Johnson City Home Town of Lyndon B Johnson
The New York Times reports:
Conan O’Brien, the longest tenured late-night TV host, has had them all in his 25 years on the air. Oscar winners. Hall of Famers. Bowie, Springsteen, McCartney.
But there’s one person who keeps saying no — someone whose work has been a near-obsession for the host for some time.
“At a certain point, I have the power to book a lot of people,” Mr. O’Brien said over dinner at Lucques, a Mediterranean-inspired restaurant here. “I’ve been around long enough. There’s a point where you feel like you’ve met everyone. Everyone. And then there’s Robert Caro.”
For years Mr. O’Brien has tried to book the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Power Broker” and the multivolume epic “The Years of Lyndon Johnson.” And for years Mr. Caro has said no.
(click here to continue reading Conan O’Brien’s Unrequited Fanboy Love for Robert Caro – The New York Times.)
LSD not LBJ
That’s actually quite funny, especially since I’ve seen Mr. Caro on other talk shows.
Mr. O’Brien was insistent that Mr. Caro’s team has been nothing but polite in sending its regrets. In fact, a few years ago, Mr. O’Brien received a signed copy of “The Path to Power” with the inscription: “To Conan O’Brien. From A Fan — Robert A. Caro.”
The gift only confused matters.
“It just cracks me up,” Mr. O’Brien said. “It’s like the White Whale writing Ahab a note, saying, ‘Hey, man. We’ve got to get together. I’m a fan!’”
Mr. Caro has appeared on other programs over the years, including “The Colbert Report,” “CBS This Morning” and “The Daily Show” in its Jon Stewart iteration. When asked for this article why he had yet to appear on “Conan,” the author said in a statement: “‘Conan’ — You mean it was O’Brien? I thought it was The Barbarian.”
Robert Caro’s LBJ: The Passage of Power
I also can’t wait to read the final installment of his LBJ biography, all the other volumes have been fascinating reading.
Archives – Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library