I was watching some TV on Sunday, and it was a little unpleasant. In the course of a few hours, I saw a commercial for American Idol, a program about Jessica Simpson, and Ozzy Osbourne interacting with a puppet.
Me and LCG were watching the Fox Sunday night lineup, and when that was over I did some channel flipping. On VH1 I found Driven: Jessica Simpson. I have caught bits and pieces of various Driven episodes, and it is just a horrible program. It is so horrible that I thought it was an MTV product. I just now could not remember their Driven: Name Of Artist format, so I went to the MTV web site to find out the correct style. And the show wasn't listed. What? I just saw it this week, was it cancelled in the past couple of days?
Oh, if only we were so lucky. I had to go to the Jessica Simpson web site to look up the listing, and imagine how sad I was when I saw that the show airs on VH1. I really thought that they had better judgment than that. Or maybe...maybe it is a re-tooling of their short lived Behind The Music 2 series. That one documented careers as they happened. Oh look! Enrique Iglesias is popular! How about that! I didn't need thirty minutes of VH1 time to tell me that Enrique Iglesias was enjoying popularity.
Fortunately, BTM2 went away, but now we have Driven. The point of Driven is to tell us how determined these people were to become stars. They were driven. No kidding! Aren't most people with record deals driven? Not that I wouldn't enjoy a show where someone said, "Well, I didn't really want a contract, it just happened," but I don't think I am going to see one.
I have never watched a full episode of Driven, but as near as I can tell, they just talk to people who know the star, not the actual star. It probably allows them to cobble together a show at a much faster rate when they don't have to get the celebrity. Relatives and high school teachers will do just fine. But instead of wisely skipping past Driven: Jessica Simpson, I stopped to watch.
LCG: Change it.
Me: No way!
LCG: Change it!
Me: I might learn something! I need to know why she is famous.
Not two weeks ago, we were having a debate about Jessica Simpson and Mandy Moore. They are a pair I find interesting, because of certain parallels in their careers. Both had debut records come out in 1999, both were lumped into a category with Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, and both seem to be more famous than they should be.
I don't think that their record sales merit the amount of publicity they receive. I just find it super baffling that Jessica Simpson is currently being referred to as an It Girl, because I remember her record selling poorly. Same goes for Mandy Moore's album. But, I do admit, when those records were released I worked in an independent record store so maybe I wasn't drawing the right shoppers. It is possible that discount department stores accounted for most of the Jessica/Mandy sales. I don't know. I do know that at the independent I could sell Britney, and I could sell Christina, but I couldn't even move used copies of Jessica and Mandy. But this could be a reflection not of their relative success, but of my shoppers.
I really don't mind Mandy Moore though, she seems like a nice kid. On the other hand, Jessica Simpson gives me the creeps. She always has too, this isn't just a side effect of her MTV reality show. I've never seen an entire episode of the show because I don't like her, and I really don't like Nick Lachey. He's icky. I have found him to be most icky ever since 98 Degrees was all the rage. Boy, did they ever suck. I could find a bit of enjoyment from the Backstreet Boys (One year I received a birthday card from NoK that had Kevin from the Backstreet Boys on the front. The inside wished me a Kevin-ly heavenly birthday.) and N'Sync, but 98 Degrees made my stomach turn. In fact, I am about to weep right now because I am picturing them and their sweaters. Ew.
So we get to the part of Driven where people are gushing about how Nick and Jessica were dueting on a love song, and at the same time falling in love! How exciting!
LCG: Change it.
Me: But this is stupid! (Butthead voice with snickering) They're in love.
LCG: Please change it.
On the TV, Driven was talking about how Jessica broke up with Nick. I didn't know that, but it couldn't hold my interest.
Flip.
Flip.
Flip.
Back to Driven, in time to see how tragedy reunited the couple.
LCG: Please change it.
Someone, I think it was her sister, was recounting the story of how on September 11, 2001, Nick was at the Newark airport. I don't know who called whom, but apparently Jessica was sobbing into the phone saying something along the lines of, "I love you so much, don't hang up, I love you," et cetera.
LCG: Please change it.
I did, but then started disapproving of Jessica Simpson.
Me: You know, if you had been at the Newark airport, I would have come picked you up. Screw crying into the phone. What's that going to do? I would have been all, "Hang up! Save your battery! I'll call you every hour to let you know where I am!"
Of course, I worked for Mr. Burns at the time and I'm guessing Smithers would not have given me the time off, but if I had LCG or Joejung or NoK stranded halfway across the country, I would have purchased a large Dr. Pepper and a jumbo gas station coffee and headed out. Maybe she was further away from Newark than the Midwest, so I should cut some slack.
Or maybe she did something like that, I didn't stick around to find out. I'm just saying, I would go fetch up a friend, why could she make the effort for Nick? They were in luuuuv.
Flip.
Flip.
Flip.
Back in time to see the thrilling wedding of Nick and Jessica! Oh joy! Her mom claimed that Jessica's dad was worried that he was losing his little girl.
LCG: (groans)
Me: This is the worst yet!
All of the people were gushing about the love and the wedding and then embarked on the most horrific discussion that I have ever seen on television. All of the commentators recounted their phone calls about the wedding night. Dude! Fucking gross! Earlier in the program it had been mentioned how the press made a big stink about Jessica saying she was going to stay a virgin until she got married. But then...then all of her freaking friends and relatives made a huge deal about how Nick and Jessica rushed off to do it right after the wedding, and then Jessica called people and they all wanted to know, "How was the sex?"
Fucking. Gross.
I can't help but find that to be in the worst possible taste. I have no problem with Jessica waiting until she got married, but I do have a problem with her calling everyone up right after the main event. And these people made it sound like she called very soon after. There may have been some lag time and VH1 just glossed it over to ruin my day, but I can't be sure.
I can be sure that not only did the commentators tell me that they asked how it was, the commentators then related how it was. I didn't want to know how it was! Why didn't they run a crawl across the bottom of the screen letting viewers know that the following content was unsuitable for children and people who don't want to imagine Nick Lachey naked. That is worse than picturing him in one of those 98 Degrees sweaters. I left VH1, and did not return that night.
After the whole Jessica Simpson incident, LCG reclaimed his remote control and we ended up watching the local Fox station. During a break, we saw a commercial for the upcoming season of American Idol. Since they are advertising the new season, they tantalize the viewers by showing the terrible auditions. The terrible auditions are what made me tune in originally, and the commercial almost lured me in. How can I resist a miserable version of Sweet Home Alabama? He couldn't remember the words! Oh, American Idol commercials, why do you taunt me?
But then two things happened. First, they showed a clip of an unfortunate singer (could have been the singer of Sweet Home Alabama) and then they showed Simon's comment. He called him the musical equivalent of a sleeping tablet. LCG just shook his head and wondered if Simon was running out of zingers if that was the best he could muster. That was sad enough, but then they showed the next singer. She was running up and down the scale with a showy (and unnecessary) display of R&B vocal acrobatics.
I think that vocal acrobatics have a place, but they are best left to the likes of Aretha Franklin and Patti LaBelle. Does Anita Baker do that? She can if she would like, I won't complain. But I don't care for it in the modern context made popular by Mariah Carey. Just because you have a multi-octave range doesn't mean you have to show it off in one breath. Settle down! I prefer a singer who can hold a single note strong and true, never wavering in pitch or power. But thanks to the likes of Mariah Carey and more recently, Christina Aguilera, people think that they have to run up and down a scale on anything longer than a quarter note.
And this is what I saw on the commercial for American Idol. I was fixing to retch, and then they cut to the commentary by Randy Jackson. He loved it. Any remaining shred of a chance of me ever watching American Idol left right then and there. If they encourage that sort of thing, then that sort of thing will crop up more often. Please contestants, and I am asking nicely, please leave the acrobatics to the professionals.
As if I wasn't traumatized enough by Jessica Simpson and Randy Jackson, LCG happened to land on the Osbourne Family Christmas Special, or whatever it was called. We tuned in just in time to see Triumph The Insult Comic Dog sitting at a piano between Ozzy and Sharon. What? Why was Ozzy Osbourne on TV with a puppet? He was the lead singer of Black Sabbath! Black Sabbath! The original singer of Black Sabbath was on television being serenaded by a cigar smoking dog puppet.
While I tend to think that Triumph The Insult Comic Dog is an excellent puppet, possibly the best puppet ever if I get to exclude Muppets from the category, I don't think he should be on TV with Ozzy Osbourne. I was staring at the TV with a furrowed brow, shaking my head. Mercifully, they cut to commercial, but not before showing us what was coming up next. It was Jessica Simpson frolicking in the snow with Ozzy. LCG turned off the television before we could see the full segment, and I will consider myself lucky, because I really don't want to consider what occurred in that segment.