Well, we tried listening to David Lee Roth again on the 3-minute drive to Amy’s bus stop. The first thing we heard was ‘Diamond Dave’ saying, “We have on the line a representative from the UAW.”
First thing to flash into my head? The episode of The Simpsons where Bart breaks his leg at the beginning of summer. He decides to chill out and watch Krusty the Klown:
Bart: [laughing at Itchy & Scratchy] You know, this isn’t so bad. I’ll just spend the summer getting better acquainted with an old friend called television.
[kids cheer, Krusty appears and laughs]Krusty: Hope you enjoyed that, kids, ’cause Krusty’s out of here for the summer. In the meantime, we’ll be running [groans] “Klassic Krusty”. [laughs uncomfortably] Enjoy. . .
[the Krusty Show from February 6th, 1961 comes on]Krusty: [chuckles] Good evening. Tonight my guest is AFL/CIO chairman George Meany, who will be discussing collective bargaining agreements.
Meany: It’s a pleasure to be here, Krusty.
Krusty: Let me be blunt: is there a labor crisis in America today?
[looks bored, lights cigarette]Meany: Well that depends what you mean by “crisis”…
[Bart groans]
I can’t begin to do justice to the visual, which consists of an old Dick Cavett set, and Krusty in a black suit, with a white pocket square, smoking away.
Anyway, that was just about my feeling this morning, listening to the over-the-hill former lead singer of Van Halen discussing labor relations. The NYPost was pretty savage this morning (I’d link to the article, but the link would go dead in a week):
Something was missing yesterday as David Lee Roth took over for Howard Stern.
In a word: humor.
For a moment, it was like those Sunday mornings when I zip down to Dunkin Donuts (also 3 minutes away) and click through the stations. The hip-hop station always has its “public issues” show on, which is kinda jarring.
Of course, they put that on 8am on Sundays, not weekday morning drive time.