David Letterman was the first comedian to return to the air after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on America, which killed nearly 3,000.
Toward the end of his opening monologue, Letterman said on Sept. 17, 2001: “It’s very simple… there is only one requirement for any of us, and that is to be courageous, because courage, as you might know, defines all other human behavior.”
His appearance helped calm a skittish America. And he’s doing so again with his take on the coronavirus sweeping across the U.S..
In an appearance on the Howard Stern show, the former “Late Show” host said the resilience of the human spirit is “unlike any other mechanism on the planet.”
“You take a look. All around the world, there is hell like this going on every day that we either know about and don’t care about or don’t know about. But we’re not the only ones suffering hell now,” the famously cynical talk show host said.
“We’ve been through it before: We were attacked, we lived through the AIDS epidemic, in 1957 there was a flu that killed nearly a million people. There was World War Two. There was the Holocaust. There are people killing other people on a routine basis. And yet, built into the human spirit is a resilience unlike any other mechanism on the planet and this will pass and we will survive.”
Co-host Robin Quivers asked Letterman if any good would ultimately come from the virus. “We have too much as Americans and we take so much for granted and we don’t need it,” he said. “Let’s don’t be so goddamned selfish and so goddamned greedy. We’re all the same, for crap’s sake, and we’re all carbon-based lifeforms and we’re all breathing the same air.”
The 73-year-old comedian, who said he was hunkered down in his “Y2K bunker,” said he’s appreciating the quality time he’s getting to spend with his 16-year-old son Harry.
“For me it’s great because since Harry started school, this is the most time I’ve been able to spend with him, uninterrupted,” Letterman said. “I see this giant figure walking through our kitchen and I thought, ‘Holy crap, we’re being robbed!’ But, you know, it’s my son. You’re just not used to seeing him on a Wednesday shuffling through the kitchen.”
Letterman also took off his hat to reveal a cleanly shaved head. “My son, this is what he did for my birthday. He shaved my head.”
“Are you a different father to your own son?” Stern asked.
“I try to be, Howard,” Dave said. “God, I just love having him around. He’s just a goofball and I love him. He’s very entertaining and … I’m very lucky to have my family with me.”
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