WHAT DOES THAT MUCH MONEY LOOK LIKE??

I confess that, as addicted as I am to TV, I have never been attracted to the late night shows like Letterman or Leno. I didn’t watch Johnny Carson but for a while I did watch Jack Parr. I take that back. I remember seeing a brash 19 year old sing kid sing for Carson. She brought the house down. It was Barbra Streisand.

I simply can’t imagine what all the fuss is about with NBC and the late night hosts. I couldn’t imagine in the first place why they would put Leno on at 10 o’clock. He’s a late night kinda guy. And I never could figure our Conan O’Brian. Out of curiosity I watched the show he did from Toronto. It was vulgar without being smutty, it was juvenile without being childish, but it was, in short: adolescent.

For all of that, and because NBC tried playing games with him, he walked away with something over 40 million dollars!! Some of it is to be used to pay severance to his staff, but most of it goes into his pocket, minus what the I.R.S. wants.

I like money as much as the next guy. I like it, not so much to one-up anyone else, but because it is pleasant to look in a shop window and see something you like and know that if you wanted to, you could go in and buy it. Any of us who have had many years of nose-pressed-against-the-glass in unrequited desire for stuff we couldn’t afford, enjoy knowing could if we wanted to.

Frankly my dear, I don’t know what I would do wth forty millions dollars, or twenty million, or even five million. What do I want to have that I don’t have? There’s always stuff like taking Business Class on long flights. My wife hated the 12 hours from L.A, to New Zealand. Even trans-Atlantic flights would be improved getting out of tourist class. But it’s no big deal.

I know at least one person who travels by charter jet when he has to be somewhere.
I know people who have four homes, each at least twice the size of what I dwell happily in with my wife. I like to collect fine art and art glass, but I can’t afford Dale Chihooly or Picasso. I would enjoy having a big boat, but even that doesn’t excite me any more.

I don't know what kind of tastes Conan O’Brian has. I don’t know what long-unsatisfied urges he will satisfy. I don’t know what 40 million looks like, feels like, or spends like.

In a way, I’m like the ordinary guy who wins twenty million in the lottery. He never aspired too high because he couldn’t afford to. Spending a lot of money is something you have to learn to do. The lottery winners fall for the TV commercials that talk about making dreams come true. But do you need 40 million or 5 million to make yours come true?

I don’t envy Conan, but if he wants help spending it – I’m in the phone book.