This Week in PurpleAmerica (3/23-3/29)

It's a Bracket Busting, April Fool Pranking ,NBC Firing Fussilade on Extremism!

Ah, it’s good to be back. Taking a few weeks off was a huge help to me and my mental health. I realized how much I genuinely miss the day to days of writing, posting and promoting these stories and getting them ready for you. I missed the feedback I hear back from all of you. It was a great few weeks, but now I’m fresh and ready and getting back in the habit of promoting PurpleAmerican views.

A couple things I’ve also been working on is setting up a PurpleAmerica store for schwag and merchandise. Coffee mugs, t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats. It’s all coming. Just getting the store ready for you all. I’ve actually even got a prototype of the coffee mug and love it. So once up, you can have your own “PurpleAmerica” merch.

PurpleAmerica’s People of the Past Week

The Good

• Bracket Pools. I’m still in most of mine. Though not without some damage (thank you Kentucky).

• Vacations. I’m glad I took a break. I’m refreshed and glad to be back.

• Joe Biden’s Fundraising. Wow, he had almost $150 million cash on hand and then he had a $25 million fundraiser with Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, a record. Trump’s cash on hand is a paltry amount, so little he has to raid the RNC where he just placed his daughter-in-law in charge of.

The Bad

• Trump Bibles. “I noticed this guy, King James, great King that James, King James. He wrote his own Bible, so I thought, ‘That’s what I’m gonna do.’ It’s going to be hyuge. Like ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’ hyuge. Except its going to be better. I’m going to make it better. The stuff nobody likes, I’m gonna change. I get to slay Goliath. Ten Commandments?—let’s break it down to 5 bullet points. And Jesus? What can be said about Jesus? In my story, he’s going to win and look like me. He’s not going to die on a cross, his followers are going to riot and save him, just like all of you were going to do for me on 1/6.”— Trump

• I downed FIVE boxes of Girl Scout cookies last week. Those little green sashed demons are evil.

The Ugly

• Ronna McDaniel and NBC News. NBC News hired McDaniel fresh off her 7 year stint as RNC Chairperson, where she disparaged NBC journalists and trashed the network news division as “Fake news” regularly. NBC news personalities had a very visible on air revolt on Sunday’s Meet the Press and subsequent Monday MSNBC news programs, which sparked top brass to fire McDaniel after only 2 days on the job. I’d be fitting to say that McDaniel lasted 1/3 a Scaramucci, but in truth, Scaramucci lasted 3 McDaniels, which now becomes the new standard.

• Truth Social. Truth Social started trading on the NASDAQ last week under the ticker heading “DJT.” The stock immediately shot up to a level that makes it’s market cap bigger than Reddit and currently “X” even though it has nowhere near the traffic, assets or online presence. It’s trading like the meme stock it was predicted to be and put $4.5 billion in Trump’s pocket on paper. The good news is he can’t pull it out of the company for 6 months, but it seems this is a back end way to get money to Trump and his struggling campaign, legal fees and judgment liens. The biggest shareholder, other than Trump, is billionaire Jeff Yass, who is a huge investor in TikTok. When Trump was President he was for a ban on the Chinese owned company, but has since come out on the other side; thanks to Yass’ investment in his business. But once investors actually see the vaue and come off the initial high, the stock should collapse (hopefully).

Have a nominee for us to consider? Send an email to purpleamericanunity@gmail.com!

PurpleAmerica Pop Culture Random Top Five

This week: The Top 5 Pranks/Hoaxes of All Time.

Monday is one of my favorite days of the year; April Fools Day. Supposedly, the origin of “Aprils Fools” goes back to the transition from the seasonal calendar to the Gregorian Calendar we all use today. The first day of the seasonal calendar was the vernal equiniox, the first day of Spring. When Pope Gregory created his now ubiquitous calendar, starting with January (the week after Christmas and the Winter Solstice), one way they encouraged adoption was mocking the pagans and druids adhering to the old calendar calling them “April fools.” Somewhere along the way, it became a great day for pranks, hoaxes and jokes. Below is my list of five of the best of all-time.

5. Orson Welles Broadcasts “The War of the Worlds.” Not so much a joke or a hoax, the artist extraordinaire turned what was a typical radio drama story on an H.G. Wells novel, and presented it in the format of a newscast. People couldn’t figure out if what they were listening to was a story or something that was really happening. It would be something filmmaker Rob Reiner would bump into when he made the first “mockumentary” feature film, “This is Spinal Tap,” and people genuinely thought this was a real band and a real documentary.

4. Howard Hughes’ Biography. Frustrated writer Clifford Irving, who had been spurned by the famed billionaire recluse and germophobe Hughes while on vacation, told his publishers McGraw-Hill that he was collaborating with Hughes on his autobiography. Because Hughes was a recluse, he figured nobody would be able to call him out on it, and he would be able to deposit a fat publishing check. His writing was so convincing, attempts to authenticate it by those who knew Hughes personally, including past friends, attorneys and a previous Hughes biographer who had worked with him were even fooled. In a televised phone conference, Howard Hughes denounced Irving as a fraud, never having met him; McGraw-Hill was forced to burn every copy of the book and Irving spent 17 months in prison.

3. The Harvard Crimson Endorses Trump, sort of. The two Harvard newspapers, the serious “Harvard Crimson” and the not-so serious “Harvard Lampoon” have a long history of antipathy and pranks on one another. One oft repeated prank is that The Lampoon has a history of stealing the Crimson President’s Chair, an elaborate thronish looking thing. Well, in 2016 they took it to the next level, not just by stealing the chair, but taking it to Trump Tower where Donald Trump sat in it and pictures were taken announcing “The Harvard Crimson Endorsed Donald Trump.” The first the Crimson heard of it was when the story broke and got picked up by national papers, complete with Trump, the chair, and the Lampoon staff in the picture. The only one who didn’t laugh was Trump who complained about being the butt of the joke.

2. The Famous Rose Bowl Prank of 1961. The University of Washington Huskies were playing the Minnesota Gophers in the “Grandaddy of them all,” The famous Rose Bowl in Pasadena. The Husky Cheerleaders distributed placards to their student section, so when halftime rolled around and the Washington Marching Band was on the field, it would read “Go Huskies.” An enterprising group of kids from CalTech found out where they placards were stored and swapped them out the night before the game. The cheerleaders distributed them and during the Halftime were aghast to see that the student section were holding up a big “CALTECH” sign. The band actually stopped playing, perplexed at the sight and realizing they’ve been had. CalTech doesn’t even have a football team to boot.

1. The Mysterious Sidd Finch. Sports Illustrated editors realized that in 1985, one of the publication dates of the magazine landed on April 1st. This was too good of an opportunity to let pass. So they got in touch with reknown author George Plimpton about the idea of an April Fool’s Day story and lending his credibility to it. Plimpton thought of it as a great idea. Plimpton was a lifelong Mets fan and friend with the Mets owners, and concocted a brilliant story, about a reclusive, french horn playing buddhist named Sidd Finch, who had found the way to unleash the human potential of throwing a 158 m.p.h. fastball, and that the Mets had signed him. At first it seemed like a lark that would never be taken seriously. SI was completely on board creating a photo spread and the Mets organization helped by encasing one of its pitching cages in a tarp and having catchers and coaches embellish Finch’s abilities. But the credibility of Plimpton and SI made people believe, and the Mets were fielding questions and potential trade offers on the unknown Finch (or on other NY Mets pitchers like Dwight Gooden). Long suffering Mets fans completely bought into the story, only to find out it was all an April Fools Day hoax.

The biggest clue of course, aside from the fact that nobody could throw 158 m.p.h., was that if you took the first letter of each word in the headline, it spelled it out for you:

PurpleAmerica’s Subscriber Mail

When we here at PurpleAmerica Respond to the Teeming Millions (well, we’re still working on that first million)

PA,

You’re just a typical racist and sexist white male who has a problem with powerful women like Kamala. She’s more than qualified and would be a much better President than “sleepy Joe.” Black women are the most neglected group in America and you’re just a condescending a**hole that demonstrates why.

[Name Withheld]

Dear Random KHIVE Worker Bee,

If you want to know why most social media hates KHIVE, you pretty much demonstrated why. You know nothing about me or my opinions, you just felt it necessary to accuse me of being a racist and sexist, based only on my distaste for the toxic KHIVE group that it is. You’re not brining in sympathetic people to your cause, you’re repelling them in droves with each sting. People look at how you talk to people like me and want no part of your swarm. Great job.

As for what I’ve said about Kamala, I suggest you read this and this both of which praised Harris and pointed out how the job of Vice President makes anyone look worse than their capabilities. I’d also encourage you to read this, An Open Letter to Progressives, which I hope will get you to reconsider how you treat people online.

Thanks and Good Riddance.

Dear PurpleAmerica-

Who do you have winning your NCAA bracket?

—Shameless Gambler

I LOVED this question, because it gives me a chance to expand on my whole mentality of picking NCAA brackets. Too many “experts” and guys who follow college basketball year round always do horribly, where I consistently do pretty well. How? Let me tell you:

• Chalk is your friend. There’s a reason teams are seeded higher than others—they tend to be better teams. Too many focus on picking the random upset too frequently, even when there are pool incentives to pick upsets. When I ran a pool for years, I learned that through the first two rounds, picking nothing but the higher seeds would usually put you at or near the top.

• Don’t change who you think will win based on the scoring. Some will choose an upset if there are incentives to pick upsets. Don’t do that. If you think U-Conn will win, pick U-Conn. You won’t get the 12 points by picking that 5-12 upset if they don’t win.

• Bet against the Big Ten. Most of the teams coming out of this conference are overrated and lose to mid-major teams. Quite often, a Big Ten 2 or 3 seed loses first round. As with any rule, there are exceptions; Michigan State usually does well the first weekend and this year Purdue was a top team. But otherwise, you had a lot of overrated garbage, most of which lost.

• Know the averages. In the first round, on average:

  • 1s, 2s and 3s almost always win. And if they lose, nobody else had them losing either. No harm, no foul.

  • Only one 4 seed loses, if that. In fact, the total 3s and 4s COMBINED that lose every year is just barely over 1.

  • Historically, the 5 seed is where the upsets occur. The reason being at 5 you are likely to have a mediocre power conference team playing a top mid-major who can play up. Previously, you could rely on TWO 5 seeds losing. In recent years, because of the transfer portal, and the proliferation of small school teams draining talent, that has shifted to the 6 seed. So I would recommend picking one 5 seed losing, and two 6 seeds losing.

  • In the 7-10 and 8-9 matchups, the averages near a 50/50 call, so pick 2 upsets at each of these.

• Kill the Upsets. Whenever you have someone upsetting a team, have them lose in the next round if you don’t feel 100% about it. This mitigates the damage if you get them wrong. If they win, nobody had those upsets going further anyway, and you won’t lose any ground.

• Brackets are won or lost in the Sweet Sixteen. How you do here, usually determines if you win or lose. Generally, at this point, it becomes more of a crap shoot. But these tips usually help:

  • On average three seeds 2 or higher will lose in the Sweet Sixteen.

  • Write in who you think will win the whole thing and work backward.

  • On average, 1-2 #1 seeds make the Final Four, 1-2 #2 Seeds, and 1-2 seeds for every other seed. How you break it down is up to you, but remember rule #1—chalk is your friend. Only once in history has it been all four #1 seeds. Only once has the Final Four not had a top #1-3 seed (last year)¹.

That’s the best I can offer. The rest is up to you.

As for who I chose, I have North Carolina in one pool and U-Conn in another. I’m currently in second and third in both of those pools and whether I win or not will depend on who wins the whole thing.

Good luck and happy gambling.

—PurpleAmerica

Have a question you want us to answer? Email us at purpleamericanunity@gmail.com

PurpleAmerica’s Historical Note from This Week

On this day, March 29th in 1999, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 10,000 for the first time. Pushed throughout the ‘90s by the booming economy and the dot com bubble, it had passed 2,000 only 12 years earlier.

During the pandemic low, the DJIA bottomed out four years ago this week on March 23, 2020 at 18,591, wiping out all the gains made under Trump and setting back the economy to where it was in 2015.

Last week it closed above 40,000 for the first time ever.

PurpleAmerica’s Dad/Uncle/Cheesy Joke of the Week

Why is everyone so happy on April 1st?

Because they just finished a 31 day March.

And with that…

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Footnotes and Fun Stuff

1. 2023 was a complete anomaly. Only one top four seed, #4 U-Conn, made the Final Four, with two seeds ranked 10 or higher making it. U-Conn ended up winning the NCAA Championship.