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Once the Late Night Wars settle into good old-fashioned trench warfare, with each side gaining no new territory while a generation of comedy writers is consumed in hellfire, which show will you watch live and which ones will you TiVo for viewing the next morning, as you troll for jokes to steal? — Sydney
First, I resent your assertion that I’d troll for jokes to steal. Not because I’m against stealing. I am, after all, a professional thief of hearts. But jokes are not something I have much interest in burgling. Mainly because I have no use for them. Humor confuses me, and laughter is an unwelcome distraction from the sadness that I wear like a lead apron since the untimely split of my spiritual father and mother, Al and Tipper Gore.
That said, the late-night wars have degenerated into a tiresome roundelay of grumpy, overpaid white people complaining about their lives all the time. Did Jay steal Conan’s job? Yes, he did, five years after Conan effectively stole Jay’s while getting NBC to bump Leno from the Tonight Show at the height of his powers. So quit your cryin’, Paddy. On the scale of misfortune endured by the Irish, it ain’t exactly the Great Potato Famine.
To answer your question concerning whom will I continue to watch most eagerly, I don’t really keep up anymore. So if pressed, I guess I’d stick with Arsenio Hall, the Michael Jordan of Late Night (For those too young to remember Michael Jordan, he was the Michael Jordan of the NBA.) Arsenio has pretty much everything you need in a talk-show host: extra long fingers, the dog pound, and an unerring sense of good taste—be it five-button suits, fly hats, or hosting the freshest sounds from all the latest New Jack Swing artists. Also, unlike the aforementioned whiners, Arsenio never complains about stupid trifles. Maybe because he knows what true suffering is, having dated Paula Abdul.
If there’s a dark horse on my list, however, it’s one of the funniest men in show business, wunderkind Greg Gutfeld (he is over 40, but thanks to advances in medical science, 40 is the new 20). Not only is Greg the author of the ferociously amusing and brand-spanking-new “The Bible of Unspeakable Truths,” which should serve as your bible—if you want to spend eternity in Hell. He is also the host of the most dangerous show on television, “Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld,” which airs on Fox at 3 a.m. If I were Fox President Roger Ailes, the first thing I’d do is have my enemies killed and get away with it, because I’d be a very powerful man. The second thing I’d do is move Gutfeld’s show from the lobster shift to a time when people who aren’t Provigil addicts might be able to watch him. Let’s call that time, 11 p.m. EST, a slot which now sees Fox airing a rerun.
This would do one beneficial thing for America: it would put the most subversive man in late night (Gutfeld) up against the most self-satisfied man in late night (Jon Stewart), and dopey college students who get most of their news from “The Daily Show,” as we’re constantly reminded by journalists who probably do the same, might actually learn something for a change: like how much funnier shows are when the audience doesn’t collapse in hysterics before the host’s punch line has been uttered, since they already know it has been tailored to their prejudices.
I am therefore hereby launching a campaign to put Gutfeld, Bill Schulz, Andy Levy and the rest of Gutfeld’s Get-Fresh Crew on while we’re all still awake. I haven’t come up with a name for this campaign. “Gregwake”? That’s no good. It sounds like Greg’s dead, and we’re all packing off for the viewing. (When that sad day arrives, let’s hope it’s an open casket, as Greg is a very handsome man). “Screw BP?” That’s better. It has nothing to do with Gutfeld, but do you know how much a pound of shrimp is going to cost us this summer? Someone should pay for that, even if that someone is Greg.
So we’ll work on the name. But meantime, let’s join this nameless campaign to convince Roger Ailes to stir the pot, and to let Greg Gutfeld, or as he’s known to his friends, “White Arsenio,” wreck havoc in the late-night sandbox against his inferiors. And let’s not just do it with words or some lame letter-writing campaign. Let’s do it with our pocketbooks, because money speaks louder than words. Make Ailes sit up and take notice by clicking on this link to my book, “Fly Fishing With Darth Vader,” and sending $17.15 to Amazon. Then and only then will Ailes know how seriously you take your comedy.
Whatever happened to one of my favorite DC columnists, Pussy Per Se? — Jeremy B.
I can’t say, because I’m not in touch with Pussy. At least not the columnist, Per Se. But when I think of her, which I do often, I’m reminded of the words of the late, great Patrick Swayze: “She’s like the wind/Through my tree/She rides the night/Next to me.” Like a bracing, cleansing gale from the north, she blew into our lives for a short time, teaching us how to live again, laugh again, and love again. Much as I strive to show readers the seedy underbelly of advice columny, she showed us the darker side (only side?) of strip-club culture, but with strength, good cheer and humanity.
Now, as the equally great Hall & Oates put it, she’s gone, and I’d pay the devil to replace her. In her goodbye note, she said she was leaving due to “circumstances beyond my control,” promising that we’d see her down the line, perhaps in the champagne room. And perhaps I will. Though not if my wife has anything to say about it.
In the meantime, I’ve decide to pay not-so-silent tribute to PPS’s service to her country, by dropping my silly pseudonymous surname, “Labash,” and re-claiming my original family name in her honor. Next week’s column will be bylined under Matt Per Se. (no blood relation, though it’s quite possible that her great grandmother stripped for my great grandfather back in the Old Country. I think they were from the same province.)
Anyway, if you see Ms. Per Se before I do, tell her I borrowed her Lucite heels before the White House Correspondents Dinner, and forgot to return them. Send me an address, and I’ll Fed-Ex them back, freshly Windex’ed of course.
Matt Labash is a senior writer with the Weekly Standard magazine. His book, “Fly Fishing With Darth Vader: And Other Adventures with Evangelical Wrestlers, Political Hitmen, and Jewish Cowboys,” is just published from Simon and Schuster. Have a question for Matt Labash? Submit it here.