(...i'm getting there.)
The Wonder Years, "Came Out Swinging," Huntington, NY, 04.03.16
Some bands...
I don't know much about anything, but it's entirely possible that our brains are just a series of rotating gears powered by an engine that runs on whatever fuel it's able to convert from coffee and CheetoÂź dust. (This is why Chester Cheetah is so active.) I'm, like, 97% sure everything we know about science backs me up here. And every once in a while, a band comes along that greases those gears, forcing a better, faster, cleaner spin. Renowned philosopher Justin Pierre of Motion City Soundtrack once posited he was "all circuits and wires." Maybe that's it. Those bands, then, come through and jumpstart power; send a surge in all directions, an outward expanse that hits every terminal.
But then there are those rarer bands than hit you harder. Maybe intangibly. Maybe without expectation. Or maybe you see it clear as day in the distance, right when the effect comes bulleting into view on the horizon line. And it's entirely separate, even, from the band itself. It's like aligning with a sports team. You don't like who does it best. If we all did that, we'd all like the Yankees. (I'm told they're the best. Is that right? Is baseball the game with the giant mittens?) But whatever. Whoever, however, for whatever reason: While some bands streamline the gears, there are a rarer few that shift the mechanisms on their axes entirely. While some bands spark wires, others strip you of them completely and replace them with Verizon FiosÂź fiber optics (faster internet, phone, and TV; coverage available now in select areas of the continental United States).
It could be, too, that there is no system; no pattern. Just bands that pose theories of order, and the rarer few that organize the crapshoot into a logic you can agree with.
Regardless, there are those bands. And it's cool to see them live. Here's me seeing mine last night.
Some bands hit you, but some bands... some bands floor you. Some can settle you, but some compel you to shift. To move. To come out swinging.
@thewonderyearsband @broompeople (at The Paramount)
Guy Who Thinks âThe Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carsonâ Is A New Show Reviews âThe Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carsonâ
On January 1st, digital OTA network Antenna TV began airing full episodes from the expansive archives of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, billed simply as Johnny Carson for rights reasons. For no reason, hereâs a fictional review from a guy who has never heard of Johnny Carson before and finds the âbrand newâ show to be completely derivative of every other late night program heâs ever seen.
Heeeeeeeeeeere we go again!
This week, digital startup channel Antenna TV launched its own contender in the modern battle for late night dominance with Friday nightâs premiere of Johnny Carson. Airing weeknights 11pm-12am and weekends 10:30pm-12am, the new show adopts the tried-and-true format first introduced by The Pat Sajak Show. At the helm is a charming newcomer by the name of Johnny Carson, apparently plucked from obscurity to put his best foot forward in trying to woo American audiences on board what he hopes to become a decades-long careerâthough, letâs face it: such a feat these days is unlikely.
Moreover, if Carson has any hope at becoming a viable contender in the late night game, he first must find a way to carve out a niche all his own. At first glance, Carson is not much more than a carbon copy of its ancestors and contemporaries. At the top, of course, Carson greets viewers by walking out from behind a curtain and delivery a topical monologue of the dayâs news a la Jay Leno or most other hosts these daysâbut the borrowed tricks and tropes donât end there.
On occasion, Carson veers from his scripted monologue to deliver off-the-cuff remarks that reveal a comedic confidence and biting wit inevitably inspired by the likes of David Letterman and Jimmy Fallon. The familiar format continues as Carson takes a seat at his desk, commanding the audience with a laid-back yet professional demeanor most likely gleaned from the on-air persona of Seth Meyers. Of course, Carson will periodically switch gears and make himself the fool, grabbing a play from Conan OâBrienâs handbook. Silliness aside, he ultimately comes off as a largely trustworthy figure that Americans everywhere can both look up to as an idol and relate to as a peer, as if trying to fill the void left by Jon Stewart. In the end, these conflicting personality traits make it difficult for the viewer to determine just who this Carson fellow is: Another Leno? Another Letterman? Another Sajak? Pick a lane, Johnny!
Perhaps sensing the difficulty and unlikelihood of sustaining an episodeâlet alone a seriesâalone, producers have given Carson a shoulder to lean on in the way of sidekick Ed McMahon. An effortless conversationalist who is at once wise and witless, McMahon brings to the table (err, desk) both a sense of balance and fresh injection of improvised humor. In fact, when one observes the banter between Carson and McMahon, itâs tempting to say the pair may have a shot at becoming the greatest host-sidekick combination since Conan OâBrien and Andy Richter, orâdare we say it?âJimmy Kimmel and Guillermo.
Even so, Carson still faces issues in the material of the program. He consistently incorporates outdated references into his humor, and is apparently keen on presenting viewers with an array of culturally irrelevant guests. While the first public appearance of Eddie Murphy since the SNL 40th Anniversary Special made for some exciting TV, Murphy himself even seemed to be showing signs of desperation, relying on old material and seemingly having had a facelift that makes him look exactly 34 years younger. Perhaps most impressive, though, was a McLean Stevenson impersonator who managed to not break character throughout the entire appearance. Still, none of the bits and banter on the program came off as potentially viral material that time-shifting viewers would be likely to consume on their mobile devices the next day.
The show itself is also unique in its presentation, with the set styled in rainbow curtains whose outdated style are rivaled only by that of the guestsâ wardrobe choices. The seemingly low-budget show is also unable to afford the luxury of high-definition cameras and Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, though the overall affect does give the show an ironic âvintageâ feelâperhaps enough so to make it a contender in the viewing schedules of hipster millennial everywhere.
Of course, the dapper funnyman canât ride on his similarities to his fellow hosts forever, and in the end, Johnny Carson and his eponymous program have little hope at finding success in the dense tangle of todayâs late night jungle. Perhaps a younger, more original host would do the trick.
Since 2014, comedian and actor Chris DâElia has starred as the relationship-resistant Danny on NBCâs Undateable, a multicam sitcom about a group of friends in Detroit navigating the ups and downs of dating and friendship. After airing a special live episode for its second season finale, NBC renewed Undateable for an entirely live third season, [...]
Hereâs an interview I did with Chris DâElia for Splitsider. Please love me, internet.
I wrote about The Pat Sajak Show for Splitsider, and now I know more about Pat Sajak as he existed between the years of 1989-1990 than I ever thought possible.
The answer may surprise you!* *The answer will not surprise you.
I brought my journalistic integrity into the political arena in a hard-hitting, *challenging* new BuzzFeed quiz. Then, for some reason, they posted it on their front page. Hey thanks, BuzzFeed!
I wrote this article on The Late Late Show with James Corden for Splitsider. Then James Corden called me to thank me personally and straight-up made my life in that moment.
So, if youâd like to make my life as well, give it a read! But donât call me afterward. Or do call, because Iâm desperate for validation.
A few months ago, I made a music video for Kevin Devine's "Fiscal Cliff" that won his contest and became the official music video for the song. You can check out that video here.
As an exercise in creativity, I made a (voluntary/unofficial/unaffiliated) sequel of sorts to that video, this time for the newly released cover version of the song by Nada Surf's Matthew Caws. Â Like the first one, it is comprised of public domain stock footage that I compiled and edited in a way that, hopefully, reflects the song's general political and societal themes. Â I did this as a small, fun challenge; the difficulty being in figuring out a new approach that reflected Matthew Caws' softer take on the originally loud and in-your-face song.
I attempted something quietly subversive and sarcastic. But ultimately, the goal was low-res mediocrity, and I'd like to think I achieved that. I put it on the internet in an attempt to soften the blow that it may have been a fruitless endeavor, y'know?
âI donât know how [Philip Seymour Hoffman] does it... Again and again, he can truly become someone Iâve not seen before but can still instantly recognize. Sometimes Phil loses some weight, and he may dye his hair but, really, itâs just the same Phil, and yet, heâs never the same person from part to part. Last year, he did three films â âThe Savages,â âCharlie Wilsonâs Warâ and âBefore the Devil Knows Youâre Deadâ â and in each one he was a distinct and entirely different human. Itâs that humanity that is so striking â when you watch Phil work, his entire constitution seems to change. He may look like Phil, but thereâs something different in his eyes. And that means heâs reconstituted himself from within, willfully rearranging his molecules to become another human being.â
At the top of The Tonight Show every night, Johnny Carson would walk out from behind the curtain,hit his mark, and say hello to an audience basically comprised ofeverybody awake at that time. And then heâd begin his monologue,because everybody wanted to hear it; thatâs why they were awake. Johnny had the power to hook them. Of course, he didnât need to;they already hung on his every word.
Today,the handful of Johnnies that we have do the same thing: they enter, they hit their mark, and they begin their monologue. But maybe they shouldnât. Maybe we just donât need the monologue.
Incumbent Late Late Show host James Corden made news at the Television Critics Associationâs Winter Press Tour this week when he and his EP, Rob Crabbe, announced that the show will most likely bypass the traditional monologue, since Corden does not have roots in standup. Â On the same day, CBS president Nina Tassler told the press that Stephen Colbert is still debating whether or not his Late Show will include a monologue either. While this news might lead many to consider Corden and Colbert forward-thinkers, the truth is that such a change-up is long overdue.
Itâs important to conjure up that image of Carson as traditional monologist because it represents the concept of the monologue at the height of its existence. As is well known, Carsonâs Tonight was a flagship of American television, if not entertainment culture as a whole. Under his watch, Tonight became as ingrained in oneâs routine as a television broadcast could ever be: You come home from work, you eat dinner, you put the kids to bed⊠and then, thereâs Johnny. Given how loved he was, he inhabited a unique position that equated to something like âeverybodyâs godfather.â Watching Carson wasnât just about wanting to laugh; it was also about wanting to listen. You werenât just a fan of his; you were a disciple.
This relationship was, of course, based heavily on the fact that Carson was funny and entertaining. But it also had to do with his prominence as the Man on TV, and his exclusivity as one of only a few Men and Women on TV. As the mouth of America, Carson and, to a lesser degree, other hosts provided average Americans â those who had only their living rooms, rather than a faux living room set in a soundstage â with a voice. In effect, The Tonight Show acted as a sort of cultural Fireside Chat, where Americans listened intently as a figure they so widely trusted and admired delivered a message directly to them. Â So perhaps the most anticipated part of the show was the monologue, when Carson would offer his take on the news in the form of a witty quip. The monologue was about bringing people up to speed and breaking the ice, and it also was perhaps the most directly involving part of the night for audiences at home: Carson wasnât talking to Ed McMahon or Joan Rivers or Bob Hope or David Brenner. He was talking to the audience â to you. This same reasoning applies to all late night hosts of that time, but Carson provides us the best example given that aforementioned prominence and exclusivity.
Today, however, the role of host is neither exclusive nor prominent. The exclusivity of such a position has been largely lost thanks to a widened variety of late night programs available to watch. Â But this exclusivity has also been lost to the internetâmainly, of course, Twitterâwhich provides a voice to everybody who desires one. The average American still might not be on TV, but theyâre certainly able to broadcast their takes on topics from the very living rooms where they once watched Carson do it. And everyone else is there to listen. Now that the laymen have this power, itâs not as important to hear what that one guy on TV has to say in his monologue.
This lack of exclusivity has also led to comedy getting stale faster. Having a legion of other TV hosts means multiple hosts making essentially the same joke. And thanks to the comedians on Twitterâboth the armchair comedians and the actual onesâthere are many people making exactly the same joke. But in a broader sense, Twitter is also starting the dialogue earlier in the day. By the time segment one rolls around and the performers are stepping on their marks, the jokes they havenât even said yet are just that much more stale.
Beyond added competition, though, the once-prominent title of host has also been diluted in other ways. Sure, hosts on TV exist among that legion of others nowadays, but the issue goes beyond that. Part of a late night hostsâ image is that of a celebrity, and the concept of celebrity has come to carry much less of an attractive mystique that it once did. Gossip sites and entertainment news media have popped up and ruined the illusion, causing overexposure and providing once-avid fans with the reminder that the people they see on TV areâdespite all that attentionâjust like them.
Yet viewers may also be more aware than ever that the host is anything but âjust like them.â Another angle of the hostâs image is, or was, that of the everyman. People like Carson were seen as approachable and unintimidating, and someone who just happened to have a television show. Thus, the belief (if only subconscious) was that what Carson was saying was coming directly from Carson. His joke about Nixon was his joke about Nixon. Now, however, scripted comedy bits like monologues are more familiar, and audiences are also more savvy. Viewers are hyperaware that the comedy they see is a product they are being served, so when it doesnât work, it really doesnât work. This makes the monologue less impressive, and also just a little dishonest, which is not a good quality for shows whose ultimate goal is often to make audiences feel personally engaged and connected. In essence, viewers know that a hostâs joke about Obama is actually a room-generated joke about Obama, while the conceit of the show is that the audience is getting the hostâs take, not that of a writersâ room.
This all leads to the fact that the host is the franchise. As Jerry Seinfeld remarked after the Leno-Conan Tonight Show debacle in Bill Carterâs book, The War for Late Night:
âThereâs no institution to offend!⊠What institution?⊠Whoâs going to take over Late Night or Late Show or whatever the hell itâs called? Nobodyâs going to take it over! Itâs Dave! When Daveâs done, thatâs the end of that! And then another guy comes along and has to do his thing.â
If that argument holds trueâwhich it doesâitâs worth wondering why every new host assumes that they must have a monologue on the grounds that it has been such a significant part of these late night institutions in the past.
Monologues used to be about connection and entertainment. Since that sense of connection with the audience has largely been lost, it comes down to entertainment: What will entertain viewers the most? What will best make use of the hostâs brand of comedy? For commentary-driven hosts and those with an old-school standup background, the answer may be a monologue. But for others, maybe itâs not. Or maybe itâs to do a different style of monologue, like Craig Fergusonâs more free-spirited and off-the-rails version; or a less topical, more modern standup-based approach, such as that employed by the late-but-intriguing Pete Holmes Show.
Beyond all this, the traditional monologue has fallen victim to a change in the comedic styles that dominate our culture. Comedy itself has changed. Standup acts have changed. The short one-liners of performers like Henny Youngman and Rodney Dangerfield are far less common. Growing ever common is the complexity of modern-day comics, ranging from the expanded stories of Aziz Ansari and John Mulaney, to the genre-bending performances of Mike Birbiglia and even Bo Burnham. (Sure, Burnham may take some cues from Andy Kaufman, but such comedy is more in the mainstream now than it was then. It was an intriguing new countercultural experiment then; itâs a more easily acquired taste now.) In fact, it can be argued that âformalâ comedy as a whole is not as in demand anymore. People often prefer the foolishness and chaos of The Lonely Island over Jay Lenoâs oft-repeated two-step, scientific, organized approach to telling jokes. After all, Leno has already been swapped out for Fallon, and it is certainly clear in the ratings that the change was for the better. (And I think we can all agree that, while funny and of good quality, America did not fall in love with Fallon for his monologues.)
This change in comedy has permeated to the vehicles with which comedy is delivered. There are not many multi-camera sitcoms left, many of which utilized the âset-up, joke; set-up, jokeâ style of comedy that monologues very similarly use. Rather, single-camera shows have introduced viewers to more complex and layered comedy. Comedy podcasts, too, now provide people with this complexity. The natural, conversational style of podcasts like WTF, The Nerdist, and You Made It Weird is a more easily digestible way of delivering comedy these days. Â In fact, take a look at the actual late night monologues themselves: The parts that generate the most laughs are often those that see the host breaking format and riffing: Fallon trading banter with Steve Higgins; Jimmy Kimmel conferring with Guillermo.
It is also no secret that one of the biggest commodities a late night show can provide is a piece that works in the digital space: a âHistory of Rap,â or even a game of charades, fares much better in the digital arena than a monologue does. In fact, more often than not, the networks do not bother to make the monologues available as standalone clips the following day (save for any distinct segments and graphic-based pieces that are inserted into the middle of the act, such as Fallonâs âNFL Superlativesâ or Kimmelâs âMean Tweetsââboth of which would work just as well if done as desk pieces). And you canât blame them. The few monologues that do get put online generate particularly poor numbers: a clip of David Lettermanâs monologue from January 12, 2014 has garnered less than 2,700 views in the year since it was posted on The Late Showâs official YouTube page, while an interview clip with chef Gordon Ramsay from the same episode has pulled in over 20,000 views. Fallonâs statistics are betterâa short monologue clip with the appealing title âCake Boss Gets Arrestedâ posted to YouTube on November 14 of last year has already been viewed almost 390,000 timesâbut these numbers shy in comparison to other non-interview segments. A game of Pictionary with Lena Dunham and J.K. Simmons has already exceeded 1,000,000 views since being posted last week.
This is not all to say that the traditional monologue is ineffective; just inefficientâboth in the sense that it means wasting airtime on what is often less funny comedy (and in these days of fleeting attention spans, that kind of efficiency is key), and in the sense that a less-written conversational bit that relies on the performersâ talent would take less effort to produce more laughs.
So why is it assumed that the monologue is always necessary? Sure, it is risky to break the familiar talk show format that has been proven to work since Carson invented it, but if the segment is going to be squandered on lackluster humor, than swapping out the monologue for something betterâperhaps a more conversational or panel-based piece, a la Chelsea Lately (who did first have a monologue, but one that was short and distinct)âcould make the first segment even more enticing to those local news holdovers who ultimately opt to turn off their TVs and go to bed.
The existing shows may be set in their ways, but as time-slots open up and basic cable brings more new talk shows into the fold, ditching the traditional monologue is worth considering. Todayâs diversified legion of hosts may offer some new attitudes and angles, but the opportunity for each of them comes at a loss of something greater: an audience that was far more willing to listen.
I posted this last year, but the internet hasn't recognized it's beauty and irrefutable value yet, so I'm posting it again. Because after all, that's what Thanksgiving is about: triumph and self-indulgence.
*Image made with movie screenshots, stock images, and product images from furniture websites (plus the Catch Me If You Can poster and a âWilsonâ volleyball product image from Wilsonâs site). Put together with Mac Pages, heavily relying on the Instant Alpha tool, because I donât know how to use Photoshop. (Except I motion-blurred the turkey in Photoshop Elements 12.)
Kevin Devine chose my music video as the official video for his song "Fiscal Cliff"! Iâm thrilled, humbled, giddy with excitement. âPleased as punch,â as they say.
Check it out, if youâre so inclined. And then check out the rest of his discography.
