No, what the hell is wrong with YOU?

Norman Mailer, a much better writer than Wallace could ever hope to be, is dead, and that has not stopped people from excoriating him. I may not agree with their excoriations, but that doesn't mean they are somehow inhuman. Charles Bukowski is also dead, and I confess I've gotten very angry at the many times I've seen him referred to as "that dirty old drunk." People are entitled to their opinions.

There are entirely too many bliss ninnies like you prancing around the Internet, telling everyone what they can think. Do us all a favor and knock it the hell off.

Now you're just morphing into a rather banal troll. Harping on an allegedly incorrect apostrophe rather than engaging my arguments. Typical, not to mention as dull as dishwater.

Culture is oranic, as it should be. What started in the 80s wasn't a "conspiracy" or a "cabal." It was simply an organic change in what writers could expect from the gate-keepers of their profession. Do I really have to go back as far as Swifty Lazaar? (no pun intended)

There was a very famous essay published in The New Yorker on or about 1982 entitled "Less Is Less." It was about Raymond Carver, primarily, but it also concerned itself with what the author thought was a gross misunderstanding of Hemingway's short story "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place." Specifically, it dealt with the fact that Carver - and the other "Kmart realists", though they weren't called that back then - had misunderstood Hemingway's aesthetic. He was not trying to ruin language, but tighten it to the point that it could express great thoughts with few words.

I'm not entirely sure I agree with Hemingway's idea, but it is indeed intriguing. Then people like Carver came along and used it as a crutch for bad style and even worse writing habits. And the literary culture has suffered for it, as has the larger culture.

It was H.L. Mencken who wrote "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." P.T. Barnum infamously said "There's a sucker born every minute." Just a head's up. :-)

...especially the wretched Tina Fey years when the show was not only unfunny but insultingly unfunny.

But I must admit the last couple of seasons have shown great improvements. Though Poehler's impersonation of Hillary Clinton wasn't so great, her timing has been impeccable most of the time and she's done some very funny sketches.

And that goes double for Andy Samberg.

Oh really? Ok, let me break it down for you.

Saturday Night Live has had two major and one minor hey-days. The first major is obvious, the original cast, '75 - '80. The minor hey-day was '81 - '84, the years when Robin Duke, Christine Ebersol, Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscipo and Tim Kazurinsky were strutting their stuff, as well as the "ringer" year of '84/'85 when Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest, etc., etc. were doing their thing.

Then came the return of Lorne, and the disastrous year '85/'86. But there were signs of better things to come. Jon Lovitz joined the cast that year, and enlivened every sketch he was in.

Then came the second great, glorious hey-days of '86 - '93. Seven years of almost unbelievably brilliant comedy, week-in and week-out. Dana Carvey, Jan Hooks, Julia Sweeney, Mike Meyers, Jon Lovitz, Phil Hartman, Victoria Jackson, Nora Dunn, Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, Dennis Miller, David Spade and Tim Meadows. Wow, just WOW.

You want to know how to tell when SNL is getting good again? When the old guys come back. When people like Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, Paul Simon and Eliot Gould come back to host the show. Now I haven't been a regular viewer of SNL for about, oh, eight years, but I'd be willing to bet that almost none of those folks have hosted the show in that time.

Traister quoted some of Poehler's so-called "zingers" from Weekend Update as proof of how good she is, and in point of fact I think Amy Poehler is good - up to a point. But then lets compare those zingers to these:

"The world's oldest profession is celebrating its anniversary this year, and the US Postal Service has printed a commemorative stamp. The cost is five cents, but if you want to lick it, it's a quarter."

"This addition of Weekend Upate is brought to you by PussyWhip, the first dessert topping for cats."

"Why does Puerot Rico need to be made a steak?"

"When asked how she and the president [Ford] practice birth control, the First Lady responded that every night before bed she gives the president a stick of chewing gum."

"Look, don't worry about it. No one could see you, and even if they could they just thought you were resting your head."

"I'm Al Franken, and this [holds up box of Frankenberries cereal] is my name, and this [pointing to cleft in Frankenberries's forehead] is my tush."

As you can see, there's no comparison. And I'm not even remembering the great stuff Dennis Miller often did with Weekend Update in the 80s and early 90s.

No, SNL has a looooooong way to go before it reaches those heights again. But please argue with me, because I have a VERY good memory of the various sketches and historic moments from the show's past.

Hey man, I hear you. Although I wouldn't say that Amy Poehler isn't funny at all, I agree that she doesn't possess the brilliance of the greatest ladies of SNL: Robin Duke, Jan Hooks, Nora Dunn, Julia Sweeney, Gilda Radner, Larraine Newman, and Jane Curtin.

And Tina Fey? My God, if people think she's funny the culture is in more trouble than I thought.