Crotchety rambler Andy Rooney has passed away, just one month after his final “60 Minutes” appearance and slightly more than a week after suffering complications from minor surgery. In honor of his passing, I’ll be just as respectful about his death as he was about Kurt Cobain’s.

Rooney was an unremarkable, cranky bore whose bitching about simple annoyances struck a nerve with other aging white people who were frightened by or opposed to change. His view of America was essentially a collection of Rockwell paintings, and he complained about any facet of life that strayed from that impossible vision. When technological developments improved commerce or people’s lives, Rooney only saw the inconvenience of learning something new. In every TV appearance of his that I saw, he came off to me as intellectually incurious, and he happily took a paycheck from CBS for 60 years while brushing away the fans who sent him letters or tried to approach him in public. I don’t understand why people who didn’t know him should stop and mourn a man who never cared for people he didn’t know.

Rest in peace, Andy Rooney. The world has moved on.

Just three weeks after his final “60 Minutes” ramble, Andy Rooney almost died. At least, that’s what I’m inferring given CBS’s terse statement.

Rooney underwent minor surgery last week and suffered serious complications. For that reason, he remains in the hospital, but his condition is stable.

The Rooney family asks that their privacy be respected at this difficult time. [CBS]

I don’t mean to be insensitive, but the man is 92 YEARS OLD. His skin is like loose parchment draped over rotting meat. There’s no such thing as MINOR surgery for someone this old. He could probably bleed out from a paper cut. That’s why I mailed him a “get well” card in the freshest, sharpest envelope I could find.

There was some excellent TV journalism on “60 Minutes” last night, none of which had anything to do with Andy Rooney. If you want to learn or see something worthwhile, I recommend watching the piece about the relationship between Fort Bragg and the tsunami-ravaged city of Otsuchi, or the jaw-dropping life of Alex Honnold, the best solo free climber in the world.

But of course the big news is that Andy Rooney closed the show for what we hope will be a final time (above), which was preceded by a 13-minute interview/retrospective puff piece about the curmudgeonly 92-year-old (video of that below). And here’s the short version: Andy Rooney is a real dick. He’s not just a grump on TV, he also resents being recognized by fans, refuses to sign autographs, and doesn’t respond to any fan mail. So if you see Andy Rooney on the street or in a restaurant, don’t say hello. Tell him “f*ck you.”

Oh man. This is a great mash-up of “Andy Rooney saying Andy Rooney things” by Holy Taco. Listening to a collection of random Rooneyisms is only slightly less coherent than his regular stream of consciousness. I love it.

“That’s a strange name, Holy Taco. What kind of meat would be in a holy taco? I guess it depends on your religion. Christians might have fish, I suppose. Jews don’t eat pork or shellfish, and I’ve heard that Muslims don’t eat pork either, but I’ve never confirmed that. I don’t like tacos, but I still attend church every Sunday. I enjoy the scripture, but I’m not much of a singer when it comes to hymns. I like hymns, though. I find them soothing. Today’s music isn’t soothing, it’s loud and percussive. If you ask me, it doesn’t even sound like music. Whatever happened to a pipe organ and four-part harmony? That works just fine for me, and you know what they say: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Do you ever get tired? I do. I get tired a lot. I used to just get tired at the end of the day before falling asleep. Sometimes I’d get tired in the middle of the day, and I’d drink a cup of coffee or take a nap. But now I’m tired a lot more often. I’m even tired right after I wake up! That’s why this Sunday will be my last regular appearance on “60 Minutes.” They say I can come back any time I want, but no one seems very enthusiastic about that. So I guess I’m retired.

That’s a funny word, “retired.” Re- means again, and tired means tired, so I guess I’m tired again. Lots of other words begin with “re-.” Remain. Recite. Review. Repeat. Resist. Return. Rebuff. Receive. Remember. I remember a lot of things, but sometimes I forget. Lately I’ve been forgetting a lot of things, like where I put my wallet or… there was something else, but I forget. And now that’s another thing I forgot!

Another “re-” word that bothers me is “recycle.” My granddaughter says we have to recycle, because that’s the only way to save the Earth. But I don’t know. I like throwing things away. I’ve done it all my life, and I don’t see why I should change now. That’s how we’ve always done it. You have something, then it gets old and boring, so you throw it away.

…I guess I’m being thrown away now, too. But that’s fine. I wouldn’t want to be recycled.

It’s been a while since we’ve checked in on Andy Rooney, the official dementia-ridden rambling old man of Warming Glow. And while this missive against unnecessary developments in technology that deprive him of the joy of getting lost isn’t as epic as the time he realized he wasn’t average, it IS remarkable in that he (a) somehow still does this every week and (b) is still alive.

“I have a lot of gadgets in my office, but I don’t like them. I don’t know what they do, and I don’t like the word ‘gadget.’ Sounds like one of the Kaiser’s words. Now there are cars that are syncing up with our gadgets, and I don’t like that, either. Cars are supposed to be simple black means of transportation, like Henry Ford used to make ‘em. We’d be a lot better off listening to Henry Ford — now there was a man who knew how to keep the Jews away from his stash of gold. But now cars are green instead of black, and green doesn’t even describe the color of the car. When did green become something besides a color? That’s like the color orange and the fruit orange — which one was named for which? Maybe there’s an app that could tell me, but I don’t want it. Things were better when we didn’t have the answer to eveyrthing. Forced us to be more creative. A stick — now THAT was a good toy.”

(YouTube link here)

Andy Rooney cooked up his standard recipe on “60 Minutes” last night: one large chunk of old man grumpiness, three ladles of stroke-induced confusion, and a sprinkle of rambling dementia. The target of his ire this week was desire, which he called a “serious and constant defect in the human character.” Rest assured, Reverend Rooney is a sinner like the rest of us, helpless against his basest instinct to eat extra cookies after lunch.

“The medical industry makes pills for headaches, constipation, and high cholesterol, but they still haven’t invented an anti-desire pill to stop me from wanting cookies. Delicious chocolate chip cookies. I only wanted one, but I took two and ate them both. It used to be standard to put walnuts in chocolate chip cookies, but somewhere along the way that stopped happening. I guess Americans just wanted something sweeter. Where did the walnuts go? Does the government subsidize those walnut farmers? Think about that: being paid not to grow something. I’ve been not growing things my entire life, and I’ve never gotten a dime for it. Of course, a dime won’t buy you much these days. Why is that? I remember buying a Coke and a hamburger with a dime, but things slowly got more expensive. Now if you have a dime, it might as well be a penny. Why does the government still make pennies? Probably to pay the walnut farmers.”

TAKE HIM TO THE VET AND PUT HIM TO SLEEP ALREADY.

I’ve been following Andy Rooney’s Vortex of Senility™ for some time now, and last night’s complaint — that plain ol’ average middle-of-the-road Andy hasn’t heard of ANY of the musicians on the Billboard Top 200 — is proof that there is no bottom to this well of senility. It’s like he’s making a parody of my parody of him. Take a deep whiff of this video. That smell is Werther’s and Alzheimer’s.

“I thought I was average, but the average person knows who Lady Gaga is. What kind of royalty is she? If I were royalty I wouldn’t pursue a music career, that’s for sure. Unless I had the opportunity to play in John Phillip Sousa’s band — now THAT was a man who could write a lovely march! You never see kids these days marching. Always slouching and riding around on scooters and skateboards. Last week I even saw a young boy with wheels on his shoes. That’s the LAST place I’d want wheels. Shoes are for walking, or running, or marching — not rolling. Bicycles are an excellent place for wheels, as are wheelbarrows and horseless carriages. But you won’t purple. Catholic my long pants. Middle bllllgggg –”

Oh thank God. I thought that stroke would never happen.

[via BWE]

Yes, friends, Irish F. Murray Abraham is getting his own show Last night, Conan’s interview with Steve Kroft was broadcast on 60 Minutes. Generally, I share your real dad’s disinterest in reporting Conan news, but your stepdad feels like a couple of things need to be addressed.

Kroft, as is his wont, went fishing for a few money quotes. “Was it a failure?” “Do you feel like you got screwed?” Most of this interview was not interesting, but in fairness to Kroft, it’s hard to make the situation interesting at this point. Yes, we get to hear Conan’s side of the story — not only have we already heard Conan’s side, it’s the only side we’ve heard. Could we get an interview with NBC execs? Leno? I’d rather see that.

Second, Conan said that he was “depressed” by the whole ordeal. While it certainly would be kind of bewildering for a man in Conan’s situation to lose his job, I’m not sure how depressed I would have been. This is a guy who could have found a home just about anywhere else he wanted, and throughout the past few months he’s enjoyed an enormous level of support from millions of fans. If you were being dumped because you weren’t any good and your ratings were tanking, then yeah, sure, that would be pretty emotionally crippling. But dude. The day after you started your Twitter account, I pulled it up. I waited five seconds, refreshed, and saw that you had two hundred more followers. Buck up, beardo.

Part of Conan O’Brien’s NBC buyout forbade him from having any print or TV interviews appear before May 1st. This Sunday (May 2nd), O’Brien will appear on “60 Minutes” in an interview with Steve Kroft.

[The piece] will include highlights from Mr. OBrien’s current stage tour. But it will center on the comic’s comments about the fractious events surrounding his decision to leave NBC rather than accept having his show pushed back a half-hour to make room for Jay Leno to return to late-night television.

But Mr. OBrien is still under restrictions not to disparage NBC or Mr. Leno. “He flirts with the restrictions,” Mr. Kroft said in a telephone interview. [NYT]

In addition, CBS is forbidden to use O’Brien’s image to promote the episode. Why? Because lawyers are dicks, that’s why.

Below: Conan’s “Walker, Texas Ranger” lever  reappropriated for the Internet.