by John Walters

Starting Five

When the most is at stake, that’s when Geno is at his best

1. More of the Ladder

John Wooden: 10-0 in national championship games, all at UCLA.

Geno Auriemma: 10-0 in national championship games, all at UConn.

Going 10-0 in championship games, in any sport at any level, is the imprimatur of a closer. Geno Auriemma is a paragon of natural selection. When I spent my season with him and his staff and players in 2000-01, he used to say that he’d considered being a lawyer. He’d have been great at that, too.

What makes Geno who he is? He has a boundless reserve of confidence that is buffeted with a realistic vision of what is required to make his dreams come true. Some people are cocky but have no work ethic. Some people work really hard but deep down don’t really believe they are supposed to win. Geno has both.

Also, he’s very funny.

Did you hear him tell the story of meeting the Wizard of Westwood, spending 15 minutes with him, and then later learning that Wooden said he’d never met Geno but he seemed like a nice man? That’s the kind of story Geno loves: and he will repeat it to his players as a lesson. He loves even more that he took the brunt of it.

2. Jimmy’s Choice

Marco: The grift that keeps on….griving?

In the season finale of Better Call Saul, our hero comes to a fork in the road–either that or the one main interchange in all of New Mexico, where the I-40 meets the I-25. Anyway, Kim Wexler, a loyal friend and a fabulous babe who appreciates all that Jimmy has done not only for her, but to elevate himself, lands him an opportunity for a gig in Santa Fe with a partnership track.

Instead, Jimmy chooses the dark side. I saw what the producers did to make that seem like the more seductive option, but I never bought that any more than I bought that Kennedy half-dollar scam. Or the watch scam. Me, I’m taking the $1,000 in the wallet EVERY DAMN TIME. Bird in the hand and all that rot.

For the record, I’m also not buying that there’s a woman in Cicero dumb enough to mistake Bob Odenkirk for Kevin Costner.

Sure, Jimmy is so hurt by what Chuck did and maybe he is disillusioned. But I just don’t buy, after all he’s done to fly straight, that lame grifts that literally lead you down a dark alley and an unceremonious death, are more attractive than stature, a lucrative job, and a chance to finally win Kim’s heart. Besides, have you BEEN to Santa Fe???? I lived there for a year. Give me that lovely setting, Tomasita’s and El Farol, and I’m set.

The Plaza in Santa Fe. What were you thinking, Jimmy?

Also, I loved how Sepinwall notes here that all along Howard Hamlin was the good guy whom we thought was a jerk, and Chuck was the jerk who thinks he’s a good guy.

3. Night Hawks

Copeland was a victim of aggravated stabbery. He’ll always remember that one game in 2014-15 where both he and Paul George suited up for the Pacers

Chris Copeland of the Indiana Pacers got stabbed in the stomach outside the 1OAK nightclub in the Chelsea section of Manhattan last night. He’ll survive.

That’s not the story, to me. The story is how two Atlanta Hawks, Thabo Sefolosha and Pero Antic, were also on the scene and were arrested for obstruction of justice (hed: “Antic’s Antics Earn Him Arrest”). See, the Hawks had only beaten the Phoenix Suns hours earlier in Atlanta. And the Hawks play at Brooklyn tonight.

So in betwixt back-to-backs, two Hawks are out at 4 a.m. at a club. I got it: the Hawks have already clinched the No. 1 playoff berth in the East. And these guys don’t go lights out at 11 p.m. or should I stay up to watch The Daily Show, anyway. I get it.

However, the next time you hear a coach tell you he’s giving a player a night off, well, he’d have to do that less if so many of these guys weren’t out until dawn the day of the game. A good friend of mine who used to coach in the NBA once told me, “How much better a product this would be if a good number of these guys weren’t playing with a hangover. Or without a decent night’s sleep.”

It’s the difference between getting a rest and getting arrested.

4. Lamb Chops

I think that’s Lamb on the left, but I cannot be totally sure….

The season is just two games old for each team, so let’s accept that this is overly premature, but Arizona Diamondback rookie 3rd baseman Jake Lamb leads the majors with seven RBI. And he has that movie star glow. Plus, a cool name. Former U-Dub player who was raised in Seattle. Keep an eye on him.

5. LeBouef’s Rule

Joanna Krupa swears by the advice below (MH’s steadfast rule of not including men over 50 in our photos unless we absolutely must)

I met business author Michael LeBoeuf this morning and he imparted some wisdom that he shares with college students. I’m all about the life philosophies these days. Anyway, it goes a little like this:

A good life comes from making good choices.

Good choices comes from experience.

Experience comes from making bad choices.

So, whether they are your own or others’, learn from bad choices and have a good life.

Music 101

American Girl

How to kick-start one of the great and enduring American rock-and-roll careers of all time? Write an urgent, teen-angst tune that exceeds everyone’s expectations and put it on your debut album. Tom Petty wrote this soon after he moved to California, when he lived in Encino. As much as I love Bruce, I think Petty comes as close as anyone among American rock songwriters for matching him song-for-song. Is this his best? You decide.

Also, considering how many artists have “borrowed” from Petty’s riffs and melodies, two ironies here: 1) he himself is borrowing from The Byrds’ sound and 2) I don’t think Petty has ever threatened the doll company American Girl with legal action. Or has he?

Remote Patrol

Nothing on. Do you really want to watch the Celtics at the Pistons? No, you don’t.

Starting Five

Don wonders aloud if they have free wi-fi and blows away the staff…

1. Don Juan

The last season of Mad Men opens with Don sexing up a TWA stewardess, a waitress at a diner and an unnamed brunette. No wonder he requires so many naps.

Also, Joan and Peggy take a ride in the “Elevator of Truth,” as both women let their panty hose down and air it out. Peggy: You’re built like a bimbo, so of course you dress like one to get ahead. Joan: You’re not, so you don’t. Ouch, babes.

Don seems more lost than ever –no appearances by Betty or Sally in this episode–but at least he hasn’t followed the lead of Roger Sterling and Teddy Chaogh and grown a hideous mustache. Here’s hoping SCDP lands the Gillette account soon.

I think we’re in 1970, so Matt Weiner chose to bypass Woodstock (granted, you’d need a few extras) and the Manson family. Bummer.

Peggy’s Lee’s Is That All There Is is an inspired choice. The partners now all have money, but who’s really happy?

The actor playing Peggy’s date is the guy who had the frizzy hair and had the huge cruch on Angela Chase in My So-Called Life (Brian Krakow was the character).

The opening scene was perfection (and who was that minx in the mink?). If you notice, Mad Men does this occasionally: Don is in the scene with other men and one woman, but the camera does not reveal other men immediately (see: last season’s finale in the hotel room with Peggy, Pete and Harry as they are watching the moon landing). The point is simple: when Don Draper’s in the room with a female, no other male exists.

Sterling, silver

Roger Sterling (John Slattery) had few scenes but still had the line of the night. “I supposed I’ll have to drop one of you off….I’ll let you decide.”

Finally, you did get that the waitress assumed Don was cashing in on Roger’s $100 tip, right? As a recently retired server, I never surrendered my honor for less than $75.

Alan Sepinwall’s review.…

2. “Fear that Nabob!”

All things considered, “Happy Birthday, Frank” would have been a better thing to say…

Following a thrilling and scintillating national semifinal between Kentucky and Wisconsin –that was at most a minor upset– the big story was not the game but the three-word imperative sentence uttered by Kentucky guard Andrew Harrison.

The Wildcat player thought that only a teammate or two would hear his utterance, as he shielded his mouth with a hand, but the mic picked up the words. There was no question to it, the only question was how much mileage Jason Whitlock will get out of America’s latest sports-racism firestorm.

My six cents: It’s not the words themselves, it’s the culture that produces all that hostility. The contrast between Harrison’s words and the loose and happy Wisconsin team, as plays out at press conferences, is jarring.

What I see all too often in African-American culture in sports is a feeling that getting respect trumps most everything. Certainly it trumps sportsmanship. And mostly, you get respect by winning. Please don’t try to tell me that Harrison was anything but pissed in that moment, and that perhaps he was even more pissed that a team of white guys stole his chance at respect, and that his only reaction was not to be gracious at all but rather to emote as if something rightfully his had been taken from him.

I get it: your perfect season blew up not 15 minutes earlier. You have a right to be upset. You don’t have a right to be angry at the team that was responsible for that moment.

3. Rolling Stone: How Does It Feel?

She said it was going to be a “think piece.”

If you have the time, read this detailed report of all the ways that Rolling Stone failed to adhere to Journalism 101 in its catastrophe of a report on the alleged rape at UVA.

Two things: 1) Aaron Sorkin spent the entire second season of The Newsroom giving media members a tutorial/cautionary tale on fact-checking (“red team, white team”) but it appears nobody watched or paid attention. And, for all the grief he took about Season 3’s episode that dealt with campus rape, he was spot-on, as this Rolling Stone debacle shows.

2) There’s actually a movie, Almost Famous, in which a key scene involves a Rolling Stone fact-checker taking a dump on a young writer’s story for his failure to be factually accurate. The irony is that William Miller did have his facts straight. What would Ben Fong Torres think?

4. Roam, If You Want To…

Lhasa, Tibet: Also known as Days 14 & q5

If you have $74,000 burning a hole in your pocket (as so many of this blog’s readers do) and 24 days to kill, why not embark on a magical mystery tour with National Geographic Expeditions that encompasses five continents and will cover the following: Macchu Piccu, Easter Island, the Great Barrier Reef, Angkor Wat (Tern down for Wat!), Tibet, the Taj Majal, the Serengeti, the Lost City of Petra (Jordan), and Marrakech. Begin and end in Washington, D.C.

5. Cristiano Has Risen

It’s very, very, very, very, very good to be Ronaldo…

On Easter Sunday in Madrid, the capital of a fairly Catholic nation (the Jesuits began here, after all), Cristiano Ronaldo scores FIVE goals as Real Madrid rout the last-place team in La Liga, Granada, 9-1. Ronaldo’s masterpiece included an eight-minute hat trick, three goals scored in the first half between the 30th and 38th minutes. Here’s video of all five goals.

It was Ronaldo’s first career five-goal game, and with it he wrested the goals scored lead away from FC Barcelona’s Lionel Messi (36 to 32). One of them is the world’s best player. You can argue all you want about which one is, but both of them are playing on another planet.

Of the 98 clubs in Europe’s five premier leagues (Spain, Germany, England, Italy, France), Ronaldo has scored more goals this season than 53 of

Music 101

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

This 1969 tune by The Band, written by Robbie Robertson and sung by drummer Levon Helm, is not just music history; it’s American history. It belongs in any anthology of Civil War literature or American poetry. Both this song, an elegy to the final days of the Confederacy, and The Weight appear on the album Music From the Big Pink. That’s a pretty decent one-two punch. The video below, from the 1976 film The Last Waltz, marks the final time that Helm would ever sing the song publicly. Helm, an Arkansas native who made his home in Woodstock, N.Y., died three years ago this month.

Remote Patrol

Duke vs. Wisconsin

9:18 p.m. CBS

Sam Dekker: the pride of Sheboygan

There are those who consider this a let-down game because Kentucky lost and won’t face Duke. I don’t know what those people are smoking. These were consistently the two best teams all season and this guy (thumbs pointing to nipples) regularly said that they and Kentucky were a cut above the rest. You’ve got the POY PTPers, Jahlil Okafor of Duke and Frank Kaminsky of Wisconsin, and then you have their teammates whom I think may actually be better-suited to the NBA: Sam Dekker and Justise Winslow.

There are no villains here; just two terrific teams coached by a pair of men in their late sixties–and yes, Coach K is older than Bo Ryan.

Better Call Saul

10 p.m. AMC

Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) has been an exceedingly strong secondary character

Season finale of AMC’s Rookie of the Year program. Last week’s finish smelled like a season finale, as Jimmy learns –through his own intuition and sleuthing–that it was his big brother/hero, Chuck, who had betrayed him. Bob Odenkirk has carried this show with aplomb, which I did not expect.

Starting Five (Seven)

1. From Smart Minds…

…come smart products. Texas hires VCU’s Shaka Smart, 37, to become its basketball coach. Smart is aptly named: He graduated magna cum laude from Kenyon College in Ohio, where he is the school’s all-time assists leader. Smart also married an alumna of Harvard.

Meanwhile, Texas loves to associate itself with monosyllabic adjectives: Smart. Strong. Brown. And Young.

2. “Argo *%$# Yourself”

I see a laughing clown. What do you see?

In the most newsworthy collaboration involving the U.S.A. and Iran since Ben Affleck accepted his Best Picture Oscar (deserved), the two nations have come to terms on a nuclear energy “framework.” Meanwhile, no kidding, John Boehner is in Israel.

Can’t we all just not get along peacefully?

Next week: Iran and Israel meet in an attempt to broker a peace deal between the White House and Boehner.

3. SEALs of Approval

That’s Kokomo camp founder and retired SEAL Peter Divine

What’s more intense than CrossFit or a Fitness Boot Camp? How about Kokoro (which is also the title of a popular song by an Asian Beach Boys cover band; I know, I’m already sorry), a three-day BUDS-style crucible run by former Navy SEALs run out of Encinitas, Calif? Cost: $1,595. Here’s the story from Outside magazine.

p.s. It’s worth reading the first-person account just to see how the author, former 2:38 marathoner T.J. Murphy, age 50, fares.

p.p.s. “Kokoro” is a Japanese term that means “the merging of heart and mind into spirit.”

4. Flagrant 1 or Flagrant 2, Jay? 

This is not Chris Jans and that’s not a bar in Bowling Green, Ohio

First-year Bowling Green basketball coach Chris Jans is canned after cell phone video evidence of Jans patting a woman on her can in a Bowling Green bar emerges (don’t you just love living in an Orwellian dystopia?). I’m not excusing Jans’ sexist gesture completely (out of hand), but have you spent a winter in Bowling Green, Ohio (I spent one night there that felt like winter)? And this was the first full day of spring!

Oh, well. The Falcons won 21 games in Jans’ only season. I’m sure Jerry Jones would hire him if he could. Someone else certainly will. I think we all need a dose of “Simmer Down Now!”

5. Shepherd Quaked at the Sight

The words below here are just me being insensitive and having no appreciation for the loss of life. My bad.

Amusing isn’t the proper word, given the tragedy. Curious is the correct word, maybe, for this CNN interview with French shepherd (as opposed to German shepherd) Jean Varrieras, who witnessed the horrific crash of Germanwings 9525. I just thought it was odd for Varrieras, who looks to be in his 70s, to note that he’ll “never fly again.” I guess I was wondering how often septuagenarian Alpine shepherds fly. But I may be behind the times when it comes to jet-setting shepherd lifestyles.

6. While You Were Sleeping…

The lead changed hands four times in the final :26 in Oakland last night, but in the end it was Golden State 107, Phoenix 106. The Warriors won their 11th straight while the game Suns lost their 5th straight to drop to 38-38. Tough loss to swallow for the giant orange orbs of fire, who have now lost an NBA-high five games this season on a shot made in the final five seconds.

I have yet to spot it on social media, but when someone finds a Vine of the little girl in a Warriors jersey going bonkers (on what was not even the game-winning shot), they should send it our way.

Between this finish and Curry’s mangling of Chris Paul’s ankles earlier this week in L.A., it’s been a good week for the Warriors. Hell, it’s been a good year.

7. Ripa Job

Pippa!

Kelly “Lee” Ripa made what was likely her final appearance on Late Show last night, and she made the most of it. Ripa spent at least half the interview mimicking her 13 year-old daughter’s nasal Valley Girl intonations, clearly tickling Dave. Later, Dave squeezed in next to her in her seat and, yes, it began to get a little bit awkward.

Noticeable: Never once in the interview did the name Regis Philbin come up.

Music 101

Over The Hills and Far Away

The best Led Zeppelin tune and your favorite Led Zeppelin tune need not be one and the same. Certainly, Stairway To Heaven is the unassailable classic in terms of “Who is Led Zep?” but this song, off 1973’s Houses of the Holy, is my No. 1. I’ve posted the video below that has Jimmy Page’s lyrical intro riff from a ’73 show at Madison Square Garden, but also here’s the studio version that features a Robert Plant who is still able to shriek ethereally.

The best Led Zeppelin tune? Spin happens to agree with me (and does a better job of explaining why it belongs there), while Rolling Stone puts Whole Lotta Love atop the heap (and has this at No. 16).

Remote Patrol

Mad Men

Sunday

10 p.m. AMC

Sure, we’re all a little chapped that they divided the final season in two to be played out over two vernal seasons. But if they hadn’t, we’d have that much less to look forward to at the moment. It’s the summer of ’69, non-Bryan Adams version, and Don Draper has his mojo back. It’s early August, so gird yourselves for a Woodstock and/or Manson Family-heavy episode.

Oh, wait. That’s Donald Driver….

Whether or not Mad Men is the best drama in the history of television, it’s definitely in the conversation. For me, it is. And I can’t think of another show that has kept its fastball humming as consistently throughout the life of the series. Here’s Grantland’s Andy Greenwald, the resident poet laureate of all reviews Mad Men.

Starting Five

This photo has no relation to California’s drought story below, but see, that’s the point (think about it).

1. H20-no!

California is so desperate for water that they’ve even asked me for most of my surname. The Golden State is turning brown, and I’m not just talking about their recidivist gubernatorial voting tendencies.

Anyway, what happens when the most populous state in the Union experiences its worst drought in 60 years and finds itself running low on the world’s most valuable resource? And how will this affect the production of Sharknado 3?

2. Wholly Cow!

No one ever claimed Philadelphia’s native cuisine was healthy. This is a city that either produces or celebrates cheese steaks, Tastykake, and scrapple, the last of which is a hardened form of the stuff that accumulates at the edge of your grill after frying stuff.

But the Philadelphia Phillies seem particularly determined to wreak havoc on their fans’ coronary arteries this summer. The Phils will sell both hard liquor and will introduce a nine-patty, 2200-calorie cheeseburger at Citizens Bank Park this season. It’s Always Artherosclerosis in Philadelphia…

3. Don’t Minchin It

So if you didn’t hit the link and watch Tim Minchin’s commencement speech yesterday, I’m posting it again here because it’s really, really good. And so of course I YouTubed a few Minchin comic bits and found him quite compelling. I really enjoyed this bit on Religion, which may offend some of you even though it contains (almost) no profanity.

The snippet that arrested my attention concerned evolution. The set-up is a mutated fish named Tony, the first fish that, due to a genetic mutation, grew feet. I’ll let Minchin take it from there (7:51 mark):

“And imagine what Tony would think, standing there on his brand new feet, at the brink of the beginnings of mankind as we know it, if he could look forward just a few short hundreds of millions of years, to see one of his descendants, an Israeli Jew by the name of Jesus, having a nail hammered through his feet, the very feet that Tony provided him with, as a punishment for having a sort of schizophrenic discourse with a god who was created by man to explain the existence of feet in the absence of the knowledge of the existence of Tony.”

Happy Easter, everybody.

4. Yessirree, Bob

Parsons

On Saturday night in Phoenix at a charity event, GoDaddy founder and CEO Bob Parsons bid $2 million for a dinner for four at the home of Reba McEntire (she was the event’s emcee, and it was her 60th birthday).

That’s a steep price to pay for a meal, but Parsons also knew he had some cash coming his way a few days later. On Tuesday night GoDaddy had its IPO (GDDY) and the price soared 31% in its first full day of trading, from $20 to $26.15.

A quick word on Parsons, 62, who currently personally owns 28% of the company: grew up in Baltimore’s inner city, nearly flunked out of high school, joined the Marines at age 17, served in Vietnam, was injured and received a Purple Heart.

5. Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Hockey Players

I love watching hockey–in person. And I always hear how much nicer they are than other professional team sports athletes, and I know women who are absolute, unabashed groupies, and the game looks like a lot of fun to play…if you can skate backwards.

But I never missed not playing. Why? Because I’m way too vain. 🙂 Sure, football’s dangerous, but hockey has ice, skate blades, projectile-missile pucks, and that area between the bench and the pole holding up the fiberglass into which you can fly and destroy a kidney. Mostly, though, I like my face way too much to play hockey.

This is what happened to Detroit’s Drew Miller on Tuesday night when he took a skate to the face. “He’s tough, he’s a hockey player,” says ESPN’s Steve Levy. But Levy is a pretty boy. It’s easy to say that from the studio.

Music 101

How’s It Gonna Be

A logjam of homogenous-sounding and -looking rock bands emerged in the void left by Kurt Cobain’s murder suicide on April 5, 1994: Tonic, Fuel, Candlebox, Bush, Goo Goo Dolls, Sister Hazel, Vertical Horizon, Sugar Ray, Matchbox 20 (sticking finger down my throat at that final one), etc. Of all of them, the one band that created the most worthy tunes was San Francisco-based Third Eye Blind: Jumper, Can I Graduate, Never Let You Go and this one, from their eponymous 1997 debut album.

It’s too bad the band petered out. Not sure if it was the rock-star life or what. Also, here’s an acoustic version….Cultural note: NBC used this song to introduce Game 4 of the 1996 NBA Finals, the implication being that this could be MJ’s final game with the Chicago Bulls as they had a 3-0 series lead over the Sonics. The Bulls lost this game and the following one before wrapping up the series in Game 6. And, of course, MJ remained two more seasons for a pair of epic NBA Finals series against the Jazz.

One more note: Lead singer Stephan Jenkins graduated from Cal-Berkeley, whereas Counting Crows lead singer Adam Duritz dropped out of that august (and everything after) institution.

Starting Five

1. As William Wallace Once Cried, “Religious Freedom!”

“Is pizza at gay weddings a thing in Indiana?”

That was my favorite quip related to the Hoosier state Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) that was passed last week. It was tweeted in response to Memories Pizza in Walkerton, Ind., which courageously declared that it would refuse to serve pizza at a gay wedding if asked to do so.

If, like me, you are heterosexual, you probably recall that day in junior high when you came home from school and wrote down a list of pros and cons for both homosexuality and heterosexuality (Pro: “Kim Auer is HOT!”) before prudently and painstakingly choosing to become a heterosexual. Unless, of course, you don’t remember that. Which I don’t remember.

Sexual orientation is not a choice. Any more than skin color is. You may find homosexuality foul or whatever, but if using personal experience, I were forced to choose between knowing gays versus straights on an asshole-per-capita scale (I know: poor visual), I would much rather know gay people. I’ll take Neil Patrick Harris; you can have Justin Bieber.

Pence: “Was I expecting this kind of backlash? Heavens, no!” Mike, that’s kind of a gay thing to say.

Anyway, before this kerfuffle gets any more….um….kerfufflier, read this piece in The Atlantic, which provides the pertinent facts and implications of Indiana’s RFRA act. One point I will piggyback on: some of the most heinous crimes known to man through history, from the stoning of adulterers in the time of Jesus to…the stoning of adulterers in present-day Middle Eastern nations, are a product of religious values.

If your God loathes people based on attributes that do not involve free will, your God is kind of an ass. Or your interpretation of what He wants may need some education. I’ve never for one moment thought it was a coincidence that not only did Jesus never marry, but that he hung out with 12 men all the time. Jesus’ primary message was acceptance of all. Your church’s mileage may vary.

Finally, here’s Hoosier native David Letterman’s thoughts on Late Show about it all…

2. Wisdom from Down Under

This isn’t exactly new (it’s from September, 2013), but I had not come across it before. It’s a commencement speech given at the University of Western Australia by UWA alum Tim Minchin, who is sort of the Australian Russell Brand. Anyway, that’s how I perceive him. There’s more wisdom in these 12 or so minutes than most undergrads will encounter in four years. It starts slowly, but then it really heats up once Minchin begins to enumerate his nine life lessons. Phenomenal stuff.

3. Pilot Error

A wise man once told me, “There will always be more good people than bad.” See: these rescuers. Caveat: One bad person can do a lot of damage.

–Lock the cabin at all times, even when one pilot excuses himself to use the men’s room (if you hadn’t read, this particular Germanwings disaster that claimed 150 lives might have been averted if the pilot had used the men’s room before takeoff. He told the co-pilot that he hadn’t time to do so before excusing himself, which set the disaster in motion). And you get Germanwings.

–Lock the cabin at all times, but make sure that another person is in the cockpit when the pilot or co-pilot leaves. All this does is create one more person who may have motive or opportunity to create mayhem.

–Never lock the cabin and give every passenger a chance to bring down a plane.

–Fly the plane solely like a drone…and when the inevitable mishap occurs, where is your Sully Sullenberger to save the day?

There’s no such thing as a fool-proof system, as long as human beings are involved.

Have a nice flight.

4. Phil or Kill*

This should have been the sum total of Phil Jackson’s letter to Knicks fans…

Yes, every observant sports columnist should’ve pounced on Phil Jackson’s letter to Knicks’ season-ticket holders and churned it into satire. I’m not sure who else besides Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal did, though. Well executed.

*That’s a stock trader’s term turned into a pun. I’m sorry…

5. A Proper Bloke

I’ve watched a few episodes of James Corden’s The Late, Late Show, and here are a few observations:

–He’s innately likable, because the Brit has such a happy and winning spirit. He’s all positive. Not fake or phony, just positive. He’s not a comic per se, but he is funny. Kind of like Jimmy Kimmel in that way, but with more of a smiley face.

–Somewhere under all that black mane there is a band leader. He seems happy. Or high. Or both.

–I applaud the experiment of putting all the guests on the couch simultaneously and initiating a group conversation, but when it falls flat, it really falls flat. Let’s give it time. It helps to always have at least one comic in the group.

–The very best thing about the show, and something that is entirely new as a nightly routine (Letterman occasionally did this back in his NBC days, his best days), is the visits to each guest’s green room during the monologue. It provides each guest a 15- to 30-second opportunity to be playful or original.

Last night, for example, Aubrey Plaza was in a lotus position, meditating. As the show evolves, you can expect guests to come prepared with schtick for these moments. They may even have their agents or managers work on routines for this look-in. This is what Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, Steve Martin and Martin Short were made for.

Music 101

Stone Cold Yesterday

In my first couple of years at Sports Illustrated, my two closest friends were a pair of Tar Heel alums, Jeff Bradley and Tim Crothers. And we were all in our early or mid-twenties, when it’s very important to find a band that you love that the whole world does not already know about. And that band for this pair was The Connells, who featured a few UNC alums (they were the North Carolina’s pre-emptive response to South Carolina’s Hootie…). Anyway, I’m not sure if this, from 1990, is their best song, but it’s their most earnest and energetic.

p.s. These are also two of the most talented writers I met at Sports Illustrated.

Remote Patrol

Cancer: The Emperor of all Maladies

9 p.m. PBS

A lung cancer cell dividing…

I haven’t watched this all week long, but I’ve seen the listings for it each night. Tonight’s two-hour episode is the conclusion of the series. Not to make light of cancer, because it has also caused so much pain in so many lives. But, the more you understand cancer, the more you realize –or at least this is how I feel –that cancer is a by-product of life. It is no more a disease than death itself.

I know I’m going off-reservation here, but cancer is caused by a mutation of cells during cellular reproduction, which is taking place constantly in your life. That mutation sends those cells down an errant path which inevitably corrupts the functional part of your organism. It’s terrible. As is death.

We could all lead longer lives if they “found a cure for cancer.” Which on some levels, is great, especially for cancers that strike anyone under the age of 40. We could lead longer lives. Would we lead better lives? I just wish there were a cure for all the ways people waste their valuable time on earth. That, to me, is more of a malady.