The End of Letterman

craniac wrote: I used to hate Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death" but now I want to read it. Perhaps this crankiness is related to my brain shrinking as I get older.

I loved that book. I haven't seen a copy in years but I did love it... I think it should have dated reasonably well and is probably still worth the read. Certainly these shows aren't important.. Dave's show in particular was just silly goofy shit. He occasionally would say something interesting but mostly it was just goofy shit. That's ok. It was different when it was just him and Carson.. it seemed more risky and dangerous at the time and back then I had never read McLuhan or Postman so I didn't have any of these problems. Looking at it now I agree it's pretty silly and unimportant but I still like some part of these shows... mostly the stand up performances, some sketches and occasionally the musical acts too. I love stand up comedy and I do consider it to be a legitimate art form.. these shows used to be a good place to discover new stand up acts. But as time has gone on they seem to have less and less of that. At this point it's pretty much just Conan who has regular appearances with stand ups on his show. Fallon has the odd guy on but usually it's just a buddy of his.. Nate Bargatze (who is a fantastic story teller) has gotten some good PR from Fallon for example. The interviews are usually only good when they are interviewing a comedian because then the comedian can just adjust their stand up set to involve one other person.. so you get some good material that way. Bill Burr has been great on Conan's panel lately, re-purposing his stand up for the interview format.

Ultimately boardgames are no better. But they have less of our collective focus so I imagine they get a pass. Late Night TV is just another silly waste of time but if the comedy is good... I think analyzing it like it's philosophy isn't a bad thing. Sometimes they do serve as pop philosophers and we don't really have that anymore in pop culture so at least someone is doing it. In fact I'd argue that I can get as much art out of a Louis CK or Norm Macdonald show (the full hour show not the 5 min late night spot, which is more of a trailer really) as I would out of the Godfather or whatever other movies Simon Pegg throws in there. The begining of Norm's "Me Doing Stand Up" is a brilliant rumination of death and mortality and it is followed by one of the most interesting dissection of the news I've ever seen. Now film, for me, isn't really that intellectual even at high levels, I don't see how it can offer any more than a good stand up set can. It's still film and will never engage me the way a book can. Passive media in general has a hard time reaching the level that the book reaches on a regular basis, there's usually just too much distraction and the material is generally much more diluted. At least in stand up that isn't as much of a problem, less spectacle, less pyrotechnics and a more concentrated vision due to there being only one persons opinion that matters... Of course it could be that I've been brainwashed by McLuhan theories into thinking that books are superior to film if you want intellectual content, but that's how it feels to me.

I didn't really follow Letterman after the early-mid nineties. Two events really hurt Letterman in the long run: 1) The move from NBC to CBS and 2) Carson leaving the air, along with a non Letterman successor taking Carsons' place. I just remember the focus being taken off goofy bits and being replaced with anger towards NBC and Leno. Something really was missing after the move, probably that playfulness in the beginning. After those two events, Letterman had no mentor, no real network base (at least right after he left NBC) and the show just missed something.

Mr. White wrote: Looks like Simon followed up that article.

simonpegg.net/2015/05/19/big-mouth-strikes-again/

That is pretty great--he brings in a little Baudrillard!

Recent developments in popular culture were arguably predicted by the French philosopher and cultural theorist, Jean Baudrillard in his book, ‘America’, in which he talks about the infantilzation of society. Put simply, this is the idea that as a society, we are kept in a state of arrested development by dominant forces in order to keep us more pliant. We are made passionate about the things that occupied us as children as a means of drawing our attentions away from the things we really should be invested in, inequality, corruption, economic injustice etc. It makes sense that when faced with the awfulness of the world, the harsh realities that surround us, our instinct is to seek comfort, and where else were the majority of us most comfortable than our youth? A time when we were shielded from painful truths by our recreational passions, the toys we played with, the games we played, the comics we read. There was probably more discussion on Twitter about the The Force Awakens and the Batman vs Superman trailers than there was about the Nepalese earthquake or the British general election.

If you're a Warren Zevon fan and haven't picked of the "Enjoy Every Sandwich" tribute album, it's great. Not a clunker of a cover in the bunch, but two really stand out -- Adam Sandler (!) doing "Werewolves of London" and Warren's son doing "Studebaker".

craniac wrote:

Mr. White wrote: Looks like Simon followed up that article.

simonpegg.net/2015/05/19/big-mouth-strikes-again/

That is pretty great--he brings in a little Baudrillard!

Recent developments in popular culture were arguably predicted by the French philosopher and cultural theorist, Jean Baudrillard in his book, ‘America’, in which he talks about the infantilzation of society. Put simply, this is the idea that as a society, we are kept in a state of arrested development by dominant forces in order to keep us more pliant. We are made passionate about the things that occupied us as children as a means of drawing our attentions away from the things we really should be invested in, inequality, corruption, economic injustice etc. It makes sense that when faced with the awfulness of the world, the harsh realities that surround us, our instinct is to seek comfort, and where else were the majority of us most comfortable than our youth? A time when we were shielded from painful truths by our recreational passions, the toys we played with, the games we played, the comics we read. There was probably more discussion on Twitter about the The Force Awakens and the Batman vs Superman trailers than there was about the Nepalese earthquake or the British general election.

Yeah, I enjoyed his response as well, but felt like he tried to soften his message up too much at the end. These are thoughts I've been having for awhile. I mentioned sometime last year that I'd prefer if 40yr old Mr. White didn't resemble 20yr old Mr. White. I've done a lot toward that goal and it's been great.