Sunday, January 23, 2005
 
Driven To Distraction
It's been a long exhausting week-end, so I have little to say. But in order to stave off the street riots and spontaneous mass suicides if I leave this space blank, I'll throw some old crap up here to amuse the rabble.

By "the rabble", I don't mean you of course, dear reader. It's... you know... everyone else. Not you. You're very special to me. The rest of 'em can all get bent, as far as I'm concerned. Lousy bloodsuckers.

OK, so I'm kind of in a bad mood. There are two reasons.

First, I had plans for an evening out with just Mrs. Pops. Just the two of us. Lunch and a movie. No menus with crayons. No movies about talking animals scarred by the death of a parent talking animal. But because I am cursed to have been born into a family where I am considered the stable one, babysitting flaked out. Goddamn sisters.

There is no way to convey to my single, childless readers what a morbid, crushing blow this is to a human soul. It's like when you get down to the last piece of cake. You decide to wait until the end of the day to reward yourself with the cake, which hide in the back of the fridge in a tupperware container with your name clearly scrawled across it. And then the end of the day comes, you peel back the freshness-sealing lid and--gasp!--not only has someone eaten your cake, but your babysitter flakes out on you so you can't go on a date with your wife.

It's exactly like that. Except without the cake thing. I don't know where I was going with that.

So if that weren't bad enough...

The second thing is that I decided to console myself with an orgy of football. I settled into my Pops-shaped dent on the couch, switched the ol' Higher Brain Functions into Stand-by mode and let the barely controlled violence wash over me, like a warm bath in sweet, sweet sewage.

But then, on the little Sports News Only ticker across the bottom of the goddamn screen, I have to find out that Johnny Carson is dead.

Johnny Carson. Dead.

Well fuck me completely, now I'm distracted.

How could this be? Weren't the Carson people just a few days ago sending out a fantastic passive-aggressive public Fuck You to Jay Leno and everyone else at NBC by letting it slip that Johnny is sending jokes to David Letterman? Last time I checked you had to be alive in order to abuse and humiliate the people you resent and despise.

I guess that was just Johnny's way of saying good bye and nodding his head, Zeus-like, choosing between two lesser petitioners.

No cause of death was given, but I think I have a guess. If you read this article, Carson is solely and entirely responsible for the birth of every comedic career including Letterman, Leno, Joan Rivers, Bill Cosby, Steve Martin, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, David Brenner and a whole raft of others.

Apparently Johnny spent 30+ years propping up all of Hollywood all by himself. The man probably dropped dead from exhaustion.

Although as I consider the careers Joan Rivers, Jay Leno and David Brenner, there is the outside chance that he died of shame.

On my grandmother's own personal list of People Who Are Awesome, Carson was third after Jesus and Whomever Happens To Be The Current Notre Dame Football Coach (the order between #1 and #2 varies depending on Notre Dame's record).

I turned 18 in 1992, the year Carson retired. Suffice it to say, he was more of a grandmother-type-thing by then. I knew just enough about Carson to get it when Jack Nicholson used the "Here's Johnny!" line in The Shining. Past that he was just the old guy with the lame band.

Plus, back then there was some Arsenio Hall to watch. You know, the next big perennial late night fixture. Say it with me: Woof! Woof! Woof!

OK, in retrospect we were all retarded. Carson's monologues at least were still topical and sharp. Here's every Arsenio Hall monologue: "Hey, did you all hear [celebrity A] and [celebrity B] like to get together and do the wild thang? Hey band leader, play me something funky!"

And somehow he went out along with the high-top fade. A puzzle, that.

So goodbye Johnny, wherever you are in whichever afterlife you have chosen for yourself--respectfully reserving the possiblity that Johnny preferred no afterlife whatsoever and is simply dead. In a pluralistic society we must respect not only all wishes, but the possiblity of wishes that might exist, even if they are godless and heathen and, well, wrong.

Good night. Join me tomorrow when my guests will be Bob Newhart, the third female lead from Hill Street Blues, up and coming comedian Jerry Seinfeld, Manhattan Transer will perform and... oh this should be good... Jesus H. Christ! We hope you'll join us.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 6.0


Pops

Comments:
I'm special to you? Awww......
 
I too was distracted by the news of Carson's death. There I was, sitting on my living room floor with my Subway sammich of doom spread out before me, waiting for something good to come a-rolling across the screen as I clicked away aimlessly....and then....

I got sucked into a 15-minute history of the man's life while clips of him in late 60s rolled across the screen! What happened to that 15 minutes of my life?! It wasn't even good history like you find on the History Channel! It was bad history like you find on CNN.
 
Aw, Jess, for us old people, it wasn't a waste of 15 minutes at all. It is the best of history. So listen to your goddamn elders!

I just think it a little sad that they are only showing clips of Johnny with all those fucking hilarious animal hijinx. Poor guy. He deserves more than being seen jumping into Ed McMahon's arms over and over after that big cat jumped at him.
 
Now, now, Pops, you aren't that much older than I am. And I certainly know who Carson is and the comedic greatness that was his career! I'll admit to shedding a few tears when I heard that he died. I'm not that much of a wee lass, thank you very much.

I just wish that in the 15-minutes that CNN spent putting together their 15-minutes of history on Carson that they would have said something worthwhile or showed some of his more gracious and funny moments. Instead, as you said, I was bombarded with images of him with animals on his head or wearing silly costumes. Let's face it, CNN is hell when it comes to memorials. They should just stick to their scathing commentary on Iraq and leave the entertainment news to the other stations.
 
K: It is absolutely a possibility that I was talking directly to you.

Jess: I knew there had to be an explanation. It was you and your goddamn Subway. Curse you and your lunch.

SJ: Go on mom, tell us a story from the olden days. Back when there were three channels and Carson's only late-night competition was the national anthem and a test pattern.

Seriously though, any clip with Carson and his guests smoking and drinking I find totally fascinating. The man obviously represents an era of television that has very little to do with the one I grew up with. They had a bar on Jimmy Kimmel's show for one day before everyone freaked out and they had to close it down.
 
Oh, pish. In my signature cryptic style, I have offered a tribute to Carnac the Magnificent by providing a link to women's underpants. Top that, MPH.
 
I think Jess got my comments mixed up and thought it was Pops speaking. As long as you know I am old and can hurt you, Jess, all is good.

Pops, honest to god, I never watched the national anthem late at night because someone once told me that if you ever see it, you would NEVER WAKE UP IN THE MORNING! It became a legendary urban myth that to this day gives me the heebs. I'll regale you all with tales of 8 track tapes at a later date.
 
Anonymous was me. Who didn't know that... raise your hand.
 
Here's why Carson was great: watch that really old clip where they guy is throwing tomahawks at the outline of a man and the thing lands right in the crotch, giving the appearance of a toma-hard-on. Carson and the other guy start cracking up, and the other guy (I can't remember his name) goes to get the tomahawk, but Carson steers him away, letting the image linger and the laughs build. He knew exactly how to mine the most comedy out of a situation.
 
Jess: I see your wily attempt to confuse me by purposefully mis-attributing comments. Your attempt has failed and I remain donkey mustard hotel bubble.

MPH: I saw that someone tried to stab Christian Slater in London. You could write about that. Just be warned that if you write about Carson after I wrote about Carson, you will never, ever, ever hear the end of it.

HFB: Yes, your content-less hacky hackery knows no bounds. The swell of pride, I imagine, lifts you right off your chair.

Secret SJ-type Person: You know youngsters today wouldn't even understand that movie Poltergeist because none of them have ever seen static on a TV screen. It's either 24-hour programming or that blue-screen thingy you get when you plug in the DVD player.
 
Brian: I wasn't trying to exclude you, you just commented while I was commenting.

I sort of wonder about Carson's "greatness" sometimes as there was no serious competition at the time. His longevity could almost as easily be understood as network inertia.

But then I see a clip where a baby tiger pees on him and I know I'm wrong.
 
Haha, your babysitter bailed...
 
Steph, I'm a man on the edge. Watch or we'll be back to making fun of your cat thing again.
 
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