Conan Works At Best Buy

The title says it all. For some extra cash he's gonna get up every day, get chemically altered, steal from his work and take an 1.5 hour lunch with several courses just like the rest of us.

 

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Boyz II Men Live

I'm not the most massive fan in the world but I know a fantastic live performance when I see it.

Here's Boyz II Men performing with The Roots "Motownphilly":

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They also did a very cool cover of "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls. You can only see that by within the full episode here.

Bit o' Trivia: You can see Questlove and Black Thought in the original "Motownphilly" music video. Questlove playing the drums and Black Thought is dancing in the background.

Paul Shaffer on Late Night

Remember how much fun it was when two tv shows "crossed over"? Like "Scooby Doo Meets Batman and Robin" or "The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones"? Sure, we all do. But what's infinitely more enjoyable, to me, is when a talk show host is a guest on another talk show. Not only because of the cross-mojination that happens and the colliding of worlds, but also because the change in roles where the interviewer becomes the interviewee.

Jay Leno and David Letterman were both on Johnny Carson. Letterman was on Conan and vice versa. Craig Kilborn was on Letterman but not the other way around (though he did have Paul Shaffer). Conan was on Carson Daly's show and vice versa. Jimmy Fallon was on Letterman and Conan. And on it goes into the night.

And so it's a huge event for me that Paul Shaffer was on Jimmy Fallon's show recently. It was a great interview. You can see the full interview here starting at 21:24 but only for a limited time! As it's only available within the context of the full show, it'll be taken offline in a few days. In particular Paul confronts the Roots on Questlove's quote in Rolling Stone magazine that when thinking about which song to play for guest intros, he thinks, "What would Paul Schaffer do?" and then does the opposite. OUCH. It's so on.

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Paul's on to promote his new book which is a collection of anecdotes from his experiences in show business over the past 5 decades. I have a pretty strict rule that I only buy books that are educational but I'm thinking of making an exception for this book. Talk about a life worth reading about - he's been a song writer and studio musician for years, he was in the SNL band from the first season so he has stories about that era, he's been on Letterman for the past 30 years, he was in Spinal Tap and, oh yeah, he's the musical director for the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame so he's played with, met or worked with EVERY SIGNIFICANT MUSICIAN OF THE PAST 50 YEARS. And that's not an exaggeration. I want to make a list but if I do, I'll leave out about 30 other giant stars.

Who Cares Wins: Christmas Edition

It seems that some time in the late 80's or early 90's James Fallon made another training video - this time about how to wrap gifts. It's quite infotaining and lives up to the level of quality we've come to expect from the great people at Vision Video.

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Edit: After watching the video, the fact that you had to confirm your birthday to view it will make even less sense.

Dave Vs. The White House Vs. CNN

Freshly uploaded and hot off the youtube presses: Dave vs. The White House vs CNN! This is a classic from 5 years ago.

First the Late Show aired the following segment entitled "George W. Bush: Invigorating America's Youth":

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Then comes the aftermath:

This video is one of the classics in my opinion. The constant unbelievable twists are great.

Blog Bonus #1: It was also shocking. CNN, a trusted news organization, didn't just get the story wrong, they made up the story. I mean, it's very easy to get a fact wrong or misquote someone but I don't have the faintest clue how anyone in the world could mess up by not getting any comment from the White House and then reporting "The White House says..." How does that happen? ... And they did it not just once, but TWICE. They actually correct an earlier made up story with a second made up story! It's the absolute height of ridiculousness. "Newsroom" was the best satire of media ever made but even the characters on that show never did anything this stupid. It makes for great unscripted comedy though.

Blog Bonus #2: Note that Paul and the band's theme for the Schick Quattro is "Take Five" by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Earlier I thought that he had gotten it wrong because Quattro is 4 and it's "Take 5" but now I think it could be referring to the fact that the artists are a quartet. Quattro... Quartet. Either way, it's very clever.

Blog Bonus #3: The video uses a star wipe! When it became apparent in watching the full-length clip that it required editing, I knew exactly what was called for. ["Star Wipe" Simpsons Clip Not Online]

Classic Roots Choice #14

On Monday Givoanni Ribisi was on Late Night. The Roots played a jazzy version of the "Leave It To Beaver" theme song. Who'd ever of thought anyone would say that.

Ribisi's first ever role was as a kid in "Still The Beaver", a revisiting of the original characters starring almost all of the original cast (Hugh Beaumont, the dad, died earlier). I remember watching the show. It was sooo 80's and I remember thinking it wasn't that great but I enjoyed it anyway because I was such a big fan of the original series.