November 26, 2013: Stephen A. Smith's Pronouncement: "Stay Off the Weed!"

November 26, 2013: Seattle Seahawks cornerback Brandon Browner is suspended by the NFL for marijuana use.

Regardless of its progressive decriminalization, marijuana use is still illegal in the NFL. Why? Because it makes people lazy and less aggressive, and interferes with clear thinking, 3 things that are not good for football players.

I am completely with Stephen. A Smith on this issue. It was on this day that Stephen A., part of the panels of NFL and NBA shows on ESPN, began a legend with this advice: "Stay off the weed!"

Or, as he drags the E sound out, and adds a syllable at the end: "Stay off the weeeeeeee-duh!"

He points out that every single major league sports contract in North America prohibits marijuana use, and that, if a player gets caught, he will get punished. For example: In the NFL, the penalty for a 1st offense is a $15,000 fine; a 2nd offense means $20,000; a 3rd offense is a full-game pay; and for a 4th, a 2-game fine.

That's an expensive hobby. Sounds like some guys need to make a choice: Either play in the NFL, or smoke pot, but you can't do both. And Stephen A. says, "Stay off the damn wee-duh! And they don't listen! Stupid!"

It's gotten to the point where Stephen A. is best known not for having once been a great sports columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, or for his hosting performance, or for his NFL banter with Skip Bayless, or for his fandom for the NFL's Dallas Cowboys, or for his fandom for the NBA's New York Knicks, but for his catchphrase. Even fans who see him in an arena try to get him to say it -- and he indulges them.

One more thing: People who use marijuana say it's a safe drug, because it calms you down and makes you peaceful. Let the record show that, in 2018, Brandon Browner was sentenced to 8 years in prison for attempted murder. At the time of his arrest, he was under the influence of... cocaine.

Marijuana activists claim it is not a "gateway drug," leading to the use of other drugs. Not always, but, sometimes, it is.

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November 26, 2013 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were 4 games in the NBA:

* The Brooklyn Nets beat the Toronto Raptors, 102-100 at the Air Canada Centre (now the Scotiabank Arena) in Toronto.

* The Washington Wizards beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 116-111 at the Verizon Center (now the Capital One Arena) in Washington. John Wall of the Wizards led all scorers on the night with 31 points.

* The Orlando Magic beat the Atlanta Hawks, 109-92 at the Philips Arena (now the State Farm Arena) in Atlanta.

* And the Golden State Warriors beat the New Orleans Pelicans, 102-101 at the New Orleans Arena (now the Smoothie King Center).

And there was 1 game in the NHL: The Dallas Stars beat the Anaheim Ducks, 6-3 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. 

October 1, 1937: The Marihuana Tax Act

October 1, 1937: The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 -- that's how the drug usually spelled "marijuana" was spelled in this case -- goes into effect. It placed a tax on the sale of cannabis, designed to make the drug harder to obtain. It may have been a response to the 1936 film Reefer Madness, an early exploitation film.

(Oddly, I can't fid a release date for the film, only a year, 1936. If I could find an exact date, I would do an entry on the film.)

This law was overturned in the 1969 Supreme Court case Leary v. United States. In 1970, as part of President Richard Nixon beginning "The War On Drugs," Congress repealed it, but replaced it with what they hoped would be more effective legislation.

There's an old saying: "Wish in one hand, poop in the other, and see which hand fills up faster."

*

October 1, 1937 was a Friday. There were 5 baseball games played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox, 4-2 at Yankee Stadium. The game was shortened to 7 innings due to rain. Louis "Bobo" Newsom outpitched Lefty Gomez.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat their arch-rivals, the New York Giants, 7-4 at Ebbets Field.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Cincinnati Reds, 6-3 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Cubs, 4-1 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* And the Detroit Tigers beat the St. Louis Browns, 14-4 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Hank Greenberg went 3-for-5 with 2 home runs and 6 RBIs. He finished the season with 184 RBIs, 1 short of the American League record set by Lou Gehrig of the Yankees in 1931.

March 5, 1982: John Belushi Dies

March 5, 1982: John Belushi dies of a drug overdose at the Chateau Marmont Hotel in Los Angeles. He was only 33 years old.

Belushi rose to fame as part of the original cast of Saturday Night Live, "The Not Ready for Prime Time Players." His father was an immigrant from Albania, and so John, like other sons of immigrants, often played foreign characters, including in the very first sketch the show ever aired, on October 11, 1975, as a man learning English. The teacher, played by Michael O'Donoghue, went against type by teaching him with expressions that would never be used in real life: "Repeat after me: I would like to feed your fingertips to the wolverines."

His father owned a diner in Wheaton, Illinois, outside Chicago, and it was called The Olympia. That would be the name of a sketch, and the diner in the sketch, where Belushi served, "No hamburger! Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger!" And, "No fries, chips!' And, "No Coke, Pepsi!" Later sources would say the sketch was based on the Billy Goat Tavern in Chicago, which some SNL writers, from Chicago, knew well, but Belushi denied it, saying he'd never been to the Billy Goat.

Another immigrant character was Samurai Futaba, who had a different job in every appearance: Hotel desk clerk, delicatessen operator, tailor, and so on. Belushi did not, however, play one of the show's best-known immigrants, the alien Coneheads.

Dan Aykroyd did, and he and Belushi developed a music act, The Blues Brothers, who would sing 1950s and '60s soul tunes, backed by Booker T. & The M.G.'s. This led to a 1980 film, easily the most successful movie ever based on an SNL sketch. Another great Belushi music-themed sketch showed him playing Ludwig van Beethoven, then putting on sunglasses and playing "What'd I Say?" and doing a fantastic Ray Charles impression.

By that point, Belushi had already made his first hit movie, Animal House, playing John "Bluto" Blutarsky, the embodiment of the film's fraternity of slobs at a fictional college in 1962. His speech after the frat members are all expelled is legend. Psychotic, but legend.

John Belushi was the acting equivalent of a rock star. But he wanted to be a real rock star. To him, that meant fully embracing the lifestyle. And that meant drugs. They say marijuana is not a gateway drug. It was for him. It led to cocaine, and finally to heroin. It was a combination of cocaine and heroin, a "speedball," that killed him.

Later in the 1980s, his younger brother Jim Belushi joined the SNL cast, and became a star in his own right. In the 1990s, Aykroyd, Jim, and John Goodman got together to form a new version of the Blues Brothers, including making a weak sequel film, Blues Brothers 2000.

Also in the 1990s, Chris Farley joined the cast of SNL. Also a Midwesterner, and so fat he made John Belushi look thin, he developed his own memorable characters. And he also developed into a movie star. But he also developed a drug problem, and he also died at age 33. He learned all the wrong lessons from Belushi.

They say there's a fine line between genius and madness. John Belushi passed out on it. We should still be laughing our asses off at things he's doing in 2022, at the age of 73. Instead, we're laughing at things he did from 1975 to 1980, and that's it.

But what he did in those 5 years.

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March 5, 1982 was a Friday. This was also the day the movie Diner premiered. I have a separate entry for that event.

Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were 6 games in the NBA that day:

* The New York Knicks beat the Boston Celtics, 105-98 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Detroit Pistons, 122-108 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan.

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Dallas Mavericks, 98-91 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.

* The Seattle SuperSonics beat the Houston Rockets, 126-103 at The Summit in Houston. (The arena has since been converted into the Central Campus of the Lakewood Church, Dr. Joel Osteen's "megachurch.")

* The Denver Nuggets beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 126-120 at the McNichols Arena in Denver. Kiki Vandeweghe scored 36 points.

* And the Golden State Warriors beat the Utah Jazz, 127-121 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena. Joe Barry Carroll scored 52 points, and had 14 rebounds. Clearly, this was not a night when he earned the nickname "Joe Barely Cares."

And there were 2 games played in the NHL. The Washington Capitals beat the Calgary Flames, 8-6 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland. And the Winnipeg Jets beat the Detroit Red Wings, 2-0 at the Winnipeg Arena.