The Conservative Cave

EXCLUSIVE: A lot has changed in late-night, in the media and in America in the 12 years since Jay Leno stopped being the host of The Tonight Show.

For one thing, there is a new king of late-night, but he isn’t on TV.

“I mean, podcasts really are the new talk show. Joe Rogan is the new Johnny Carson,” the 76-year-old comic and Jay Leno’s Garage frontman says, likely knowing he’ll get blowback.
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To that, Leno has some ideas why late-night has faded away, why YouTube took over and why he doesn’t worry about the critics, regardless of what side of the aisle or the desk they come from.
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DEADLINE: With all that’s going on in late-night now, your exit in 2014 looks like a prophetic move now, no?

JAY LENO: (Laughs) That’s pretty funny.

You know. I make my living as a stand-up comic. TV is a job that either lasts 13 weeks or less. OK, I was lucky — mine lasted 22 years. But the day The Tonight Show ended, I was back on the road the next night in Florida for five nights, and that’s what I do now. So for me, nothing really has changed. People always think, “How’s retirement?” Well, I’m not retired. I do 200 dates a year, ... .
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DEADLINE: Inadvertently you were ahead of the game, and you get to be your own boss, which can’t be bad?

LENO: It’s funny, because I was so fortunate that my agent dropped me right before I got The Tonight Show in 1992. I later worked it out — I saved $30 million in commissions.
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LENO: I know, I said, “All right, fine with me,” you know? I mean, I’m one of those people, when everyone wants to break up with me, I don’t plead. I go, “Fine, OK, you’re cool.“ And that was the same thing, you know, with the agent.

I mean, I remember the same thing happened when I was in The Tonight Show, and they’re gonna replace me with Conan [O’Brien], and they called me, and I said, “You know, I did No. 1 for like 17 years.” One of the executives says, “We want what’s above No. 1,“ and I go, “OK, what is above No. 1?” I mean, I just started to laugh, and they realized how stupid the statement was. I said, “You want me out? I’m out. Fine.” And then I was out.
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DEADLINE: ... There’s almost never one reason for anything, but with Stephen Colbert gone, Jimmy Kimmel thriving but under threat and everyone looking over their corporate shoulder for attacks from Donald Trump, their own bosses or Greg Gutfeld, why do you think late-night lost its swagger?

LENO: It’s boring. But here’s the thing that I think hurt late-night the most: too many commercials.

They passed some new rules before my tenure at The Tonight Show, that after 11:30 at night you could add another like five or six minutes to the hour. It came in in waves, but by the end of my time [at The Tonight Show], instead of doing like 48 minutes of show, it was only like 42 and broken up more.
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LENO: Yeah, so when I turn on late-night now, regardless of how I’m watching, if I see Jake from State Farm again, I’m gonna shoot myself in the f*cking head.

It’s like, geez … the host comes out, does the monologue, then it’s right away over to six minutes of commercials. You come back, the host talks about who’s coming up and everything out, “We’ll be right back,” and so on. All cut up.
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Why watch that when I can switch over to streaming or YouTube and I can watch an hour with Harrison Ford talking off the top of his head, as opposed to just having few minutes with the guest or with the host, you know? Johnny used to have real conversations. I tried to have real conversations. That’s seems to be gone, and the audience knows it.
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DEADLINE: You’re take on late-night has gotten you spanked more than a few times. As well as calling you a hypocrite almost a decade ago over your Monica Lewinsky jokes in the late 1990s and your calls for civility, John Oliver in particular has taken you to the woodshed over your criticism of late-night getting too partisan. It’s ironic, because, let’s be honest, you’re a pal of ex-presidents, but you’ve been pretty political over the years with your zingers too.

LENO: Well, with John Oliver, I did interview last year with the head of the Reagan Library about the humor of Ronald Reagan. Talked about having dinner with him a couple times, and blah blah blah at the White House and stuff, and you know, just telling funny stories.

One of the questions the interviewer, David Trulio, asked me was something like, “How do you think you and Johnny handled politics?” Well, we tried to make fun of both sides equally. You know, you humiliate degrade everybody equally — that’s it. I mentioned the pressures of life and people cozying up to one side more than the other. I said, “I don’t think anyone wants to hear a lecture. Why go for just half an audience?” He wanted me to say that Republicans laugh at each other more than Democrats. I’m not sure I agreed.

Anyway, this was all while Colbert still had a job at CBS

Two weeks later, Colbert gets fired. Interview comes out.

Soon after, I picked up the paper, and they have a picture of me making an angry face and saying late-night hosts are doing it wrong. I didn’t say that. I didn’t. But John Oliver goes, “Hey, Jay Leno, f*ck you. F*ck you for saying that about Colbert.” But I never said that, I never said it.

That’s why I tend not to take any of it too seriously. I never mentioned another guy being better or worse or anything. I think they all do a good job. Funny is funny. All the rest, it’s just the times we live in, that’s all.

The Obama Presidential Center is set to open Friday in Chicago, but several subcontractors who helped build the project say they are still struggling to recover millions of dollars in alleged unpaid costs.

Among them is Adamson Plumbing owner Mike Owen, who said his company is nearly $4 million in the red after years of work on the project.

"That is a hole that no subcontractor, small business can survive," Owen said. He said the losses have drained company reserves, created uncertainty for employees, and could lead to layoffs.
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According to a Fox News Digital report published Wednesday, multiple subcontractors alleged losses ranging from hundreds of thousands of dollars to tens of millions.

The report said the claims raise questions about one of the center's signature goals: creating economic opportunities for minority-owned businesses and local contractors.

It was a violent, full-court press against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by Antifa and other leftists in Minneapolis last winter, and some of the planning included a major labor union.

The 94-page indictment released this week by the Justice Department officials in Minneapolis outlined in detail, using Antifa members' own words in their multiple encrypted Signal chats, how 15 defendants coordinated their "direct actions" to stop ICE from arresting and deporting people in the country illegally.

They used their cars, breastplates, bodies, and other paraphernalia to hurt officers, barricade roads with multiple types of coordinated styles in an attempt to stop officers from moving freely about the city. Their "force, intimidation, and threats" against ICE and Department of Homeland Security officers
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The coordinated activity included directing the local AFL-CIO union on where to place its members for maximum effect.
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Saying a labor union is involved in far-left protest activity is like saying the sun came up today for those who have been watching the Wobblies since the dawn of the last century, but the AFL-CIO was heavily involved in the Minnesota protests. One of their members was Alex Pretti, who was shot by federal agents as he tried to stop them. The Minnesota unions were all in on the protests.

surfered (14,905 posts)

Leave it to Beaver...

Martin Eden (16,002 posts)
1. Beaver aced Logic 101. MAGA always fails.

And the Republican Party goes along with it.

FakeNoose (42,872 posts)
4. Yes and the media keep ignoring those stories too
If it weren't for us sharing those stories of Repuke voter fraud here on DU, I don't think any of us would know either. Chump just keeps lying and the reporters keep showing his lies without checking anything.

That's why Kristin Welker talking back to him was so important, and Chump couldn't respond. They should all be doing that, just as Kristin did.

Just to be clear: there are very few instances of voter fraud. However it seems that every time it happens it's a Repuke that gets caught doing it.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221313838