Mourning the End of Two Eras

So, this may be old news to many of you, but only recently have I gotten around to watching the final episode of Late Night with Conan O’Brien.  Now, I won’t profess my undying love for Conan, but I will say this, though he is hit and miss for me, when he hits, he knocks it out of the park.  He’s a sharp comedy writer, a smart guy, I like his sense of what is funny, I like his self-deprecation (is that sadistic?), I like his interviews, his band, his guests, etc.  So, as I learned of his show’s demise, I mourn it a little bit.  I wonder if he will translate well to a different time slot and if he will gain or lose an audience, etc.
So, like I said, Ange and I just got around to watching the final episode.  There were some great parts like the Old Time Baseball interview, Andy Richter, and the John Mayer song making fun of Conan.  There was also a very touching bit at the end where Conan gave shout outs.  But there was a glaring bit of awfulness—

I nearly cursed.
You see, I LOVE the White Stripes.  I have all of the records, the concert videos, imports, etc.  I love Jack’s way of running you through the entire history of rock and roll in one record, while being turned up to eleven.  I love his devil may care guitar playing and then his unleashed hidden solo-chops.  I love his ethic for buying guitar gear, his philosophy of old and simple recording techniques, his reverence for his weird brand of trinitarianism, his weird Catholicism, his made-up life-history with meg, his obsession with Orson Welles and Loretta Lynn…
So, anyway, I like Jack white and his band the White Stripes.  But the Conan appearance was just shameful.  I wish the camera had been on Conan instead to see him, as I imagine it, vomit into his wastebasket.
Jack white was relevant, reminding rocknroll what rocknroll was built on and about.  He brought a teenager’s intuition to a master’s hands and knowledge of the past.  He was shaking rock and roll to its core…
Then he became Charles Foster Kane.  He became a caricature of himself.  He became a tyrant as a producer, beating up his bands, he began wearing ridiculous suits part matador, part zoot suit.  He was in a movie playing a hick musician and began dating Hollywood starlets and wrecking expensive cars.  Then he married his super-model/doppelganger girlfriend.  Sweet Moses.  Those stupid costumes…
And now this.  First off, why give Meg a guitar?  Part of the lovely charm of the Stripes is Meg gleefully banging away like the Muppet Show’s Animal, not learning how to play guitar in front of an audience of who-knows-how-many.  Second, let’s all get real for a minute, Meg’s singing is a lot like Stuart Murdoch’s, its quirky and can be fitting in some contexts, but it’s not why you buy the record.  Meg’s voice added nothing to the performance.  She appeared to not even know the lyrics very well.  Next, the ridiculous, cut-time version of “We’re going to be friends” just doesn’t fit the content of the song.  It sounded more like a dirge than a song about blossoming friendship between children!

So, it is with much sadness i mourn the end of two great eras, the end of Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and then end of a viable version of the White Stripes.  May Conan re-emerge like a phoenix with his new show, and may Jack salvage his career by the way of the Raconteurs.

Good night, sweet princes, good night.

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