Howard Stern was on David Letterman's show on Monday night, a favor for an old friend and supporter in an important week for Letterman -- his first week of new shows against the new host of The Tonight Show, Conan O'Brien. And it struck me that at one point, Dave was my hero -- my favorite talk show host and/or comedian in any media form ever... and now, well, I hope he beats Conan, but my entire frame of reference for the appearance was Howard's constant fretting over it on his own show over the past week. And Dave? Mostly forgotten.
Back in high school, sometime in the mid to late-80s I guess, I became a huge fan of Letterman. And I started to watch him religiously. Now, I guess during high school it was difficult to stay up until 1 am to watch (although I'm pretty sure I did sometimes, without my parents' knowledge), so maybe it was mostly summers and holidays and vacations that I got caught up on my Dave fix, but to me, he was a comedic genius -- an irreverent, sarcastic, goofy, funny fuck who basically either informed or conformed to my sense of humor perfectly. In college, I watched him even more -- since I was up until 1 am every night, although perhaps in the later years (when I wasn't studying nearly as much anymore), I might not have been home to watch him. But I know if I was anywhere near a television between 12:30 and 1:30 from, say 1987 to 1992, Late Night was on the screen. There was no bigger fan alive.