The bridge disaster put a hit on my carefully planned blog schedule. (I’ve been reading through the local papers from the first days after — I was out of town when it happened — and will offer deep thoughts in the not too distant future. I know, hearts be still.)
But I gotta say something about Tom Snyder, whose death was obscured, not just by the bridge over I-35W, but by the simultaneous passings of film legends Ingmar Bergman (somebody … please … another full-scale retrospective … fresh prints … especially Wild Strawberries and Persona), Michelangelo Antonioni (ditto, La Notte), and Bill Walsh. (Do you really think Brad Childress has read ANY of Walsh’s stuff?)
I was a Snyder fan. The guy was the perfect night-capper: curious, smart enough, inclined to be goofy but not a comic, flappable, affable, approachable and occasionally maudlin. The kind of guy you figured spent the previous night out on the town chatting up cabbies and players, and was perfectly comfortable telling stories about the boss(es) with a cocktail in his hand — i.e. an evolved, easy to be around human being. For God’s sake, the man even SMOKED on camera. (It was relaxing watching him smoke. The cigarette was a prop he used well. It conveyed relaxation.) And he admitted smoking pot to Barbara Walters. And he managed — more or less — to get The Clash to sit still for an interview, (during their legendary Bonds’ concerts in Times Square in 1981).
I met Snyder only once, in L.A. maybe 10 years ago, during his brief come-back. By that point the game had shifted and he was doing kind of a caricature of himself, almost as though that’s what the suits expected. But in his prime Snyder possessed — and was allowed to express — a quality largely missing from television today, despite the fact there are roughly 150 more functioning channels than when he was doing his thing.
What gives? Why can’t a character who isn’t as self-involved and self-serious as Charlie Rose, or as embalmed and … incurious … as Larry King, interview people from the entire range of modern culture — novelists, government leaders, rockers, athletes, firebrand politicos, other media egos? My understanding has always been that in the fragmented media game of 2007, every niche has its go-to interview guy/gal and the rules more or less require them to play within their demographic zone. That is to say, if on MTV, stick to pop foo-foo. If on ESPN, don’t wander far from sports. Stick with the games and the careers, and obviously don’t even try to trot say, Jonathan Franzen onto MTV, or Win Butler from Arcade Fire onto The Best Damn Sports Show.
The lack of a character like Snyder, or hell, even like Dick Cavett, bothers me. Although Cavett, who I also enjoyed and appreciated, had a lot more of that Upper East Side ‘tude going for him than Snyder. (Never mind that Cavett was born in Nebraska and Snyder in Milwaukee. Both are also the same age, interestingly enough.) Their act — Snyder’s in particular — shouldn’t be that tough to replicate. But I don’t have the feeling anyone is even trying.
PBS should be able to pull off something like this. But somehow everything that goes through the PBS de-flavorizer, (TM — Neal Karlen), ends up too self-consciously proper and measured, with no room for a prankish stupid question or two. And God knows you couldn’t smoke.
I really have nothing more to say on the subject, other than it strikes me as odd that Snyder’s shtick, and it was pretty natural as shticks go — isn’t playing anywhere, nationally or locally.
If any of you think of someone who meets the criteria, remind me.
Here is a collection of Snyder’s “classic bits”. Steven Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock. a very young Bono, Charlie Manson, Johnny Rotten.
Nice range, dude.
I looked for Dan Aykroyd’s impersonation of Snyder and couldn’t find it.
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