except B.A., who says, “No, Seth, you should never have thrown to Elliott with that kind of coverage. Look at Delma. He’s wide open. I don’t like this buddy buddy stuff interfering with my judgment.”
In Real Life: Landry stressed disciplined play, but sometimes punished players when, even though they followed his precise instructions, a play went awry. For example, Landry benched Meredith during the 1968 NFL divisional playoff game against the Browns. He threw “an interception that should have been credited against Landry’s disciplined system of play,” writes Gary Cartwright, who covered the Cowboys during the 1960s. “According to Landry’s gospel, the Cleveland defensive back who intercepted Meredith’s final pass should have been on the other side of the field. Unfortunately, the Cleveland defensive back was in the wrong place. It wasn’t that Landry was wrong; Cleveland just wasn’t right.”In Reel Life: The game film shows Stallings going offside. B.A. castigates the player: “There’s no room in this business for uncertainty.” Later, Stallings is cut, his locker unceremoniously emptied.
In Real Life: This happened to Boeke, a former Cowboys lineman, who was, in a way, playing himself in the film — Gent has said he was thinking of Boeke when he wrote this scene. “We were playing in the championship game in 1967, and Jim jumped offside, something anyone could do,” Gent told Leavy in 1979. “The NFL Films showed it from six or seven angles. They had it in slo-mo, and in overheads. It literally ended his career.” In fact, Boeke played another season for the Cowboys before being traded, but he agreed that the offside call was the beginning of the end.In Reel Life: Art Hartman (Marshall Colt) is Maxwell’s backup at QB. He’s a very religious man, a straight arrow who is the object of some scorn. Maxwell refers to Hartman as “a dedicated young Christian stud.”
In Real Life: Lots of folks have played the guessing game about who Hartman “really” is, with Roger Staubach being the most frequently mentioned candidate. But Gent denied it after the film came out. “It’s not Staubach,” he told the Washington Post in 1979. “But don’t tell him, it’ll break his heart. That character was based on any number of players who got into all that religious bull.”
For one thing, Meredith and Gent were never teammates of Staubach. Meredith and Gent left the Cowboys after the 1968 season, one year before Staubach’s rookie season.
In Reel Life: Elliott catches a pass, and is tackled hard, falling on his back. Someone breaks open an ampule of amyl nitrate to revive him. Amyl is used in other scenes in the movie.
In Real Life: Gent says the drug was so prolific that, “one training camp I was surprised nobody died from using amyl nitrate.”“In about 1967, amyl nitrite was an over-the-counter drug for people who suffered from angina,” Gent told John Walsh in a Feb. 1984 Playboy interview. “I talked to several doctors who told me it basically didn’t do any damage; it speeded up your heart and pumped a lot of oxygen to your brain, which puts you in another level of consciousness. At camp, I explained that this drug was legal and cheap — it cost about $2 for 12 ampules of it — everybody tried it and went crazy on it.”
In Reel Life: Elliott is constantly in pain, constantly hurt.
In Real Life: Lee Roy Jordan told the Dallas Times that Gent never worked out or lifted weights, and that Gent was “soft.” But Gent says Jordan’s comments were not accurate: “I was not particularly strong but I took my beatings to catch the ball,” he says. “That is how you get a broken neck and fractures of the spine, a broken leg and dislocated ankle, and a half-dozen broken noses.” And, he adds, that’s how he “became the guy that always got the call to go across the middle on third down.”In Reel Life: Elliott wears a T-shirt that says “No Freedom/No Football/NFLPA.”
In Real Life: The NFL Players Association adopted this slogan during its 1974 strike.In Reel Life: Elliott and Maxwell break into the trainer’s medicine cabinet, and take all kinds of stuff, including speed and painkillers.
In Real Life: Many players said drug use in the film was exaggerated, or peculiar to Gent. “Pete’s threshold of pain was such that if he had a headache, he would have needed something to kill the pain,” Dan Reeves told the Washington Post in 1979. As for speed pills, Reeves said, “Nobody thought there was anything wrong with them. A lot of guys took those things 15 years ago, just like women took birth control pills before they knew they were bad. It’s not as true a picture as it was 10 to 15 years ago, when it was closer to the truth.”In Reel Life: At a team meeting, B.A. scolds the team for poor play the previous Sunday. “We played far below our potential. Our punting team gave them 4.5 yards per kick, more than our reasonable goal and 9.9 yards more than outstanding …”
In Real Life: Landry rated players in a similar fashion to what’s depicted in the scene, but the system, in Gent’s opinion, wasn’t as objective as it seemed. “They literally rated you on a three-point system,” writes Gent in “Heroes.” “On any play you got no points for doing your job, you got a minus one if you didn’t do your job, you got a plus one if you did more than your job. And a good score in a game was 17 … And they would read your scores out in front of everybody else. That was another thing. Tom thought that everyone should know who was letting them down. Right away I began to notice that the guys whose scores didn’t seem to jibe with the way they were playing were the guys Tom didn’t like.”
Meredith was one of those players. “He truly did not like Don Meredith, not as a player and not as a person,” writes Golenbock.
In Reel Life: North Dallas is playing Chicago for the conference championship. The owner says, “If we win this game, you’re all invited to spend the weekend at my private island in the Caribbean.”
In Real Life: According to Gent, the Murchisons did have a private island, but the team was never invited.In Reel Life: Phil has already told B.A. that he’ll do whatever it takes to play, and before the game he takes a shot in his knee to kill the pain.
In Real Life: Gent, like many pro athletes, would go to extreme lengths to play, even when badly injured. He even expresses some guilt over not playing in the “Ice Bowl,” the 1967 NFL Championship Game which the Cowboys lost in the final seconds, 21-17, to the Packers in Green Bay. The game-time temperature was minus-13. “I would have played the whole game for Bobby Hayes. [Hayes put his hands in his pockets when he wasn’t the intended receiver, a tipoff exploited by the Packers.] His hands had swollen and cracked by the second quarter. I was used to playing in cold weather, but I was in the hospital with a broken leg.“I have always felt that it [the loss] was partly my fault. Go figure that out.”
In Reel Life: Delma Huddle (former pro Tommy Reamon) watches Elliott take a shot in his knee. He says, “No shots for me, man, I can’t stand needles … All those pills and shots, man, they do terrible things to your body.” Later, though, the peer pressure gets to Huddle, and he takes a shot so he can play with a pulled hamstring.
In Real Life: Neely says this sequence rings false. “I cannot remember an instance where a player was made to feel he had to do this where he was put in the position of feeling he might lose his job.”“Maybe Ralph can’t remember,” Gent responds in his e-mail interview. “Maybe he forgot all those rows of syringes in the training room at the Cotton Bowl. They seldom tell you to take the shot or clean out your locker. They leave you to make the decision, and if you don’t do it, they will remember, and so will your teammates. But worst of all, so will you — what if the team loses and you might have made the difference?”
In Reel Life: After one play, a TV announcer says, “I wonder if the coach called that play on the sideline or if Maxwell called it in the huddle.”
In Real Life: Who called the plays was one of many disputes between Meredith and Landry. “Landry literally could forget the game plan,” says Gent in “Heroes.” “When I would run in plays for him, he would call the wrong plays. Well, in ’66 it didn’t matter because Meredith was calling the plays, even when Landry would send them in. Lots of times Landry would send in a suggestion, and Meredith would send the player back out to publicly show up Landry. The player would start out, and Meredith would wave him back.”
In Reel Life: In the last minute of the game, Delma pulls a muscle and goes down. Elliott goes over to see how he’s doing. B.A. yells, “Elliott, get back in the huddle! The doctor will look after him. Mister, you get back in the huddle right now or off the field.”
In Real Life: Landry did not respond emotionally when players were injured during a game. Cartwright contrasted Landry’s style with Lombardi’s: “When a player was down writhing in agony, the contrast was most apparent: Lombardi would be racing like an Italian fishwife, cursing and imploring the gods to get the lad back on his feet for at least one more play; Landry would be giving instructions to the unfortunate player’s substitute.”In Reel Life: Elliott catches a TD pass with time expired, pulling North Dallas to within one point of Chicago. If they make the extra point, the game is tied and goes into overtime. But Hartman fumbles the snap, and the Bulls lose the game.
In Real Life: This is similar to what happened in the 1966 NFL Championship game. The Packers led the Cowboys 34-20 with a little more than five minutes remaining. Meredith led a quick Dallas drive for one TD, and on the last drive of the game the Cowboys got to the Packers’ 2-yard line with 28 seconds left. A TD and extra point would have sent the game into OT. But Meredith’s pass was intercepted in the end zone by Tom Brown, sealing the win for the Packers and a heartbreaking loss for Dallas.In Reel Life: After the loss, O.W. reams out Coach Johnson: “Every time I call it a game, you say it’s a business. Every time I say it’s a business, you call it a game!”
In Real Life: That speech got Matuszak the part of O.W. “(Director) Ted Kotcheff had Tooz read the speech … and Tooz blew everybody away,” says Gent.
In Reel Life: Elliott has a meeting the day after the game with Conrad Hunter (Steve Forrest). B.A., Emmett Hunter (Dabney Coleman), and “Ray March, of the League’s internal investigation division,” are also there. A league investigator recites what he saw while following Elliott during the week, including evidence that Elliott smoked a “marijuana cigarette.”
In Real Life: Gent was investigated by the league. “In the offseason after the ’67 season and all during ’68 they followed me,” he says in “Heroes.” “They had guys on me for one whole season.” The investigation began, says Gent in his e-mail interview, “because I entertained black and white players at my house. I have always suspected Lee Roy (Jordan) as the snitch who informed the Cowboys and the league that I was ‘selling’ drugs (because), as he says so often in the press, ‘Pete Gent was a bad influence on the team.’ ”In Reel Life: Elliott gives a speech about how management is the “team,” while players are just more pieces of equipment.
In Real Life: Gent really grew to despise Cowboys management. “I wanted out of there,” he writes in “Heroes.” “I knew I was only going to play if they needed me, and the minute they didn’t need me, I was gone. And I knew that it didn’t matter how well I did. I could call Tom an ass—- to his face, and he wasn’t going to trade me until he had somebody to play my spot, and the moment he had somebody to play my spot, I was gone. And so from then on, that was my attitude toward Tom Landry, and the rest of the organization going all the way up to Tex Schramm.”In Reel Life: The film stresses the conflict between Elliott’s view that football players should be treated like individuals and Landry’s cold assessment and treatment of players.
In Real Life: “I’ve come to the conclusion that players want to be treated alike,” Landry told Cartwright in 1973. “They may talk about individualism, but I believe they want a single standard … If a player is contributing and performing the way he ought to, he will usually conform … We just can’t get along with a player who doesn’t conform or perform. No way.”In Reel Life: Elliott quits after he’s told he’s suspended without pay, “pending a league hearing.”
In Real Life: This scene was fiction — Gent wasn’t suspended. But the NFL didn’t take kindly to those who participated in the making of “North Dallas Forty.” Hall of Famer Tom Fears, who advised on the movie’s football action, had a scouting contract with three NFL teams — all were canceled after the film opened, reported Leavy and Tony Kornheiser in a Sept. 6, 1979, Washington Post article. And the Raiders severed ties with Fred Biletnikoff, who coached Nolte. “Freddy was not even asked back to camp,” writes Gent. Reamon, who played Delma, was cut by the 49ers after the film came out, and said he had been “blackballed.”NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle denied any organized blacklist, but told The Post, “I can’t say that some clubs in their own judgment (did not make) decisions based on many factors, including that they did not like the movie.”
The Raiders’ “severed ties” with Biletnikoff are somewhat hard to believe. Biletnikoff retired from the NFL after the 1978 season, his 14th with the Raiders, though he was a player/coach with the Canadian Football League’s Montreal Alouettes in 1980. Nine years after that, he was hired as the Raiders’ receivers coach, which lasted until 2006.
Given the Raiders being the NFL’s rebel franchise under owner Al Davis, the only way the Raiders would have severed ties with Biletnikoff for his role with the movie is if Davis didn’t like it. The NFL’s opinion would have meant little to Davis, who sued the NFL so he could move the Raiders to Los Angeles, moving back to Oakland in 1995.
Every town has a nickname for its local newspaper, not all of them fit for publication in a local newspaper. Most involve puns, creating a cruel irony where wordsmiths are victims of wordplay.
Locals call my paper, the Baraboo News Republic, the Baraboo News or, when prickly, the “Baraboo Snooze.” You see, what they’re doing there is using a rhyme to suggest there’s nothing interesting in the paper. Get it? Har dee har har.
It’s OK; we can take a joke. We who work for newspapers don’t take ourselves too seriously. If we did, we’d stop wearing leisure suits. Besides, being teased thickens our skins. These nicknames help cub reporters learn early on that working in the public eye is hardly Xanadu — or even Rockford — and if they want to be liked, they should choose another line of work.
Truth be told, we employ these sobriquets, too. We relish denigrating competitors with derogatory monikers. It’s the thing we love most, other than showing off our vocabularies.
Some nicknames are more imaginative than others. Any paper with “Journal” in its name is predictably dubbed the “Urinal.” And “The Sun” becomes “The Scum.”
Others are more inventive, such as Phoenix readers who call the Arizona Republic the “Arizona Repugnant” or the “Arizona Repulsive.” In North Carolina, the Raleigh News and Observer is sometimes labeled the “Noise and Disturber.” In Milwaukee, some readers have made the tired “Urinal” nickname flush, calling the Journal Sentinel the “Urine Sample.”
Many nicknames strike at editorial boards’ politics. In England, the Daily Mail is punished for supporting fascists in the 1930s through its nickname, the “Daily Heil.” The Oregon Register-Guard is known to conservative readers as the “Red Guard.” More bluntly, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s oldest student paper, the Daily Cardinal, is dubbed the “Daily Communist.”
College campuses are breeding grounds for memorable newspaper nicknames. At the University of California-Santa Barbara, they call the Daily Nexus the “Noxious.” The University of Chicago Maroon is dubbed the “Moron.” In Austin, you might hear the Daily Texan called the “Daily Toxin.” My personal favorite comes from the University of New Mexico, where the Daily Lobo is also known as the “Daily Lobotomy.”
There are plenty of creative nicknames off campus, too. Some call the San Francisco Chronicle the “Comical.” In England, the Telegraph is labeled the “Tell-a-Lie.” The staff of the Richmond Times-Dispatch is might not like to hear their publication sometimes is called the “Times-Disgrace.” But they probably already know.
Notable negative newspaper nicknames are nothing new. (We enjoy using alliteration almost as much as using big words.) The venerable New York Times has been known for decades as “the Gray Lady” for its front pages covered with long columns of text rather than pictures. Sure, the Times started publishing color photographs years ago, but nicknames can be hard to shake. Your skin may clear up after middle school, but that won’t stop classmates from calling you “Crater Face.”
Enduring a measure of ridicule comes with working in the public eye. When you work for a community institution, familiarity can breed contempt. Some readers don’t care for their local paper’s politics. Some are still upset their name was misspelled 40 years ago in an article about the third-grade spelling bee. Some can’t understand why we stopped publishing Beetle Bailey. So they give us nasty nicknames. It’s the same reason a fiery kindergarten teacher named Ms. Darren gets labeled “Ms. Dragon.”
It’s OK; the nicknames are part of the job. At least we know, because you say them to our faces, what you call us behind our backs. We just might have nicknames for some of you, too. But we’re keeping those off the record.
The number one single in Great Britain today in 1961 included a Shakespearean reference:
The number one single today in 1965 included Jimmy Page, later of Led Zeppelin, on guitar:
Today in 1970, John Lennon wrote, recorded and mixed a song all in one day, which may have made it an instant song:
The Brewers made this announcement yesterday, reported by WITI-TV:
Johnsonville is the official sausage of the Milwaukee Brewers, the Brewers announced Wednesday, Jan. 24. This, after we learned the Brewers severed ties with Klement’s after the two were teamed up for more than 25 years.
According to a news release from the Brewers, Johnsonville is no rookie to the Brewers, having been their official sausage for 11 seasons from 1978–1988, including during the 1982 World Series games.
“Great food is one of the most memorable parts of the baseball-fan experience, which is why we’re thrilled to bring Johnsonville back to the Brewers,” said Ryan Pociask, VP of marketing at Johnsonville in the release.
The Klement’s announcement was made via a letter sent from Klement’s CEO and President Thomas Danneker to the company’s employees. That means no more Klement’s products at Miller Park, and a new sponsor for the Famous Racing Sausages. We’ve now learned that sponsor will be Johnsonville. …
According to the frequently asked questions section of the Klement’s website, the Famous Racing Sausages are owned by Major League Baseball. Klement’s has never been an authorized dealer and able to sell any merchandise or items with the images of the racers.
“Ultimately, it’s the Brewers’ property and the Brewers are in the business of raising revenue so they can pay players,” Brian Bennett, STIR Marketing CEO said.
On Tuesday evening, the Milwaukee Brewers issued a news release with this statement:
“With the heat being turned up today as rumors simmer on the Brewers sausage category sponsorship, there has been speculation about the future of Milwaukee’s most legendary runners.
The Famous Racing Sausages are a “link” to the Brewers past and present. Rest assured, they are also central to the future of the franchise.
Stay tuned – more details to come soon.”
I interviewed Johnsonville’s owners several years ago, and the owners were donors at a previous employer. So I think this is great for Johnsonville, regardless of who owns the Racing Sausages.
I have decided I am tired of writing about politics for the rest of the week.
One of the most infamous moments of TV before the “Star Wars Holiday Special” was this, uh, performance from William Shatner …
… during the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards.
There, is, however, an actual story to this, or so this Facebook post (taken, the writer claims, from Shatner’s autobiography) claims:
Shatner was rehearsing and during a pause he took a cigarette break with some of the crew. He was the center of attention, of course, and they got to talking about Bernie Taupin being at the show, and Shatner grabbed a chair and did what he called “Frank Sinatra doing Elton John,” performing Rocketman. He had the entire crew in stitches and they desperately wanted to get it on film, but eventualy it was suggested that he should do it for the show. It would be a brilliant comedy bit.
Because of the way the stage was situated, Shatner couldn’t tell what the reaction of the crowd was when he performed it. He just assumed everyone had a good laugh and moved on with the show.
He picked the paper up the next morning to see that the media and the audience were raving about his brilliant, artistic, dramatic performance, and how he wowed the crowd with his passion and artistic interpretation… It was supposed to be a joke, and they totally took it seriously.
That’s one story. Cover Me has another interpretation:
William Shatner’s take on the classic Elton John/Bernie Taupin tune “Rocket Man” has an awesome power—people know it without ever having heard it. It seems to exist in our culture purely as a punchline, a go-to gag to illustrate the depth to which Shatner’s career had fallen post-Star Trek. And this is a joke everybody’s in on—sources as diverse as Beck (in his video for “Where It’s At“), Freakazoid, and Family Guy have all taken a few shots at Shatner for this one. But is it really so awful?
At the very least, there’s no denying that Shatner’s “Rocket Man” is very, very weird. The man who was Captain Kirk performed this song as a tribute to Bernie Taupin at the 1978 Saturn Awards ceremony, and audiences have wondered why ever since. …
Truthfully, even if you’re going in academically, it’s hard not to laugh at parts of Shatner’s cover. Whether it’s the overly-serious delivery when he proclaims he just doesn’t understand science at 2:30 or the arrival of Dancing Kirk at 3:18, sections of this song (if not the whole thing) are just hilarious. I can’t imagine a more appropriate first response than confused guffawing.
But, after all, that’s only a first response.
This is not to deny that Shatner’s cover isn’t funny, because it is. But I think it’s more than that. The key to understanding where Bill is coming from here is in how the song is staged—there’s three different Shatners singing, each with a different tone and cadence. Shatner #1 is calm and cool, smoking a cigarette and acting aloof, describing his space-faring job as he might any other profession. Shatner #2 speaks boldly, like he’s channeling the spirit of an adventurer about to conquer the great unknown, but sometimes there’s a crack in his voice or a downturn in his expression that indicates he may be feigning the enthusiasm. Shatner #3 is a dancing fool, totally jubilant about his job—he gets to hang out in outer space! It’s an interesting dissection of the multi-faceted feelings of this song’s narrator, bolstered by the fact that Starfleet Captain James T. Kirk is the one delivering the lines.
What makes Shatner’s “Rocket Man” so funny is its over-earnestness. It takes itself veryseriously. That’s also what makes it charming. In a way, it offers a handy prism through which to view the whole of Shatner’s career. It’s like that scene in Star Trek III where Klingon leader Kruge (played by Christopher Lloyd) murders Kirk’s son in cold blood. Shatner, standing taut on the bridge of his ship, stumbles back, falls into a slumped position on his captain’s chair, and utters (in the standard Shatner cadence) “You Klingon bastard…you killed my son. You Klingon bastard!” If you only look at that scene, it’s kind of funny and ridiculous, but if you’re caught up in the reality of the movie, I think it’s actually some pretty powerful acting. You rarely see a confident leader like Kirk so deflated. My point is that something can be both a little silly and an interesting performance piece, depending on how one wants to look at it.
I think Shatner’s “Rocket Man” is both of those things. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t have some fun with it, but if you can get past all that, there is actually something kind of interesting going on. On Has Been, his 2004 collaboration with Ben Folds, Shatner proved that he can make legitimately good music. Maybe that was apparent all along, if only we’d looked.
William Shatner’s “spoken-word” version of Rocket Man made an extraordinary impact; I can only describe it as unforgettable. Initially, Shatner appears sitting on a stool, taking drags from a cigarette. An orchestra plays the melody in the background, while Shatner recites the lyrics.
Shatner over-emphasizes the line “I’m gonna be high as a kite by then,” lest anyone miss the drug allusions in that phrase. Later, using “Chroma Key” video technology, we see three different versions of Shatner. They are intended to represent three different facets of the Rocket Man’s personality. So we get the cynical hipster smoking a cigarette; a second Shatner exhibiting concern and bewilderment; and a third “swinger” persona.
One has to admit, this is one of the great moments on live television. It has been relentlessly spoofed, presumably because of Shatner’s over-the-top reading. I believe this is somewhat unfair. Whether or not one is impressed by the piece, Shatner made a serious attempt to capture the essence of the Elton John-Bernie Taupin tune.
But Shatner’s performance seems to invite parody. Among other efforts, it has been lampooned by The Simpsons and by comedian Chris Elliot on Late Night with David Letterman.
Here we will show Seth McFarlane’s take-off on Shatner’s version of Rocket Man. In an episode of the TV show Family Guy, baby Stewie Griffin reprises this song, with the voice provided by McFarlane himself.
This is virtually a word-for-word re-creation of Shatner’s performance, even including three different incarnations of Stewie.
Although William Shatner became famous for his spoken-word pieces, he also became a laughing-stock. Shatner could have taken this as a slap in the face; however, he took the criticism in stride, and showed an endearing capacity to laugh at himself.
William Shatner has profited handsomely from his willingness to take a joke. He poked fun at his Capt. Kirk role in appearances on Saturday Night Live and subsequent spoofs in movies like Airplane II and National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon 1.
Shatner’s character Denny Crane on The Practice and later reprised on Boston Legal was sufficiently self-referential that it is sometimes hard to separate the TV character from the Shatner send-up. For several years now Shatner has been starring (and parodying himself) as the spokesman for Priceline.com.
William Shatner has shown that you can make a ton of money if you have the ability to laugh at yourself. Our hope for Mr. Shatner is that he “live long and prosper.”
The number one album today in 1960, “The Sound of Music” Broadway soundtrack, spent 16 weeks at number one:
Forbes, of all sources, writes about the vacant Bucks coaching position:
There could be as many as 10 coaching openings this coming off-season in the NBA, and one of the better ones became vacant on Monday when the Milwaukee Bucks fired Jason Kidd.
Despite having one of the game’s top young players in Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Bucks are among the NBA’s biggest underachievers this season. Through 45 games Kidd’s record was a disappointing 23-22, with the Bucks clinging to the eighth and final playoff spot in the East. Their dismal performances under Kidd as they lost seven of their last 11 games outweighed his once-close relationship with co-owner Marc Lasry.
According to industry sources, among the potential coaches Lasry and co-owner Wes Edens could look at to replace Kidd are former Memphis head coach Dave Fizdale; former Knicks and Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy; former New Orleans coach Monty Williams; former Louisville coach Rick Pitino; and current G-League minor-league coach Jerry Stackhouse, who is seen as a future coach in the NBA.
It might not be the plum job as advertised, even with Antetokounmpo’s potential as a future MVP candidate. All candidates will want to investigate who’s in command in terms of determining the roster, as the Bucks are known to have more than one chef in the kitchen. In addition, Lasry and Edens, who purchased the team for $550 million in April, 2014, are not always on the same page, sources told Forbes.com. Overall, the Bucks are not viewed as dysfunctional, like some other NBA franchises, but they have a reputation for not being in lock-step. It’s been apparent from their clumsy and protracted GM search of last June and the Kidd firing that they have not followed the Spurs’ model, although that’s one of professional sports’ top-run franchises, with Lasry telling me he closely studied the five-time champs’ inner workings and wanted to emulate them when running the Bucks. Whomever takes the job will likely want to know who’s calling the shots on personnel. In the meantime, Kidd’s interim replacement is his top assistant, Joe Prunty.
For his three-plus seasons coaching Milwaukee, Kidd had a major say in player moves. The Bucks made a bold trade early in the season to shore up their point guard position, acquiring Phoenix’s Eric Bledsoe after the Suns fired Earl Watson three games into the season. But even with Bledsoe they’ve been unable to compete with the top teams in either conference. Their record against Top 10 teams is 7-11, and it’s only 10-15 against teams headed for the playoffs.
This is another bad exit for Kidd. He landed in Milwaukee in 2015 after he tried and failed to unseat then-Brooklyn Nets GM Billy King by adding King’s personnel decision-making duties to his coaching job. With long-time friend Lasry in his corner, he guided the Bucks to two playoff seasons, including last spring when the team lost to the Toronto Raptors in the first round of the playoffs.
Expectations were high for this season — several experts felt the Bucks could finish in the top four in the East after acquiring Bledsoe — but the Bucks have been plagued by poor overall defense, a suspect interior and an offense that is one of the NBA’s worst in three-point makes and three-point accuracy. While he was a Hall of Famer as a player and the ultimate coach on the court, his coaching had also come under scrutiny after some bad losses. Plus, sources say, his relationship with Lasry soured.
Even with their problems, the Bucks, who will be moving into a new $524 million arena next season, have one major asset for prospective coaches: Antetokounmpo is a immensely talented 23-year-old who stands 6-11, moves like a guard, and is averaging nearly 30 points per game. Now viewed as a Top 10 player, he’s the kind of player a franchise can build around to make a run at a title. He’s already among the team’s all-time leaders in triple-doubles. Maybe the best news for the next coach: He’s signed for the next three seasons, as part of his four-year, $100-million contract he agreed to in 2016. Unlike many brand-consumed stars, he’s a rare bird: He likes playing in one of the NBA’s outposts.
The Ringer adds:
Jason Kidd simply ran out of time. On Monday, the Bucks head coach was fired, the latest casualty of the increased expectations surrounding the franchise. Giannis Antetokounmpo is now a legitimate superstar, but the rest of the team has not kept pace. There was a massive shake-up in their front office over the summer, and they traded for Eric Bledsoe in the first month of the season after a disastrous start. Things haven’t been much better since: Milwaukee is hanging onto the no. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference with a 23–22 record, a far cry from the leap the Bucks seemed poised to take after last season. Outside of a deadline trade that might soon come, the only other change they could make was firing their coach.
Milwaukee has been a one-man team this season. Giannis is leading the Bucks in per-game scoring (28.2), rebounds (10.1), and assists (4.6), and is second on the team in steals (1.5) and blocks (1.3). Their net rating plummets from plus-3.7 with him on the floor to minus-11.6 without him. The final straw came in a 116–94 loss to Philadelphia on Saturday, which Giannis sat out with a sore knee. The Bucks looked helpless, especially in the fourth quarter, when they were outscored by 18 points. Kidd could not come up with any answers.
It hasn’t been for lack of trying. Kidd made several changes to their starting lineup this season, and he has played 14 different players more than 100 minutes. He even dialed back the aggressive defensive schemes that have been his trademark as a head coach, both in Milwaukee and Brooklyn. Kidd loved to blitz pick-and-rolls and force offenses to execute under intense ball pressure, but there were diminishing returns to his unorthodox style. After finishing with the no. 2 defense in his first year as the Bucks head coach, they have not been ranked above no. 19 in the three years since.
Interim head coach Joe Prunty has to figure out some way to stabilize their defense. Milwaukee has the no. 25 defense in the NBA this season, and the underlying numbers suggest that something is fundamentally broken. The Bucks are no. 3 in opponent 3-point field goal percentage (38.1), no. 2 in the percentage of corner 3s (24.1) allowed, and no. 1 in the percentage of shots (32.5) at the rim allowed. Letting opposing teams take the most efficient shots on the floor is a recipe for disaster.
Milwaukee has the personnel to be at least respectable on that side of the ball. The Bucks are one of the longest and most athletic teams in the NBA, with John Henson at center, Giannis and Khris Middleton on the wings, and Bledsoe and Malcolm Brogdon in the backcourt. There aren’t many obvious weak spots for offenses to attack. The easiest solution might be a more conservative style of defense that discourages gambling and protects the rim and 3-point line at all costs. There’s no reason to have so many physically gifted players playing out of position when they should be able to keep their men in front of them.
Prunty has to figure out a new identity quickly. Jabari Parker is expected back from a torn ACL at some point in the next few weeks, and integrating him will require major changes. He’s an elite scorer who averaged 20.1 points on 49 percent shooting in 51 games last season, but he wasn’t much of a defensive player even before the injury. The worst-case scenario is what happened in Cleveland when Isaiah Thomas returned to the lineup. Adding a poor defender to an unstable defensive foundation can cause the whole thing to collapse.
Milwaukee might end up trading for a more traditional defensive anchor like DeAndre Jordan, as it has long been linked to the Clippers center. The problem is that that would probably mean moving future picks and promising young players like Brogdon and Thon Maker. It would be hard for a small-market franchise to give up players on cost-controlled contracts when its payroll is set to explode. Parker will be a restricted free agent this summer. Bledsoe will be a free agent after next season, and Middleton will likely waive his player option for the 2019–20 season and join him on the open market.
Bucks GM Jon Horst, who took over the job this summer, has a lot of big decisions to make. Giannis won’t be a free agent until after the 2020–21 season, but an NBA team lucky enough to have a player of his caliber is always on the clock. Keeping this group together will be incredibly expensive, and Horst needs a better idea of how good they can be before he commits. If he pays Bledsoe, Middleton, and Parker, he will not have any flexibility to build around Giannis going forward. The rest of the league will be watching what he does closely.
Few of the available head-coaching candidates will be willing to join a team midseason, so Prunty is probably safe for now. To have any chance of removing the interim tag, he would need to win at least one playoff series, if not two, which is possible considering how wide open the East is. If Prunty doesn’t keep the job, the obvious candidate is David Fizdale, who built deep relationships with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade as an assistant in Miami and modernized the Memphis offense before losing a power struggle with Marc Gasol. It will be a comprehensive search, and the Bucks will have their pick of candidates. The opportunity to coach a superstar like Giannis doesn’t come around often.
Kidd was hired in 2014 to shepherd a young team along, and both Giannis and Parker blossomed under his direction. However, there is a big difference between developing individual players and maximizing a roster. Firing a coach can be the next step in the growth process of a franchise. The Bulls fired Doug Collins before they hired Phil Jackson. The Warriors fired Mark Jackson before they hired Steve Kerr. Of course, getting rid of the last guy is the easy part. Who the Bucks hire now is the most important decision the franchise has made since it drafted Giannis. Milwaukee doesn’t have much time to get this right.
The Sporting News provides this list:
Sam Cassell
Cassell has plenty of NBA experience as both a player and coach. He played for eight teams over the course of his career, including the Bucks, and he has served as an assistant coach with the Wizards and Clippers. Cassell has shown the ability to relate and connect with his players. For example, he played an instrumental role in getting Paul Pierce to sign with the Wizards during his time in Washington. Don’t be surprised if Milwaukee’s front office gives him a call.
David Fizdale
After being fired by the Grizzlies earlier this season, Fizdale is an obvious choice. He carried the “Grit’N’Grind” style of the old Grizzlies forward and helped push them toward the future with changes to their offensive style. There might be some hesitation with Fizdale given how his relationship with star center Marc Gasol went south, as the Bucks don’t want to give Giannis Antetokounmpo any reason to think about leaving down the road. But Fizdale also has plenty of big-name guys in his corner, so this could be a nice fit.
Tony Bennett
Is Bennett finally ready to make the jump from college to pro? Virginia is once again near the top of the college polls, and Bennett’s stock may never be higher with multiple NBA teams making changes this season. He also has a Wisconsin connection — Bennett played at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay for his father, Dick, who championed the pack-line defense. Let’s see if he wants to go home.
Mark Jackson
Look, joke about Jackson’s tenure with the Warriors all you want and how he seems to sneak in those little comments when he’s broadcasting a Golden State game for ESPN. But he did help establish a new winning culture for the Warriors and lay the groundwork for Steve Kerr to build upon (Kerr has given Jackson credit specifically for the strength of the defense). He might be ready to take off the headset and return to the sidelines.
Monty Williams
As the head coach in New Orleans, Williams finished 173-221 overall with the Hornets/Pelicans, making two playoff appearances, including a first-round exit in 2015 to the eventual champion Warriors. Williams then joined the Thunder staff but left the bench in the middle of the season after the tragic death of his wife, Ingrid. He has since served as the vice president of basketball operations for the Spurs, but early reports already indicate he could be a frontrunner for the Bucks job.
Jerry Stackhouse
“Stack” spent 19 seasons as a player in the NBA, and he has made a name for himself as a coach in a hurry. The 43-year-old is the head coach of the Raptors 905, the NBA G-League affiliate of the Raptors, and it’s not an opportunity he takes lightly.
“Anybody that knows me knows that I’ve got a lot of pride and I’m confident in what I do,” Stackhouse told NBA.com last year. “This is what I do. This isn’t a fluke. I’ve been working at this thing for a while. A lot of people just see it now.”
While Stackhouse is a bit behind the curve compared to other candidates, he brings undeniable energy and a desire to improve each day.
Adrian Griffin
Following nearly a decade as a player, Griffin has served as an assistant coach in Milwaukee, Chicago, Orlando and currently Oklahoma City. He has a habit of building relationships with those around him. He’s a guy who has made an impact at every stop but doesn’t need to take credit for individual or team success. Griffin is also a defensive-minded coach, having spent time under Tom Thibodeau with the Bulls, and that’s absolutely something the Bucks could use, as they own the sixth-worst defensive rating in the NBA.
Jim Boylen
Boylen has been coaching for more than three decades now, starting back in 1987 as an assistant with Michigan State and currently serving as the associate head coach for the Bulls. Boylen knows what it takes to win, having been part of title teams with both the Rockets in 1994 and 1995 and the Spurs in 2014. The young Bucks could use some championship experience.
Rex Kalamian
Another coach with plenty of years under his belt, Kalamian has been on the Raptors’ staff since 2015 under head coach Dwane Casey. Kalamian focuses primarily on Toronto’s defense, and to his credit, the Raptors hold the sixth-best defensive rating in the league. Casey has relied on Kalamian and the rest of his assistants throughout the season, and with the Raptors second in the East behind only the Celtics, Kalamian’s resume is looking pretty good.
Desmond Mason
Longshot alert! Mason enjoyed the highest-scoring season of his NBA career with the Bucks in 2004-05 (17.2 points per game) and became known for his high-flying throwdowns above the rim. The former Oklahoma State star expressed interest in coaching the Cowboys in 2016 and even created a checklist for the program. What would his master plan for the Bucks look like?
When you compare Mason to the rest of the candidates, though, he isn’t nearly as appealing. Still fun to imagine!
My own preference in such matters is to find someone from a premier organization, as when the Packers hired Mike Holmgren from the 49ers, Wisconsin hired Barry Alvarez from Notre Dame (after Iowa). The NBA’s premier organization is the San Antonio Spurs. Anyone available there?
Jonathan Allen leaves no doubt as to which party won Shutdown I:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell doesn’t smile much.
But as the Kentucky Republican sat in his chair on the Senate floor Monday, listening to Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announce that Democrats would vote to reopen the federal government, his lips spread into a nearly ear-to-ear grin.
He looked like the cat that had just swallowed the Democratic Party.
What McConnell knew — and what infuriated Democratic activists across the country were just finding out — was that Schumer’s strategy of shutting down the government to force President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans into locking in an immigration deal had failed in epic fashion.
Not only did Schumer come up short of getting a deal to prevent the deportation of “Dreamers” — people brought to this country illegally when they were children — but he divided a Democratic Party that had previously been unified. And he let Trump and McConnell walk away from it all as the clear winners on politics, policy and strategy.
The move immediately drew the wrath of immigrant-rights activists and the party’s left wing.
“It’s official: Chuck Schumer is the worst negotiator in Washington — even worse than Trump,” said Murshed Zaheed, political director of the liberal group CREDO. “In getting outmaneuvered by Sen. McConnell today, Chuck Schumer has failed dreamers and let the entire Democratic Party down.”
After a two-and-a-half day shutdown, all Democrats got was an olive branch that more closely resembled a fig leaf: McConnell agreed to extend government funding for only three weeks, not four, and said it is his intention to bring an immigration bill to the floor if a deal can’t be struck before then.
While centrist Democrats were thrilled to end what they saw as an ill-conceived confrontation, liberal Democratic activists’ reactions spanned the spectrum from deflated to furious as the bill moved through Congress Monday afternoon.
“It’s a debacle,” said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., one of the leading immigrant-rights advocates, when informed of the Senate’s 81-18 vote to move ahead on a stopgap bill to extend government funding without an agreement on Dreamers. “I’m just saddened by it all.”
Charles Chamberlain, executive director of the liberal group Democracy for America, said Democrats can’t expect to win elections if they back down from a fight every time they take a punch.
“Today’s cave by some Senate Democrats was not only a stunning display of moral and political cowardice, it was a strategically incoherent move that demonstrates precisely why so many believe the Democratic Party doesn’t stand for anything,” Chamberlain said. “If you want to know why we lost in 2016 and why a Democratic wave in 2018 is far from guaranteed, despite the deep level of disgust for Donald Trump, look no further than this weak and profoundly disappointing cave from Senate Democrats.”
And many Democrats said they couldn’t trust McConnell’s vague promise to bring up a fix for the Dreamers before a March deadline.
“He did not make a commitment,” said Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., one of several prospective Democratic presidential candidates who voted against re-opening the government.
For some Democrats and most Republicans, a denouement of Democratic defeat was predictable. Still, few leaders have executed the rare double-buckle as quickly or fully as Schumer.
First, the activist wing of the party pushed Schumer to hold government funding hostage to an immigration deal. He bowed to their demands, leading most Democrats to vote against a stopgap spending bill on Friday night.
But once they’d gone over the cliff — voting to shut down the government — many members of his own caucus, including Democrats who are running for re-election this year in states Trump won, started pushing Schumer to back down. They worried about the backlash from voters who care more about their government operating than the fate of the Dreamers. Under duress from that set of senators, Schumer folded again.
“It was pretty evident by Saturday that a bunch of his members were getting nervous, and that as much as he tried to keep them together, they were looking for an out,” said Jim Manley, a former Democratic leadership aide. “The 2018 elections are still going to be a referendum on Trump — and none of this shutdown stuff is going to change that. Democrats live to fight another day.”
And if there’s no deal for the Dreamers and McConnell isn’t ready to bring up an immigration bill in the Senate by Feb. 8, Democrats could reprise their shutdown strategy at that time.
But former McConnell chief of staff Josh Holmes said Schumer, the rookie Democratic leader, miscalculated against his veteran GOP counterpart.
“They were dealing with someone who has seen this movie before and knew how it was going to play out,” he said.
Some Democratic strategists said Schumer got enough to justify re-opening the government.
“The best strategy was and is to resolve [the Dreamer issue] without the added jumble of other nonimmigration political and policy issues,” said Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis. “Getting a commitment from McConnell to do that is a victory for Schumer. Now, the question is, what happens if the Republicans and Trump don’t live up to that bargain and it all breaks down again?”
But Rebecca Katz, a former Senate Democratic leadership aide, saw weakness from her party’s leaders.
“Imagine what Democrats could accomplish if they had a backbone,” she said.
It should be obvious that Schumer’s cave-in was the result of Democrats’ figuring out that they weren’t the winners of the shutdown.
American Consequences is less than impressed:
The government is back to work after three days of Senate partisan bickering.
Of course, late last night the Senate passed a measure to pay federal workers for the time they were furloughed… and for any additional 2018 government shutdowns.
Mark your calendar.
The next government shutdown fight is two and a half weeks away – February 8.
After that, we suspect we’ll have a made-up, full-on handwringing crisis over the debt ceiling in March from folks who care far more about scoring political points than they do about the more than $20 trillion debt our nation is in.
And we can’t wait to see what April brings.
But think about your weekend… Did you notice the absence of government? Did the power shut off or the water quit running? Did TV news shows grow quieter or Facebook rants less shrill?
We suspect both parties will eventually come together and spend, spend, spend. They can’t help it. It’s what they do…
Investors don’t seem to care. Government dysfunction is “normal” now. And the S&P 500 index has rallied nearly 6%… one of the best January performances in recent history.
In fact, the market has risen so quickly, that the S&P 500 has already beaten many of Wall Street analyst estimates for the entire year.
Obviously a lot can happen before November. But at this point Democrats’ best hope probably is that voters won’t remember and therefore care about government shutdowns.
The number one British single today in 1958 was the first in British chart history to start at the top:
Today in 1969, New Jersey authorities told record stores they would be charged with pornography if they sold the John Lennon and Yoko Ono album “Two Virgins,” whose cover showed all you could possibly see of John and Yoko.
The number one album today in 1976 was Bob Dylan’s “Desire”:
The number one single today in 1976:
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 