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kyburgJohnny Carson has left the building.
I remember him - I interned at KNBC back in 1983 when I was still in school (an internship was a requirement for my degree in Broadcasting, which I finished in 1984), and while I could not observe the Tonight Show, I could be in the building observing the nightly local news, and those two programs were working at the same time. The Tonight Show went by sattelite feed; the local news was live.
Live wins out over feed - I'm sorry, but it does.
However, I ran into the Tonight Show band on more than one occasion and once took home a bouquet of daffodils from the wall behind Johnny's desk. They had used fresh flowers to dress that wall that night - I took the flowers home and told everyone I had brought them some television stars.
I remember passing Johnny's car parked just outside the door to the studio. It was the meanest looking little black Mercedes convertible I have ever seen. It exuded leave me the fuck alone. Two-seater, tinted windows. As I understand, Mr. Carson was much the same. Off-camera, you left him alone. He liked it that way, and people wanted to do things he liked for him - there weren't many of them. He didn't have favorite foods, etc. He spent a lot of his time alone - and he hadn't been very lucky in finding a lifelong companion - he'd had a number of marriages that not only ended, but ended badly.
Before that, though.
I didn't sleep without the television on. My anxiety levels were such that I slept in front of the television with it on, just about every night from the time I was 18 through 24 or so. I felt bad about it, but nobody let me sleep sounder than Johnny Carson. All I had to do was hear the sound of his voice beginning the monologue, and like it or not - by the time he had finished, I was asleep. Nobody was as good as he was at it - I used to hate the guest hosts and miss Johnny because nobody could put me to bed like he did. I don't know why. He certainly wasn't a comforting fellow - but somehow, when he was around, everything was alright.
I couldn't watch his last show - I just couldn't. It was too big a "last" to do -
Leno's a nice guy, Letterman is an acquired taste and O'Brien is a a total stranger.
I'm hoping Johnny finds the hereafter a comforting place with all the people who have gone before him - surely now he can feel how much he was loved. I don't know that it was possible in this life.
*shakes head* Another reminder that I'm getting older. He was almost 80. That's long enough.
Perhaps a hot toddy would be the drink of choice to send him off - it certainly would be appropriate.
I remember him - I interned at KNBC back in 1983 when I was still in school (an internship was a requirement for my degree in Broadcasting, which I finished in 1984), and while I could not observe the Tonight Show, I could be in the building observing the nightly local news, and those two programs were working at the same time. The Tonight Show went by sattelite feed; the local news was live.
Live wins out over feed - I'm sorry, but it does.
However, I ran into the Tonight Show band on more than one occasion and once took home a bouquet of daffodils from the wall behind Johnny's desk. They had used fresh flowers to dress that wall that night - I took the flowers home and told everyone I had brought them some television stars.
I remember passing Johnny's car parked just outside the door to the studio. It was the meanest looking little black Mercedes convertible I have ever seen. It exuded leave me the fuck alone. Two-seater, tinted windows. As I understand, Mr. Carson was much the same. Off-camera, you left him alone. He liked it that way, and people wanted to do things he liked for him - there weren't many of them. He didn't have favorite foods, etc. He spent a lot of his time alone - and he hadn't been very lucky in finding a lifelong companion - he'd had a number of marriages that not only ended, but ended badly.
Before that, though.
I didn't sleep without the television on. My anxiety levels were such that I slept in front of the television with it on, just about every night from the time I was 18 through 24 or so. I felt bad about it, but nobody let me sleep sounder than Johnny Carson. All I had to do was hear the sound of his voice beginning the monologue, and like it or not - by the time he had finished, I was asleep. Nobody was as good as he was at it - I used to hate the guest hosts and miss Johnny because nobody could put me to bed like he did. I don't know why. He certainly wasn't a comforting fellow - but somehow, when he was around, everything was alright.
I couldn't watch his last show - I just couldn't. It was too big a "last" to do -
Leno's a nice guy, Letterman is an acquired taste and O'Brien is a a total stranger.
I'm hoping Johnny finds the hereafter a comforting place with all the people who have gone before him - surely now he can feel how much he was loved. I don't know that it was possible in this life.
*shakes head* Another reminder that I'm getting older. He was almost 80. That's long enough.
Perhaps a hot toddy would be the drink of choice to send him off - it certainly would be appropriate.
