What a week. Here are some distractions.
Halloween is coming up. And everything is a little scary. 🫣
Happy Sunday! I still drop by on occasion to see if the lights are still on.
I read a book, yo! I really cannot begin to describe how much Late Night with David Letterman meant to me as a teenager. I actually watched Letterman’s daytime talk show--a precursor to Late Night--when it first aired in the summer of 1980. I had just turned 11, and I was hooked. I was a already a bit of a comedy nerd, and I felt like I was discovering a whole new brand of comedy that was meant just for me. Young people like to discover things. It’s what they do. So I followed Dave to the wee hours of the morning.
In the 10th grade I went through a period where I stayed up until 1-1:30 am to watch Late Night on school nights. This was 1984-85, often considered the Late Night heyday. I was the youngest of four and a straight-A student, so I think my mom was beyond worrying about my sleep patterns. Some girls were into Duran Duran or Tom Cruise. I had pictures of David Letterman on my Pee-Chee.
Late Night had not become as popular as The Tonight Show, an impossibility, considering their respective time slots, but its cultural impact had surpassed it. By the middle of the decade, Letterman was the rare host who stood for something bigger than a television show. He became the host who didn’t believe in hosting, a truth-teller whose sarcasm rendered everything he said suspect, a mocking challenge to anyone who pretended to take the ridiculous world seriously. Letterman became the face of an ironic sensibility that permeated comedy, television, and popular culture.
Regarding a young Generation X: They sighed at political activism and rolled their eyes at passion and engagement. Unlike the hopeful kids from past decades, they were not marked by a particular cause to fight for. They were more likely to find all of the politics contemptuous. What united them was a jaded outlook about not just politics but even the nature of honesty itself.
Jason Zinoman’s Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night is a long and comprehensive read, but I whizzed through it and ate up every bit of detail and analysis. Dave isn’t particularly a warm and cuddly fellow. He has a dark side, and he hasn’t always been the best husband and boss. But his devotion to comedy and the success of his talk show is clear.
I was a huge Top Ten List fan, and I purchased both books. I know I used a Top Ten bit in one or two college presentations. Dave’s show certainly changed over time, particular when he made the move to CBS. I stopped watching regularly around that time, since I was newly married and soon had a job that required an early bedtime. Getting old sucks.
But oddly enough, on February 21, 2000, the night I went into labor with Finn, Scott and I were watching Dave’s triumphant return after open heart surgery. As Dave was introducing his crackerjack medical team my water broke, and Scott and I had to rush to the hospital--five weeks earlier than we anticipated. Dave also recently emerged from retirement to induct my beloved Pearl Jam into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
So despite his flaws and my waning interest in his talk show in the latter years, Dave will always have a special place in my heart. I’m glad he’s enjoying his retirement.
He deserves it for all the Generation X joy he created.
ifjanetranit reblogged
Like lotsa old peeps, I have a tendency to make sweeping generalizations about stuff. My latest article about Millennials demonstrates 1) my deep affection for the 1990s film classic “Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion” and 2) my ambivalence about MTV losing its cultural significance.
As noted American philosopher and philanthropist James Todd Smith, a.k.a. LL Cool J, once opined, “Mama said knock you out!” At least that’s what YouTube is sayin’ to MTV. Or something like that. You get what I’m tryna say. Sheesh.
As I told @lazydad via another form of communication that only old peeps use--that’s right betches, a rotary phone!--my 16-year-old almost exclusively uses YouTube. He stopped watching television at home years ago. I occasionally make him sit down and watch John Oliver with us, but that’s rare. And he’s incredibly well-informed for a kid who is hardly ever home due to school, band activities, and his girlfriend. That smart phone is pretty powerful stuff.
As a music lover, I couldn’t imagine the day when I stopped watching MTV. You really can’t overstate the cultural significance of MTV back in the 80s. I remained loyal throughout the 90s despite the lack of music programming, but I essentially gave up on it after Real World: Las Vegas. So basically it’s all Trishelle’s fault.
As for LL Cool J, strangely enough I just listened to “Around the Way Girl” from the Mama Said Knock You Out album yesterday. Great album. 1990 was a good year.
Millennials
thedaddycomplex posted this gem earlier today....
Dear Non-Millennials:
Stop telling Millennials how to adult.
And if you write a supposedly humorous column telling Millennials how to adult and there’s a backlash, don’t double-down. Instead, maybe consider the possibility that the “out-of-touch, old fogey” angle just isn’t funny. Or that you’re not as funny as you think.
You know what would have been ground-breaking, Chris Erskine? A column about what you, an old fuck, learned from Millennials about how you can improve your life. Because they have a lot more to offer than a cliché unfunny perspective on a topic no one but you cares about.
Sincerely,
An Old Fuck Who Learns From Every Generation
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I couldn’t agree more with @thedaddycomplex. My millennial woke up at 5 AM this morning to be at high school for a 6 AM pep rally where he played the drums in pep band (for several pieces of music that he has memorized). This was after staying up until midnight finishing his homework, which included studying for an honors civics test and analyzing two poems for his honors English class. Poems that were every bit as hard as the shit I had to analyze in college. After school he has to march in the community Homecoming parade, and I think he gets 30 minutes to eat before heading to the stadium to perform at the football game, which includes a complex half-time field show. All this and he still has time to text constantly and watch funny YouTube videos. Also his hair looks fabulous.
And my kid isn’t special. Several hundred kids in his high school are having similarly demanding days. And it was the same for the millennials who graduated ten years ago. This week I was chatting with a guy I graduated from high school with--28 years ago--while we were waiting for our 5 AM commuter train to Seattle. His son is a football player, and he was talking about the jam packed week the kids have. He played football and I was in band in high school. He said, “Their schedule is nuts. In our day, I went home and took a nap before a football game.” I told him Finn’s band practices way more than we ever did. We formed a giant “S” on the field and called it good. I also watched an embarrassing amount of MTV.
To this Gen X-er’s view, the bar was raised for millennials, and they are rising to meet the challenge. Do they like to drink expensive coffee and look at their phones all the time? Yes. Big deal. So do I.
I read a book, yo! Actually, thanks to a spell of crappy weather and a slight cough due to cold, I've already read several books so far in 2015. I've gotta get cracking on writing about them before I forget them altogether.
The Unspeakable is a collection of personal essays from Meghan Daum. I think I saw this book on a Best of Something List somewhere, so I put it on my library hold list. I wasn't disappointed. Meghan is funny, thoughtful, and very honest about a variety of issues--her relationship with her mother, death, Gen-X, romance, her dog, Joni Mitchell, etc. She's almost exactly my age, and I found myself nodding my head in agreement with a lot of observations. I felt a particular kinship when she discussed foodie culture and her own lack of interest in cooking (until she was 20 she thought baking from scratch meant using a box cake mix from the store too!). Meghan writes a column for the Los Angeles Times, and I found myself perusing some of those writings as well.
Very enjoyable stuff. I like starting the year off right!