David Letterman Rings Out

 

Reflecting on David Letterman's final episode, set to air later this evening, several favorite moments from the show -- including a few with Olympic rings -- come to mind.

Maybe not enough for a Top 10 list, but a few worth noting as the television milestone is here.

My earliest Letterman memories date to summer of 1986.

Though youthful staying up late was permitted years prior, that summer between seventh and eighth grades was my first with my very own in-bedroom TV, so I was more inclined to (and could get away with) keeping the tube on past midnight.

In those days, GE was the new owner of NBC, and Letterman made a lot of jokes about the "GE Guys" (I suspect most of this footage was purged from the archive when Letterman jumped to CBS). Encouraged by a reader letters segment, I hand-carved a candle with cartoonish "GE Guys" suitable for on-air burning (sadly it was never mailed -- never could catch the mailing address).

That was the summer they crushed items with a large press, and it was also the age of the "thrill cam"

and later a "tiger cam" attack on Paul Shaffer as a would-be big cat (a cleverly-placed boom camera) lunged across the audience in a few bounds to a terrified band leader. Very funny.

The ever-changing "home office" references sent me to the atlas several times.

Sort of lost track of Letterman during later years of high school, but picked up again whenever tabloid TV raved about specific episodes. Favorites: Cher proclaiming her hunch that Letterman was an {bleep}hole, and Drew Barrymore flashing her tattoo-covered bare midriff and other body parts.

The Sonny and Cher reunion the following year was must see TV. Maybe tonight Cher will perform "I Got You, Dave" as an homage to the 1987 clip of "I Got You, Babe."

In 1994, Letterman's Olympic coverage from Lillehammer was a nice break from Nancy Kerrigan vs. Tonya Harding coverage. And it was fun to see David's mom and technician Biff as Olympic correspondents again live from Nagano in 1998.

Of course, Olympic athlete appearances on the show were always fun to watch.

I'll miss Letterman but admit the "new blood" arrival of Stephen Colbert is appealing. Thanks to David Letterman for many funny five-ringed TV moments and lots of laughs.

Photos via CBS

Register This

When snowboarding entered the Winter Olympic roster in 1998 at Nagano, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat video on "Wide World of Sports" seemed destined to receive new footage to replace the famous ski jumper gone wild.

I remember watching Japan's snowboarding broadcasts -- crazy feats, crashes and all -- but admit none of the athlete names stuck with me (I was too busy chatting online with two of Iceland's female ski team members via the IBM Olympic Village athlete email system).

The same is true for 2002 and 2006 -- no snowboarder names come to mind now (though Phoebe Mills' transition from gymnastics to snowboarding, and Shaun White's name, "stuck" with regards to the snow sport after 2010).

And it was interesting to learn about the earliest days of snowboarding when the guy who started it all sadly died last year.

With snowboarding curiosity on the brain, yesterday I seized the opportunity to speak with Chris Klug, the three-time Olympian who, I learned, was the first Team USA snowboarder announced for Nagano in '98. Klug went on to win bronze on Valentine's Day in 2002 at the Salt Lake Games (though I attended women's snowboarding on the first Sunday of the Games, travels took me to downtown Salt Lake most of the day that Feb. 14, missing Klug's medal-winning competition -- come to think of it, I spent that evening at Iceland's special pavilion in the Olympic city, but not a single female ski team member showed up).

Back to the call with Chris ...

"Winning bronze [in front of] 25,000 fans, 100 close friends and family," ranks among Klug's favorite Olympic memories.

By phone, Klug also said being the first to qualify in 1998, and walking in to the Nagano Olympic opening ceremony with his coach in awe, exclaiming, "Can you believe how far our sport has come?!" also topped the list of five-ringed recollections.

Arriving as the team's elder statesman, at age 37, in Vancouver also came to mind, said Klug. He said in 2006 he did some broadcasting work during the Torino Games.

But all Olympic glory and memories pale in comparison to what Klug expressed as the biggest moment in his sports career and life: Learning he needed a new liver, and then receiving it through organ donation after a tense waiting game that spanned most of the 1990s.

"I remember getting the call," said Klug.

That call came in 2000, nine years after the diagnosed need for a liver. Klug added that although he was healthier post-transplant, it was a "scary process."

So, in this post, I buried the lede until now: Chris Klug is the only Olympian, summer Games or winter, to compete as an organ transplant recipient.

According to his website, and paraphrasing from our conversation, "The hardest part of the process was the waiting game leading up to my transplant," according to Klug.

Now a real estate agent, part-time snowboard coach and hands-on contributor to the charity he founded, Klug spends a lot of time and energy expressing gratitude for the second chance at life provided by an organ donor.

Klug wants people to know the facts about organ donation, and on the call the G. David Fleming, president and CEO of Donate Life America, shared many important stats everyone should read.

"We want people to realize organ transplants only happen as a result of a family decision to donate," said Fleming.

Taking the steps to register for donation is key.

Organ donation is a topic my mom and I discussed in 1989 in the final days before earning my first driver's license in Oklahoma (at the time and likely now still, parental consent was a requirement). By the time my adult Georgia license paperwork got completed, checking the organ donor box was quick and easy, the right decision for this blogger.

But it was not until recent months that the power of organ donation hit closest to home, as my good friends the Taylor family welcomed their first son into the world. The family learned their baby boy needed a new liver only days after his birth, and young Aaron eventually received the miracle of two liver transplants thanks to the kindness of strangers (read their story of bravery and perserverance via CaringBridge with some Kleenex). I know the Taylors share infinite gratitude similar to the thanks expressed by Klug.

April is national Donate Life month, and I hope this post will inspire many to take a few minutes to learn more and discuss organ donation with those they love most, then if it's right for them, make time to register.

Sharing Klug's inspirational tag line: "Enjoy the ride -- don't take a single turn for granted."

Photo by Dennis Schroeder via ChrisKlug.com

Tara Lapinski at Club Bud in Vancouver

As noted in previous post, "Mad Men" star Jon Hamm was only one of the red carpet walkers at Club Bud (client) on Saturday night at the Vancouver Olympics.

Nagano 1998 Olympic gold medalist Tara Lipinski arrived at club bud ready to talk with media and fans.

Lipinski is a real trooper with media, enduring several interviews with repeat questions. She also politely navigated some potentially awkward (but handled with good cheer) moments with the friendly Brad Blanks, a reporter for New York's "Scott & Todd in the Morning," who's memory drew a blank regarding Lipinski's Olympic glory (on par with my own naivete about most of the young TV stars who arrived at Club Bud -- we had a good laugh about it in the media row).

Lipinski shared brief details on some of the special children's causes she supports, and she discussed the post-Olympic experience including participation in two Olympic torch relays.

Calm Before The Storm -- Peek Inside Our Office

Today in the Olympic city, the morning got off to a good start. My hotel is apparently the home of several Japanese media outlets starting to check in for Olympic reporting duties, and it was cool to visit with some of the new arrivals from Tokyo, Nagoya and other areas of the 1998 and 1964 Olympic host nation.

At work there are new arrivals, too. A colleague from Toronto is my new office neighbor, and we'll soon be roommates at a rented waterfront apartment a few blocks from B.C. Place.

Posting here, for the folks back home, a peek at the office and what will become a "war room" of sorts for our little P.R. enterprise during the Vancouver Olympics.

The photos also include a few tools of the trade (yes, now using two phones), my office (at least until the next wave of colleagues and clients arrives and we start sharing desks), the sofa where we may be crashing a night or two, and the giant spoon attached to the office key (all the newbies get to carry one for a few days).

Feast your eyes on the hot-off-the-press Edelman 2010 Olympic pin!

Better Know An N.O.C. -- Iceland

With all this week's chatter about the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, I thought for "B.K.A.N.O.C." installment No. 3 it might be best to peek at an undoubtedly winter sport nation.

You can imagine my surprise to find that the Atlantic nation of Iceland (ICE) earned numerous Olympic medals across the history of the Modern Games, but not one medal was in a Winter sport!

According to the IOC directory of national Olympic committees, Iceland did well earning medals in Beijing, LA84, Melbourne '56 and Sydney 2000. Several summer Iceland Olympic memories come to mind.

First, in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Village at Georgia Tech, my colleagues and I ("Village People") often commented that the athletes of Iceland House (situated in what is now a sorority house near Bobby Dodd Stadium) were unanimously the most gorgeous people in the Olympics. I ran into one of the Atlanta Olympic athletes from Iceland in 2004, on the metro rail to Beach Volleyball, and she was just as beautiful at the latter Games as in '96.

Also, during the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympic Games, several of the athletes participated in an early version of chat rooms, and one athlete who wrote back to me was a skier from Iceland who had one of those dreamy, umlaut-infused names like the Icelandic woman in the outstanding Robert Altman film "The Player." She, too, was a bombshell beauty. We finally met in person at Iceland House in downtown Salt Lake in 2002 (I was biting my wrist like the Lenny & Squiggy on "Laverne & Shirley" credits).

No Iceland post would be complete without mentioning Bjork's performance at the 2004 Athens Olympic Opening Ceremonies.

There is not yet much info on the team that Iceland will field for Vancouver, but no doubt they will make an impression in the new Olympic City next year. Get to know an NOC: Iceland. And look out for your opportunity to meet Sumicelandicgudmansdottir.

Photo via the Iceland National Olympic Committee site and via this Bjork fan site.