Thank goodness for Tivo. I don’t understand how anyone watches Idol without it. Tonight’s finale lasted over two hours, but it took me less than 45 minutes to watch it. Usually with the results shows I only watch the last five minutes, but tonight was the big old season finale so I felt obligated to at least attempt to watch the whole thing. I didn’t make it very far.
I got about three seconds into the first chorus of Gwen Stefani’s live via satellite guest spot before the first bloop. For those unfamiliar with Tivo, there’s a secret hack that you can program into your remote to allow you to instantly advance thirty seconds forward. I abuse this feature. Especially when watching Idol.
Continue reading American Idol Season 6 Finale →
Graham Greene, a 20th century author who worked in a variety of literary genres, made a distinction in classifying his work as either a “serious” work or an “entertainment.” Greene did write about serious issues in some of his novels—most notably the meaning and sustaining of faith in a world that oftentimes wracks us with existential doubt. But he also wrote stories that were meant to amuse us, to reduce the amount of ratiocination required while perusing the words on the page. I’ve always thought that this distinction between the two types of work is a good one.
Although Johnny deals with some aspects of Super Bowl XXXVII in the post below, I’d like to make a few different observations about what is evidently a testosterone-fueled event that has taken on mega-Dionysian proportions during the past few years. It is interesting to look back at Hunter Thompson’s writings on his holding forth on the scriptures while on the balcony of a Hyatt with what was perceived a large leech crawling up the back of his spine on a Super Bowl Sunday morning. The absurdity of the actual event in and of itself today is in many ways far in excess of what was then chronicled by Thompson as something that was bizarre.
Continue reading That’s Entertainment →
Rock and roll can change your life.
