The 92nd annual Academy Awards goes down this Sunday…

This year’s (again) hostless event kicks off at 7:00 p.m. on ABC.

And while my picks are generally 80% to 97% accurate, take this year’s top six category winners with a proverbial grain of salt.

Here then, is who I believe will walk away with the Oscars this weekend:

* BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

Laura Dern (“Marriage Story”)

* BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

Brad Pitt (“Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood”)

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

* BEST ACTRESS:

Renee Zellweger (“Judy”) Continue reading →

One man’s treasure is another’s trash…

Hang with me here for a few minutes to explain.

“I don’t think we will ever see anything this amazing again,” says exiled WHB sports talker Kevin Kietzman, referring to this year’s Kansas City Chiefs team. “I mean, the Chiefs were down double digits in all three playoff games and they won each of them by double digits. I don’t think that will ever happen again. And I don’t remember it happening before.

“All I know is they were down in every game and that kid (Mahomes) just took over like magic. I wanna be his coach. How did he ever lose all those games at Texas Tech?”

There’s more… Continue reading →

What’s that old axiom…what goes around comes around?

In the case of San Francisco Chronicle sports jokester Scott Ostler – even after a Super Bowl beatdown of his beloved 49ers by the Chiefs – at least his sense of humor is intact.

You may recall that Ostler laid down a tongue-in-cheek lampooning of all things Kansas City – as in barbecue – cuz to Ostler barbecue was pretty much all KC had to hang its hat on.

Until yesterday.

His sad refrain today:

“If you take a great book and slap a sloppy ending onto it, you’re going to drop off the best-seller list like someone clipped your elevator cable,” Ostler begins.

“If the final chapter of Moby Dick had the big white whale splashing the tourists at Sea World for laughs and sardines, you’re headed for Clunker City, Herman Melville.

“And so it was in Super Bowl LIV on Sunday for the 49ers, and for the author of San Francisco’s miracle season, coach Kyle Shanahan.”

What did I tell you?

Unlike Star sports editor Jeff Rosen who made an embarrassing factual error by incorrectly reporting that Mark Twain was born in Hannibal, Missouri (he was born in Florida, Missouri), and then failed to publish a correction after being notified of the error, Ostler was more than happy to eat his serving of part crow, part humble pie.

“The 49ers’ dreams, and Shanahan’s coronation as king of football masterminds, came crashing down in nine lightning-fast minutes that seemed to take forever, as the Kansas Chiefs turned a 20-10 deficit into a 31-20 win,” Ostler continues. Continue reading →

I don’t get it…

Keep this under your hat, but Kevin Harlan, one of the Cowtown’s most popular sportscasters ever, is poised to call today’s Super Bowl on 810 WHB.

Yet for some reason, WHB seems to be keeping that fact a secret.

Not that the local radio station hasn’t been hawking Kansas City Star sports section ads that it will broadcast the big game. And not just any big game, mind you, the biggest Kansas City Chiefs game in half a century.

Missing-in-action in those promotional ads and WHB’s website promotions: Any mention whatsoever that hometown fave Harlan will be doing the play-by-play honors.

Makes perfect sense, right?

Wrong. Continue reading →

Who doesn’t like a heaping helping of politics with their football?

You know besides, like, everybody.

The $64 million question: Will Sunday’s crowd embrace President Trump?

They did at the recent national college football championship game in Baton Rouge. Not so much at the World Series.

That said, demographically, southern or midwestern parts of the country seem more – how do you say? – Trump friendly.

On top of which, the prez has done pretty good overall in Florida and he more-or-less lives there now.

However, the prospects of a friendly welcome could change given the influx of Left Coast 49ers fans.

As evidenced by this headline in the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Trump vs. SF, Trump with Hannity: Get ready for a very political Super Bowl”

“It will start with President Trump’s pregame interview with his Fox News confidant, Sean Hannity — which is likely to be about as interrogative as a foot massage — and continue through the booze-soaked postgame chaos,” Joe Garofoli begins.

“Some of Sunday’s politics will be obvious, starting with two billionaires’ presidential campaigns — Trump and former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg — torching $10 million apiece to secure 60 seconds worth of airtime before the largest TV audience of the year, an estimated 100 million people. A few will even be sober,” Garofoli continues.

Garofoli goes on to cite the NFL’s new “social justice-themed public service announcements” that could focus on topics such as “police brutality” and that at one point the NFL “banned players from calling attention to the topic by kneeling during the national anthem.”

“One person who won’t show up in the ads is Colin Kaepernick, the former 49ers quarterback who started the protests.,” Garofoli says. Continue reading →

49ers QB on 2018 date with porn star Kiara Mia

Amazing what a newspaper can do with a penchant for creativity and decent size staff…

Take the newspaper-of-record for the San Francisco 49ers, the Chiefs Super Bowl opponent Sunday and its “Hater’s guide to loving the 49ers.”

“You probably hate football,” it begins. “We get it. Brain injuries and machismo and fans who act like their lives depend on the number of touchdowns their teams score. Yeah, it’s the downfall of western civilization and all that. But you probably also love parties. And there are going to be scores of them Sunday, Feb. 2, when the San Francisco 49ers battle the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl — so you can’t just show up at a Super Bowl party and pour haterade on the mood.”

Fair enough…

My personal fave: “The new Superstars”

“The 49ers have a history of unique personalities on the roster. Dwight Clark’s fashion sense. Steve Young’s hyper-intellectual ramblings. Deion Sanders’ unrivaled ego. Charles Haley’s, uh, bizarre proclivities.

“But this team, the one playing in Super Bowl LIV, the one that wasn’t supposed to be this good, this soon, has a fascinating bunch of players. Superstar tight end George Kittle got a tattoo of the Joker, the day before his wedding. GQ quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo was spotted on a date with a porn star, holding her hand like a gentleman. Nobody wanted Raheem Mostert before he became our star running back. Cornerback Richard Sherman talks like he’s three steps ahead of everyone, during every conversation. Pass rusher Nick Bosa might be a Trumper. And receiver Marquise Goodwin is an actual Olympian.”

Ask and you shall receive…

Having raised the issue of what Kevin Kietzman thinks about the Chiefs in the upcoming Super Bowl, what he’s been up to since leaving WHB – the station he put on the map more than 20 years ago – and his future career plans, the controversial sports talker agreed to carefully answer a few questions.

Does he miss covering the Chiefs historic bid for the team’s first Super Bowl in 50 years?

“The answer is yes,” he says. “I’m disappointed I’m not covering the Super Bowl, but I’m not retired. I’m going to do something and I hope to be covering the Chiefs again soon.”

What Kietzman appears to be doing, sources say, is biding his time and sitting out a 12 month noncompete with WHB, while awaiting a deal for the station to buy out the its reportedly second largest shareholder.

Not that he hasn’t been keeping up with the Chiefs, somewhat obviously… Continue reading →

And you wonder why Bernie Sanders is rising in the polls…

Now let me get this straight, up is down. If I’m doing it in pursuit of the general happiness, it’s all right, I can skate. Does this mean if I’m doing it for my team, my corporation, my household, it’s cool too?

Now law school teaches you that everybody is entitled to a defense.

And the attorney must be an advocate for the defendant. But by claiming a President can do whatever he wants if he believes it benefits the country, because he believes he’s the best person to be in charge and no action he partakes is illegal?

Alan Dershowitz not only tarnished his reputation, but that of Donald Trump too, as if it could get any lower.

Check the late night shows, check the media, they’re laughing hysterically, making fun of this defense. Did it behoove Trump’s case? Of course not, just the opposite!

Welcome to 2020, where money rules and if you don’t have it you don’t matter.

That’s another reason Bernie is surging. He’s not taking the usual suspect money, from the banks, from the corporations, and when he’s attacked, his donations go up!

You see Bernie Sanders is our last best hope.

Oh, I know, you’ve triangulated – you’re an expert in the field – so you know better.

Then how come your business was disrupted by the Internet? How come you didn’t see Trump’s election coming?

So, you can cheat and get away with it.

Bill Clinton.

Tom Brady and the Patriots.

Lori Loughlin.

The Houston Astros.

Furthermore, you lie in court.

The oath? It means nothing!

What kind of bizarre world do we live in where the flag gets more respect than the duty to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

I get it, I get it. You’re a Trumper.

You want takers to be cut off, and you want manufacturing to come back to America, and you’re no different from the cheaters above. If it’s good for the team, you’re all for it.

Where’s morality?

Which, ironically, is what the Trumpers and Christian Right keep telling lefties they lack!

So Bernie Sanders is our only hope. Continue reading →

Andy Reid’s son Britt, now a coach with the Chiefs

Dr. Samuel Johnson – circa 1784 -once said, the world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down…

WHB radio personality Kevin Keitzman‘s precipitous fall from grace came by way of what seems to me an innocent observation, that in fact, was based in truth.

Here’s the rhetorical, Andy Reid IED that blew him off of the air:

“”Discipline is not his thing. It did not work out particularly well in his family life, and that needs to be added to this as we’re talking about the Chiefs. He wasn’t real great at that either. He’s had a lot of things go bad on him, family and players.”

The twitter universe exploded and the pent up animus KK had garnered through the years via his frequent, acerbic commentary on sports, left enough blood in the water to attract the usual predators. Losers whose raison d’etre is the destruction of public figures during paroxysms of sanctimony.

He didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.

And his subsequent, three day, cringe worthy “Apology Tour” did nothing to salve the wounds of a perpetually wounded public. People who, with metaphorical pitchforks and torches, cast KK into an anonymous void.

His protestations that he was NOT referring to the son of Andy Reid that died, fell on deaf ears – and Kietzman remains unemployed – another victim of a ravenous mob whose collective IQ rarely approaches room temperature. Continue reading →

It’s come to this…

So depleted are the writing ranks at the Kansas City Star that a lowly sports editor – they don’t even have a news columnist – took it upon himself to pen a retort to San Francisco Chronicle columnist Scott Ostler‘s hilarious spoof of the Cowtown.

Instead of responding in kind though – via clever, upbeat humor –  Jeff Rosen penned a thin-skinned hit job, putting down San Francisco and the 49ers via shop worn jokes and tired trivia, such as making fun of the so-called “San Francisco treat,” Rice-A-Roni.

Uh, Jeff, pardon me – but the 1960s called and wants their black and white TV ads back – unless you somehow stumbled onto the new Jerry Rice spots.

In any case, nobody anywhere, besides Rosen, ever labeled Rice-A-Roni as a “signature gourmet treat.”

So needless to say, unlike KC barbecue, Rice-A-Roni is hardly a San  Fran bragging point.

“Hang on to your self-driving Prius, bucko,” Rosen’s counter column begins…

Unfortunately one of Rosen’s first critiques backfires on countering Ostler’s claiming of Mark Twain as a famous local writer.

“Let’s start with Mark Twain, who was born in Hannibal, Missouri — our state, not yours — and maybe had a cup of coffee in the Bay Area – only upon asking your boss did we learn he once worked for a second at The San Francisco Chronicle,” Rosen writes.

“(Ernest Hemingway) developed his writing chops as a young reporter for none other than The Kansas City Star, in case you didn’t know. He had more than a cup of coffee here, too…So, Twain’s ours, not yours.”

Uh, really?

An 18 year-old Hemingway sharpened pencils at 18th and Grand for six months in 1917, and the newspaper hasn’t stopped braying about it since. And long as we’re using birth states to claim bragging rights, Hemingway was from Illinois, not Mizzou. Continue reading →

Talk about lame…

Instead of stepping up and participating or responding in kind, the Kansas City Star meekly reprinted Scott Ostler‘s tongue-in-cheek column in the San Francisco Chronicle poking fun at the Cowtown with a weak-wristed intro.

Now that truly is lame.

Get in the game guys – it’s time to play ball.

Not to curl up in a fetal position and meekly half apologize to what’s left of your readership with an unimaginative, lame headline: “San Francisco writer trashes Kansas City”

That headline doesn’t come close to describing Ostler’s hilarious depiction of Kansas Citians spending their days panning for gold by mixing ketchup and sugar, smoking and eating animals, then washing off their hands clean of it all in the city’s picturesque fountains.

That’s not trashing KC, that’s a USDA choice, funny-as-hell, good natured roast.

The fact that the Star didn’t a) participate in the fun or B) have anybody on board clever enough return fire in kind or c) felt it needed to garnish the reprint of Ostler’s column with  an inaccurate, “safe” headline, then warn readers it was written with a “Northern California sense of humor” and that they needed to bear that in mind while reading it.

Why? So they won’t blow a complete fuse and throw their television sets through the living room window once they realized the level of disrespect people in San Franciso have for we-the-people in flyover land?

Get real. Continue reading →

So the Titans lost to the Chiefs, no biggie…

More importantly, how does KC and Nashville stack up, sports teams not withstanding.

“Did you know Kansas City has a 19-foot-high badminton birdie in front of its art museum?” asks Tennessean writer Brad Schmitt. “We compare public art and more in the two cities squaring off.

“You’ve seen comparisons between quarterbacks Ryan Tannehill and Patrick Mahomes. Then there’s Derrick Henry and, uh, well, I don’t know who’s running the ball for the Chiefs. But after Sunday’s game, which puts the winner in the Super Bowl, life goes on for people living in Nashville and Kansas City. So let’s see how the cities stack up, shall we?”

Schmitt makes no pretense at objectivity.

“I mean, I’m writing for a Nashville-based news outlet, so there’s little doubt about how this is going to play out, right? But hey, there are some former KC residents in our newsroom, and I did get their input. So I pledge to do as unbiased a comparison as possible (sort of).”

Fair enough…I guess.

Speaking of fairness, Schmitt’s first totally fair comparo pits Nashville country music versus Kansas City and World War I.

“Yes, Nashville neighbors, there is something called the National WWI Museum and its home is Kansas City. And the museum is legit — really interesting and well done exhibits, many of them interactive, and I left knowing much more about the Great War than when I walked in.

“But c’mon, the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum? Stars, sequins, songs and Elvis Presley‘s 1960 solid gold Cadillac limo. A draw for people from around the world.”

Winner: Nashville

On a far more level playing field, next up is KC barbecue versus Nashville BBQ.

“Nashville has taken great strides with the smoked meats, even, dare I say (Dare! Dare!), surpassing Memphis. But, uh, the Kansas City Barbeque Society pretty much runs the BBQ world. And there really are some tasty, tangy treats slathered in hearty sauce coming out of those pits.”

Winner: Kansas City Continue reading →

Sure the Tennessee Titans  beat the Chiefs this past November…

But only where the final score is concerned.

Because in virtually every key measurable way, the Chiefs mopped up the floor with Nashville’s beloved Titans,Tennessean columnist Gentry Estes writes.

“They know they can beat these Kansas City Chiefs because they’ve done it before…(but) The Titans got lucky that day…” Gentry says. “The Chiefs largely controlled the game. They sacked Tannehill four times. They outgained the Titans 530 yards to 371. They had nearly 38 minutes of possession time, went 7-for-14 on third downs and totaled 28 first downs to the Titans’ 19…

“It was a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of game that fell in the Titans’ favor when the statistics suggest that it shouldn’t have. Continue reading →