Back in the early 90s Bill Carter wrote a book about how NBC screwed up by giving the "Tonight Show" to Jay Leno rather than the obvious heir apparent, David Letterman, called "The Late Shift". I read that book many years ago and loved it, being a big Letterman fan, I felt he got screwed. So did Conan O'Brien, and Carter's back with "The War for Late Night", about how NBC screwed up AGAIN.
A little backstory here: the first late night program I watched was Johnny Carson's final episode of the "Tonight Show" when I was 14. My dad was a big Carson fan, and told me I should stay up and watch history being made, so I did. I remember asking my dad why he was retiring. I liked Carson, he seemed witty and funny and a genuinely nice guy, the kind of guy I wouldn't mind staying up until 11:35 to watch. Dad said he'd been doing it for 30 years and was tired. I could understand that.
My sister and I were probably the only two people in the world who refused to miss "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" when it debuted. We *loved* Conan. We recorded every show (I'm sure my sis still has those VHS tapes somewhere...). I thought everyone loved Conan, and it kind of surprised me when I was discussing this book with my dad last week and he said how glad he was Leno was back because he never found Conan funny. That surprised me, since I always thought my dad had a fairly decent sense of humor. Oh, well, I guess Leno really is a generational thing. I never liked him and when NBC gave Letterman the shaft I followed him to CBS. I haven't watched late night in a dozen years, since I got a real job and was expected to show up early in the mornings :)
The point of all this rambling? Well, Carter does a beautiful job showing how the evil villain in this whole late night mess (and it *is* a mess) is NBC and their greed. They snatched the "Tonight Show" away from Leno before he was ready to give it up just because they thought they were going to lose Conan to a rival network and they realized just how brilliant and funny Conan was and didn't want to lose him. Boy they made a mess out of the whole deal. I feel bad for Conan, but if I'm ever up until 11 o' clock at night (which I very, very rarely am) I'll tune into Letterman.
Climbing off my soapbox now..."Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall was a fascinating look into long distance runners and what motivates them as well as if it's better for you to run barefoot. I like running, although I'm not terribly good at it (my aforementioned sister has convinced me to run in the OC half-marathon this next May. We'll see how that turns out!). These people who run 100 miles in one stretch have such an enviable passion for it. It was a great read.
"Stolen Away" by Max Allan Collins is a fictionalized account of the Lindbergh kidnapping, one of my true crime favorites, up there with Lizzie Borden. I try to read everything I can get my hands on about both subjects. Collins puts forth a very plausible account of how the kidnapping could have gone down, with Al Capone masterminding the whole thing from behind bars in an attempt to get out of prison. I never thought Hauptmann, who was electrocuted for the crime, was guilty, so I liked Collin's premise. It makes me want to reread Scaduto's brilliant "Scapegoat", which is sitting on my bookshelf, beckoning me :)
Ammon Shea wrote the dry and witty history of the phone book in "The Phone Book: the book everyone uses but no one reads". It was one of those books that, when you're done reading it, you go "I could have written that!". I liked it, though, it was short and quick but reminded me that I'm not the only weirdo out there who looks at things like phone books as a trip down memory lane.
And finally, humorist P.J. O'Rourke's look at what's wrong with American politics "Don't Vote it Just Encourages the Bastards". It was funny, but not as funny as I was expecting, based on his previous works I'd read. I enjoyed it, though, and he makes a lot of great points.
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