There wasn't much on tv the other night. Trusty Tivo. Always an episode of "The Office" or "30 Rock" on there to watch. Currently, a handful of each. I'm a little behind. So I fire up an episode of "The Office", which as a whole was rather disappointing. Not completely dumb, but not consistently strong for 28 min.
What the episode lacked in sustained quality it more than made up for with a rip-roaring opening scene. I was almost in tears the first time I watched it. Then I called Stacy into the room and watched it again. It was even funnier the second time. And I was crying.
The Wiggles have been very very good to us. They entertain Elli. They make her happy. They help her get a lot of excersise by means of incessant dancing.
But sometimes Daddy needs a break. Enter Veggie Tales. I busted them out recently, figuring that Elli was old enough to follow the plot and enjoy the concept. And enjoy she did. Following the plot (or any other number of crucial details)? Not so much.
We have two VT magnets on the fridge. One of Larry the cucumber and the other of LarryBoy. So yesterday we are looking at fridge photos, when she points at one of the magnets and proclaims, "Bob!".
Sorry to tell you kid, but it's Larry. Bob's a tomato. Larry is a cucumber.
She thinks. "Oh...He's ready to fight."
Oh buddy.
Here's the thing. The episode we watched was Dave and the Giant Cucumber. Loosely based on David and Goliath. Jr., who is a cucumber but certainly not Larry. So we were wrong on that little factoid.
But here's the bigger problem. While the storyline did include buildup to a big battle, I'm pretty sure the main point of the episode was something other than "The Veggie Tales characters are ready to fight." More seasoned theologians than myself can check my hypothesis. But I'm pretty sure that there are lessons about God using the underdog and the power and providence of God that are a little more pertinent.
But then again, it's possible I'm misinterpreting the VT canon.
Just kidding. It's Darnell. Way better ring to than Nielsen. However, a couple of weeks ago I did get to be part of the Nielsen Ratings. They called the house and asked if I'd keep a journal of what I watched on the tele for an entire week. That's an easy "yes". Especially because I know from past experience that they include $30 cash with your journal in exchange for your time. ChaChing!
Overall I think I added to the ratings of good shows. I had the chance to show advertisers that people in America do watch soccer, so hopefully they will put more on. I also got to give the PBS coverage of a Presidential debate some love. The picture isn't as clear on PBS, but I think they don't clutter up the screen with scrawls and stupid lines. Good trade. Plus, they have the best post-debate coverage with thoughtful analysis and absolutely no screaming. I really like David Brooks.
We also gave Jon and Kate Plus 8 some love. Stacy likes it. I wouldn't sit down and watch it by myself, but it is fun to watch with my wife. I like the fact that every episode contains some kid either wiping out or hauling off and hitting a sibling. Makes me laugh every time.
One show that ended up in the journal that we have only watched that one week is Just Cook This! What a great show! I really need to put it in the Tivo rotation. It is the most down to earth cooking show you'll find on tv. Sam the Cooking Guy cooks meals out of his own kitchen, and uses regular ingredients. He's witty. The stuff looks really good. I'm making myself hungry.
We lucked out in that we didn't watch anything embarrassing. There are times when it gets late and we end up watching something absolutely inane. LIke the other night I come home and Stacy is watching The Biggest Loser. Niether of us had seen it before, but she was giving it a run. Man, that show has no buisness being on tv. What an unmitigated disaster. These wonderful people are working through all of their relational and physical anxiety in front of the cameras for everyone to see, and they actually have to vote each other off the show. Horrible.
The only thing worse was the show we ended up watching next. Paris Hilton's My New BFF.
Yeah, we watched it once. I feel like I have to mention things like that every once in a while to remind myself that I have very shallow aspects to my person. Thank goodness they didn't surface during Nielson week.
I have no further comments on the BFFthing. Let's never mention it again.
I don't watch a ton of shows. Mostly sports, PBS news shows and kids programming. Since sports and PBS news don't make for the greatest lists, we'll stick to kids programming for our highlights today. Even there, our options are limited since half the time we are watching the same two Wiggles DVDs. Well, that leaves us with Sesame Street. Hey, if you are stuck on an island with just one children's show to watch the rest of your life, the Double S is the way to go.
Sesame Street Segments I Enjoyed
!. Worm World Cup - Couldn't find a video of this one, which is too bad. They have Muppet worms replay the world cup, complete with a French worm head-butting an Italian worm. A+ for cultural relevance while teaching a worthwhile lesson to the kiddies.
$. Destiny's Child and Elmo - It's not often that you get the full-body shot of Elmo and Grover. For good reason. Monster Muppets don't have the most flattering abdomens. They have that old-person paunch going on. I'm just glad they are thrusting that paunch all over this song.
@. Andrea Bocelli Sings Elmo to Sleep - Not going to lie. I have a little bit of a man-crush on Bocelli. Creepiness aside, if he ever wanted to sing me to sleep I'd be down. This particular segment holds the distinction of being the only Double S segment to compel me to head to iTunes and purchase a song.
+. James Earl Jones does the Alphabet - Ok, so I didn't actually see this one on TV. I found it when I was searching for the other clips. Who cares. That dude could read the phone book and make it sound interesting. And he's multi talented. He can also count. Gameface
=. Potty Training - Elli would not be able to pee in the toilet if it wasn't for Elmo. The Elmo potty DVD was great brainwashing, and very entertaining for daddy. And the Elmo panties have been the ONLY enduring form of bribery that have worked. Thanks, bro.
I don't know about you but I'm not letting my child watch Sesame Street anymore. Too much left-wing propaganda. I'm starting an online petition to rename the show "Communist Cul-de-sac".
My case is as follows:
Exhibit A - SS appears on PBS. You know how they get their money? Donations. Give me capitalism or give me death.
Exhibit B - Yesterday, Tina Fey appeared in a prominent role alongside Elmo. She makes fun of Sara Palin on SNL. I'm pretty sure she is sexist. And Communist. Her glasses do have rims, after all.
Exhibit C - That Tina Fey skit? It was all about going to the library. Newsflash! At the Library they have a bunch of books that are free for everyone to use. You don't have to buy them or anything. Shared property = bad news.
Exhibit D - Brian Williams made an appearance in said episode. He works for NBC. NBC employs Keith Olbermann and numerous other lefty blowhards. I personally consider the network to be Stalin's mouthpiece.
There you have it. Please join in my fight to keep the liberals from polluting the minds of our children. Thank you.
The google came out with a new web browser. Google Chrome. Oh so shiny. Not that I don't love me some Firefox. It's my browser of choice, but I did feel compelled to at least take Chrome out for a test run. I'm typically impressed with Google products, so there was a chance I would love it and switch.
The best I can do is "it was fine". Not amazing. Not horrible. Better than Internet Explorer, but then again, what isn't. There were some features that I preferred to ol' Firefox. But there was one feature that was sorely lacking. Adblock.
I have this add-on to Firefox that blocks most of the advertisements on a given page. It's great. The pages load faster, I'm not at risk of epileptic seizure from some overzealous ad trying to pull my attention to the periphery of a page by means of incessant flashing. Clean.
I'm always struck by how clean it really is when I try another web browser. There are a lot of ads on the internets. Especially on Facebook and Slate. Those are the two sites I notice it the most on.
Which got me thinking...When I use adblock, am I stealing the internet? And further more, do I steal radio and TV as well?
All three industries rely on ad dollars for revenue. And yet, I don't lend my eyeballs nor my earballs to most of the ads they throw my way. Adblock, tivo, preset radio channels that I can easily surf when one goes to commercial break. Suckas. But again. Do I steal? Because I'm getting all of the benefits of entertainment and information without any of the hassle. With the exception of the handful of podcasts I listen to. They embed brief product/service drops that aren't easy to get around. But they also aren't hecka annoying like an internet ad or a commercial.
I don't think I'm stealing. I hope I'm not stealing. But it is something interesting to think about.
Last week the Bishop NT Wright showed up on The Colbert Report. I have to admit that seeing him on there was pretty shocking. He does have a new book out, however. Comedy Central's "newscasts" are a good place to go if you need to get the word out on your book.
I'm not convinced that this particular show is the best platform for Bishop Wright to explain his ideas. It's tough to present a shift in the paradigm of heaven in a 6 minute interview where the host is constantly wise-cracking. But I will give the Bishop a lot of credit for proving that you can be both funny and deep, and that deep religious thinkers need not take themselves so seriously all of the time.
I also have to give it up to Colbert. This is perhaps one of his best performances. If you need more, then check out the rest of the highlights from this particular episode. Cookie Monster made an appearance that is absolutely classic.
It took 18 months, but I have managed to work my way through the first six seasons of the hit TV show 24. It all started in December of 2006 when Stacy and I started watching Season 1 at my parent's house over Christmas vacation. I think we pounded out the entire thing in 5 days. From there, I was hooked.
The show has been good filler for me during the times when Stacy is on her crazy rotations. If she was on a month where she was working 80+ hours per week with numerous overnight shifts, I had a lot of time to kill by myself at the house. Since Elli is an early-to-bed kid, that gave me plenty of time to experience with wonderment all of Jack Bauer's exploits.
There are a lot of hardcore 24 fans I know who feel like the show is getting weaker over time. Most of these folk have been watching the show on FOX every week, and make a big deal out of it. With all due respect to the "real" fans who have been watching the show for six years (as opposed to my 18 months), I beg to differ.
I think what happened was that after the 2nd or 3rd season, the writers started to realize that people were purchasing the show on DVD. What I noticed in the first couple of seasons was that there were some recurring themes that got somewhat redundant after a while. I mean, honestly. How dumb can Kim Bauer be sometimes. Girl has no street smarts. Wandering down dark alleys, into strange stores and cavorting with shady dudes.
But as the series progressed, I feel like they were paced better for continuous DVD watching in a short period of time. That being the case, the plots got more complicated and there were more details up in the air.
I'm going to make an effort to watch the show on FOX this fall, but I wonder if I'll like it as much. It's possible that not being able to string episodes together will confuse me and make the show less enjoyable. It will be an interesting experiment.
I guess if I hate it after 4 weeks, I can always let the episodes pile up on the Tivo until the season's over.
I fully understand the joys of mindless television. It's not like we sit around our house watching PBS all day. I enjoy Survivor. Stacy is a fan of America's Next Top Model. It's all good.
But there are times when television throws me a curve ball and surpasses what I thought would be the lowest the bar could possibly be set.
Enter Miss Rap Star Supreme, courtesy of our friends at VH1. Mind you, VH1 has a tack record of giving us sub-par rap reality shows. Almost 18 months ago I noticed that VH1's White Rapper Show was racist against white folks. And now, VH1 is at it again.
I'm not going to go into all of the issues I have with Miss Rap. It's casting is similar to the White Rapper Show, in that it picks a bunch of unstable people who can't rap very well (but think they can) and throws them in a house together so that they can battle it out on the way to rap stardom. Whatever.
The mess of a show can best be understood by the single scene I caught by chance this past weekend.
The women were mad at each other and about to throw down. So the host comes in and tells them to get ready, because they are going to a house party to get some air. Lo and behold, they end up at the mansion of rap star Too $hort. Mind you, $hortDogg gained fame in the '90's by lyrically exploiting women. Well, these particular hip hop heads didn't seem to care. They went nuts when they realize that $hort was there.
In an ingenious act of scripting, the host then pitted the ladies in a rap battle against $hort. He proceeded to absolutely kill them with his rhymes and drop some bars that were indicative of his misogynistic trademarks.
The crazy thing is that the ladies ate it up. Absolutely loved it. And I'm like, hold up...wait a minute. This dude disrespects you, he takes a dookie on your gender, and you're going to give it up for him? Really? Where else would that happen? If a white dude got up in front of a crowd of black folks and proceeded to drop a bunch of N Bombs and deprecating language, how would the crowd respond? Please.
But it gets even more unbelievable after that. The ladies have a chance to battle back at $hort, so they take some time out to pen their responses. What both groups come back with are raps that end with the idea that these ladies will take $hort's women from him in the end. In essence, they all bought into this economy where the currency is women. They felt as though their legitimacy as MC's was contingent on how many women they could get. Wow. Objectifying your own to get up.
So I'm ticked at VH1. I love Hip Hop, but it needs to get over its misogyny. And it's hard when giant media outlets just feed the monster without bringing any kind of reason or thought into the discussion. And, might I add, that they really make my job a lot harder. Because the girls we work with eat this stuff up and now we have to deprogram all of this junk.
One of my first television loves as an adult was CSI. I started watching it during the maiden season, and was immediately hooked. So much so that in college I would tape it every week on my VCR and watch the episodes with my man Coleman. Before this season I had seen over 95% of the episodes that had been aired since the inception of the show.
As with any good show, I loved the characters. They were all different. They all had quirks. I coveted Warrick's hair. And I felt like the show was generally smarter than I was.
But this season, something changed. Don't worry CSI. It's not you. It's me.
I think.
For whatever reason, I've lost interest in CSI. My best guess is that since it packs neither the edge-of-your-seat-pee-your-pants excitement of 24, nor the serial suspense of Heroes and Lost, it has fallen prey to the forces of my increasing need for an adrenaline rush.
So a few weeks ago as I struggled to make it through an episode, I stopped 40 minutes in. I deleted the episode. I reprogrammed the Tivo to not record the proceedings on CBS each Thursday night at 8pm Central Time. And with those few strokes, a period of my personal TV history came to a crashing end.
Please believe everything you see on TV. I don't know how many times I have to tell you that. Everything that happens on the tele is clearly scientifically factual. If you try to verify what you see on the boob tube, you will undoubtedly get burned. Or frozen.
My heart sunk on yesterday when I saw in the Kansas City Star that two boys had gotten their tongues stuck to a flagpole when they decided to verify the accuracy of the scene from The Christmas Story. As far as I'm concerned, they got what they deserved. They should have lived by faith.
Please spread the word to any kids you know. This is very important. If it isn't, why would it have been in Section A of the paper?
If history has taught us nothing else, which it hasn't, television is a venerable beacon of truth in this era of relativism. Thank you. That is all.
As a young lad I was obsessed with Sesame Street. I insisted on watching both the morning and afternoon episodes on our local PBS affiliate, regardless of the fact that both episodes were identical. It didn't matter. The lights, the songs, the funny sounding puppets. It was certainly worth the price of admission.
Fortunately for me, now that Elli is practically two I have a socially acceptable excuse for once again enjoying the residents of what is undoubtedly the most wonderful street in all of the land. And as an adult watching the most venerable kids show in the history of television, I have come to note some very interesting aspects of the 2007 incarnation of Sesame Street. Some are positive. Some, not so much.
First of all, the show is stinkin' funny. I really try not to laugh out loud, but it's impossible. There are some great jokes in there that go well beyond the 2-year-old head, but land squarely in the middle of my head. Perhaps the funniest of all the muppets on the show is Elmo. Kudos to the little red man.
One noticeable difference from my years of watching SS as a young boy is that Elmo has a far more prominent role. In fact, he gets an entire segment of the show to himself from 9:40-10:00 every day. It's a very fine segment, though I can't help but think that it makes all of the other muppets terribly jealous.
Perhaps that is why Big Bird was so off of his game today. He and Elmo were singing a song about the number 3, and his lip synch was mad off. I was less than impressed. The funny thing is that I have been paying particular note to the puppeteering skills on the show, and I must admit that they are usually outstanding. Big Bird better pick it up.
If I had to pick two characters that I want to have nothing to do with Elli's development they would certainly be Bert and Cookie Monster. Bert has a horrible attitude. That cat needs a massage. And you would think that after 30 years on a grammar show, Cookie Monster would have picked up a tip or two. Dude's grammar is awful. Me want Cookie? That's not a correct sentence.
Overall though, the show is still a 10. Any show that gives you the Elmo and Alicia Keys duet is off the chain.
Over the last few days I've been rethinking my stance on socialized medicine. Perhaps it would be a bad idea. While I haven't been fully converted, I must admit that there is very compelling evidence to stop lobbying for such change. Take the commercials below, for instance. Without socialized medicine, insurance companies would not be making boatloads of money. They could not afford to hire brilliant advertising firms to put out quality work such as what follows. The first commercial was emailed to me a couple of years ago, and still stands as the funniest I have ever seen. There are a couple of links following that will take you to the Youtube pages of the other commercials.
Whenever you are feeling melancholy or despondent, these will brighten your disposition. My advice is to spread out your viewing of them so that each one can have its full effect. If you're like me, you'll probably watch each one 30 times before going on to the next one.
The TV writers are officially on strike. I can't say that I blame them, really. Their last contract wasn't very good, and failed to account for the growing digital markets. They need to get paid when their work gets sold on DVD or iTunes or whatever. Reports from Hollywood have this thing lasting a while.
The whole circus doesn't effect me all that much. There are shows that I enjoy watching, but I don't plan life around them. There's always Sportscenter and futbol to watch, as well as that newfangled Redbox contraption I've been using to rent movies for $1 at McDonald's. Shoot, I can even check out the entire series of Sopranos on DVD from my local library. Or there are those books and magazines I so love to read. And let us not forget how many people we can all watch get hit in the junk on YouTube.
The studios really need to figure this whole thing out for their own sake. Nobody wants even more reality tvcoming down the pipeline. The only two good things that can come from a long strike would be
1) Americans get smarter because they aren't watching as much TV, and
2) The rumors of NBC showing episodes of the British version of The Office actually come to fruition
So until April, I give this story a big "yawn". Wake me up when the Final Four is over.
I regretted not following the tv series Heroes from the beginning. It's not all my fault. I had just returned from Vietnam when it started, and with a baby no less. The only shows that got recorded last fall were ones I already had programmed in. Thankfully, we live in the day and age where studios drop entire seasons on DVD in short order, so I was able to catch up before Season Two starts on Monday. I'm glad I did.
Some shows work well on DVD, while others can only be optimized in the context of a weekly viewing. Take 24, for instance. I've watched two seasons on DVD and found both highly addictive. However, that addiction did not serve me well. I blasted through each of the seasons in no time flat, but found that the pacing wasn't really conducive to mass viewing. You find certain redundancies and plot holes that you probably wouldn't notice if you were watching one episode each week. And yet, when I watch Season 3, I will probably do so in huge chunks. That's what happens when you decide to partake in television crack.
Heroes was great on DVD. It kept from getting overly complicated and taking itself too seriously (unlike another show I watch regularly...Lost), but at the same time was compelling and had great character development. As a person who has never been into the whole comic book thing, it made me understand a little better why people have loved them for years and years.
The other thing that I found remarkable was how the story ended with strength, considering this was a first season show. I remember feeling like the last 1/3 of 24's first season felt tacked-on. Like the end of the script hadn't been written until the show was picked up for the entire season. But the quality of both production and pre-production in Heroes was very strong. It hooks you from the beginning.
All of that to say...the show gets my hearty recommendation.
I was bumping around on Sean's Blog the other day and came across this video clip. I'm not usually one to rip stuff off of other people's blogs, but this was a special circumstance. A couple of weeks ago I spoke at a retreat where I referenced Mr. T, and when I saw this beauty I became very sad that I had not been able to incorporate it into my talk. Dang. Plus, it has to be one of the most heartfelt odes to mothers I have seen in my life. Poetry in motion.
Though Sean just threw this classic out for our viewing enjoyment, I feel compelled to share some thoughts on this piece of musical genius:
**Those kids spit some of the best smack I've heard in a long time. I can't believe I've never heard those putdowns before. What is really hilarious is that Mr. T doesn't care that they are punking each other like crazy. Only when mom is brought into the conversation does he feel the need to step in. Certainly a very nuanced take on verbal ethics.
**There is no doubt in my mind that Mr. T wrote all of those lyrics himself. I mean, the passion of his delivery guarantees those words come from the heart. Sniff.
**You know a music video clip is old when the dude is wearing Daisy Dukes shorts and the women are wearing floor-length skirts and pants suits. It's a far cry from Britney's undie dance on the MTV Music Video Awards last night. All I know, is that if short shorts on men come back into style, I'll be all over it. I have very shapely legs.
**The problem with videos like this is that they are like crack. There are hours and hours of Mr. T gold on youtube, and I think I've watched most of it. Mr. T on Letterman is amazing. Though perhaps not as amazing as Mr. T on 80's fashion. Seriously. Run a search. You'll thank me later.
This is officially it. The post that is for sure going to get a CIA agent assigned to monitor this blog on a daily basis. Shoot. That's probably the least of my problems, what with all of the domestic spying going on, and such.
Anyway, Al-Jazeera has a very nice English language website now. You can even get an online subscription to their channel so that you can see all of their content. What you probably cannot do, however, is watch it on your television. That's because cable and satellite providers are afraid of the backlash that would ensue if they gave the channel a spot in their lineups. Apparently, people think it is disrespectful and harmful to the USA if this particular station is widely accessible.
Which doesn't make much sense. Look, Al-Jazeera has a slant. But what news station doesn't? I think that the key is that we understand what the slants are and filter accordingly. The worst thing we can do is assume that our news services don't have slants, and then accept everything they say at face value. Different media outlets have different agendas, and those agendas are centered around some combination of money and power.
Even Christian media organizations. Money and power.
And to this whole point that AJ would be bad for US society...Really???? Worse than 99% of news in the US? When major news stations stop mentioning that Paris woman and incessantly running talk shows where hosts bait guests into saying things that allow the host to rip them three separate ways, I'll buy that argument. Until then, I will contend that watching news on TV from US media outlets actually makes me dumber. AJ's website will be in my regular rotation, though I plan on lobbying my satellite company to pick it up. I'll keep with BBC News (now expanding to one hour), Jim Lehrer and Washington Week in Review.
Elli and I were almost late getting out of the house this morning. Usually this happens when one of us poops in our pants right as we're getting ready to leave. Today was a bit a different story, though.
We were watching tv.
The obvious question is what were we watching at 9:30 am. I'll give you a hint. It was a sporting event. Ok. Maybe not a sporting event, but it was on ESPN for three hours. It'll be on in prime time on ABC tonight for another two hours.
If you guessed the National Spelling Bee, you are the million dollar winner for the day. Five hours of coverage today. That's crazy. The NBA conference finals don't even get run on network tv these days. And yet, today the Spelling Bee takes center stage and thursts bookworms into the national spotlight. I'm sure that's gotta be good for the adolescent psyche.
Actually, I'm glad we can celebrate the smart kids. They deserve some recognition. At the same time, I wouldn't be crushed if Elli never makes it to the finals of this particular competition. It's just so much pressure. And in the end, there has to be quite a bit of luck involved. The words these kids get are so crazy and obscure that you could make a very very educated guess and still get knocked out.
You know who has to be crazy smart? The main judge. Granted, his job is a little easier because he has all of the answers in front of him, but he still has to be hecka smart to be able to pronounce all of the words correctly. He is a PhD for crying out loud.
Just for fun I decided to spell along as Elli and I watched. Unfortunately, I went zero-for-five.
I grew up a Portland Trail Blazers fan. My dad and I went to numerous games together, I had the opportunity to attend an NBA Finals game (Bulls vs. Blazers) as well as witness some of the greatest ballers of the 80's and 90's go up against my boys. My walls were covered with pictures of my favorite Blazers and I learned at an early age how to read a box score and follow my team in the newspaper, even though there was a pretty good chance that I had seen or heard the game the night before. When basketball wasn't in season, I'd pour over media guides and relive the glory of seasons past.
Even to this day the Blazers are still my team. I read the Blazers section of the Oregonian everyday online, and I even rock my Blazers gear throughout the Midwest.
Unfortunately, there is one piece of apparel that is going to have to get put away for a while. This brings me deep sadness because it is one of my favorite pieces, but there is no helping it. I am going to have to keep my Clyde Drexler University of Houston throwback jersey on the shelf. Clyde was my favorite player. He was the second best player in the league behind some dude named "Jordan", and was the player that every kid in Oregon wanted to be like. He was good. He played on the original Dream Team. I was always pumped when I had the chance to slap his hand as he ran out of the locker room before the game or at halftime.
Thus, I shed a tear yesterday when I found out that Clyde "The Glide" Drexler is going to be a contestant this season on Dancing With The Stars. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
Admittedly, I have never seen an entire episode of Dancing. I usually see the last 60-seconds because it comes on right before Lost, so my DVR picks that final minute up each week. Let's just say I've been none too impressed with what I've seen in those final 60-ticks. Jerry Springer and his band of wash-up celeb types getting jiggy with professional dancers while a glorified lounge singer belts out some nostalgic tune in the back ground. All of this brought to you by the fine people at Slimfast. The only circumstance under which I can see myself watching such a show is if some covert intelligence agency is torturing me in an effort to get me to share my deepest secrets. This show might be the only thing that could get me to budge.
And so Clyde will take part in this farce along with Billy Ray Cyrus, Joey Fatone (of 'N Sync fame), Leeza Gibbons, Apolo Anton Ohno, and a handful of other people whose names you wouldn't know but who you might recognize as "that guy/lady who was on..."
This is not how childhood heroes are supposed to behave. Please let me know when Clyde gets voted off so that I can rock his jersey again. Thanks.
I'm just going off the top of my head here, but I believe this might be my 4th or 5th post regarding a reality tv show on VH1 or MTV. In some cases I throw them under the bus (I'm talking to you, White Rapper Show. You are a bad bad show and I haven't watched you since I swore you off. Shame on you.) but I must admit that not all of the shows are that bad. In fact, some of them are really good. And since MTV shows way more commercials than any other channel, it's not nearly as big a waste of time as it might seem. At least I keep telling myself that. I am not really sure what it is that draws me to these shows and compells me to watch them, but it is an interesting ongoing social experiment.
Which brings us to the topic of today's conversation: Dancelife. The show follows around a handful of dancers as they look to forward their careers by trying to land gigs in live shows or music videos. Admittedly, the show is at times a little to slick and contrived to make me believe that producers didn't step in to "guide" events a little bit, but even this little bit of alleged tampering does not take away from the fact that Dancelife does a splendid job of capturing just how hard it is to make a career dancing.
It would have been easy for MTV to roll out a show that showed all of the glamour of being a dancer with young and beautiful people partying and whatnot, but they really kept from that temptation. The people on the show come across as being real and authentic as we are able to see that they work their fannies off every single day and they all struggle with questions about whether or not they are good enough. They live check to check and, though they are some of the most talented dancers out there, get rejected more often than they.
I think what I'm most impressed with about the show compared to other MTV reality shows is that the plot is not driven by people inexplicably making poor decisions compounded by even more poor decisions. Instead, the show is driven by the audience getting to know the dancers and really rooting for them to do well. It's a clean show in that I've seen no drinking or sex in it through four episodes, and it's encouraging to know that there are people at MTV who can put together a thoughtful show that is even a little bit enlightening.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go work on my B-Boy moves. Holla at ya boy.
I'm a husband, a dad, a student, a Christ Follower. Mostly, I'm just this dude trying to figure out how God wants me to live this life, and I'm open to suggestions.
