Lately Craig

Late night talk shows were a staple of my viewing habits until several years ago when the appeal faded. I’m not entirely sure of the reason for the fade. Perhaps the increased politicization on display has something to do with it in an era when plenty of that is available… well… everywhere else. Then again, maybe I just like getting to sleep an hour earlier nowadays. As that may be the last late night talk show I made a point of watching was The Late Late Show hosted by Craig Ferguson. It was rarely intellectually taxing but at one o’clock in the morning one rarely wants something that is. It was pleasant silliness, which was a good way to end a day full of much harsher realities.

No one plans a career as a television talk show host – or, if anyone does, he or she almost certainly will be disappointed. The gig goes to someone who has made enough of a mark somewhere else in entertainment to catch the attention of a producer in search of a host. Craig Ferguson, raised in the post-war housing projects in Glasgow Scotland, tried his hand with varying degrees of success as a drummer, actor, stand-up comedian, novelist, and screenwriter (The Big Tease). He caught the attention of producers at CBS and was offered the chair of The Late Late Show in 2005. He sat in it until 2015. The show aired 12:35 to 1:35 a.m. weeknights just after David Letterman. The show contained reliably enjoyable low budget humor plus casual banter with guests.

I tend to be suspicious of memoirs and autobiographies. An author’s all-too-human impulse to self-justification all too frequently muddies the waters of truth. I sometimes read them anyway while keeping a saltshaker handy. The better ones still contain insights not obtainable from third parties. Riding the Elephant by Craig Ferguson is one of the better ones. Very little about The Late Late Show is in the book. In fact, very little about the substance of any of his show business career is in it. It is a more personal memoir than that. It deals with his childhood, his youth, his battle with alcohol, his marriages, his move to Los Angeles, his kids, tattoos, the experience of aging, and the acquisition of aspects of wisdom a bit too late (which is so much better than never). Naturally his career history intersected with all of that, but it isn’t at the center of the book.

Ferguson retired from the show by his own wishes – and even extended his stay by six months to give CBS more time to find a replacement – but he does express some satisfaction that he doesn’t have to deal with the current walk-on-eggshells environment in which so many folks seek out ways to be offended. In a format where most of the dialogue is extemporaneous and intended to keep an audience amused, there is always a risk of a random quip that doesn’t land well. There was some of that even during his stint, of course. “Occasionally I’d find myself in the doghouse for some stupid comment I’d made the night before. I once had to apologize to the entire country of Australia for calling their capital city a shithole… I should not have said that Canberra was a shithole, I should have said it was allegedly a shithole.” Youtube clips are forever, however, so he still gets flak for old silly banter that is by any reasonable standard harmless.

He recounts the change of perspective that occurs to anyone with a few decades in the rear view mirror. Example: “One of the interesting quirks of the aging process is that events that seemed to have little or no impact at the time resonate with thunderous importance later on, like an expertly constructed detective novel. I thought it was the relationship with Gillian that was important, but at this point in my life, the half-hour conversation with Allison seems much more significant.” Allison was a young woman he met in the 1970s who died six months after that conversation.

The book ends with a sentimental fictional short story about an old woman named Margret in Glasgow. It seems out of place until one recalls his memory in an earlier chapter of an “old lady who died alone in a Glasgow tenement. What was her name? Margret, probably. Who will write her story? I will. I’ll make it up and it’ll be true, like a lot of stories.”

Upshot: Thumbs up for a more or less true life story by a natural raconteur.

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson: clip from 2009 with Shirley Manson