Adam Waller

Another memorable late-night TV institution, though one now largely forgotten, was Joe Franklin. His talk show aired in the early morning on WOR Channel 9 in the New York area for more than 40 years, introducing countless future stars to television audiences. By the mid-1980s, Billy Crystal was impersonating Franklin on SNL to a national audience. We will not see the likes of Joe Franklin again, certainly not on local TV.

The New York Knicks have outscored their opponents by 272 points in the past 12 games That's the best 12-game stretch from any team in NBA history, regular season or playoffs

Also Mae West, Beverly Sills and Bob Arum

Billy Cunningham graduated from Erasmus Hall. Other notables associated with the Flatbush school: -Barbra Streisand -Neil Diamond -Eli Wallach -Bobby Fischer -Clive Davis -Al Davis -Eric Kandel (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for those keeping score at home)

I remember when Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence were competing for the title of “the next big thing.” It wasn’t that long ago and a reminder of how difficult it is to predict the future.

@knickerbockr94 @darrenrovell if this were football season in Texas, Friday night lights might have made tickets cheaper

@adamdigital @darrenrovell I think it’s because Knicks fans like myself will be in San Antonio

Current get-in prices for NBA Finals Game 1 in San Antonio: $668 Game 2 in San Antonio: $1,099 Game 3 in New York: $4,476 Game 4 in New York: $4,781 (Source: TicketData)

Knicks in 7. 🏀

There was real doubt about Barry Diller’s bet on Expedia in the weeks and months after 9/11. Now he’s making another contrarian wager… “While everyone was running into all sorts of ‘AI opportunities,’ I wanted to run the other way. It wasn’t hard for me to find MGM, where no one is going to get in between those resorts and consumers until we get to the final simulation.” Not sure what to make of the final simulation, but at least we’re not there yet. wsj.com/business/media…

You usually hear about mid-major stars jumping to power-conference programs for a bigger stage and a bigger payday after a standout year. Now you have a player like Milan Momcilovic, coming off a terrific season at Iowa State, transferring from one power-conference program to another for about five times the money. In the current system, which isn’t designed to reward loyalty, it would be malpractice not to make the move. espn.com/mens-college-b…

@Jason_Shetler Absolutely

@adamdigital My mom once took part in a Double Dare themed game at Universal Studios. Does that count? Lol

Happy National Game Show Day. As a kid, I loved reruns of the Jim Lange-hosted version of Name That Tune. I am still amazed at how many contestants could identify songs by Gershwin, Cole Porter and other standards after just two or three notes. Many seemed to need fewer notes for the Great American Songbook than I do for a Beatles song today.

Dell’s resurgence is a reminder that major corporate turnarounds are possible. It also brings to mind its old PC-era rival Hewlett-Packard. Founders Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard are Silicon Valley icons. HP spent years searching for its next chapter under high-profile CEOs including Carly Fiorina, Mark Hurd and Meg Whitman. There was no shortage of talent, ambition or attention. Which is a reminder of just how difficult it is to pull off what Dell appears to be doing today. Granted, Dell appears to have both economic and political winds at its back. cnbc.com/video/2026/05/…

Today would have been Marilyn Monroe’s 100th birthday. Her legacy rests on her films and on what generations have projected onto her since her death at 36. Monroe left much of her estate to acting coach Lee Strasberg. Decades later, the rights to her name and image were sold to Authentic Brands Group, a global brand-management and licensing company specializing in celebrity intellectual property. Andy Warhol’s Marilyn may be one of the most influential celebrity portraits ever created. Would the Marilyn Monroe brand carry the same value today if Warhol had never painted her?

100-year-old former AL MVP Bobby Shantz autographs his baseball card 75 years later…

The argument on the Barron’s cover got the internet wrong, though that’s easier to say with 25 years of hindsight. The assumption was that value would flow to companies selling directly to consumers. Instead, some of the biggest winners of the internet age were the platforms sitting in the middle of the transaction.

Even after the dot-com bust Amazon spent many years trading at a valuation that looked more like 1999 than what most of Wall Street was prepared to accept. Part of that was the Bezos premium. Investors looked past current earnings on the belief that the company would eventually become far larger and more profitable.

Incidentally, on this day in 1991, Pat Riley was hired to coach the Knicks. Whatever your favorite run was, none of it likely happens without him.

The ’99 run was remarkable. The Knicks barely made the playoffs, lost Patrick Ewing, and still reached the Finals. The ’94 team came within a game of the title and nearly made it back the following year. Ewing’s back-iron miss against the Pacers still leaves a hole in my stomach.

Saw a local news interview with a 34-year-old Knicks fan. He was 7 during the ’99 Finals and just 2 during the ’94 run. Demographics may help explain why ’99 looms larger today, even though the ’94 team was better and came much closer to winning a championship. 🏀

Holy. Mackerel.