… another reason to buy the Sunday New York Post. James Lileks is penning an article on the Letterman controversy, according to Mr. Lileks Twitter account. Should be interesting.
Here’s a small taste of what may be to come, from the Bleat. Lileks deconstructs Letterman better than anyone thus far:
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.
Anyone who has ventured onto a popular online video game knows exactly what Lileks is referring to.
I’m waiting to get banned from Television without Pity, for responding to all the posters on the Letterman thread who said Palin deserved it for using her children for political gain.
So I said that I was waiting for Dave to crack wise on the Obama girls, since their parents seem to keep them in the media a lot, too.
Sure enough, 2 minutes later — oh, Dave made jokes about Chelsea too, so “Palin and the Tool need to get over themselves”.
I’m going somewhere and counting to 100.
Mark your calendars — we have a midweek Wankette sighting.
[runs to the center of the stage & bows, like that soloist during the music competition in "Sound of Music"]
As the old saying goes, “Everyday of my life causes me to add to the list of those who can kiss my a**!” He’s made himself into a real piece of work!
How did she use her kids for political gain? I’ve yet to see this adequately explained by anyone on the left. By having kids? By not aborting them? By letting them stand on stage? Oh the exploitation! Obama has exploited his own skin color every moment of his political career, where’s the non-stop late night laughs over that?
Palin and the Tool? Was this genius referring to his Toddness? Are you sh*tting me? OK, obviously these little morons have a strong dislike for Mr. Todd because he is a man and they eitehr wish they were or wish they had him. I’d like to see him just land a heavy duty dose of Alaskan justice on Lettermans glass jaw. I know he can’t but damn the image is so beautiful…….sighhhhhhhhhhhhhh can dream can’t I?
They hate manly men and feminine women.
If you can get James Lileks to bash you, you’re in big trouble.
A point which is epic in scope. Lileks is as good-natured a columnist as you’ll find.
Exactly. This is as…cranky, I guess…as I’ve ever seen him get.