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A few late-night thoughts on late-night TV

I couldn’t sleep (I’m busily trying to form a plan to solve the Mavericks’ problems), so I started watching some late-night TV and then watched some TiVoed late-night TV.  Apparently I can’t get enough.

• Nicole Ritchie was on a repeat episode of Jay Leno.  She desperately needs a hamburger.  I’m going to have to declare her one terrifying looking woman.  I know, it’s old news that she’s gotten rail-thin.  I just had to announce my shock at just HOW thin she is.
• In a different episode of Leno on the TiVo, Kevin Eubanks was wearing a hat that said “BONDS.”  I don’t know how he does it, but Kevin always manages to detect a sports topic I have a strong opinion about and support the side I can’t stand.  In the past, he’s worn Philadelphia Eagles and Philadelphia 76ers jerseys.  Can’t stand either team (even though Allen Iverson has grown on me).
• I liked Jennifer Love Hewitt better with longer hair.  She was on Leno, and I noted to myself — dang, she’s gotten older!  Then I remembered we share a birthday — February 21, 1979 (she in Waco, me in Dallas — our lives started on the same day, just 100 miles away or so).  I was immediately dismayed.
• I’ve already used 3 parenthetical phrases in this blog post.  Can we say, “Writing crutch?”
• My TiVo had picked up an episode of Conan O’Brien where U2 was the only guest.  The episode aired in 2005 and I just now saw it.  I see this as a sign that I must not have as many friends as I used to.
• The Edge got the funniest line of the evening.  He and Bono participated in Conan’s classic “In the Year 2000″ sketch, and the Edge proclaimed that: “[In the year 2000] U2 will admit that they wrote the song ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ after going to three supermarkets looking for Boo-Berry cereal.”
• They performed 4 songs, including a neat acoustic version of Stuck in a Moment.  My favorite, though, was a lively version of Vertigo, which was cut for time.  Doh.
• On that version of Vertigo, the Edge used a Telecaster — I’ve never seen him use a Tele for Vertigo.  It sounded, to my ears, the same as the other guitars he’s used to perform the song.  Which lends credence to my theory that the Edge’s signal chain is so complex, all his guitars end up sounding the same.
• I wish that when interviewing bands, interviewers tried to get unique stories behind specific songs.  I’ve heard all the generic questions — I want unique, never-before-told anecdotes behind songs.  And you know every song has some sort of anecdote behind it.
• How did Letterman and Leno get such goober band leaders, while Conan landed a stallion like Max Weinberg?  I could wander down to the local Guitar Center and pick out a random dude wasting time that would make a more interesting band leader / comedic foil than Eubanks and Schaffer.  Screw Shaffer’s credentials, the man is boring.
• I will begrudgingly give Schaffer props for the “Will It Float” theme.

Sat June 17th, 2006 1:30 am

Filed under Televsion