10/6/1983 : The Day Music and Comedy Defined Gen X
Making their Network Television Debut
It was a benign Thursday night on Late Night Television : an almost new Late Night Talk Show host, who, one day soon, would embody a comedic language for a Gen-X generation, introduces an almost unknown band from Athens, who one day soon, would contour rock music. November, 6th, 1983 — the night R.E.M made it’s Network Television premiere on Late Night with David Letterman.
Breakfast Club Civilization and its Discontents
in 1983, if anyone knew Breakfast Club would finally give my generation class barriers different from our Baby Boom 60's Parents — they would have put my thirteen year old self in the Allison Reynolds group of the quintet:
I was a contagious loaner: attending a new school with a bunch of kids who knew each other since birth, a latch-key kid: living in subsidized housing with classmates entrenched in suburbia, I was overweight, dressed like no one was watching, and I often needed a bath; Ally Sheedy’s character was way cooler than I was — we shared a sense of bizarre creativity and dandruff, and that was about it.
And I was funny; with an incredible internal playscape of creativity; supported by Grandmother for whom I hung the Moon — Most of my days were O.K. (Really)
Gratefully, no one pigeon hole me as an Allison: it was 1983 and still two years until Breakfast Club’s release. By fifteen, I was perfecting my Judd Nelson Breakfast Club mystique: the transformation was finding Letterman and R.E.M.
Gen-X and the Analog Day Care Agency
Boy I watched a lot of TV; even then, didn't like most of it.
My Mom worked three jobs and since I did not have a social life, I held a great love affair with my Babysitter: The TV
M.A.S.H, Carol Burnett, Schoolhouse Rock!, and your token after school reruns raised me as a pre-teen; also, I was able to watch was late night TV; something my classmates, (who had parents making reasonable bedtimes — Ha!), were not doing. I was developing a keen sense of what was funny, (at least to my teachers).
by fall 1983, my T.V. world was gone: in 1978 The Carol Burnett Show ended, afterwards, I found John Belushi and Bill Murray on SNL but both left for movies by 1980 so my search for comedy was filled, somewhat, by Carson.
Suicide is Painless
M.A.S.H was something I watched since it’s conception in 1972 (when I was four!); for a Gen-X Kid with divorced parents: Alan Alda was dad and Carol Burnett — mom, (let the Freudian game of Darts begin)
When Alan Alda and M.A.S.H ended in February 1983 — I was orphaned,(in analog terms), and I was left to Johnny Carson and, Oh — Dance Fever.
Disco: The First Zombie
If February, 3rd, 1959 was the day the music died; then, November 6th, 1983 was the day it came back to life.
In 1983 — music sucked!
My boomer brothers were listening to Commodores and Kool and the Gang and I just flat missing Disco; I had nothing.
REO speedwagon, Journey, and Billy Joel all made stabs at being “my music” , but all were making music before I knew I could have a “my music” , so they were still “parent music.”
The energy it took to be Punk seemed stupid to me. Moshing and making a muddy mess of the Disco Hall in College in the 1990's had already been influenced by the College Rock of the mid-eighties; music only a few of us even listened too. KLSU I LOVE YOU!
The Shoulder Cam Generation
I watched Tom Snyder several times before David Letterman took over his time slot in 1982; maybe is was Mr. Snyder’s smoke laced, other world interviewing of people who seemed important that prepared me for the arrival of Godot in February 1982.
If February, 3rd, 1959 was the day the music died; then, November 6th, 1983 was the day it came back to life.
I stayed up at night watching Carson and playing with APBA Baseball on the night of the debut of David Letterman, (yes, I remember what I was doing),
the announcer said: “stay tune for Bill Murray of the something, something with David something”, so I thought Bill Murray was on Tom Snyder: I loved Bill Murray! Instead of Tom, I got the maccabe appearance of one Larry “Bud” Melman who walked out and introduced the absolutely strangest thing I had seen on T.V. Even before I Bill Murray, I was hooked.
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David Letterman was the comedy of a Generation no one thought about. We Gen-X would have disdain, but this seemed like a lot of wasted energy on idiots. So we rallied behind Dave. Viva the absurd.
In late 1892 Dave aired his “Shoulder Cam Episode” ; thus launching, The Real World, GoPro’s, the adult cam industry and Selfies all in one TV segment. The was absurdist magic — not punk.
After my brother went to bed and until my Mom would come home, I would bounce around the AM-Jam dial looking for Larry King, Coast-to-Coast or a St. Louis Baseball Games, or “Real Music” on KSLU. And the king of College Radio was R.E.M.
Radio Free Europe
I try quantifying why REM absolutely became my band when I first heard, “Radio Free Europe” in 1982: I was fascinated by history at an early age and maybe the refrain caught my attention, I was closer to my Grandfather's Barroom Honky Tonk music than I was my parents, Beatles or Disco, and R.E.M’s Southern Rock meets Punk, (adding the same sardonic tinge of David Letterman) fit my tonal archetype; I know I still love the song — though, until November, 1983, I did not know the band's name.
So on a typical Thursday night: my mom was working her 3rd job, ( an auditor at JC Penny) , and my brothers were hours asleep, I sat down with a Big Chief Tablet doodling comic book stories no one would see and I turned on the T.V. to watch Dave.
My eyes could barely stay awake, and just a few minutes before my Mother would come home: my band came 0n!
Watching the video again made me realize, the sarcastic and combative Dave was not present when he met Peter and the Boys.
He was almost Dick Clark-ish or at least emulating Johnny Carson discovering a new comic; in 1983, I saw through my thirteen year old eyes, David Letterman, my brother: the rightful descendent of Alan Alda and Carol Burnett, actually wanting to have the boys from Athens like him; like him as much he liked them and I liked them: My Band!
Peter Buck even goofed on Dave with the magical disdain only Dave was communicating on Television. Where they ready for Dave and his disapproval and were off balance? Were they just being the cool aloof that only a bunch of nerds from Georgia could fail miserably at? Either way. I began developing my Letterman-R.E.M persona through High School and until I decided on becoming a grown-up, at 44, I held much of my persona’s Gen-X fueled angst.
R.E.M said goodbye on September, 21, 2011 and Dave Letterman bid farewell last night, May, 20th, 2015. I am glad the last thirty years of Gen-X have been filled with such thought and humor — even as The Baby Boomer kick and scream for influence still; we Xers will, soon, quietly sunset into our Children’s Melinal Culture.
jb Bradford
