The thing is, I don’t have any right to judge anyone if they choose to watch the same television shows that every third person in the US is also watching.  Because the modicum of reality TV that I do watch (maybe 1 show at a time) is so bad it’s probably the equivalent of watching 20 different shows a week.

Here are a few of the reality shows I’ve regularly watched:

Salt N Pepa Show: Boring, irrelevant, boring.
Ax Men:  Boring, like Deadliest Catch (which is already boring) in a forest.

And now, my latest find is a the little show that could,  Johnny Weir Be Good. The star, Johnny, is the self-proclaimed badboy of figure skating. The show works because contrary to Johnny’s subjective assessment, he’s not the badboy of anything.  In fact, he’s a neurotic, sassy prince with a penchant for sequins and lace gloves who can skate his balls off.

Here’s a preview. In the words of Ferris Beuller, I Highly Recommend It.

Anyhow, they didn’t do that. Instead, they’ve allowed Conan to keep broadcasting live while he is well aware that there’s a 99% chance this is it for him and NBC.

When Conan took over the Tonight Show, like most of his fans, I was glad to see he was moving up, but sad to see he would have to tone down the inappropriate shenanigans. Since he found out the Conan hosted Tonight Show was definitely getting torpedoed, Conan has gone back to his old pranksterism and upped it ten fold. If you haven’t been watching The Tonight Show with Conan, you should definitely try to catch the last few episodes that air between now and whenever it is next week they officially pull the plug.

Take a look:

Then this morning one of my fellow ad workers was preaching to another ad worker and friend Jim about how funny the Nintendo Wii skit on  the aforementioned Jonas Brothers SNL episode was. Upon hearing this, I sprung from my chair ready to lash them for purporting that anything remotely funny happened on that SNL episode. But I had forgotten, Alec Baldwin was the host. And unlike other less capable hosts, Baldwin is willing to check his self respect and artistic integrity at the door when he comes on the show.

Certainly not the most highbrow skit they’ve ever done but easily one of the funniest since D in a B.

At any given time, especially in our fair city, you can find someone wearing something that’s coveted for some inexplicable reason. Status certainly doesn’t explain much because most of the trends of which I speak fall into the strange territory between the moderately affluent and very affluent. People who are super affluent buy things that are so expensive they never have a chance of being widely adopted. Being wealthy is a trend unto itself.

The second possible explanation of the adoption of a questionable trend is hipness. But again, this hypothesis breaks down and ultimately doesn’t explain anything. Judging by the examples I’m about to put forth, you can confidently dismiss the hipness theory because no one hip ever wore any of it.

A few highlights from the Yuppie Loser Lexicon

From left: Tory Burch, Burberry, and the impossibly expensive but basic down jackets by Moncler.

So what gives? Why do people adopt things so patently unremarkable that it designates them as lemming-minded unoriginal followers? I don’t know!

Anecdotally, this is the best non-explanation I can offer. When you were a kid you’d try to impress and emulate the cool kid on your block or the uber hip arty girl in ceramics class, or if it was your thing, the pea-brained meathead on your football squad. You might have bought a t-shirt like the one they wore or even cut your hair the same way. Then you got older and stopped aspiring . And that’s when you began turning  to the wretched girl, a few cubes over, for hints about what to buy and wear.

Hey look at me though, I’d like to be the kid skiing for a living, crashing on friends’ couches.

Tim’s boss, featured in the 2 scenes below (along with Tim), is without a doubt one of the funniest characters on the show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS9TbJpuRuA

Hillary should have won the primary and then this guy would be back in the White House and I would sleep like a baby at night. Instead, I have the sensation we’re freewheeling into some unknown chasm of global turmoil.