and they called him king ..

[frenchy]

a long long time ago in a land where television was still kinda new there was a show called the tonight show .. it had a few hosts startin with steve allen and then jack parr but neither of them stayed for more than a few years until johny carson took the reins .. and there he ruled the late night airwaves for 30 years , altho it must be said there really wasn't any competition for most of them 30 years .. for a little while you had merv griffin in some markets and dick cavett tried his hand at it too but i heard it pretty much gave him a nervous breakdown .. and then joan rivers tried too but she had crossed the king and he made it well known to everyone with the decree that if they appeared on her show then they couldn't also appear on his .. for johnny carson could be a vengeful king .. on his 10th anniversary they gave him a party and joey bishop said a few words statin that this wasn't really johnny's 10 anniversary but his 6th and johnny's 4th because he had subbed as host for him so often .. of course it was a joke but you never saw joey bishop guest host again .. seems the king didn't have such a great sense of humor .. but thats not the point of this post .. because its not that hard to be the king if you're the only one in the kingdom .. no.. this post is about his heir .. jay leno ..

last thursday nite was jay's last show and the more i think about it the more it pisses me off .. why ?? because they let him go because of his age .. its as if by marginalizin him they also marginalized me too .. and all of us here in this group .. its as if .. like pluto we were a planet and then we were not .. we have all been plutoed .. it wasn't just jay .. its as if none of us count anymore .. now i could see before when they fired conan obrien because he took the tonight show from 1st in the ratins to dead last .. no network wants to keep runnin a show thats not bein watched .. but that was never the case with jay .. he was always number one . when they let him go for conan he was number one by a wide margin and now again when they let him go for jimmy fallon he was again number one by a wide margin .. and here's the thing , unlike the king of late nite jay did it against all commers and always won .. jay was there everyday come rain or come shine , in sickness and in health .. no matter what .. jay was there .. in fact jay was there so much in his 22 years he actually hosted more shows than the king did by a few hundred ..jay really loved that show .. and dare i say it but i'm pretty sure he loved it more than johnny carson ever did ..  so who are these nbc execs ?? how old are they ?? and how will they feel when someone sweeps them out the door when they're 57 or 59 , or 56 .. because they just ain't with it anymore .. cause after all none of us watch tv anymore now that we're in our late 50's or early 60's .. who cares what we think cause we are now the invisible generation .. get them nursin home beds warmed up cause here we come .. lets not say anything tho ok cause we don't want to get them younger folks upset with us .. cause after all what could we possibly know ? we're old and in the way now .. but here's the really sad thing , all them younger folks who think its ok  will someday be thinkin gee , now they're doin it to me too , wish i woulda said somethin but nobody ever said anything so i never thought about it .. gettin old is always somethin that happens to someone else .. till it happens to us .. then it becomes real .. 

in closin i'd just like to say i have nothin against jimmy fallon .. i think unlike conan he'll probably do ok hostin the tonight show .. but if they let jay stay 2 or 3 more years what would it have hurt ?? fallon would have still got the tonite show , jay woulda left when he was ready instead of bein kicked out and i wouldn't be so pissed off now .. somehow i think 63 is kinda young to kick somebody out .. especially if they're still performin well .. do they do that in corporate board rooms too ?? well mr. chairman we had another banner year ..our stock has gone up 4 fold ,  we crushed the competition and we have to fire you.. see ya later bye...

how do you guys feel about bein plutoed ?? be honest .. 

  

[T2Friends]

I sure do understand what you are talking about Frenchy.  I am starting to encounter similar issues at work.  We have a new Mayor here in Boston and the head of my agency is trying to find her way under new leadership.  She keeps talking about pulling together smart young people to take part in focus groups to try to come up with new approaches.  Every time she says this I cringe.   With 20+ years of experience, if she could define the problem she is trying to solve, I know that I could devise a solution, that would actually work given the tools and regulatory environment we have to deal with, but she keeps looking for those young smart people.... And yet, I keep offering up ideas and working my butt off to do what I can to make her a success and keep my job.  

The interviews I have seen with Jay suggested that he was thinking of leaving in about a year anyway,  when the Network spoke with him about replacing him and that together they came up with a date.  Then the Network approached him about moving up the date by 6 months, and they agreed to pay him and his staff for the time.  Not a bad deal.  Sure he could have stayed and done very well, but he is going out on top now and ya know what, my guess is he'll have plenty of opportunities if he wants them and if not, he will have lots of things to keep him busy regardless. 

There is a commercial that plays around here that talks about how retirement is how you pay yourself to do what you love.  Like you are doing right now.  You sold your business and retired years ago and now you are doing what you love with your guitars...I always think of how lucky you are that you were able to do just what you are doing.  I assumed you were at peace with the anonymousness of life at our age.  It isn't easy to swallow.  I have been struggling with the feeling of invisibility myself.  I keep wondering if this is it for me...could be...but maybe I have a bit more fight in me yet...we shall see.

 

[ProblemAgain]

i stopped watching late night tv a long time ago. i liked carson but the ones who came after carson were distasteful to me tho leno was the least distasteful of them. the rest just irritate me between the smirk on their faces and the juvenile banter.

 as far as pushing us out on the iceflo? it's the same thing that's been going on for generation after generation. that's why working people banded together to form unions so the older workers didn't get hosed after 30 years of lugnuts or whatever. and the television and all the other marketing has been slightly but constantly shifting for a while now. the boomer generation is not as easily sold crap as the younger ones...at least not any more since we already bought that piece of shit. one of the best pieces of advice for young people is stop buying crap cause first of all you have to take care of it and second it usually falls apart.  our increasing age is why they are pushing certain marketing right now whether it is depends or denture cream or even the 50 year anniversary of the beatles. somewhere there are record and movie execs figuring holy horseshit batman if we don't sell this stuff NOW before those old goofs die off, we never will so they are dragging all the crap out of the vaults to market . you think your kids want to buy any beatles or sinatra or 'classic rock'?

 we do have choices.we can tolerate being ignored or we can become mettlesome and easily irritated and so very very vocal about it. that does seem to work..especially if you are reasonable and logical and polite when you tell them they are assholes. what can i say? it's a gift.

[ProblemAgain]

i was talking music with a kid at a college one day a while back. this current crop doesn't know who louis armstrong is.....the plus side is when you can turn young people onto great or distinctive artists of the past like ben webster or lee wiley or any of a multiple of the earlier musicians who did the groundwork for the present day. but they have to be willing to step out of the here and now selling environment to experience something different. welcome to pandora and lastfm.com. a musical education never sounded so great.

[T2Friends]

mettlesome...love that word.  lol

[ProblemAgain]

as in willing to get in an idjit's face when they mess up...or their manager's face...why should we take bad service?

[CaliforniaNow]

I don't miss Leno so much; he's doing fine elsewhere anyway.  (He even did that walk-on on the The Arsenio Hall Show and he's got the half-hour doc on CNN.)  I kinda miss the Tonight Show, because what's on now is basically The Late Show with Jimmy Fallon but earlier.  I prefer the big studio, the big band, etc.  But he's okay.  Seth Meyers is pretty funny afterward.

[Karin M Fichtner]

It's kinda funny....I used to prefer Dave Letterman to Jay, but the last couple of years, I have found Letterman to be kinda snarky, and he has the same guys on over and over. Only time I watch him is if Jack Hanna brings his animals....which usually scare the crap out of Letterman.....or when Johnny Depp is plugging his latest movie; Letterman is the only late-night talk show Johnny does. I found Jay funny...especially his Headlines bit. I didn't like "Jay Walking", though; never have found any humor in stupidity. Fallon will change the look of the Tonight Show, I think, and it will probably do well. He's a talented man.....sings, dances, acts....and he does interviews well. I wish him luck. I have actually been watching him a lot lately. I'm a night owl anyway....may as well have something amusing to watch at the end of my news-filled, drama-filled, tv day.

[CaliforniaNow]

Fallon kept his Thursday Hashtags piece, so I'm glad of that.  He used to occasionally have a thing that was like Leno's Headlines only online stuff that people had sent in.  Maybe if he would do that on Mondays, we'd be reconciled.

Depp on the Letterman show:  yes.

[Karin M Fichtner]

Aha! Another Johnny Depp fan! I knew ther was something I liked about you! ;-)

[T2Friends]

I am a huge Depp fan.  Have been since his 21 Jump Street days.  He is an amazing actor.

[Karin M Fichtner]

Can't wait til next month.....his new science fiction film opens.