Another week!

The summer doldrums are hitting hard. Our beloved airwaves are filled with retread celebutard programming/dance competitions (What is this, PBS?) and the Late Night world is getting flooded by nobodies and folks shilling their terrible popcorn movies. It just might be time to go to town on that summer reading list you’ve been compiling and then dutifully ignoring it. Well, keep ignoring that list (Oprah’s recommendation batting average is well below the Mendoza Line anyways.), and go to town on ours:

1. Dr. Phil Plait’s Death From the Skies It’s a delight romp through the various ways the universe can kill us. It’s important to have a good nemesis and what better enemy than everything? Plus, Plait is a good writer (for a scientist), and you get to learn how Supernovae actually work. Someone should send a copy of this to Orci and Kruger so at least their terrible scripts are accurate.
2. David Grann’s Lost City of Z Grann is a journalist who decides to venture into the jungles of South America to try to find Percy Fawcett, a British explorer who disappeared 80 years ago searching for El Dorado. However, unlike other explorers, Fawcett wasn’t looking for a city made out of gold, but a hidden civilization where nothing more than primitive tribes should be able to exist.
3. Michael Paul Mason’s Head Cases: Stories of brain injury and its aftermath After you’re done reading about how the universe is out to kill you physically, enjoy this heartrending collection of stories about brains gone wrong. By the middle point of the book, you’ll envy the dead, but eventually all the stories taken together paint a picture of beautiful fragility.
4. Norah Vincent’s Self-Made Man Vincent, a lesbian, learns what it’s like to be a guy by becoming one. Sort of. This isn’t a romantic comedy, it’s not a farce or a high-minded condemnation. It’s an exploration of the differences, but more importantly, the similarities betwixt the sexes. Whether living in a monastery or just bowling on a league night, Vincent maintains a keen eye for humanity and the joys and pains of modern existence.
5. Charlie Haas’s The Enthusiast Lets end with a novel. It’s summer after all, we shouldn’t only be concerned with death and existential crises. Haas, a screenwriter has written a startling debut novel (it probably helps to be 56 before your debut novel gets released). It seems like summer fluff, but it’s actually a lot more substantial than that. It’s also funny and touching and seemingly effortlessly written (i.e. it’s actually readable).

Quick note before the meat of the LNT sandwich: It turns out we were kinda wrong about the Grand Old Party. Remember before, how we said they were going to be fine? It turns out that they really are dead. 86% unfavorable amongst Latinos makes for a not viable party quick (current estimates say that in 2012, 33% of voters will be black or Latino). Time to blow it up! Since they’re flailing anyways, let’s hope they swing for the fences and we get a Sarah Palin nom in 2012. How great will it be watching her pretend she knows anything for 9 months? Plus, it’ll really keep Ole Dave Letterman on the ball. Speaking of Dave, here’s what you came here for:

Monday:

• The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien - Cameron Diaz, Johnny Strange, Pete Yorn
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Samuel L. Jackson, Emeril Lagasse, Iggy Pop & the Brighton Port Authority
• Late Night with Jimmy Fallon - John Leguizamo, Nick Cannon, Sonic Youth
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Marion Cotillard, Michael Musto
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Thomas Haden Church, Ed Helms, spelling bee champ Kavya Shivashankar, 311
• Last Call with Carson Daly - Tim Roth, Miranda Kerr, Black Kids

STEPHAN: Dynamite Craiggers tonight. Marion Cotillard is talented, attractive, foreign and tiny. That’s the four pillars of a successful interviewee. Plus, everything else tonight is a pile of ugh. Unless NBC installed a time machine in the new Tonight Show studio and Cameron Diaz from The Mask is showing up. Then I’ll gladly step into the Zone. It’s very confusing that she has a career as an actress. She’s Pam Anderson minus the breast implants and clown makeup, yet she keeps getting to do movies while, well, I was going to lament whatever it is Pam does, but I honestly have no idea what she does. Maybe she’s dead? If so, there’s going to be a lot of unhappy butt rockers. Who will they get Hep C from now?

ERECH: Dear Cameron Diaz, your face makes you look like a big, blonde, tanned frog. Also, your acting is the opposite of good. Ribbit.

Jimmy2 is rocking the WORST line-up I can remember in the last few weeks. Just horrible. Yes yes, I know we’re all supposed to pretend we like Sonic Youth, but I mean, do we really? I mean really? C’mon, hipster garbage or good band? Make the vote, LNT faithful.

Speaking of garbage, I saw Carson Daly in downtown Seattle the other day - I couldn’t quite work up the nerve to tell him he was 1 week out from getting dropped by LNT, but Carson, you’re 1 week out from getting dropped by LNT. You have no idea how quickly I would watch a Chevy Chase hosted talkie over your half hour snoozathon Cars, no idea at all. Also, I really kinda wanted to smack that dumb baseball cap you were wearing that day off your head too, you’re a lot teenier than I thought you were - and I have no idea why that makes me want to be some kind of bully either. What’s wrong with me??

Tuesday:

• The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien - Lisa Kudrow, Billy Mays & Anthony Sullivan, Elvis Costello
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Sandra Day O’Connor, MSTRKRFT with John Legend
• Late Night with Jimmy Fallon - Abigail Breslin, James Purefoy, Blake Griffin, Iggy Pop & the Brighton Port Authority
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Jim Parsons, James Frey
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Isabel Lucas
• Last Call with Carson Daly - Jason Bentley, Crocodiles

ERECH: Isn’t James Frey that dude who fooled Oprah into believing he was like the worlds biggest drug dealer or some nonsense? Why do I know about that guy at all? And why is he on Fergie tonight? Nobody cares about that guy even a little bit, and the Scot is way too good for this crap. It’s a shame that as good as Craiggers is at doing this late night hosting thing, how awful his guests are most nights. Moves like this are going to make this show cancelled this time next year once CBS realizes they’re getting their doo packed in by NBC’s 14 hours of talk shows a day. Remember Craig, Stephan & I are still available for talent coordination, and guarantee at least an immediate bump in your ratings if hired too.

Is that pitch getting a little old yet? (someone hire us!)

STEPHAN: I am an old man. The only thing I find even a little exciting tonight is Sandra Day O’Connor talking to Dave. It will be the talk of the nursing home tomorrow, I can assure you. Speaking of being old, I think MSTRCRFT is the group that the singer spent the whole performance checking his text messages when they were on Kimmel. That’s might be something to watch for, I guess.

Wednesday:

• The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien - Brandon McMillan, Kerry Washington, Wilco
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Ray Romano, St. Vincent
• Late Night with Jimmy Fallon - Richard Branson, Neil deGrasse Tyson
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Mary Steenburgen, Bettye LaVette, Todd Sawyer
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Josh Duhamel, Tracy Hutson
• Last Call with Carson Daly - Ida Maria

STEPHAN: I’ve seen the Polyphonic Spree three times in my life. Each time I am equally amazed by how short everyone in the band is. It’s like the Lollipop Guild turned into a cult and then that cult formed a band. At least I think they’re all short. I may or may not have been on mushrooms (if you are my employer or even a potential employer, I obviously don’t use illicit substances) and my spatial sense may have been distorted. I’m pretty sure they’re all midges though. Anyways, the lady that is St. Vincent used to be in that band, cogito ergo sum, she is a midget. If that’s not worth watching, then I don’t know what is.

ERECH: What is with Fallon’s guests this week? Good golly, what a bunch of garbage. If I wanted to see Neil deGrasse Tyson being interesting, I’d just watch Nova and skip this farce. Just seems like a lot of people this week that are somewhere being labeled as important or interesting, but who really aren’t - at least as far as couch standards go. I am slightly interested in seeing if Iggy Pop and the Roots kick it, but other than that? Richard g-dang Branson? ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ….

It may have taken the better part of a decade, but I think I’ve finally turned the corner on Ray Romano. Sure, that show of his was more miss than hit, but now that I’ve fallen asleep while watching more than a few episodes of it in syndication, I can appreciate that it has a certain charm and appeal that I never noticed when it was actually airing first-run episodes. Oh well, I’m always late to the game, and I’m ok with that. Why, I’ve only just this week finished up watching Breaking Bad, and holy moley is that thing just amazing. See, my ignorance and patience pays off - while the rest of you chumps are waiting almost 16 months to watch the first couple of seasons of that thing, I’m tearing through 20 episodes back to back to back in less than a week. THAT’S how you watch a program!

Thursday:

• The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien - Bruno, Cirque du Soleil Zumanity
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Johnny Depp, Megan Fox
• Late Night with Jimmy Fallon - Tiger Woods, Evan Rachel Wood, Dinosaur Jr.
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Larry David, Wolfgang Puck
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Shia LaBeouf, June Diane Raphael, Eric Hutchinson
• Last Call with Carson Daly - Bat For Lashes

ERECH: Dave and Conan are battling it out tonight - nerds are going to be watching Dave and people who want to laugh are gonna be tuning into Conze. I know which one of these two I am going to be checking out, but I can’t really say either one is a right or wrong answer (Johnny Depp is the goods, however that Megan Fox looks like she’s constantly in some greasy porn-shoot. Cirque du Soleil is super gay, but so is Bruno - it’s all a toss up!). Thursday Bonanza!

Looks like Yimmy is rocking a Transmorphers themed week, and I’m just okay with that. I’m mildly excited for the 18 minutes of amazing CGI robits fighting other amazing CGI robits interspersed with the 84 minutes of bad acting, screaming, and sudden camera cuts that will accompany it. Robits in nem skies, consider your Imax ticket already purchased!

STEPHAN: Why do we have Megan Fox? Angelina Jolie still hasn’t made anything worth watching why do we need a dumber, less talented version? Usually I hate when actresses shout about how there are no good parts for them, but Megan Fox’s career might just be enough to push me over that fence.

Friday:

• The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien - Snoop Dogg, Adele
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Martin Short, Regina Spektor
• Late Night with Jimmy Fallon - Cameron Diaz, Universal Record Database, Grizzly Bear
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Lisa Kudrow, Alan Furst, Chairlift
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Megan Fox, David Cross, Phoenix
• Last Call with Carson Daly - TBD

STEPHAN: Letterman has the show of the week tonight. Unless you don’t like white people. Then Zone is definitely for you tonight. Well, the first half. I think Adele might be a secret white person. Or maybe just a real white person. It also might be a band and not a person. I have no idea, and to be honest, don’t particularly care. I’ll take Regina Spektor over something I don’t know what it is any day of the week and you should too.

ERECH: Marty Short on Dave? I wonder if Tom Scharpling’s swearing off of The Late Show now that Conan is in Burbank will still apply tonight? Hope not, because only a fool’d miss the Short & Letterman comedy stylings, bleep bloop blarp means funny!

Dear Cameron Diaz, your face still makes you look like a big, blonde, tanned frog. Also, your acting is also still the opposite of good. I think your annoying laugh might drown out Jimmy2’s tonight though, so at least there is that. Ribbit.

And now it’s time for Late Night Thing to HOP on out of here for another week - oh boy, that joke didn’t just write itself, did it?

Speaking of jokes that write themselves, just in time to gear up for all the Bruno hype for the next few weeks, LNT decided to cull the internets for more useless opinions and actual quotes that will make you want to smash your computer monitor in with a hammer. That’s right, this is a segment we like to call “Goddamned Tubes“:

Artie in Eerie PA wrote:

It’s just Borat, with a Gay, Austrian Supermodel. The gimmick’s being beaten into the ground.

Omar in Oregon wrote:

Cohen was genuinely funny in “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby”, why can’t he continue to do stuff like that?

Terri in Osaka Japan wrote:

Hopefully there will be less awkward nudity in this movie compared to Borat.

Chris in Mission City wrote:

Never understood really why people like SBC. All his characters are either simply oblivious, obnoxious, or both. He’s not funny. Borat did not even warrant a single chuckle, and what I’ve saw of Ali G Indahouse was even worse. Bruno looks like more of the same.

Sam in Cincinatti wrote:

To me, Borat sucks, Bruno will suck, there hasn’t been a funny or decent comedy movie in about 15 years, with the exception of Tropic Thunder. I can say with 100% certainty that I will never contemplate watching this movie.

If your monitor isn’t broken yet, just wait till you see what the boys of Late Night Thing have for you next week. LNT - Oh just you wait!

And while you wait, read the LNT ARCHIVES!!