We're smack dab in the middle of Vacation Bible School, so our church's regular Wednesday night programming has been suspended, to resume next week as regularly scheduled.
So rather than teaching a discipleship class, I unexpectedly found myself watching this declarative program on NBC (I soon found out that this encounter was neither serindipitous, nor would it prove to be appointment television worthy of future DVR programming).
This, dear reader, was bad on so many levels. It was like the first few weeks of American Idol where you have the highlights of the lowlights that would portend to an expected giving-away to eventual genuine entertainment...except that the highlights of the lowlights were the highlights, and there would be no accession to increasingly qualitative experiences.
When the "judges" green-lighted the first two performers (who were known as "Snap Master" and "Bob the Horn Dude" - or something like that) to the next round, I involuntarily groaned, perhaps involuntarily releasing a gutteral response as my Sony Triniton mercilessly sucked the lifeforce from my marrow.
Yet, I persevered. Because on Fox was So You Think You Can Dance?, and I know I cannot, and don't much care about those who think they in fact can.
I continued watching as David Hasselhoff lingered justabittoolong in not "X-ing" a 66-year old male stripper. He (David) tried to play it cool, but it came across as icky. Real icky. I expected the bronzed, glitter-chested, white-maned wrinkly man to boast, "I put the sex in sexagenarian." But then I realized he may not have had access to his online thesaurus as do I. Oh, and he made it to the next round because judge Moesha cooed, "America wants to see more of you."
< shudder>Me. < /shudder>
Actually, I just figured it out...ePIPHany!!!! This show is just a smidge away from being spot on...all it needs to do is change its name from America's Got Talent to America's Got Hasselhoff and it will make perfect sense. The global alignment will self-correct and birds will once again twitter in the trees and the impending threat of chaos and anarchy will immediately subside.
Other can't-turn-from-the-bodies-strewn-on-the-median-amidst-the-car-crash-along-the-roadside moments included a triumvirate presentation of increasingly skilled jugglers that raised a raucus debate amongst the judges over who should move on in the competition. In case you missed it, let me reiterate...they argued over jugglers. That's like arguing over whether the lima bean, the kidney bean or the pinto bean is the highest quality legume (pinto, for the record). Oh yeah....all three made it through, even though the first dropped every single implement he attempted to implement. Apparently, the only thing not required on America's Got Talent is...well, talent.
Also making it through was "The Rapping Granny," several juvenile singers whose mommas all told them they have the voices of angels, and an 8-year old stand up comedienne who was neither funny nor precocious. In fact, they were so liberal with the "Got Talent" tag that they couldn't even find a way to edit in the 30 or so other supertalented/qualified folks who manage to strain through the trijudge Filter-O-Talent (and don't even get me started on the poor grammar being titularly advanced as the anemic twin to the show's poor premise).
It was the Gong Show with not nearly enough Gong. It was the mind-numbing manufactured hype of American Idol but without any of that messy entertainment to get in the way. It was Regis looking like Seacrest without the wrinkle-smoothing facecake. It was Piers, Moesha and The Hoff desperately needing to dive of the Brit's name to escape the mess they were hired to officiate.
But being fair...there was one guy who stood out. Here's his schtick and a larger download video. I was so impressed with Godzilla Theater that I called Kelli in to watch it, but the last time I had my arms shoved up two turkeys and I was shouting incoherently it was Thanksgiving and we were cooking for both families...it was a hectic day and I never did find my wristwatch. That same ultimate dissatisfaction of an upset stomach and not knowing where my time went was how I felt when this show rolled credits.
June 22, 2006 3:06 AM