CONAN O’BRIEN HAS been comparing L.A. favorably to New York since he landed, way before his recent swipe at nearby Newark’s crime rate. Watching a clip from The Tonight Show in a cab, I saw O’Brien riffing on his new L.A. driver’s license photo. “They are so image conscious here,” he said. “The woman told me to smile and kept saying ‘You can do better than that!’” He contrasted his beamingly vapid California image with his old New York driver’s license, where he is caught mid-blink, his mouth hanging open, really impressed that the woman gave him three tries. more