It occurs to me that it make very little sense to do this in
individual threads, so I'll just keep going in this one.
Chapter 2 ("Sell-By Date") focuses on the machinations of the 2004
negotiations that set all this up, both Jay's sense that he was being
fired but given a five-year severance package and Conan's team epic
desire to lock in "The Tonight Show" for him. In a way, I think most
of us who followed the story knows this part: Jeff Zucker, even back
then, wanted it both ways. But he may have been the only guy who
really did: Bob Wright and Rick Ludwin (not exactly lower-level names
on the org chart) both were Conan fans. Indeed, the only guy who
seemed in 2004 to have a total lack of awareness of the sea change
taking place was, unfortunately, the one guy who was able to do
anything about it in Zucker. To read how Conan was being courted by
everyone (even, very gently, by CBS after Dave was being courted by
ABC) in 2004 is one of those "you knew, but you didn't *know*"
moments.
There's a discussion about Zucker and Ludwin going out to LA to meet
with Jay (aside: Jay and Conan are always referred to by their first
name on all references) and that "Inside, however, Jay was as stunned
as if he'd been hit by a Taser shot." And all I could think of was Jay
responding like the Hulk: "LENO SMASH! LENO ANGRY!" We also discover
that it's here that Conan's group set up that $45 million penalty for
failing to deliver The Tonight Show.
I know this group is kind of an odd one, especially since we kinda
know the backstory a lot more than most people. I feel like I want to
shout "GET ON WITH IT!" but I'll trust Carter.
Aside: I was reading along when I saw this.
"[Jeff Zucker] knew how he was supposed to interpret these calls on
behalf of Conan: 'They wanted assurance they were gonna get The
Tonight Show or else they were going to leave.'
"In truth, NBC didn't need much utzing."
Utzing? They were offering them a regional potato chip? A quick trip
to Google shows its apparently a Yiddish based word meaning "teasing."
I'm quite the yiddish dropper, and even I hadn't heard that term
before. Am I completely out of my non-existent Jewish roots?
On Tue, Nov 9, 2010 at 9:03 PM, Jon Delfin <jondel...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 9, 2010 at 9:13 PM, donz5 <do...@aol.com> wrote:
>> [snip]
>>
>> "By eight thirty on the evening of May 19, 2009, a stream of cabs and
>> limos was snaking slowing down West Forty-third Street..."
>>
>> One doesn't go "down" W. 43rd St.; one goes "across" W. 43rd St. One
>> goes "down," say, 5th Avenue, since it's a north-south passage. 43rd
>> Street is east-west, and so one goes "across" it, not "down."
>>
>> [snip]
>
> Is that transcribed correctly? Seems to want a comma, at least. And
> wouldn't the "down" link to "slowing," as if to say the traffic on W43
> was being slowed down?
>
In my copy, it's 'snaking slowly down West Forty-third Street.' But I
think the directional error Donz noted, combined with letting "utzing"
go makes me wonder who's the audience here: insiders (and, indirectly,
people like us) or the common folk?
--
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