Endless Leno
I’m thinking Tiger Woods should be Jay’s first guest when Mr. Chin reclaims his 11:35 slot. As payback.
Yes, Tiger’s the number one beneficiary of the "Tonight Show" shenanigans. They blew him right off the front page.
Er, they blew him right off the Internet, where all news happens today.
used to be addicted to Letterman. Back in the eighties, when he still wore boxing shoes and Paul Shaffer fronted the Most Dangerous Band. I had the VCR record Dave every night, and watched the enterprise in forty minutes, sans commercials.
Now I still watch. But it takes five or ten minutes a week. When the "Huffington Post" or an e-mail tells me he’s got a good bit, or there’s a worthwhile musical performance. Then again, is TV the best place to hear music? You can see it, but you can’t feel it. (David Carr made this point in the "New York Times" yesterday. It’s not new, but I don’t want him to think I’m ripping him off:
Late night TV has turned into music. We only want the hits.
We don’t want the commercials. We don’t even want to watch the show when it’s on. But we’ll skim the desirable content.
It’s just like the movie business. The films got blander and blander, high concept fodder appealing to those without brains, but dicks. Who need to go into darkened theatres to feel up their girlfriends. The same reason you go to a club to dance to the beat-infused hits. A concert? That’s just a more expensive movie. Why go? It’s all on hard drive anyway. You see movies and music are the same, they’re based on special effects!
So we’ve got a new culture. A combination of no-talent promoters and gotcha moments.
You know the no-talents. From Paris Hilton to Kim Kardashian to Heidi Montag. I’ve never seen "The Hills", but I know all about Heidi’s ten plastic surgeries in one day, it’s all over the Internet!
I’m laughing. Who are these people? What do they do when they get old? You might think the whole world has gone to hell in a hand basket, that Snooki got what she wanted, fame and money, but most people are reasonable, and see the efforts of these two-dimensional figures for what they are, entertainment, better than almost all the movies in theatres.
And then there are the gotchas. Where scumbags with cameras catch real celebrities being human. Which drives the celebs nuts, they’d rather have us believe they’re better than we are, better-looking with better lives. But the star culture is through. Unless you truly have intrinsic value and are willing to admit your flaws.
And if you’re going to do something illegal, something you want no one to see, you’d better do it alone, in a bathroom, in the dark.
We like the late night story because it shows the humanity of these overpaid comedians, but even more because it reveals the hubris of the brass at NBC, who truly think their shit doesn’t stink. But everybody’s shit stinks, that’s the lesson of the twenty first century. You can run around with a can of bathroom spray, but people are still gonna smell it.
So we’ve got major entertainment companies believing that they’re he-men of the universe, with no idea we have contempt for them. And that we have a voice, the ability to talk back, online.
News media outlets are under the impression that they control the story. They lost control long ago.
But both entertainment and news companies want it back.
It’s your fault that they lost their power. And you’re going to have to pay.
The Internet didn’t only ruin the bottom line, it changed the paradigm. Suddenly, we’re all in it together. Egregious behavior cannot be hidden. ELO uses tapes thirty years ago and almost no one knows. Ashlee Simpson lip-syncs on SNL and never has another hit. Because even if we weren’t part of the miniscule audience enduring SNL, we caught the replay online.
It’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world out there.
Major labels are in terminal decline. Just like TV networks. Why watch the bland fodder made for all when you can tune in the niche, see exactly what you want? Just like I can avoid each and every tune on the hit parade and still be surrounded by more music than I can ever listen to, comporting much more closely with my desires.
Tiger Woods was a phenomenal golfer, but an adolescent in terms of human development.
Jay Leno may project an aw-shucks demeanor, but we all know he’s in it for the money, the fame, the attention.
And music stars are in it for the cash. We know they’ll whore themselves out to anybody who’ll pay them. Used to be musicians stood outside the mainstream, spewing honest reflections on the human circus, now they’re trained animals too. And it’s every man for himself.
