The Splendid Splinter’s old fishing shack is back on the market.
Well, maybe not shack.
From Friday’s Wall Street Journal Mansion section:
Ted Williams’s Florida Fishing Spot Goes on the Market
In the Florida Keys, the onetime home of baseball star Ted Williams is going on the market for $4.2 million.
Built in the early 1950s, the house is located on Upper Matecumbe Key, one of several islands that make up Islamorada. Mr. Williams, who moved to the area to pursue sport fishing, bought the home around 1960 and lived there for decades, according to the book “Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero” by Leigh Montville. A local celebrity, Mr. Williams practiced casting from his backyard, according Mr. Montville’s book. In 2000, a street near the house was renamed “Ted Williams Way.”
The current owner, Mark Richens, bought the four-bedroom, 3200-square-foot home for $1.8 million in 2002. He paid another $320,000 for an adjoining three-bedroom home that became a guesthouse.
First in what promises to be a long-running series
It’s news to no one that liberals and conservatives in this great land of ours live in parallel universes.
But with the ascension of Hair Apparent Donald J. Trump to the nation’s highest office, the differences are starting to get kind of . . . granular.
Take, for instance, the Jonathan Chait 7-10 (as it were) split.
From New York Times op-ed columnist David Leonhardt’s latest piece.
Three days from now, [Donald J.] Trump and congressional Republicans will have the power to begin undoing [Barack] Obama’s presidency. And yet they are going to have a harder time than many people realize.
A clear explanation of why appears in a new book, “Audacity,” by Jonathan Chait of New York magazine, one of today’s must-read political journalists. He documents the scale of Obama’s domestic policy, on health care, taxes, finance, climate, civil rights and education. Chait also explains why it won’t simply disappear.
But The Weekly Standard’s eminently readable Andrew Ferguson would just as soon make Chait disappear.
Courtiers in Denial
Obama’s rapidly shrinking legacy.
We shouldn’t doubt that President Obama will read the new book by the liberal journalist Jonathan Chait. The title alone will be enough to grab him: Audacity: How Barack Obama Defied His Critics and Created a Legacy That Will Prevail. He will read it slowly and carefully, Montblanc at the ready to underline notable passages and jot down marginalia (How true! and Excellent point! and Tell it to Michelle!).
And when he puts it aside he will feel just a little bit uneasy. Maybe he’ll even ink a note on the final page: This is the best they can do?
Chait writes about politics for New York magazine, and in the crowded imperial court of Obama’s journalists he stands apart—the courtier’s courtier, the boot-licker against whom all boot-licking must be measured.
So, to recap:
Jonathan Chait is either 1) a “must-read” political journalist, or 2) “the boot-licker against whom all boot-licking must be measured.”
Allen’s brown-nosing interview last week with Trump administration house organ Breitbart News.
Mike Allen: ‘Very Smart’ Breitbart News Sees Business, Tech, Media, Politics ‘Colliding and Converging’
Mike Allen, co-founder of both Politico and the soon-to-launch Axios media company, praised Breitbart News for covering critical issues so often ignored and scorned by other outlets, implying they paved the way for his own new media effort.
“We admire so much of what’s been built at Breitbart. And—Charlie, Matt—one of the things we like about Breitbart is you do things people aren’t. And both journalistically and as a business, that’s a great place to be right now,” Allen told SiriusXM hosts Matthew Boyle and Charlie Spiering.
Geez, Mike – get a room.
Exhibit C
Allen’s Axios AM newsletter yesterday, which featured this item under the headline “Let’s get ready to rumble.”
New threshold for anti-Trump one-upmanship: Rep. John Lewis of Georgia tells Chuck Todd for tomorrow’s “Meet the Press”: “I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president.”
Trump tweeted back this morning: “Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to … mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk – no action or results. Sad!”
What’s really sad is that Allen didn’t even have the decency to fact-check Trump’s tweet. But his successors at Politico Playbook – Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman – did.
WELL … Say what you want about Lewis, but “all talk, talk, talk — no action or results” isn’t the way most people would describe a guy who bled and was jailed in the struggle for civil rights. Also, his district isn’t really falling apart. He has represented the tony Buckhead section of Atlanta for years — he now splits it with another lawmaker — and he represents Emory University and some of the city’s most rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods.
Memo to Mikey: That’s what a real journalist does.
We’ll pass over in silence – for now – Allen’s longstanding allegiance to advertisers, which the Washington Post’s Eric Wemple has dutifully chronicled.
But we’re guessing that will be a whole nother Mike Allen Suck-Up Watch in the near future.
The Trump transition is behind schedule in vetting its nominees, and struggling to fill senior positions before the inauguration.
President-elect Donald Trump will take the reins of the federal government on January 20. How many people he will have by his side on that date is very much in question.
The Trump transition is substantially behind the pace set eight years ago by Barack Obama’s team, and a late start to vetting Cabinet nominees for security clearances and financial conflicts of interest threatens to leave many senior posts vacant when Trump assumes the presidency in just two-and-a-half weeks. The delays, which were described by people familiar with the transition as well as several congressional aides, could hamper the new president’s ability to deliver the swift change he has promised in Washington.
How far behind is the Trump transition?
So far behind, it ran this ad in on page B4 of Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal.
Seriously?
Look next for an ad in the Farm Journal magazine for Trump’s Agriculture Secretary.
Sad to say, Saturday’s Boston Globe featured this front-page probituary of Boston jazz impresario Fred Taylor.
Another blow to the local jazz scene: Legend Fred Taylor fired ousted at Scullers
Fred Taylor, a legendary figure on the Boston jazz scene since the 1950s, has been abruptly fired as entertainment director at Scullers Jazz Club, angering local jazz fans and signaling a changing of the guard at the well-known music venue.
Taylor, whose acts at the club included Lou Rawls, Wynton Marsalis, and Norah Jones, had presided at Scullers since shortly after it opened 27 years ago at the DoubleTree Guest Suites Hotel. He e-mailed friends this week to say he’d been let go by the hotel’s management.
What made Fred Taylor a legend? Just this:
A fixture on the Boston jazz scene for several decades, Taylor, now in his 80s, is perhaps best known as the former owner of the storied jazz clubs Paul’s Mall and the Jazz Workshop on Boylston Street, where he booked such luminaries as Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Stan Getz, Charles Mingus, and George Benson.
And, quite memorably, Gil Scott-Heron in 1976.
Forty years ago, I was a minor league Boston music critic, writing (under multiple bylines from J. Redmond Carroll and John Redmond to J.R. Tardi) for local B music publications including – but not limited to – Musician’s Guide, Nightfall, NightLife, PopTop, and Rock Around the World.
In the summer of 1976 (‘Bicentennial Fever Grips Hub’ – even Little Stevie’s House of Pizza redecorated in red white and blue), I saw two of Gil Scott-Heron’s three performances at Paul’s Mall during Fourth of July week.
He delivered serious versions of “Bicentennial Blues” and “The Bottle,” but his rendition of “Home Is Where the Hatred Is” was absolutely transcendent.
Both times – and in fact every time I got into Paul’s Mall or the Jazz Workshop in those days – I had to talk my way through Fred Taylor, who was tough, dismissive, and, ultimately, soft-hearted toward anyone who loved jazz.
Memo to Fred: Here’s what you got for your kindness 40 years ago.
Admittedly, I was still writing with training wheels back then, but I think the lede holds up okay.
Anyway, here’s “The Bottle” from that great gig.
Also, that transcendent rendition of “Home Is Where the Hatred Is.”
Thank you, Fred Taylor, for so often letting me into your home where the jazz was.
Full disclosure: The hardworking staff grew up in Manhattan, but we’ve lived in Boston for the past 42 years. So we can’t help noticing the yin and yang of the two cities.
Latest example: The Billy Joel concert index.
Yesterday’s Boston Globe featured this American Express/Fenway Park full-page ad.
Then again, yesterday’s New York Times featured this Citi/Madison Square Garden counterpart.
The last time This Desk reported on a Trump Derangement Syndrome spasm in the Times, it was this $200,000 full-page ad in July from Josh Tetrick, the vegan mayonnaise czar of Hampton Creek.
Body copy for the condiment impaired.
(We’ll pass over in silence the whole Hampton Creek buy-back rumpus that subsequently surfaced in the news media, providing a reason to turn away from Josh Tetrick to say who he is.)
Now comes this Trumpiopathic full-page ad in yesterday’s New York Times.
Closer-up of body copy in the name of humanity.
Whatever.
Now call the roll of the refuserati, some of whom presumably paid for the ad:
Once again, file under: Just set your money on fire.
As you might (or more likely might not) remember, for the past several years the hardlooking staff has provided all you splendid readers with a scorecard of the New York Times “Year in Pictures” wrap-up.
The Times 2016 Year in Pictures, however, produced a low-level tie between Damon Winter and Todd Heisler, both of whom had three photos in the year-end photo album.
Fittingly, Winter gets the front page:
And Heisler gets the back page:
Props also to Tomas Munita, Landon Nordeman, and Doug Mills, who came in a close second with two photos each.
Which says what?
Just this: Visually, the Times is more wide-ranging than ever.
Station avoids static with Markey by strengthening signal
After weeks of uncertainty, Comcast-owned NBC Boston has struck a deal with another full-power Boston station to reach over-the-air viewers in the market.
In a letter obtained by the Herald, Comcast Senior Executive Vice President David L. Cohen said the NBC Boston signal will be up and running on WMFP, which will broadcast on digital channel 60.5 and other over-the-air channels, well before the network’s launch on Jan. 1 . . .
The station, which will broadcast from southern New Hampshire, was originally slated to use a low-power station to beam the signal into the Boston area. People who don’t have cable and other pay-TV services rely on free over-the-air broadcasts.
That’s all well and good, but let’s go back to the NBC Boston ad.
First off, check out the over-the-air options available to what used to be called “cable decliners”: 8.1, 60.2, 60.5.
Seriously?
Those are the same people who have a VCR flashing 12:00 . . . 12:00 . . . 12:00 . . .
You think they can find Channel 60.5?
Beyond that, there are 20 – count ’em, 20 – places where NBC Boston will be in the New Year.
Rule of thumb: If you’re everywhere, you’re nowhere.
So . . . locally NBC will soon = Nowhere Boston Content.
Campaign Outsider 