For an armchair sociologist and culture critic, I’m hilariously wrong about how people will behave.
When I heard that Stewart and Colbert were returning to the air just after the New Year, I had two responses: bafflement and fear. First, my bafflement.
Given the pace, the stress, the monstrous pressure of being funny four nights a week about stuff that had happened only hours before, I’d thought the ‘talent’ would be secretly thanking the gods for this unplanned vacation from their own success. I assumed that was why they were being so ostentatiously generous with their support of the writers – so they could stay out til spring and the big names could sleep for six months and luxuriate in their ignorance for a change. I pictured Colbert and Stewart showering their gleeful families every morning with confetti made of unread NY Times, then spending the day in their jammies ginning up fake emails from the network brass dissing the writers and threatening their families. Instead, these guys are so desperate to get back on the air, they’re willing to humiliate themselves to do so. I know these guys are innately funny, but nightly-broadcast-with-no-help funny? Why on earth are Letterman, Colbert et al so desperate to get back on the air?
Y’all know I love me some satire shows. So much so that, pre-strike, I worried about my boys spiraling into drugs, drinking and sordid sex scandals – VH1 Behind the Music-style – from all the pressure. Turns out that they’re as addicted to what they do as we are to watching them do it. I ‘spoze I shouldn’t be so surprised. God knows I churn out book after book, post after post for far less money and with every chance of being either ignored or excoriated (see: your comments). Wrong again. Note to self: performing is as much an irrestible calling as punditry. Who knew?
Now, my fear. I’d been trying to wean myself off television for a looong time now. With a personality as addictive as mine, It’s such a time waster; I want my kids to grow up watching only in moderation, unlike their mother. I’d sooner show you nude, secretly snapped photos of me than tell you what, and how much, I watch. So, once the strike hit, I cravenly made the plunge, knowing I wouldn’t miss much this time of year. Smugly, I dragged my ‘leventy-seven boxes back to the cable folks. You’d have thought I was donating both kidneys to Iraqi war refugees the way I carried on. No one expected the strike to be over before the end of January by which time I figured I’d have detox’d enough to resist the siren call of Battlestar Galactica, 30 Rock and…never mind. I couldn’t wait to lord my cultural ignorance over you lowly TV gawkers at dinner parties – “The Office? What office, I don’t understand. Oh. TV. I’m reading Proust” – obnoxious as those wankers who spend a semester abroad (in Canada) and come back pretending to have forgotten English.
I could never have given up TV with late night satire still airing, never.
What the f*&^ am I supposed to do now?
