by John Walters

Apologies for not posting earlier. After the exoduses (exodi?) of Don and Dave (we are in Year 1 A.D., “After Dave”), I required a day of mourning. Or at least a morning of mourning, since I was in a daze all morning. And when did Steve Rushin hijack the blog? Anyway, I’m back, a little bit sadder and a little bit older…but aren’t we all?

Starting Five

Show 6,028

1. A Long Dave’s Journey Into Night

Dave bids us “thank you, and good night” and with that, after 33 years of never intruding upon our time before 11:30 p.m., he is gone. Here’s my write-up on the finale and here’s an outstanding and information-packed piece by former Late Night/Late Show staffer Daniel Kellison (“Ringo doesn’t count”) for Grantland.

If you missed the final Top 10 list, here it is. Jim Carrey and Julia Louis-Dreyfus got the best lines.

And this is why I love Jim Carrey….

By the way, Dave’s retirement was the ONE thing that inspired Bill Simmons to break his social media silence, as he posted a “Thank You” photo of Dave and Paul on Instagram yesterday.

2. When You Say Bud

Bud’s actually more comfortable fishing and hunting than he is talking football….

Spent last Saturday at the Bloomington, Minn., home of Bud Grant, a day I will never forget. What a legend. Bud’s 88 and still eagle-eye sharp and lucid and I bet he could still take the Vikings to the playoffs this season if he accepted the gig tomorrow. As you may or may not know, he’s also the only man ever to play in both the NBA and the NFL.

3. James Addiction

Steph Curry, 33 points. James Harden, 38 points. The Warriors win by one when Houston fails to get off a shot on its final possession. Maybe it’s just me, but it felt like the first time all quarter (the only quarter I watched was the fourth) when Harden didn’t drive to the hoop.

He pulled up at the arc, got double-teamed by the Freres du Splash, dished to an open Dwight Howard, only he was himself above the arc (“like a fish needs a bicycle…”), passed back to Harden, who was then guarded by the Smother Brothers. No shot.

Golden State up, 2-0. But Houston can hang with ’em. Hoping this goes 7.

4. Portraits by Katie

So, I was able to invade the home of spend some time with Mike and Katie McCollow last weekend in Minneapolis. If they gave out Kennedy Center honors for personality, those two would be honorees. Anyway, Katie is the epitome of the idiom (“epidiome?”) “more talent in her one little finger…”

This is a portrait she did of her youngest child, Molly. She does them for anyone (for a price, of course). Visit katiemccollow.com to learn more. And if you tell Katie that you learned about her site by reading this blog, she’ll knock a dollar off the price (won’t you, Katie?)

5. Will These Ruins Soon Be In Ruins?

Apparently, ISIS has taken control of the Syrian city of Palmyra, and while you probably were not headed to Syria on holiday this year (good thinking, you), it is possible that these dudes who put the “-hate” in caliphate could destroy the ancient ruins. It feels as if ISIS will not be satisfied until the entire planet looks like a vacant lot in Odessa, Texas, which, if you’ve been there, you know what I’m talking about….

Music 101

Hate To Say I Told You

Do you remember the turn of the century? Garage rock made a brief and stunning comeback thanks to White Stripes, The Vines, The Strokes and this band from Sweden, The Hives. The lead singer was “Howlin'” Pelle Almvqvist and the album was titled Veni, Vidi, Vicious. Yes, they were Julius Caesar’s favorite band. Too bad we never heard from them again on this side of the North Sea….

Remote Patrol

(We’re just going to leave this space empty for a few days)

by John Walters

Call the kids, wake the neighbors! It’s Dave’s final show…..

Thank you, Dave

by John Walters

Starting Five

The suspects are from five different gangs, but now they all wear the same colors…

 1. Sons of Sons of Anarchy

Nine dead and 192 arrested after five biker gangs basically reenact the network affiliate melee from Anchorman at a Twin Peaks breastaurant in Waco, Texas. Don’t fear, David Koresh: your record still stands.

Some women who look like this will soon be unemployed….

Word is, the entire fracas started over a parking spot in the mens’ room (the parking spot wasn’t in the men’s room, silly) and much of the fighting took place inside,

2. @POTUS Arrives

So, apparently, the president of the United States got his own Twitter account on Monday and began tweeting. This is a real thing. “Hello, Twitter, it’s Barack. Six years in and they’re finally giving me my own account.” 

Granted, it’s not, “Watson, come here” but it is a landmark moment in politics and communication. I’m assuming that @realDonaldTrump has already blocked him.

Cue Sean Hannity wondering why the Commander in Chief is wasting his time on social media instead of defeating ISIS.

 3. What’s Next? “Norman D Invasion” for Oklahoma Football?

Behold , today’s Daily Harrumph. While I completely understand the furor (wanted to be sure I spelled that word correctly) over the production and sale of this T-shirt by Under Armour — a company whose very name commodifies sports as combat — why is this any worse than a college team donning “Pro Combat” gear before a game? Or camouflage unis?

Doesn’t all of it have the same effect: trivializing war?

4. Sylvan Sunday Splendor

Spent part of Sunday afternoon tramping around the 1,137-acre Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, which is probably a lot like what heaven looks like, if there is one. Thought for the day: Go outside and play. Feel cold. Feel hot. Feel exhausted. Feel a little bit scared. Feel lost. Just…feel.

We live in an age where people think that easier and more comfortable is better. Occasionally, yes. But as a highest goal in all things, it’s a terrible life strategy.

5. 12 Angry Men, One Funny Schumer

If you missed this, Amy Schumer rounded up a sausage-fest of talent to shoot a 12 Angry Men parody in black-and-white. The accused? Schumer. The case? Whether or not Schumer is hot enough to be on basic cable TV. The episode-long bit featured Dennis Quaid, Jeff Goldblum, Paul Giammatti (excellent as usual, doing his Pig Vomit mien) John Hawkes, Vincent Kartheiser (Pete Campbell) and Nick DePaolo, the last one truly playing it straight and dramatic (and furious). If nothing else, the bit introduced the term “reasonable chub” into the lexicon.

Warning: NSFP.

Music 101

Get Together

You hold the key to love and fear/All in your trembling hand/Just one key unlocks them both/It’s there at your command

Before they were a pair of starters on some terrific Los Angeles Ram defenses* of the early 1970s, The Youngbloods reached No. 5 on the Billboard charts in 1969 with this tune. They’d originally released it two years earlier and it never climbed higher than 62. Who can figure taste? This remains one of the signature songs of the Sixties.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRAhTY3Dwl0

Talking Jack and Jim Youngblood, of course. Not really musicians. Nor relatives. The former was a seven-time All-Pro, though, and is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The latter was pretty damn good himself.

Remote Patrol

Late Show

CBS 11:35 p.m.

Surprise. What did you expect? The show’s finale is tomorrow night — Helen Slater takes Dave to an encounter group — but tonight is the final show with a guest and of course it’s the same man who was there with Dave from the very beginning: Bill Murray. One of the many things I love about Dave is that he appreciates Murray as much as he does, and obviously the feeling is mutual.

And if you missed Norm Macdonald’s send-off to Dave on Friday night, here it is.

by John Walters

Starting Five

1. Ommmm, I God

Quick thoughts on the Mad Men finale….

— Six phone calls, two of them person-to-person. I counted Don-Sally, Don-Betty, Peggy-Joan, Joan-client, Don-Peggy, Peggy-Stan. I understand that sometimes this can’t be avoided within the plot, but a surfeit of calls made me want to hang up on the finale. When you’ve got actors as talented as Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss, you put ’em in a room together and watch them make sparks.

— Brief Mad Men series finale review: “Joan snorts coke, Don saves Coke.”

The dude on the left was actually once married to Elisabeth Moss (Peggy)

— When Stephanie greets Don in California, she says, “What are you doing here?” Was this another episode of SNL’s “The Californians?”

I sure hope Don breaks the land-speed record inside the Colosseum….

— The hunky red-headed dude who wanted to chase the land-speed record? That’s Spencer Treat Clark, whom you may remember as Lucius from The Gladiator (was also the boy who got kidnapped in Mystic River).

–I loved Meredith’s final scene: “I translated your speech into pig Latin.” Roger: “That was a joke.” I think this will be the beginning of Alan Sepinwall’s review…(Update: Yup, it was).

–Yes, that was Helen Slater, a.k.a. Supergirl, to those of us over 40. Still hot. Don, stay at the ashram and try out a few yoga poses with Helen. May I suggest, “Downward Don?” That’s your best gambit.

–Speaking of that retreat center, am I the only one whose mind immediately went to Paul Rudd and Steve Carell dancing to “Age of Aquarius?“

— Roger and Marie Calvert are perfect for one another. I just wanted him to pull out an Addams Family reference and say, “Morticia, you spoke French.” Gomez Addams was a thing at the time.

— The total unknown who was given that monologue in the series’ final five minutes? Well, he was intentionally forgettable. And yet, that monologue was as moving as any pitch Don Draper ever gave to a prospective client. The difference was that, as Don had always said, the key to advertising is “happiness” whereas this pitch was emptiness. And that the man described himself as an item on a shelf in a refrigerator… he was simply an unwanted consumer item.

Also, I love how Matthew Weiner wrote in the first guy to speak and then gave us the pause. We all expected Don to get up and confess next — so did Supergirl — but then Weiner threw us that curve.

Betty: Forever smoking, hot.

— That final scene with Sally and Betty in the kitchen is haunting, especially to anyone who has ever lost a parent.

— The Don-Peggy phone call. My favorite moment. It reminded me of the time when Radar O’Reilly gave Hawkeye the what-for. Favorite moment-within-the-moment? When Peggy lowers her voice and says, “Don. Listen to me. What did you ever do that was so bad?”

— The “When Stan Met Peggy” phone call. Who let Nora Ephron into the writers’ room?

— The final scene. First, genius to end with a close-up of Don’s face. It was always THAT FACE that made life both so easy and difficult for Don. That face closed more sales, both in the boardroom and the bedroom, than Don’s words ever did. An iconic final moment.

Second, I guess there’s no ambiguity to it, is there? Don’s catharsis at the seminar leads to an inner harmony, which leads to the epiphany on the cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, which leads to him dreaming up the campaign for Coca-Cola, one of the greatest ad campaigns of all time. There were moments of foreshadowing earlier in the episode — Joan snorting coke and Peggy asking, “Don’t you want to work on Coke?” — as well as all season long.

Aw, sugar sugar….

The final irony? Mad Men began with Don saving his firm by saving the Lucky Strike account, by advertising for cigarettes. But, 55 years later, we know that while BIG SODA is not AS bad as BIG TOBACCO, it’s almost as bad. Soda is the cigarettes of our generation. Some day your kids will tell their friends, “Yeah, my dad (or mom) drank pop” with the same pitying look we display when we tell our friends that our parents smoked.

As for the song choice, well, we kind of nailed it….

 2. Confetti-cini Alfredo

This was the scene after the Houston Rockets won Game 7 of the NBA Finals Western Conerence finals a second round playoff series at the Toyota Center. Go nuts, kids.

Our republic is doomed.

3. Day of Yore

On this date 69 years ago Reggie Jackson was born, 45 years ago Tina Fey was born, and 35 years ago Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis hanged himself. Also on this date, 50 years ago, the fathomably talented Bill Hubbell, MH’s DoY scribe, was born. Happy birthday, Bill.

4. Rule No. 1

Potter: Until he died, he really lived….

What’s Rule No. 1, kids? That’s right “Gravity always wins.”

Legendary climber and BASE jumper Dean Potter, 43, died while attempting an aerial descent from Taft Point in Yosemite National Park… which prohibits such acts of derring do. Also dead, 29 year-old Graham Hunt.

5. Louie, Louie

Comedian Louis C.K. hosted the season finale for the 40th season of Saturday Night Live. For his opening monologue C.K. did a set that touched upon “mild racism,” the Israel-Palestine conflict, and child molestation. It’s hilarious to watch and listen to how he loses the audience on the third topic. I kinda feel that it was almost done on a dare, like that time on Seinfeld when Jerry had to open for Kenny Bania and just decided to bomb as badly as possible.

by John Walters

Yesterday was 5, 15, 15, a perfectly palindromic day. Sorry I missed you. But, you know, the Cavs had played one night before and life’s more fun when I am frustrating Susie B. Please enjoy this edition of Medium Tardy.

Starting Five

Don, looking Draper-y

1. The Last Don

“Everything was good. Now everything was bad. I knew I’d pay for this.”

That’s Peggy Olson, who hooks up with Abe for the first time only to come into work the following Monday to learn that Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce has lost the Lucky Strike account. But that’s life (that’s what people say).

Having spent more than half my career based out of the same Time-Life Building as SCDP,  I have found myself catching parts of the Mad Men marathon (AMC) and thinking of this essential truth: Life is a constant battle of ups and downs, personally and professionally. Sometimes you are your best — and/or only advocate — and sometimes you are your own worst enemy (Please tell me why my car is in the front yard…). Sometimes others are your greatest ally (Peggy) or your worst nemesis (usually, Pete).

The biggest difference is there’s a lot less Scotch in my (and, I assume, your) life.

2. “Take One Last Look”

As the final scene of Mad Men would have fittingly been Don at that bus stop outside Alva, Oklahoma, last Sunday night (finally at peace, waiting to board a bus to his next chapter), this brand new Tom Waits tune from Thursday night could have worked as the final moment from Letterman. Earlier in the show, Waits sat on the couch and was quite funny, talking about people in Manhattan who wait in long lines for lunch salads (“I felt embarrassed for them, to be honest”) and about wanting to attend a rally to “free the Glutens.”

Dave, taking the James Corden route

That interview was enhanced by the fact that George Clooney was handcuffed to Letterman and listening in, but Clooney was only seen in profile.

3. One Seeds Hold

DeMarre Carroll scored 25 points in the Hawks’ closeout win and will likely draw LeBron James in the EC Finals.

Both Atlanta and Golden State found themselves trailing in their respective series, to Washington and Memphis, two games to one, a week ago. Both then finished off their opponents with three straight victories. It was a lot hairier for the Hawks, who needed seven games in the opening round to slip past the Brooklyn Nyets. Atlanta won the final three games versus the Wizards by a total of nine points.

So it’s 1 versus 2 (Cleveland) in the East and it could be 1 vs. 2 (Houston, who hosts the Clips in Game 7) out West, but I see the Clippers advancing in Houston in a rare Game 7 matinee.

4. Mad Men? No, Mad Max

And he doesn’t have “accident forgiveness.”* *the judges will also accept, “Halt and catch fire.”

Two years ago Tom Hardy starred in a film titled Locke, whose plot revolved around him driving non-stop from Birmingham to London (it would have made an even better film if that Birmingham were the Alabama one, not the English one). Now he’s back in another starring vehicle in a quasi-reprise of the original 1979 Mad Max film.

Charlize (right). There really are not enough shower facilities at Coachella

I haven’t yet seen Mad Max: Fury Road, but the critics are agog. Seriously: agog. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 98%. Meanwhile, there are reports that the film is being boycotted by “men’s rights activists.” There are men’s rights activists? Man-child, please.

5. Soooeeey, Sandi!

It has been awhile since the inter webs went full-on bonkers about a female collegiate (or prep) pole vaulter (Jason, you are losing your touch). This is Sandi Morris of Arkansas, the reigning NCAA Indoor Champ who just emerged as the SEC champion in that event yesterday. On to the NCAA Outdoors in Eugene (no better place to stage ’em, every year) from June 10-13. By then I do believe her inter webs fame will be fully BLOWED UP (a little credit to the kid, here, please) and she’ll be an ESPN or FOX sideline reporter by 2018.

Music 101

We’ve Only Just Begun

So many roads to choose/We’ll start out walkin’ and learn to run

I was searching for songs from 1971 that could work as the curtain-closing tune for Mad Men tomorrow night. So many good songs. American Pie, arguably THE signature tune of American pop, is an obvious choice. There are other classics such as Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, John Lennon’s Imagine (I mean, what a year), Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord and Carole King’s It’s Too Late. But I’m going to guess Matt Weiner, if he even stays in 1971, strays a little from the obvious. And so I’m going to go with this tune from The Carpenters, We’ve Only Just Begun (even if it was actually released in August of 1970). It hit No. 2 on the Billboard charts. 

p.s. Okay, I think Weiner will go with American Pie. Those rights won’t be cheap.

Remote Patrol

Mad Men Marathon & Finale

AMC Now ’til 10 p.m., Sunday

Good morning, yesterday/You wake up/And time has slipped away… AMC is slaying me with that promo using the Paul Anka song from my youth. I’ve wanted to go out and purchase a Kodak camera at least half a dozen times in the past few days. This is our final partners meeting with Don, Roger, Pete, Joan (and Peggy). I have absolutely no clue as to what will happen in the final, other than Matt Weiner left the door open for a jump forward into the future or to focus on just one character. As much as I’ll miss them, we really have no pressing reason to see Roger, Peggy, Joan, Pete or Betty again. Oh, and in a list of the top 50 Mad Men characters from last week, Rolling Stone put Pete at 14th –he’s no lower than 5th, at the very least — and didn’t even include Bob Benson. What do I think of that list? “Not great, Bob.”