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BEGINS |
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Co-Founder of TheColumnists.com With Us Since Dec. 1, 1999 |
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 No second act for Howard Stern? |
Meet the folks whose
farewell party is overdue
By GERALD NACHMAN
of TheColumnists.com
As TheColumnists.com begins its seventh year, it is gratifying to know we have not yet overstayed our welcome--a plague that infects so many folks in an era of media overexposure, relentless hype, celebrity overload and shameless self-promotion.
In the words of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Lord High Executioner, I’ve got a little list, one I thought I might share with you today, of people who have overstayed their welcome and “none of whom would be missed.” I welcome nominees to my roster of no- longer-welcome celebrities, many of whose 15 minutes of fame expired decades ago and some of who are edging dangerously close to the precipice and just need a gentle push.
Madonna: Your re-invention copyright ran out about 10 years ago and all subsequent appearances and CDs are just further evidence that aging rock stars are mainly more fodder for late-night comics. Even material girls run out of material.
Lance Armstrong: Enough with the wrist bands and mawkish pleas. We’re delighted you’re healthy but, now that you’ve retired from cycling, you need to cease recycling your heroic recovery tale. I’m sure you understand my concern.
Dan Rather: Despite every sort of hint, from the public and the front office, it’s time to consider a buyout, and go gentle into that good night. Limbo is no place to be reporting from, not for a hard-boiled correspondent like you. That lashed to a lamp post hurricane stuff was fun while it lasted, but it’s been done to death lately by Anderson Cooper (and too many others on the hurricane beat), who may need to consider early retirement himself soon. Even Ted Koppel is now leaving the building as well, not a moment too soon.
Katie Couric: All of those nasty media innuendoes are a clue, Katie, that re-coloring and cutting your hair is not enough, and that perky gal image is not aging well. The colonoscopy was a hoot but it’s Jane Pauley-Deborah Norville-Al Roker-Willard Scott time, reminders that there’s a network afterlife on cable, a way to slip graciously out of the limelight before becoming a female Bryant Gumbel.
Dick Cheney: We needed you for awhile to hold W’s hand in times of trouble, or just to find the men’s room, but now six or seven Cheneys are required and you need your own hand-holder since Libby scooted away and Karl Rove is casting nervous glances at the Justice Department. It was almost worth keeping you around for those great Darrell Hammond impressions, and as a one-man axis of evil, but it’s a tired act. Good time to scram before somebody messes with your pacemaker--and, hey, don’t forget to take those torture tapes with you to play in the car.
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Relaxing with torture tapes? |
David Letterman: OK, you’ve still got the middle-age frat boy crowd, but it might be a good time to segue into something else--sans Paul Shaffer if at all possible; he should have been cut loose when you moved to CBS. We’ve seen all the goofy shticks in the threadbare bag of tricks, the monologue isn’t as sharp as Jay’s, and you’ll never catch him in the ratings, so why stick around? Anyway, Jon Stewart has inherited the late-night wry sarcasm crown, and he does better interviews.
Stone Phillips: You need to get some rest. Eighteen hours a day on camera may be pushing it. Frankly, you never had much presence to start with, despite the square jaw and suspiciously imposing name (“Stan Phillips” wouldn’t have lasted a tenth as long), it may be time for something else--coin collecting is a fine time-consuming hobby.
Saturday Night Live: Does anybody still watch it? Lorne Michaels must have compromising photos of the entire NBC hierarchy. I haven’t understood- let alone laughed at--an SNL sketch since 1991. The cast now numbers in the hundreds, the sketches run forever in search of a point or a punch line, and the music remains wretched. The show hasn’t produced a comic of note in a decade, unless you count Chris Rock, who would have been lucky to hold a gofer’s job during the heyday of Belushi, Ackroyd, Murray, Radner and Chase.
Alice Waters: It may be time to excuse your self from the table, Alice. Yeah, the meals are tasty but all of these fundamentalist sermons about the benefits of free-range cauliflower and contented lamb chops are starting to grate. It’s just food, after all, not a religious experience, and the price of an organic tomato can make a fellow gag.
Mike Wallace: That recent men’s room tussle with Dan Rather over your recent autobiography could be nature’s way of indicating it’s time to hang up the old Mike. You look great for 88, or even 68, but there’s something a tad creepy about a 90-year-old anchorman, though it may be a trend. NPR’s Daniel Schorr is 89, Andy Rooney is pushing 87 and Paul Harvey is about 85. Did Walter Cronkite retire too soon, in the bloom of youth? Is H.V. Kaltenborn still available?
George Lucas: Your retirement dinner is long overdue, George, but you’re too rich and powerful for anyone in the office to suggest it, so I must be the bearer of bad news. I thought it was time you grew up after “The Empire Strikes Back,” but you’re a stubborn kid. We’ve been waiting for your move out of stunted adolescence but it seems to be a chronic condition. Maybe once your mom throws out all those old comic books you can move onto something more mature, like, say, model airplanes.
Barry Bonds: You’re really trying our patience, Barry, so I’m thinking that next season a desk job with ESPN might be just the ticket. You’re nearly out of home runs, and just in time. We’d rather you not surpass Babe Ruth under a steroid cloud, let alone Hank Aaron, and setting an all-time home run record as an American League DL is a pretty shabby route to sainthood. You already own the lifetime record for most arrogance--leave it at that.
Liza Minnelli: A lot of bad career advice, drugs and romantic decisions (two gay husbands ties you with Mom) has left us with no choice but to suggest you call it a day --or better still, a night. The voice has been shot for 15 years and you resemble a member of the Addams Family, so it’s probably a wise idea to announce a farewell concert--just don’t actually perform one, please; too strenuous for anyone in your/our fragile state.
Oprah Winfrey: You’re at the height of your power, fame, wealth and influence-- a good time to go bye-bye, before it becomes necessary to haul you away for terminal self-satisfaction, never a pretty sight. See Stewart, Martha, who at least went to prison for five months, which extended her career awhile, but now that she’s been fired from “The Apprentice” her reprieve appears to be over. You might want to consider a year or two in the pen yourself, to shed some of that yucky self-regard, not to mention a few more pesky pounds. Think what a great show it will make when you get out, but permanent retirement is closer to the idea.
Rosie O’Donnell: Despite a failed talk show, magazine, Broadway musical and lesbian mom sideline, you haven’t quite read the handwriting on the wall--on the billboard, rather: It’s Over, not that “it” ever amounted to a whole lot, beyond being a sort of road show Roseanne. A recent bad omen: taking over as replacement actress in “Fiddler on the Roof” to resuscitate a career in its final desperate stages.
Howard Stern: While you may be our most learned First Amendment scholar since Larry Flynt, and the great f------ white hope of satellite radio, you’re no Lenny Bruce, who had more on his mind than drooling at naked girls. It’s probably wise to heed F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous remark about second acts in American life and close the curtain before it descends on you. Sirius-ly.
Fidel Castro: It’s not nice to beat up on an old man but it’s obvious to everyone that you should have made a gracious exit about 25 years ago. The Party’s over, pal.
Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, et al.: Your days are numbered, guys. Conservatively speaking, I would say the 2006 elections should make the radical right extinct. Think of it as the liberals’ version of intelligent design. It’s considered poor form to stick around once your leaders have been laughed--or indicted--out of office, so why not go quietly before George W. Bush has his head handed to him in a teacup.
Hugh Hefner: Much as we wannabe alpha males from the `50s admire your sticktoitiveness, Gramps, hanging out at 79 with twin twentysomething bimbos might even trouble Woody Allen. Nice try with Shannon Tweed (is that a girl or a pipe tobacco?) but domestic bliss was never quite in the cards for you and the more babes you chain to your walker the sadder it seems. Hef, old man. take some friendly Playboy advice from an ex-reader and join Bob Guccione, Al Goldstein and me in the library for cocoa and a hot game of cribbage.
©2005 by Gerald Nachman. The Nachman caricature is ©2000 by Jim Hummel. The photo of Howard Stern is from his autobiographical movie "Private Parts." This column first posted Dec. 5, 2005.
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