Salt in Wound

Did David Letterman have an impact on my life? Well, he changed the way I speak, so I guess that’s kind of a big deal. You see, I unconsciously drop the word “the” into sentences where that word isn’t really necessary, just like Dave does. “Are you familiar with the Instagram, Paul?” “I finally signed up for the Netflix.” “Are you like me, do you enjoy the baseball?” etc. And then the person I’m talking to almost always says back, slightly mocking, “the Instagram?!?” What can I say, at some point in the past 35 years, it just kind of seeped into my brain.

Back in the summer of 1980, between 5th and 6th grades, I don’t know who in my household flipped on The David Letterman Show one morning. Me? My sister? My mom? I don’t know, but I was immediately hooked. Rich Hall was really funny. So were Edie McClurg and Valri Bromfield. Edwin Newman read the news. Loudon Wainwright III sang about a dead skunk in the middle of the road.

A couple of years later, I’d bought a small black-and-white TV with my bar mitzvah money. And so, in my room, I’d watch Johnny Carson’s monologue every night before bed. In 7th or 8th grade, my friend Glenn and I did a stand-up routine at the school talent show. The next year Glenn had moved away, so I decided to go solo. Except on the night of the talent show, I was going to be out of town for some reason. So I tape-recorded my comedy routine, which was then played in the auditorium to accompany a slideshow of me that my buddy Jeff helped make. Also, in a daily writing exercise in Language Arts class, I created my own talk show, hosted by a character named Rod Parker.

What I’m saying is, I really liked this stuff.

Carson was a huge influence, sure. A freshman-year talk-show video project we did (Of Mice and Men via The Rod Parker Show, co-starring Amit, filmed by Kenny) utilized Ed McMahon’s Tonight Show intro. But it’s quite telling that just two years later, our MacBeth video project (co-starring Steve and Rob, filmed by good ol’ Kenny) was a top-to-bottom ode to Letterman, including our “Stupid Apparition Tricks.”

Me as David MacLetterman…

…and Steve as Paul

By then, my family owned a VCR. I taped Late Night Monday through Thursday, and then would watch them all in one weekend sitting, fast-forwarding through commercials. (Yes, I invented binge-watching.) I taped over them but saved a few “important” episodes, such as David Letterman’s Tri-State special from October 26, 1985, and one from a couple of weeks later with a segment called “Meat Bags.”

I was 16 years old and obsessed. Show after show after show, so many classic bits. I remember the first night they did a top-ten list. When Late Night With David Letterman: The Book came out in the fall of 1985, I bought it right away. I’d end up purchasing a number of show-related books over the years. And tangentially show-related books as well.

I bought magazines too. Newsweek, February 3, 1986: “Staying Up Late With Letterman.” Read it on a Model United Nations trip. There were a couple of sentences in there that resonated very powerfully. Dave said that in school, he wasn’t a jock, or a popular kid, or a smart kid. Instead, he was with the people who sat in the back and made fun of the jocks, the popular kids, the smart kids. I thought, hey, that’s kind of how I feel. That’s the way to be.

I went off to college in Pittsburgh and was now staying awake to watch (often with my buddy Todd). When I graduated with a degree in creative writing, my first “application” was to Late Night With David Letterman. I sent in a page of jokes I’d written (“I get so few phone calls, the outgoing message on my answering machine is ‘Sorry, you’ve reached a wrong number.'”) and some copies of my college-paper comic strip. I explained that I’d take any sort of job they had.

It was the only job I wanted.

Shortly after, I received an envelope from NBC, returning my submissions. The note said they did not read any unsolicited material. But, how did you get solicited? I was absolutely heartbroken.

I landed a not-TV-writing job in central Jersey. Steve and I went to see favorite comedians from Letterman, such as Gilbert Gottfried and Jake Johannsen, at Catch a Rising Star in the Princeton Hyatt. (In high school, Steve and I had gone to see Jay Leno at the Club Bené in Morgan, New Jersey; we loved him on Letterman.)

By the late summer of 1992, I was working in New York City. My college friend Mary kindly introduced me to her coworker Jennifer, and we hit it off and started dating. But very soon I became scared or bored or both, and wanted out of the relationship. Ah, but Jennifer had obtained Letterman tickets! So I had to hang in there for at least a couple of weeks more. That was September 29, 1992: Tim Allen, Glenn Frey, Claudia Schiffer. In the lobby of 30 Rock I shook hands with Chris Farley. That was cool.

By that point, Carson had already been retired for four months. (I taped and saved his final broadcast.) On June 25, 1993, Letterman did his final Late Night (taped it, saved it), and on August 30, the Late Show debuted (taped, saved).

It was now a slicker show, with a bigger band, and not quite as wacky. But Letterman was still Letterman, so I had no real complaints. Dave was going for that big 11:30 audience, the late-night brass ring, and for a while, he genuinely had it. I was proud.

Shortly after the switch to CBS, I began dating another Letterman-appreciating woman. Oh how we enjoyed “The Strong Guy, The Fat Guy, The Genius” (April 8, 1994). And yes, we saw Cabin Boy together in the theater. Would you like to buy a monkey?

In late 1996, I went to a Late Show taping for the first time, with my buddy Russell. Bigger, brighter studio. I remember where we sat but not who the guests were. Huh!

In very late 1996, things went south with the girlfriend. It got kind of ugly, not at all helped by the fact that we worked in the same department. And yet, a few months later when she left the job too, I had a gift for her: a pair of Letterman tickets that I’d scored.

That was me saying that despite it all, I cared, that she’d been important to me.

I didn’t attend another Late Show taping until May 14, 2004: Me and Steve at the “4 a.m. Show.” Yes, the audience actually came in at 4:00 in the morning. Guests were Amy Sedaris, author Robert Sullivan, Modest Mouse. And everybody got Egg McMuffins. Awesome.

And then nearly a decade passed until we went again: May 1, 2014 (aired on May 2). But of course Steve and I had to go; a month earlier, Dave had announced he was retiring, so we had to pay our respects. Comedian Carmen Lynch was funny, and it was cool to see Sean Lennon in his project Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger. But the absolute highlight was Don Rickles, the legend, in person. Wow!

I thought that was probably it for me, but then my friend Deb came through with some tickets. Nice! So this past February 12, I headed once more to the Ed Sullivan Theater. Luck was really on our side: the great Tom Hanks (another favorite from my youth) was the main guest, a last-minute replacement for freshly scandal-ridden Brian Williams. And, whoa, we were seated in the front row!

Then things got even more surreal. During Dave’s pre-show Q&A with the audience, Deb raised her hand and pointed out that she and Dave had shared an elevator in a hospital some years back. Later, when the actual taping began, the first words out of Letterman’s mouth: “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Late Show, thank you very much. The doctor will see you now.” And the camera cut to where Deb and I were sitting. So that’s a real nice memory for me, to be shown laughing at Letterman on national TV.

And now, the end is truly near. Ever since Dave announced his retirement, I’ve made an effort to watch as much as possible—at least the monologue and opening comedy segments. As years had gone by, I wasn’t watching quite as much. I don’t know, the Internet has been incredibly distracting, and then smartphones? Yikes. It takes some real effort to sit there and genuinely pay attention to the TV.

And the show changed too. By his own admission, Dave wasn’t putting in as much effort in recent years; goodbye to those great segments outside the studio. Becoming a dad, his priorities changed. I have to admit that I’ve found it a little annoying in Dave’s fatherhood era that he asks every guest about their kids. But, in retrospect, I guess it’s kind of sweet.

Still, even through changes in my life, Dave’s life, the world, the show, I’ve never been less than fiercely loyal. Didn’t watch Leno, didn’t watch Colbert, don’t watch Kimmel, Wilmore, Fallon. It’s been Dave or nothing, always.

My college friend Frank and I have exchanged a series of succinct emails and texts over the past 20-plus years: Martin Short on Letterman tonight. Steve Martin on Letterman tonight. Bill Murray. Chris Elliott. Jeff Altman.

I simply cannot overstate Letterman’s impact on me. I define myself first and foremost as being funny. (I never did get a TV job, but I do get to write funny things fairly often, plus I emcee shows, and am on the Internet radio, so I certainly get my fix.) And no other person has remotely shaped my sense of humor—my overall sensibility—like David Letterman has. Early on they said he was mean, but he never seemed mean to me. They were just jokes. Every bit of it connected with me so much—the sarcasm, absurdity, smartness, and the absolute refusal to be a phony.

Steve and I in the Late Show audience, 28 years after our “MacLetterman” project.

We grow up, we get older, things change, and things go away. I’ve slowly come to terms with all that, and try not to let changes rattle me too much. And yet, some losses can still really punch you in the gut. This show has been such a reliable comfort for me for so very long, through so many other changes. It’s been a day-in, day-out continuum, holding my hand from my teen years up until today. As clichéd as it seems, they really do seem like friends to me, like family: the band, writers, crew. I’m going to miss it so much. It’s really strange to think about. Strange, and sad, and a little scary.

Yet, when all is said and done, I keep coming back to the extreme appreciation I feel. So thank you for all the laughs, for all the years, for helping me to become the person that I am. Thank you so much, David Letterman.

And at least I’ll always have my pile of completely obsolete VHS tapes.