I remember as a child, sneaking to watch Johnny Carson. We lived in a two story house that was old enough that it just happened to have a vent in the hallway upstairs. That was how the upstairs had been heated originally. When a new furnace was put upstairs, the vent was just there. It was perfect. The placement of the television in the living room made it easy to see the tv, and the bottom of the vent was gone, so it was easy to hear as well. If my parents had any idea how many movies my sister and I watched through that vent..... Anyway. I loved Johnny! He was funny, even when I didn't quite understand the jokes.
When Jay Leno got the Tonight Show, I was just pissed. I like Leno, but he's no Johnny Carson! I refused to watch it anymore. I have always been up late at night, my entire life. I was born at four in the afternoon, and prefer to watch sunsets as opposed to sun rises. Almost 35 years, and I am still the same. I started watching Letterman regularly just a few years ago. It still wasn't right to me, then, Craig Ferguson came along. I love watching Craig. I find him very amusing... I even watched Conan for a while, but that was because he reminded me of a favorite Uncle of mine.
Tonight was one of the best Letterman shows I have watched.
First of all, Jack Hannah was there. As an avid animal lover, I really like seeing him on television. I'm not a vegan or a vegetarian. I believe that we have teeth to chew meat because we are supposed to eat meat, but I do love critters. Every time Jack is on the show, Dave freaks out the whole time! Tonight, he did much better with the animals, but he's still a little jumpy. He actually held a cheetah cub. That was cool. At one point, he looked like he was gonna shit himself, I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes.
Dave's second guest is among my favorite artists, Steven Tyler. So he comes out in snake skin pants, looking awesome as ever, and he's just himself. He wishes everyone a happy MLK day and says hi to his family. He talks a little about his book, and then Dave asks him about being on American Idol. He says he is enjoying it, but it's not like when he got started in the 70's. Dave cuts in and says that he prefers the old way of finding talent, like an artist had to "earn their stripes".
Aerosmith toured every state 3 times over 3 years in order to become what they did. It was like that for everyone back then. Playin in dive bars and traveling without any kind of record deal or guarantee that someone would pay for a ticket. I was impressed by Dave's comments. I have nothing against Idol, or America's Got Talent, but I have to agree. There is a certain level of respect for someone that spends years climbing to the top. They are taking greater risks and investing constantly in them selves.
I am in no way saying that we haven't found amazing talents in these shows, I love many of the newer stars that came from these places. However, it's like an express lane to fame. No more one hit wonders. They never make it to the finals. That's actually something I miss. You know what I mean. I used to love those single cassettes. Two songs for a dollar. One song was the radio hit that was current, the other, a preview of the rest of the cassette. It was enough to decide if you actually wanted to buy the whole thing. I bet I had over 400 cassettes when they became obsolete. Oh well, the last time I moved a long distance, they came out of the back of the truck and smashed all over the highway, so I went to cd's .....
Dave mentioned that there is kind of a different level of respect for artists that go it the long way around, Steven Tyler actually agreed, and so do I. What do you think?
No comments:
Post a Comment