No Laughing Matter

I'm only briefly emerging from the comfort and safety of my warm bed as my house is shockingly cold @ the moment. I feel like I have to comment on the whole David Letterman thing, as I've identified myself as a superfan. In truth, the big DL is one of my "TV dads" - so I was pretty shocked and a bit skeeved out by the blackmail/sex scandal reveal yesterday [like, ew - does anyone want to think about their real or fictional parental figures having sex? no.]. It's been a bad week for famous people I admire. David Lynch supporting Polanski, finding out that Harrison Ford personally delivered Polanski's Academy Award for The Pianist...and now this. What's next? Bill Kurtis drowning kitties? Conan O'Brien punching a baby? Stephen Colbert stealing all my money and lighting my house on fire? [it occurs to me that I don't have any women listed here - I am not a total misogynist, but in terms of people that are on TV - it's a real sausage fest.] *sigh*

I've now had some time to digest this news and I did watch The Late Show last night as I owed it to the man to hear it directly from him. It was awkward and a bit gross [for reasons mentioned above], but there it was. It did make me feel a lot better to have Letterman tell the story in his own words. As the lead story on AC 360 [and broken to me by Joseph - he totally scooped me!] it seemed even more seedy. And now that I've slept on things and let my thoughts marinate I think I can safely say that I'm actually a bit proud of Dave. Not for having the courage to have sexy results with staffers, but for coming clean with all of this. It takes balls [Colbert has taught me that balls are very important] to reveal all and it's really the best way to fight potential blackmailers and media/critic types. I think when a public figure is caught in scandal, typically they deny, deny, deny [and the scuttlebutt is that celebs are caught in extortion attempts like this all the time and they just pony up the dough] and I think that's what really bugs people. I mean, anyone with half a brain will acknowledge that nobody's perfect and we're all weak sometimes and we all make mistakes - and by that extension, it's good to own up to them. By coming clean, Letterman has perhaps prevented this dude from trying to extort money from someone else. Of course, his morality is indeed in question, but he did his civil duty by reporting this to the authorities. I'm not sure how many people would do the same [if I were in his position, I will be honest, I'm not sure I would].

So, I dunno. Am I being an overly apologetic fangirl on this one? I would like to know if I'm truly deluded. This type of thing was what I was referring to in the earlier Polanski post. Yknow - people doing crummy things in their personal life, but still appreciating their professional work. I mean - look @ Bill Clinton - people love that guy. And sure, his love of...philandering [I do love that word - sounds very classy] got him impeached, but still...people love that guy. Again, we don't know the timelines on any of the affairs and we don't know how he has resolved this with his current wife. With personal affairs between consenting adults - I think it should remain between the consenting adults. I don't really know that it's any of our business, provided that everything is legal. Even happy love stories make me uncomfortable - I don't need to know your business!