15 Mar 2024

Dane Mizutani: Was the Kirk Cousins era with Vikings a failure? It certainly wasn’t a success.

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The dust has settled and the Kirk Cousins era is over in Minnesota. His tenure with the Vikings ended rather unceremoniously this week when he officially signed a four-year, $180 million contract with the Atlanta Falcons.

After taking some time to thank the Vikings in a short video on social media, Cousins was introduced by the Falcons in a grand ceremony that felt more like a coronation.

You would have thought the Falcons had won the Super Bowl with how much content they pumped out. They will soon find out that all they did was sign somebody who won’t get them anywhere close to the ultimate prize.

It was a similar vibe on March 15, 2018, when Cousins was introduced by the Vikings at TCO Performance Center in Eagan. The cast of characters included former general manager Rick Spielman and former head coach Mike Zimmer. They hitched their wagon to Cousins and were fired largely because he couldn’t get the Vikings over the hump.

It has been the same story for Cousins throughout his professional career. He’s good enough to flirt with the playoffs on a regular basis. He’s not good enough to win consistently once he gets there.

It’s important to remember the situation Cousins was walking into when he arrived in Minnesota.

All the pieces were in place after Case Keenum helped orchestrate the Minneapolis Miracle en route to the Vikings clinching a spot in the NFC Championship Game. Though the Vikings considered running it back with the same core, they upgraded to Cousins with the belief that he could help them win the Super Bowl.

That was the goal when the Vikings signed Cousins to a fully guaranteed three-year, $84 million contract. Let’s not lose sight of that. That group of players was ready to compete for a Super Bowl.

That never happened with Cousins. He never even sniffed the Super Bowl. He missed the playoffs more times than he made them in Minnesota. He still has won just one game in the playoffs, an overtime win over the New Orleans Saints, which paved the way for a blowout loss to the San Francisco 49ers in the next round.

His only other trip to the playoffs with the Vikings set the stage for perhaps his biggest blunder. How could anybody forget it? With everything on the line in the final minutes, Cousins threw short of the sticks to tight end T.J. Hockenson, capping a devastating home loss to the New York Giants.

That moment perfectly encapsulates the roller coaster of having Cousins at the helm. He long has found a way to lose in the most devastating way possible. It actually might be the place he has shown the most consistency throughout his career.

So why are so many Vikings fans sad he’s leaving town?

The decision to star in the Netflix docuseries “Quarterback” played a major role as Cousins became an overnight sensation and fan favorite. The scenes humanized him in a way he never has been humanized before as he leaned into his dorkiness in the name of Kohl’s Cash and Kirko Chainz. Maybe it’s fitting that the best thing he did with the Vikings had absolutely nothing to do with his play on the field.

There’s also the fact that Cousins was playing lights out last season when his Achilles popped. The mystique of what could have been burrowed its way into the subconscious of so many after he crumbled to the natural grass at Lambeau Field. You were allowed to believe this time was going to be different for Cousins because, well, he never got a chance to prove otherwise.

That’s exactly what power agent Mike McCartney was able to sell as he secured another bag for his client  The idea of Kirk Cousins has always been better than the real thing. That’s something the Vikings learned the hard way in a chapter for the franchise that can only be defined as a failure.

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15 Mar 2024

Calling all ‘Top Chef’ nerds: Here are 6 more ways to feed your inner foodie

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So you’re a “Top Chef” nerd. Maybe you loyally followed each season on Bravo, or perhaps you’re a newcomer who connected with the show via a favorite celebrity chef or recipe. But you’re hooked.

Now, with a new season kicking off on March 20, here are six ways to delve a little deeper.

1 — Let the winner of the first “Top Chef: All Stars” season teach you how to eat more plants. Richard Blais and his wife, Jazmin, filled last fall’s “Plant Forward” cookbook (Victory Belt Publishing, $39.95) with 100 recipes to help home chefs shift their cooking toward a more plant-centric diet. Recipes are built around both Blais’ creative food style, with approachable recipes for zucchini fritters, eggplant and chickpea samosas, jerk cauliflower steaks and a blended mushroom burger. 

2 — Pre-order a copy of the new Viet-Cajun “Dac Biet: An Extra Special Vietnamese Cookbook” (Knopf, $38), due out this August. It’s by Nini Nguyen, a chef-testant from seasons 16 and 17, who brings her unique Vientamese-New Orleans fusion sensibilities to her new cookbook, co-written with Sarah Zorn. It draws on the Vietnamese concept of “dac biet” — which means special and luxurious — and promises recipes for dishes like charbroiled oysters in chile butter, a Viet-Cajun seafood boil, crispy fish sauce-caramel chicken wings and coconut crispy rice crepes.

3 — Get the latest “Top Chef” analysis, broken down episode by episode. Pack Your Knives, a “Top Chef”-inspired podcast by sports analysts Kevin Arnovitz and Tom Haberstroh, will be back this season, Haberstroh confirmed. The die-hard fans interview contestants, discuss what’s happening in the restaurant industry and break down each episode of the show. There are whispers that a related Substack may also be in the works.

4 — Melt your mouth (in a good way!) with “Top Chef”-approved hot sauce. This collaboration between New York-based Heatonist, the hot sauce purveyors and curators behind the hit Hot Ones series, and Mei Lin, winner of season 12 “Top Chef: Los Angeles,” offers up a limited-run trio of hot sauces featuring garlic, herbs and peppercorn flavors. The Top Chef x Heatonist Hot Sauce Trio ($30) is available at shopbybravo.com/collections/top-chef, along with “Pack your knives and go” T-shirts and other merch.

5 — Take a hands-on cooking class taught by Preeti Mistry, a chef-testant from season six and the chef behind Oakland’s now closed Juhu Beach Club. Mistry will be teaching a cooking class ($225) at Wind & Rye, a Sonoma County cooking school. Learn to make garam masala, use the spice blend in two vegetarian dishes, then enjoy a full meal prepared in class and paired with drinks; windandrye.com/classes/p/garam-masala.

6 — Or tune in for more foodie TV. This season, Bravo will debut a new digital aftershow called “The Dish with Kish,” with new judge Kristen Kish breaking down each episode with a “Top Chef” alum and offering a behind-the-scenes perspective. Guests lined up so far include Gregory Gourdet (seasons 12 and 17), Stephanie Izard (season 4) and Buddha Lo (season 19). Find more details at BravoTV.com.

15 Mar 2024

Minnesota boys state tournament is a pageant of hockey hair

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Making the state tournament is a big deal for boys who play high school hockey in Minnesota, where the best of the best face off — with championships on the line — at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

And while the tournament is a four-day smorgasbord of slap shots, glove saves and power plays, it has evolved into a full-blown spectacle — as the global hub for “hockey hair.”

“As soon as our players make the state tournament, it’s like, ‘Guys, come on, we’ve got to play hockey now,’” Ryan Neuman, the coach at New Ulm High School, said in an interview. “And they’re busy making hair appointments to get perms.”

Hockey hair has ranked among the sport’s more curious traditions for decades, stretching back to the days when NHL greats such as Guy Lafleur, Marty McSorley and Al Iafrate (for whom being bald up top was no great deterrent) took the ice with epic mullets.

With its tight sides and elongated caboose, the mullet is conducive to the hockey-specific concept of “flow,” a heightened state of being that is achieved whenever a player’s long hair pours out from under his helmet and billows behind him as he zips up and down the ice.

Players from Warroad High School don bleached blond hair at Minnesota’s state hockey tournament. At Minnesota’s state hockey tournament, outrageously coifed high school stars competed for the best “salad” and “flow.” And then the games began. (Luke Schmidt, Bauer Hockey and MSHSL via The New York Times)

As a long-standing form of team bonding, many high school players in Minnesota — where the demographics of both the sport and state are decidedly white — get their mullets carefully coifed before making the trip to St. Paul. And because the state tournament games are broadcast by KSTP, a local ABC affiliate, pregame introductions have morphed into a sort of pageant to determine who can out-mullet their peers.

“You get to show all the girls — everybody, really — what your hair looks like,” said Robbie Stocker, the coach at St. Cloud Cathedral High School. “It might be one of those you-have-to-be-from-Minnesota type things. But it’s something we care about and something we do, I guess.”

The standout looks are immortalized by John King, an advertising executive who compiles an annual “All Hockey Hair Team” for Pulltab Sports.

Kaden Larson, a senior forward at New Ulm, cracked King’s Top 10 list, at No. 2, thanks to a majestic, bleach-blond mane that his teammates said made him look like Mufasa from “The Lion King.” In his video, King describes Larson as “Hoppenheimer, because that is some nuclear salad.”

(“Salad” is hockey talk for hair. So is “lettuce.” As in: “That’s a great head of lettuce.”)

“I was a little surprised,” Larson said, “but I also knew my hair was pretty solid.”

At this year’s tournament, which ended last Saturday with St. Cloud Cathedral and Edina High School winning state titles, about half of the 16 teams showed up with bleached mullets.

“We thought we were going to stand out,” said Ford Skytta, a sophomore forward for Hermantown High School, “and we blended in even more.”

But when most zigged, a few zagged. Among the contrarians was Graff Mellin, a junior forward for Hermantown, who wanted to spice up his self-described “long, ginger hair.” His older brother Britton showed him a photo of former NBA star Dennis Rodman with a leopard print hairdo.

Hermantown High School’s Graff Mellin was looking for something different, and a Dennis Rodman-inspired leopard print hairdo made that happen.  (Luke Schmidt, Bauer Hockey and MSHSL via The New York Times)

Mellin expressed reservations — spring break and prom were coming up, plus senior photos this summer — but his brother was persuasive. It was the state tournament, after all. He would be on television. Who knew if he would ever have this chance again?

So, for four hours, Mellin planted himself at Ihana Salon, where his stylist, Jessica Knowles, experienced some anguish as she buzzed off his “wonderful hockey hair” and dyed what remained. Mellin acknowledged that the early feedback was mixed.

“My girlfriend definitely wasn’t a fan,” he said.

But the payoff soon became clear. At the tournament, Bauer Hockey captured Mellin’s new look in a widely shared TikTok. King, who often refers to Hermantown as “Hairmantown” in his highlight videos, weighed in, too.

“A snow leopard escaped from Hairmantown,” King says on the video as a snarling Mellin skates toward a camera. “If you see it, be careful. It needs a tetanus shot.”

Bryer Lang, a senior forward at New Ulm, had a distinct advantage: His mother, Melissa McMullen, has a hair salon. As a result, Lang was able to refine his look before the state tournament, adding flourishes — highlights on top, bleach to the sides — to his permed mullet. He shared his mental calculus.

“Look good, feel good,” he said.

McMullen said she was initially wary of perming her son’s mullet.

“You’re going against your better judgment,” she said. “But you know deep down that this is what these boys want, and you really just want to make them feel good.”

Lang also was among several players from New Ulm who grew — or at least tried to grow — mustaches. Lang augmented his with black hair dye, his mother said.

“Some of them actually think they look good,” Neuman said. “But you know what? They’re high school kids. You’ve got to let them have a little fun.”

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15 Mar 2024

How cryptocurrency executives helped decide the California Senate primary

by | posted in: Politics | 0

Laura J. Nelson | (TNS) Los Angeles Times

In the days before the California Senate primary, political ads calling Rep. Katie Porter a fake, an actor and a hypocrite inundated social media platforms and television programs.

The $10 million bill for the advertisements, which were designed to bump Porter out of the race for a rare open Senate seat, was footed by a super PAC called Fairshake that is funded by cryptocurrency companies and their executives.

As primary results rolled in that showed Porter a distant third behind Rep. Adam B. Schiff of Burbank and Republican Steve Garvey, Fairshake boasted that the Orange County lawmaker’s alliance with mentor Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a vocal skeptic of cryptocurrency, had “ended her career in Congress.”

Porter later blamed her loss on “an onslaught of billionaires spending millions to rig this election,” a not-too-subtle allusion to the crypto group’s major donors.

After two years of bad headlines, including the conviction of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried on fraud charges, the cryptocurrency industry is back in the political arena, flexing its significant cash reserves in the 2024 election cycle. The California Senate race is one of many in which the industry has signaled that it will boost candidates who support more favorable crypto laws in Washington, and oust those who don’t.

“That amount of money buys you a seat at the political table in Washington, D.C., and that’s their goal,” said Dennis Kelleher, chief executive and co-founder of Better Markets, a financial watchdog group that has been a frequent opponent of the crypto industry in Washington.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has asserted in court that cryptocurrency should be regulated like stocks and bonds, which would require trading firms to follow a wide range of disclosure and investor protection laws. The industry has lobbied for more favorable regulations, including allowing the markets to be regulated by the smaller Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Fairshake was the largest outside spender in the Senate primary, but to what extent it moved the needle is a matter of debate. Schiff and his allies spent prodigiously to boost Garvey among Republican voters, blanketing the state with ads that described the retired baseball star as a two-time Trump voter who was “too conservative for California.”

Under California’s unusual primary system, the two candidates who receive the most votes in the primary advance to the November election, regardless of their political affiliation. Schiff’s team gambled that in a deep-blue state, his path to victory would be easier if he faced a Republican.

“When you look at everything else going on in that race, I’m extremely skeptical that they had any impact,” Kelleher said of the cryptocurrency ads. He cited Schiff’s campaign strategy of boosting Garvey and the major support from leaders in the Democratic Party, including Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), as well as Schiff’s long resume and Porter’s status as a relative newcomer in Democratic politics.

Polling from the week before the election found Garvey and Schiff in a fight for first, although Porter received a lower share of votes than polls predicted. Who will fill the remainder of the late Dianne Feinstein’s term in the Senate, as well as a six-year term that starts in 2025, will be decided on the November ballot.

Sawyer Hackett, a spokesman for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which backed Porter, said the $10-million ad buy “probably contributed a significant amount” to Porter’s loss. In California’s costly media markets, he said, $10 million doesn’t win or lose a race, but “it’s certainly a major factor, especially when you’re talking about the final weeks of the election when Democratic voters are considering the options in front of them.”

He said he wasn’t surprised to see the crypto industry spending against Porter, who has a “somewhat minor” track record on crypto issues but has proved herself willing to take on major industries to defend consumers. The crypto industry, he said, is “targeting candidates with an overall brand that seems to be focused on antitrust and pro-consumer policy.”

Fairshake’s major donors include venture capital giants Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, who have invested in dozens of crypto companies; crypto investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss; and Brian Armstrong, the chief executive of Coinbase, which is listed on the Nasdaq market. .

Coinbase, which has the highest trading volume of any crypto exchange in the U.S., is working this year to make sure that “candidates and incumbents continue to think about crypto as an opportunity to really make a difference to change, to protect jobs, to protect national security,” said Kara Calvert, the company’s head of U.S. policy.

Coinbase will be working to “educate” members of Congress through November, she said, so that “when they get asked about crypto at a town hall, or when they get asked about crypto by Fairshake, or by any of the rest of these organizations, that they know what they’re talking about.”

On the afternoon before election day, a group called Stand With Crypto hosted a get-out-the-vote rally for crypto owners in Los Angeles. A line stretched around the block on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame outside the Bourbon Room bar for an event headlined by the rapper Nas, who was an early investor in Coinbase.

Inside, as guests ate sliders and drank Sofia Coppola wine, Armstrong told the crowd that they needed to vote to send a “very clear message” for the November election that “you’ve got to understand innovation, you’ve got to be pro-tech, pro-innovation, pro-crypto, to get elected and be representing our values in California.”

Armstrong didn’t name any California Senate candidates, instead directing voters to a guide prepared by Stand With Crypto, which, as a political 501(c)4 nonprofit organization, is not required to disclose its donors. The guide described Schiff as “strongly supportive” of crypto and Porter as “strongly against.” Garvey and Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland, the other candidates in the race, are listed as “pending,” with a question mark icon.

Porter’s “F” rating cited three references, including a post on X, formerly Twitter, in which she called Fairshake’s backers “shadowy crypto billionaires” because of their ad campaign against her, as well as her signature on a 2022 letter that Warren sent to the Texas power grid authority, questioning its practice of paying crypto mining businesses to shut off power during peak periods. Some companies reported earning more from the payments than from their mining operations, Warren wrote.

Stand With Crypto also said Porter voted “nay” last summer in the House finance committee markup of a cryptocurrency bill favored by the industry. But Porter isn’t a member of that committee and her name does not appear on the vote sheet. Porter did not vote on the legislation, her spokeswoman said.

Schiff’s “A” rating on crypto issues was attributed to a single statement on his campaign website that said the U.S. needs to “develop comprehensive regulatory frameworks” to ensure that cryptocurrency and blockchain companies “stay here and grow here, and that the United States remains the global leader in these important new technologies.”

Schiff told reporters during a campaign stop in San Francisco last week that he supports “clear rules of the road” and “sound regulation” for cryptocurrency companies that protect consumers but keep the firms in the U.S.

©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.