by John Walters

A Medium Happy 58th to the founder and chief proprietor of Los Pollos Hermanos, Gustavo Fring (Giancarlo Esposito)

Not making the cut today: Blackhawks Down, Martin Starr, Beyon-CIA….Sorry, we’ll try to be better tomorrow….

Starting Five

Tirico, 49, would be in line to replace both Michaels, 73, and Costas, 64

1. Open Mike

The “high priest of Tiricoism,” as the Men In Blazers playfully yet reverently referred to Mike Tirico during the 2014 World Cup, is taking his religion elsewhere. After 25 years at ESPN, Tirico is headed to the Peacock, NBC. It’s a better fit as a marriage than the Michelle Beadle ESPN-to-NBC coupling, as Tirico is a much more reserved cat. He’s also ESPN’s most versatile broadcaster.

Watch as Sean McDonough replaces him on Monday Night Football….

2. Casting A Paul

Pretty sure Paul broke a bone in his right hand on this play. Don’t ask me how.

We were all set to rejigger the odds for the Western Conference champion and title this item “Slip Slidin’ Away” as an ode to Stephen Curry. Our newly jiggered order of favorites would have gone San Antonio, Los Angeles, Golden State and OKC.

But then Chis Paul broke his hand last night and now there’s a chance that the Blazers could upset the Clippers in the first round (unrest in the Hooper home). So now I’ll got San Antonio, GSW (barely), OKC and then LA. But I really feel GSW and OKC is a toss-up and that Curry is as good as done for this postseason (and maybe even if he isn’t, he should be).

Meanwhile, there are the Cavs lurking in the East, with no true challenger, easing past their next two opponents while whoever makes it out of the west will have been through two wars before meeting them. Advantage, Cavs.

And somewhere David Blatt is seething.

3. No Longer the Queen of Castle

This is probably the look Katic shot the show’s execs when they informed her she wasn’t returning for season 9

Whenever TV critics invoke the term “Peak TV,” they never invoke the ABC show “Castle.” And yet the Nathan Fillion-Stana Katic NYC detective show, kind of a 21st century “Moonlighting” with less bite, is in its 8th season.

And I’ve always found it enjoyable. Kate Beckett always served as Richard Castle’s muse, and he as her wise and wise-cracking big brother (until he became her love interest). Now comes word that Katic has been let go by the show if there is a 9th season. Don’t know the details, but I just wonder if there are that many lovely detectives in the fictitious NYPD detectives bureau. I mean, what if Beckett gets replaced by Andrew Sipowicz?

4. Rain Dear

You could probably write a Broadway musical based on the life of Kyla Grogan, and she’d star in it. Grogan recently joined the CBS-New York news team as a meteorologist, but before that she played the role of fake news anchor Andrea Bennett at the Onion News Network, where her bio listed her as “the most stalked news personality of all time.” Before that she was on Broadway, performing in shows such as The Starlight Express, an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical in which the actors actually wore roller skates as they moved about the stage. I’m not sure if her entire presence here in NYC is simply a goof.

5. Breaking Bad In Ohio (Cont.)

The victims. Unless you’re running a mom-and-pop pot biz in southern Ohio, you are probably not in any danger

I was only mildly joking yesterday when I offered the theory that Tuco Salamanca was behind the slayings of eight people, all family members, in rural south central Ohio over the weekend. Well, local authorities believe that it was a Mexican cartel.

More information: There were some 200 marijuana plants growing indoors on property the Rhoden family owned, with an estimated street value of $500,000. Leonard Manley, the father of 37 year-old victim Dana Rhoden, told a reporter, “Whoever done it, know the family because there were two dogs there that would eat you up. But I ain’t going to say no more.”

(I think the by-laws of white rural America obliged him to say, “Whoever done it,” but we’ll check up on that.)

Murders on four different properties on the same night with no escapes, no witnesses suggests that this was a coordinated job with multiple suspects. Police won’t say much, but it sure sounds like a drug hit by someone who didn’t appreciate these amateurs honing on their market. Walter White (and his many narrow escapes) is fiction; this is reality.

Music 101

Think For a Minute

Holy Falsetto, Batman, who is that man? That’s Paul Heaton, lead singer of The Housemartins, a mid-Eighties indie pop band from Hull, England. This tune hit No. 18 on the UK singles chart in 1986.

Remote Patrol

The Night Manager

9 & 10 p.m. AMC

The entire miniseries revolves around a hotel manager refusing to give a middle-aged man a room next door to Erin Andrews’. It would seem a thin plot, but it actually works.

I caught the premiere of this six-episode miniseries last Tuesday and loved it. Tom Hiddleston is like a vegan, (more?) metrosexual Daniel Craig-as-James Bond, while Hugh Laurie prances around doing that charming but cynical Hugh Laurie thing. The locale has already jumped from Cairo during the Arab Spring to the Swiss Alps, and it’s only going to get better. I’m sure AMC will re-run last week’s premiere at 9 (this is one of the best ideas anyone has ever had in TV, re-running last week’s show before this week’s) and then air the new episode at 10.

Note: AMC does not pay me for these plugs. But maybe they should.

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 40th to Timmay!!!!!

Starting Five

Where do I get one of those Lord of Light necklaces?

1. GoT: Still GOAT

If you’re scoring at home, in last season’s finale Cersei had to do a naked walk of shame (“Shame! Shame!” the crowd literally chanted) and now, in the Season 6 premiere, Melisandre does a full body reveal that she’s a 100 year-old (or older) witch. It’s as if the producers of Game Of Thrones are dedicated to ruining every last one of its male viewer’s onanistic fantasies.

Meanwhile, the Prince of Dorne takes a header from one of his female cousins. That was brutal. The good news is that Theon and Sansa, who both have been prisoners of sorts since the end of Season 1, are finally free…. (to marry?).

2. Water Hazard

Curry was already playing with a bum ankle when this happened just before halftime

Two Sundays ago: The world’s greatest golfer currently, Jordan Speith, is undone by water.

Yesterday: The world’s greatest basketball player currently (or at least one of two), is undone by water.

Was last week’s flood in Houston a harbinger? Stephen Curry slips on a wet spot and sprains his knee. No matter when he returns this postseason, he’s probably not going to be the same. By the way, the Clippers are looking formidable. Charles Barkley said it earlier, that the Dubs won’t win the NBA championship this spring. I hate to double down on underestimating the Dubs (I was already wrong once), but there are at least three teams (Spurs, Clips, Cavs), maybe four (OKC) who look at least as formidable as they do at the moment.

The good news? Golden State did win on Sunday, outscoring Houston 41-20 in the third quarter to break a halftime tie. They’re up 3-1. But the Clippers are going to be a very, very tough out. Ask the Hoopers.

One more weird coincidence: The most noteworthy basketball game to take place in Houston this spring (UNC vs. Villanova) included a player mopping the court himself moments before his teammate hit a game-winning shot. Houston courts and moisture: bring on your 7,000-word think piece.

3. Bubble Buoyant

The S.S. Moops was unsuccessful in its bid to float from Florida to Bermuda

Florida man (but of course) Reza Baluchi needed to be rescued by the Coast Guard 70 nautical miles off St. Augustine as his quest to “run” from Florida to Bermuda in his “hydro pod” came up empty. “Part of his effort was to make world peace but he got caught up in the Gulf Stream,” said Coast Guard public affairs specialist Mark Barney.

4. From One Icon To Another

If you were “alive out there” in the summer of 1984, you may recall that the two biggest albums and the two biggest sex symbols in America were, respectively, Purple Rain and Born In The USA and Prince and Bruce Springsteen. The Boss opened his show at Barclay’s Center on Saturday night by playing “Purple Rain” without any words of introduction. Nils Lofgren nailed the guitar solo.

5. Breaking Bad In Ohio

It’s looking as if those eight people, all family members, who were murdered execution-style in southeastern Ohio, in four different homes nearby one another in a rural area, were linked to a marijuana growing operation. Three of the four locations where members of the Rhoden family were killed had marijuana farms.

Not the greatest leap of logic to assume that someone else didn’t like the idea of them honing in on their market/turf. Authorities have ruled out Tuco Salamanca.

Reserves

Manic Monday

Forty years ago today, Tim Duncan was born, as noted above. On that same day, Rick Monday of the Chicago Cubs spared Dodger Stadium from a public flag burning. Just two-plus months prior to the bicentennial. On this Monday, we salute Monday.

Music 101

Waning Moon

This 1987 tune by Minneapolis born-and-bred musician Peter Himmelman was his only song that ever charted, but he has made a living putting out albums and writing scores or themes for TV shows such as Judging Amy and Bones. I always think of him as a lost member of The Replacements, another Twin Cities band of the time. True fact: his father-in-law is Bob Dylan.

If you like this, I’d also point you to “I Feel Young Today.”

Remote Patrol

TURN: Washington’s Spies

AMC 10 p.m.

AMC asks, “Will America care about a story of heroes of the Revolution if the dialogue is not rapped?”

This particular AMC program doesn’t garner enough attention (“Talking Out of TURN,” Chris Hardwick?), but it is an honest attempt to educate the public on actual American history (so maybe it’s not a “but” that belongs in that sentence but a “because”). Anyway, if you are unfamiliar with the details of the story of Benedict Arnold, the series premiere will educate you and believe me, it’s as good as any plot line from The Americans.

If there is a Twin Cities version of Rob Fleming, the music-obsessed protagonist of  Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, it’s Bill Hubbell. In past years Bill would burn and send out as many as 20 “Best Of 2004” (“of 2005″…”of 2006”, etc.) compact discs to friends and family. Each year, 15 to 20 discs from that year’s new music, each one with at least 15 or so songs. Billy never asked for a penny. He just wanted to share the music (I may have occasionally sent him a crappy T-shirt as compensation).

Anyway, Bill, Katie McCollow’s brother (see post below), also wrote a few words on the death of Prince that I want to share with you. Thanks, Bill.

Baby, I’m a Star

By Bill Hubbell

The coolest guy in the world died on Thursday. It’s hard to know what to say when the coolest guy in the world dies. Millions have tried and I’ve read as many of them as I possibly could, and damn if I haven’t enjoyed every last one of them.

Imagine living a life that has this sort of outpouring when it ends. You can’t, obviously, none of us can, because none of us ever got to be the coolest guy on Earth.

I mean, I’m sitting here by myself as I write this, and I’m barely the coolest person in this room, and if my wife happens to walk in, I clearly won’t be.

I’m kidding, of course, (not about my wife being cooler than me, that’s pretty clear), nobody my age cares about being cool anymore, but back in the day, when you’re still young and silly enough to think you might be cool, I was plenty guilty of it on many occasions.

It was on one of those said occasions when I saw Prince up close for the first time in my life. I’d turned 19 and of age about a week before, and me and my friends were at Graffitti’s nightclub in downtown Minneapolis. Here I am, wearing some ridiculous combination of clothes I’d spent $30 on at Banks, looking probably something like an Irish immigrant did coming off a boat in the late 1800’s. (At least I was cool enough not to wear the popped collars that the suburban boys we were suddenly thrown into the same environment with had on. We Minneapolis boys laughed and made fun of their popped collars while they laughed and made fun of our $22 jeans.) We were all idiots in our quest for what we thought passed for cool.

Anyhow, I’m standing there trying my hardest not to look like a dork, (and, with just that thought in my head, clearly failing), when “Delirious” starts blasting over the speakers and about 10 seconds in, Prince comes peacocking out of the shadows, strutting through the place like a rock god, which, of course, he was. He walked right by me and my friends wearing an impossibly shiny, glittering, canary-yellow outfit that was pretty similar to the purple one he’d have on in the movie a couple of weeks later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIs4JdfJ8NA

So, you know, it’s a dance club full of idiots like me trying to be cool, so there isn’t a complete freak out, OMG THERE’S PRINCE meltdown by the entire club, but it certainly teetered on that. We saw him three or four times at Graffitti’s over the next month, and it was always like that—he’d prance through the club as if by magic, you’d never know where he came from or where he went, and it never lasted for more than 45 seconds or so.

We were certainly lucky, all of us Minnesotans, having this global superstar and icon in our midst. We always got the extra shows and the random sightings. I think all of us have collectively bristled at the notion that he was some sort of weirdo. Weirdos don’t go to the Edina movie theatre (a lot), high school hockey games (maybe just one, but he was definitely at a SW vs Washburn game) Vikings and Timberwolves games. Sure, he was a Superstar Rock God, but he was also “one of us” and we all unapologetically loved him for being so.

First Avenue, last Thursday night

My wife, of the same era as me (and who went to high school with the popped collar boys), has a great story where she’s at the bottom of the stairs at Marsh’s nightclub and Prince comes dancing down the staircase, full on shoulder shimmying and a huge grin on his face and he WINKS at her as he passes! I’ll spend my whole life trying, but I’ll never make her feel like she did in that moment and I’m ok with that. He was the coolest cat on the planet.

You don’t ask a Minnesotan, at least one of my era, if they like Prince or not. That’s literally as silly as asking them if they like sex. We all LOVED Prince. Rock ‘n Roll, Funk, Jazz, Soul, Dance… what kind of music did he play? He played Prince music.

He entered our lives with the following:

I wanna be your lover
I wanna be the only one that makes you come running
I wanna be your lover
I wanna turn you on, turn you out, all night long make you shout

Mission accomplished. I could go on forever about the music, but suffice to say he sat on “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man” for five freaking years, because he had so many incredible songs pouring out of him. Seriously, that would be the greatest song 99.9999 percent of anyone who’s ever played a note could come up with and Prince had it in his holster for five M-FNG years!

I’ve always been proud to be from Minneapolis, but maybe never more so than the past couple of days. I love how quickly we’ve turned sorrow to celebration. I love how we’ve all unabashedly cried with one another, but turned our tears to joy, which is what the coolest guy on Earth would have wanted us to do.

One of my best friends was over last night to watch the Wild game, and as it went to overtime, we were watching “Purple Rain” on VH1 instead.

Cry some more. Talk about how much you loved him some more with your friends. I’m going to go listen to the one…… you know the one…..Dr. tells us that everything is going to be alright….. Thank you Prince for punching the higher floor for all of us.

Prince is in heaven now, but it seems to me that he was already three-quarters of the way there while he was here on Earth. Peace and love–that was his main message. Let us all let a little more of that into our lives.

I was on a train on the loveliest spring day on Thursday afternoon when one of my two favorite Minnesotans, Katie McCollow, sent the following text: “What the effing eff. Prince can’t be dead.”

That’s how I learned Prince had died. As bummed as I was by the news, I’m glad I heard it from a Minnesotan.

Katie and her husband Mike (my other favorite Minnesotan) were born in Minneapolis, were raised in Minneapolis, and will die in Minneapolis (for all the flirting they both do with the American southwest). And so I asked Katie, who’s the most talented writer I know who lives within 10 miles of Paisley Park—either her or her brother, Billy—to write a few words about Prince. Katie, being the decent Minnesotan she is, complied. Enjoy.

******

Our Prince

by Katie McCollow

“The best thing Minnesota had is gone.”

“What about Bob Dylan?”

“Fuck Dylan. He left.”

—The comments section of my daughter’s friend’s Facebook page

And that, my friends, is pretty much it in a nutshell.

Oh, I should warn you, this is another Prince piece, so if you’re sick of reading them, well, I don’t know what to say. I guess you could go read about whatever other dumb thing happened in the world over the last few days, but why you’d care about anything else right now is beyond me.

I’m a born and raised Minnesotan, specifically a Minneapolitan, and I know the whole world is weeping purple tears right now…but it’s different here. Our tears are purple and made of cream of mushroom soup, and Prince totally would’ve gotten that.

There’s nothing I can add to this topic, information-wise; you’ve probably already read and heard whatever sad details of his death are available. All I can offer is my own thoughts and feelings from here in Prince’s ground zero.

I go by Paisley Park all the time—it’s very close to one of my favorite places on Earth, The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, which I’ve been told Prince loved, too. If you think your state has a good arboretum, I am very sorry to tell you this, it is completely lame next to ours.  Comparing your arboretum to ours is like comparing whatever local singer in your town who made it onto The Voice to Prince. Yes it is, so please just stop turning red and calm down. You probably have a football team that doesn’t shit the bed every playoff season, so it’s okay. (Hey! I wrote something about sports!!)

This is, like, the dumpster area at the Arboretum (a mile from Prince’s home)

Anyway, Paisley Park looks like a giant version of that game Don’t Break the Ice. It’s seriously ugly and weird from the outside, and it just sits there on the side of the highway and it seems like maybe you could pull in and get your oil changed. There are no giant gates, there’s no tree-lined driveway or anything that screams “THE COOLEST PERSON IN THE WORLD LIVES HERE,” which simply adds to the fact that Prince was the coolest person in the world.

Paisley Park really does look like the “Don’t Break The Ice” game

Everyone here has a Prince story, or at least a six-degrees-of-Prince story—he was rather regularly spotted around town, not just at clubs, but at the movies, restaurants, shopping at the record store, doing all the same things the rest of us did. He lived across the street from my best friend for a time. He went to high school with my cousins.

There’s a picture floating around the Internet, taken last Saturday, of Prince out riding his bike. Because it was nice out, and when it’s nice out here in April, we do stuff like ride our bikes and plant flowers even though anyone with any sense knows you shouldn’t plant anything until Mother’s Day. I loved the tweet he sent out that same day, when he invited us all over for a dance party “2 GIVE THANX 4 THE GOOD WEATHER AND ALL 4 ALL THE LOVE AND SUPPORT”. When we get a good day in April, we rejoice.

I know this probably all sounds stupid, like that “Stars—they’re just like us!” section in US Weekly—Hey, Prince shopped at Walgreens! Neato–  he had to get his cold medicine and Gummi bears somewhere, right?

Except yeah, it was neat. It was flipping amazing, because he was PRINCE. Spotting him around town didn’t take away from the magical feeling that you’d spotted a unicorn. The fact that he was willing to invite his community over sometimes and be a super gracious host…You guys, c’mon. Do I even need to tell you how incredible that felt? The last time my nephew went to one of his impromptu home concerts, he was served pancakes at dawn. Prince fed my nephew pancakes.

His Purple Reign will never end

That’s why this hurts so much for us. Look, Minnesota is a great place, and we have a thriving arts community of which we are very proud. But he elevated that, first by becoming PRINCE, and then by staying. Right here. We were the nerdy girl who, yeah, had a lot going for us if anyone was willing to look past our glasses and ponytail and get to know us, and he was the unbelievably cool kid who not only took us to the prom and revved our little red corvette, he actually did call us the next day, in fact he fucking married us, and almost 40 years in, he was still bringing us breakfast.

He could’ve gone anywhere, and he would’ve been the biggest star wherever he was, but he stayed. His loyalty to us made our loyalty to him that much stronger.

The stops are pulled out everywhere—driving down the street, I can hear his music blasting from every car (The Very Best of Prince has finally kicked the Hamilton soundtrack out of my own CD player), we’re all in purple, the dance parties and Purple Rain screenings just keep coming…tonight there’s a screening planned at the Twins’ stadium downtown.

My son, a high school student, asked me Thursday night if he could go downtown, where the streets were blocked off outside First Avenue and thousands were gathered for an all-night dance party. I think he thought that I was going to say no. I told him he absolutely had to go, and I was glad he wanted to. He slept through his first few classes Friday morning, and so what?

I hate the circumstances, but I’m so glad my kids and their peers have the opportunity to truly understand the importance and the impact Prince had not just on the world, but specifically on our city and state. Because before Thursday, I’m sure it was more like a cool anecdote for them.

He was not like us, and by “us,” I mean those of us who grew up alongside Prince becoming PRINCE. I was in 6^th grade when my friend Kristy introduced me to his music. We were shooting hoops in my backyard, and she asked me if I’d heard of him, which I had not. We listened to Controversy and stared at the album cover, and an alarm bell went off in my pants.

You guys, my dad famously yanked Billy Joel’s The Stranger off our family’s turn table and snapped it in half when he heard the lyrics to “Only the Good Die Young”. If he’d known what Prince was whispering in our ears, he would’ve burned the house down. And Prince only lived a couple of miles away. 

One of my first thoughts upon hearing he died was, “The Virgin Mary’s hall pass just showed up”.  I’m sorry if that offends you, but take it up with God, I didn’t invent Prince.

And when the movie Purple Rain came out, we saw it every Saturday night and rejoiced. The whole wide world was looking at our hometown hero, and all the accompanying scenic shots of the places we all hung out. To say we were proud is the understatement of every lifetime for eternity. And he just kept getting  bigger, and better, and still, he stayed.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with this, a quote from Carver County Sherriff Jim Olson: “To you, Prince Rogers Nelson was a celebrity. To us, he was a good neighbor.”

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 30th to Amber Heard, who’s had quite the newsy week

Starting Five

“Life is just a party/And parties weren’t meant to last…”

Nothing Compares 2 U

How many icons actually change their name to an icon? Only one who I can think of: Prince.

On April 21, 2016, a queen turned 90 and a Prince passed away at the age of 57. I won’t pretend to be an expert on The Artist Formerly Known As, but I do still proudly own a vinyl copy of Purple Rain. Vividly remember his appearance on Solid Gold in 1981 or ’82 where he and the Revolution played “1999” and “Little Red Corvette.” Had never seen a band that was that blatantly sexual, funky and also could riff like Keith Richards. Also remember in the summer of ’84, waking up to my music alarm just as the first licks of “When Doves Cry” were playing on the radio, and just laying in bed and being hypnotized by the raw energy.

Prince always understood and appreciated that our time on earth here is fleeting:

“1999”

“I was dreaming when I wrote this/Excuse me if I go too fast

But life is just a party/And parties weren’t made to last….”

Or, from “Let’s Go Crazy”

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life…”

and

“We’re all excited
But we don’t know why
Maybe it’s ’cause
We’re all gonna die

And when we do (When we do)
What’s it all for (What’s it all for)
You better live now
Before the grim reaper come knocking on your door”

He was a supremely gifted musician, a prodigy who played nearly all the instruments on his first five albums, all of which were released before his 25th birthday. This clip, which you should just jump to 3:30 for, showcases his mastery of the guitar. Watch him shred right in front of two RnR HoF guitarists, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne, as if to say, “Yeah, mine’s bigger…”

He also wrote insanely smart and tight lyrics:

Kiss

Women not girls rule my world
I said they rule my world
Act your age, (not your shoe size)
Not your shoe size
Maybe we could do the twirl
You don’t have to watch Dynasty
To have an attitude
You just leave it all up to me
My love will be your food

He was simply a genius. A Twin Cities product who never really left. I never knew until yesterday that Paisley Park is located just a mile due east of the Minnesota Landscape Aroboretum, which is one of my favorite places. Visit it some day.

Anyway, a few more great moments/tributes/oddities: Yes, he played the only Super Bowl halftime show out of 50 where it rained, and when informed that it was raining, asked, “Can you make it rain harder?” I mean, when one of your signature tunes is “Purple Rain,” you’re not bowing out for that reason.

Niagara Falls: Purple Reign? “That isn’t Lake Minnetonka.”

The folks at Niagara Falls had already decided to light it up purple last night to honor Queen Elizabeth on her 90th birthday. So that was a strange coincidence.

Some wonderful soul did this at the Prince St. subway platform here in NYC. I hope the MTA lets it stay there for awhile.

Why do we just keep standing/alone in a world that’s so cold (waiting for the N and the R)?

Artists who had big hits (for some, their biggest) with songs Prince wrote and let them record: Sinead O’Connor (“Nothing Compares 2 U”), Chaka Khan (“I Feel For You”), The Bangles (“Manic Monday”) and Sheena Easton (“Sugar Walls”).

Also, in the song “Let’s Go Crazy,” Prince mentions “the elevator” three times (“Are we gonna let the elevator bring us down?”). He was found dead in an elevator.

Finally, Prince inspired one of the funniest skits in the history of Chappelle’s Show, “Game, Blouses.”

Prince: Bold. Original. Eccentric. Unique. Completely in control of his destiny and his music. A lot like David Bowie, who did three months ago, in that he was sui generis. A genius.

2. Tiger and SEALs

Take a few minutes half hour to read this piece by Wright Thompson on Tiger Woods, the most intriguing part of which is his obsession with the military, particularly the U.S. Navy SEALs, following his father’s death in the spring of 2006.

Earl Woods served two tours with the Green Berets in Vietnam, then retired and played golf. Eldrick Woods won 10 majors in golf, then his father died and he became obsessed with joining the military (he would win 4 more, the last in June of 2008 at the U.S. Open not far from where the SEALs train in the San Diego area). Most damaging? An anecdote in which Tiger and a few SEALs go out to lunch in a diner and he fails to pick up the check.

Note: They’re all wearing green jackets, but he is not.

One man’s hot take? Tiger was bored by golf. He had mastered it at an early age and he wasn’t nearly as consumed with catching Jack Nicklaus as the public might think. He needed a new drug, and he missed his pop, who was his golf shaman. So of course the military was a way to feel closer to the man his father had been.

Also, to complete the arc of Tiger’s career, read this story by Tim Crothers, who “discovered” Tiger in a way, or at least for Sports Illustrated, a quarter century ago when Tiger was 15.

3. Houston, What Are You Doing?

With Stephen Curry sitting, James Harden was the game’s leading scorer at 35 points.

The final 14 seconds of Game 3 of Warriors-Rocktes.

–Houston, nursing a one-point leading and inbounding under its own basket, throws it away and Golden State scores to take the lead.

—James Harden takes the inbound pass, dribbles up court, pushes off Andre Iguodala (no foul called), and sinks J.

—Draymond Green takes inbound pass at half court, dribbles off foot.

It wasn’t easy being Green on the final play

—Houston, needing to inbound with :01 left from half court, throws pass back toward its own basket. Shaun Livingston comes mere inches from stealing play and making greatest late moment steal in a playoff game since Larry Bird robbed the Detroit Pistons in 1986.

Nutty. Houston wins by one point.

4. The Two Jakes

Cubs win, 16-0, at Cincinnati and Jake Arrieta throws his second no-hitter in his past 10 starts (the other being at Los Angeles last August). Arrieta, the NL’s reigning Cy Young Award winner, is now 4-0 on the season with a 0.87 ERA. His first three-plus seasons as a Baltimore Oriole (2010-13), his ERAs were 4.66, 5.05, 6.20 and 7.23. Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.

David Ross, a 15-year MLB vet who had never caught a no-hitter, was the other half of the battery last night for the Cubs.

5. “Hey (hey), You (you), Get Offa My Lawn!”

Clint gets it

One man’s retort (mine) to all of those millennials mocking us with the “Get Off My Lawn” meme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NelBNtNm8l0

Music 101

Nothing Compares 2 U

As you may know, you can’t find Prince’s original recordings or videos on YouTube (props to him for that; he owns all his stuff), but here is Chris Cornell covering a Prince classic that Sinead O’Connor later recorded herself (without his involvement), who turned it into her star-making hit in 1990.. Thanks to Mark Ennis who pointed this video out to me via Twitter.

O’Connor took this song to No. 1 and the album, I Do Not What What I Haven’t Got, remained No. 1 for six weeks.

Here is O’Connor later reflecting on her relationship with Prince: “He summoned me to his house after ‘Nothing Compares 2 U.’ I made it without him. I’d never met him. He summoned me to his house—and it’s foolish to do this to an Irish woman—he said he didn’t like me saying bad words in interviews. So I told him to fuck off.” O’Connor said: “He got quite violent. I had to escape out of his house at five in the morning. He packed a bigger punch than mine.”

Remote Patrol

SUNDAY

Game Of Thrones

HBO 9 p.m.

GoT is getting some Bran back in its diet….

“We’re gonna build a wall, and the Wildings are gonna pay for it!” Make Westeros great again! The Mother of Dragons is in exile….Jon Snow is dead-not-dead….Cersei is launching her revenge tour…and Winterfell is about to get wild. The Wild Wild Westeros is back!