STARTING FIVE

1. The Merchant of Venom*

If you missed “One Night Only”,  the two-hour salute to Don Rickles on Spike TV last night –and why they named it after a song from “Dreamgirls“, I don’t know–it airs again tonight, the show’s title notwithstanding, at 12:30 a.m. DVR it, at the least.

Not only does it chronicle Rickles’ fabulous career of put-downs (telling Clint Eastwood “You’re not a very good actor”, or Regis of his standup act, “You stink”, or noting that Orson Welles was married to a number of women and “all of them are now flat”) but it also shows why he was able to get away with it. Because beneath the venom and, let’s face it, the cold truth, there was love.

 

As Ray Romano stated, “His nickname, Mr. Warmth, has a double meaning. It’s sarcastic, but it’s also true.” Said Tracy Morgan, in what at first would seem ironic except that it’s accurate, “You never discriminate.”

(In the words of Tina Fey: “You’re a friend to everyone: Polacks, Chinamen, Coloreds, Broads…”)

The comedy lineup is legendary: Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, Morgan and David Letterman, while non-comics such as Robert DeNiro and Marty Scorcese, and Brian Williams, were even more caustically funny. Taped tributes by the likes of Eddie Murphy, Bill Cosby, Romano and Brad Garrett, Jimmy Kimmel (brilliant twist at end) and Rickles’ closest bud, Bob Newhart, are all hilarious.

Don Rickles is the reason that comedy roasts exist.

There’s a terrific moment (one of several) during a montage when he’s working some sort of roast, notices Julia Roberts at a table, and chides her for not visiting him even though they live just two blocks from one another.

“We live closer than two blocks,” Roberts says.

Rickles cuts her off. “Julia, you have no lines. Just nod your head.” The laughter that erupts from Roberts is, like Rickles’ line, spontaneous and genuine. Don Rickles made an entire career out of talking like that to people whom you can’t talk to like that.

As Letterman closed, “Life is funnier because of Don Rickles.”

Yup.

*A pseudonym coined by Newsweek.

2. Reporter Trolling

The Miami Heat trail the Pacers, 93-90, with less than :24 remaining when LeBron James drives toward the hoop. There are two Pacers guarding him when he dishes off to Chris Bosh in the corner, whose potential game-winning three is off the mark. Pacers win.

Afterward, ESPN’s Mark Schwarz asks both David West and Roy Hibbert of the Pacers if that was the higher percentage play to make. We know this because Schwarz and/or his producer include both questions in the package that is used for “SportsCenter.”

Hibbert answers, correctly –in strict terms of “higher percentage”– that LBJ taking to the hoop was the play to make.

So then Schwarz scurries out to the podium, where he gets in a question to King James, a question in which he mentions that HE asked Hibbert this question, and here was Hibbert’s answer, and what does LeBron think about that????

Again, we know this because Schwarz and/or his producer included it in the package.

A few things, Mark:

1) You are not the story.

2) Your question to Hibbert was off the mark, excuse the pun. Regardless of what the “higher percentage” play was, if Bosh hits that three –and he’d hit two of six to that point–the game and series are over. Have you been watching the playoffs? Sometimes it takes cojones and sometimes that pays off.

3) Your entire act of approaching LeBron and doing the “He said this, what do you think?” smarm, attempting to manufacture a controversy, I think most of us moved past that in seventh grade.

This is a guy who’s been with ESPN for more than two decades. Awful work, intellectually dishonest as well as self-absorbed. I hope someone in Bristol tells him so.

3. You Don’t Tug On Superman’s Cape

LBJ: Seven points in 24 minutes in Game 5.

I didn’t watch assiduously, but from what I spotted in the highlights at least two of LeBron James’ fouls were actually fouls on the Pacers (Paul George should have been called for the block, and as incredible as Lance Stephenson’s strip was, he fouled LBJ in the scrum for the loose ball) and a third should never have been called.

Lance Stephenson actually blew into LBJ’s ear as they lined up for a free throw?!? That really happened?

And then the Mark Schwarz ridiculousness.

LeBron, as has become his custom, handled it all with grace.

I don’t recall the last time, if ever, I watched basketball’s superior played treated with such disrespect in the playoffs. And I don’t mean “Spill a drink on him, so here comes a double homicide” disrespect. I mean genuine disrespect.

Game 6 is in Miami and I predict very bad things for Indiana. LeBron has never scored 50 in a postseason game. This would be a good moment for him to reach that  bar.

4. It Happens Every Springer

Beware the Lastros, baseball’s (second-) hottest ball club. You read that right.

Houston has won five straight after sweeping the Royals in K.C. and that happens to coincide with the power burst from rookie right fielder George Springer, who has hit six home runs in the team’s last six games. The six-foot-three Springer, who grew up in “Hard hittin’ New Britain” (Conn.), and played at UConn, has nine homers this month.

5. Re: Morse

Love this interview that The New York Times did with 83 year-old Robert Morse about his character’s posthumous musical number that closed the semi-season finale of Mad Men. Great line: “My phone has been ringing off the hook. And they’re not really hooked any more.”

Over at Grantland, Andy Greenwald moves away from his stellar Game of Thrones recaps to pen an outstanding Mad Men recap (thus steaming Molly Lambert’s tea?), noting that the second half of Season 7 will not be unlike that Apollo 11 mission: the moon landing (i.e, the “Waterloo” episode that just aired) received all the fanfare, but the real trick was the splash down back to Earth.

Remote Patrol

Citizen Kane

TCM 8 p.m.

“Rosebud.” Honestly, I’ve never seen Orson Welles’ masterpiece, which the American Film Institute and others routinely list as No. 1 in the pantheon of best movies of all time. I do know what “Rosebud” refers to, as you probably do as well. This is a personal blind spot, so I will consume this film tonight (or DVR it for later) even though I’m sure I will not enjoy it as much as I did “Kingpin.”