Late Night With My Brain

So the thing about David Letterman is that he's the best late show host.

He isn't the funniest (Conan), the most entertaining (Ferguson), the best band-having (Fallon you know how lucky you are, you fuck) or the BLANK BLANK I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY ABOUT LENO. I sincerely hope Jay Leno just spontaneously turns into a big bag of hot sand and is dispersed by the wind, never to return.

He's just the best, because he understands exactly what his job entails. He's on, late at night, and he's basically a vehicle for people to come on and shill their movie/music/anything. His job is to be enough of a draw that people will sit through commercials for an hour longer after TV stops airing any shows worth anything at all. 

He doesn't have to be original, or even funny. Shit will happen in the world, and all SEVEN or so real late night hosts will pounce on the same stale shit and they'll maybe make a lukewarm joke about the latest politics or sports or scandal. It isn't even NEWS, it's just the sort of stuff that's been replaced by chain emails from your aunt for the past five years.

And Letterman UNDERSTANDS this, and just goes "Fuck it". He's 64 and he's been doing this shit for thirty years now.
He's been doing the same shit for longer than our entire lives.

Now, maybe earlier the Late Show was a breath of fresh air in the fetid talk show universe (it was). Maybe it was innovative and genuinely funny at some point...like Garfield.

Maybe the comic strip Garfield was at some point in its existence genuinely funny.
Isn't that a terrifying thought.
But now it just exists because it always has existed, even though you go "this isn't funny. this is not performing the singular job it was made for. why is this a thing that is a thing."

I watched Letterman last night. I watched this exact bit, and I just softly applauded an obvious zen master of television.
Watch him. Watch him just straight up not give a single fuck about his guest, this segment, the old people who came to see his show during their touristy travels in New York, or any other aspect of his entire fucking job.


It's pure poetry. It's just multiple layers of irony. This is Bro Strider level piano-master-class.
Watching David Letterman chuck these stupid toys around, daring his nationwide audience to do anything, giving absolutely zero fucks or shits about not a single god damned thing....it just gives me hope for the future, you know?

And. AND. That last toy bit? Listen to the band. Dave starts launching UFO's into the crowd, no fucks attached, and Paul "I'm Like Gilbert Gottfried Behind An Organ" Shaffer immediately launches into Billy Preston's "Outta Space"

Mother.

Fuckers.