Last week’s episode proved that mashups ain’t no joke. I was able to fit in more stories than in any previous Heroes post. This isn’t to say there weren’t glitches, because any good thing comes with glitches. Just ask the peeps at Apple. Using the Speaking Of format caused ‘rollover’, in which one positive or negative story bled into the next with precious little room for a segue salve. But don’t fret, my maintenance crew is looking into the problem and you can look forward to a new and improved version sometime soon.

And now, the news.

Fidel would’ve loved this chick- If lies really do set your pants on fire, they’re gonna need dental records to identify Kayleigh McEnany. In an interview with Chris Cuomo, the press secretary for Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign insisted Trump has never lied, after which she went back to the tired old well of blaming the media for every single thing. Kudos to CC for cutting it short with K Mac before she could blame the media for her cluelessness.

What impossible dreams may come- Imagine losing your right leg as a newborn in a chemical fire, after which you spend the next eight years in a state run orphanage in Nanjing, China. That was Scout Bassett’s reality until her entire world changed when she was adopted by a Michigan family in 1995. Some people rest on their good fortune, while others use it as fuel. And that’s what Scout did, winning three medals in the Para-triathlon and two more in the Para World Championships. She recently made ESPN’s “Body Issue”, where she proves that you shouldn’t be afraid of your scars. You should own them.

Luck ’em all!- Andrew Luck’s retirement took most football fans by surprise. But that didn’t make it alright for Colts fans to boo him as he left the field after last week’s game. And it doesn’t mean that Adam Schefter, who broke the story for ESPN, should have waited for Luck to announce it in a presser. And it sure as hell doesn’t mean Dan Dakich gets to rip Luck’s commitment, and people with mental health issues on his sparrow shit of a radio show. Maybe a little high road would’ve done everyone involved some good.

Ain’t no mountain high enough for these two- In 2010, Marine Staff Sgt. Jonathon Blank was serving in Afghanistan when he lost both his legs to an IED (Improvised Explosive Device). His friend John Nelson was nearby when it happened, and while that memory will never leave them, they’ve made sure to make plenty of much better ones in the time between. Nelson recently climbed Mt. Timpanogos in Utah, with his pal Jonathon on his back. 14 miles and 4,500 feet in an epic tag team hike. And they’re not done yet. Next up, they’re going to hike up the tallest mountain in California, Mount Whitney. And they’re gonna do it on Veteran’s Day. Because they can.

The tykes keep teaching us how- Eight year old Christian Moore didn’t think twice when he saw his classmate Connor Crites struggling on his first day of school. He didn’t laugh, shake his head or judge Connor for having a meltdown right in front of their whole class.

Moore didn’t know Crites has autism or that he finds it extremely difficult to fit in with other kids. All Christian saw was a friend in need. So he did what any good friend would do. He sat with Connor as he cried, and then he held his hand and walked with him into school. No shaming, no blaming. Just love, in a not so random act of kindness that made all the difference in the world to one little boy.

That’s the problem with us adults. We tend to forget the power of compassion, and that it is every bit as much of a currency as all that dope we peddle to make us smarter and richer and stronger and younger. The difference with compassion is that the stuff has no expiration date. It will never leave us broke. Or empty. Or alone. And it is full of the kinds of nutrients that do a body and soul the most good. Lessons.

That picture is worth a thousand of ’em.

It was only a matter of time before one of my shticks ran into another one of my shticks, after which they grabbed a drink and then decided to get a room and make snarky. So this week, Speaking Of meets Heroes.

We’ll start with Presidente Trump, who’s back again. This time for reneging on his ‘promise’ to push all his chips for tighter background checks on gun purchases. For all his bluster, he’s looking mighty weak.

Speaking of . . . weak. Baker Mayfield threw shade at New York Giants rookie Daniel Jones in a GQ article. And then social media sushi rolled his critique into spicy bites, and then he walked it back and blamed the media for taking him out of context. That’s a punk move.

Speaking of . . . punk move. Ezekiel Elliot is holding out for a big payday two years short of free agency . . by vacationing in Mexico. Never mind he’s been a knucklehead off the field since getting to Dallas. Now little Zeke is upset because Jerry Jones made light of his holdout. Oh little Zeke, grow up.

Speaking of . . . little boys. I have no interest in watching the Little League World Series. Because I’m a grown man, and as such, I ain’t down with watching little boys play baseball. But ESPN never met an endeavor they couldn’t exploit.

Speaking of . . . exploitation. Union workers for Shell received overtime pay for attending a Trump rally at a Monaca, Pennsylvania plant recently. Those who didn’t attend received nada. Officials for Shell said it was a ‘bonus’ that didn’t affect the workers not in attendance. But when pay for yay! gets political, we’re going the way of Norman Jewison’s Rollerball.

Speaking of . . . derbies. The peeps in Chitown have this really cool tradition where they flood the Chicago River with rubber ducks. The event helps to raise money for the Illinois Special Olympics. Last year’s races raised $425,000 dollars for the cause.

Speaking of . . . raising money for a good cause. Diesel Pippert is a seventh grader from Ohio who has this philanthropy thing down cold. After earning $15,000 in livestock premiums at the county fair’s animal auction, he donated all of it to St. Jude Children’s Resarch Hospital. The kid is a businessman with a soulful bottom line.

Speaking of . . . bottom line businesses. The NFL actually put its money where its mouth was with next gen helmets that will keep players safe. The new helmets were good enough for every player but Antonio Brown, who makes our Heroes post for the third week in a row. First AB threatened to retire and then he threatened to sue the league, before finally giving in and showing up to camp. For now.

Speaking of . . . happy campers. Ali and Linds B adopted a pit-bull this week. He’s a year and a half old and his name is Fig. He has an amazing smile, gives great kisses and he happens to be one hell of a sous chef. He hung out with me in the kitchen as I constructed my loaded nachos for their get together. What a mighty good boy.

Speaking of . . . good boys. Darby White is a 100 lb pit-bull pup who was chilling in the family Jeep when he saw his owner James being attacked by a shark he had caught while fishing in Sonoma County, California. Darby worked the car handle open and then loosed the shark from James’s leg. From now on, James should take up chess.

Speaking of . . . sharks. Jeffrey Epstein signed a will just two days before . . . umm . . killing himself. His estate was valued at more than half a billion dollars, but his playlist of scumbag friends won’t be nearly as available now that he’s gone.

Speaking of . . . spineless snots. Recently, a neighbor of Randa Ragland sent the struggling mom an anonymous note bitching about the condition of her property and how it was affecting the resale value of other homes in the neighborhood. Never mind that Ragland’s husband had lost his job, she was dealing with health issues and her three year old son was just diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma. After Ragland posted the note on Facebook, her Pinson, Alabama neighbors sent her a different kind of message: A lawn service took care of her yard, while others tidied the house and bought the family some groceries. That’s how you dollar bill a nickel and dime fool.

Speaking of . . . bills. Wesley Ryan of San Antonio had plenty of them back in 2001 when his wife Laura was battling an aggressive form of ovarian cancer. So he made the decision to sell his beloved ’93 Mustang GT in order to cover the medical bills. Last September, his kids tracked down the car on Craigslist and bought it back for him. And that right there is a good story, but it gets better. Executive Chairman Bill Ford of Ford Motor Co. saw video of that reunion, after which he enlisted Hennessey Performance to give it a complete makeover and bring back its old school purr. Wesley took it for a spin earlier this month after a surprise unveiling at Ford World Headquarters, wife Laura at his side.

Speaking of . . . better days. Eleven year old Ruben Martinez of El Paso, Texas is challenging everyone in his hometown to do twenty two good deeds- one for each victim of the Walmart shooting earlier this month. The #ElPasoChallenge asks peeps in the 915 to do some good, any kind of good. It could be in the form of mowing a neighbor’s lawn, buying someone a cup of Joe, or checking in on an elderly neighbor. Basically, anything that’ll brighten up a person’s day. 

It wouldn’t be the worst idea if the folks in Washington played along. They could even take credit for it. As long as it got us somewhere better, I’m sure the kid wouldn’t mind one bit.

Our weekly Heroes post has gone missing in a diabolical plan by the League of Zeroes to take over the free world!

Too much? Okay, here’s the deal. Y’all make these weekly posts worth the price of admission. I’m just the scribe whose crib gets the props. Seriously, Dale is always shaking loose a great story for these posts, and Frank is grabbing good stuff on the regular as well. And now Susannah has joined in on the fun, with a calamitously criminal crush of an idea: An All Villains of the Week post.

Sold!

This week, it’s zeroes across the board. Some are sub-zero degenerates, some are just annoying, and then you have those who are simply misunderstood. Okay . . I’m talking about that lady bandit, but I’m sorry . . I think she’s awesome. So let’s begin with her, coo?

America’s Most (Definitely) Wanted- First there was Smokey and the Bandit. Then you had the Wet Bandits. And now the newest member of the club, the Pink Lady Bandit, who was taken into custody, along with an accomplice on Sunday. They robbed at least four banks, and I gotta say . . I am super impressed. Who robs banks anymore? I mean, without an executive order? And doesn’t the FBI have anything better to do than go after independent contractors who are simply looking to bring some nostalgia back to the world of crime?

Knotted Knickers- James Dolan is proof that money doesn’t buy brains. The New York Knicks owner has turned the once proud franchise into a dumpster fire. The only thing this chump is good at is kicking people out of his yard. He had franchise icon Charles Oakley forcibly removed from the Garden. He’s also had a Knicks fan removed for telling him the truth; that he should sell the team. And last weekend, Dolan had a reporter from Businessweek removed from The Paramount Theater when he got wind she was there as part of a story she was doing on Dolan. Even though he doesn’t own the venue, he was able to have her removed since he was performing with his band, JD & The Straight Shot. Come to think of it, maybe he did her a favor.

Only three things in life are certain- Death, taxes, and a Facebook mom-rant. In the latest Mama-geddon, a mom is blaming childless peeps who go to Disney for ruining her toddler’s magical visit. Yep, she got pissed at the fact that her three year old son had a tantrum when he couldn’t get a pretzel because the line was too long. Never mind that the line is always too long because . . it’s Disney. And never mind the fact that he’s three years old and is not going to remember a single thing about their trip. This unhinged individual went on to call childless Disney goers “cunts”, “tramps” and “bitches”. So she rails on childless peeps while showing herself to be a poor example of how a parent should behave. Makes perfect sense.

Author Ponzirelli- Bernie Madoff is asking for clemency from President Trump, and it’ll be interesting (frightening) to see if he gets it. Madoff shook loose almost sixty five billion dollars from the pockets of 4,800 clients in the largest financial fraud case in American history. That number exceeds the annual budgets of all but five states, if you’re keeping score at home. He’s currently serving a 150 year sentence in a federal prison, which is too lenient if you ask me. He is a fucking vampire after all.

A Titanic Rumble- A couple was arrested last Friday for their part in a chaise clearing brawl on a British owned cruise ship. The shenanigans ensued after an afternoon of partying on deck, with one of the revelers taking offense to a passenger who was dressed like a clown. Where’s an iceberg when you really need one?

The NFL’s Domestic Abuse Problem- The league and its commissioner just can’t seem to get domestic abuse right.

Take Tyreek Hill, for instance. In 2014, Hill was dismissed from Oklahoma State after choking and punching his pregnant girlfriend in the face and stomach. And in March of this year, Hill was under investigation for alleged battery after his three year old son suffered a broken arm. In a subsequent audiotape in which Hill and his fiancee are discussing the investigation, she tells him their son is terrified of him to which Hill responds “. . you should be terrified of me too, bitch,”. Nonetheless, Hill received no punishment.

There are three zeroes here. Hill being the most obvious of course. But we can’t forget the Kansas City Chiefs, who are really good at taking on bad guys. To show how contrite they were about the Hill investigation, the Chiefs traded for Frank Clark this off-season. Clark was arrested and prosecuted on domestic violence charges in 2014. In 2017, he went after a female reporter on Twitter after she had the audacity to write about his past. Oh yeah . . and this is the same team that drafted Kareem Hunt, who likely would still be playing in KC if not for the videotape that surfaced of of him assaulting a woman in a Cleveland nightclub.

The NFL is complicit as well, what with all the chances they give these creeps. Roger Goodell and Company insist they care about women, but really . . who could tell? (And here’s an excellent piece about the league’s not so benevolent side,)

Welp, that’ll do it for the first ever Villains post. At some future point in time, Imma put on my rose colored glasses and write up an All Heroes post. But umm . . . don’t hold your breath.