BEFORE: Numbers are a funny thing, and I've had several movie titles that were JUST numbers - like I remember "2012" was Movie #1,000 and "9" was Movie #812 (not to be confused with "Nine", which was Movie #968. While I'm at it, "1941" was Movie #342, "21" was Movie #84, "54" was Movie #966, and of course, "300" was Movie #300. That last one seems about right.
And baseball players are all about numbers, right? Ty Cobb set or held over 90 MLB records, including highest career batting average, for over 50 years, most batting titles, and still holds the record for stealing home (again, seems about right). I can't find any records held by Jackie Robinson, but you have to consider that his accomplishment of breaking the color barrier in baseball isn't necessarily going to be reflected in the stats.
While we're talking numbers, what about 33 years in late-night TV, and over 6,000 hours of shows, if you add up the NBC and the CBS years? Yep, I'm talking about David Letterman, and if you've been wondering why I haven't addressed this topic until the day of Dave's retirement, it's probably because I've been in denial. And busy. But my history with Dave goes back to his morning show, which I remember watching during the summer of 1981 (?) while house-sitting for my aunt and uncle. He's been a huge influence on my life and style (I hope someday to be a cranky old man with 35 years of a track record in the business) and he will leave a giant, Dave-sized hole in my viewing line-up after tonight. OK, after this weekend, which is when I'll probably watch his final show - tonight the "Survivor" finale takes precedence.
My BFF Andy is also a big Letterman fan, he's got connections at the show and has written about his encounters many times over the years, here's one example, titled "David Letterman Licked my iPad":
http://chicago.suntimes.com/business/7/71/620922/david-letterman-licked-first-apple-ipad-andy-ihnatko
But collectively we've got many behind-the-scenes experiences - we attended both the 6th and 10th Anniversary specials for the NBC show. Those were back in the days when you could send in 100 postcards to the ticket request address and stand a fair chance of getting two tickets in the mail. At one of those I remember standing outside in the cold (festival seating only) and when I went down to the lower levels of Rock Center to use the men's room, I turned a corner and nearly smacked right into Dave himself. He was dressed down (and in those days still not comfortable interacting with fans) but clearly he was arriving for the show and his gaze met mine with a mixed expression of "How ya doin'?" and "Please don't kill me."
At the 10th Anniversary show, which was largely a vehicle for a bunch of highlight clips, we got to see Bob Dylan perform with an unparalleled line-up of musicians: Chrissie Hynde, Steve Vai, Carole King, Edgar Winter, Jim Keltner, Doc Severinsen, Roseanne Cash, Emmylou Harris, Nancy Griffith, Michelle Shocked, and Mavis Staples. Oh, and Paul and the "Late Night" band, of course. They did two tapings of "Like a Rolling Stone", which was good because on the version we saw taped, Dylan was nearly incomprehensible, so they clearly aired the other one. But this was a once-in-a-lifetime event, something that someday should be regarded like being at Woodstock, or seeing the Stones at Altamont. (I think for the 6th Anniversary special, the big music number included Ben E. King, Cyndi Lauper, Ashford & Simpson, Carole King, Billy Joel, Joe Walsh, Robert Cray, Duane Eddy, Joe Walsh & Warren Zevon. Also a great line-up.)
We also attended one of the last shows at NBC (where we shared an elevator with Harvey Pekar) and one of the first shows at CBS, and last December Andy got VIP tickets to the last-ever Letterman Christmas special, where Darlene Love rocked "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" and the band pulled out all the stops. You can hear a podcast about this taping here: http://5by5.tv/ia/126
Better writers than I will be writing tributes this week, these are just my personal recollections - and when you're dealing with any loss, whether it's the loss of a TV show, or a job, or a family member, there will be a mourning/celebration period, and then eventually we move on. I will reserve any judgment on replacing Dave, especially since I just haven't warmed up to this James Corden guy. He's much too commercial, too fake, too smarmy - I watched a Craig Ferguson stand-up special last week and this just emphasized what I've been missing - and I'm really considering switching over to Seth Meyers for a while to see if that's any better. From time to time, I've taped Fallon & Kimmel's shows for work reasons, but as with Corden, I usually just watch the monologue and opening comedy bit, then fast-forward over any guests I don't care for. Networks, you're on notice, I'm looking for a new late-night entertainment provider. Maybe I'll try a Conan/Seth combo for a while.
With comedy, it's all about tone, and I've gotten used to Dave's blend of sarcasm, self-deprecation and biting wit. I can't stand hosts who are overly friendly and overly eager to be hosting a show - oddly, it seems I prefer hosts who act like they would rather be doing something else, like Dave did. But that's a tone - and if it was an act all this time, it was a really good one. But I think he's been, more than anything, a genuine guy. The shows he did after 9/11, after coming back from heart surgery, and after admitting his affairs all proved exactly that.
Anyway, Dave, if I can call you Dave, before you go, I have just one thing to say: Thanks. And not the thanks that you've been getting the last two weeks from celebrities, like "Thanks for giving me a place to promote my movie." From a fan of TV, thanks for Larry "Bud" Melman and the Guy Under the Seats. Thanks for dropping stuff off of buildings and thanks for putting other stuff in a hydraulic press just to see what that would look like. Thanks for Stupid Pet Tricks and even stupider Stupid Human Tricks. Thanks for your fake feud with Oprah and your real feud with Jay Leno. Thanks for not letting it get you down when you didn't get the "Tonight Show" gig, and thanks for moving across town, determined to put on an even better show. Thanks for making fun of the food at the Hello Deli and for throwing footballs at meatballs on top of Christmas trees. Thanks for making fun of Regis Philbin and for shooting a fire extinguisher at Richard Simmons. Thanks for being miserable and sharing that with America, night after night after night. Even if I fast-forwarded through interviews of guests I didn't care for (if I never see Tom Dreesen or Amy Sedaris again, I'm OK with that) I've still been massively over-entertained by your show for three decades. Like millions of other Americans, I'm glad I ran into you.
Rhoda Griffis, who played Ty Cobb's mother in flashbacks in last night's film, carries over to play a small role in tonight's film.
AFTER: This is a good follow-up to "Cobb", because they're like opposite sides of the racism coin. Plus they both used the same song in the end credits, "The Ball Game" - with the notable lyrics "life is a ballgame, but you've got to play it fair". In "Cobb" that seemed more like a rebuke against the famous ball-player, but in "42" it's got extra meaning about inclusion of all men in the sport.
Also, like "Cobb", the film is about baseball and also issues that are larger than baseball. Some men achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them, and I appreciate that the film seems to support the latter theory in Jackie Robinson's case. Of course, someone had to be the first black baseball player, and it could have been anyone, or could it? The film also suggests that it had to be someone willing to suffer the slings and arrows from fans in certain parts of the country, where Jim Crow laws still enforced segregation. And if not done properly, putting a black man in a MLB uniform in 1947 could have caused a set-back in race relations, rather than representing a step forward.
In the end, money is the motivating factor in breaking the color barrier, and it's refreshing to see that fact acknowledged, that it wasn't done just in the name of equality and civil rights. It's probably easy after the fact to just remember the more noble aspects of this sea change, but the reality is that getting black fans more interested in the MLB meant that the color Branch Rickey was most interested in was green.
April 15 is now Jackie Robinson Day in baseball, and everyone wears #42 in his honor - this is a nice idea but not practical in any way, right? I mean, don't the numbers on the uniform help everyone tell each other apart? And what does the game's announcer say, something like "Number 42 hits the ball, and it's caught by Number 42, who throws to Number 42, who tags Number 42 out at second base!" ??
Surprisingly, some people still don't understand the "equal" part of the phrase "equal rights". Not to take anything away from Robinson's accomplishments, but when women earn less money then men for doing the same job, isn't that all part of the same struggle? When these people can marry whomever they want, but THOSE people can't, isn't that the same fight? That's an inequality, and if you support an inequality while living in a country that claims to champion equality, eventually you're going to realize you're on the wrong side of history. 70 years later, we can scratch our heads and wonder how some people weren't allowed to compete in sports, and whatever arguments people had against fair play seem perhaps silly and outdated. But the struggle continues to this day, only in different forms.
Also starring Chadwick Boseman, Harrison Ford (last seen in "Sabrina"), T.R. Knight, Nicole Beharie, Christopher Meloni ("Man of Steel"), Lucas Black (last seen in "Cold Mountain"), Ryan Merriman, Hamish Linklater (last seen in "The Angriest Man in Brooklyn"), Andre Holland, Alan Tudyk (last seen in "Patch Adams"), John C. McGinley (last seen in "Get Carter"), Toby Huss, Max Gail, Brad Beyer, Brett Cullen (last seen in "Something to Talk About"), with cameos from Matt Clark (last seen in "Jeremiah Johnson"), Mark Harelik.
RATING: 5 out of 10 road uniforms
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