Letterman farewell: Did it float?

I HOPE YOU stayed up to watch the final "Late Show with David Letterman" last night.

Not because you needed to watch to know what happened - nothing on TV truly gets missed anymore - but because Letterman's departure may mark the end of you-really-had-to-be-there in late night.

With Dave gone, there are still a number of well-dressed, highly energetic men on TV after prime time, only some of them named Jimmy, and on any given night they're all doing some funny bits.

But their funny bits are often just that: bits. Bite-sized pieces of video that, with or without context, are meant as much for later consumption as they are for the immediate gratification of the people watching at the time.

Dave had his bits, too, but they were never more than an expression of a particular moment. Who cared if [fill in the blank] would float? The question was always: Would Dave?

Because he didn't, not always. Sometimes, though less so than since announcing his retirement, he could seem grumpy. Or pensive. Or like a guy who'd rather be fishing.

Letterman being annoyed with a guest wasn't just potentially funnier than another host being charmed, it made the times when he clearly was charmed feel as if we were all bathed in the warmth of his glow.

Which, I know, makes him sound like a bad boyfriend. And like a night with a bad boyfriend, you might not always need to talk to everyone you knew about a particular "Late Show" the next morning.

That may be a reason why in recent years I found myself spending more time with "The Colbert Report" and less with "The Late Show" (and why I'm looking forward to seeing what Stephen Colbert's "Late Show" will look like, starting Sept. 8).

Yet, I'm hoping Colbert, too, knows that the hour that straddles midnight doesn't have to be all fun and games any more than it has to be programmed for viral video.

When I think of great Letterman shows, I always think first of the 2002 hour he devoted to Warren Zevon, after he'd been diagnosed with a terminal cancer. He lived nearly a year longer, but at the time, it was hard not to see him as a dead man walking (and singing). Yet the gift of that show was that it presented him as someone who was very much alive even while talking about the fact that, someday soon, he wouldn't be. It felt like a privilege just to be watching.

You can see that show on YouTube any time, but somehow I've never wanted to. I'd rather remember how I felt about it that night than re-experience it now.

I guess, on that particular night, I really just had to be there.

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