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TABLOID HART: AMERICAN NEWS - Texican Thomas Hart returns to the pages of your World's Magazine to talk about news becoming comedy and comedy news. He sings the praises of late night talk show host Craig Ferguson in his continuing take on American popular culture.
AUSTIN, REPUBLIC OF TEJAS - The news ain't what it used to be for most Americans. Fact is, if you're between the ages of 18 and 34, you don't get your news from CBS, NBC or ABC. Everybody knows that you get your news from comedians. If you even have basic cable or satellite, you get your news from the Comedy Central channel's Jon Stewart by way of the "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" or "The Ali G Show" on HBO. If you're among the cable-deprived, you go to Leno, Letterman, Kimmel, O'Brien or Ferguson. Here we are in a country of hundreds of millions of folks, y'all, and we get our danged news from the court jesters!
This is not news. Ever' since back in the 1970s, when Lorne Michael's made "Weekend Update" a regular feature on the NBC comedy show "Saturday Night Live," it's been taken as an article of faith that the news in America was mostly a Big Joke. It was only a matter of time, as far as Tabloid Hart is concerned, before jokes became the best way of how your average folks looked at the news - if they looked at the news at all. Like my bud Buford's wife says, "I don't watch the news. It's too depressin'."
News, to most Amurricans, if we really wannah look in the mirror, is what Tom Cruise did to some freakin' starlet half his age or what Nicolette Sheridan's been up to lately. That's why I've always sworn by the real newspaper of record for most of us livin' in trailer parks - (and what is the Federal Emergency Management Agency about to give devastated New Orleans, y'all? Trailer Parks) - is the National Enquirer. You get as much real news there as anywheres else.
Ya see, the thing is, other than a local house fire or somethin' along those lines, like the feller down the street goin' off his nut and taking a thirty-ought-six to his cousins and his cheatin' ex-wife, the only news we WANT to hear about is The Dirt. We don't care if Condoleeza Rice traipsed all over Europe in her stilettos saying that America has never condoned torture. Hell! We already know that any red-blooded Amurrican would torture a danged Afghani or Iraqi quicker than we mutilated redskins on the Amurrican plains. It's payback for 9/11. What we WANT to know is who is Condi boffing? She is Dubya's version of the Office Wife or what? Now that's NEWS.
Like I said, everybody's accepted for a very long time now that only the fogies out there, those sad and tired Baby Boomers who now need Viagra, Cialis and going on the knife on multiple occasions to try like desperation to hang onto they danged Imitation of Youth, are still watching the network anchors and "60 Minutes" just like they did when they danged parents used the TV as they babysitters. The rest of us know that if Jon Stewart says you are a dick, you are a dick. Just asked that bow-tied guy from CNN. If Jon Stewart says you're a loser, within 48 hours everyone in America doesn't know you are Tucker anymore, Pard', they know ya' as Loser.
Television network news is dead. They can talk about brangin' Katie Couric over to the Walter Cronkite - Dan Rather chair at CBS, but cleavage ain't gonnah be enough to make anybody with a pulse want to tune into The Fogey News Channel. Just ain't gonnah happen. Folks with a real pulse already know that what passes for "news" in this country ain't a whit more than corporate or government propaganda segments probably produced by Karen Hughes at the White House. Big Yawners.
Now I want to talk about somebody that I think y'all should keep a good eye on. I have a feeling that this man is gonnah end up bein' considered a National Treasure. And I say that even though the man ain't managed to get his American citizenship yet.
People who used to read the TABLOID HART column at G21.net know that I had a lot of respect for Craig Kilborn when he was the host of the "The Late Late Show" on CBS. When Craig was on, he was way on. That boy could get a sarcastic bead on a target like nobody's business. But it got him in trouble a couple of times and things just didn't work out. He left "The Late Late Show" at the end of 2004. (I like to think of it as analogous to my own experience, as I was asked to retire this column here at The World's Magazine in August of that same danged year.)
In January of 2005, a new guy came to "The Late Late Show" by the name of Craig Ferguson. (It sure seems like if you got the first name Craig, you're a leg up on a contract with David Letterman's Worldwide Pants production company, don't it?) I did NOT want to like this guy for a number of reasons.
Now, a year later, I have to say that I was wrong. Like I said, I think we'll end up considering this Ferguson guy a National Treasure. He has done something with his monologue that goes against the standard pap these talk show hosts spoon down our throats and become a true Original.
- NUMERO UNO: He wasn't even a damned American. He's from fuggin' Scotland, ferchrissakes!
- NUMERO DUO: He's been in this country for years and he still hasn't lost his accent.
- NUMERO TRIO: He took my man Craigger's job.
The man, Craig Ferguson, doesn't do the staple of all these danged late night talk show hosts: basically a series of four to ten newspaper or magazine items that they can make fun of; instead he riffs. Ferguson riffs like the best comedians we've ever known, from Steve Allen to Richard Pryor. He just goes off with a mind emission about something that happened to him that day or something he was thinking about that may or may not be topical news-stuff. And he's becoming a danged master at it, y'all.
Don't just take my word for it. You can go over the Web site for his show, click on the "Comedy" page and stream some of his recent monologues to get a look at what I'm talking about and danged-near bust a gut.
Listening to this guy riff is like sitting around with one of your best friend's over a few longneck beers and talking about stuff that really matters - and that's the beauty of his style of comedy. It grows on ya'.
The rest of his show, sadly, follows the usual format of the late night flak fest for tired movie stars and television celebrities that makes American television such a danged Wasteland but I guess you can't blame Ferguson entirely for that. He's just getting a paycheck like the rest of us. It's the monologue that makes the whole show, as far as Tabloid Hart is concerned. After that's over you might as well click over to Skinamax and your daily dose of soft porn.
I have a reason to celebrate the appearance of Craig Ferguson on a type of show that has become a cultural institution in television viewing for us Amurricans.
When I was a young buck, just comin' up, there was folks who either celebrated or denigrated the fact that America was conquering the world by means of what was called "cultural imperialism." It was said that we was dominating other countries by exporting our fast food, our Coca Colas, our Disney Lands and - most predominantly - our entertainment industry.
It seems to me that that was just about the time that our entertainment stopped being very entertaining. Instead of sending out comic geniuses like Lucille Ball and Sid Caesar or great film-makers like Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese, we turned everything over to the corporate world's accountants who want to do six and seven of the same danged story formula over and over again.
It's kindah like what we gone through with our first Master of Business Administration (MBA) as President. Trying to run government like a business has meant having a government that can't respond to our needs.
Trying to run entertainment like a business has meant that we take a mass-production approach that makes more widgets faster but drains all the random chaos and creativity - the felicitous madness - out of the process. It's just NOT entertaining anymore.
And it shows. It shows until you put an X-factor back in the mix. It shows until you have someone like a Craig Ferguson come along and NOT do what it expected and formulaic. Instead, he does the quirky, the original, the living mind emissions of the kind of person you'd love to have over for dinner and drinks. He riffs. That's real comedy and we should all celebrate the chance for the experience.
CONTINUE TO REMEMBER: It will take more than a few tornados to blow away all the Trailer Trash.
PERSONAL NOTE: As mentio ned, my column here was retired in August, 2004. It made sense. I was a stand-out domestic columnist in a magazine that was makin' its name and priding itself on being international. I leaned toward humor, pop culture and gossip in a magazine that was taking a more serious focus on important issues. I was even beginning to feel that somehow I didn't fit anymore, after being a member of the team for about five years.What changed? Well, I guess old Rod got a bit sentimental as The World's Magazine approached its tenth birthday and wanted to see some of the old members back here again. I reckon it's a little bit of nostalgia and whole heap of sentimentality. The way he put it to me, though, was like this:
"After the Hellish year that 2005 was, Tom, I think we could all use a few laughs. Come home."
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