Tuesday, June 13, 2006
The Real Late Night
Instead of crashing at 11 or 12 at night my schedule has drifted into 1 and 2 as I try to complete five things at once. So when I get to the late night snack and switch on the kitchen TV, it could be 1 AM. Late night TV is a world unto itself. It has the feeling of the beginnings of TV — just the basics. In the early days they couldn't do much, didn't know how to, didn't have the technology — so the implementation was baseline. Now, late night TV talk shows don't have the money — so it is still pretty basic. No androids in diffused sets with Stepford perfection on late night TV. You get likable funny guys like Conan and Ferguson.
So I had on Craig Ferguson when Sara Rue, an actress I had never heard of, was introduced. Sara is cute, young, with her baby-fat still manifest. But behind the scenes Nature is working full bore on the evolutionary imperative. Sara was ripe and exuding pheromones. Clothe that package in her version of a Coco Chanel little black dress and you have a nubile princess.
She sat herself down, Ferguson asked a question, and as she was answering, his eyes began to wander over the, er, landscape. In the midst of answering she stopped and said, “What are you looking at?” She was peeved, not angry, but it was funny. Ferguson, startled, like a guy with a little too much beer having just had a bucket of cold water dumped over him said, (I'll paraphrase and compress): “I'm sorry, I was listening. But hey, I'm a man. What am I supposed to do, shutter my vision?” This might sound as though it was a contentious moment, but it was more a reveal of mutual surprise and honesty. Ferguson even said later, “I can't believe you said that on national TV.”
Sara Rue is still young enough to be exploring her attractiveness and the confusions that go with it. It was all pretty funny and real.