cultural outrage

Conan is under threat of being one-upped by NBC. I say this: I will abandon Late Night altogether if Jay Leno comes back in any capacity - never liked Leno. Like I told a friend of mine, it's like picking a 40 year old Michael Jordan over an up and coming Kevin Durant. Alright if that was an obscure NBA reference, then try this: it's like keeping your hole-ridden underwear you have been wearing since the third grade and not picking a fresh pair of breathable undies.

Yes, I am horrible with analogies that have to do with extremities. But that works cos I say it does.

In any case, the point I want to make has nothing to do with celebrity-bickering. I am just overwhelmed by all the sudden uproar of sentiment that sounds like this:

"We don't want to ruin late night by shifting its structure - IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN PART OF OUR CULTURE to watch new late at night, catch Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show, have a few laughs, then go to bed".

Whoaaa! If it has been, then that's fine and dandy, but why is it rarely heard of until it is in dire peril of being altered? That, my friends, is the fleeting nature of cultural dynamics. One moment we take something for granted, and then when it's taken away from us, it becomes the biggest thing in the world, as if somebody has caught us plucking armpit hair in the shower. Suddenly it has to be defended to sound humane - and we forget just how humane hygiene is.

Look, if you ask any foreigner here who grew up in the Westernized MTV-is-cool era, nobody knows about Late Night TV because it just never caught on globally as something uniquely American - it's a gingerly protected secret that America has kept for itself beyond the massive exposure that it has undergone the past generation. No matter how much we believe we have grasped the Western culture as foreigners, we always fall short because despite all of us feeling like America has bared its soul to us through globalized media, it has managed to keep its underwear on - all this time.

Sure, Westerners know that China is foggy and dusty, and they probably have peeped at the amazing, nature-defying trajectories that their spitballs traverse (one day when I am rich I will compile a collage of people spitting onto streets in slow motion with La donna e mobile as the background music). But surely there is a cultural Rapunzel waiting to emerge once threatened.

I think my logic has spiralled downwards. Now I'm just thinking about basketball again. Lesson of the day: human transcendence is fleeting, so blog about it when you can, because in another minute, you're just another bum.

Peace out.