Conan - World's Biggest Jerk

OK...so right up front...I'll tell ya...go back if you're easily offended. Stop now! Remember I've said before: my blog...my opinion.

I have NEVER liked Conan...when I heard he was going to take over the Tonight Show I knew I'd be getting more sleep. I'm not overly wild about Letterman so after the nightly news I'd go to sleep.

However, this whole uproar of Jay Leno/Conan O'Brien drew my interest and I've kind of been watching just to hear the jabs: both Leno and Conan. (Conan I've only watched for the past three nights.) Last night was the ultimate piece of shit!!!! Before I started to write this I googled Conan and saw this piece written by John Milewski on the Huffington Post. It's entitled "Conan's Expensive Goodbye". I certainly cannot add more to it to improve it....at least now without using extensive swear words. Let me add just this: Conan is exactly what I've always thought he was!

Conan's Expensive Goodbye ....... (in part).. John Milewski

Millions of American's are losing or have lost their jobs. They are angry and their employment future is uncertain. That's where the kinship with Conan ends. Unlike Mr. O'Brien they didn't walking away with tens of millions in severance pay. And they certainly weren't provided with a high-profile pulpit from which they could publicly criticize their former employers.
I have no sympathy for NBC. This is a mess of their own making. When I tuned in I was squarely in Conan's corner and remain there on technical merit. After all, in negotiating the 45 million dollar exit deal, Conan made sure that 12 million of that would go to his staff. He is legendarily generous with those he employs and is widely regarded as a decent fellow. So while there is a clear disconnect related to how most of us lose our jobs and Conan is losing his, that's not the main source of my complaint.
My problem is with a segment introduced during the last couple nights in which something not very funny is done for the purpose of spending NBC's money. Last night's skit designed to waste network cash involved a racehorse in a mink watching restricted NFL programming. As advertised, it wasn't funny, but it did cost NBC 4.8 million dollars about which Conan gloated. He's having some pay back fun by burning NBC's money. The night before the price tag for gratuitous waste was 1.5 million and involved a ridiculously expensive automobile. The two-night total is a whopping 6.3 million dollars which is more than half of the 12 million total dedicated to severance packages for the show's staff. Adding to this offensive wastefulness is the fact that Rome, or at least Port-au-Prince, is burning. In fact, Conan made an appeal for donations to Ben Stiller's Haiti relief charity last night mere moments after reveling in the lame but expensive racehorse gag. Apparently it's not just Washington and Wall Street that doesn't get it.

I've been accused of being irreverent to a fault. I find humor in even the darkest scenarios. But given the stark contrast between the world of late night spats and the worlds of record unemployment and horror in Haiti I guess I've reached my limit. Conan O'Brien, because he could, wasted 6.3 million dollars of NBC's money on a sophomoric prank because he's angry that they've unfairly taken away his show. Who knows what tonight's total will be since he has 90 more minutes of air time to get even with the evil peacock network. Ben Stiller's charity and the people of Haiti could have done something quite different with that 6.3 million.
What amounts to chump change in the land of network shenanigans is huge money in the real world. In the real world it's the kind of money that can change lives or perhaps even save them. And while I know that there's no simple formula for moving such money from one place to another, I really don't care. The contradiction between multi-million dollar pranks and appeals for disaster relief from the same host on the same show separated by mere minutes was more disconnect from reality than I could stand and I just had to get it off my chest.