my sister is writing a very funny blog

...check it out.

I'd also like to add that it's incredible to see how my sense of humor is so obviously leeched off of this woman.

My brothers are also hilarious, but in their own inimitable way. Don't worry, I wouldn't even think about it.

Thanks guys!

Glee is toxic sludge television

I saw a preview today of another Gwenneth Paltrow stint on Glee. Then it hit me like a hangover on Sunday morning. I already knew I had grown to loathe what is now a hodgepodge clip reel of a show that alternates as a steaming pile of studio cash, but now I knew why.

When the show premiered, I loved it (I'm an a cappella nerd, it totally made sense!). It went wrong after the first half of season one, just when the show reached the height of it's creativity and uniqueness. Then it went TANG.

Yes, Tang. We went from fresh squeezed OJ to an instant, saccharine, mass-marketed lesser copy of something great. The difference being that Glee is now produced for instant gratification only.

People like Gwenneth? Let's create a story line that barely makes sense and include popular songs that have no coherent connectivity to a developed narrative and shove the gal in somewhere. Toot sweet!

People like Christmas songs? Quick, get those kids in a recording booth and stuff jungle bells down their pants.

It's all too cash and carry, even for a musical program, which can and probably needs to divert from total seamlessness in a story line for the sake of a catchy tune every so often. Now people congratulate the show and heave a sigh of relief when an episode seems to have a true narrative arc. It's like giving your babysitter a tip for not setting your infant on fire. Stupid.

I never liked Tang, not even 5 Alive. I will not like you Glee, never more and always.

Everyone loves a charade.

I am an unequivocal fan of live television. From a baseball game to a presidential address, there is always the potential for something to happen in an instant that no one quite expected. I feel the enticing variable of the unknown flicker in my brain when I see LIVE on the screen.

Nowhere is the thrill of the immediate image event more exciting than television. Unlike the internet, which regurgitates content for the masses to view ad nauseam, TV allows simultaneous access to a unique event. And unlike simply attending an event, millions more can share in the experience to make it a collective one on televsion. It is in a single moment of surprise, horror, humor, or joy that every reaction is culled and every reproducible moment codified into popular culture and social consciousness.

Yet it seems that it is typically when the players in the live TV game fall hardest that our remembrance echos as vividly through the clip wheels. I'll have to think back, wayyyy back to let's see...well, Sunday to see this dynamic play out.

The Flopscars



The Oscars are like a big bubble of movie star fanfare. A lot of hot air, with a very thin superficial lining. In such a defining and self-congratulating span of a few hours, those would care to witness it at home are given free reign to admire, critique, or pop this celebrity bubble as they see fit. But above all, there is a characteristic and unifying satisfaction in building up the Oscars, or any live event like it, just to tear it down.

If the A list is so exclusive that the majority of us recognize we will never be on it, there is a definite kind of gratification to see the foibles and public missteps of the chosen few. However, due to recent events, I'm wondering how far this guilty pleasure, this jubilant schadenfreude, takes us down the rabbit hole.

It's one thing to suggest that Anne Hathaway and James Franco hate each other, now covered in the rubble of what is being panned as an Oscar hosting disaster. In the end, it won't really matter if one had the slightest twinge of feeling for the other. But along with the "Oscar curse" of Halle Barry's and Sandra Bullock's past are people who are having periods of person darkness amidst fame, with more critics than one could imagine watching and almost waiting for things burn up in flames. This kind of vulturizing is unfortunate, but not new or unexpected in our culture of celebrity. It is what some will call the price of fame.

"Unemployed Winner"

Now I hate to draw more attention to the Charlie Sheen funhouse of current lore, but I'm going to do it anyway.

I have to wonder what we as an adoring yet often cannibalistic audience are supposed to make of a person embracing their downfall, and creating a unfiltered television spectacle or event out of it. In a matter of days Sheen has gotten more press than we know what to do with. In a matter of hours he garnered more twitter followers without a single utterance than Justin Bieber did with plentiful hair shakes.

I guess what I'm wondering is, when does the LIVE event end and real life begin? Yes, they are supposed to be the same, but we all know that they're different. Real life doesn't come with boom mics and a lighting crew. It doesn't involve choreographed dance numbers and designer dresses. So if I'm not watching a charade anymore (and I think we can classify most "reality tv" as a charade at this point) then what I am watching? Should I be watching? And if I shouldn't be watching, why can't I turn it off? Is this still entertainment?

Whether in movie land or not, we as a society tend to cling to the mythology of second chances and happy endings. We champion those who make it through and support them, but we also neglect those that fall too far out of focus, or disappear entirely. It's a 50-50 game--which is sometimes more like Russian roulette--that we don't control, but we do perpetuate it as a media driven culture.

I'm following Sheen on twitter at the moment, but I fear his battery life may be shorter that a camera's. And when his runs out, and we're still watching, I'll probably have to ask myself how much I really love a charade.