Thursday, October 28, 2010

"I JUST HAVE A BAD FEELING," O'BRIEN SAID. "I JUST THINK JAY'S GOING TO HURT ME IN SOME WAY."   Finally, (an excerpt from) an excerpt from the impending Bill Carter book for which you've been waiting:
“I know how hard I worked for this,” Conan told the NBC executives. “It was promised to me. I had a shitty lead-in.” His tone was soft, but the words were clipped. Graboff knew this was Conan in the raw, speaking from the heart. ...

Conan listened to Gaspin, still with a faraway look in his eye. Finally he did have something he really wanted to say, something that was all but burning a hole in his chest. “What does Jay have on you?” Conan asked, his voice still low, his tone still even. “What does this guy have on you people? What the hell is it about Jay?”

Neither of the NBC executives had an answer and cast their heads down. Conan thought they were working at looking sympathetic, following some lesson that had been taught at corporate school.
One nice detail: part of what informs O'Brien's suspicions is the Leno-in-the-closet story that Carter broke in his first telling of the Late Night Wars.  This VF excerpt also gets into the making of O'Brien's public statement, which we discussed back in January with reference to another Carter excerpt (from the last book).