My random observations on pop culture this week aren’t that pithy or clever, but I did randomly observe them so there is that.
1. Donny Osmond will remain in your tubes with ebbs and flows forever. The man constantly reinvents himself. (And, yes, I did like his song in Mulan. Shut Up. Yes, I did watch him when I was 10-years-old because I had three damned channels and I was 10.) I don’t watch Dancing With The Stars but I do read Entertainment Weekly and dude won.
2. I’ve seen all the controversy on Adam Lambert’s appearance on the AMA awards this week. I have two mindsets on this. Once again, I don’t watch American Idol either, so what I’ve seen of Lambert is peripheral. First of all, I don’t have children but I can see this upsetting parents. My Facebook account has shown that it wasn’t by any means appreciated from the people there and I understand that. As a matter of fact, I think that’s completely appropriate. Letters have been sent to ABC complaining about his performance and the last I heard was roughly about 1,500. On the other hand, for three solid days from a social media perspective, we’ve seen him trend on Twitter with a huge blast of support from his fans there as well which people haven’t been talking about, he’s been interviewed a kajillion times and that’s the kind of publicity you can’t buy.He reminds me of David Bowie (I know, call me Captain Obvious) and because I’m an old codger without kids, my first reaction was that his vocal performance was very pitchy (my mother was a singer, so I play critic sometimes on vocal live performances which, however bad, are always better than lip synch crap.)
Was the simulated sexual act over the top, yes it was way over the top in a live performance and was nothing more than shock value and gratuitous but I’ve seen other stuff too that sort of shocked me on the tubes. Was Lambert kissing a dude over the top? No. Been done a million times by other performers not just between two guys. He pushed open a door where people are talking about freedom of expression/gay rights and that’s not bad. So I see this from two perspectives. Do folks have the right to be upset about simulated oral sex? Yeah, their feelings are valid. Everyone’s feeling are valid. Did Lambert kick down a door? Yeah, but people have been kicking this door for years and it needs to be kicked. It was a reminder more or less. Remember when they wouldn’t show Elvis’ hips on the Ed Sullivan show because he was too sexual. Back then, that was scandalous as well so I have been keeping that in mind.
I remind you I’m a codger butt.
So I see both sides where this issue is and it’s intriguing to me, especially in the day and age of the Internet.
3. Zhu Zhu pets are apparently the toy of the year. I am constantly perplexed on the world of robotic pets.
5. Also in the Thanksgiving vein, I offer you the impossibly optimistic website called “Gives Me Hope” which is smaltzy and did, indeed, make my eyes well up because I’m a silly nostalgic woman. (Pssst … don’t tell anybody.)
I have been somewhat offline in the last few days. I’ve been busy, had some unexpected things come up and, alas, my routine of following everything willy-nilly was put to the test. Alas, I survived.
The whole Balloon Boy thing where a family created a huge, costly hoax with a big mylar balloon that looked like a jellyfish has amazed me on a lot of levels.
This Heene family wanted their own reality show so badly after appearing on the award-winning bastian of class known as Wife Swap. Let us remember that this wonderful program’s competition known as Trading Spouses gave us the God Warrior. Same show, different networks.
Reality Television does intrigue me. I admit it. I watch it as I would watch a traffic accident. You wait in traffic until you go past the wreck, not knowing what you are going to be witnessing but still rubbernecking despite it all. Reality TV is the same thing. Yeah, there are shows that shouldn’t be compelling but they are (Deadliest Catch and Project Runway for example) and then you have those emotion based shows that create faux drama.
The Bachelor? Puh-leeze. Don’t even get me started about that misogynistic mess.
The Heenes wanted this? Apparently they did more than they wanted to breathe air. I don’t know what weirds me out about this family the most. The fact that the parents let their children do this curious, and utterly disgusting, video highlighted over at Southern Beale’s proves that these folks were going to do whatever it took to get another 15 minutes of fame. Honestly, when you let your kids do a video screaming inaudible (except for the profanity) lyrics where the theme is not to be pussified is pretty amazing, and outrageously exploitative.
But the bottom line is that the American media has set this dynamic up as well. Not only is Reality Television cheap to make to fill the 24/7 media cycle, it also gives a message of hope to fame wannabees who think that this is the ticket to a world of beloved, however false, admiration from a public.
It’s not real, campers.
And, as for the news portion of the Balloon Boy (which I like to call Desperate Family that is going to be in court soon), if it had been real, then it would have been a pretty powerful story. As it stands, it’s just a hoax where kids were treated little more than slave labor to a couple of greedy, crave-starved parents who got caught being incredibly decietful for their irrational need for false fame. And the fact that when their 6-year-old threw up on national television most likely due to the stress of being in a zoo his parents created, the father didn’t even stop the interview and, according to reports, had a bowl available for his kid to barf in so he wouldn’t miss his time on the telly.
I think my favorite Calvin and Hobbes quote is “Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.”
From artist M.S. Corley which is a site I highly recommend.
This evening, I have watched Grant and Jason (like I know them) on Ghosthunters, watched the last five minutes to see Kevin “The Chicken Catcher” Skinner win that show with Sharon Osbourne and am now watching creepy dolls hanging in little tiny nooses on Destination Truth.
South of Mexico City in the last of the old Aztec canals, there is an island that visitors claim is overrun by thousands of haunted dolls. The island’s caretakers hung up these dolls to ward off the spirit of a young girl who had drowned there while visiting the island. Don Julian, the caretaker, was found dead in the same canal where the young girl drowned. Now, locals claim his spirit also haunts the island. Josh and team’s chilling nighttime pursuit amongst the throng of sinister dolls yields some of their compelling on-camera evidence yet!
One of them just winked on the show. Seriously creeped out.
I guess you could say that I have a high level of pisstivity today due to what I wrote about earlier. So, as I am wont to do, I decided to make a list of things that are groovy. I do this for my entertainment and no one else’s.
First of all, I was reading online that it is Cadillac’s Birthday today. I did not know. If you live in Upper Hoots Peninsula, Cadillac’s is a part of the community. Aunt B. and Vibinc have been and do deem it some mighty cold beer, a dang good cheeseburger and some very fine people. The college kids write stories about their adventures after they leave,which never ceases to amuse me to no end. My uncle has even left a comment here when he went in the late sixties. This delights me. Last time Vibinc was there, he met a guy named Cornbread.
Other things that delight me that shouldn’t. Curtis, this kid in the show Wife Swap, has lost all etiquette as his love for Bacon has been denied him. Why does the show Wife Swap still infiltrate our televisions? I ask you why?
Don’t mess with Curtis’ bacon fixation.
I also got an email yesterday that called me Mr. News C. Sharp which cracked me up.
A great deal happened in last night’s episode of True Blood, but when you break the components down, there really was only one big event because the other stuff was a continuation of previous things that have already been set up. That’s how this show gets you, and it was the ending of “I Will Rise Up” that changed the direction of many things.
But I’ll get to that after the break for those folks who haven’t seen it.
We are seeing characters change as we head to the last quarter of this second season. I’ve said it before, as I’m sure I will say it again as I adore repeating myself, but this is a trashy yet oddly erotic, soap opera. The uncompromising mother, the evil vixen, the Too-Good-Too-Be-True blue collar bar owner (who happens to be a shape-shifter), the fallen cop, the All-American Girl, the men/vampires who love her and the Big Bad.
This week’s True Blood was extremely tasty due to one Eric Northman, the Viking vampire who never smiles did so on a number of occasions, and there was human heart eating with unexpected results.
As I have sort of made this, and Big Brother once again due to the unreasonable desperation of people willing to subject themselves to ongoing humiliation, my summer watching program, I have decided to blog about it. Not Big Brother necessarily because although we have a weekly lunch scheduled around it (we do these things in Hoots), that I might fill you in on later, it is True Blood that has hold of me right now.
Now, True Blood is another beast indeed. If you have read this blog for any length of time, you know I adore vampires, zombies, Sasquatch sighting, Bat Boy and parallel universes. And I dig small towns with secrets.
In Timebomb, the basis of what we saw in the first fifteen minutes was absolutely amazing. I love television that is unapologetic. If you are expecting Gone With The Wind, you are in trouble. If you are looking for fast food, Timebomb scratched that itch.
A North Carolina woman has found the 
thousands of haunted dolls. The island’s caretakers hung up these dolls to ward off the spirit of a young girl who had drowned there while visiting the island. Don Julian, the caretaker, was found dead in the same canal where the young girl drowned. Now, locals claim his spirit also haunts the island. Josh and team’s chilling nighttime pursuit amongst the throng of sinister dolls yields some of their compelling on-camera evidence yet!
