One of our listeners read an interview with Conan O'Brien in the New York Times last week. He sent us this excerpt:
NYT: Is this how you want to go out, with a show that gets smaller and smaller until it’s gone?
Conan: Maybe that’s O.K. I think you have more of a problem with that than I do. [Laughs.] At this point in my career, I could go out with a grand, 21-gun salute, and climb into a rocket and the entire Supreme Court walks out and they jointly press a button, I’m shot up into the air and there’s an explosion and it’s orange and it spells, “Good night and God love.” In this culture? Two years later, it’s going to be, who’s Conan? This is going to sound grim, but eventually, all our graves go unattended.
NYT: You’re right, that does sound grim.
Conan: Sorry. Calvin Coolidge was a pretty popular president. I’ve been to his grave in Vermont. It has the presidential seal on it. Nobody was there. And by the way, I’m the only late-night host that has been to Calvin Coolidge’s grave. I think that’s what separates me from the other hosts.
I had a great conversation with Albert Brooks once. When I met him for the first time, I was kind of stammering. I said, you make movies, they live on forever. I just do these late-night shows, they get lost, they’re never seen again and who cares? And he looked at me and he said, [Albert Brooks voice] “What are you talking about? None of it matters.” None of it matters? “No, that’s the secret. In 1940, people said Clark Gable is the face of the 20th Century. Who [expletive] thinks about Clark Gable? It doesn’t matter. You’ll be forgotten. I’ll be forgotten. We’ll all be forgotten.” It’s so funny because you’d think that would depress me. I was walking on air after that.
Our listener takes this idea of Conan's and asks: "I wonder why he finds it liberating and I find it depressing?"
Bart Campolo has lots to say about this, and in conversation with John Wright this episode attempts to give an answer. Along the way, hear references to an article about chess, which can be found at: https://www.si.com/vault/1992/03/02/126053/the-child-is-the-master-playing-a-young-chess-prodigy-rekindled-the-authors-love-for-the-game AND a poem which can be found at: http://www.awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=2296.
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Humanize Me is hosted by Bart Campolo and is produced by JuxMedia.com.
904: Cosmogenesis, with Brian Swimme
903: Getting to know a listener from scratch
902: A tool for connecting with someone
901: The power of self-disclosure in relationships, with Rich Slatcher
820: Doing the next right thing - a list
819: _______giving!
818: 'My truth' v 'The truth'
817: We of Little Faith, with Kate Cohen
816: A conversation across the faith divide, with Philip Yancey
815: Revisiting anti-natalism... should people have children?
814: The Practice of Belonging, with Lisa Kentgen
813: Criminal justice reform, with Robert Rooks
812: Worship the creator, not the created?
811: Religious naturalism, with Ursula Goodenough
810: The implications of AI for humanists
809: Morality for the rest of us, with Todd May
808: Consciousness and liberal Christian friends
807: Strange Customs, with Sasha Sagan
806: How surprised would you be by an afterlife?
805: How God becomes real, with TM Luhrmann
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