James Lileks, an early David Letterman fan (though weren’t we all?) buries Dave’s sclerotic latest incarnation:
This posture was fresh in ’80; it even had energy. But it paralyzes the heart after a while. You end up an SOB who shows up at the end of the night to reassure that nothing matters. I think he may have invented the posture of Nerd Cool, an aspect so familiar to anyone who reads message boards – the skill at deflating enthusiasm, puncturing passion with a hatpin lobbed from a safe distance. The instinctive unease with the wet messy energy of actual people.
Yes, reading too much into it. Really, it’s just a rote slam: If your mother is a loathed politician, and your older sister gets pregnant, famous old men can make jokes about you being knocked up by rich baseball players, and there’s nothing you can do. That’s the culture: a flat, dead-eyed, square-headed old man who’ll go back to the writers and ask for more Palin-daughter knocked-up jokes, because that one went over well. Other children he won’t touch, but not because he’s decent. It’s because he’s a coward.
AdvertisementOh, one more thing: it’s okay for David to say that because someone said something else about someone, and since I didn’t write about that, I’m a hypocrite. Just so we’re clear.
Well, one more thing. Some say Dave – I’m sorry, the staff members who wrote the joke and had it printed on cards for him to read – thought the daughter in attendance was the older one who had the pregnancy controversy last year. This is possible; it also means that we accept as an excuse the fact that the writers confused the daughters they wished to humiliate.
That confusion must be the reason the NYT left the joke out of its transcript of the monologue.
One more thing: the monologue contained an Angela Lansbury joke. Dude is OUT THERE.
Then again, there’s always Conan O’Brien, who thinks African-Americans are persona incognita in Wisconsin.
These guys don’t get out much, do they?
I’ve always used the first — and very funny — Airplane! movie in 1980 as the demarcation point for the arrival of the Nonheroic Age of Irony and all of its incumbent nihilistic hilarity. Does Letterman’s obscelecence (and the 2006 moment capsulized here to me seemed to signify the beginning of the end) also means that irony’s end is at hand (at least in relation to late night TV)?
So will there be a post-ironic age, and if so, what will it — or at least its humor — be like?
I’ll admit the top 10 line, “Palin keyed Tina Fey’s car” was funny.
The rest … ignorant, unfunny or both.
Note to all the Lefty faux tee-vee comics, you dumbazz cowards, when are you going to speak some o dat troof to power shiazz you claimed as your right?
Same old double standard – call Republicans oreos, sluts, traitors, pigs, etc. – but lose your job if you do a fraction of that to the left. Get accused of a crime (or non crime) as a Republican and lose your job, get convicted or admit it as a democrat and get re-elected. Disgusting – I stopped watching the twerp Letterman years ago anyways.
So Palin is now throwing a thumb-sucking tantrum about Letterman? Letterman has picked on and ridiculed every politician imaginable for the past 20 years and none of them whined about it. What the heck kind of a leader is Palin expected to be if she is gonna pout, snivel and cry about a late-night comedian? Gosh, hate to see what she’d do with Putin, Jung Ill, Bin Laden or all her fellow Republicans on stage with her during the Republican primary debates. They’re going to eat her alive (if they let her get that far).
At least 80% of the country recognize her as being incredibly too stupid to lead but I hope she’s a contender in 2012. She was the best candidate the Democrats ever had. Its nice that some Conservatives like here for her twangy slang and “you betcha” jibberish but have you considered any Conservative candidates that may appeal to people with actual intelligence?
David Letterman has not ridiculed the minor child of every politician in the past twenty years. He and his writers went after a girl who like Chelsea Clinton in her day, should be off limits. Imagine the uproar if he had made a similar joke about Michele Obama.
That you missed the point shows you to be so “incredibly stupid” you probably have trouble finding your way home at night.
DAVID LETTERMAN’S HATE, ETC. !
David Letterman’s hate is as old as some ancient Hebrew prophets.
Speaking of anti-Semitism, it’s Jerry Falwell and other fundy leaders who’ve gleefully predicted that in the future EVERY nation will be against Israel (an international first?) and that TWO-THIRDS of all Jews will be killed, right?
Wrong! It’s the ancient Hebrew prophet Zechariah who predicted all this in the 13th and 14th chapters of his book! The last prophet, Malachi, explains the reason for this future Holocaust that’ll outdo even Hitler’s by stating that “Judah hath dealt treacherously” and “the Lord will cut off the man that doeth this” and asks “Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother?”
Haven’t evangelicals generally been the best friends of Israel and Jewish persons? Then please explain the recent filthy, hate-filled, back-stabbing tirades by David Letterman (and Sandra Bernhard) against a leading evangelical named Sarah Palin, and explain why most Jewish leaders have seemingly condoned Palin’s continuing “crucifixion”!
While David and Sandra are tragically turning comedy into tragedy, they are also helping to speed up and fulfill the Final Holocaust a la Zechariah and Malachi, thus helping to make the Bible even more believable!
(For even more stunning information, visit MSN and type in “Separation of Raunch and State” and “Bible Verses Obama Avoids.”)