I may be sad that Mad Men has ended but I am devastated by this one. Ah, David Letterman. He's why my sense of humour is as warped as it is. From the moment he started Late Night on NBC, I knew he was great. It was past my bedtime, and it was a struggle for me to see his show. We had a VCR, but with my stepmother recording every soap opera known to mankind, there was never any videotape left in the house. Mostly, we all pretended that we'd watched it, and recited things we'd heard from older kids.
When I went to NYC for the first time, as a teenager in the mid-80s, the coolest thing about Rockefeller Center was that Dave was in there somewhere. Never mind the architecture or the stores I couldn't possibly afford. Knowing I was outside the building where Stupid Pet Tricks, Top Ten Lists, The Alka Seltzer Suit, and Stupid Human Tricks happened was practically the highlight of the trip.
Late Night was all over the place, which is what I loved. It wasn't really a talk show, and Dave, forced to talk to celebrities about whatever piece of crap movie they were plugging, often looked like he wished he was still doing the weather in Indiana. That's what made it so fun to watch. He would drive a truck through any celebrity who didn't understand what was going on. You felt like he was on the side of the viewer at home. We were thinking, wow, that movie sounds shitty, and you could tell Dave was too.
My favourite bit was probably the NBC Bookmobile on the old show, with Kathleen the librarian and Gruff but Loveable Gus driving. I still remember when he changed Jane Seymour's Guide to Romantic Living (an ACTUAL BOOK) into Jane Seymour's Guide to Distance Spitting. She was one of the guests who truly didn't seem to get the joke back then; you could tell she hated him, and he didn't give a rat's ass. It was awesome!
In my 20s, during, let's say, dry spells, he was the last man I saw before going to sleep at night. He always seemed like a genuinely sweet man, who understood how great he had it, and the absurdity of it all. Taking something like celebrity seriously is patently silly, and those who do it deserved whatever mocking Dave gave them.
I kept watching when he went to CBS, of course, but the show was never the same for me. With that glitzy theatre and big studio audience, I felt like someone had invited too many people to a great, intimate party. In the old studio, which looked pretty crappy, you really felt like it was you and maybe a dozen other people, awake at 1 AM on a weekday, watching some guy in a Velcro suit, and it was glorious.
Humour is what makes us human, I think. If you don't have a sense of humour, if you can't laugh at things, you are truly doomed. And, you're probably not anyone I will invite over for cocktails, so there's that.
So, thank you, David Letterman, for making me laugh, not a little, but full-on, crying, doubled-over laughter, the kind you can feel actually change your mood and perception. You'll probably never know how much good you did for millions of people. I, for one, am eternally grateful.
When I went to NYC for the first time, as a teenager in the mid-80s, the coolest thing about Rockefeller Center was that Dave was in there somewhere. Never mind the architecture or the stores I couldn't possibly afford. Knowing I was outside the building where Stupid Pet Tricks, Top Ten Lists, The Alka Seltzer Suit, and Stupid Human Tricks happened was practically the highlight of the trip.
Late Night was all over the place, which is what I loved. It wasn't really a talk show, and Dave, forced to talk to celebrities about whatever piece of crap movie they were plugging, often looked like he wished he was still doing the weather in Indiana. That's what made it so fun to watch. He would drive a truck through any celebrity who didn't understand what was going on. You felt like he was on the side of the viewer at home. We were thinking, wow, that movie sounds shitty, and you could tell Dave was too.
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| So sad that I never saw a show live. |
In my 20s, during, let's say, dry spells, he was the last man I saw before going to sleep at night. He always seemed like a genuinely sweet man, who understood how great he had it, and the absurdity of it all. Taking something like celebrity seriously is patently silly, and those who do it deserved whatever mocking Dave gave them.
I kept watching when he went to CBS, of course, but the show was never the same for me. With that glitzy theatre and big studio audience, I felt like someone had invited too many people to a great, intimate party. In the old studio, which looked pretty crappy, you really felt like it was you and maybe a dozen other people, awake at 1 AM on a weekday, watching some guy in a Velcro suit, and it was glorious.
Humour is what makes us human, I think. If you don't have a sense of humour, if you can't laugh at things, you are truly doomed. And, you're probably not anyone I will invite over for cocktails, so there's that.
So, thank you, David Letterman, for making me laugh, not a little, but full-on, crying, doubled-over laughter, the kind you can feel actually change your mood and perception. You'll probably never know how much good you did for millions of people. I, for one, am eternally grateful.
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