Seacrest OUT!
Oh my God, could you people believe the end of American Idol last night? Holy crap, what a great evening of television! It's so completely different than spending two hours watching karaoke night at Chili's! It's not the same as that at all! For one thing, it has better production values... but Chili's has got boneless buffalo wings, so take that, FOX-TV!

OK, so I have never seen a single episode of American Idol. I've seen clips here and there, but I've never watched it. Never. Not once. When I tell people this, I get roughly the same reaction as I would if I told them I had a gremlin in my pocket or, say, two penises. Actually, I'm not sure "gremlin in my pocket" isn't some kind of slang for having two penises. I'll have to check with Urban Dictionary to be sure.

Rest assured, however, that while I do not in fact have a "gremlin in my pocket" (wink wink), it is true that I do not nor have I ever watched American Idol.

At this point, non-American Idol watching just seems contrarian. I mean, it's like 3 of the top 10 shows of the week every week. Everybody--everybody--is into this except for me. Demographically speaking, I'm like the lonesome, terrified hero of a zombie movie where everyone else has been infected by the zombie-disease and I--plucky, intrepid, resourceful, no taste for brains--am rushing around trying to avoid being bitten and (if I have time) save the world.

Except that "save the world" business seems like a lot of work. So mostly it's just about hiding from the scary, scary people who want to corner me and talk about American Idol. In case any of you were curious, decapitation cures people of this tendency just as well as it does zombie-ism. Plus cutting off someone's head is slightly less socially awkward than riding through a one-way conversation you lack both the ability and the interest to participate in.

I guess I should have some kind of opinion about the outcome. All I know is that some old dude won and beat out the young chick with the spectacular rack. I think we can pretty much guess how I feel about that, can't we? I've never heard either of the people involved sing a single note, but the social dispensation for young chicks with spectacular racks is absolute: the fact that she didn't win by default is yet another sign of the degradation of our culture, leading us down the inevitable path from metaphorical cultural zombie-ism to actual zombie-ism. Seriously, you leave these openings and the zombies slide right in.

To be clear though, and I know none of you will fault me for this, the reason I do not watch American Idol is not because of any kind of snobbery. I've got nothing against wasting time paying attention to something that is ultimately meaningless. I mean, you're reading this, aren't you? How could I complain? This is clearly better than some goddamn karaoke show, but that's only because there's nothing worse than a goddamn karaoke show. I recognize my own lack of redeeming social value.

The reason I don't watch American Idol is simple: Ryan Seacrest.

Nothing involving Ryan Seacrest gets any of my time. Don't care what it is. If his next project is Ryan Seacrest Saves Crippled Orphans From Burning Buildings, I have to be honest with you people, I'm rooting for the flames. I feel bad for the kids of course, but what would be worse, dying of asphyxiation brought on by smoke inhalation and then being burned past recognition OR being approached/touched/talked to by Ryan Seacrest? I rest my case. Come on, they're already orphaned and crippled. Leave them alone.

Unlike those of you outside the LA radio/TV market, I have been afflicted with the Seacrest for much, much longer. He was a local DJ on KYSR radio for a long time and now does the morning show on KIIS-FM. He took over for the equally awful Master of Cheese Rick Dees and now can be heard (I presume) ruining morning radio the same way he ruins television.

Two things about him irk me the most:

1) He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Cheapens the whole Walk of Fame, in my opinion. And this is a decorated sidewalk traversed primarily by whores. You saw Pretty Woman. Except instead of Julia Roberts, the actual whores look a little more like Jason Alexander. But it was Seacrest who made it cheap.

2) What he did to poor Dick Clark. It's OK to have ambition and everything, but giving an old guy a stroke just so you can take his job is a step too far, in my opinion. Yep, that's where I draw the line. Dick did American Bandstand and top 40 radio and New Year's Eve. I guess Ryan decided he needed to have ALL these gigs to himself. This is clearly a Single White Female situation and I refuse to be an enabler.

As for the rest of you watching American Idol, well... I don't know what Dick Clark ever did to you, but he deserves better. If anything happens to Casey Kasem, I will never forgive you people.




This post on the Narcissus Scale: 8.8



Pops
- posted by Pops @ 9:06 AM