Category: Pop Culture References

Do you wonder who’s getting a Kindle for their Christmas present? I always remember this funny story about David Letterman. Nearly three years ago on his late-night talk show, he’d shown off the tablet that he’d just started using. Around the holidays each year I like to revisit that story, because it’s a good reminder about how fast things have changed — and how sometimes the biggest challenge is simply our own stubborn human nature!

Talking to the leader of his band (Paul Shaffer), Letterman at first actually seemed genuinely confused even about whether he’d bought an iPad or a Kindle!


LETTERMAN: For Christmas, I loaded up — I had one of them iPads, and they put a book in it. You know you can do that now?

PAUL SHAFFER: Oh, yeah. Sure…

LETTERMAN: And so I’ve been reading this book in this iPad thing, and I’m reading and I’m reading and I’m reading. And as you know, you don’t turn a page, in — when you’re reading on the — what do they call them, the Kindles or something?

PAUL SHAFFER: Yeah… They’ve got that, too, yeah. (Audience laughs)


Letterman was probably reading with a “Kindle for iPad” app. (Earlier that week, Amazon had pointed out that it’s one of the top 10 best-selling apps among iPad owners.) But as their conversation went on, Paul Shaffer gently tried to correct Letterman’s confusion as he explained how you turn pages.


LETTERMAN:And so you just — you just kind of do this with your finger.

PAUL SHAFFER: You flip that. Yeah.

LETTERMAN:And the thing’ll…

PAUL SHAFFER: On the iPad and the Kindle…

Letterman was playing up his reactions as a technology curmudgeon — but he was building up to a complaint that I’d heard before. The Kindle used to tell you only what percentage of a book you’d finished reading, without telling you how many real-world pages were left in the book. Now, of course, the Kindle can actually report how much time is left before you reach the end of book — or even the end of your current chapter. But back in 2010, this was irritating the late-night talk show host. Although the punch line turned out to be that his bandleader Paul Shaffer had the perfect answer!


LETTERMAN: And I’m reading, and I realize: something’s wrong here. Something’s desperately wrong. There’s no page numbers on my book!

PAUL SHAFFER: Right. No, well, there can’t be. There can’t be, because you can change the font, and if you have a larger font, then you’re going to have fewer pages and therefore you can’t possibly commit to a page number because as you electronically alter the page you number, you are going to have to change as well the number of pages that you have at your disposal…(Audience applauds)

LETTERMAN: Thank you. Thank you, Steve Jobs.


It’s nice to remember that story, as a reminder of how things have changed. (Amazon eventually even found a way to add page numbers to lots of Kindle ebooks, so maybe Letterman is happier now.) But I still always smile when I remember how skeptical he’d been about the iPad — even in earlier shows. When the device was first released, he’d showed one to his audience, then joked “The radiation this thing gives off is incredible. You’re supposed to wear a lead apron when you operate it!”

But it was especially interesting in light of a research study by J.P. Morgan. Back in early 2011, they’d determined that 40% of the people who own an iPad also own a Kindle — and that another 23% of them planned to buy one within the next 12 months!

It’s a hopeful sign that all iPad owners aren’t as confused as David Letterman! But I still would like to drop his comments into a time capsule, to be opened up by later generations. Even if books are all someday replaced by digital readers, it’ll be worth remembering just how uncomfortable some people were with the change.


LETTERMAN: But see, and then you just — you just whisk it away like that, and then — but look. What do you see? Do you see a page number?

PAUL SHAFFER: No….

LETTERMAN: No. You don’t see no page number.

PAUL SHAFFER: No. There isn’t…

LETTERMAN: How do you know when you’re done, is what I want to know? Or if somebody – somebody asks you, are you reading the — the book? And I say yeah. “What page are you on?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what page I’m on.” For example, this — I’m reading now the Alex Trebeck story, and I have no idea — uh…No, I can’t help you. Sorry!

May 26th saw the broadcast of the very last episode of The Office, an American “workplace comedy” set in Scranton, Pennsylvania. NBC aired one final nostalgic episode that looked back at how things changed for the characters over their eight years together — and it reminded me of an odd episode back in 2011 that had something to say about the Kindle! Later that year, Amazon would release the Kindle Fire, so it was actually possible to watch episodes of The Office on your Kindle. But in January, an episode aired with a discussion about New Year’s resolutions that leads to a plot that’s all about ebooks!

Creepy Dwight Schrute would eventually marry the office’s conservative accountant, Angela, in the show’s final episode. But just two years earlier the couple had broken up, and Dwight was insisting loudly that his goal for 2011 was to “Meet a loose woman”. (And his co-worker Andy agreed…) “You know what you guys should do?” suggests Darryl from the warehouse. “Go to the bookstore at lunch. There’s tons of cuties and it’s easy to talk to them. ‘Hey, what book is that? Cool, let’s hang out tonight. Sex already? Whoa…!'”

Suddenly this strange sitcom was veering towards a visit to the bookstore, and I’ve always suspected that the show’s producers had a “product placement” deal. (it was the first and only episode of the show that featured a digital reader this prominently in the plot.) The episode flashed to a private interview with Darryl, who revealed that he wasn’t really going to the bookstore because he wanted to pick up women. Darryl’s New Year’s resolution was to read more books — and he’d just wanted a ride to the store!

And that’s when the digital reader appears…

“Well, if you read a lot, you should check out our ereaders,” a sweet, middle-aged cashier tells Darryl at the register, adding…

“They’re really neat.”

“I work at a paper company. Those things terrify me. They could put us out of business. I heard those things hold like 10 books at once.”

“Actually, it’s 10,000.”

“Holy ####! What? Let me see it…”

Darryl is impressed. (“It’s so light. Like a croissant.”) But his co-workers are having no luck picking up women, and Dwight announces “This place is kind of tapped out, so let’s roll.” But as they’re leaving the store, it turns out that Darryl is carrying a bag that he doesn’t want his co-workers to see. He claims it contains “A book about oceans,” then later tries to claim that it’s pornography. But later in the episode — as the men somehow end up at a roller-skating rink — Darryl is seen slipping away, to read on his brand new digital reader.

It’s only been two years since it was broadcast, but it’s almost like a time capsule from a far-away past. The store that they’d visited was a
Borders bookstore, the episode makes clear — and just weeks later, Borders went bankrupt. The chain wasn’t even able to find a buyer in the months that followed, according to Wikipedia, and by July it began liquidating its last 399 remaining stores. The reader that Darryl buys in the episode is a Kobo — and in the end, the Kobo has lasted longer than the bookstore where he purchased it! (Maybe the person who should’ve been terrified of it was the bookstore employee who sold it to him!)

Interestingly, all the remaining Borders stores were purchased by Barnes and Noble, who offer their own competitor to the Kindle –the Nook. And judging by today’s headlines, it’s the Nook’s turn to confront the possibility of its own extinction.. (“Is Barnes & Noble Killing the Nook to Save the Stores?” asks a headline at Yahoo! Finance…) USA Today even bluntly asked a publishing industry source if the same fate was ultimately waiting for Barnes and Noble, America’s last national bookstore chain. His answer came in two parts: “Imminently, no…” and “Ultimately, yes.”

Our world is changing fast, and the signs are everywhere. In 2011 I was just delighted to see a digital reader in a television sitcom, and within two years later, we’re watching hundreds of retail bookstores start closing their doors. Sometimes I feel a little like those
workers at The Office — wondering if the people in charge really know what they’re doing. I’ve always said that popular culture is more of a “broken mirror”, reflecting part of the changes in the world, sometimes directly, and sometimes indirectly.

But it does give us one more way to look back at how much things have changed over the years — and not just for people at The Office!

I was wondering who’d gotten a new Kindle as a Christmas present. And then I remembered a funny story about David Letterman. Nearly two years ago, he showed off his tablet on his late-night talk show — and he seemed confused about whether he’d bought an iPad or a Kindle!


LETTERMAN: For Christmas, I loaded up — I had one of them iPads, and they put a book in it. You know you can do that now?

PAUL SHAFFER: Oh, yeah. Sure…

LETTERMAN: And so I’ve been reading this book in this iPad thing, and I’m reading and I’m reading and I’m reading. And as you know, you don’t turn a page, in — when you’re reading on the — what do they call them, the Kindles or something?

PAUL SHAFFER: Yeah… They’ve got that, too, yeah. (Audience laughs)


Letterman was probably reading with a “Kindle for iPad” app. (Earlier that week, Amazon had pointed out that it’s one of the top 10 best-selling apps among iPad owners.) But as their conversation went on, Paul Shaffer (who conduct’s the show’s band) gently tried to correct Letterman’s confusion as he explained how you turn pages.


LETTERMAN:And so you just — you just kind of do this with your finger.

PAUL SHAFFER: You flip that. Yeah.

LETTERMAN:And the thing’ll…

PAUL SHAFFER: On the iPad and the Kindle…

Letterman was playing up his reactions as a technology curmudgeon — but he was building up to a complaint that I’ve heard before. But the punch line of the bit turned out to be that it was bandleader Paul Shaffer who had the perfect answer


LETTERMAN: And I’m reading, and I realize: something’s wrong here. Something’s desperately wrong. There’s no page numbers on my book!

PAUL SHAFFER: Right. No, well, there can’t be. There can’t be, because you can change the font, and if you have a larger font, then you’re going to have fewer pages and therefore you can’t possibly commit to a page number because as you electronically alter the page you number, you are going to have to change as well the number of pages that you have at your disposal…(Audience applauds)

LETTERMAN: Thank you. Thank you, Steve Jobs.


It’s nice to remember that story, as a reminder of how things have changed. (Amazon eventually found a way to add page numbers to Kindle ebooks, so maybe Letterman is happier now.) But I still always smile when I remember how skeptical he’d been about the iPad — even in earlier shows. When the device was first released, he’d showed one to his audience, then joked “The radiation this thing gives off is incredible. You’re supposed to wear a lead apron when you operate it.”

But it was especially interesting in light of a research study by J.P. Morgan. Back in early 2011, they determined that 40% of the people who own an iPad also own a Kindle — and that another 23% of them plan to buy one within the next 12 months!

It’s a hopeful sign that all iPad owners aren’t as confused as David Letterman! But I still would like to drop his comments into a time capsule. Even if books are all someday replaced by digital readers, it’ll be worth remembering just how uncomfortable some people were with the change.


LETTERMAN: But see, and then you just — you just whisk it away like that, and then — but look. What do you see? Do you see a page number?

PAUL SHAFFER: No….

LETTERMAN: No. You don’t see no page number.

PAUL SHAFFER: No. There isn’t…

LETTERMAN: How do you know when you’re done, is what I want to know? Or if somebody – somebody asks you, are you reading the — the book? And I say yeah. “What page are you on?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what page I’m on.” For example, this — I’m reading now the Alex Trebeck story, and I have no idea — uh…No, I can’t help you. Sorry.

It was almost two years ago that I heard a strange mention of the Kindle on the radio. There’s a news quiz show called Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! (Three stories are read to the contestants — one true but unexpected, and two which are outright lies.) And that week, the category was “technology disasters.”

The first concerned Apps-berger’s syndrome — a newly-discovered medical syndrome in which people use cell phone apps obsessively to perform tasks they could just as easily do by themselves. (I was pretty sure that story was false!) And story #2 concerned a guy who insisted to his girlfriend that the sexy text messages she’d found on his cell phone had actually been pre-loaded on the phone when he’d bought it.

So was story #3 true or false?

It concerned a minister who bought a Kindle. Actually, not just a Kindle. Late in life, the minister become a raging technophile, while also helping elderly members in his congregation learn how to use technology themselves. (And at one point, he even placed a bet on the exact date of the Apocalypse.) He bought himself a pocket-sized Kindle, to which he downloaded the Holy Bible, and he always carried it with him in his jacket’s vest pocket.

One day while hunting, a gun accidentally fires a shot. The bullet rips through his jacket – and rips through his Kindle – before passing through the minister’s is body and then out his back. Two nearby hunters heard the shots, and rushed to the aid of the fallen minister. Looking down at the scene, one of the hunters said…

“Where the hell is your pocket bible? That would’ve stopped the bullet clean!”

It shows digital readers are now becoming part of the popular consciousness. The same year I’d been watching Wheel of Fortune, and as Vanna White flipped the letters, it turned out that the contestants were trying to guess the phrase:

Digital Book

Somewhere inside, I decided that we’d past an invisible milestone. I’d turned to the mass media — and I’d seen people talking about the Kindle!

Sheen’s been pumped up about his success — and the media attention he’s been getting — and he titled his new video segment “Still Winning.” (“Torpedoes of Truth, Part 2.”) Wearing a blue New York Yankees pull-over, Sheen wanders through a very candid phone call where he suddenly begins talking about the Kindle.

BOB MORAN: Life’s loving you.

CHARLIE SHEEN: Yeah. You know, it’s about time… Hey, I’m going to roll out an infomercial for my poetry book, “A Piece of My Mind,” illustrated by Ralph Steadman — I mean Adam Rifkin — and, uh… I think it’s, the problem — not the problem, the solution — is it was 20 years ahead of its time, Babaloo. And now it is — it is its time.

Now everybody’s 20 years in the past behind my book, catching up saying, “My gosh? Where was all this brilliance?” And I’m saying, “It was right there! You had the poetry in your magic fingertips the entire time, to flip my perfect pages and read my perfect words. But — but — you didn’t go there! Because you judged me! You condemned me! You discarded me!” Well, not any more. WINNING!

Hold on. Stupid plane with noise attached…

I’m going to reach out to, uh — who’s the founder of Amazon? Jeff Bezos? Is that his name?

BOB MORAN: Yep.

CHARLIE SHEEN: Yeah, I’m going to reach out to him. Because I think we should do my book — incidentally, the title? Best title of all time. “Apocalypse Me: The Jaws of Life.”

BOB MORAN: Should we get Bezos on the phone?

CHARLIE SHEEN: (Acting it out) “Apocalypse Me: The Jaws of Life.” That was brilliant. You should see the images.

Yeah. Get him to call me today, because I’m going to sell this thing through Amazon. And through Kindle. That way we save a bunch of trees, because they give us our oxygen — face it, right?

And we love trees. Must keep as many around as we can. Must maybe even marry a tree. Marry a tree because, you know, the other type of marriage for me didn’t work, so I’m just going to marry a tree.

People keep calling me and interrupting our conversation. Don’t they know — don’t they know that we are in — we are in the cyber-pocket of greatness…? Yeah, let’s — let’s do the Kindle thing with, uh, “Apocalypse Me: the Jaws of Life.” Best title ever. Best book ever…

BOB MORAN: Love it…

CHARLIE SHEEN: “Apocalypse Me: the Jaws of Life.” (Lights a cigarette). C’mon, if you see that cover, and of course it’ll be brilliant and colorful and incorporate all of those elements — if you see that, you’re going to buy it! You’re going to buy 10 copies. If you buy 10 copies….I get one free. That’s how we roll.

BOB MORAN: That’s how you roll?

CHARLIE SHEEN:Yeah, man. You buy 10, I get one free. You buy 11? You get them all. Every! Body! Wins! (Turns off camera).

You can watch the whole thing at tinyurl.com/CharlieSheenKindle. (It’s at about the eight-minute mark that Sheen first starts talking about “Apocalypse Me”.) With messy hair, looking like he just woke up, the unshaven celebrity actually affirms a new truth. Even the highest-paid performer on television wants to self-publish an e-book on the Kindle, just like everybody else.

But apparently there’s at least two authors who have already beaten Charlie Sheen in the race to Amazon’s Kindle Store. Several months ago, someone released an e-book titled The Charlie Sheen Handbook. (For just $18.38, you too can be reading text that the author admits was all cut-and-pasted from Wikipedia – and several months before anything interesting happened.) And a second author is also attempting the exact same trick, copying word-for-word Wikipedia’s entry into something that he’s titled “Charlie Sheen (The Kindle Book of).”

But there’s at least one original act of Sheen-sploitation – an e-book titled The Thirteen Haikus: Charlie Sheen of Malibu. Author Kenny Dill describes it as “A baker’s dozen of painstakingly crafted poems recounting the methods and madness of Charlie Sheen of Malibu…composed entirely from actual Charlie Sheen quotations (the man is clearly a poet), refactored to fit the form of haiku, then linked together creating a classical Japanese renga.” It’s a sequel (of sorts) to his two earlier collections — The Twelve Haikus: Muammar al Gaddafi of Libya” and “The Twelve Haikus: Steve Jobs of Apple Computer.” But this morning his Charlie Sheen book was actually ranked #71 in the Kindle’s section for poetry criticism and theory — and it’s still #82 in the Kindle store’s special section for the biographies and memoirs of the rich and famous.

I can’t tell if he’s laughing at Charlie Sheen or laughing with him – but this may ultimately be the strangest Kindle news story that I’ve ever seen. It’s as though, just when it couldn’t get any weirder, the tabloid fascination with TV star Charlie Sheen suddenly jumped the rails, and then crashed into my backyard.