Donald Rumsfeld on Letterman

I wanted to post this interview for quite a while but it wasn't up anywhere. It's a terrific interview and a terrific return to the "old style" of Letterman political interviews.

I knew that Rumsfeld had been the oldest Secretary of Defense but I had no idea that he had been the youngest as well. And likewise that he had known, interacted with and served for so many U.S. Presidents. A fascinating interview and includes some great "mule" banter.

Segments like this one are one of the main reasons that Letterman is (has been) head and shoulders above every other talk show host. When bringing on political or polarizing figures, he isn't content to be apolitical and have them tell stories about how they love their cat (as other talk shows will do). Instead, he does the opposite - mixing the jokes with direct questions about the important matters of the day. At times like these the show ceases to be just a dumb comedy show and gains an edge of serious journalism.

And the BEST part of the serious political interview segments was that it was entirely detached and objective. When someone from the left was on, for instance, Letterman would ask fair but hard-hitting questions. When someone from the right was on, it was the same deal. Again, in the vein of journalism, the questions would be fair but tough regardless of the guest. This was probably most evident during the presidential campaign of 2000. The "Late Show" were able to book both presidential candidates and the reviews on both interviews were that Letterman had actually been harder-hitting than most interviews done by the "serious" journalists.

Unfortunately all of this is filed under the "old style" above because recently things have changed. Though THIS interview is recent and that shows Letterman is still capable of doing it, lately he's become much more politicized. He'll give guests from the left a free pass and say things to those on the right are treated with outright hostility. Recently in an interview with Rand Paul for instance, Letterman actually uttered the phrase, "You know, I think he’s wrong about some of these things. I just can’t tell you why.” It's a statement so dumb, I couldn't (and can't) believe it was said.

All the more reason to enjoy interviews like these because they're an endangered species.

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines?

Jason Sudekis tells the story of drinking too much at the NBA All-Star game:

Then, Amber Heard describes her experience announcing the official "Gentlemen, start your engines" at a NASCAR event and Jason Sudekis and Jimmy Fallon argue about the quality of Jimmy's version. They both agree that it's bad but is there more to it than that?

Classic Roots Choice #26

Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi was on the show the other night to promote the current season of "Jersey Shore". Her walk-on music? A segment of the Oompa Loompa song from "Willy Wonka...".

[Waaaaaa.]

That's classic.

Thank You Notes

It's Friday and that means "Thank You Notes". This particular edition gets some help from violinist Itzhak Perlman. And yes, I double checked that spelling.

Jordan Schlansky - Valentine's Day

Oooh, I almost forgot this one. Any time Conan visits with Jordan Schlansky, it's going on the blog. That's my promise to you the viewer and all future generations.

Conan talks to Jordan about Valentine's Day and relationships:

It's too short though. Spoiler: Conan drinks too much alco-hool. Also, I have to admit that I DO like it when the two bald priests are staring out the highway window from the bus.

Music Roundup

Thought I'd post a couple recent musical performances that caught my fancy (a bits).

First, this is an increasing trend and I'm not sure if that's a bad thing. There's nothing about this song that's amazing, nothing great, nothing, really, that I can pick out as "above average" and yet I just like it for some reason. It's just wonderfully atmospheric. Listening to it puts me in a specific brain state (a specific feeling of time and place) which is really cool.

Phantogram - Mouthful of Diamonds (note: I wanted to post their Late Night performance with Questlove on drums but that video expired).

This song also holds up after repeated listens. There are a lot of bands out there that are trying to be "retro". There's a whole slew of bands that are "synthy" and trying to recall the 80's style. But this song's on another level. This song successfully sounds exactly like it's FROM the 80's. Take any scene from 80's movie where the "gang" has to fix up an old barn and it's tons of hard work but all the difficulty is made easier by the use of the upbeat montage. Take that scene and play this song over it and it doesn't feel out of place at all. (Edit: Wait, no, it's not the fixing up the barn scene, it's the scene where the guy did something bad to drive the girl away and there's a montage of failed ploys to win her back.)

Chromeo - "Hot Mess"

Seriously, this song has more hooks than a fisherman on vacation.

Letterman Visits Old School

Hmm, that's a bad title. I was trying to make a play on the title of the last post.

Anyway, here's a video from all the way back to 2003. Vince Vaughn came onto Letterman to promote his new film "Old School". Vince Vaughn is one of the best talk show guests out there, and his Late Show appearances are especially good. That's why it's an absolute crime that he's only on for one segment. Still, it's short and sweet.

Bonus: Paul's walk-on music choice: Steely Dan - "Countdown to Ecstacy". The chorus contains the line "And I'm never going back to my old schoooool."

"I went to a school called 'Life', Dave. Our school colors were black and blue."

Conan Visits Beauty School

In this classic from 2002-2003, Conan visits a hair styling school and learns the secrets of the trade. The revelation that "if hair is too long, cut it" is mind-blowing.

Let's gather the required postage and follow him to Danger Town:

You may or may not recognize the employee, Aaron Bleyaert. These days he manages the "online" division of Conan's show (the blog, twitter, web exclusive videos, etc).

Conan and The Blizzard of 2003

---As promised---

With New York City shut down due to the blizzard, Conan takes to the (surprisingly desolate) streets to stir up some comedic comedy.

That news story by Maurice Duvois gets me every time.

New Press Photo

Sure, we don't want this to become a Radiohead Fan Blog but, uhhhhh....

So anyway a new press photo of the band was released! Desperate for hints and clues as to the new album as we are, this counts as major news (for now).

Here it is:

[Note: The photo contains 3 invisible ponies.]

Now THAT is a sweet photo. Judging by it, I'd say the new album is going to sound like The Band's self-titled album. Yaaaaay! Or perhaps Neil Young's Harvest album. Yaaaayy! Or maybe it'll be like "The Wild Wild West" soundtrack. Oh, BOOOO! Or maybe My Morning Jacket's new album that isn't released yet. Cool? I guess maybe this has become an entire genre of band photo. But still it's good.

Who Cares Wins: Internet

How did I learn to operate Blogopolis? Max and Gabe taught me.

Thanks Max and Gabe!

Here Comes the Limb King

The eighth Radiohead album "The King of Limbs" is available for pre-sale now and will be downloadable this Saturday, February 19th 2011.

Its gonna be HUGE, Conan. I've officially been waiting on this album for 4 (calendar) years and after not a hint, not a suggestion, not a word, it's all of the sudden going to be OUT in 5 days. WOW. Their previous album, "In Rainbows" was announced 10 days before it was released. I wish they didn't do things this way. If they would have only announced it two months ago, I would have had something to look forward to for those two months. Instead, it's 4 years... BAM, NOW!

And along the lines of the "no info" front. Little to nothing is known about this album, not even the tracklisting or how many tracks there are. Although the Japanese are saying it's got 8 songs. That would seem low and I don't think that's correct. There were some tracks that have been played live and not yet recorded but there always are. Furthermore, those tracks that ARE known were only played acoustically or with guest musicians so that's not much help. I'm rooting for "Big Boots" or "Follow Me Around" to finally land a spot.*** All in all, I'd venture to say this is the least I've known going into any Radiohead album, ever.

The album purchase is available in two varieties: download only (wav or mp3) or "newspaper album" which comes with the download as well as two vinyl records, the CD, the ability to download everything and tons of artwork. There's been a lot of speculation as to what "newspaper album" means.... Ok, there's been almost no speculation and what little there is has been ridiculous. I would speculate that it's one of two things: 1) An expression of the nature of the artwork (ie. the artwork will be arranged like a newspaper or 2) All of the materials will be recyclable/biodegradable like a newspaper. Radiohead, after all, are known for being super eco-friendly and that would be the kind of thing they would brag about.

Ok, as speculation goes, this probably isn't the most exciting stuff, but that's all I got.

I should say also that I don't like the title... "The King of Limbs". Reminds me of Kings of Leon (it actually comes from a tree (much like a newspaper! mMM!)). But I'm taking that as a possibly good sign. After a 3 year wait in 2000, the new album "Kid A" was announced and I didn't like THAT title because it reminded me of Kid Rock. And that album turned out PRETTY good.

*** Denotes an old-timey, hardcore-fan reference to songs that will probably never see the light of day. Ha ha? But really, I do love those non-songs.

Conan Visits the Day Spa

Certain dead musicians continue to release new music long after they're gone because people keep "finding" "lost recordings". And so it is with me. Except I'm not dead. But I had ripped all my old VHS tapes long ago and was much disappointed by what I had apparently failed to keep. Recently new VHS tapes were uncovered and so I'll be ripping/editing them for days to come. Some - but not many - will even make it to youtube.

And so here's the first of hopefully many.

This is going all the way back to February of 2003, Conan is feeling run down and decides to visit a day spa for a day of relaxation.

This is one that I can tie to a specific time and place. I brought the tape on which this piece was recorded to a friend's house and we watched it during a particularly heavy snowfall (there was a blizzard in '03 but I think this was a few days later). We went through the tape, laughing, eating, making jokes, cracking wise and generally enjoying life.

And after a good amount of that, a little bit of reality set in. His parents wanted us to shovel the driveway. This was particularly important as it occurred to me that I needed to get home. The next day I had class and I had a paper to do. Problem was, his driveway was like 40 or 50 yards long and the snow was (as I recall it) about 20 inches deep and heavy. In the face of those kinds of numbers, there we were just two regular dudes and a couple of shovels. It was not looking good. I think I shoveled a single strip about 8 feet long before I hit the wall (even in those days I was out of shape) and realized that I wasn't going to survive. Not good. With my primary mission to get myself home, looming in the back of my mind is that I have a paper to write that's due tomorrow and I haven't started yet. It was an essay for a Media class where I had to write a 4 page analysis of a local news broadcast. Sure, it helped that part of the assignment was just watching TV but I dread trying to expand the material to cover 4 pages. The local news is the local news. It loomed over me every bit as much as the snow clouds.

The giant driveway snow tonnage didn't kill me but it was a close call. After an hour of back-breaking labor (over which we made approximately 0% progress), a dude with a snow plow came by and offered to clear the driveway for 20 bucks or something. The deal was made, I was able to get home, record the 11 O'Clock news and get the paper done in the wee hours of the morning.

The day of basking in the warmth of late night comedy while the snow fell down was a fleeting happiness but it's a memory I'll never forget.

David Brent Cameo in The Office

Brief but alright.

Catfish

Catfish (2010)

When one thinks of all the great movies within the "psychological thriller documentary" genre, not many movies come to mind. In fact no movies come to mind. This is one of those things that perhaps in a few days it'll suddenly come to me that I forgot one but at the moment there are no movies in this category. Except for the new documentary "Catfish".

We all know that the internet is a place where fiction and reality can be hard to discern. It's a hard and fast rule for instance that the attractive lady you're chatting to in chat rooms is really an overweight 40-year-old man who works as a part-time accountant. But can you be sure either way? And wouldn't you like to find out the stark naked truth (NOT LITERALLY)? This is "Catfish".

"Catfish" is a low-budget indie documentary that only recently came out on DVD and (I assume) if anyone is to find out about it, it will only be via word of mouth. In it a 24-year-old photographer from New York strikes up a friendship with a family in the Midwest over facebook. Through social networking, email, pictures, texts, videos and phone conversations he starts a relationship with the 19-year-old oldest sister and things progress steadily from there. As the relationship starts to get more serious, a series of strange clues cause him to begin to question whether he's actually interacting with a real person. And if he wasn't talking to a real person, what is the alternative possibility? Hoping to finally uncover the truth he decides on an impromptu visit and finds that the reality of the situation is beyond strange.

Obviously, getting at the truth is exactly the point of the movie and I won't spoil anything here. I only suggest that the building mystery is as fascinating as any mystery/fictional movie you're bound to see and the slow descent into the fictional (real) world is absolutely creepy. In fact the creepiness combined with the low-budget one-camera style at one point brought up memories of "The Blair Witch Project". Except this documentary is real (I think) and truth is stranger than fiction. Definitely recommended.

Oh yeah, and don't read or watch anything about the movie beforehand because, like "The Sixth Sense", a large part of the interest of the movie is finding out how it ends. That is, don't read anything about it starting now.

Beavis and Butthead In 2011

Beavis and Butthead are coming back for a new season of shows to air on MTV this Summer. Yes, you read that sentence correctly.

Not much else is known about the show other than that Mike Judge will still do the voices, the two protagonists will still be in high school, it will still be on MTV and they'll be mocking current music videos. It's unclear how the music video data will actually be pushed through the MTV channel system but sources in the scientific community assure me that the technology exists.

This article about the comeback was written in July of 2010. How am I only hearing about this now?!

SNL - Dana Carvey

This week was a special event for Saturday Night Live. The guest host was Dana Carvey. The show saw the return of "Church Chat" and special cameos by Mike Meyers and John Lovitz.

Oh yeah and a little something called THIS:

Also, this one isn't so much funny as I just like this song and wish to buy the record album.

And I thought this was pretty funny too.

It was nice to see him back and it was one of the better episodes of the past few years. You can watch the full show here.

Super Bowl of Serenity

After a week of contemplation, trying to figure out how to fill my Super Bowl hours, I finally settled upon the idea of a "Joy of Painting" with Bob Ross marathon.

Using the power of the internet I was able to get a multitude of episodes and at 30 minutes each it was enough to cover the 8 hour (or whatever) span of overpriced commercials ("The Super Bowl"). The show was on the air for 30 years so there are A TON of episodes to choose from. I tried to sample one episode in each season across different seasons but even with that I didn't even get to Season 10.

And what a Super Bowl it was... there were almighty mountains, happy little trees, little rascal squirrels, clouds who had other cloud friends, trees that were sons of guns, bravery tests and plenty of happy accidents.

Some of the episodes were pretty unusual. One had a predominantly purple motif which I enjoyed and in another episode a woman came on and taught us how to paint saw blades. Turns out it's exactly the same as painting on a canvas... except on a saw blade. That's one of the great things about painting; it's your own little world. When you buy your first tube of paint, you get your Artist's License which allows you to do anything you want within the boundaries of your painting.

The whole experience added up to ultra-relaxation. It wasn't the most exciting Super Bowl ever, it was the most peaceful. ARE YOU READY FOR SOME CONTEMPLATIVE RELAXATION?! Yes.