Letterman in Semi-Retirement

Here's a profile of David Letterman in his current "What do I do now?" mode. He was also on with Jimmy Kimmel last night — a spot which mostly consisted of Jimmy fawning like the other late night Jimmy and Dave belittling Dave.

The article seemed awkward to me. Folks writing about Dave rarely seem able to avoid mentioning the Velcro suit and the Monkey-Cam, which were a long, long time ago and were of a style of comedy he abandoned. They were also bits that were funny largely because of the writers' ideas, not so much because of Dave. The evolution of his comedy was to move largely from things his staff devised to him just talking about his life…a trend I think he took too far. I remember my mother telling me she'd stopped watching because "That man makes millions of dollars a month and his audience worships him and all he does is complain."

He's still a brilliant, witty guy. I'm glad he has a new show coming on but I'm discouraged that the only announced guest so far is Howard Stern. It would be nice to see Letterman working in unexplored territory…and come to think of it, the same could be said about Stern. (Earlier this year when Trump started having those televised cabinet meetings where everyone has to talk about how great he is and what a fabulous job he's doing, they reminded me of something and it took me a while to figure out what. It was The Howard Stern Show. I kept expecting Trump to ask some lady to take off her top.)

This Sunday night, Letterman receives the Mark Twain Prize for Humor, which of course never goes to anyone who puts humor on paper the way Mark Twain did. The list of those saluting Dave is fairly predictable: Kimmel, Steve Martin, Martin Short, Bill Murray, etc. It doesn't air until November 20 so we'll have to wait 'til then to hear Dave tell us how he's not worthy. But he is. In fact, he's more worthy than about half of the people who already got this. Here's a montage of past ceremonies…