Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Short Rant on Conan/Leno

I grew up watching Conan. Leno, I can't relate to. It was Letterman, then Conan. The best was when Andy was on the show, and he's back now. Amazing.

This whole stupid thing with Leno not really wanting to leave is terrible. You know what it is though? It's exactly what everyone of my generation is going through. No different. I say "my generation" loosely I guess - Conan is a good chunk older than me, but he's going through the same stuff I am and many of my friends are.

The baby boomers are just refusing to retire. Seen it over and over again. It's bullshit. They decide that a million dollars (or in Leno's case, many millions of dollars) aren't enough to retire on. They can't 'maintain their lifestyle forever' so they don't want to stop working. At least not fully. They don't even really want to work longer - they just want to feel needed. They don't want to quit working, because the extra money is nice, and they have underlings to do the hard work. As a result, the younger, better trained, more energetic staff are stuck in lower level jobs until they do.

My boss is either 70 or close to it. He's already got his house in Florida and is there half the time. I get stuck doing my job and his job. Do I make more money? Of course not. When will he retire? It isn't in the forseeable future. I've seen this time and time again. "Kids" in their thirties desperate to take over a family business, move from entry level to something that will actually utilize their shit-tonne of education (which of course they were told to get by boomers - "or they'll never get ahead".) The boomers have sucked up all the resources - pensions, medical benefits, secure jobs, secure economy - they had it all and fucked it all up.

And now we - in lower paying jobs in lower positions, living in a world where the average yearly income and the average cost of a house aren't even within $100,000 of eachother, are supposed to start saving for OUR retirement now so we aren't broke and destitute since there is nothing left for us. But we can barely pay our mortgages and bills, since no boomer will retire fully and let us have the decent jobs with which to get ahead.

This is exactly what Leno is doing to Conan. He can't let go of his fame and he isn't ready to leave. He wants more money. His 10pm show failed, thusly screwing Conan of any chance for a good 'lead in' show, and instead of letting him go, they've given him his OLD show back, that they already passed on. Dispicable. NBC has fucked Conan's chances of having any success with the show he spent his entire career trying to get.

I hope Conan leaves and gets a timeslot against Leno and destroys him in the ratings. There would be a sweetness to that, for all of us who are stuck...waiting....

1 comment:

STACEY MCCOOL said...

i've said it before and i'll say it again: i can't wait for all the fucking baby boomers to be dead.