2015-02-19 – I’m not sure why I watched the Saturday Night Live 40th Reunion show. It took me two evenings to get through it. And “getting through it” is how it felt. Like it was a school assignment that I didn’t particularly like.

Yes, there were a few funny moments. Very few. This show was not ready for prime time. Oh, excuuuse me, I’m remembering prime time when prime time meant well-written, well-acted comedies and dramas. But that’s not the case these days, is it? #SNL40 was nothing more than a reality show for (mostly) former comic actors. I don’t even watch TV these days.

The whole thing was really sad. And I don’t mean that as throw-away sentiment. I mean that the show actually made me cry. (It used to make me laugh.)

And I think it was meant to be sad.

Although the show didn’t have much structure, what structure it had was crystalized in the last two bits. First (or really penultimately), Bill Murray introduced a short video of the members of the SNL cast and crew who had died. And second (or really ultimately), Paul Simon sang “Still Crazy After All These Years.”

They should have called the show “We’re Still Alive—And They’re Not”!

It was a wake for the boomer generation. The cast members were the reception line. But you know, we boomers are too young to die.

(You know the show was pathetic if I thought Kanye was better than Paul McCartney and Paul Simon. I don’t even like Kanye. I love the Pauls. Usually.)

Like I said at the beginning, I watched the whole thing as if it were an obligation. I probably haven’t watched the real SNL since the eighties. But I did have good memories. And I guess I wanted to see my old favorites—the ones who are alive, at least. Now I saw them. With a few exceptions, they don’t even look like stars anymore.

Sorry, that’s just how I feel.