Seth Meyers and John Oliver Talking About Empty Rooms Is So Lovely.

 We've all learnt to laugh into our arms. 

 

 I've adored John Oliver on here before, but never been able to squeeze in how much I've grown to love and really value Seth Meyers. When he first took over the orange and teal chat show Late Night, all he really wanted to do it seemed was talk about Saturday Night Live, where he'd hosted "Weekend Update". But somewhere along the line, a second topical segment was introduced on top of the opening run of one-liners, "A Closer Look", and by the time Trump took office, this segment had grown from a four-minute bit, to a nightly monologue running sometimes to a quarter of an hour, more topical material than even Jon Stewart's Daily Show. "Closer Look" became how I get my news from America. It kept up, and backed by extraordinary research, it still rings with the clarity of a closing argument, while the real News seems oddly committed to propitiating contextless insanity. I don't think Britain has anything like it, it is all up on youtube, and it's a frankly invaluable resource.

 

 When the pandemic hit, my admiration for Meyers grew even more. 

 I'd always thought he'd had the best writers – who, like Fallon in the seat before him, he seemed happy to foreground – but no late-night host adjusted better to performing in isolation: Meyers moved to his attic, and then to his in-laws, populating both new workplaces with a background head canon of talking portraits, mysterious small doors, and self-replicating copies of Colleen McCullough's "The Thorn Birds". More crucially, he didn't wait for laughs that never came. His entire delivery changed to please only himself, and you can still see this change now he's back in the studio performing to a crew of ten. "A Closer Look", whose punchlines Meyers now powers through, is as great as ever, if not greater. Here's last night's on Matt Gaetz, featuring gorgeous footage of Trump repeatedly calling him "Rick", but included below is the chat Meyers had afterwards with John Oliver, about what might happen next, and how empty the rooms were when they started out – two comedians who've kept track having an absolute blast. I was howling.

 

 

"Stay safe. Wear a mask. We love you."

And John Oliver Returning to the Bugle IS Christmas

 

 ... inasmuch as it's the apex of unadulterated fun and laughter in the dark times.

 Hm, okay. I've been trying to write one post per day for a year now, and every single word is going funny on me at this point. Look at that sentence above. "Inasmuch"? Get a room, syllables. Also, exactly what does "adulterating" actually involve? And why does the word "adultery" feature so prominently in it? Come to think of it, why does the word "adult" feature so prominently in the word "adultery"? I'm going to look this up – Right, that has happened: Apparently, "adultery" comes from a word meaning "to spoil", and has nothing to do with the word "adult", which is actually the past tense of the root of "adolescent". So we're adolts once we're done adolescing. 

 I digress. But that's fine, because so does this video. And it is so wonderful seeing John Oliver (who hasn't done too badly in America either) catch up with Andy Saltzman since their last broadcast together five years ago, clearly relishing the chance to bollock on about inconsequential nonsense like the sex life of frogs, or the naming of snow ploughs, with no danger of any of it getting a sewage plant named after him. "Nothing's changed," he says, and that's what this feels like, and it's a lovely feeling for the end of the year. I've missed this sound. 

 Parenthetically, and tangentially – and I really don't know what words mean any more – over on f*c*book, I saw more love being shared for Stephen Oliver's brilliant soundtrack to the BBC's Lord of the Rings as recommended in this post, and learnt that he was John Oliver's uncle...

 

 What do you think?

"It Was Good While It Lasted"

 Ah! Here's where I got "statue lovers" from: this great post-Charlottesville piece from John Oliver back in 2017. Following the tearing down of the (very nicely sculpted) statue of human trafficker Edward Colston, it's funny to see these "pro-history" arguments rolled out again, but not funny ha ha.

 Bristol Police's own response to the toppling, however, had me absolutely beaming, and feeling even, I don't know, pride?

Good man. https://t.co/VmYvlsGRoW

— Peter Davis (@TweeterDavis) June 7, 2020

... Probably, if I'm honest, more pride than I felt hearing the response of my local MP. I mean, I get it, softly softly and everything, but either the statue should have been taken down, or it shouldn't. Show a little gratitude, hon. And that's all from White Guys Talk About Statues for tonight. Hope you're all doing tremendously.

Days of National Humiliation

"It's not the despair, Laura. I can stand the despair. It's the hope." Clockwise

 It's not really though, is it? As I write this, the polls are still open, but the Conservatives don't appear to be breaking a sweat, and the odd engagements I've had with Tory voters on twitter have given me very clear hints why Blair and co. thought it such a good idea to rename the party: for so many in Britain, the very word "Labour" is bafflingly, deafeningly toxic. Back at Tory HQ meanwhile, following the example of Trump, the Conservatives have learnt the best way to win at Democracy – as with Global Thermonuclear War – is simply not to play. Instead, attack human rights as enablers of terrorism, attack the judiciary as "enemies of the people" and, fuck it, attack the very principle of opposition as a tedious attempt to "frustrate the will of the people". I almost included attack the media as discredited pests, but of course both sides have done their share of that, with the odd honorable exception. And Christ, that clip was hard to find! Googling "Corbyn defends press" gets you three pages of Corbyn instead attacking it. Someone should write a strongly worded letter to Google's offices, that'll fix it. 

 I am voting Labour, you might not be surprised to read. I've even made the odd campaign contribution, although I actually left the party, almost a year ago, after it backed Brexit. Watching Corbyn's performance during this campaign, however, I get it now: voting is sacred to him. That's why he never stood down having won that vote, why he backs Brexit, why he rebelled so often while voting as a backbencher while producing such a coherent manifesto, and why he refuses to consider any further "deal-making" to form a coalition. He has clearly always believed that a vote is a genuine expression of the self, and that a democracy must honour those expressions. Well, good for him, I suppose. It's proved a pretty strong platform this past month. And we'll see. But the attempts at uniting a country have come and gone. Even the campaign slogan "For The Many, Not the Few" foreshadows, a little too strongly, some incoming civil war, and only the Right benefits from division. As I'm sure I wrote elsewhere – although I can't find that now either – I've always preferred the motto of the London Olympics' Opening Ceremony:

 And I remember* John Oliver once made this observation about the elections in Egypt: "Under a dictatorship you get used to a dictator kicking you in the balls. Under a democracy you have to get used to half your own population kicking you in the balls." I'm not sure it's google-able, you'll just have to take my word for it. I'm still in Frankfurt. I only know what happens on social media. I think my friend Gemma's in Stratford now. She's making a show about the Civil War. She's been researching it for years. Fun fact: one of Oliver Cromwell's big ideas once he came to power was to replace Holidays with "Days of National Humiliation". Nobody thought there'd be a civil war before then either, she told me. Sides just became too entrenched.

"Oh well..." a sign in Frankfurt.

* and, it turns out, have already blogged about...

Jimmy Fallon has all the best ideas.

Or his writers do, I don't know, however it works. Obviously looking up old US talk-show clips on youtube isn't all I've been doing with my evenings (and afternoons*) but - you know how it is - the mind gets into a groove, you work evenings, mostly, and you've moved again so there's loads of conveniently out-of-the-way stuff in boxes to once again find less convenient places for and you feel at home finally but you've become so used to feeling displaced and so YES... I have been watching quite a bit of Jimmy Fallon AS IT HAPPENS.

The scope for unchecked, sloppy fun paradoxically afforded by the industrial-scale demands of a nightly American talk-show (as opposed to its weekly UK counterpart) is a contradiction I first fell for back watching The Larry Sanders Show nearly twenty years ago, long before youtube gave me access to the less fictional snippets of Conan, Jay, Letterman, Kimmell and Craig Ferguson (Craig Ferguson?!) which I now sort-of-I-guess-enjoy, but my enthusiasm for the theatrical and even pastoral responsibilities of the nightly hour-long telly treadmill has remained  undimmed and chipper. John Oliver has of course just taken over hosting duties on The Daily Show, I know, and yay! - but the political focus and consequence of that particular gig make it a bad example of what I'm trying to talk about here. This is what I'm talking about:

This is Jimmy Fallon. Until recently I knew him only as the corpsing drummer in that Will Ferrell sketch where Christopher Walken says "More Cow Bell" (good luck finding that online) but the more familiar I become with Fallon's talent the more convinced I am it's really Fallon's frivolity which turned More Cow Bell into something loved enough to gets its own T-shirt. His attention to the whole is seemingly instinctive, his care over detail is on a par with CERN's, and he has an ear and an eye unmatched by anyone else I can think of working in studio-based television. Take the sketch above: two boards are wheeled on, a filter's applied and suddenly we're in a movie - that's your joke, that's Love, that's Art. Seriously. Or when he plays Neil Young singing the them tune to "Fresh Prince" and is absolutely in it, it's the shadow cast by the hat over his eyes that means someone somewhere involved in this is a meticulous genius...

Or Steve Martin punching Death in the face, here...

Or the decision not to prerecord these twenties inserts, here...

Or everything about this even though I've no idea who Michael McDonald is...

I'm reminded of The Muppet Show, but with better jokes, or what Adam Buxton might make if he was given his own talk show, or indeed anything. Have you half an hour still spare? Join me.

Excellent idea.

 "Who's on first?" extended edition. Excellent idea.

 PeeWee Herman's "Dark Knight Rises". Excellent idea.

Spoofing this. Foolhardy, but an excellent idea.

Naming guys. Excellent idea.

Not raising interest rates on student loans. Excellent idea. And if Jeffrey Tambor, formerly of "Larry Sanders", happens to be a guest on your show, well this idea is...

Also excellent. To say nothing of "Let Us Play With Your Look", "At the bar with Roger Federer", Real Stars of "Guess Who?", "Mom Dancing with Michelle Obama", "Rap Histories", "True Facts of Truth", "Real People, Fake Arms" basically I've watched the whole damn channel.
I love him.

* and days.