Showing posts with label The Late Show. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Late Show. Show all posts

Friday, January 01, 2016

The 25 Best Things of 2015

As sort of a personal record for myself, at the end of every year I like to write about my favorite bits of culture from the year. A time capsule if you will, of my thoughts on the best things from the year that was. I capped the list at 25 this year, so with deep apologies to Season 2 of You're the Worst, the cast of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Saiorse Ronan in Brooklyn, the escape scene in Room, the epilogue of Spotlight, and all the things from 2015 I haven't had the chance to experience yet (Making a Murderer, The Big Short, Cate Blanchett in Carol, etc.) here’s what mattered most to me in 2015, presented in no particular order:

1. Togetherness
So clearly I’m going to be biased when it comes to TV shows about people living on the Eastside of Los Angeles working in the entertainment industry and taking trips to Houston…but this show just might be perfect. It’s just so many things I love from my entertainment: complex yet recognizable characters and situations, quietly profound observations about life, subtly heartbreaking moments mixed with realistic happiness, wit and humor the way they appear in actual life, conversational dialogue that feels loaded yet lived in, a real connection to the way the world actually works, and most of all, four of the best performances on TV. Seriously, can we just give these four a collective acting Emmy and then just cancel the rest of the Emmys? Their work is uniformly awe-inspiring. It’s impossible to pick a favorite of the four.

On a broader note though this is exactly the kind of project that 10 years ago would have been made as an indie film. Even five years ago maybe. But the funding for films like this - subtle contemporary non-awards-bait character studies - just isn’t there anymore. So now these stories are moving to premium cable. And maybe we’re all better off for it. Imagine if this had only been a two hour movie, think of all the character development we would have missed. It would have been criminal.

Independent filmmaking is dead; long live independent filmmaking.

2. “Nashville” - Master of None
It makes sense that Master of None was inspired by the films of Hal Ashby and Woody Allen since high-end TV is the new auteur cinema. And if TV in the 2010s is where movies were in the 1970s, then the Nashville episode of Master of None is not only the best romantic comedy of the year, it might just be our Annie Hall.

3. Left Shark
Just as we all predicted, in 2015 the most profound and culturally resonant metaphor for the human condition would come from a guy at the Super Bowl dancing in a shark costume. #WeAreAllLeftShark

4. Aretha Franklin at The Kennedy Center Honors



Dropping the coat is the new dropping the mic. And no one will ever do it better.

5. Mad Men finale
Sure the final season lost the narrative thread of the series a bit. And sure, the finale was super fan-service-y. But also it was wonderful and they shouldn’t change a thing about it. Because really who doesn’t want to see all their friends get happy endings? And if you didn’t get emotional at Stan and Peggy I don’t know when you ever will.

But ultimately, in the end, as in the in beginning, this was Don Draper’s story. America’s story. Our story. The story of how we journey a very long way out of our way just to go a very short distance. Or maybe to go nowhere at all. The story of how we’re always pitching, always selling ourselves to the world around us, but never outrunning who we are and how we began. Like life, Mad Men was never about what it seemed to be about. But also it was. So of course it ended with a bang that felt like a whimper. Because that’s life. And I wish it could have gone on forever.

(Before we go here, we’re all going to collectively fund the Sally Draper spinoff series, right? Like, that’s definitely happening, isn’t it? It better be. And speaking of spinoffs…)

6. Better Call Saul
It’s shocking how much better season one of this show was than it needed to be. It was so good in fact, it makes me reconsider every opinion I thought I had about Breaking Bad.

I thought Breaking Bad was a terrific show, an all-timer, but as a ride-or-die member of #teamMadMen I also thought it was maybe more entertaining than great. More style than substance. And maybe it was. But maybe it doesn’t matter. Because with Better Call Saul Vince Gilligan definitively proves that there’s no one in the world better at the CRAFT of television. He’s not precious, or exacting, or tortured – he just makes great TV. I feel like you could just call out a suggestion, improv-show style, and he could make a great show out of it. Better Call Saul just FEELS like a great show. And it is. And it’s great in ways that seem both effortless and impossible in equal measure.

Vince Gilligan and his team are magicians.

7. Mad Max: Fury Road
It’s like George Miller took on the “why don’t they make the whole plane out of the black box material” question as a filmmaking challenge. He made a whole movie out of just the action sequences, and whaddya know - it worked! No real exposition or backstory or cumbersome plot – just "these people seem bad", "these other ones seem good", "water is scarce, women seem oppressed, the good guys are headed somewhere, and the bad guys are chasing them". That’s all we’re really told, and that all we need to know. Turns out audiences don’t need their hands held. A genre film that trusts its audience and itself shouldn’t feel like a miracle, but it does. And for as much has been rightly made about the feminism of Mad Max, for me what seems most revolutionary about the film is how old fashioned it feels. It hopefully is going to mark a turning point in the road back to practical effects, lived-in non-CGI production design, and minimalistic storytelling. Hollywood blockbusters can’t get any bigger or bolder at this point. As Mad Max shows, the only place left to go is to make them better.

8. Missy Elliott - “WTF” video 



Missy Elliot is so far ahead of her time we will never catch up.

9. The Late Show with David Letterman finale
I’ve written previously about how much The Late Show with David Letterman meant to me (still feels weird to refer to it in past tense) and as someone who often felt like Dave was a member of the family I can attest that final show of his reign was perfectly and totally him. Self-depreciating, understated, genuine, almost apologetic for its very existence, yet with a midwestern sense of respect and recognition for those who helped make it possible. After years of phoned in shows and general indifference it was Dave at his very best. And the closing montage made me weep more than some people who have lost actual family members. It closed not only chapter of my life, but a chapter of our collective history. And there will never be another quite like it.

10. The Jinx
The best ever murder mystery that wasn’t even remotely a mystery. And speaking of finales, it’s amazing that an ending that seems so obviously preordained could still be so shocking when it actually happens. It’s an ending that could someday be equaled, but will never be topped. It’s a landmark of televised non-fiction. And it’s incredible that it all came together like it did. It feels like a unicorn. More unicorns please.

11. The Community Series Finale Tag
Wow, what a year of series finales, and perhaps none was more “on brand” than Community ending its run with a season that no one knew existed, on a website that no one goes to, and capped off with an absurdist, high concept, deeply insider-y and self-referential “bit” examining the nature of reality. It’s as great and as weird as it sounds. And since I’m sure you probably didn't see it, go to Yahoo Screen now and watch the final three minutes of episode 13 of Community. Or just watch it here if it didn't get taken down yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1Pf_X_mgwM

12.  3 & 1/2 Minutes, Ten Bullets
While we’re on the subject of things no one saw, in the proud tradition of Resolved and Hot Coffee, 3 & 1/2 Minutes, Ten Bullets is this year's superb, social relevant HBO documentary that should be required viewing for all Americans. In the year of #blacklivesmatter, Michael Dunn's phone calls, particularly his final one, sum up the racial problems in this country better than 100 think pieces ever could. It's this year's Fruitvale Station, and unless more people watch and address the issues it illuminates, versions of this film will be made every year.

13. Inside Out
Like all the best Pixar movies, I wonder if kids enjoyed this at all, because it certainly doesn't seem like it was made for them. A dive into the heartbreak and deep melancholy of growing up hardly seems like what kids want in their movie-going experience. But it is very much what I want. A movie that is funny and sad in equal measure, that feels deeply personal yet inherently universal, that is unlike anything you've seen before, that shocks and challenges its intended audience, that is incredibly smart and well constructed, that gets at something complex and real about the human condition, that has Oscar-caliber performances (in this case Amy Poehler and especially Richard Kind, as Bing Bong, the heart and soul of the film) - these are all the things I'm hoping to get when I go to the movies. And they are what Pixar delivers time and again. Good god I love them so.

14. John Hancock III – “Left Me”
This is without a doubt the greatest and most important thing anyone named John Hancock has ever had his name on.

15. Rachel Bloom on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend shouldn’t work for sooo many reasons and yet it does for one crucial one - Rachel Bloom. She is so watchable and likable and talented that she makes what should be a problematic mess into the most purely enjoyable show of 2015. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is Exhibit A in the value of giving brilliant people carte blanche to follow their muse wherever it takes them. Who knew The CW had it in them?

16. Black Cindy’s Judaism speech – Orange is the New Black
One of the best things about OITNB has always been its insanely deep bench of actors. If before this season you had been asked to name the ten best actors on the show Adrienne C. Moore probably doesn't make too many of those lists. And yet, now it would seem insane to leave her off. And a big part of that is not only increased screen time and great overall work, but her speech in the finale about converting to Judaism. It was not only incredibly well acted but it also summed up the OITNB ethos - a seemingly ridiculous and often comic premise taken to its humanist and moving conclusion. And for Adrienne C. Moore that conclusion could and should be the stage on Emmy night 2016.

17. Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck
This feels like cheating a bit because Kurt Cobain is one of the most fascinating subjects of the 20th century, but Montage of Heck really might be the greatest ever realization of documentary-as-art-form. Interviews, home movies, original animation, private audio recordings, found footage, stock clips - all blended together into something completely new – it really is a montage of heck. It all took Brett Morgan eight years to make, and it shows, in the best way possible. It’s a true work of art, not just a delivery system for information. It’s a story that lets you create your own narrative. By the end everything about Kurt Cobain and his journey seemed to make perfect sense to me, and yet also none of it made any sense at all, including the fact that he even ever existed in the first place. It’s all just so tragic and so beautiful. So profound and so meaningless. It’s an emotionally wrenching ride straight into the heart of genius, angst, alienation, and the last dying gasps of monoculture. 500 years from now when people want to understand my generation, this is all they need to watch. Note to the future: Keep the tissues handy.

18. Alessia Cara – “Here”
I love this song now, but it legitimately terrifies how many times I would have listened to this song if it came out when I was in high school. Like I might really never have left the house. Which is kind of the whole point I guess.

And if the song wasn't already great enough, Alessia Cara’s Tonight Show appearance is the greatest a-star-is-born late night talk show musical performance since Janelle Monae broke out with “Tightrope" on Letterman.

This one is gonna be with us for a very long time.

19. Show Me a Hero
David Simon doesn't make reality shows; he makes reality shows. Ones that sadly, still, no one watches. Their loss. Because in probably the greatest year ever for television this was hands down the best thing on it. Its a series I still think about daily. About Oscar Issac’s Oscar-caliber work. About Paul Haggis’ great direction (a sentence I literally never thought I’d say). And about David Simon’s peerless humanistic exploration of the real societal forces that make our world the way it is.

My other favorite TV writer Aaron Sorkin once penned the line “you can’t handle the truth”. But that’s all David Simon ever aspires to do. It’s just a shame more people don’t want to watch him try.

20. Wilco – “Name Generator”
In case you were wondering how white I am, this song was easily the most played song in my iTunes for 2015.  And in case you’re wondering why I love Wilco so much, I’m a person who still listens to music using iTunes, so I’m basically their target demographic.

21. Ryan Adams - 1989
This idea could have worked only half as well as it did and it still would have been my favorite album of the year. It was also the exact thing that Ryan Adams was put on this earth to do.

22. March 19th Daily Show segment – “Mighty Morphin Position Changers”
The Daily Show with John Stewart is the greatest television program of all time. It not only did a tremendous job of being entertaining, but it also had a vital daily impact on shaping the national political conversation. No TV show has ever, or in our increasingly fractured age, likely will ever be simultaneous as great at both things. It’s as though 60s-era Walter Cronkite was also the permanent host of 70s-era SNL. And now, post-Jon Stewart the show goes on, but it doesn't really. Now it’s just another show on the dial. Because as good as Trevor Noah may or may not be, it’s besides the point. No one else will ever have the respect, the moral authority, the voice-of-God-from-on-high nature that Jon engendered. And with that, it’s segments like this one that we as people have lost with his retirement. Sure, this exact piece could technically be duplicated by someone else. But the mic drop at the end of it has a power and impact that no other entertainer will ever be able to duplicate. A perfect message will now always have an imperfect messenger. The king is dead; the king is dead forever.

23. Kanye - “All Day” at the Brit Awards



“Kanye Awards Show Performances” is my favorite YouPorn category.

24. Bojack Horseman
As people have always said, the best way to reveal difficult truths about the nature of humanity is with an animated comedy about an anthropomorphic horse. This is not only my favorite TV show, it’s also my TV soulmate. It’s almost more than that - If I tried to imagine the perfect TV show for me personally, this is even better than the show I would have come up with. It’s a miracle it exists, and I’m gonna keep putting it on these year end lists for as long as they keep making it. #Bojack4lyfe

25. Hamilton
I’ll try and keep this brief…

This list isn't ranked in any way except for this: Hamilton will go down as the most lasting and impactful artistic creation of 2015, and I don’t think the competition is even remotely close. Like The Beatles of theater, Hamilton has transcended its art form and become bigger than everything else in its medium combined. It’s so big that the President of the United Sates can go see it, and the show itself can still seem like the bigger deal. It’s like a supernova, engulfing the matter of everything that should come in its wake. Its cast album topped the Billboard RAP CHARTS for gods sake. The viral videos it has spawned populate the Internet. It’s the ultimate status symbol in the ultimate status symbol town. But most importantly, it’s not just a mere phenomenon. It’s a new way forward. By using the contemporary music of the day to tell an epic story with a diverse cast, it connects musical theater’s past to its future. It has the power to single-handedly give new life to an entire art form that was virtually dead as a mainstream force. Hamilton is the defibrillator for the American Theater. And if that's not powerful art, then I don't know what is.

Monday, May 18, 2015

Goodbye to Everything


Between now and Wednesday the Internet will be overrun with think pieces, remembrances, appreciations, and retrospectives about David Letterman. It’s already been happening in fact. And at some point you’ll think “enough already!”. But the thing is this is the rare case when it can never be enough. Every last inch of space on the Internet could be filled with tributes to Dave and it still wouldn't feel sufficient. Because with the possible exceptions of Lucille Ball and Johnny Carson, David Letterman is the single most important and influential entertainer in the history of television. He single-handedly changed what was possible on TV and what the medium could be. He invented a totally new comedic sensibility. And on a personal level, he very well might have changed my life.

————————————

It’s not inaccurate to say that I was raised on The Late Show with David Letterman. I definitely grew up with it. It was the first “adult” TV I remember really being into. “The Late Shift”, about Dave and Jay’s battle for the Tonight Show job, was one of the first “adult” books I remember being obsessed with. One of the first things I remember doing on the Internet was figuring out how to go to The Late Show’s website. And throughout junior high and high school my bed time was dictated by Dave’s show. At first I could only stay up for the first half, unless there was a particularly good guest, in which case I could talk my parents into letting me stay for the first interview segment. Then as I got older I could regularly stay up for the second guest. And then finally I knew I was a grown up because I could always stay up for the musical guest. I rarely missed an episode; it was what my family did together every night. My Dad and my sister would come and go, but for my Mom and I, it was our thing. Even in my later high school years, when I was in the angsty I-hate-my-parents phase every kid goes through, I still looked forward to the opportunities I had to watch The Late Show with my mom. Then in college it was the thing that kept my connected to my past. Whenever I felt homesick I could stay up and watch Dave and it felt like home. And even though I haven't watched the show with any regularity in at least ten years now, it still feels like a part of me. Because it wasn't just a TV show to me, it was a ritual and a worldview.

——————————

Of all the bits Dave did over the years the one that will always stand out with me the most, the one my Mom and I still talk about regularly to this day, is Campaign 2000. Literally the only clip of Campaign 2000 I could find online is the one embedded above. So to give some context, Campaign 2000 started because Dave wanted to get Al Gore and George Bush to both make appearances on his show prior to the 2000 Presidential election. So every night he would have a segment devoted to updating his progress on making that goal happen. But, of course, it pretty quickly drifted off into something else entirely. As you'll see in the clip above by the summer of 2000 he had frequently stopped using the segment to discuss Bush and Gore at all. Often he would say it was time for Campaign 2000 and then launch into some absurdist comedy bit. But most nights he would set up Campaign 2000, the “sponsors” would be introduced, he would ask Paul and Maria Pope if they had any news, they never did, then the bit would end with Alan Kalter telling the audience who it had been “brought to you by”. I swear I remember a night when there were five different “sponsors" of the bit (including the nightly “Larry King, he looks like an owl!”) and then eight different other entities it had been “brought to you by”. And that was night when literally nothing happened in the bit itself. It was all set up, no punchline. Except for the fact that the set up WAS the punchline. And even after it continued well past the election and into mid-2001, it was all played more or less with a totally straight face. It was absurd and weird and amazing. And seeing things like Campaign 2000 on TV nearly every night helped make me who I am today.

See, as an artsy, thoughtful, introverted kid growing up in Houston, Texas, I never felt like I quite fit in.  I knew I wasn't into the same kinds of things my peers were into, but I didn't know what choice I had. Convention was all I knew. In the pre-Internet days I had no real sense of any wider world out there. I only knew the reality with which I was presented. But then I started watching The Late Show, and seeing someone do what’s basically performance art on a show on a major network that comes on right after the local news kind of blew my mind. It showed me that there was another way. That there are in fact no rules; that you can subvert convention. That art and comedy and television could be whatever you want them to be. That it was ok to be different and color outside the lines. But mostly it made me feel less different. “If this is on TV”, I thought, “then that must mean other people out there like it too. And if other people like it too then I must not be so weird after all.” It helped all us weirdos out there know that we weren’t alone. That we were all watching this strange gap-toothed man throw watermelons off a roof together. And that if this was possible, then anything was possible. And that thought was my salvation.

——————————-

Prior to Dave people had been doing bit and pieces of his style. Monty Python, Saturday Night Live, Andy Kauffman, Steve Martin, Samuel Beckett, Eddie Kovacs, and others, were all doing, or had done, some of what Dave would do. But he’s the one that put it all together. He didn't invent anti-comedy, or meta-comedy, or irony, or absurdism, but he was the first to put them all together on network TV five nights a week. And there was no real precedent for Dave’s unique vision. He was the first of his kind in way that few people ever have been. He basically created modern comedy, in a way that it’s impossible to overstate. A direct line can be drawn from David Letterman to every truly great piece of comedy from the past 30 years. This is a fact.

New York Magazine just published a great piece where former Late Show writers look back at ideas they tried to pitch to Dave over the years that were rejected. There are some great ones - reading out loud from The Encyclopedia of Carpet Samples, an in-studio zip line, a radio station for dogs, “All Week Long William F. Buckley Rates the Mustard”, and so on - but whats most striking is how modern they all sound. And yet nearly all the pitches in there are from over 20 years ago. In the article Dave says that the single most brilliant idea in the history of his show was to stage a battle between a humidifier and a dehumidifier. They ran both machines all show long and then at the end checked to see which had been better at its job. That was done in 1983 and it STILL seems ahead of its time 30 years later. I mean would any late night host actually attempt an idea like that today? I really don’t know that they would. I think comedy is still trying to fully catch up with what Dave created. We’re all still grappling with the possibilities.

——————————-

One of Dave’s classic bits from circa 2001 was something called “Is It Anything”. He would lift up a screen and flanked by Grinder Girl and Hula Hoop Lady (my names for them) would be a random person engaged in some random activity. Then the screen would go down and Dave and Paul would discuss whether they thought it was "anything" or not. There was never any criteria for what constituted “anything” or even what “anything” exactly meant. The whole bit was nebulous in meaning and intention. Was it meant to be a total joke or was it a legitimate competition? Was it supposed to be funny or just weird? Who were these people and what exactly were they doing there? Like Campaign 2000, it was silly and pointless and strange. And it was a perfect encapsulation of Dave’s entire ethos.

——————————————

After Dave goes off the air on May 20th the sun will still rise and set. Time will march on and his influence and importance will gradually be forgotten. And quite honestly his show hasn't been anything other than phoned in for years now. I tried to watch an episode about a year ago and it was almost painful. In the era of viral videos and silly games and lip synch battles Dave seems hopelessly old fashioned and out of touch. I’m sure kids today don’t quite get right now what all the fuss is about. Same thing happened to Carson once upon a time. And thats how life goes I guess. But for those of us who were there, we know attention must be paid. That few people have ever been more worthy of it. That no tribute can ever do him justice. Because David Letterman’s shows weren't just anything - they were everything.


So thank you Dave. For all of it. You’ll mean more to me to you’ll ever know.

Tuesday, October 05, 2004

So I Guess That Makes Jimmy Kimmel Ralph Nader...

(Well, many of you seem to have enjoyed last week’s “Marymount Musings” far too much, so as punishment, this week it’s back to more preachy rantings. Now I don’t want to hear about you enjoying yourself while reading ever again…)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you’ve been contemplating suicide, you should really put it off until at least 2009.

Because in 2009 not only will Barrack Obama will be sworn in as president, but, as was announced last week, Conan O’Brien will be sworn in as the new host of The Tonight Show. This will undo one of the most egregious sins in television history, the giving of The Tonight Show hosting job to a man the majority of the people didn’t want - Jay Leno. How and why this came about is detailed in one of the best books I’ve ever read, “The Late Shift” by Bill Carter, and it’s an amazingly engrossing page-turner you should pick up if you ever get a chance. But that’s neither here nor there. We can’t dwell on what could have or should have been. We have to deal with the here and now. And so until Conan assumes his rightful place in just over four years, we have to look at what we are stuck with. Examine the current administration if you will. And if you’ll examine it with me, you’ll realize that we can’t wait over four more years. We need change now.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Dave or Jay”?

It’s one of those questions that can tell you a lot about someone.

Like:
“Paul or John?”
“Lindsey Lohan or Hilary Duff?”
“Paper or plastic?”
Analyze This or Analyze That?”
“Bush or Kerry”

But really, what DOES it tell you?

Well let’s look at the two shows. They each have reoccurring comedy bits they do. One of the most popular on Dave’s show is “Will It Float?” In the “bit”, a screen is raised to reveal a tank of water and an object that will be dropped into that night. Dave and Paul discuss at length whether they think the item will float or sink. All the while, for no reason at all, a girl stands to one side of the tank twirling hula hoops and another girl wears what looks like an outfitter a stripper would wear in outer space and runs a grinder along a plate on her stomach while sparks fly everywhere. The presence of the two girls is never acknowledged or commented on in any way. The item is then dropped into the pool and either sinks or floats. Then the curtain lowers. And that’s it. That’s the comedy. There are many variations on this bit including “Hairpiece, Not a Hairpiece” “Millionaire, or A Guy Named Kenny” and, in the high point of the entire history of random comedy, “Potatoes, or Gavin McCloud”. One of the most popular of Jay’s “bits” is “Iron Jay” in which Jay makes jokes about current events while his face is reflected in a mirror that stretches out his features.

So to recap: comic brilliance vs. guy making funny faces in a mirror.

There are many more differences between the two shows too. One seems to love to have appearances by pro wrestlers, athletes and the hottest celebrities of the moment. The other prefers Regis Philbin, news anchors and Amy Sedaris. One show has a host who tries to be the focus of each interview by telling jokes at his guest’s expense. The other show has a host who tries to deflect so much attention from himself that he has done exactly one interview in the past eight years and talks about his life so little on air that even die hard fans don’t know that name of the mother of his newborn child. One show is openly despised by critics and anyone who cares passionately about quality entertainment and/or comedy. The other has won the Emmy in its category five of the past six years. I could go on for days but I think the point I’m trying to make can be crystallized with one simple comparison: the way in which “common people” are used on the shows.

On The Tonight Show, Jay’s most popular usage of regular non-celebrity folks is in a segment called “Jaywalking”. He goes out on the street and asks people seemingly simple questions and then waits while they either don’t know the answer or answer incorrectly. Then we all get to laugh at them. Because they are stupid. The most popular way Dave uses real people is in a segment called “Stupid Human Tricks” which, despite the name, feature people who carry on intelligent conversations with Dave before showing off random talents they have.

So to recap: One segment features the phrase “stupid human” in its title; the other features actual stupid humans. One show celebrates people’s dumbness; the other celebrates people’s talents. One show features comedy that panders to the lower common denominator. The other show does cutting edge comedy and trusts that its audience will be smart enough to appreciate it. One show aims for the heights of human creativity; the other peddles formulaic schlock.

And one show, Jay’s show, since 1996, the year of the Republican take over of Congress, has trounced the other in the ratings.

That means that the majority of American prefer Jay’s show to Dave’s show. Prefer an everyman simpleton host to a host who seems reserved and distant. Prefer well-worn old-fashioned comedy to progressive, hip humor. Prefer stupidity to intelligence.

And that is why the fact that The Tonight Show beats The Late Show in the ratings, for me, best encapsulates all that is wrong with America.

But we can make a difference. Each and every one of us. We have a choice. And now is the time to make that choice heard. What once seemed like an insurmountable lead in the ratings has dwindled by the day. Each day when new numbers come out they show the gap is closing to the point where it is almost a dead heat. For the first time in a long time it looks like Dave has a realistic shot to win this thing.

So vote. Vote with your remote. Vote for the side that creative, humanistic people side with. Vote for the side that celebrates the best humanity has to offer. Vote for intelligence.

Vote for Dave.

And then tell me how the election turns out.

If you need me Ill be watching the Daily Show.

Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.) The 90s
2.) Pavement - "Two States"
3.) Vitamin Water
3 & 1/2.) MLB Playoff anticipation