This headline, which appears on Boston.com this afternoon, says it all:
“The victory parade for the World Champion New England Patriots, winner of three of the last four Super Bowls, has ended. Pitchers and catchers report to Ft. Myers in 9 days.”
In short, I’d take one World Series victory over three Super Bowl’s. Any day, any time. Would you?
Still getting caught up after vacation, I feel the need to comment on the death of Johnny Carson. He didn’t invent The Tonight Show, but he was late night TV. He made it what it is today and nobody did it better. In fact, nobody even got within a sniff of doing it better. In my eyes, Carson’s greatest talent was in his self-deprecating, everyman ability to poke fun and to not do it at the expense of others. Leno can’t hold Carson’s jock strap, not that he ever aimed to. Leno’s schtick is almost always aimed at making mean jokes at the expense of others (see: Jaywalking), while Carson just made us laugh – at him, at the world, at anything, really, but he never made you feel like you had laughed at anyone’s major shortcomings. A huge talent.
There are dozens of great Carson moments that I don’t need to get into – surely you’ve either experienced them firsthand or read about a lot of them last week, so I’ll tell a personal story:
The only time I’ve ever been woken up by the sound of laughter was during the Carson show. I was probably 11 or 12 years old and I remember it, for some reason, like it was yesterday. I had woken up because my dad was laughing so loudly and for so long that it could have woken up a hibernating bear. I could hear Carson in the background, saying something now and then, but it was mostly just silent on the television. I didn’t get up, but asked my dad the next morning what could have possibly been so funny and he told me it was some juggling act that Carson had had on. Nothing major, just really funny – Carson’s modus operandi in and of itself. As the years progressed and I got old enough to stay up that late, my dad and I would watch Carson together quite often and raid the ‘fridge once or twice during the show each night. It’s those kinds of memories I will remember Carson by. Great stuff at home and on TV.