Letterman: How Much "Beyond" is "Beyond"?
The Lettermanologists among us have already been hotly debating the meaning of those words dear old Dave uttered during a highly unusual interview with Rolling Stone, out this Friday. There's been a tsunami of press on it, so I'm not telling you anything new here (DL doesn't understand why NBC is pushing out Leno, or words to that effect; I've posted outtakes of the interview that I ripped off from RS's Web site on the jump...)
But here are the words that are most interesting, and I quote in full:
"The way I feel now, I would like to go beyond 2010, not much beyond, but you know, enough to go beyond. You always like to be able to excuse yourself on your own terms. If the network is happy with that, great. If they wanna make a change in 2010, you know, I'm fine with that, too."
What does all this mean? What would Herr Doctor Freud say? Hmmmm ...
Now, let's parse the meaning of "beyond." Dave'll be just 62 in 2010, but turn 63 in April of that year. No big deal. So I hardly think age is an issue, nor do I think show quality is. I can't say I watch every night (though I used to), but can say that when I do, "Late Show" is as good as ever, and same with Dave. So what could be the meaning of "beyond" in Dave's head. Here are some possible explanations:
1.) DL, CBS and everyone else rightfully assumes the game will change dramatically when JL leaves "Tonight;" DL, CBS and everyone else (perhaps) also rightfully assumes that Conan O won't have the same broad appeal of JL, which means the playing field could be evened. Why not stay longer and finally, finally, thank God Almighty, FINALLY, beat "Tonight Show" and teach those troglodytes who picked JL over DL a lesson once and for all?
2.) I'm assuming - and always do - that the Carson yardstick is embedded in Letterman's head. JC was 66 when he left "Tonight," so could that mean DL thinks - consciously or subconsciously - that he could go another three years?
3.) Dave is afraid of death! Aren't we all? But his father died at age 57, and mortality stalks Letterman. I'm not being melodramatic here, but I do believe DL worries about this a lot, and do believe he worries about his kid, and do believe he's one of those people who need to work to stay alive. DL's a workaholic, or was - I can't believe that age has mellowed this aspect of him. He's driven and he can't stop driving himself, and won't.
4.) Letterman has nothing to do beyond work. Does the guy have hobbies? Does he play golf or windsurf? Does he ride with the hounds? No, no and no. JC had tennis; DL has zippo. Honestly, I don't think there is a single thing Dave does beyond work. He sits and stares at a wall, waiting for Monday to roll around. Retirement for him would be hell.
5.) He worries about his staff. Like Leno, Letterman's fundamentally a decent guy. Oh yeah, he used to scream and abuse; he could be a nasty bastard when he wanted to be. But he's a good guy, all the same. He's unbelievably loyal to his staff, and vice versa. It's a cult over there at the Ed Sullivan, and they've followed Dave to the ends of the earth, and he will follow them. To quit now, or let's say two years from now, means abandoning THEM. That'd kill DL too.
6.) Symmetry! Like all workaholic obsessive-compulsives, DL loves the idea of symmetry, and balance. How jarring to leave in 2010, or after 17 years at CBS! "Twenty" has a much nicer feel to it; 20 years ... ahhh, 20 ... That'd be 2013, when Dave would be 66. Ah yes, the same age as Carson. Hmmm ...
Herr Doctor Freud says: Expect Dave to re-up for three more years after 2010.
Dave Letterman (Getty Images / Bryan Bedder)
Here are those outtakes from the Friday's Rolling Stone: Interview was conducted by Jason Gay.
How are you feeling about Late Show right now?
I like it. I like the people I'm working with. It's a completely different show than it used to be, it's more host-friendly than it ever has been. . . .
What do you mean by "host-friendly"?
I'm not working as hard as I used to [laughs]. All I have to do, really, is pick out a tie and sit down.
Are the best nights when there's that great guest? When it's a Hillary or Bill Clinton, or Howard Stern, and you just feel that energy in the theater.
Early on, I always had some trepidation about Howard. He seemed like he was without the capability of empathy. And then, when I realized he's just kind of a goofball like everyone else, that leveled the court. We have an expression . . . he can take a punch. And when you realize that neither of you are gonna get hurt too bad, then it's a lot of fun. People like Bill Clinton . . . intelligence just leaks out of him, it forms a cloud around him. You can't penetrate it. I'm thinking about cartoons and he's talking about how to save the planet, so I always feel in over my head there. I feel like Hillary and I have a little more rapport, and I think maybe that's just because she's been on more times than her husband.
Madonna, of course, is another famous Late Show regular.
I remember being very intimidated by Madonna, because I didn't know anything about popular music, and I didn't know whether we should even worry about her after her first appearance. And then there was that time she came on and she was angry with me because I'd been telling a lot of jokes about her sex life, because she had published a book about her sex life. I'd felt that was kind of fair game — here's not only a book, it's a coffee table, a 300-page book, photo pictorial —"Here I am, naked, bent over. Here I am in a costume, naked, bent over. Here I am, the UPS guy. . . . " Now we find out that she's outraged, and she comes on and was unpleasant and all of that. I think she kind of realized that she had underestimated the impact of doing that. But now that seems so long ago that we're both like, "Who cares?" It's like ballplayers. You can't get too upset if you lose two or three games in a row because, good Lord, you're playing 162.
Then the other fact is that it's all artificial. We're all pretending. We're putting on a show and trying to be cute and trying to say funny things, and we don't really mean much of it.
Probably the biggest guest in the past few years was Oprah Winfrey, whom you begged and begged to come on. What is the state of Oprah/Dave relations these days?
[Laughs] Well, I would hope it would be good. I saw Oprah when she interviewed Tom Cruise recently at his home in Colorado, and, wow, that was just bizarre. I kinda felt bad for Oprah, because it looked like she went into that with her hands tied, but it was reassuring to me because I thought, "Oh, I'm not the only one who gets myself into things you can't get out of."
Was there really a rift between you and Oprah?
Yes, I think there was. I think that she, like anyone would, got tired of me making jokes about her. Also, years ago, we were doing the old show in Chicago — she came out and somebody in the audience heckled her, and I think she resented the fact that I didn't rise to the occasion and, you know, beat up on the guy. Which I probably should have, but I was completely out of control and didn't know what I was doing. So she had a real reason not to want to come back on.
The show you did with Warren Zevon, when he'd been diagnosed with terminal cancer and only had months to live: He'd been on many times. Was it a difficult show to do?
Oh, it was awful. Warren was so good about it. After the show, it was heartbreaking — he was in his dressing room, and we were talking and this and that. Here's a guy who had months to live and we're making small talk. And as we're talking, he's taking his guitar strap and hooking it, wrapping it around, then he puts the guitar into the case and he flips the snaps on the case and says, "Here, I want you to have this, take good care of it." And I just started sobbing. He was giving me the guitar that he always used on the show. I felt like, "I can't be in this movie, I didn't get my lines." That was very tough.
[Read the entire interview in the new issue of Rolling Stone, on stands Sept. 5]
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