Personality

That slowed-down Justin Bieber song was mentioned several times today in various locations. I listened to it. Is it really that interesting? How many other songs could be slowed and enjoyed? Would people be interested in the song if it was just a song. Maybe. Not nearly as many. Would it be different if it weren't a Justin Bieber song? Of course. I get the reasons that people think it's something interesting. It's not the song itself.

I listened to the song at normal speed for reference. And you know what? I thought it was kind of good. I'd never listened to the kid before. That's right, never. Not even by accident.

Remember when Whoopi Goldberg had her own talk show? Way back in the early 90s. maybe mid-90s. I'm not sure, but before the show debuted someone asked her how her show would be different from other late night talk shows or how she planned to compete with them or something like that. She said that the popular hosts made it too much about themselves. If you have an interesting guest you should just let that guest talk. Don't insert yourself so much into the interview. I'm paraphrasing (possibly remembering entirely incorrectly). A lot of other people said similar things. People whose talk shows didn't last long.

They're right to a certain extent about the interesting guests but the host better be damn interesting as well. They're the only real constant. And if a guest isn't interesting and the host isn't interesting, well, now you're in deep shit.

Except for the first and last episode, I didn't watch Conan's run on the Tonight Show. I didn't watch a lot of his last few years on Late Night. But I was a fan for many years prior. For maybe the first 6 years of his career I was a regular watcher. After that it became more sporadic but I would still watch regularly in long stretches.

But I didn't always stick around if he had guests I didn't care about.