I could go on and on about the brewhaha over NBC's Tonight Show antics. Instead, I'm posting this excerpt from an NYT profile of Conan O'Brien, written to commemorate his installation as host of Tonight back in June.

For O’Brien, the open landscape of California may be both inspiring and isolating. In his “Late Night” show in New York, O’Brien was able to define himself as a smart outsider, but “The Tonight Show” is, by its nature, a different game for a different crowd. Traditionally, it has mirrored the mood of the country. “Johnny’s the one I look back to,” O’Brien continued. “The constant is Johnny. He was very sophisticated, but he was also a clown. As a kid, I was fascinated by the fact that while he was clearly the coolest guy in America, he could dress up like an old woman or have a raccoon crawl on his head. He surrendered his dignity, and it only made him cooler. There aren’t a lot of hosts who will put on a skimpy bathing suit and jump into a hot tub with Don Rickles.” O’Brien picked up a guitar. “When I first got ‘Late Night,’ ” he said, “I was whisked to John Cheever Connecticut to a 50th birthday party for Bob Wright, who was then the head of NBC. They said, ‘We want you to get up and be funny.’ And then I realized that Johnny Carson was there, too. I was petrified. Johnny was wearing dark glasses and he was ramrod straight and perfectly coiffed. He was very shy. I wanted to kill myself. And I had to go first. I had prepared a thing — the idea was I didn’t know who Bob Wright was — and it worked. People really laughed. And Johnny nodded. Then he got up, made his toast and blew the roof off the place. Afterward, he came over to me and said, ‘Good luck to you.’ He said, ‘Just be yourself — that’s the only way it can work.’ ” O’Brien paused, “There’s an opportunity to put my stamp on this show. I’ve got an ego, and I want to do my ‘Tonight Show.’ ”

With what may be the biggest memorial service of our time underway now, I thought I might take a moment to remember the King of Pop as well.

Like most kids who grew up in the 80s, I was something of a Michael Jackson fan ... though I will confess to liking Weird Al's "Fat" a little more than MJ's "Bad." Still, I thought Jackson was the epitome of super-stardom and loved to imagine that my prepubescent version of the Moonwalk (which was just walking backwards) was somehow as impressive as the original.

When I visited Disneyland a highlight was viewing Jackson's 3-D film Captain E-O at Disneyland. I remember thinking how amazing it would be to get the glasses out of the theatre and use them at home — where, of course, it turned out that they did nothing but give me a headache.

As I grew older, I remember watching the infamous first airing of the "Black or White" video on FOX and not finding anything unusual about it. Crotch grabbing and car smashing seemed perfectly normal to me then, as it does now ... although the girl who morphs into the sumo wrester was and is kind of creepy.

By the time Michael became the brunt of jokes over his appearance and the allegations of child abuse, I had certainly moved on to other idols, though I recall Bono (one of those other idols) making some very supportive statements about his belief in Michael's innocence during the ZooTV tour. I never really thought much about it, but in retrospect, perhaps Bono was right. I'd imagine if you were falsely accused of that sort of thing and everyone just immediately assumed you were guilty, it would take quite a toll.

Ultimately the thing that I have always liked best about Michael Jackson, even when I was a kid hoping that a Weird Al song would come up next on Nickelodeon's music video show, was the song "Man in the Mirror." And even now, as a cynical young man, it tugs at my heart strings just a much as it did when I was a boy listening to it on a single-speakered cassette tape player in my bedroom.

So here it is, "Man in the Mirror." I tend to prefer posting stipped-down versions of songs that showcase their emotionality but I think this one shows Michael Jackson the way we would like to remember him.

The other day I was laying in bed and imagining being adrift on the ocean on a roughly bed-shaped raft when my iPhone buzzed. It was alerting me that I'd received an email ... in this case, an email from myself. From the past. Four years in the past, to be exact. You see, back then I'd used a service called FutureMe to send myself a message; I had completely forgotten about it until it showed up in my inbox.

I'm still not sure what to make of the message or its significance.

My past self openly wishes that I could write him back, as I possess information about how his future will unfold. This seems to be a particular concern of his, as he mentions a conversation with a then-coworker about fate and how he wants to believe in it.

My past self also asked me a slew of questions I'm no closer to answering now. And he hopes that I will have broken free from certain attachments and patterns that still grip me ... though I may, in fact, be a little more aware of what those attachments and patterns really are. (Then again, I may not be.)

Finally, my past self closes by saying it was great for us to get back in touch and he asks that I remember him as he remembers the Rays that came before him. By that, I think he meant fondly but to be honest, he's not really someone I want to hear from anymore.

It seems like I am always needing to do my laundry. No matter how thoroughly I attack the mountain of dirty clothes that lives in my bedroom, it always comes back ... sometimes with a vengence.

For this reason, I often feel like I am treading water when it comes to laundry. Most of the time, I rely on the rough balance that exists between the amount of socks and underwear I possess and the frequency at which I must do laundry to avoid getting too far behind. Sometimes I will wait until I have literally worn every article of clothing I own then spend an entire day washing it all. Other times I will put off doing laundry by simply purchasing new socks and underwear.

But tonight's laundry challenge wasn't related to the size of the load, but rather its cost. Not only had the washing machine and dryer in the basement of my building recently undergone a significant price increase, but my personal supply of quarters had been dwindling too. As a result, I was exactly three short of the the 11 required to successfully wash and dry one load.

Unfortunately, the change compartment in my car did not have the required coins. This meant that I had to obtain three quarters through other means. With my bank closed, there was only one course of action that made sense to me: visit the drug store up the road and purchase something using the cash I was lucky to have on hand ... something that, after Marion County's 7-percent sales tax, would net me between 75 and 99 cents in change. (After some debate, I settled on a 99-cent bag of honey-roasted peanuts.)

Anyway, so after obtaining the necessary coinage, placing my dirty clothes in the washer and adding my detergent, I noticed a warning I had never seen before:

Immediately, I wondered what could possibly be so serious about putting the detergent in after the laundry that it would cause the manufacturers of this coin-operated washing machine to go to such trouble in emphasizing the danger of doing it. Oh well, I shrugged. I don't have much respect for the proper way of doing things anyway.