“The Patient” a gripping new series on Hulu that has Steve Carell doing outstanding work. A super-crazy ad for a business in Nevada. And I’ve caught a little World Cup fever! Team USA beats Iran, saves Western civilization.

I don’t usually watch psychological thrillers, but when I heard that the brains behind one of my all-time favorite shows “The Americans,” Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg, had created a new program, I knew I had to give it a shot. “The Americans” was so extraordinary that anyone who made that deserves to have their next project seen.

And I’m really glad I did, because “The Patient,” which debuted on Hulu in September, is fantastic. The wife and I are halfway through the 10-episode season, and each half-hour ep has been better than the last.

The premise sounds a little nuts: Steve Carell is Alan Strauss, a therapist who’s written a best-selling book and seems to have a good life. Until we learn he’s recently widowed, and estranged from one of his two kids, his son Ezra.

Strauss takes on a new patient named Gene during the first episode, and after a few months of fruitless sessions, Alan tells Gene he needs to be more open and honest for therapy to work.

Gene responds by kidnapping Alan, chaining him to a bed in Gene’s basement, and oh yeah by the way, revealing his name is actually Sam and he’s a serial killer who needs Alan to help him stop having urges to kill people.

Don’t worry, all that happens in the first 15 minutes of the opening episode, I’m not spoiling much.

From there, the show takes us inside Sam’s brain, and Alan’s, as he tries to explain how terrible of an idea this is to Sam, and then gets resigned to his fate.
Carell is a really, really good dramatic actor (I loved him in “The Big Short” and “Foxcatcher”) and he’s so, so good here. Despite being chained to a five-foot area of the room, we see him go through many emotions, from despair, to hope, to a devastating event in episode five which I won’t give away, to just trying to figure out the best way to help this guy.

Sam, played by Domnhall Gleeson, is also great, as we think we see Sam make some progress and rationalize his behavior. The show has some other actors but really it’s these two trying to help Sam conquer his demons, with varying results.

We can’t wait to watch the last few episodes, but I definitely based off the first five recommend this show highly. It’s gripping and fantastic television.

**Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the craziest ad I’ve seen in many a year. This was from 2011, and it’s gone viral a few times, and it’s for a place called Roller Kingdom in Reno, Nev., and I swear you won’t be able to watch it just once.

I can’t even tell you my favorite part, because it’s all so freaking glorious. Just… wow.

**Finally, I know less about soccer than most but I do get into the World Cup every four years, and since it’s been eight years since good ole’ Team USA has been in it, me and millions of other American soccer fans had a lot of pent-up energy heading into this World Cup.

As you may or may not know, Team USA entered Tuesday’s match with Iran needing a win, or else we were going home from Qatar after the opening round. We had tied Wales, which wasn’t such a good result, and tied England, which WAS a good result, but we had to get a win against Iran, who of course hates our bloody guts and everything we stand for.

Before the game I found myself wondering just how much awesomeness awaited the Iranian players if they managed to beat America in an international sporting event. Can you imagine the lavish riches and cars and Allah knows what else the Iranian soccer team would receive if they beat the U.S.? Those guys would’ve been ultimate heroes for life!

But happily, we’ll never know, because America won, baby! I have to say I found the game very exciting; when Christian Pulisic, our best scorer, scored a beautiful goal in the first half, me and Nate cheered loudly.

In the second half, while my little guy was at taekwondo class, kicking and punching his little heart out, I watched on my phone as the U.S. repelled one Iranian attack after another. My heart was beating fast in my chest and I even started pacing. It was a little like watching Stanley Cup playoff hockey overtime, I told a friend.

Finally, the whistles blew and it was over. It has been a pretty great three games for the U.S., and now we get to the knockout stage against Holland Saturday at 10 a.m., and boy that’s going to be rough but at least we made it out of group play.

International soccer, country vs. country, is fun!

Another nutso week in the NFL, as Mike White leads the Jets to a great win, the Bengals and Chargers score major victories, and the bubble is bursting for Seattle and the Giants. A place in Montana where bears tests products is fascinating. And I take my youngest to his first Rangers game: It went well, except for the game.

Alright look, I’m not going to get TOO excited after new Jets quarterback Mike White, replacing the woefully ineffective and tone-deaf franchise QB Zach Wilson, came out on Sunday and obliterated the Chicago Bears, throwing for three touchdowns and 315 yards.

The Bears are awful, they were playing their backup quarterback, had a ton of injuries… I get it, I get it. But come on people, the Jets looked like a TOTALLY different team on Sunday!

Mike White got rid of the ball fast! And he hit open receivers! And he moved around the pocket and threw the ball away a few times when nothing was open. And the team played with fire, and joy, and did I mention the part about him hitting open receivers? That’s all the Jets need a QB to do these days. I’m not looking for Joe Montana or Tom Brady or Johnny Unitas-level throwing here; just make the throws an NFL QB is supposed to make, don’t do anything stupid, and let the defense take over.

Which is what the Jets and Mike White did on Sunday in a 31-10 win. It was such a lovely afternoon of football watching in a season that has been unexpectedly mostly joyous, and the Jets are now 7-4, and I found myself in the local sports pub avidly watching other games as well Sunday, not, for the usual reason of recent seasons, that the Jets are so terrible I need to watch good teams, but for the reason of keeping tabs on other playoff contenders in the AFC, and hoping they’d lose so the Jets would have a better shot at making it. (Thanks for nothing, Bengals and Chargers. I was hoping both of you would go down in flames).

The Jets are about to play meaningful games in December for the first time since Obama was President, and that’s one hell of a thing to us long-suffering fans.

A few other thoughts on a wild football weekend, which started with the Turkey Day games:

— Two of the feel-good stories this year have been the Giants and the Seahawks, but I think the bubble has just about burst for both of them. The Giants have a ton of injuries and lost to the Cowboys, and they’re 7-4 now and sliding downward. I’m not sure they’re going to even make the playoffs.
And Seattle, well, Geno Smith has been a wonderful comeback story but the Seahawks have now lost two in a row, including Sunday in OT to the dreadful Raiders, and they’re 6-5 and their defense got shredded and even in a weak division, they’re gonna have a hard time making the playoffs.

— Fantastic win by the Chargers Sunday, which maybe saved their season, with Justin Herbert throwing a TD pass and then a go-ahead two-point conversion in the final seconds to beat Arizona.
Jacksonville, too, scored a game-winning TD and went for two and made it to take the lead, in beating the Ravens. It’s amazing to me how NFL coaches have become so much more bold in the last 10 years; in both these cases, the Chargers and Jaguars would’ve lost if the 2-point try wasn’t successful; 10 years ago 99.9 percent of coaches would’ve kicked the extra point, tied the game, and gone to overtime.

I don’t necessarily agree that these coaches Sunday made the right move; it seems reckless to me when a PAT is pretty automatic. But it’s fascinating how much the philosophy has changed.

— Joe Burrow is pretty good. Without his best weapons, against a terrific Tennessee team, he led the Bengals to a big, needed win, and now they’re 7-4 and tied for the division lead and if they get healthy, I could totally see them getting back to the Super Bowl.

— Also the Washington Commanders have two more wins then Tom Brady and the Bucs do as we head into December, and that I did not see coming.

**Next up today, this was a fascinating video my Dad sent me a while back that I kept forgetting to post. Up in Montana there’s an area where bears test home products to see if they’re strong enough to resist a bear attack.

At the Bear and Wolf Discovery Center in Montana (who wouldn’t want to visit a place with that name??) uses large grizzlies to test bear-resistant products. If the bears are unable to break into a cooler or trashcan in one hour, they get the grizzly seal of approval. If not, the bears get a much deserved lunch break.

I was amazed that this goes on.

**Finally today, a milestone in the life of my 5-year-old, Theo, came Saturday when we took him to his first live Rangers game Saturday.
As happens with most second kids, he’s starting these kinds of things earlier than my 8-year-old Nate did; Nate didn’t go to his first game until last year, when he was 7. Theo’s not that into hockey yet, but he loves a good live show, thinks it’s funny the Rangers have a player called “Bread Man” in Artemi Panarin, and enjoys all the singing that goes on when the Rangers score.

So we took him to one of the only afternoon Rangers home games this season, and he mostly enjoyed it. I think the whole scene was a little overwhelming to him, with 18,000 people in the crowd, lots of noise, etc.

But he ate his pizza and popcorn and sat on his mother’s lap a few times and just kind of looked around at the whole spectacle. He didn’t complain about the noise during the “Goal!” song singing, and he was a trooper about the whole day. I think he had a good time. We also got to meet 1994 Rangers star Glenn Anderson, and take a picture with him, so that was fun.

The rest of us, well, the Rangers were leading the Oilers 3-0 in the third period, we were happy and relaxed, and then the Oilers scored four freaking goals in the final 20 minutes to stun us and the Rangers.

We were mad. But Theo, who I don’t think will end up being as big a sports fan as Nate is, had a good first experience at a Rangers game, and that was all that mattered.

Oh, and he got a new Rangers teddy bear, his favorite part of the day.

Good News Friday: An amazing “America’s Got Talent” act from a pole-dancing Australian. A man in need of a kidney donation gets a fantastic surprise. And history is made, as a woman makes a Division I men’s college baseball team

Hello world! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We hosted as usual this year at Casa Lewis. Turkey was ingested, sweet potato pie with marshmallows continues to be the most underrated holiday food ever (it’s sinfully good), and there were more desserts than at your local bar mitzvah.

I’m amazed and proud of myself that as I sit here typing this at 10:45 p.m. Eastern I am NOT suffering from heartburn. I used to take pride in completely overeating on Thanksgiving, but alas, I’m an old feller now and can’t do that anymore. Restraint is a good thing, apparently.

OK, so Good News Friday time. We start with a pretty fantastic “America’s Got Talent” performer that I missed, I say this all the time but I really gotta start watching this show regularly.

This past season featured an incredible Australian dance performer named Kristy Sellars, who is a pole dancer but an interactive one, and I can’t really explain that much more. You just have to watch. Sellars got to the Finals, and you can watch her amazing Finals performance here, but I wanted to post her audition one because I think it’s the coolest.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV2n450E5SM

What a sensational, creative performer she is.

**Next up today, I have a soft spot for ANY story that involves a kidney donation, because as a person born with only one kidney, I know that it’s highly possible I’ll need a kidney donation one day.

This clip, from the always-heartwarming Good News Correspondent, involves the athletic director of McIntosh High School, Leon Hammond, and a stranger named Alan Reeves, and well, just watch.

So beautiful. Here’s more on the story if you’re curious.

**And finally today, I always love a good piece of gender-busting history in the sports world, and this one definitely fits the bill.

Meet Olivia Pichardo, an 18-year-old Rhode Island girl who just became the first woman to make the roster of a Division I baseball team.

“It’s kind of crazy to know that I’m living out my dream right now and my ideal college experience that I’ve always wanted, so that’s really cool,” Pichardo said in a media release. She said being named to the team is surreal, as it has been her goal since eighth grade to continue playing baseball in college.

Pichardo walked on to Brown’s team following tryouts and a grueling assessment process – during which she immediately impressed the head coach, demonstrating her abilities as an infielder, outfielder and pitcher.

Such a great story. I hope she hits lots of home runs and kicks butt this spring.

Want to hug a turkey before Thanksgiving? In California, you can! My annual tribute to the “Cheers” Thanksgiving food fight. And “Planes, Trains and Automobiles is the perfect Thanksgiving movie.

It’s Thanksgiving Eve, a wonderful day when millions of us are stuck in traffic, either at the airport or on the highways, or those of us fortunate to be hosting family are busying cleaning, straightening up and opening up those long tables we only use when company comes over (which at my house, is a lot. We love hosting!)

The star of Thanksgiving, of course, besides NFL football players, is the turkey we all eat for our main meal. Maybe you don’t think too much about our fine feathered friend, or maybe you have some guilt about how many of its friends are being enjoyed on this day.

Well, an animal sanctuary in California has come up with a great way to assauge your guilt this year: They’re letting you hug a turkey!

Seriously, this is a thing now. The Gentle Barn animal sanctuary in Santa Clarita, Calif, near L.A., offers visitors the chance to cuddle turkeys.

“A lot of people don’t expect such sweetness from a turkey,” Ellie Laks, owner, told The Washington Post. She’s been doing this for many years, calling it “Gentle Thanksgiving” where people can come and hug these animals we enjoy so much this time of year (enjoy putting them in the oven, that is).

“I wanted guests to walk away knowing they were sweet and kind creatures,” she said of the turkeys.

I love it. Good for you, Ellie Laks. Turkeys have feelings too.

 

**Next up, maybe my favorite thing I do on this blog every year: Remind you all of the great “Cheers” Thanksgiving food fight, truly one of the funniest scenes in television history.

In an added bonus this year, I showed this scene to my 8-year-old and 5-year-old this week and they laughed uproariously, and we’ve watched it every night after dinner for four nights running now.

My genes are in there somewhere… I love this scene so much. This year I remembered how much I loved Cliff’s line after the group is warned not to bite each other’s heads off.

**And finally today, I plan to watch “Planes, Trains and Automobiles at some point in the next 24 hours, because it’s my favorite comedy ever, in my mind maybe the funniest movie ever, and it brings me such joy to watch it.

Yes, it’s a Thanksgiving movie, but it’s so much more. It has heart and love and adventure and it’s just the best.

Wishing you and your favorite shower curtain ring salesman a very happy Thanksgiving this year.

Saturday’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony on HBO was an awesome display of 1980s nostalgia (which is in my veins). A reading lesson with a 5-year-old reminds of a classic Gallagher routine. And in the NFL, a disgusting Jets loss, here come the Lions, and the Cowboys make a statement.

If you took a scalpel and cut me open (please don’t, by the way) you’d find me comprised of mostly blood but a whole heaping of 1980s music nostalgia.

As I am consistently mocked for by my close friends, I believe the greatest music ever made came from my childhood, and that all music since has paled in comparison. I guess many of us feel like the music we loved when were were adolescents was the greatest, but see in my case it happens to be TRUE.

The 1980s gave us so much goodness, so much rich sound, so many iconic artists and bands, that I am forever grateful to have grown up in that era.

I tell you this because the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony show was on HBO Saturday night, and while me and the missus watch it every year, this year I was particularly looking forward to it, because there was SO much 80s goodness being honored.

Pat Benatar, in a LONG overdue enshrinement. Duran Duran. Carly Simon. Eurythmics. Lionel Richie.

I mean, it was like one of those infomercials for “1980s greatest hits!” that would air at 1:30 a.m. on the weekends after “SNL” that I would watch and feel good about.

We watched the whole show over the last two nights, and it was wonderful. Some thoughts…

— Gotta start with Ms. Patricia Benetar, whose oversight in not getting in for the past 15 years is as egregious an oversight as any Hall of Fame has ever made. The woman was/is a rock icon, with dozens of hits, a trailblazer of female solo artists who kicked ass and jump-started the MTV revolution. It was truly mind-boggling, the fact that she hadn’t gotten in yet, so seeing her and husband/co-writer Neil Giraldo finally get their due was beautiful.

She didn’t perform my favorite one of her songs, “All Fired Up” at the ceremony, but she did two of her hits and kicked some ass. So happy for her.

— Duran Duran was highly influential in my childhood, to the point that “Hungry Like the Wolf” was one of the first records I remember my sister buying and me borrowing/stealing (she had a big crush one of the Taylors, either John or Andy. Or maybe it was Simon Le Bon.). For a very short time, they were an enormous rock band, and even in their early 60s, they still sounded good Saturday night.

— Lionel Richie is one of those musical geniuses who has so many songs that you know, and many more he sings that you forgot about, and I learned during the ceremony that he wrote “Lady,” which Kenny Rogers made hugely famous. Don’t ever say you didn’t learn anything here at Wide World of Stuff.

— The choice of presenters to induct the Hall of Famers at these things always strikes me as odd. Lenny Kravitz inducting Lionel Richie? OK. The Edge from U2 inducting Eurythmics? Not sure I get that. And Pink, who I love more than anyone, inducting Dolly Parton? I don’t get it but I loved it.

— So we usually fast-forward through the inductions and tributes of the lesser-known figures, but John Mellencamp, honoring famed music attorney Allen Grubman, was sensational in taking on anti-Semitism, and offered a passionate defense of Jewish people. Not something I was expecting! But it was fantastic.

“Allen is Jewish,” he began. “I’m an artist, and a gentile, whose life has been enriched, greatly by my friendship and association with countless Jewish people. I cannot tell you how fucking important it is to speak out, if you’re an artist, against anti-Semitism.”

You go, Johnny Cougar!

— Actual comment from my wife: “Dave Grohl and Pink are sitting at the same table, and I’m not sure which one I’m more jealous of.”
See this is why we’re married, because I feel the exact same way.

— Eminem was inducted, as was Dolly Parton, both of whom are legends but neither of whom actually fits the definition of “Rock and Roll,” and once again I wonder if they should just change the name of the place to the “Music Hall of Fame” because so many genres besides rock and roll are represented there.

But hey, nobody asked me about it.

— Finally, Bruce Springsteen seems to be the Forrest Gump of music, in that he had an association or something to say about every single inductee. Bruce is the greatest, and I can’t wait to see his two-hour Howard Stern interview special on HBO on Nov. 27

 

**Next up today, it’s funny how a simple homework lesson with a kindergartener can bring back a wonderful memory of a classic comedy routine.

So me and Theo were doing his homework the other day, reading his sight words, and we came to “on.” He was was struggling with it a little, and was starting to pronounce the first syllable like “wa.” I explained that that was correct with the word “one,” and I then struggled to explain why “on” sounded one way, but add one simple letter to that word and the whole pronunciation changed.

Which made me think, happily, about this sensational and hilarious old routine from the comedian Gallagher, where he discussed the 38 ways that the English language makes no sense.

Imagine coming to this country and learning this and finding out none of the rules make sense! So damn funny. I miss Gallagher.

**Finally, in the NFL Sunday, we saw more shockers, and more of what we knew would happen. The Jets broke my heart, again, and I’d write more about their 10-3 last-second loss to the Patriots on a freaking punt return, the Jets’ absolutely pathetic, disgusting, despicable offensive effort, but if I wrote any more the bile that’s currently rising in my throat would cause me to vomit and I really would rather not do that at this hour.

Needless to say, I was pissed.

In other news …

— Break up the Detroit Lions! America’s Team! The woebegone Leos won their third straight game, their most impressive performance of the season, thrashing the 7-2 New York Giants 31-18 in New Jersey. Every year the early Thanksgiving game seems to be a dud, because Detroit is always terrible. But Jared Goff and the offense is humming, the defense is making big plays, and Detroit is 4-6 and playing the Bills on Thursday. Might actually be a good game!

— Stop me if you’ve heard this before: The Chargers blew a late lead and lost. Seems to happen every year to them, several times a year, no matter how good Justin Herbert seems to be. Much like the Jets and Patriots (14 straight wins for N.E. over my boys, if you’re counting!), the Chiefs always seem to come up with the big play when it’s needed, and did Sunday night in their electrifying comeback win in the final minute.

This is a hot take, but Patrick Mahomes is good at football.

— Most shocking score of the day was Cowboys 40, Vikings 3. I thought Minny might have a letdown after their stirring win at Buffalo last week, but wow, losing by 37??? Nuts. Dallas ran all over them and completely shut down the Vikings offense. The NFC East is for real, hell, even the Commanders look strong, going over .500 on Sunday.

— Finally, I have no idea who’ll win the Super Bowl but these playoffs are shaping up to be great. So many solid teams but no great one, which means lots of close, exciting games in January.

 

 

Good News Friday: The great Dick Vitale is back on ESPN, after so much sickness. Another college athlete using his NIL money for a very good cause. And kids being nice to a boy with Down’s Syndrome, because kids are nice.

Happy Friday, y’all! Thanksgiving is just around the corner, my beloved Twitter may be dying a very fast death which makes me quite sad (“Hey Elon Musk, there wasn’t anything BETTER you could’ve done with $44 billion? You’re killing my clubhouse, man!), and it suddenly became winter here in the last few days. This isn’t technically part of Good News Friday, but I got great joy out of the New York Post, the morning after Donald Trump announced he’s running for President again (God help us), heralding the news with a tiny headline on the bottom of the front page Wednesday that said “Florida Man Makes Announcement, Page 26”

Absolutely brutal. And awesome.

OK, let’s get on with the show. As you know, I’m a college basketball diehard, and the last week has brought the start of the new season, and Tuesday brought a return to television that almost brought tears to my eyes. The great Dick Vitale, who has been announcing games on ESPN for 40-plus years, and has had an unfathomable amount of health problems, returned to the airwaves.
A quick recap of what this man has been through since August, 2021:

He has undergone:  A melanoma diagnosis.  Multiple surgeries. A Lymphoma diagnosis. Was forced to go weeks without speaking. And months of chemotherapy.

And Tuesday night, after being declared cancer-free, Dick Vitale was back on air. Here’s his first minute of his return, I can’t believe that old softie didn’t cry. Dickie V, we love you, we’ve missed you, and we’re so glad you’re back. He is, by all accounts, a truly wonderful man, and the world is better when he’s on the air talking hoops.

"Watching some kind boys befriend and include your son with Down Syndrome who is scared to jump on trampoline."
(🎥:uppingthedownsgame)

pic.twitter.com/ODdUpFTPPe

— GoodNewsCorrespondent (@GoodNewsCorres1) November 13, 2022

**Next up, a beautiful video from Good News Correspondent on a boy with Down’s Syndrome, being included in a game despite being afraid to jump on the trampoline the other kids are playing on.

Kids are just nice to other kids sometimes, man. They don’t have nearly the baggage we grownups do. This was kinda beautiful.

**Finally today, this is another story of a college athlete using the new rules regarding getting paid for Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) rights for something truly wonderful.

Mady Sissoko is a player on the Michigan State basketball team, a squad that just defeated Kentucky on Tuesday night. Sissoko is from Mali, which is littered with poor people.

According to this story from my friend Adam Zagoria on Forbes.com, Sissoko, the youngest of 10 children in a family that hand-plowed corn fields in a village 12 hours from the capitol of Bamako, had a notebook and pencils to take notes in class, but many of his friends and classmates did not own those, either. He also walked to school barefoot because his family couldn’t afford shoes.

Sissoko, who came to America seven years ago, is a success story from his country, and he has signed with Detroit-based Helium Sports & Entertaining Marketing Inc. for his Name, Image & Likeness representation, and plans to donate all of his marketing revenue to The Mady Sissoko Foundation to help the impoverished people in Mali have more opportunities.

“I moved here when I was 15 and I know what it was like back home, and now Mali is a really poor country and there’s a lot of people there who need help,” Sissoko said.

“I have an opportunity to help many people over there and I want to do that, so having this NIL stuff gives me an opportunity to do that. I want to do something to help people, especially the youth, so they can have a better opportunity going forward in life.”

Outstanding stuff by Sissoko, and I expect we’ll see more of this in the future.

Qatar is hosting the World Cup next week, and it is 17 levels of wrong. Coach Beard from “Ted Lasso” does a Gaga classic and it’s fantastic. And an absolutely-brilliant criminal scheme from a prisoner in Georgia has my admiration

So maybe you’ve heard there’s a pretty major sporting event happening next week.

The World Cup, the crown jewel of soccer, the most-watched sporting event around the world besides the Olympics, is happening again. It’s OK if you were unaware of it, we’re Americans, soccer isn’t our thing. Hey, at least the U.S. men qualified this time!

The tournament is being played in Qatar, a tiny little nation in the Middle East, which has absolutely no business hosting a tiddlywinks match, much less the World Cup.

Anyway, let me tell you a little about the insanity of Qatar hosting. First of all, and this will come as no surprise, the only reason they got the event is thru bribery. Millions, billions of dollars of bribery to FIFA (soccer’s world governing body) by the oil sheiks and “royalty” who run Qatar gave this tiny nation the deal.

The fact that’s 120 degrees and up there, and that the tournament had to be moved to late November, with games being played at night because it’s so damned hot, is another factor.

Then there’s the fact that there are NO stadiums of any kind there so seven of them had to be built. Who built them, you ask?  Slave laborers from other countries were brought in, forced to work and live in inhuman conditions, and at least 6,000 of them have died.

Read this for more on that.

Then there’s Qatar’s government policies on homosexuality, public drunkenness, unmarried cohabitation and insulting the Qatari royal family” All are varying levels of illegal. It doesn’t end there, either.

I could go on and on, but this has been a disaster ever since Qatar was given the World Cup, as disgusting a sporting reward for a country that has existed.

But you won’t hear anything about Qatar from FOX or whoever else shows you World Cup highlights, that I’m sure of.

But hey, enjoy the soccer, everyone.

 

Hips don’t lie. #TedLasso #GiveSteps pic.twitter.com/AoLGf5lY2A

— Richmond Til We Die: A Ted Lasso Podcast (@tedlassopod) November 13, 2022

**Next up today, sticking kinda-sorta with the soccer theme, this video Rex Chapman  shared on Twitter had me smiling from ear to ear. At a charity fundraiser recently for Moving Amputees, which raises money for prosthetics and orthotics care, actor Brendan Hunt, better known as Coach Beard on “Ted Lasso” performed a crazy-fun rendition of “Bad Romance” by the great Lady GaGa.

Check out the energy here! Ignore the voice and feel the energy! And his Hula Hoop game is on point, he does that for a full minute.

**Finally today, this story I first heard about on “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” was amazing. I know we’re not supposed to admire or give props to criminals, but this inmate in Georgia deserves huge respect for being able to pull this off.

Meet Arthur Lee Cofield, currently serving a 14-year sentence for armed robbery. Cofield got a contraband cell phone in 2020 and check out what he did with it. From the NYT:

“From the prison in Butts County, about 45 miles south of Atlanta, Mr. Cofield called the Charles Schwab Corporation in June 2020 and impersonated a billionaire named S.K., who was later identified as Sidney Kimmel, according to a federal indictment.

Mr. Cofield spoke with a company representative about opening a checking account. After Mr. Cofield was told he needed a form of identification and a utility bill, a co-conspirator texted him a picture of Mr. Kimmel’s driver’s license and a utility bill, prosecutors said.

Mr. Cofield was so convincing that he persuaded the financial-services giant to transfer $11 million from Mr. Kimmel’s bank account to a precious metals dealer in Idaho to buy 6,106 American Eagle gold coins, prosecutors said.”

OK, so already right there, I’m amazed. He convinced Schwab to send him $11 million to a precious metals dealer, just over the phone? I can’t get my bank to send me new checks without telling them my mother’s maiden name!

But wait, it gets better. 

“From there, Mr. Cofield used his contraband phone to hire a private security company to take the coins from Boise, Idaho, to Atlanta on a chartered plane. After the coins had been delivered, he contacted the owner of a six-bedroom house on 1.4 wooded acres in Atlanta and offered $4.4 million for the property, prosecutors said.

With the help of accomplices, Mr. Cofield paid $720,000 cash as a down payment and later the full balance, also in cash, according to a federal indictment filed in December 2020.

Mr. Cofield, 31, was charged with several federal counts, including conspiracy to commit bank fraud, aggravated identity theft, money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering, according to court documents. He has pleaded not guilty. A lawyer for Mr. Cofield, Steve Sadow, declined to comment on Friday.”

I mean … this guy is amazing. To pull this off, with all the things that could’ve gone wrong… I fully expect a movie to be made out of this.

Bravo, Mr. Cofield. You’re a criminal mastermind.

 

 

As the dust has (mostly) settled, some election thoughts, with the Dems having a much stronger year than expected, and so many election deniers losing makes me happy. The crypto collapse reminds of this fantastic Larry David commercial. And in the NFL, the Bills and Vikings play the game of the year, the Packers have life, and Justin Fields is so damn exciting.

The dust has almost completely settled on the 2022 election. Oh, we’ve still got one Senate race in Georgia to determine, with a runoff in about a month, and there are a half-dozen or so House seats still undecided, but we pretty much know the major stuff.

The Red Wave never happened.

Never came close to happening. The Democrats, who have the Presidency, will actually gain a Senate seat once Raphael Warnock dispatches the fraud that is Herschel Walker, giving them 51 seats. I was really hoping for 52, so Dems in the Senate could tell Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema where to shove their obstinancy, but hey, 51 is still pretty good.

It’s very rare for a party in possession of the Presidency to gain Senate seats in the midterm, especially when so many polls and pundits expected big losses. But that’s the thing: Nobody can predict these things anymore. That’s partly because people under 30 never participate in polls, and a huge number of them voted Democratic (I read one story that said 2/3 of voters 25 and under in battleground states voted Democratic, so thanks, kids!)
Another thing is that what pundits and pollsters focus on isn’t always what “average voters” focus on. Clearly, abortion rights were hugely important in battleground states like Michigan, Arizona and Pennsylvania. Clearly, the improving economy and President Biden’s “Build Back Better” plans DID, in fact, help Democrats nationwide.

Democrats did very well in many areas, and while we will in all likelihood lose the House of Representatives (it looks like now the GOP will have a two or three-seat edge, so good luck keeping all that together, Kevin McCarthy), it was still a very successful election.

Some other thoughts that have been in my brain for several days:

— Loved this Tweet: Every single GOP candidate for Secretary of State who was a MAGA Election denier lost. All of them. Also losing were election deniers Doug Mastriano in PA, Paul LePage in Maine, Lee Zeldin in my home state, and wait for it…

— Kari freaking Lake, the biggest of the loons running for Governor, is about to officially lose her race any day now. Of all the candidates I wanted to see lose, she might be No.1. Thank God the people of Arizona and the rest of us will be spared having this evil, awful woman be in charge.

— The two Democratic losses that really hit me hard: Cheri Beasley, an outstanding candidate for Senate in N.C., lost by a few points to Ted Budd, a MAGA guy.
And Mandela Barnes, a fantastic candidate for Senate in Wisconsin, lost in an excruciatingly-close vote, falling by 25,000 votes out of more than two million. Winning either or both of those races would’ve been so fantastic.

— New York, my beloved home state of New York, gets to be partly responsible for Democrats losing the House. For the first time in 30 years, all of Long Island is now represented by Republicans in Congress, and Dems suffered a bunch of other embarrassing losses throughout the state as well. America, I don’t know what to tell you. We had some bad candidates, poor leadership from the state Democratic party, and had a re-districting issue at the last minute after N.Y. Dems drew a truly awful map. Grrr.

— Lots of exciting “new” Presidential candidates in the hopper now for Democrats after this race. Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania and Wes Moore in Maryland are fresh, smart, exciting new governors who look to have bright futures. Gretchen Whitmer (pictured above), re-elected as chief of Michigan, is so impressive and should be in any discussion about post-Biden nominees.

And Raphael Warnock, assuming he prevails, is going to be very fascinating as a candidate in 2024 or ’28. Lots of exciting new options there.

 

 

***Next up today, in the midst of all the election hysteria last week you may have heard about a whole lot of crypto currency companies collapsing, which is not all that surprising to those of us who have always been dubious about just what the hell the point, or value, of cryptocurrency was in the first place.

And my Twitter e-migo Luke M, who I guarantee would be a good pal in real life, sent me a message last week reminding me of this fantastic Super Bowl ad from last year that Larry David did for a crypto company, FTX, which declared bankruptcy last week.

This is the long version, all 2:30 of it, and it’s glorious. The lightbulb one and the coffee one are my favorite, but they’re all so good.

 

**Finally, what a whale of a football game the Buffalo Bills and Minnesota Vikings played on Sunday. More drama than a whole book of Shakespeare plays. More twists and turns than the Cyclone at Coney Island. More craziness than is found inside Kari Lake’s brain.
You get the idea.
The absolute game of the year saw Bills quarterback Josh Allen, questionable all week, come out at the last minute and lead his team to a big 27-17 lead. Then the Vikings came back, converting a 4th and 19 on one of the greatest catches you’ll ever see, by Justin Jefferson, (I’ll show it to you in a second), drove down to the 1-foot line in the final minute, trailing 27-23, and get stopped by the Bills defense.
So, game over, right? Except, the Bills fumbled the next snap and Minnesota recovered in the end zone for a touchdown! Absolutely nuts. 
But of course it wasn’t over, and Allen drove the Bills for the tying field goal, and to overtime we went. And the Vikes drive all the way down the field, to the 2, don’t score, kick a field goal, and then Buffalo comes down and is in field goal range for a tie, and Allen throws yet another terrible interception and the Bills lose.

Whew. What a crazy, crazy game. The Vikings are somehow now 8-1 having won their last seven games by a touchdown or less. At some point, it’s not just about luck, a team is actually really good, and I think the Vikings are really good.

As for the Bills, two straight losses, suddenly looking a little vulnerable on defense, Allen’s not playing well… they’re still my Super Bowl pick, but it’s going to be rougher than expected in the AFC.

JUSTIN JEFFERSON CATCH OF THE CENTURY. pic.twitter.com/Cos6v0yPIC

— Field Yates (@FieldYates) November 13, 2022

— OK, so that Justin Jefferson catch. This is just insane, as good as that Odell Beckham Jr. catch against the Cowboys years ago. The height, the hand strength (especially when he came down), the control, just insane. He’s the best receiver in the NFL right now and it’s not close.

— In an almost-as-exciting game, the Packers may have saved their season with a thrilling 31-28 comeback win over the Cowboys of Dallas. The Fighting Aaron Rodgers’es were down 28-14 and looking dead in the water, but rallied to tie and then win in overtime.
Pack are still only 4-6, but a loss would’ve pretty much ended their season. Now they’re alive and at least have a chance at the playoffs.

— Justin Fields (above), my goodness, what an incredible player he’s becoming. It’s amazing, every few years we get a running quarterback who brings the sport and the position forward. Michael Vick, then Vince Young, then Kaepernick, then Lamar Jackson, and now Fields.
The Chicago Bears’ signal-caller had another magnificent game Sunday, with 141 rushing yards and an incredible 67-yard touchdown run, although his pick-6 returned for a TD surely helped the Lions come back for a 31-30 win. Fields is so fast, and improving so quickly, that he’s becoming must-watch on the highlights each week.

— Russell Wilson still stinks. Just FYI.

— Tua Tagovailoa is getting better every week. The Dolphins are officially a scary team, after blowing out the Browns on Sunday to move to 7-3.

— Finally, it’s pretty much ridiculous that a former player with zero college or NFL head coaching experience, the former Colt Jeff Saturday, was chosen to take over as head coach in Indy. I mean, there’s white privilege and then there’s this, when there are SO many qualified African-American assistants in the league who deserve that shot more than Saturday.

But hey, the guy won his first game Sunday so bravo.

— And finally, the NFL played its first-ever game in Germany Sunday and apparently it was awesome; here’s the crowd breaking out into John Denver’s “Country Roads, Take Me Home.” So cool.

Good News Friday: An NFL superstar QB does so right by a sick fan. A McDonald’s worker helps a teen get into college. And in Minnesota, a farmer in need gets a major assist from a neighbor kid.

Happy Friday, world! Well, well, well, it’s been one heck of an interesting Election Week here in America, eh? All the prognosticators who said a “red Wave” was coming, and the Dems were in deep doo-doo, and oh boy the Republicans are gonna win the Senate and dominate the House and oh wait, what’s that? That didn’t happen? Hmmmm. Go figure, a bunch of people got it wrong

Anyway, long way to go to get the full election results but what is definitely known is that it’s Friday, it’s getting colder and I’ve got three great videos for Good News Friday.

Let’s start with the great Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson. While I’ve been critical of the guy for mostly losing and playing poorly in big playoff games, he no doubt is one of the best and most exciting signal-callers in the NFL. And there have been many examples of Jackson being a good-hearted human as well.

Here’s another one. The Ravens were playing in New Orleans last week against the Saints, and Jackson and the team got word that a sick child named Landon was a big Jackson fan.

The day before the game Landon got a surprise visit from No. 8, and this short video captured by Landon’s Dad shows just what an impact it had on Landon.

Way to go, Lamar!

Before our game this week, @Lj_era8 met Landon, a huge Lamar fan from Mississippi who has a heart condition 💜🥺

Via dad Jason Berry/FB pic.twitter.com/zcFhpu8FzY

— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) November 8, 2022

**Next up today, the great Steve Hartman and the story of “Mama McDonald’s,” a woman named Andrea in Lynn, Mass. who has helped many kids who come through the famous restaurant in their life.
Emmanuel Graham is a teenager in Massachusetts, who saw both of his parents die by the time he was 13. Andrea and Emmanuel have quite a story. Just a wonderful woman helping out someone in need.

**And finally today, a wonderful story of neighbors and friendship in rural Minnesota, from the great Boyd Huppert of KARE-11 TV.
A farmer named Steve Brake had a serious medical condition a year ago, a nerve condition that debilitated and nearly killed him. Steve loves riding on his tractor and farming during the harvest, but because of his new health issue, it wasn’t safe, nor was he physically able, to do his normal farm work.

That’s when 16-year-old neighbor Abi Reetz came in, his “Tractor Princess.”

Watch this beautiful story of friendship and hope.

SO many more good people than bad in this world. So many more.

Thoughts on five great days in the City of Angels, with (gasp) very little traffic, some Disneyland fun, and other good stuff. A dog sets a new frisbee chase record. And the World Slapping League is a real thing, and of course it’s in Vegas.

Editor’s Note: I’m writing this in the wee hours of Tuesday night, so no Election Night analysis from me, because it’s going to be a few days before we know everything. But I will say I’m thrilled the voters in Pennsylvania and Arizona appear to have come through for the Democrats, I’m thrilled abortion rights amendments did so well, and I am very happy Democrats didn’t get crushed nationally, as so many predicted. But nothing’s over yet…

I was sold a bill of goods.

My whole life a fact has been that it never rains in Southern California. Blue skies, sunshine, Hollywood rays, all that good stuff.

Lies, all of them. We have just returned from five days in our nation’s second-biggest city, and it rained twice, including on Monday when we visited Mickie and Minnie and friends.

But despite the wet weather, we had one hell of a vacation. Herewith, a few thoughts on visiting what some right-wingers call Hell on Earth, the beautiful city of Los Angeles:

— Unlike so many parents of young kids, we’d avoided taking our boys to Disneyland or Disney World so far, because it’s a huge undertaking, our kids were too young to enjoy/appreciate it, and both of my children are scared of their own shadows, so why bother scaring them and spending thousands of dollars to do it?

But with a long-planned trip to L.A. to attend the bar mitzvah of close family friends (Mazel Tov Sammy, you rocked!), we thought what the heck, let’s give it a shot.

And it went … pretty well. Like I said, we had a rainy, dreary day, but the park wasn’t super-crowded, the rides were fun and the ones we went on weren’t scary (the Winnie the Pooh ride was actually beautiful and cool, as was the “Toy Story”-inspired Astro Orbiter, where you shoot laser guns at targets), and our boys behaved reasonably well.

The food at Disney wasn’t bad, we hardly saw any characters walking around, but overall it was a really cool and exhausting experience. Disneyland is much smaller than it’s big brother park in Florida, so this was a good “starter Disney” park for us.

Yet the 8-year-old was a little scared of the Snow White ride, so maybe not doing Space Mountain with him anytime soon.

— Got to visit one of my all-time favorite places in the world, the Getty Center museum in L.A. Absolutely breathtaking. The views, the artwork, the grounds, just absolutely sensational. It never disappoints.

— So one thing that wasn’t so much fun in L.A. was the rental car. We asked for a regular SUV, the Alamo people said they were out of regular SUV’s and were giving us a larger car.

They gave us something the U.S. military might use. It’s called a Nissan Armada, and I swear I would’ve felt perfectly safe in a war zone in it. Thing was freaking HUGE. And driving it was not easy, trying to park it was not easy, and it had this “fun” feature where when I slowed down into a turn, or slowly backed out of a parking spot, it would get all herky-jerky and act like I’m a 16-year-old learning to drive stick.

Not cool, Alamo car rental. Not cool.

— Something you just don’t see anywhere else in America: Our hotel elevator had the same buttons as you would expect anywhere, except there was one above the Emergency button I’d never seen before.

It read “Earthquake.” Like for real, there’s a special button for that.

I asked the hotel desk clerk how often they had to use that. “Oh, not that often, maybe once or twice a year,” she said.

Ummm, for a New Yorker like me, that’s pretty freaking often!

— Something else you don’t hear anywhere else but L.A.: We were at breakfast one morning at a little cafe near our hotel and the people at the next table were most certainly show business folk, because one of them kept using the word and saying she wanted to be a  “multi-hyphenate, because everyone wants that.”

I quickly deduced that meant she wanted to be seen as a writer-actor-director, or dancer-actor-producer, or one who does many many things.
Multi-hyphenate. A fascinating word.

— Something I did not expect to be as cool as it was: Me and the boys went to the Petersen Car Museum in L.A. and it was awesome. Had some stuff about the history of automobiles, including the very first car, built in 1886, on display; had a very cool children’s play center with lots of Hot Wheels and other track stuff for the kids, and my favorite, an exhibit of famous cars from movies, including the DeLorean from “Back to the Future,” the “Batmobile” and a few James Bond vehicles. Highly recommended if you’re in Los Angeles.

— The Santa Monica Pier is fantastic. Not just because it’s where the opening montage of the 1970s TV show “Three’s Company” was filmed there. But a super-cool place. As is L.A. Live, the downtown entertainment complex where we went for the bar mitzvah.

— Flying six hours each way across the country with my children is an adventure. I highly recommend you try it some time. Seriously, take my kids, please.

https://twitter.com/fasc1nate/status/1589366764189589505

**Next up today, nothing to see here, just a dog sprinting an entire football field length to catch a Frisbee and set a new world record. I don’t know if I’m more impressed with the dog, or the fact that a human could throw the Frisbee that far.

Impressive by all parties!

**And finally today, this is one of those stories that I swear I’m not making up. There’s a thing called professional slap-fighting, and it has two combatants get into a boxing ring, and slap each other in the face as hard as possible.

They keep doing this until one slapper is unable to continue the fight.

It sounds barbaric and awful and I would totally watch it at least once. Nevada just sanctioned slap fighting a few weeks ago, and it may debut there in the next few months.

Because where else but Las Vegas should something like this occur? I tell you what, the Real Housewives and a few soap opera actresses I’ve seen over the years would be world champs at this.

Here ya go, this is what this “sport” looks like.