David Letterman

I just got out of college, like, my goodness, would it be cool to be on the front row of history that way? I started trying to break into newspapers, but hated the deadline, hated the editing, but being on TV, you know, in sort of the golden age of network anchors, now those days, sadly, But at the time, I thought, well, I would want to be Peter Jennings.

I want to be David Letterman.

I can't decide, depending on the day.

And there was a very small funnel back in those days to get seen.

As a comedian, she's performed at clubs and universities across the United States and she's performed at US Army combat outposts and forward operating bases in Iraq.

She's a television writer and she's written for the biggest shows in American comedy, including The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Ellen.

And as a writer for the Academy Awards or the Oscars and the Screen Actors Guild Awards, she's regularly written jokes and presents a copy for the world's biggest celebrities, including Tom Hanks, who a lot of people tell me I look like.

I'm not so sure about that.

I mean, they were each expected to write in the neighborhood of 70 to 100 jokes every day.

There were eight of them, 10 of them, people doing this every day.

And same thing for Conan and Letterman and all those sorts of things.

20 made it to air and then the next morning there's an empty monologue again and everyone has to start the process over again and the really masterful thing about the hosts who do those shows five nights a week is they can take those jokes and deliver them as if they've been doing them on stage night after night after night after night so it is i guess a chemistry between the writers and the talent, you need to have a joke that is not only funny and topical, but is so in your host's voice that your host can then take it and deliver it as if it's something that's been honed over years.

I can't relate to this.

You mean it doesn't say David Letterman? And then re-watched it, oh, maybe a year, year and a half ago or something.

There's

some good

Looking like he's having the time of his life, isn't he? The elfin-like Eddie Van Halen.

Yeah, I never realised how much Eddie Van Halen looks like a cross between David Letterman and the ill child from the Airplane movie.

Weirdly, I know exactly what you mean, and I'm glad we can put pictures up these days to show that.

Yeah, if you are listening, this is really an opportunity to go to the YouTube channel and see the pictures that prove what I've just said is absolutely true.

with the cat.

There's a rumour that, have you ever seen that footage of him on an old David Letterman show where he's got long hair and he sort of kicks his foot at Letterman? He's been real weird.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Apparently there is a theory that he was in character as Ruben or... whoever he plays in this movie because that's how he looks.

It's a force you can understand.

That day, David Letterman, of all people, reminded me about one of the most basic ideas of American government.

The president has enormous power, but he is not supposed to have all of the power.

There are supposed to be checks, the people, and the courts, and the Congress, and yes, The media.

I think the the Congress in abdicating its.

kind of check and balance on the president is basically enabling him to do the very things that the American people don't want him to do, whether it's these blanket tariffs, which are driving up costs on American people or the illegal and unconstitutional Iranian war, or just the rampant corruption that pervades the administration and him focused on erecting monuments to himself instead of focus on the business of the American people.

As I mentioned, I was inspired to do that top 10 list because I ran into David Letterman in your home state.

I was in Chicago and that protest, the video at the end there was also in Chicago last October as the ICE raids were happening in Illinois.

Is AI going to kill off humanity? You know, 10 things good about AI and 10 things that are potentially not.

So let's run through it, right? These are like, if you guys ever watched David Letterman back in the day, talk show, night show host.

probably before a lot of your guys' time, but Letterman was awesome and he did these top 10 lists.

So here we are.