So, I watch American Idol. I am not proud. I watch it for the bad singing and rude comments. Two random things related to that show. First, the tween response to David Cook's win from last season:
And one of the guys who almost made the show came out with an album. It's not bad.
One of my biggest dilemmas last night was choosing between watching the finale of Project Runway and the debates. I thought about switching back and forth, like the Chicago Tribune advised. But I knew that Bravo was going to repeat the episode about a gazillion more time in the next few weeks, so I went with the debates. The trouble is that now I know who won. Drat. I chose badly.
I plugged away at my article in a near empty college building this morning, until I took a break to scan the blogs on bloglines. In an old post, Belle Waring points to a fantastic show on British TV. Read Belle's description. Here's a clip of one episode:
There's some great discussion of Sesame Street at Crooked Timber and at In Medias Res. I've had two glasses of wine, so I'm just going to embed videos from YouTube.
It's the Muppet Show, but you have to check out Belafonte doing the Banana Boat song.
On Friday night, Steve and Jonah and I curled up on the sofa to watch High School Musical 2. I never saw the first one; my boys never cared about it. But I knew that the first one was supercool from my nieces and the girls on our block. I was very curious to see what all the hoopla was about.
I can see why this movie was so popular. It appeals to girls as they move from the horse and unicorn stage to the young gay boy stage. Evidence A - the Hat and the Belt. 
Evidence B - The Baseball Dance
This movie was jaw droppingly bad. Steve and I kept trying to stifle laughing, because Jonah was loving it. In addition to the homo-erotic subtext in the movie and horrendous wardrobe, The hokey editing transitions from the cheerful dialog to the over produced, studio songs cracked me up. As a bonus, we were treated to candid (wink, wink) conversation among the actors about how swell it was to film this movie. I feel quite certain that some enterprising college students were dropping acid while watching it.
Who's going to watch High School Musical II tonight?
Dooce caught Mary Murphy in action and then looped the pix together. Genius.
So, I'm like the only blogger, academic, and New Jerseyan who never got into the Sopranos. I know my stock with all of you just dropped a hundred points. My excuse was that it began when there were plenty of other goodies on TV, and I was afraid of getting sucked into something new. Bad move, Mr. Bond. Because all last week, it was a major topic in the seminar room, in the blogosphere, and at the school bus corner.
On Sunday night, we flipped on the TV about 9:45 just to see what was up. It was a cool summer evening and our windows were wide open. The houses on our block were all built in the 1910s, so our homes all close together. The smoke from MaryAnn's Marlboro Lights wafted into our living room from next door. As the TV went black at the end of the show, there was two seconds of silence and we could hear our entire block groan. MaryAnn shouted, "you gotta be fuckin' kiddin' me!"
This is Jersey, baby. If don't have a bitchin' Camero, you better just move to Long Island.
With all the work around here, I've been culling the crap I watch on TV to a few favorites. Rome on HBO is fantastic. I'm glad to see that Russell is liking it and that Robert Farley has been catching the historical errors. I haven't liked it as much as the first season, though I think it's starting to hit its stride again.
Lost, of course. Amused that the Television Without Pity gang is gunning for Charlie's death.
And American Idol. In general, I watch the show not for the music, which feels canned and tasteless, but for the criticism. I like matching up the judges comments with my impressions. I like to indulge my inner talent scout.
This past week, the top 12 male vocalists performed and they were God awful. I would surf around when they were singing and come back when the judges spoke. But after an hour, that wasn't even amusing. One guy had a Morissey-thing going on, and the last guy, who resembled Beaker from the Muppet Show, wasn't bad, but on the whole, the show was a pile of turds. I swore off Idol forever.
Well, I gave it one more chance on Wednesday, because I wanted to see one of the women singers, Lakisha Jones. The few clips that I had seen of her the week before had stuck with me. The women singers were much better than the guys, but still Steve kept poking me to change the channel. "Wait until the fat girl sings," I insisted. The producers wisely put her last, batting clean-up, so we were forced to watch the whole damn show. It was worth it. That woman was fantastic. She's got a huge gospel trained voice and a chills-up-the-spine performance. Check her out.
The Oscars are on tonight. Last year, I live blogged them. I'm wavering, but I think I probably won't be able to do that tonight. Maybe just some snark tomorrow morning.
I'm not proud. I'll watch pretty much anything on TV. Wife Swap. The Flavor of Love. E! News. When I'm home, a small dose of shame keeps me from really prowling the bottom layer of TV shows. But when I go to the gym, I get to watch anything I like as long as I'm burning 300 calories per hour. This morning, I flipped between an Ashley Simpson video and ET. I think I've sunk to new depths.
On ET, they put a pretty "reporter" in a fat suit and braces and sent her around Union Square. "After hours of intensive work by specialists, I've been transformed in an ugly person. Man, those ugly people have it bad. I'm sure glad that I'm not ugly. Boys don't talk to ugly girls. Wow. Tomorrow, I'm going to try to get into dance clubs in New York dressed as an ugly person. You won't believe how mean people are to me."
Tyra did ugly last week. On another show, she had a panel of girls, some of whom felt that beauty was a curse and others thought it was a blessing. She has also dressed up as a fat person and a homeless person to better understand life from their perspective. What a groundbreaker.
I watched ET for a while, but I couldn't stomach Anna Nicole Smith's C-section, so I flipped over to CNN.
They're dedicating the MLK memorial today in the Washington mall. Caught Clinton's speech. A little Jefferson, a little Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Nice.
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