{"id":2579,"date":"2010-01-19T12:41:35","date_gmt":"2010-01-19T20:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=2579"},"modified":"2010-01-19T12:41:35","modified_gmt":"2010-01-19T20:41:35","slug":"endless-leno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2010\/01\/19\/endless-leno\/","title":{"rendered":"Endless Leno"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m thinking Tiger Woods should be Jay’s first guest when Mr. Chin reclaims his 11:35 slot.\u00c2\u00a0 As payback.<\/p>\n

Yes, Tiger’s the number one beneficiary of the "Tonight Show" shenanigans.\u00c2\u00a0 They blew him right off the front page.<\/p>\n

Er, they blew him right off the Internet, where all news happens today.<\/p>\n

used to be addicted to Letterman.\u00c2\u00a0 Back in the eighties, when he still wore boxing shoes and Paul Shaffer fronted the Most Dangerous Band.\u00c2\u00a0 I had the VCR record Dave every night, and watched the enterprise in forty minutes, sans commercials.<\/p>\n

Now I still watch.\u00c2\u00a0 But it takes five or ten minutes a week.\u00c2\u00a0 When the "Huffington Post" or an e-mail tells me he’s got a good bit, or there’s a worthwhile musical performance.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, is TV the best place to hear music?\u00c2\u00a0 You can see it, but you can’t feel it. (David Carr made this point in the "New York Times" yesterday.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not new, but I don’t want him to think I’m ripping him off:<\/p>\n

\n
Me and My Girls<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Late night TV has turned into music.\u00c2\u00a0 We only want the hits.<\/p>\n

We don’t want the commercials.\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t even want to watch the show when it’s on.\u00c2\u00a0 But we’ll skim the desirable content.<\/p>\n

It’s just like the movie business.\u00c2\u00a0 The films got blander and blander, high concept fodder appealing to those without brains, but dicks.\u00c2\u00a0 Who need to go into darkened theatres to feel up their girlfriends.\u00c2\u00a0 The same reason you go to a club to dance to the beat-infused hits.\u00c2\u00a0 A concert?\u00c2\u00a0 That’s just a more expensive movie.\u00c2\u00a0 Why go?\u00c2\u00a0 It’s all on hard drive anyway.\u00c2\u00a0 You see movies and music are the same, they’re based on special effects!<\/p>\n

So we’ve got a new culture.\u00c2\u00a0 A combination of no-talent promoters and gotcha moments.<\/p>\n

You know the no-talents.\u00c2\u00a0 From Paris Hilton to Kim Kardashian to Heidi Montag.\u00c2\u00a0 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!<\/p>\n

\n
I’m not addicted to plastic surgery: Montag<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I’m laughing.\u00c2\u00a0 Who are these people?\u00c2\u00a0 What do they do when they get old?\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

And then there are the gotchas.\u00c2\u00a0 Where scumbags with cameras catch real celebrities being human.\u00c2\u00a0 Which drives the celebs nuts, they’d rather have us believe they’re better than we are, better-looking with better lives.\u00c2\u00a0 But the star culture is through.\u00c2\u00a0 Unless you truly have intrinsic value and are willing to admit your flaws.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00c2\u00a0 But everybody’s shit stinks, that’s the lesson of the twenty first century.\u00c2\u00a0 You can run around with a can of bathroom spray, but people are still gonna smell it.<\/p>\n

So we’ve got major entertainment companies believing that they’re he-men of the universe, with no idea we have contempt for them.\u00c2\u00a0 And that we have a voice, the ability to talk back, online.<\/p>\n

News media outlets are under the impression that they control the story.\u00c2\u00a0 They lost control long ago.<\/p>\n

But both entertainment and news companies want it back.<\/p>\n

It’s your fault that they lost their power.\u00c2\u00a0 And you’re going to have to pay.<\/p>\n

The Internet didn’t only ruin the bottom line, it changed the paradigm.\u00c2\u00a0 Suddenly, we’re all in it together.\u00c2\u00a0 Egregious behavior cannot be hidden.\u00c2\u00a0 ELO uses tapes thirty years ago and almost no one knows.\u00c2\u00a0 Ashlee Simpson lip-syncs on SNL and never has another hit.\u00c2\u00a0 Because even if we weren’t part of the miniscule audience enduring SNL, we caught the replay online.<\/p>\n

It’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world out there.<\/p>\n

Major labels are in terminal decline.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like TV networks.\u00c2\u00a0 Why watch the bland fodder made for all when you can tune in the niche, see exactly what you want?\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Tiger Woods was a phenomenal golfer, but an adolescent in terms of human development.<\/p>\n

Jay Leno may project an aw-shucks demeanor, but we all know he’s in it for the money, the fame, the attention.<\/p>\n

And music stars are in it for the cash.\u00c2\u00a0 We know they’ll whore themselves out to anybody who’ll pay them.\u00c2\u00a0 Used to be musicians stood outside the mainstream, spewing honest reflections on the human circus, now they’re trained animals too.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s every man for himself.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m thinking Tiger Woods should be Jay’s first guest when Mr. Chin reclaims his 11:35 slot.\u00c2\u00a0 As payback. Yes, Tiger’s the number one beneficiary of the "Tonight Show" shenanigans.\u00c2\u00a0 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-FB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2579"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2580,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2579\/revisions\/2580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}