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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Lileks vs. Letterman |
| 2009-06-10 |
| The Daily Bleat 6/10/09 Boldface emphasis added. Why does everything I love turn to krep? I don't banish content-producers (you know, musicians, painters, comedians, directors, etc) for one or two silly comments, or even for a long string of gaseous emissions. . . . But smug, politically-oriented crudity from someone not overtly political, delivered with the assumption we all share his "values" - boring. Addressed at kids of famous people: pathetic.
People have used other words - disgusting, repellent, abominable, danker than the fetid breath of the nine-bladder'd Arazon, Privy-Cleaner of Hell, et cetera - but pathetic is all I can muster. But no, it must be funny, because David is funny and hip. Right? Or maybe not; maybe he's actually a brackish, hermetically-souled guy who's spend the last twenty years going from table to table with a giant wooden grinder, asking anyone if they want some fresh-ground scorn with that. Say when. Or maybe he's about as edgy as a soccer ball, and exists only to remind people they were Edgy once, and hence must be ever-blessed with the gift of Wryness and Irony. With those shields we can never grow old, you know. We'll always be as sharp and perceptive as we were when we were sitting on a cast-off sofa in college, working through a midweek buzz, happily fellated by the preconceptions the TV so charitably provided. . . . What's amusing is how unamusing he is in the clip. How sour he seems. Compare him to his predecessors: Carson was all midwestern charm, with unreadable yet mannerly reserve; Steve Allen was almost as smart as he was certain you thought he must be, but he was cheerful; Parr was a nattering nutball covered with a rich creamy nougat of ego, but he was engaging. Letterman is empty; he's inert; he stands for nothing except disdain for people foolish enough to stand for anything - aside from rote obesciance to all the things Decent People stand for, of course, all those shopworn assumptions passed around in the bubble. 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. Oh, 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. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #14 Rush is hilarious....Chris Matthews knocked up the slutty Contessa Brewer during Hardball...LOL. |
| Posted by: Broadhead6 2009-06-10 20:36 |
| #13 #9 Demented, old, jealous Asshole making fun of a child, disturbing, equally disturbing are the haters laughing at his sleaze. May they all rot in hell at the earliest opportunity. Posted by 49 Pan Just a few additions if I may. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-06-10 19:03 |
| #12 Large, suing Letterman over this would just give him a lot more publicity, which he thrives on. If you wrestle with a pig, you've both get covered with mud - but the pig will love it. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2009-06-10 18:52 |
| #11 The actual video of the sparing and with Brewer demanding John's microphone be cut. Also, why isn't the Palin family not sueing Letterman? Attacking the under age children in any family like that seems to me to be a perfect lawsuit. |
| Posted by: Large Flomotle3054 2009-06-10 18:41 |
| #10 MSNBC came out to defend Letterman in an interview between Contessa Brewer and John Ziegler. John Ziegler DESTROYED the MSNBC host. |
| Posted by: Large Flomotle3054 2009-06-10 18:33 |
| #9 Asshole making fun of a child, disturbing, equally disturbing are the haters laughing at his sleaze. May they all rot in hell. |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2009-06-10 18:26 |
| #8 Has anyone asked Mr. Rodriguez yet how he likes being called a pedophile on national TV? On would hope he likes it so much he arranges to meet Mr. Letterman in a dark alley just to thank him - soon. Lefties are the most hateful people around. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2009-06-10 14:33 |
| #7 I always remember fondly when Dave had Frank and Moon Zappa on and Frank absolutely eviscerated Dave, without Dave even being aware how foolish he was made to look. |
| Posted by: xbalanke 2009-06-10 12:58 |
| #6 "Any 'jokes' about raping my 14-year-old are despicable. Alaskans know it and I believe the rest of the world knows it, too." - Todd Palin |
| Posted by: bman 2009-06-10 12:35 |
| #5 I would bet that Todd would like to get his hands on the elitist son of a bitch. |
| Posted by: bman 2009-06-10 12:24 |
| #4 He used to be the best. But Dave lost his fastball a long time ago. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2009-06-10 11:53 |
| #3 My hope is that this may actually bring him down. He's been dead wood for a long time. I don't particularly mind when he disgraced himself and other useless entertainers, but now he thinks himself a political pundit. The families of some of our Republican politicos are real people, a fact that he seems to have missed. I would like the next time I hear about him is in some trivia question in a few years. Good night David. |
| Posted by: Richard of Oregon 2009-06-10 11:06 |
| #2 Screw letterman. He stopped being funny to me when I grew up. |
| Posted by: newc 2009-06-10 10:18 |
| #1 What a pathetic LOSER |
| Posted by: Jarong de Medici3580 2009-06-10 09:32 |
