Stephen Colbert reinvented the TV talk show, if only for one night

When I saw Stephen Colbert hosting Only in Monroe the day after he said goodbye to The Late Show, I thought, "Is he reinventing the television talk show?"

I know that was unlikely, yet I was a bit excited with the possibility.

Only in Monroe has an audience of perhaps dozens of people in the town of 20,000 people in southeast Michigan, so its ability to reshape national television is limited -- even though Colbert's episode has increased awareness of the show: it has been viewed 1.8 million times on YouTube as I write this.

My thoughts about Colbert reinventing the talk show were not entirely out of line, since Colbert had replaced David Letterman on The Late Show, and Letterman has been credited with reinventing the form, first with Late Night with David Letterman on NBC (1982-1993) and then with The Late Show  with David Letterman on CBS (1993-2015). 

The claim that Letterman's reinvented the talk show is premised on his ironic approach to the format. His talk shows seemed to ask, "Aren't talk shows stupid? Why take any of this seriously?" I am sure Letterman and his staff worked diligently on the shows, but in their appearance the shows suggested no one was working very hard.

Of Letterman's show, Tim Grierson wrote, "There was nothing upscale or 'professional' about Late Night’s witty stupidity, which made it the polar opposite of the ingratiating, slightly sleepy Tonight Show."

Colbert's recent Only in Monroe had lots of silliness, but I found it surprisingly earnest. Colbert and his writers studied Monroe and its peculiarities to produce jokes and gags just as good as they did on The Late Show about national and international news. This was different to a degree from his first appearance on the show.

When Colbert first hosted Only in Monroe in 2015, he was fresh off The Colbert Report, in which he performed as "Stephen Colbert," a parody of a Fox News political pundit  who was sometimes rather stupid. That character lingered during Colbert's interview with Michigan native Marshall Mathers (Eminem). Colbert pretended to be unaware of Mathers' success as a rapper and worked to irritate him in several ways during the segment. (How much Mathers was in on the joke is not clear.) This segment also was reminiscent of Colbert's time as a correspondent on The Daily Show. 

In other words, Colbert had ironic moments during his initial Only in Monroe appearance. For much of the episode he is genuine and playful, but there also are moments when he is goofing on the idea of a cable access TV show, in some ways similar to how Letterman goofed on the idea of a network talk show.

I think that this ironic approach, which can seem smug or condescending, was missing from Colbert's return to Monroe 11 years later. The irony of The Colbert Report and of the Letterman influence was replaced with what seems to be a more genuine and humane spirit of fun, and that perhaps reflects more of who Colbert is as a person off the stage.

Oddly enough, this earnestness is evident when Colbert and the show's regular hosts huff helium while discussing one of the host's "cancer journey."

Why would they do that? Because when co-host Michelle Baumann was being treated for cancer, she shared video updates on social media that were recorded with a filter that distorted her face and made her voice cartoonishly high and squeaky. The helium gag reflected someone's careful attention to the people involved with Only in Monroe. Colbert's questions about her illness and recovery were sincere,  and Baumann and Kaye Lani Rae Rafko Wilson discussed the experience candidly -- but with a sense of fun, as they were all mindful to take a fresh hit of helium before talking.

The careful attention to the show and to Monroe was reflected in other parts of the episode. All of it became material for jokes, but I did not find the humor condescending. The jokes were not making fun of Monroe for being a small town; the jokes were similar to those made about national events or the absurdities of life in New York City, where The Late Show was recorded. Colbert's staff paid attention to recent local events and created an entirely Monroe-centric show about it -- such as Colbert and volunteer musical director Jack White judging which rival hot dog stands had the better chili dogs: Monroe's Original Hot Dogs and Vince's West Elm Drive-In?

Early in the episode, I wondered if the whole thing was a set-up. Was there really a show called Only in Monroe? Were the hosts real or actors? Were local events invented for the sake of the jokes? I kept thinking of National Lampoon's Sunday Newspaper Parody in 1978. It created an entire Sunday edition of the Dacron, Ohio Republican-Democrat, with fake ads and news stories. It was an impressive, elaborate, and funny contrivance (I still have my copy, nearly 50 years later). 

Had Colbert's crew pulled off something like that?

I almost wish they had, but I am happy to know they did not. Monroe Community Meida is a real non-profit organization in the southeast corner of Michigan, and Only in Monroe is a real show.

I had not been aware that Colbert hosted Only in Monroe in 2015. Nor had I been aware that this had apparently inspired several bits on The Late Show, which featured celebrities sharing "community calendar" events from their hometowns. You can find segments with John Oliver, Melissa McCarthy, and others on YouTube.

One of the staff at Monroe Community Media kind of stole the show, creating what I think is another interesting comparison with Letterman's show.

Larry "Bud" Melman, played by Calvert DeForest, vaulted to fame as a bumbling regular character on Letterman's show. He regularly flubbed his lines, missed his cues, and frequently did not seem to understand the premise of the skit he was performing. None of this was edited out. In fact, it became the central appeal of the character and his bits. Melman sometimes acted a foil to Letterman, keeping him from getting through the prepared material. The general failure of the bit was the point. More irony.

Melman's counterpart on Only in Monroe was Genevieve Benson, the creative director for Monroe Community Media. She was behind the scenes as a kind of all-purpose wrangler, providing props and relaying information to Colbert -- and keeping him in line. Benson's appearance lacked the irony of DeForest's; she was appearing as herself, not a character.

When she brings the chili dogs out to be taste-tested by Colbert and White, she quickly realizes she cannot recall which dog is from which restaurant, which defeats the purpose of the taste-test.

When Colbert washed the taste of the chili dogs from his mouth, he spit the water on the studio floor. When Benson came out later with a basket of ingredients for Jeff Daniels to make his famous peanut butter, potato chip, and barbecue sauce sandwich, she admonished Colbert, "No spitting. On the floor. No."

Later in that segment, Colbert called her out to ask whether the studio had a microwave oven. She bounded out and told him they did not -- and then, laughing, she said, "Wait. I'm sorry. We do. I was just ready to say no to you."

When Colbert asked for something to drink because Daniels's sandwiches were very dry, Benson brought him her own water bottle. "It smells a little weird, but don't be alarmed."

If Colbert has another show, he should bring Benson along to be his assistant/foil, in a dynamic perhaps similar to that between Conan O'Brien and Sona Movsesian. Colbert and Benson could recreate their Monroe magic in towns across the United States, presenting their quirks, charms, and chili dogs. 

The Limits of FU Money: Some money can make you brave, but a lot of money can make you cowardly

Seeing tech billionaires lining up to kiss Donald Trump's ring and seeing media corporations cave to pressure from a mad king unhappy about the jokes made by their late-night jesters makes me think of John Goodman.

In the 2014 film The Gambler, Goodman's character makes an internet-famous speech about money and the freedom it can bring. He says a person's goal should be to accumulate $2.5 million, buy a house free and clear, and create a "Fortress of Solitude." There the person can live with their family and not worry about pleasing anyone else. No one can tell them what to do, because they now have "fuck-you money."

He goes on, "A wise man's life is based around 'fuck you.' The United States of America is based on 'fuck you.' You're a king? You have an army? The greatest navy in the history of the world? Fuck you. Blow me."

Goodman's character today might tell a different story today, as the mega-wealthy fawn over the king and beg him to love them. 

One would think that fuck-you status had been reached by billionaires such as Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, and Bill Gates. But there they were, on the Joni Mitchell Patio -- Trump paved the paradise of Jackie Kennedy's Rose Garden and put up a parking lot of white tables and chairs with golden umbrellas.  

During Trump 1.0, some people referred to his Florida home as the Southern White House. In Trump 2.0, he is turning the White House into the Northern Mar-a-lago.

The tech bros yucked it up with Trump, and Gates, of all people, praised Trump's "leadership" in artificial intelligence policies -- despite Trump eliminating foreign aid, including food and medical supplies, to Africa. Gates has spent years working and millions of his own dollars to help African communities. 

Weeks before the grotesque patio love-fest, Cook gave Trump a literal gold brick in the Oval Office.

Why are these men debasing themselves this way, when, surely, they have fuck-you money? Was Goodman's character lying?

When I thought of Goodman and his speech from The Gambler, I thought of a graph that would chart the relationship of money to freedom. The line would start low, go high, and then drop again. It would represent the Mountain of Freedom.

The x-axis would represent the amount of money you have. The amount increase as you move from left to right. The y-axis represents the amount of freedom you have. It starts low and climbs as the amount of your money increases. But at some point it begins to decline. Even though your wealth increases further, your freedom diminishes. 

On the left side of the chart, where you have little money, you have little freedom. Because you need money to survive, you must perform tasks you do not want to do or pretend to believe things you do not believe or pretend to like people you do not like. 

As the amount of money you have increases, you gain freedom from those undesirable activities. For most Americans, this does not come until retirement. That is when we have secured enough resources (through savings or pensions and through paying off our homes) that we can live in our Fortresses of Solitude.

However, if the money line keeps rising, ironically, you can lose freedom. Either from an irrational desire to gain even more money or from a pathological fear of losing the money you have, you resume performing tasks you do not want to do or pretending to like people you do not like or pretending to believe things you do not believe. 

Or the money twists you, changes you, and you begin liking people you had disliked and betraying your previous beliefs. 

Zuckerberg and Company do not need any more money. They have more money than they can spend in ten lifetimes. And yet there they were, flattering an ignorant buffoon at the White House. He is a man with a fraction of their intelligence, but since he possesses no shame or scruples, he is willing to abuse his power, enabling his greed, his petty resentments, and his delusions of grandeur. And because they love their wealth more than their dignity, the wealthy suck up to him.

Meanwhile, corporations worth billions of dollars run by CEOs worth millions curry favor with the minions Trump has appointed to various federal agencies. If they have a merger in the works that needs federal approval, they are willing to silence their employees (Stephen Colbert at CBS and Jimmy Kimmel at ABC) only because Trump does not like being criticized. Other corporations are willing to eliminate their diversity, equity, and inclusion programs to avoid the regime's disfavor. They will do anything to keep the money flowing. The company store has sold its soul.

On either side of the Mountain of Freedom are valleys of enslavement: the Valley of Poverty and the Valley of Obscene Wealth.

Regular people want enough. The Rich always want more.  

It is hard to tell who owns whom. Do the wealthy own their fortunes, or do their fortunes own them?

Unfortunately, under the current administration, they may end up owning the rest of us.

Stephen Colbert Delivers 1833 Smackdown

A quote attributed to Stephen Colbert has been making the rounds of the Interwebs lately, especially on Facebook.  It looks like this --

I give Colbert lots of props for the consistency of Christian principles.  If you recall, he testified before a Congressional panel on issues about rights for immigrants.  At the end of his remarks, he broke from his satire long enough to quote Jesus regarding compassion and fighting injustice: "Whatsoever you do for the least of these my brothers, you do also to me."  Colbert added that the migrant workers are "the least brothers," and therefore he felt the need to do what he could to help them.

However, two things struck me about this latest Colbert meme.

1. Colbert is in good company, as a wise man said much the same thing 178 years ago.

2. Colbert speaks to the mistaken assumption that the United States is a "Christian nation."

William Apess was a Pequot who became a Methodist minister and lived among the Mashpee Indians near Boston.  In his 1833 sermon titled "An Indian's Looking-Glass for the White Man," Apess asks a white congregation how they can profess to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ but turn a blind eye to the injustices committed against American Indians in Massachusetts.  Many in the congregation were upset about injustices being committed against Southeastern Indian tribes, who were being removed to what would become Oklahoma, but none seemed to worry about the Mashpee, who were being arrested, abused, raped, and robbed in the congregation's own backyard.

He reminds the congegration that Jesus said nothing about race being important to salvation or for distinguishing to whom one should show compassion.  And yet many white churches did not admit people of color and did little to help those people of color being abused by the white population and government officials.

Apess says, "If you can find a spirit like Jesus Christ and his Apostles prevailing now in any of the white congregations, I should like to know it."

Oh, snap!

A few moments later he says, "Who are the children of God?  Perhaps you may say, none but white.  If so, the word of the Lord is not true."

Ouch.

I paraphrase his point for my students this way:  He gives the congregation a choice; either everything in the Bible is a lie, or they are hypocrites.  To say one is to commit blasphemy.  To say the other is to admit something about yourself most people would want to avoid. 

I teach this powerful and very modern-sounding sermon just about every semester.  I refer to it as Apess's "Dr. Phil Smackdown" to Massachusetts Christians.

I think Colbert makes an important distinction at the beginning of his comment.  He says, "IF the United States IS GOING TO BE a Christian nation...."  His statement seems to assume that the United States has not been a Christian nation before now.  And I agree.

Some people have responded to this Colbert quote by pointing out the separation of church and state.  Government-sponsored welfare programs cannot be justified on the basis of Christian beliefs.  Additionally, Christian charity is voluntary, but government assistance is financed through taxation, which is not voluntary. 

Colbert's remark also reminds me of how I often hear people make the claim the United States is a Christian nation.  This argument is often times made when discussing "the Founding Fathers" and their intentions.  This argument is often times made when people talk of legislating social or moral issues, especially when that issue runs counter to what they believe is permitted by the Bible (gay marriage, for instance).

I think Christianity is not about what you eat or drink.  It is not about your sexual partners.  It is about radical compassion.

Jesus said "by their fruits you shall know them," meaning that a person's true character is evident in his actions.  The Founding Fathers and Americans throughout history have talked a lot about God, but talk is cheap, and talking does not make a nation Christian.  Its actions do.  No one has pointed out to me those actions taken by the United States government that proves its Christian character. 

My Cherokee and Choctaw ancestors have the loss of their Southeastern homelands as evidence to the contrary.

I am not holding the United States to some unrealistic standard, though.  I think it is unrealistic to expect any nation to be truly Christian in its principles.  Nations tend to be built upon one group of people protecting their interests against the interests of other groups of people.  The United States built an empire, and since an empire is built by imposing one nation's will upon other nations, I do not see how one can build a truly Christian empire.

That "do unto others" thing keeps getting in the way .  If you let it.