You've probably seen this link - it's all over the news outlets. It deserves to be. I've never heard of this guy before, but I like him. What a great night of television.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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I found him last summer when I was staying up way too late. I'm also madly in love with him. He's hilarious and one of the best interviewers I've ever seen...maybe even better than Ellen about making the guests feel comfortable and chatty. Conan and Letterman are terrible at this, and Leno's better, but not as good as Furgeson. I've seen him have long and deep conversations with all kinds of people and I'm always pleasantly surprised at how interested I become in the work/art of the guest being interviewed. Serious talent, that. Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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Has no one seen "The Drew Carey Show"??? Even playing an English idiot the man was irresistable. I've been deeply in love with Craig Ferguson for a long time now.
Posts: 499 | Registered: Mar 2004
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If you like Craig Ferguson, be sure you see the "Confidence and Paranoia" episode of Red Dwarf Series 1. It'll blow your mind.
I like the guy too. When I was in the UK I noticed that a lot of the late night talk show hosts have a more conversational style of comedy, as opposed to the reading-jokes-off-the-cards style so prevalent in the USA. It's nice to see someone bring the UK type of show over here to the states. I don't see a lot of Ferguson, but I do watch when I happen to be up that late, and I've always liked his style.
Posts: 563 | Registered: Feb 2006
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I have liked Craig Ferguson's show from the beginning. He has always had the best monologues. I remember last year when his father died, his monologue was just him talking about his dad. It was so sweet and beautiful. Ferguson is an amazing comedian and also an all around decent human being.
Posts: 511 | Registered: Mar 2006
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Wow. And here I thought I was the only one.
I usually only get to see his show when the weather is warmer and I tend to stay up late at night; he is one of the few reasons that I look forward to warmer weather.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Yeah, I saw this last night and was quite impressed. It's like he found a pat, gracious, righteous answer to every single supermarket tabloid headline.
Dare I hope that the general prevailing sentiment to this monologue might prove to be more than a blip on the cultural radar?
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:If you like Craig Ferguson, be sure you see the "Confidence and Paranoia" episode of Red Dwarf Series 1. It'll blow your mind.
Consider my mind officially blown. I've seen every episode of Red Dwarf many times, AND I'm a Craig Ferguson fan, yet somehow I never recognized him in this episode. Then again, he's very hard to recognize, with the over the top American accent and wardrobe, plus a few extra pounds.
Posts: 1855 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Well, Anna Nicole Smith's "trouble" was death, I'd say that's worthy of a little compassion. And I'm more convinced than ever that Britney Spears needs help.
But beyond we don't care should be three things: 1. Even if some in the entertainment industry do these things for attention, we shouldn't give it to them. 2a. We should care less about individual celebrities and their problems because they're not objects, we don't own them. They and their families have lives, and they didn't sacrfice those things when they became celebrities. 2b. Other people in this world, much more unfortunate people, have much more serious problems, let's focus on them. 3. It cheapens the American people, to think that this is the best they can do with their time and attention. Give us something substantive to watch, something that really matters to the country, and stop feeding us crap like this on a daily basis. If you have nothing to say, then for the love of God, say NOTHING, it's better than just talking to hear yourselves speak!
As for Ferguson specifically, I loved that clip. He's honest, engaging, funny, and really, captivating. It reminded me of when Jon Stewart made his post 9/11 speech. I like the guy, he seems like an honest, good guy, who isn't honest or good to get attention or just to be better than the rest, but just because that's what he is, and he refuses to lower himself to the levels of others.
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Yeah - I was really impressed by this. Time to google Craig Ferguson and see what else I can find.
I don't think the tabloid frenzy over troubled blondes is taking away attention from Darfur. I think it is taking away attention from scripted soap operas. The women's stories are fascinating us for the same reason a courtesan is at the center of operas and the same reason Cleopatra is still news two thousand years later.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:Originally posted by littlemissattitude: Wow. And here I thought I was the only one.
I usually only get to see his show when the weather is warmer and I tend to stay up late at night; he is one of the few reasons that I look forward to warmer weather.
What are you, a bear?
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I mean, I don't think that if CNN wasn't focusing on them they would be focusing on Darfur. They'd be focusing on something else that fluffy and fascinating.
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Wow. That was amazing. Thanks for sharing the clip--it's nice to see such honesty and compassion. I hope it helps a few people who are struggling.
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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That really was a great monologue! Funny and compassionate and honest.
It struck me what he said, that we all know alcoholics. All of us. I guess that's really true. My grandfather was one, and I once dated a guy who was one. It makes me really angry at alcohol, how destroyed those lives are, and how the damage from that destruction reverberates down through the generations.
I love that Mormons don't drink. In a way, we as a community give up whatever pleasure there is in drinking as a gift to those among us who would be alcoholics if they drank, but because we don't, they aren't, and their lives, and their families, are therefore intact. To me that matters a whole lot, and it makes me happy.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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Dooce had an interesting and insightful take on this matter as well. She suffered from postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter, to the point where she ended up in a mental hospital, and thinks Britney may be going through a postpartum breakdown and drinking/partying to self-medicate.
quote:You wouldn’t have ever found me out at night flashing my bare vagina, but so what? I did things that were far worse, a lot of yelling, a lot of walking away, a lot of wishing I had never had a child. But I forgive myself for all of that because I was sick. I am not that person anymore. I wasn’t that person before my breakdown, and I’m doing everything I can to not ever become her again.
And while I understand that Britney Spears is not everyone’s cup of tea, that to most people she’s just a spoiled celebrity who has more money than sense, I would hope that other women and other mothers are looking at her with a little bit of compassion right now, if only for the sake of those two baby boys who are innocent in all of this. She is their mother. I had too many people pulling for me when I went through it to not extend that sympathy to her or to any other woman who might feel out of control enough to start sabotaging her life.
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katharina, thanks for posting that. I watched Craig Ferguson once several months ago--like Narnia, I happened upon him one night when I was staying up way too late. I couldn't tell you what he talked about then or who his guests were, but I was definitely intrigued and impressed with the guy.
It was interesting to hear the audience's laughter every time he said something they thought was leading into a joke (but that diminished once he started talking about his own alcoholism). We're conditioned to be suspicious of apparent sincerity in entertainment; after all, he's a comedian, and as I heard Stephen Colbert say once, "I truck in insincerity."
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