If the kid is on Summer vacation, then I am on Summer vacation.
This is a rule that I made up for this Summer. What this really means is that I am not going to the gym, and I am staying up late at night. In both respects, it has been very successful. My pants are getting tighter, and I have watched an enormous amount of odd and entertaining things off of the Roku when I should be sleeping.
Last night, like a bolt of lightning striking a tall tree, I had a thought, “I wonder if the old opening from Late Night with David Letterman is on YouTube?” We all know the answer is yes, but what I was looking for was the specific one that I saw when I first saw in the late 80’s. I found this one, which feels correct.
Watching it last night, a couple things came back to me. First, it was remembering my older brothers telling my Dad about this show. All of us in my family have a good, if slightly off kilter sense of humor. They were trying to explain to the old man about this talk show that did these weird bits like Top 10 Lists, a monkey with a camera on its back, a Velcro suit, and the host was this smart-alecky guy. It sounded like it was right up our alley, but it came on during the week, really late.
Growing up in Texas, Carson was on from 10:30pm to 11:30pm, followed by Love Connection from 11:30pm to midnight. Then Dave came on, when it was way too late for any normal person to be up. My brothers are nine and seven years older than me, so they were in college, and had the time and constitution be to loyal viewers. I was still in grade school, and our home only had one large tv in the livingroom. But, in my 6th grade year, which made me 11 or 12, my parents bought me a little 18” black and white TV, for the purpose of playing my Nintendo, thus avoiding confrontations of who was going to watch Cheers or play Legend of Zelda. And I did play video games on that little TV.
And I also started watching Dave.
I was probably the only 6th grader in my school district that could hum the Late Night theme song, and knew who Larry “Bud” Melman was. I was able to hide my clandestine viewing from my parents, but I think they caught on, yet didn’t care. (I kept making good grades, so where was the problem?) That show started influencing me on how I thought about humor, about being just a little strange and idiosyncratic, and also being a little normal while having a few things that are off. Like, how Dave dressed. He wore the talk show host’s uniform – shirt, tie, sport coat. Yet, as Dave wore that, he also had on sneakers, and khaki pants, and his hair was short but unkept. He had all the pieces of normalcy, but was still a little off.
The second thing that came to me when I watched the opening of Late Night, was that this intro is still how I think about New York City. When I envision this place, I think about it at night – the buildings shutting off their lights, the cabs rolling down nearly deserted streets, and the bars during the week when it’s late and there are just a handful of people in there. And the bar in the opening, “Old Town Bar and Restaurant” I now realize that I have been in there a handful of times, and it still looks the same. In fact, I noticed that at the end of the L shaped bar, there is a guy in the corner sitting with a drink and talking to the bartender. That’s my favorite spot in any bar to sit, which now makes me wonder if this is where I came up with/stole the idea?
After watching the intro, and getting a heaping helping of nostalgia, I started to wonder when I started my fascination with New York City? I feel like I always wanted to be here. Was it watching Ghostbusters? Night Court? Was it because this is where artist came to be artists, and I wanted to be an artist? I’m sure it was a compounding effect of all of these influences.
Either way, I live in New York City now, and I don’t know if I can live anywhere else. It’s the only City where a subway ride entitles you to rub up on strangers.
(And, hey, ummm… If this is blog is making a fancy tickled, then if you could take a moment and give a like, or a share, and comments are always welcomed.)
