It’s A Suggestion, Not A Review: Hashtag Goodbye Dave

No, Dave Sikula is not leaving, but he’s a little torn up about another Dave who is.

One thing about writing these blog posts is the regular schedule. I know that, no matter what else I do, every two weeks, I’ll be turning out an article bloviating about something or other.

But even as I write this, I know that, when my next deadline rolls around in a fortnight, I’ll be as depressed as I’ve been in a long time.

“Why?,” you may ask. “Because,” I would answer, “I’ll be writing in the absence of David Letterman.” Dave and I have a long history together. It’s not like I’ve ever met the man, though I have seen his show live (I think) seven times, but he’s been a big part of my life for, damn, nearly 40 years.

I’ve long admitted I didn’t like his standup when he was beginning. There was something about it – and him – that I found kinda smarmy, so it took me a while to watch his morning show that aired in 1980. But once I discovered that show, I became a fan for life, and I realized the other day that his humor and comedy have been major influences on me for more than half of my life, and certainly almost all of my adult life. (And when you consider that I’ve missed only a handful of David Letterman Shows, Late Shows with David Letterman, and no Late Nights with David Letterman, it’s in the neighborhood of 6,000 hours – nearly eight solid months – I’ve spent watching the guy.)

I’m not alone in this, well, obsession. Since 1993, I’ve been part of an online group that tracks, discusses, and dissects the show – and Dave – and those people have become some of my dearest friends, even if I’ve actually met most of them only a few times.

(You’ll have to excuse me. Tina Fey just stripped down to her underwear on Dave’s show.)

Where was I?

Ah, yes; the AFLers. Back in the early days of the Internet, there was a thing called Usenet, which allowed people with similar interests to gather and post about them. (Usenet still exists in a vastly altered form. Most of the content was overwhelmed by spammers and trolls, and the remainder was more or less absorbed by Google.) Most of these groups had names that were prefaced with the prefix “alt” or “rec,” and alt.fan.letterman was one of those many thousands of groups. The people of AFL are some of the finest I know, and knowledgeable about many, many things outside of late night talk shows. We have doctors, educators, editors, musicians – including a musicologist who’s become the unofficial official archivist of the show. (Seriously, his New York apartment is apparently filled to capacity with VHS tapes of virtually every broadcast Dave has ever done.) Not to mention, we even have current and past writers for the show as members. (The Usenet group has long since migrated to Facebook.)

The AFLers; I’d rather be with them than with the finest people. You can just see my head peeping up there in the middle.

Every year, the AFLers gather in New York for “Davecon” to see the show live and in person, have dinner, crack wise, and (for the newbies) get a tour of the Ed Sullivan Theatre – yes, I’ve stood on the spot where the Beatles performed and sat behind Dave’s desk – and just gather. Over the years, we’ve come to know staffers, writers, and producers from the show – even the security guy. (And Rupert Jee, who owns the Hello Deli next door to Dave’s theatre? Nicest and most modest guy in the world.) This year will (obviously) be the last assemblage (and I have to miss it, dammit; it’s during our preview week for Grey Gardens – which you should see, since it’s going to be a remarkable show, even with me. But I know where my heart will be Monday the 18 th at 3:30 pm PT), but the memories of Davecons past will linger.

What was really happening behind that desk.

Now, in spite of all of that, I was sure that, given how, in recent years, the show isn’t what it once was (Dave’s lost a lot of interest in doing the show, it feels like), that when it was over, I’d be sad, but not too much so, But now that the number of remaining shows is in the single digits, I’m starting to feel the loss already, and know I’m going to be a mess when Paul Shaffer and the band hit that final final note to end the show.
The thing that got me thinking about all of this tonight was that, as we were leaving rehearsal tonight, I mentioned that I had no idea what I was going to write about this week (is it that obvious?), and one of my fellow cast members, who is determined to turn my name into a hashtag, said I should write about that. I begged off, thinking it as uninteresting as I am, the idea of becoming any kind of a meme is even moreso. But it did remind me of how, not only are the AFLers responsible for a couple of my favorite nicknames, but turned me into an acronym that also doubles as a hashtag I’m happy to use. (Seriously; it’s in the Urban Dictionary on the prestigious Internet.)

At this point in an article, I usually try to bring a couple of seemingly unrelated points together in an effort to make a larger point, but I have to admit I got nothin’ in that regard this time. Being in rehearsal, I haven’t had time to see anything to comment on, really. (Other than Stupid Fucking Bird at SF Playhouse, which is a really interesting production and has been sticking in my head, not for the least reason that it’s making me rethink my approach to translating Chekhov; that and Sister Play at the Magic, which was really good and criminally underlooked.) What’s been at the forefront of my mind in terms of “entertainment” and art has been Dave Letterman.

So, while this hasn’t been the most incisive, analytical, or insightful of articles, it is the smallest of explanations for why I’m both so thankful for a man who’s played a major part in shaping American comedy for the last 40 years and a warning that in two weeks, I won’t be in much of a mood to write.

Hi-Ho, the Glamorous Life: An Analysis of My Relationship to Comedy (With Jokes)

Brace yourselves for Marissa Skudlarek, comic genius.

September is Comedy Month on the Theater Pub blog, so it seems like a good time for me to parse my rather vexed relationship with the idea of comedy.

Simply put, I think I have a good sense of humor, but I don’t get excited about COMEDY! the way so many other people of my generation do. I remember reading a survey (which I am now unable to find on Google) that said that young people increasingly see comedy as central to their identity. Comedy festivals proliferate, and every Millennial seems to be working on a humorous web series. Stand-up comedians, who once upon a time were themselves subjects of mockery, are the new rock stars.

These days, being interested in or good at comedy means that you’re one of the cool kids. And I am inherently skeptical of cool kids.

It wasn’t always this way: for eons, tragedy was the most prestigious genre, and comedy was considered frivolous. But now that the tables have turned, comedians are reveling in their newfound power. And sometimes, I feel, they overreach – they make claims for comedy that it doesn’t deserve.

Comedians like to consider themselves truth-tellers, and at their best, comedy and satire can effectively cut through society’s bullshit to reveal radical, disturbing truths. But this doesn’t mean that all comedy performs such a noble public service. Some comedy reinforces stereotypes instead of smashing them. (In the case of “ironic racism” or “ironic sexism,” comedy tries to have it both ways, which is worst of all.) Sometimes people refuse to laugh at your offensive, taboo jokes because they’re uptight prudes who can’t handle the truth bombs that you’re exploding in their faces, man. But sometimes people refuse to laugh at your offensive jokes because you just aren’t funny. Not every fart joke is a truth bomb.

Because of this strong association between comedy and truth, people often fail to acknowledge that comedy can be just as artificial as drama. It sounds respectable to say, “I loved that play! It made me laugh,” but it sounds suspicious to say, “I loved that play! It made me cry.” Maybe the play didn’t make you cry for the right reasons. Maybe it was cheaply manipulative and sentimental; maybe it played on your emotions. But laughter is always considered above reproach – even though the art of provoking laughter is itself an art of manipulation.

I do appreciate how, in the 21st-century comedy renaissance, women get to join in on the fun. People once honestly believed that women aren’t funny, and maybe it’s true that traditional, stereotyped femininity doesn’t offer much opportunity for humor. Comedy is transgressive, loud, messy, and active; it assaults dignity and convention. And women finally feel free enough to take part in this.

But if I’m a feminist who feels ambivalent about comedy, what does that make me? Does it mean I’m secretly afraid of strong, funny, loud, messy women; does it mean that, deep down, I am a reactionary troglodyte? The Twitter avatar of popular comedy writer Megan Amram (who went to high school with me, incidentally) shows her making a grotesque face: caked-on eyeshadow, dead eyes, double chin. And we are supposed to interpret this as a bold feminist statement. Unlike other women, blushing flowers who bat their eyelashes and pray for male approval, Megan’s not afraid to look ugly for the sake of a joke. I admire her gumption while also knowing that I lack it: when I choose a Facebook or Twitter profile pic, I select an image that shows me at my best (or at least, not at my worst). Megan’s Twitter avatar is supposed to make me laugh, but instead it makes me feel ashamed. I feel that I am a bad person for wanting strangers to think I’m pretty, and that my desire to cater to the male gaze is, for all I know, single-handedly upholding rape culture in the United States.

So you see what I mean when I say I have a vexed relationship to comedy. (To feminism, too.) Furthermore, I think my problem might be that I draw a mental distinction between comedy and humor. I love humor – and I can’t stand humorless people. I often say that I could never write a play that’s devoid of laughter, because I don’t think the world works like that! Our foibles, the absurd things we do to get what we want… these are the basis of drama, and they’re also inherently funny. And even in life’s saddest or darkest moments, people will find things to laugh about (perhaps in a bitter gallows-humor way, but that’s still humor).

But at the same time, I am not sure that I could ever write a 100% comedic play. For me, writing humor means creating a world where funny things can happen. (It could, in fact, be identical to our own world.) Whereas writing comedy implies the creation of a world where only funny things happen – where anything that doesn’t provoke laughter is simply ignored. And I consider that a dangerously false outlook – just as wrong-headed as total humorlessness is.

I think that life teeters wildly between great joy and great sorrow – so isn’t it odd that there are thousands of aspiring comedians, but no aspiring tragedians? We would find it absurd (or horrifying) if someone said that they spend all day thinking of ways to provoke people to tears and catharsis, but we think it’s perfectly natural to spend all day thinking of ways to make people convulse with laughter. And that’s really kind of funny, when you think about it, isn’t it? It could even be the beginnings of a comedy sketch.

Marissa Skudlarek is a San Francisco-based playwright, producer, and arts writer. Her Twitter avatar (@MarissaSkud) is a photo of the back of her head.