Missing Letterman

The first time I remember seeing David Letterman on TV I was 13 or 14. He was appearing on “The Tonight Show” and his stand-up material was mostly observational humor about dumb commercials.

I was hooked. 

I remember one of his early guest-hosting appearances, and one of his monologue jokes concerned the small print on a shaving cream can that warned against spraying it into an open flame. “After going through all of the trouble of building a fire in the sink…” Genius.

His morning show – what I could see of it when I wasn’t in summer school failing geometry (in some sort of effort to “get ahead”) or dealing with WWBT’s decision not to show it after August – was also genius. But it was too edgy for housewives at 10 a.m. and was cancelled in four months. Nearly the same show moved into the 12:30-1:30 a.m. slot in February 1982, minus the live news updates from Edwin Newman.

That first spring I managed to see just a few episodes because it only ran Monday-Thursday. I have famously told anyone who would listen that I was watching Carson as long as I could remember in the summer and on Friday nights since my 9 p.m. bedtime was not enforced on those occasions. Seriously, by 1975 I was watching a lot of Johnny. And I loved Steve Allen.

So Letterman is to my generation what the original pioneers of television are to my parents. And while I will miss the fact he is there, we have not been watching that much in the past five years – not that we ever watched Jay Leno.

I was extremely disappointed with the way NBC handled Carson’s departure. First, I think he still had another two or three seasons in him, which would have allowed him to pass the 30-year mark as host. Then, rather than move Letterman into the 11:30 slot (and then Jay could have come on at 12:30) he was passed over.

The logic that Leno should get it was flawed at best. There was a reason Letterman could no longer guest host The Tonight Show (as he did 51 times from 1979 to 1981). He was, ummm, busy with the show that came on right after it. So for NBC to say Leno was more identified with the show at that time was just a convenient excuse. 

As an aside, the one mistake Carson made in my mind was going to a permanent guest host with Joan Rivers in 1983. Yes, she had been filling in a lot up to that point (I used to turn it off is she was hosting, by the way), but it used to be a lot of fun to see Bob Newhart or George Carlin or McLean Stevenson in the chair every once in a while. When Joan Rivers went to FOX in 1986, the new Tonight lineup included Garry Shandling each Monday, a Carson rerun on Tuesday and then new shows Wednesday-Friday.  Only if Johnny was on vacation would Leno would host for the week.

After a year, Shandling left, and Leno would go on to host once a week while still spelling Carson during his vacations. 

Letterman had hosted about 2,000 episodes of talk shows in the time Leno had maybe hosted 500, and was a much more polished interviewer by 1991.

I was happy when Letterman moved to CBS in 1993, although a bit disappointed that he reined in a lot of the stuff that made “Late Night” must-see TV. But it was nice to have Dave on TV every night, and I watched more often than not.

In recent years, I would go through six-month patches where I watched nearly every night, then would get out of the habit. Now I know I don’t have much more time (although it will be “at least a year,” he did say on Thursday night's show) to enjoy the Letterman brand, so I will have to try harder.

My one contact with the show came somewhat by accident. In 2003 Martin Short’s daughter was named queen for the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival while I was living in Winchester and working at the Northern Virginia Daily in Strasburg. This was something the festival would do in an effort to bring in more celebrity power to augment the Grand, Firefighters and Sports marshals.

But because Short and Jason Alexander were doing “The Producers” in Los Angeles, he was unable to come to Winchester for the crowning ceremony. Short was able to dispatch Letterman’s bandleader, Paul Shaffer, to Winchester to take care of the responsibility.

I contacted “Late Show” producer Mike McIntee on Thursday afternoon (since they were not taping Friday) and told him I could mail the show a copy of the front page of our Saturday morning paper if he thought it was something they would want. Absolutely, he told me.

So after the typical Friday night of Apple Blossom (which means we were about two hours late getting off the press) I drove home to Richmond in preparation for my mom and stepdad’s annual Kentucky Derby party. It was 6 a.m. when I reached the Ampthill branch (23234 and 23237 ZIP codes for those scoring at home), where I knew there was a mail dispatch early Saturday morning. There would be no chance to do this via Express Mail; it was my only shot.

I got an e-mail from Mike about 6:30 p.m. that Monday. He said the page had arrived just before they started taping and Letterman wanted to include it in the show. The rest is television history.

Of course, we still had a paper to put out that night, so we went about our work, and at 11:35 we turned the show on. During the desk piece, Letterman asked Shaffer a few questions about the event and showed the page. My favorite part was when Shaffer recounted that the queen’s first duty was to bestow a knighthood on Dick Van Patten.

“Now I know you’re dreaming,” Letterman shot back.

Following the show, which aired May 5, 2003, I even got a nod in the Wahoo Gazette.

In more recent years, the cranky Dave has sometimes worn me thin, but I’m surely going to miss him, and all of those unpredictable nights.

I could not resist posting this, since it mentions my hometown.

Now you know...

When Paul Harvey was on ABC Radio he did several shows each day, but the one most people remember is “The Rest of the Story.”

Mr. Harvey would spend about two minutes spinning a yarn, and you could try to figure out where he was going before he actually got to the end. When you beat him to the punch it was actually a bit exciting, since it was often like completing a puzzle.

I bring up Paul Harvey because I am sure some of my friends are wondering how the heck I got a story in Monday’s issue of the Charleston Daily Mail, seeing that I live about 2,500 miles from West Virginia. 

(As an aside, when I lived in Winchester I was about 25 miles from Martinsburg, W.Va., but it seemed like it was 2,500 miles across the state to get to Charleston. The route to Cincinnati went like this: Virginia-West Virginia-Maryland-West Virginia-Pennsylvania-West Virginia-Ohio. If you told me I had to go back into West Virginia to get to Indiana, I’d probably believe you.)

About three weeks ago, Christina and I were looking for a baseball game to attend, and two of our favorite teams (Fullerton and UCLA) were both out of town. Also, it had rained most of the weekend, throwing the schedule for the teams that were hosting games (LMU, USC and Cal State Northridge) into disarray. When everything shook out, Northridge was hosting a doubleheader against Washington State, starting at 10 a.m. Sunday, and since we had never been to a game there, it seemed like the place to go.

While the school requires a $6 daily parking permit, even on weekends, it was nice that tickets are just $5. We also picked up a couple of programs and a schedule, and almost immediately I noticed that West Virginia was making a trip to Northridge in mid-March.

Max Nogay sports WVU's digital camo.

Thanks to my smartphone, I was able to check with Daily Mail Sports Editor Chuck McGill on Facebook while still at the site. Chuck and I worked together at the Northern Virginia Daily for a few years, and have been able to stay in touch over the years and miles.

Chuck said it was quite possible he’d want a story while the Mountaineers were in Northridge, which is about 45 minutes to an hour up the 405 from Torrance. By the time they got here, we worked it out that I would file a story and some photos on March 15, after the final game of their spring break trip.

 The game turned into a wild 14-11 WVU victory, which featured 38 hits between the teams, allowing the Mountaineers to complete their West Coast swing with a 5-2 record, and raise their overall mark to 10-6. Now competing against teams from Texas and Oklahoma in the Big 12, it was important for WVU to get on the diamond while its home ballpark is still under snow, coach Randy Mazey told me.

West Virginia is building its baseball program as it prepares to move into a new stadium in Morgantown next year, one it will share with a New York-Penn League team, similar to the arrangement that Penn State and the State College Spikes have. From what I saw Saturday, the Mountaineers have put together a solid team, so it will be fun to keep an eye on them the rest of the season.

And I will be sure to keep an eye on the schedules when East Coast teams come west. If you need a story or art, give me a shout.

P.S. Here's a link to the story: http://www.charlestondailymail.com/Sports/WVUSports/201403160134

Cheesed off

So the European Union wants American food manufacturers to stop using words like Parmesan and feta to describe cheeses made here in the United States.

The Associated Press reports that this request has come as part of negotiations for new trade agreements between the old and new worlds. The EU says allowing American-made cheeses to carry those names, as well as others like Asiago, Gorgonzola and Romono, confuses consumers and hurts sales of European products.

I’d say the EU is full of baloney on this one, but it might want the word “bologna” back as well.

According to reporter Mary Clare Jalonick, who wrote the AP story on this issue earlier this week, Black Forest ham, Greek yogurt, Valencia oranges and prosciutto are other terms that the Europeans could endeavor to reclaim.

When I first saw this story, I wanted to make sure it wasn’t something out of the Onion. Speaking of which, I’m guessing if the U.S. goes along with this, we’ll probably be hearing from Bermuda next.

While changing the names of meats and cheeses sounds like a far-fetched request, and you’d think nations in the New World would just tell the EU to pound sand, some Central American countries and Canada have already acceded to the European demands. In the case of feta, Canada has agreed to market non-European versions under mouth-watering names like feta-like or feta-style, and will also refrain from using"Greek-like lettering" on the packaging.

There’s probably a joke about bacon vs. Canadian bacon to be made here, but since I really like their coffee and beer, I’m going to take a pass.

These names have now transcended their origination, and to capitulate on this issue will lead to only MORE confusion among American consumers. And in many cases, the connection is tenuous at best.

For instance, I had no idea that there is a region of France in the Vosgian mountains where there is  an abbey called “Munster.” All I know is that my grandmother’s recipe for pizza calls for Muenster cheese (notice the extra “e”) because it melts better and has more taste than mozzarella. If it has been called Muenster long enough that it’s used in a recipe that goes back at least 75 years, then I don’t need the EU telling me (or Dietz and Watson) to stop using the name.

And these names extend well beyond the deli. Thanks to “Jeopardy!” I know that Italian immigrants began using the word “cantaloupe” for muskmelons because of their similarity. I’m sure the EU wants its cantaloupe back too, even though the ones grown here are probably ten times better.

Our Smarties are different than their Smarties. And their Kit Kats are made by Nestle, not Hershey (can you imagine?), but the world has not collapsed.

U.S. Senate Democrats and Republicans, who agree on almost nothing, have found common ground fighting the EU request. The AP says a bipartisan group of 55 senators have written U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to ask that they resist requests to change the long-standing names associated with these foods.

This issue isn’t small potatoes. American-produced cheese is a $4 billion a year industry, according to the AP. Trying to get producers together to come up with standardized new names for these products is probably impossible.

Considering freedom of speech issues that would come along with this, I cannot imagine we’ll see food police penalizing grocery store managers for the use of words like scallion and Parmesan. It seems like a giant leap for Europeans to tell Americans what they can call their edibles.

But if we can use this issue for some consensus building in the Senate, then I am all for fending off the threat, as unlikely as it is.

NBC clings to prime-time Olympic recipe

Sometimes I feel like I am watching Phil Hartman do his impression of Charlton Heston through a litany of “Soylent Green” sequels.

You might remember the sketch from “Saturday Night Live,” where Hartman runs into the scenes of movies such as “Soylent White” and “Soylent Cow Pies,” still screaming that they are made of “people.”

Consider tonight’s broadcast of the opening ceremonies from the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, as “Soylent Green II,” and cue up Phil Hartman:  “Soylent Green is still made out of people. They didn't change the recipe like they said they were going to. IT'S STILL PEOPLE.”

Sure, NBC will stream lots of live coverage online for people who have cable or satellite packages and high-speed internet, and the Peacock’s sports networks will show live events, which is something sports fans overwhelmingly favored four years ago. But the focus of the network will still be on the overly edited, schmaltz-added prime time show each night. It has not changed that recipe.

It starts tonight with something that the rest of the world has already seen on the television sets live: The opening ceremonies. By delaying the telecast, there is no opportunity for viewers who like to tweet in real time to do so. About 65 to 70 percent of the audience will have the broadcast available at 8 Eastern/7 Central time, while another 25 percent will see it at 8 Pacific. Those on Mountain and Alaska/Hawaii will see it on other schedules. So forget sharing the experience with people who live elsewhere in the U.S., much less the rest of the world.

Then, as the competition gets under way, there will still be the issue of “spoilers.” And the people who don’t want to know the results of events that took place 12 or 18 hours ago because they want to watch it on NBC’s prime-time show.

Here’s a bulletin. It’s 2014. These are sports events. They are news, despite the way it might be packaged on NBC each night. If you want to/have to go out of your way to avoid the information, that’s on you. It might be best to just turn off your computer for the next two weeks.

I will give NBC a lot of credit for going ahead and clearing even the marquee events for live coverage on cable. Real sports fans will get to enjoy the competition as it unfolds. But that sort of increases the pressure on the folks who don’t want to know what happened until it appears on the prime time broadcast. While I like to be as considerate of other people’s feelings as I can, as a former sports editor I feel the other networks have zero responsibility to delay the reporting of any results.

It is quite silly in 2014, in this plugged in world, to call anything a spoiler. The number of folks who are now catching up with shows via binge watching makes having conversations even more difficult, as this great sketch from “Portlandia” notes. 

Christina and I steer clear of Twitter on Thursday nights so we can be surprised by each week’s episode of “Scandal.” If you want to take a similar stand so the NBC prime time show provides those thrills from the 1980s, go right ahead. But it will be awfully tough to remain unspoiled, and you should not harbor ill will toward the sports fans who will invariably be talking about the outcome of the competition.

It’s how sports fans talk to each other.

A 60-minute tour of Boston

It would be a lie to say it was the last thing on my mind.

I already knew late last month that I would be connecting through Boston on my flight from Long Beach to Richmond late Monday into Tuesday morning. As the day approached, I thought it was too bad I only had about an hour and 15 minutes to change planes; had it been four hours or so I might try to get pictures of the Massachusetts State House since I did not see it the last time I was in Boston in 2001.

Little did I know that when Christina took me to Long Beach Airport on Monday night that I would, in fact, get that four hour layover, and that approximately nine hours later I would be freezing my rear end off on the Boston Common.

It all started when the flight from Long Beach to Boston was delayed an hour because the crew was coming in on a delayed flight from San Francisco. This inconvenienced people who were headed to Dulles, since it was their plane, as well as the Boston-bound passengers. Our plane was sitting at the gate the whole time, but there was nobody to fly it or serve beer.

At first, the delay was only expected to be a half an hour, so the jetBlue people said I should still be able to make my connection to the 6:30 a.m. flight. I was offered an opportunity to rebook already at that point, but I figured there would be another flight to Richmond by lunchtime, and the lady said if I did not make the morning flight they would take care of me there.

We landed in Boston at 6:15 a.m., so things did not look so good. When the pilot was unable to find an open gate, that made things worse. When he finally got to a gate, the jetway was stuck (it WAS 9 degrees at the time) so that further delayed matters. Still, they were giving out gate information, and reassured the folks who were heading to Fort Lauderdale that their flight was being held, so I hoped I would be similarly lucky.

Getting to the gate was a bit of an ordeal of fast-walking with occasional bursts of speed, weighed down by a backpack that contained my laptop and Christmas presents and further encumbered by my camera bag. But I kept going, because if they held the Fort Lauderdale flight then maybe, just maybe, mine would still be there.

Obviously the story would end right there if the plane had not already begun taxiing toward the runway. In fact, the sign at the gate even gave "taxiing" as the flight's status. So there I stood, at 6:35 a.m., with no place to go for four hours. I called my Mom to tell her not to bother coming to the airport until 12:30 p.m. and then I thought about my next move. After all, I could probably go SOMEWHERE as long as I was back at the airport by 9 a.m..

Luckily, Christina and I discussed this possibility on Monday night, and she had enough time to look up some of  the specifics before my flight left Long Beach. It was basically this: Take the free Silver Line bus from Logan Airport through the Ted Williams Tunnel to South Station, then take the Red Line two stops toward Alewich. It was then an 8-minute walk, according to the MTA, but as it turns out you can already see the statehouse when you exit the station on the Boston Common.

It had warmed up to 12 degrees and I had on clothes more appropriate for 40 or 50, but I gutted it out. I walked across the Common, got my photos of the statehouse (that's No. 33 on the list now), then took more photos of a live-shot Channel 25 was doing on the other side of the street.

When I pulled up Foursquare to check in, the statehouse was nowhere to be found on the list, but near the top was the Bull and Finch, whose exterior was used for Cheers (the bar) on "Cheers" (the show). Since it was only five or six blocks away, I figured I should go down there and get some photos as well.

Soon after that, I realized that "HEY IT'S 12 DEGREES," and maybe I need to get back on the T and return to the airport. I was probably outside for an hour in that temperature, but I seem no worse for the wear. I'm sure the feeling in my fingers will come back by they time I'm done with this blog post.

Back at the airport, the security lines were not too bad (at least by Logan's standards). They were bringing a couple of kegs through and one of the supervisors kiddingly asked the guy in front of me if they belonged to him. After they both chuckled, I said, "Actually, they're mine," and all three of us enjoyed the joke.

My new ticket said the flight was leaving from Gate 28, but when I walked past Gate 26 it had apparently been moved there. Five minutes later they decided we should go to Gate 33. JetBlue was nice enough to give me a voucher for breakfast or lunch, so I stopped at a Dunkin' Donuts stand for a sandwich, a doughnut and a coffee (eat your heart out, Los Angeles).

The flight to Richmond left about 20 minutes late, but was smooth. And it was great to see my mom again after nearly a year since my last trip home. But I was happy that I turned what could have been a distressing situation into a positive experience.