Matt Zimmer's Journal

But seriously, Quentin Tarantino is a fucking asshole. How has been been running roughshod over Hollywood for decades while being such a miserable, loathsome person?

Also a review for the latest episode of South Park.

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With what the country is going through, Dave is in my thoughts. I think he'd probably be killing this moment if he were still on the air. And I also doubt unlike Colbert he would have have said anything remotely controversial. He would offer the exact same opinion about the merger Colbert did. But nobody would have been offended.

Letterman was one of my comedy idols growing up. Thing to note is MANY of those comic idols (sneers in John Kricfalusi's direction) turned out to be misguided in hindsight. I feel perfectly comfortable with my fandom of Late Night and then the Late Show. Yes, Letterman has had some accusations against him. But the thing that tells me he never would have been taken down by MeToo is that he always offered full transparency. When a tabloid journalist learned he was having an extramarital affair, they tried to blackmail him for a payday. Instead Dave admits his transgressions the very next night on the Late Show and better yet, the reason he came forward at all. Dave not only always refused to sell out. He refused to be used by people with money or who wanted it.

One of the things I love about Letterman is the way he speaks and how effective an advocate he is for his political opinions (most of which perhaps not incidentally aligned with mine). I was never one of those people who thought George W Bush seemed like the kind of guy I could have a beer with. Dave sincerely detested him (and Al Gore was an old friend of the Late Show) so I seemed to too. I believe Dave's run of Campaign 2000 was perhaps the highlight of any talk show era ever. It was hilarious and it was riveting too.

More on how Dave speaks. Dave would have slammed CBS for caving to Trump for the sake of the merger. But he would not be pointed about it. He would use words to sound concerned and frustrated in an understated midwestern manner. He'd be like "Gosh, that sounds silly." Dave saying something "sounded silly" was like him saying "Bless Your Heart" With ten extra c-words at the end after detonating a nuke.

And Dave never explicitly advocated for the Democratic Party, but people, especially those from his home state of Indiana, which is blood red now, took what he said seriously. It's the fact that Dave is the kind of guy who will huff "That's just not right" which is why he never got in trouble for his political humor and why Indiana loves him. If he ran for Senator or Governor as a Dem in Indiana, he'd win in a landslide.

As far as current politics go, I think David Letterman was and still IS everything both Jon Stewart and Bill Maher THINK they are, but aren't. He's an iconoclast at heart, but he's sincere and mild enough to never make you feel like he's either pushing an agenda, or saying what he's saying to improve his own profile. He's sincere.

This shocked many of his Late Show guests, especially because of his prankish nature on Late Night. But once Dave hit 11:30 at night, stepping into Carson's shoes (that did not fit Leno) he became a Master Showman and a total pro. He was a deft interviewer. After years of needling her, after Oprah finally did the show she was shocked at how savvy an interviewer he was. Letterman possesses a gift most talk show hosts do not. Carson had it. Not sure about Kimmel, but I don't think Colbert has it, and I KNOW Stewart and Maher don't (and neither did Leno or Conan). He listens to his guests. He isn't constantly talking over them to one-up them with cute jokes. He understands his job as host is to listen to the guest, not upstage them. His further questions depend on the answers he is given. That is a deft skill. And when you see Stewart gleefully getting ready the "gotcha" without ever bothering to listen to the response and whether or not it's even a gotcha, you cringe.

I recall Stewart had an incredibly embarrassing (to him) interview with Al Gore. He planned going into it to read Gore the riot act for selling his media platform to Al Jazeera. You could tell he was chomping at the bit to take down Gore, who at that point was a progressive darling. I forget Gore's explanation (it was boring, which Gore tended to be when Dave didn't have him smashing ashtrays on the Late Show) but perfectly rational, made sense, there was no there there, and this was a nothingburger. And yet Stewart could NOT take the acceptable explanation. He wanted to humiliate Gore and this was gonna make his year and raise his profile as The Guy Who Took Down Al Gore. It was shameful.

It would have been one thing if he argued against the explanation. But it being reasonable meant there was nothing to argue against. So instead, he talked over Gore, repeating the baseless accusation as if Gore never made the explanation at all. At that point Matt looked from Jon Stewart to Crossfire and Crossfire to Jon Stewart and could no longer tell the difference.

People were pissed when Stewart returned to The Daily Show and took a giant shit on Joe Biden his first night back. I was not actually remotely surprised. I do not like or trust Jon Stewart. He stopped being the guy insisting nobody cares what he thinks because his show airs after puppets making prank phone calls. The clown now thinks he's actually some sort of pundit, or even journalist(!) which is pretty fucking delusional, and I can safely report was a gradual devolution and not remotely how he was in the early years.

Unlike Jon, Dave listened to his guests. What's amazing is he listened far more than he let on. I don't know if this was so he could surprise them with his insights or not, but after a guest's response Dave would often say "Uh huh, uh huh," in a bored voice as if he's moving the interview along. And then he'd ask a question that showed that wasn't just listening to what the guest was saying. He was understanding what the guest was saying. He always read the books the guests pimped ahead of time and was always prepared.

There are those in liberal circles who have the opinion that the key to Democrats winning future elections is learning how to talk to Red State voters better. I am not on-board this specific train. I don't want to get into all of the reasons why, but the biggest is it suggests to me liberals ought to apologize to Trump voters for being right. That's what it boils down to at its essence for me. And if you think I'm wrong, think of it like this. Democrats have lost election after election because they offered policy proposals and clear goals. That's NOT what the voters wanted. The people yelling "Argue policy harder!" are erstwhile Bernie Sanders boosters, but that's the same thing touted by the Third Way and the DNC, and if you guys want to keep failing at a tactic that the guys you supposedly hate the guts of have been failing at for four decades, be my guest.

But the truth is, if I DID think that that was a reasonable path forward, I would not advise Democrats to talk to the working class the way Bernie Sanders does. We want actual advice on getting Red State voters to listen to common sense liberal ideas? We could do worse than getting pointers from David Letterman there.