Friday, April 06, 2007

The King of Comedy

You've really got to check out this New York Times piece about Larry King from yesterday's paper. It's a wondrous exploration of how a willfully ignorant, disengaged man has constructed a cable talk show throne out of vapid interviews conducted with no preparation or knowledge of the subject.

The best part is where he endorses Ryan Seacrest as his successor:

“He’s the classic generalist,” Mr. King said, his eyes peering through rectangular lenses that evoke flat-panel televisions. “The only thing I don’t know, and I’ve gotten to know him pretty well, is how versed he is in politics, world affairs. Does he read the paper? Is he interested in Iraq? Because if he is, he’s going to be very good.”

Uh-huh. Notice he's "gotten to know him pretty well'' but these subjects have never come up. I guess Carson Daly is too much of an intellectual for the gig.

4 comments:

bidibis said...

Ι ve never watched that show cause we have no Larry Kings in Greece

We have various fake ones though

D. Bones said...

A fake Larry King? That sounds redundant.

Thanks for writing. How's the weather in Greece? And how much does a Grecian earn?

bidibis said...

Well it is redundant but Greece is a different kind of story!

You can't imagine how many redundant things we preserve for supposedly traditional reasons

The weathers had been pretty rainy the last few days but now is just perfect for the spring season

Well a Grecian (Greek actually) earns almost half as much as an average person from the Europe of 15

D. Bones said...

Thanks for the reply.

I hope you don't think I'm making fun of you. But I was asking "how much does a Grecian earn" because it's an old joke in America -- that works best when spoken and not written.

It plays on the similarity between the phrase "Grecian earn" and "Grecian urn,'' which is a type of vase made famous, I guess, by English Romantic poet John Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn."

Not sure why I'm explaining all this. The joke isn't exactly funny to begin with, much less when it's spelled out. Just doing my best to bridge the communication gap, I suppose.