So this "T.J. Somethingsky" guy who's been producing

all these "My Music" fundraising specials on PBS (the folk shit, and the doo-wop shit, etc.) has finally gotten around to music that clearly ISN'T his (since he's thirty something) - Big Band. And he's recruited Peter Marshall and Nick Clooney to host, and the majority of it (so far) is clips from film and early TV appearances.

Well damn I love this shit. I am a firm believer in the identification of Benny Goodman as "King of Swing" and a clip they just showed of "Sing, sing, sing" with Gene Krupa doing his usual bananas act on the skins....

well shit. But it does of course add sweet irony to the fact that the time BG got whipped as "KofS" it was by Chick Webb - a drummer/Bandleader.

This is such way cool music, this Glenn Miller and tiny-little-young Frank Sinatra and the Andrews Sisters (there's a clip of "Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy" from an Abbot & Costello movie - ambrosia.

So Conan O'Brien is the host of the Tonight Show now.

I have to admit I never watched a Jay Leno episode - not because I don't like Leno (how could I not like a guy who has so many cars & motorcycles and understands things like the allure of the Vincent Black Shadow, and understands stuff about steam automobile power?) (who hails from Andover, yet?) but because a long time ago I started having to get up at about 4:30 in the morning to get to work in various factories at the crack o' and that's incompatible with staying up past 10 or so. And then going to bed around 10 just became a habit.

My affection for The Tonight Show goes back to Steve Allen, and mellowed out through Jack Paar, and I loved the early Carson days, having been a fan of "Who Do You Trust?" the afternoon game show he & Ed hosted just before Paar (finally) bolted permanently. But there's just so many times you can hear the same tired nattery jokes about the current crop of idiot politicians, and just so many idiot authors and celebrities you can feign attention to. I guess it's a sign of my age (or my age 20 years ago) - I wish Conan O'Brien well (I hear he's another Metro-Bostonian, an Irishman from Brookline? Something awry there methinks...) but doubt if I'll tune in. I've never tuned in to his current show and I doubt if I've seen more than ten minutes of his work.

What is it with me anyway - first I ditch The Tonight Show, then newspapers... [sigh] life hasn't been the same since Bob & Ray retired, y'know what I mean?