Saturday Night Live

Thanks, Lorne Michaels, for keeping your generation cool and relevant.

Except you're not. Or at least shouldn't be. A relic of the 70s that hasn't been funny since Eddie Murphy left to do voiceover work for animated children's movies, SNL has actually become a parody of itself -- kept alive more by the imagination of Baby Boomers than the non-voting age teenagers who aren't watching the show.

To the rest of us, the cue-card-reading 10-minute skits with sitcom-like non-ironic humor is making us pass out before "Showtime At The Apollo." It's all impersonations and funny voices; token black men and gay jokes; bogus commercials or infomercials; and the always hilarious fake game show. God, what the fuck is up with the fake game shows?!?

It's not just the refusal to adjust to the times; the demand that we all live in your sea of mediocrity every Saturday night. It's not just how the your perception of your own cultural potency is echoed by other Baby Boomers, who, through CNN clips or newspaper articles or dinner conversations, manufacture the false notion that this show is relevant, or important.

What it comes down to, really, is Lorne Michaels. Never has a producer inserted himself more shamelessly to get a little screen time. Lorne, the show is about you. It's about you every time you do that same tired schtick backstage with the ex-cast member who returns to promote their new movie, and maybe impersonate an already vulnerable vice-presidential candidate on the way.

The Baby Boomers are on the cusp of losing political power, but as long as they refuse to retire, they'll be around to remind the rest of us what isn't funny.