Hello, Goodbye to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

“Am I really crying?”

I was engrossed in the final episode of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” I’d already gotten a lump in my throat from the previous song, where all of the show’s musical directors played together and I exclaimed “Jon Batiste!” Now, Sir Paul McCartney is onstage where he’d appeared sixty-two years ago, performing “Hello, Goodbye” as Colbert and his family and staff and the audience are pouring onto the stage, and, yup, those are tears trickling from my eyes even as I’m smiling.

I’ve been watching Colbert’s Late Show since the debut, and Letterman’s Late Show when it debuted, and Letterman’s Late Night on the other network before that. As a kid I vividly recall staying up to watch Carson’s Tonight Show, but Dave Letterman’s debut in 1982 coincided with my debut at Nampa High School, so that was my late night show.

It feels like I no longer have a late night show. The Dictator has taken away one of my greatest joys.

Growing up in Nampa, Idaho, feels like a million miles away from America. I know the standard trope is that the good folks of the flyover states are “Real America.” To a curious kid with musical talent, though, “Real America” was out there, in Hollywood, where the movies come from, and in New York City, where the music and plays come from. Important, talented, rich, attractive, funny people appeared every late weeknight, giving me a glimpse of what could await me in the world beyond plain old Nampa.

Throughout my life, careers, and travels, tuning into Late Night or Late Show at the end of the day felt like checking in with the country. There are vanishingly few common cultural events we share now. The three channels of Carson’s era are now a thousand streaming outlets. But every night (or, within the next day on streaming), we could all release a little stress of the news with some laughs shared nationally, from small town to big city. We could hear from great musical acts we might not have in our rotation and would never otherwise be exposed to.

Colbert’s Late Show coinciding with the beginning of this dictatorial era made that check-in with the country even more important, especially for those of us trapped behind enemy lines in MAGA counties. It had never been normal for a late night show to be so openly partisan. Carson handled both sides with kid gloves and his personal politics were famously enigmatic. Letterman’s show was almost cynically anti-political, though he made no secret of his disdain for The Conman from Queens.

Colbert’s Late Show openly battling The Dictator was one of the indicators of how abnormal things had become, in a time when every other media outlet was brazenly normalizing him. Checking in with Colbert reminded you, reminded me, “Okay, I’m not the one taking crazy pills; these yahoos with the flags on the pickup trucks all around me are the wackos and there still is a United States of America out there with cities full of diversity and intellect worth fighting for.”

So, of course The Dictator had to kill it.

There’s still Jimmy Kimmel Live, but LA funny isn’t NYC funny. I like his show just fine but there’s a vapidness to it. I enjoy Late Night with Seth Meyers, but it’s missing the grandeur. John Oliver is great, but it’s not a “late night [variety] show.” The Daily Show is good, but there’s no music. Jimmy Fallon has a show.

The late night show, however, my 44-year friend, is gone.

That’s why I’m crying.