Saying farewell to the David Letterman I watched over 35 years.

My first encounter with David Letterman on television was on the original Peter Marshall-hosted THE HOLLYWOOD SQUARES where Dave answered a question with a surreal word image of his dog filling out tax returns.

Afterwards, I became a regular viewer of 1980's short-lived THE DAVID LETTERMAN SHOW on NBC (which, in the Wichita Falls TX market, was replaced for a time by reruns of MEDICAL CENTER).  In that incarnation, Dave dared to ignore the rules for daytime TV talk shows and gave airtime to comic/musical talents such as Valri Bromfield, Loudon Wainwright III and Andy Kaufman (though, occasionally, Dave's infatuation with old-line showbiz would surface when Allen "PASSWORD" Ludden would come on and disdainfully mock pop song lyrics).  And, if I recall correctly, Edwin Newman would occasionally deliver brief news bulletins.

LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN debuted in early 1982--the purest form of Letterman's irony, sarcasm and demythologizing of television conventions.

A decade later, Dave was denied THE TONIGHT SHOW in favor of then-Monday night guest host Jay Leno.

1993 heralded the move to CBS with the re-titled LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN.  On its debut show, Paul Newman stood up and asked "Where the hell are the singing cats?"  This turned into a prophetic statement heralding the departure or minimization of old NBC colleagues such as Riquette, Kamar the Discount Magician and Larry "Bud" Melman (who, on CBS, had to go by his real name of Calvert DeForrest due to NBC spouting nonsense about "intellectual property")

No need to bemoan it here, but about 80% of the idiosyncrasy was drained from the CBS Letterman show because of the concerns over what made for an appropriate 11:35 p.m. show vs. an appropriate 12:35 a.m. hangout destination.

As Dave aged, his energy level began to decline.  In recent years, outside incidents such as the WGA strike and Jay Leno/NBC's demoting Conan O'Brien from THE TONIGHT SHOW seemed to periodically reanimate the peak-era Letterman.

I haven't been a regular viewer of LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN in quite a long time, but am planning to watch the final two shows via DVR and herald the end of a talk show era quite different from the current "invite guests to play parlor games" ethos.

Full Mitt Romney Fundraiser Video Part 2

Female comic Jen Kirkman on ex-LATE SHOW talent booker and sexism in stand-up biz.

Ms. Kirkman's blog post is well worth reading; kudos to her for jumping hurdles and making a living in a culture where funny women often get told they're "not funny" and/or have to deal with male biases and hangups (presuming a lot of talent bookers/TV execs prefer their female comics "fuckable" and nonscary/nonconfrontational to men). 
http://jenkirkman.tumblr.com/post/16136734211/what-i-would-have-said-about-eddie-brill-on-npr

More information about David Letterman's backstage life than humans should be allowed to have.

In the wake of David Letterman extortionist Robert Joe Halderman's sentence (six months behind bars, plus 1,000 hours of community service, plus four-and-a-half years' probation),
here's a link to a VANITY FAIR article which, among other things, gives insight into Halderman's desire to wreak vengeance on both Letterman and Stephanie Birkitt
(the woman Letterman and Halderman both coveted):
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/features/2010/04/letterman-201004

This article from NEW YORK magazine last fall is probably the most thoughtul
and informative about the behavior of Letterman, Birkitt and Halderman:
http://nymag.com/arts/tv/features/60314/

David Letterman outs himself re workplace affairs.

I just watched David Letterman confess having workplace affairs with female LATE SHOW staffers (and a producer of CBS' 48 HOURS trying to blackmail him for $2 million regarding this subject was arrested yesterday).

Having found this out before tuning into the show, the monologue--which included jokes about Roman Polanski, Mark Sanford and businessmen bringing their wives on business trips (relating somehow to Barack and Michelle Obama working together to bring the Olympics to Chicago)--was a bit creepy.

And so was the Paul Shaffer choice for play-in, play-out-of-commercial music:
The Rolling Stones' "Bitch."

A key lyric of the above song: "Love...is a bitch."

[Guessing that Bill Carter, who wrote THE LATE SHIFT (about Letterman and Leno jockeying to be The One to sit in Johnny Carson's vacant TONIGHT SHOW host's chair), won't have any trouble pitching a LATE SHIFT II to publishers.]
UPDATE as of October 6th:
Dave tried a second pass at an apology/explanation, and he's still upset about the extortion attempt. One fairly deft joke about how he can no longer do Bill Clinton/Mark Sanford material. Some contrition towards wife Regina. And, sort-of reversing a "they're welcome to come forward" comment the first time around, expressing worry for the staffers receiving attention from the media.

Short of any smoking guns related to sexual harassment and/or hush money (although it's being revealed that Letterman's involvement with assistant/occasional on-air foil Stephanie Birkitt continued after his marriage to Regina), I'm guessing this is the last on-the-show statement before Robert Joe Halderman's trial.