David Letterman is returning to TV with a Netflix series called My Next Guest Needs No Introduction. There will be six 60-minute shows in the series and he’ll interview only one guest per show. The guests will be George Clooney, Malala Yousafzai, Jay-Z, Tina Fey, Howard Stern and President Barack Obama. The Obama show is first up on January 12, with an additional show following each month after that.
This is a big departure from how Netflix normally releases shows. Usually they put all the episodes of a series out there at once. Is this the first instance of them releasing episodes one at a time?
You may have seen “The Year in Pictures 2015,” but you should also check out how New York Times editors pick the best of the 150,000 photographs that come across their desks over the course of a year.
Q. The Times wants to publish Pictures of the Year, but for you individually, why do this?
Jeffrey: For me, it’s to look at the great work that’s been produced over the year. Because I work in Opinion I don’t look at as much of the news photography as Meaghan does as a front-page editor. But seeing the breadth of the work, like the migrant coverage, is very exciting, very rewarding. But at the same time, it can be a somewhat distressing task to go over the things that happened over the year. Because there are a lot of very brutal images that you don’t always want to be reminded of.
Meaghan: It’s a mixed bag in that way, because it’s really meant to be a celebration of skillfully made photography and enterprising and talented photographers. So on the one hand there is a joy to it. But on the other hand, there’s a lot of difficult material. We do try to look for a balance in the imagery that we’re selecting. But on the whole. …
I was never a particular fan of David Letterman’s show1 but always have appreciated what he did and how he did it. Dave Itzkoff of the NY Times did an interview with Letterman about his impending retirement.
It seems like there’s an increasing emphasis, at least with your network competitors, to create comedy bits that will go viral on the Internet. Did you make a conscious choice to stay out of that arms race?
No, it just came and went without me. It sneaked up on me and went right by. People on the staff said, “You know what would be great is if you would join Twitter.” And I recognized the value of it. It’s just, I didn’t know what to say. You go back to your parents’ house, and they still have the rotary phone. It’s a little like that.
The photo slide show accompanying the piece is worth a look as well, particularly the photo of the stack of paper coffee cups in Letterman’s dressing room (one cup for each show, they cover half his mirror) and the final one of Letterman bounding out onto stage. I hope that when I’m 68, I’m still charging ahead like Dave.
To be honest, I’ve never been a particular fan of any late night television, save for SNL in the late 80s and early 90s. I watched the last few years of Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show and then the first couple years of Leno, mostly because that’s what my parents watched. Letterman I caught every once in awhile after Carson and rarely after his move to CBS. I’ve only seen Conan’s show a handful of times…same with The Daily Show and Colbert. Have never watched a single episode of Fallon or Kimmel or Conan’s new show. Oh, I’ve seen clips on the web and such, but never whole shows.
My late night TV as a kid was Doctor Who and British comedies — Are You Being Served?, ‘Allo ‘Allo, Fawlty Towers, Good Neighbors, Keeping Up Appearances, The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin, etc. — on the local PBS station. That and Nintendo.↩
Are those your drums? The Late Show host likes drums so much that when musical guests finish up their sets on the show, Letterman often asks the drummer about them.
And a podcast! It’s called Here’s the Thing and it features a different guest every two weeks.
Award-winning actor Alec Baldwin gives the listener unique entree into the lives of artists, policy makers and performers. Alec sidesteps the predictable by taking listeners inside the dressing rooms, apartments, and offices of people such as comedian Chris Rock, political strategist Ed Rollins and Oscar winner Michael Douglas. Here’s The Thing: Listen to what happens when an inveterate guest becomes a host. Subscribe now and get new interviews every two weeks.
I missed this last summer when it went around originally, but all of Questlove’s celebrity stories are collected here. I had to post it at the end of the day because if this is relevant to your interests, and I think it may be, it’s going to run roughshod over your productivity.
David Letterman
thing is…i know they brought me in for the freakish factor. but only dave bothered to ask me what do i do in real life….so when i told him he was shocked like “wait you are an established artist?” even funnier was the reference “so if this like us picking up george clintons bass player thinking we got a random freaky guy and we messed around and got an icon?”—-i was flattered and said “lets hope you still feel that way when its time for my album to come out”
I’m pretty sure the Eddie Murphy story features Prince, but it’s too long to even excerpt.
Phil Collins
i “organixed” the shit outta phil in 97 at the grammies when i told him some geek shit like you and stevie wonder are the best ride cymbal crashers in modern rock after bonham. i told him “do you know do you care” shows that example in his cymbal work. man i made his day with that one.
Here’s Quest talking about Will Smith’s house. So you know Questlove isn’t easily impressed, this is the same Will Smith whose house was recently featured on the cover of Architectural Digest.
I’m telling you, the whole site is gold. Read everything.
For more Questlove awesome, see his recent interview on Pitchfork. Read everything there, too. It’s great.
Ladies and gentlemen, The Ride™ is dead. Let’s all observe a moment of silence.
What is The Ride, you ask? The Ride was my 1981 Pontiac Bonneville…quite possibly the longest car ever to roll off of the production line. It was huge and a huge crowd favorite. Kids and adults alike came from miles around just to take a ride in it. It brought people together. It loved us all.
But The Ride got too unreliable. Finicky fuel pump. 1 quart of oil every 100 miles. Inoperative gas gauge. One missing “bright” headlamp. No dome light. Missing rearview mirrow. Flat spare tire. Idled too fast. Wouldn’t run right in traffic or when it was hot. “Check engine” light on all the time. Clock didn’t work and displayed 12:00 when the blinker was on. Clock also displayed 12:00 when the bass was loud on the radio. Leaked power steering fluid. Radio tuner knob inoperable. Broken air conditioning. Among other things.
So it was time to get something else. My “new” car is a 1990 Nissan Sentra, formerly (and solely) owned by a minister. It’s not spectacular, but it works well and it’s mine.
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