January 16

January 16. Facebook friends, The Jourmudgeon apologizes that last week’s post focused so heavily on politics, phallic symbols and saliva. It’s time we paid attention again to the really important news – Sports and Entertainment. Because if anything will fix The Jourmudgeon’s broken give-a-shitter, it’s a couple of football games and any news involving Sean Penn:
1. “The Revenant,” a movie in which most of Leonardo DiCaprio gets eaten by a bear, won Best Comedy at the annual Golden Globe Awards. In the film’s other subtle plot twist, what’s left of Mr. DiCaprio grows a beard. The film also garnered the coveted Quentin Tarantino Lifetime Achievement Award for Use of Ketchup and Latex Entrails. It also won Best Screenplay for its writer, Conan the Barbarian, and Best Re-Purposing of a 45-Year-Old Richard Harris Vehicle, “Man in the Wilderness.” In his most recent previous film, Mr. DiCaprio played a wolf. This time, the predator is played by Donald Trump’s hair. Late in the week, it was announced that the film had also been nominated for numerous awards in the 88th Annual Oscars for White People, most notably in the “Oh, Shit, We Still Haven’t Ever Given One to Leo” category.
2. Shape-shifting rock icon David Bowie died, as did actor Alan Rickman. Tributes to both crowded Facebook, Twitter and other social media, mostly from people who until last Sunday thought “Space Oddity” was performed by the BeeGees and Rickman was a sorcerer in real life.
3. Weekly revenues from the National Tax on Stupid People – popularly known as Powerball — reached more than $1.5 billion before someone finally pulled the plug and awarded some of it to several winners who had managed to beat odds of 292 million to 1. Shep and Waydene Gunch, of Deerfield Beach, Fla., were disappointed to learn that after taxes they might reap only a measly $200 million or so. Still, they said, it should be enough to fulfill their dream of buying China. “We want to use the Great Wall to fence our property,” said Shep. “And we’re going to replace our plastic lawn flamingos with those way rad clay statues of soldiers,” Waydene added. Public finance experts continued to scratch their heads over why, amidst Republican calls for deep across-the-board federal and state tax cuts, the Stupid People Tax has not also been targeted.
4. In the National Traumatic Brain Injury League playoffs, the Washington Racial Slurs were beaten by the Green Bay Homage to Factory Workers. Washington’s quarterback, Norman Cousins, who goes by the nickname RGThree, fell for a clever ploy by the Green Bay defenders when they gave him six sacks. Carrying around the heavy sacks apparently prevented Cousins from running or passing the ball. League officials, meanwhile, continued to insist that an epidemic of concussions has had no impact on teams’ strategy, tactics or quarterbacks’ on-the-field decision-making. In other sports news, Alabama defeated Clemson for the National Pretend University Football Championship.
5. The season’s hit comedy, “Republican Primary Debates,” launched its newest episode from North Charleston, S.C., featuring Donald Trump as family patriarch Archie and Ted Cruz as his son-in-law Meathead, with John Kasich as Edith. In this episode, Meathead, who memorized the words of the entire U.S. Constitution in high school, revealed that 27 years later he still has no clue to their meaning. Also, in what many regular viewers had previously thought was impossible, Meathead’s insensitive remarks about New Yorkers actually ceded the moral high ground momentarily to Archie. Meanwhile the Democrats’ situation comedy, ”We’ll Get By – Maybe,” was threatened with cancellation when the show’s designated second fiddle kept upstaging the star.
6. Rolling Stone magazine, on the heels of its triumphal expose of a rape that didn’t happen at the University of Virginia, published an article by actor Sean Penn about his interview with Joaquin Guzman Loera, the fugitive Mexican drug lord known as “El Chapo,” (literally, “I Get Story Approval”). Mexican authorities recaptured El Chapo last week, six months after he broke out of a maximum security prison. In an effort to save him the time and expense of digging a new tunnel, they placed him in the same facility from which he had escaped. Asked to justify Penn’s meetings with El Chapo when he was still at large and half the police in the Western Hemisphere were looking for him, Rolling Stone Publisher Jann Wenner said, “Hey, we’re on a roll here with our journalism, no question.” “Dude, it was freakin’ tubular,” Penn said through a spokesman. “Like, I hadn’t seen the bro since we did ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High’ together, or whatever.”
7. Finally, in consumer news, Volkswagen’s chief executive told National Public Radio that years of cooking the books on emissions tests by his company were a technical failure, not a moral one. After his comments went viral, VW contacted the reporter, asking for a do-over of the interview. Journalism ethicists pointed out that if NPR had taken a cue from Rolling Stone and given Volkswagen story approval in the first place, the whole unpleasant incident might not have happened. Meanwhile, in an effort to win back outraged American car buyers, Volkswagen announced a new incentive plan that reflects the depth of its commitment to combating pollution. For the next five years the company will give each purchaser of a new Volkswagen driver and passenger-side gas masks.