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 My primary Writing.com blog. |
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Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics). Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places: Thanks for stopping by!  |
 Prompt for October 5, 2025: Do you believe the Bible is 100% truth? Why or why not? At the risk of getting all philosophical, I think it's important to define what is meant by the word "truth" in this case, because there are a couple of different ways to interpret the Bible. I've mentioned this in prior blog posts, but there are two broad interpretations of the Bible that are most widely accepted: Biblical inerrancy is the school of thought that everything in the Bible is true, accurate, and without error. It's often associated with advocacy for the factual precision or literalism of the text in most respects. Biblical infallibility is the school of thought that the Bible is true in its purpose (i.e., to provide guidance in faith and life, and to tell the story of God and His people), even if some of the specifics — such as historical or scientific information — are not entirely accurate. For example, let's take a look at the very opening verses of the Bible: 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, âLet there be light,â and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light âday,â and the darkness he called ânight.â And there was evening, and there was morningâthe first day. — Genesis 1:1-5 (NIV) According to an inerrant view of the Bible, one might look at that text and say, "The Bible very clearly states what God created on the first day. On the first day, out of nothing, God created the heavens and earth, and day and night. Therefore, since there are 24 hours in the day, the Biblical truth is that God created the heavens and the earth, and day and night in 24 hours." According to an infallible view of the Bible, one might look at that text and say, "Well, the Bible very clearly states what God created on the first and second day. But does the Bible say a day is exactly 24 hours? Actually, in Psalm 90:4, it says, 'a thousand years in Your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night' ... and in 2 Peter 3:8 it says, 'but do not forget this one thing, dear friends: with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day'. Based on that it seems pretty clear that God exists outside of the construct of linear time, so what if "the first day" where God created the heavens and the earth was actually a thousand of our linear years? Or even a billion? At the end of the day, the exact length of chronological time it took isn't the important detail here; the Biblical truth is that, however long it may have taken in human years, God created the heavens and earth, day and night." Ultimately, I suppose I land more on the infallible side of things where Biblical interpretation is concerned. The Bible is, after all, the story of God and His people, and in most cases, we don't look to other storybooks to form our understanding of scientific facts and historical accuracy. We wouldn't read Frankenstein or The Island of Doctor Moreau for their scientific truths, and I'm not sure we should be reading the Bible that way either. That said, I do believe that the Bible is the divinely-inspired word of God, and I believe it's incumbent upon all believers to read it and use it to inform how they live their lives. I just happen to believe there has to be some synthesis there, because there are inconsistencies in the Bible. If you're reading the Bible from an inerrant perspective, there are quite a few contradictions that are difficult to explain. If you're reading the Bible from an infallible perspective, it's a little easier to square some of those circles and realize that religion and science (or religion and history) are not necessarily fundamentally at odds with one another. Take the Genesis example from above. If you interpret the days of creation from Genesis, and all other dates relayed in the Bible, as literal, chronological truth, the earth is only about 6,000 years old and that is difficult to reconcile with things like the scientific study of evolution, paleontology, etc. With the inherent timeline contradiction, one or the other has to be discounted. But if you interpret the days of creation from Genesis as potentially being billions of years, you start to see how both the Biblical truth and scientific truth can simultaneously both be accurate. Now, none of this is to say that you should assume that the entire Bible is open to interpretation and should be warped to fit your own tastes and preferences; that's just as bad as prooftexting (i.e., the practice of taking specific verses out of context to reinforce a preconception). But the challenge I think Christians are tasked with is to take the Bible and interpret how it applies to their own context, whatever that may be. Where we tend to run into trouble as Christians is when we try to inflexibly assume that a book that was written literally thousands of years ago is the final word on not just matters of faith, but also on matters of science, history, medicine, politics, etc. as well. To me, the Bible is a lot like the United States Constitution. I don't have an "originalist" mentality, where nothing can be changed or deviated from or expanded upon from what was first put down on paper or the "intentions" of the people that wrote those words. I think that the world has evolved a lot since that time and, as a result, it requires a lot of study, intentionality, and humility to figure out how to interpret the infallible truths of the past and reconcile them with our very different present-day world. On a personal note, having read the Bible multiple times at this point, the one thing that keeps jumping out at me over and over again as a recurring theme is that we are tasked with loving God and loving each others above all else. So my "pro tip" on reading and interpreting the Bible is to start with that as an absolute baseline. If your interpretation of the Bible is leading you away from either of those things, that's probably a red flag. |
| To qualify for my Watch List every month, the following has to be something that I've watched that's new to me. It doesn't necessarily have to be a current show, but it can't be reruns or rewatches of something I've already seen. So if I'm including it in this list, it means this month is the first time I've watched it. I'll put "DNF" (Did Not Finish) next to anything that I stopped watching and have no immediate plans to finish. Movies  Afterburn Bob Trevino Likes It Licorice Pizza The Old Guard 2 One Battle After AnotherIt was a mixed bag of movies this year. Afterburn was a pretty mediocre post-apocalyptic action movie, Bob Trevino Likes It was a pretty depressing movie about a lonely young woman desperate to turn a random stranger with the same name as her deadbeat dad into a father figure, and The Old Guard 2 was a decent sequel to the original, but also clearly one of those movies that was only made to set up another sequel later and thus kind of frustrating to watch. I hate investing two hours in a movie only to have it end by basically saying, "TO BE CONTINUED... come back and watch the next one in two years!" One Battle After Another was excellent. Paul Thomas Anderson continues to prove that he's an extremely talented filmmaker with a point of view, and this was his best movie in a long time. The performances from Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio Del Toro, and Chase Infiniti were particularly memorable, and the storyline with the Christmas Adventurer's Club was bizarre and memorable. The runtime was two hours and forty-two minutes and I went to see an 11pm show on a week night, and it's a testament to the film's quality that I wasn't the least bit tired and didn't feel like it dragged on in the least. Watching it reminded me that there are a small number of Paul Thomas Anderson movies that I haven't seen, so I started going back through his back catalogue, starting with Licorice Pizza, which a lot of friends I know absolutely love. I thought it was just okay; the filmmaking was great and I appreciate that Anderson is always trying something new, but that one just didn't land with me as well as One Battle After Another. I am excited to continue to go through his prior films and watch or rewatch them. Television Daredevil: Born Again (Season 1) Eyes of Wakanda The Hunting Wives (Season 1) Ironheart (Season 1) The Summer I Turned Pretty (Season 3) Wild Cards (Season 1) — DNFThis month, I got caught up on watching a lot of the Marvel projects I worked on but haven't yet seen the final versions of. Daredevil: Born Again was the best of the bunch, in my opinion, although Eyes of Wakanda was definitely unique and fun for a four-episode limited series. Wild Cards was a forgettable procedural that I only watched a couple episodes of, and The Summer I Turned Pretty is a show my wife follows, so I wouldn't say that I so much "watched" it as "was in the same room while it was on."  And The Hunting Wives was a show that I really enjoyed for the first seven episodes, but it feels like they really ran out of steam on the eighth and final episode, which was a real bummer.Other Critical Role: The Age of UmbraThe team behind TTRPG live-play sensation Critical Role has run a number of small miniseries to keep the channel fresh while preparing for Campaign 4 (which just launched this past Thursday). They ran Exandria Unlimited: Divergence, an anthology series set in the same world as the first three campaigns, they ran Wildemount Wildlings, a play on sleep-away summer camp, and The Age of Umbra, a dark fantasy game in a new campaign setting, developed for Critical Role's proprietary TTRPG system, Daggerheart. I'm hoping to get around to watching all of the miniseries eventually — and keep pace with Campaign 4 — but I definitely wanted to check out The Age of Umbra to experience a new TTRPG world and see how Daggerheart is played in practice. From the latter aspect, I thought it was interesting to see how some of the new game mechanics work. I think it's a bit of a mixed bag; some of the pieces of the new system I really like, but others I think are overly complicated or unnecessary. And the campaign world itself was fine, if a little uninspired. Overall, it was a good watch, but I'm glad it was a miniseries and not a full campaign. Campaign 4 will return to D&D 5E (2024) rules, and take place in a completely brand-new world created by Brennan Lee Mulligan, the Dimension 20 Game Master. It'll be the first time that Matthew Mercer isn't GMing a main Critical Role campaign, which is going to be really interesting. TOP PICK: One Battle After Another |
 Prompt #115: If you could magically learn any one skill overnight, what would you choose and what would you do with it? If I could learn any skill overnight, I think I'd want to suddenly be able to be a really good cook. I love good food and I can follow a basic recipe, but I'm not what you'd call comfortable in the kitchen. It doesn't come naturally to me, and I certainly don't know the first thing about combining ingredients or developing flavors on the fly. So I would love to have a set of culinary skills that allows me to make great food with less effort so that I could enjoy it more often. I've always struggled with cooking because I hate to waste food, and I know that you have to sometimes get it wrong to practice and develop your craft. But something just seems so wasteful about having to spend money on food and then throw it out because you overcooked it, or messed up the ingredients in some way. I'd love to be able to bypass that entire "trial and error" phase of learning to cook and just instantly know how to throw something together that will taste pretty good, at the absolute worst. American cuisine would probably be the most obvious choice for what kind of food I'd want to cook well, but I wouldn't mind being good at Italian and French dishes (and barbecue!) as well. But I also know that sometimes it's better when you can just appreciate something without knowing all the ins and outs of how something is made, so I think I'd want to just enjoy Asian inspired dishes (Chinese, sushi, Thai, Vietnamese, etc.) without necessarily being able to create them myself. It would also be nice to be able to bake, although in some ways that's an entirely different skillset. Anyway, I'd definitely choose to become a skilled chef overnight. I feel like that would be a game-changer in terms of the quality of life my family and friends and I could enjoy. Or at least our tastebuds could enjoy. |
Prompt for September 30, 2025: What does the Bible say about women pastors? The Bible doesn't say anything explicitly about women pastors. Now, before I get a bunch of people throwing scriptural citations at me, I will concede that the passage that is most often cited as an argument against women in church leadership is 1 Timothy 2:11-15, which says: 11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15 But women will be saved through childbearingâif they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety. And there have been a lot of churches over the years who have pointed to that as some kind of definitive proof that women cannot serve in church leadership, or worse, are inferior to men in some way. It's a very complementarian interpretation of this passage (i.e., where everyone is spiritually equal, but each gender has very specific roles that complement one another), while the more egalitarian interpretation of the passage would imply that there is a contextual element of this letter that Paul wrote to Timothy, where he may have specifically been writing to the church body in Ephesus (which contained an influential cult of Artemis), and was not intended to be broadly intended to apply to all women for all eternity. Personally, whenever I come across a piece of scripture that seems incongruent with my understanding of Jesus, I look to other pieces of scripture to see if I can cobble together a better understanding of the issue as a whole. And when I do that, several other excerpts come to mind, such as: 26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abrahamâs seed, and heirs according to the promise. — Galatians 3:26-29 17 Jesus said, âDo not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, âI am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.ââ 18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: âI have seen the Lord!â And she told them that he had said these things to her. — John 20:17-18 There is a clear message in the Bible that empowers women to preach the Gospel, and yet you'll find people incessantly arguing over the details and semantics, and trying to reconcile the fact that several women played important roles in spreading the Gospel against Paul's numerous other passages where he seems to imply gender roles similar to 2 Timothy 12 in his other epistles. As I was doing a little research for this topic, I even found a Reddit thread where complementarian users were arguing that preaching the Gospel is not the same thing as preaching behind a pulpit, while egalitarians retorted that formal pulpits didn't exist back then, so whether you're a man or woman, preaching the Gospel in someone's home was essentially church leadership. And there's always someone out there who will counter the "Our God is one of order and he specifically has different roles for men and women" argument with the assertion that Paul was writing his epistles in the first century A.D. and that society at the time wasn't as "enlightened" as the modern world is about gender roles, sexuality, etc. It's the kind of debate someone could spend a lifetime ruminating on. My general feeling on the matter, not that I'm trying to substitute my own opinions in place of God's intentions, is that God has given all of us — both men and women — incredible gifts. And I don't see a clear gender divide in the God-given abilities He's imbued in us. It's not like leadership qualities are only found in men. And if you've been around organized religion for any amount of time, you'll know that just because you're a man doesn't mean you're a good (or even competent) religious leader. Meanwhile, there are some absolutely phenomenal female leaders in the world, and women who are truly gifted in a spiritual capacity. The idea that God wants them to "keep quiet" in church and let the men lead is essentially denying the church the ability to live up to its full potential. Telling gifted women to stick to their secular leadership roles and running the women's Bible study group while mediocre men do the real "leading" seems unusually narrow-minded and limiting for the church of an omniscient and omnipotent being who created men and women in his image. So what does the Bible say about women pastors? I suppose you could point to specific passages to support whatever position you want to take on the subject. There's more than enough scripture and context to interpret in either direction. If you're more on the complementarian side of the equation and you think women have no place in ministry (or at least ministry leadership), there are plenty of churches out there that will refuse to let a woman serve in those roles, and I sincerely wish you all the best. I also fervently pray that you are intentional about creating spaces where women in your congregations can bring their full God-given gifts to bear. But I'm more on the egalitarian side of things, and after years of attending church services where women are allowed to preach and lead alongside the men, I can tell you from personal experience that the congregations I've been a part of are all the better for it. |
Prompt #133: Imagine you wake up with a new abilityâjust one. What is it and what changes in your life? There are two directions I could take this prompt: realistic and fantasy And you know what? This is my blog so I'm going to do them both!  In terms of a realistic new ability, I think a natural aptitude for numbers and math would be really helpful. So much of my career has been oriented in the direction of "business administration" but budgets, calculations, and other numbers continue to be difficult for me. They just don't come as naturally as words do, and if I could suddenly have the ability to effortlessly read a P&L statement, or understand the fundamentals of the stock market and investing in general, I think I could take my career (and my personal finances) to a whole other level. I've always thought that I would be a good entrepreneur, if not for the lack of understanding about corporate finances work. Either that, or I'd want to be one of those people with an amazing metabolism where I could basically eat anything I want and still maintain an excellent physique and level of fitness. If we're talking about dipping a toe into the fantasy realm for this new ability, I would love to have the ability to teleport. I mean, I would never have to commute again! I could just wake up twenty minutes before I have to be in the office, get ready, then BAMF! suddenly I'm at my office fifty miles away. Or BAMF! and I'm 500 miles away and able to have dinner with my brother and my dad. Or, oh man, you know what sounds good for dinner? Authentic lobster rolls from that place we went to in Maine. Okay, I'll be back in ten minutes! BAMF! There are just so many uses for instantaneous transportation; I feel like that would be life-changing, especially if I could bring people along that I'm touching at the time. Our family vacations would never require a drive or a flight again! I've always wanted the power of telekinesis, but I feel like that would just make my lazy, if I never had to get up off the couch to get something out of the fridge. |
Prompt #149: Youâre tasked with redesigning the modern school system. Whatâs the first thing you change? *takes out extra large binder with tabbed dividers, indexed by both topic and anticipated cost* *re-reads prompt and realizes it's only asking for the "first thing" I would do* *blinks, sighs deeply, puts binder away and prepares to write about only ONE THING* In all honesty, this is a really difficult topic because there's so much that we need to do to improve and modernize our school system. There's an old quote attributed to Robert Fulghum which says, "It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need, and our air force has to have a bake sale to buy a bomber." And it would be easy to wave my hand and say that the first thing I would change about the modern school system is to make sure they have enough resources so that every classroom is modernized, every textbook is up to date, and no teacher or staffer has to spend their own money on their classroom, their arts program, their sports team, etc. But just saying that I'd make sure the school system is properly financed is kind of boring, so let's talk about the first step I'd take after whatever legislative and executive action was needed to open up the coffers and really invest in the educational system. What would I to redesign the school system after it was fully-funded? Up until a couple of years ago, I would have said that I'd eliminate tenure and significantly increase teacher salaries and perqs to make teaching a merit-based position. If you're a great teacher, you deserve to be making a salary that's on par with your average corporate executive, and be eligible for bonuses, incentives, etc. It should be a prestigious and honorable job. But if you're a terrible teacher, there should be a mechanism to incentivize those teachers to find another job. I think education is too important to have it be a "lifer" type of job where once you get into the position, it's very hard to get you out of it, even if the quality of your work drastically degrades. I've changed that opinion in recent years, though, for two reasons. First, it assumes that the biggest problem in education today is "bad teachers," and I simply don't believe that's the case. There are some, sure. But I also think a lot of "bad teachers" are really just burned out teachers, unappreciated teachers, under-resourced teachers, etc. who, once we met the basic threshold of properly funding education, would significantly improve the results they're getting with their students. Second, teachers' jobs have gotten harder in recent years. There are a lot more activist parents than there used to be, the kind who are willing to call the school, or the district, to complain about a particular choice of book being read in the classroom, or a particular teaching method being used. When I was in school, if a teacher called home, my parents would be like, "Sorry, Jeff did what? OMG I am so sorry, I will speak with him." Now? Half the time when a teacher calls home, the parents are like, "Sorry, Jeff did what? OMG he would never do that. I don't believe you. You just don't understand his unique needs. It must have been your fault." Teachers are being blamed for low test scores, behavioral issues, and even character flaws in their students. Teaching, as a profession, is getting less respect and less deference as the years go on. So getting rid of tenure and making it easier to fire teachers is a terrible idea in an environment where teachers are being increasingly scapegoated for any deficiencies a child might exhibit, and where parents are more hostile to educators than ever before. You shouldn't have at-will employment of educators when any parent who doesn't like the fact that your students are reading Toni Morrison can get you fired. So now we come to the new suggestion for the first thing I'd do to redesign the education system... I'd stipulate that any role that has any input into the classroom (be it the school administration, school board, department of education, etc.) has to either have a relevant degree in education, childhood development, or something along those lines... or they have to have a minimum number of years — say, five to ten — working in a relevant area of the field of education in order to be able to influence educational decisions. My wife is an educator. In order to become a teacher, she had to complete a Bachelor's Degree, then study for an additional two years (and pass multiple state exams) to get her teaching credential. On top of that, she has a Master's Degree in curriculum design and individualized instruction. And she's been teaching for over 15 years. And despite all that, she still has parents (many of whom have no college education at all) telling her that she doesn't know what she's talking about, and they know better than her how she should be teaching her class. I think teachers (and their school administrators) should be able to legally say to those kinds of parents, "You're not qualified to make the decision of what's taught in this classroom." It would have to be paired with very robust and clear rules about things like homeschooling and alternative education options because parents should have some choice over whether their kid attends a particular school if they disagree with its educational goals, philosophy, etc., but I think parents have increasingly expected way too much deference and personalized accommodation in recent years, and I would like to see educators more freely able to say, "My college degree and years of professional experience overrule your personal feelings on the matter. And if you'd prefer to educate your child yourself according to your own beliefs, here's all the information you need to make an informed choice about homeschooling or private school options." I know it wouldn't be easy, and there would be a ton of hurdles to have to jump over and complications to work through, but without changing the field of education back to a dynamic where the professional educators receive deference and latitude to do what they need to do, I don't think much else about the system will improve. |
Prompt #169: Youâre given a 10-second rewind button. How do you use it? I would use a 10-second rewind button all the time, probably mostly to take back dumb things I say without thinking! Seriously, there are so many times where, the minute I've said something, I think to myself, "Why did I say that? I didn't have to say that," and regret it for several minutes. Mostly, it's in the context of critical or harsh comments that I realize were me overreacting in the moment, but I also can't rule out using this for the purposes of improving my zingers or quips in conversation. "Oh that devastating burn didn't land quite like I wanted it to... do over!" In all seriousness, though, this would be an amazing ability to have. Not just for use in conversation, but I think about all the time ten seconds would erase a dumb decision. Like when you pull into a parking space and accidentally scrape another car. BOOP! Now you can try that parking attempt again. Or when you're not looking where you're going and step in a deep puddle that soaks your shoe and sock. BOOP! Now you can avoid that mistake. And even when you have moments that you wish you would have caught on camera. BOOP! Now you have ten seconds to get that phone out and snap a pic. Ten seconds isn't a lot of time, so I'm struggling to think about other uses for such a power other than "quick, get a do-over on the last thing that happened!" Now, if I could extend the do-ver button to a minute, or an hour, or a day, then we'd really be talking about options... |
Prompt #39: What's your favorite kind of gift to receive? What kind of gifts do you think are overrated? My favorite kind of gift is one of two things: either something that's either very intentional or personalized... or cash/gift cards. The gifts that I think are overrated are the things that are given without much thought, even if the value of the gift is considerable. Since I tend to buy myself the things that I really want, cash and gift cards are always appreciated (as long as, in the case of a gift card, it's to somewhere general like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, etc.). I know a lot of people think they're impersonal, but I actually appreciate the consideration of, "Hey, I didn't know what to actually get you but here's some money for a place that you like to shop and I hope you're able to buy something that you're really excited about." And I do very intentionally associate my gift cards with the person who gave them (I try very hard not to just toss them in a drawer and forget about them for months at a time). I'll also try to send them a note whenever possible. "Hey, just wanted to know that your Apple gift card is going to help pay for the new MacBook I'm saving up for. Thanks so much!" For all those reasons, I think gift cards are actually a great gift for someone like me, who doesn't exactly maintain a year-long wish list of things I'd love to buy but for whatever reason haven't yet. I also really love personalized or individualized gifts, where it's clear there's thought behind it. There was one year at work where it seemed like every time I was in a meeting, I was fixing someone else's screw up, predicting problems that people would ignore only to have that prediction come true, etc. And, like, YES, that's my job most of the time, but it was a particularly notable span of several months where it was happening so often that other people were noticing. And in my department that year, my coworkers got me all kinds of themed gifts: a "Fixer of Everything" name plaque for my desk, a work notebook that had "All the Things I was Right About" printed on the cover, a mousepad with a dumpster-fire on it that said, "Everything's Fine" ... I loved it because they were amusing gifts that said, "Hey, I see you." The same goes for people who put thought into where the gifts come from. "I know you're really into D&D right now, so I bought you this sourcebook that seemed cool." Or, "You always talk about how into Formula 1 racing, so I got you a gift certificate to a racing simulator." Even if it's something that isn't a perfect match to what I would want for myself, the fact that someone put thought into it makes it special. At the other end of the spectrum are gifts that don't have any thought put into them. My wife's family is famous for this, where their love language is gift-giving, but it's not so much what the gift is, as much as it is the fact that a gift was given. A few of the family members will literally go to the bargain shelves at a bookstore or order a bunch of stuff of the Amazon "lightning deals" page without any other family member particularly in mind, and then wrap everything up and you get what you get. For them, it's more important that you, say, have a gift to unwrap under the Christmas tree, than it is ensuring that the book they got you is an author you actually care to read. Those are the kinds of gifts that I really struggle with, because I don't like material things cluttering up my space, and if it's not something I specifically want, it will probably go unused and just collect dust on a shelf until I'm doing a decluttering one day and realize that I have a perfectly good decorative salad bowl that I've never even opened the box to, that will be going out in the next run to the Goodwill donation center. Overall, I've never really been big on gifts. It's probably my least important of the five love languages. I can certainly appreciate a good gift when it's given, but overall things just aren't a huge priority for me. |
Prompt #F6: Genre in Miniature. Capture an entire genre in 500 words or less (think âthe worldâs smallest epicâ or âa haiku-length westernâ). (Genre) Intertwined bodies interact in interchangeable circumstances, authors pairing off perverts for the purpose of provocativeness. Sometimes, it's a naive young thing matched up with a billionaire; other times, it's a naive young thing matched up with a celebrity. Or a professional athlete. Or a successful businessperson who's had great success at business things, but whose true talent surfaces between the sheets. Regardless of the particulars, praise be to the genre that never fails to find new and inventive ways to depict two (or more!) people (or non-humans!) to bone. first comes the meet-cute, then a dollop of story, and then the fucking. |
 Day 3956: On this day in 1954, Late night talk show "The Tonight Show," hosted by Steve Allen, premieres on NBC-TV. Steve Allen, is credited with pioneering many elements of the modern late-night talk show format., The program has been hosted by six comedians: Steve Allen (1954â1957), Jack Paar (1957â1962), Johnny Carson (1962â1992), Jay Leno (1992â2009 and 2010â2014), Conan O'Brien (2009â2010), and Jimmy Fallon (2014âpresent). Did you know The Tonight Show is the world's longest-running talk show and the longest-running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States? Are you a fan of late-night talk shows? Which of the six hosts did you watch from the Tonight Show? I grew up in the Jay Leno era of The Tonight Show (his first time around). I stuck around for Conan's short stint, and then stopped watching late night programs with any regularity after Leno took over again for the second time. I've watched quite a few episodes of Fallon's version of the show over the years, usually when there's a guest on that I particularly want to watch or, more likely, when there's an especially good monologue or bit that I'll watch on YouTube. I liked his "Slow Jam the News" sketch, and loved his "Classroom Instruments" sketch where they perform hit songs using grade-school instruments like the kazoo, recorder, etc., and "Lip Sync Battle" was amazing before it was spun off into its own show. Late night shows are something that I really respect as an art form, but I don't really pay that much attention to myself. I think it's a great place for comedy writers to get their start, somewhere that can really do a lot of social commentary on the stories of the day, and which is fun and entertaining to watch. That said, the sheer number of late night programs and the tendency to have the same format (monologue, interview, musical guest, a couple of special segments sprinkled in) kind of burned me out after watching so many episodes growing up, so it's not something that I go out of my way to watch regularly anymore. Ironically, the host that turned me off of late night shows was Jay Leno during his second time hosting The Tonight Show. Part of it was the perceptions around Conan getting kicked off the show (although I don't think Leno was ever definitively proved to be involved in those decisions; it just seemed like it since he was the direct beneficiary of those decisions). Also, when I first started watching late night shows, I got the sense that a little light roasting of people in the news (celebrities, politicians, etc.) was just the "format" that the shows used. And I'm certainly someone who can appreciate a risquĂ© or off-color joke, but I just found Leno's brand of humor to be particularly sexist and mean-spirited toward certain people, often grasping at the lowest-hanging fruit in an effort to get a quick laugh. Even other comedians commented on it, like when Patton Oswalt was quoted as saying, "Comedians who don't like Jay Leno now, and I'm one of them, we're not like, 'Jay Leno sucks' ... it's that we're so hurt and disappointed that one of the best comedians of our generation willfully has shut the switch off." I do think that the late night space is fascinating, and there's a ton of history in it, especially in who's hosted over the years, which shows have competed for audiences against one another, etc. And the current HBO comedy Hacks does a great job of making stand-up comedy, and late night show-hosting a central element of its overall story, which has rekindled my affection for the format. |
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