Since I've been sick, my already serious television problem has gotten completely out of control. Now, I've spent large portions part of my life not watching a lot of television. When I was single, I kept the television in the closet and brought it out for important events, usually sports. I was single for a pretty long time too, coming late to the marriage and babies stage. During the busy parenting years that followed those glorious twenties, television became a pleasant diversion in otherwise busy lives and something to share with the kids. I couldn't watch too much TV. There wasn't time for that.
I've been watching "24" since the first breathtaking fifteen minutes of the first "day". I've put up with all the even numbered seasons being pretty terrible, and this one started with such promise. Jack running into so much of the old gang, working independently of any authority, was great, and TONY was alive, working under deep cover for the bad guys, who as it turned out were bad guys we knew from earlier "days" with Jack. After all this time watching Jack Bauer and the folks from CTU become iconic (some might call it torture porn), when Tony went from dead to back and good under cover, to actually, never mind, bad, back to well somewhere between good and bad, they just lost me. All these seasons of devotion (I had the CTU phone ring on my cell for a while), but it was too much to take. The last three hours were near comical agony. I almost quit but didn't want to leave it so, well, unfinished. Bleh.
I haven't said much about being sick. It would have been easy to miss, since I've only mentioned it in a comment on Not Quite Dead Yet. I knew I shouldn't go countin' those chickens, and I know now I was feeling terrible for many, many months (years?) before I left the office and drove myself to the emergency room on May 5. They kept me for seven days. Not knowing when there's something wrong with me seems to be my broken place, but, hey, silver lining: all this "down" time to watch TV. I'm recovering at home, trying to get a chronic condition under control, working reduced hours and determined to take care of myself, despite my inclinations to the contrary. It's a thoroughly messy business, getting old, and I apologize to the forces of the universe for making such rash assumptions about being not quite dead yet. Seriously. I get it. Won't happen again. I swear.
Of course, watching television, even alone, is much more fun than it's ever been before. Live alone? Is your significant other way over somewhere else, scratching his manhood watching basketball or painting her toenails watching Desperate Housewives? No worries, because you can watch whatever you want with all the folks watching it "on Twitter". Only a few of the folks I follow on Twitter watch "24" or "Idol" and I'm pretty sure I'm alone in the crowd watching "Chuck" so I just search Twitter for the show and get a whole column of tweets of folks who I don't normally follow but have tagged their tweets with #showname (Example: "Jack needs an iPhone. I bet there's an app to counteract the bioweapon. #24"). Of course, all those Pacific Coasters whine to the crowd, "no spoilers!", but there's nothing I can do about that. As if. If you don't want to know how it ends, then don't read the East Coast tweets.
BUT I DIGRESS... what brought me here today to this post, though, is American Idol. I can't believe how much folks are still talking about it. Everybody's all up in arms about Kris Allen "upsetting" Adam Lambert on American Idol. Now AT&T is being accused by the New York Times of influencing the outcome of the final voting by "providing phones for free text-messaging services and lessons in casting blocks of votes." If this is true, it's quite serious. There are laws governing such things, and, well AT&T is big enough to know all about them. Tsk. Tsk. What were they thinking? All the indicators pointed to Adam winning, not just the judges' almost fawning praise, but the social media buzz, search activity, everything seemed to be pointing to the more colorful Adam as the winner.
I was a big fan of both Kris and Adam from very early in the competition. Forgetting for a moment the possibility that AT&T found the way to digitally stuff the ballot box, I think it comes down to trending. Kris was just good enough each week to stay in the competition, but he maintained a steady improving trend, peaking at the right time with his better than the original version of "Heartless". Adam, thought by some to be the most talented contestant to ever grace the Idol stage, peaked much earlier, with his brilliant "Mad World" (some might argue even before that with "Tracks of My Tears", after which Smokey Robinson himself led the standing ovation, visibly moved), but there was a backlash against Adam, even among his ardent supporters (and I was one) over what can only be characterized as gratuitous screaming as the season drew to a close. I voted for both Adam and Kris many times during the season. I believed that the "Judge's Save" rule was initiated because they were afraid Adam would be voted off before America noticed what they already knew they'd found. As long ago as April 4th, I tweeted: "The Big Question is, will the judges use their save for Kris even though it was put in the rules for Adam! #idol". I honestly went into the final totally unsure of which of these, my two favorite contestants all season, would get my votes. I waited over an hour after the show to decide, and it was a weak edge for Kris (weak, meaning I only voted five or six times), based on his greater need to win since Adam was destined for stardom anyway and the fact that Adam's rendition of Kara's regrettable composition was like fingernails on a chalkboard but Kris' only missed the mark, showing at least some possibilities (we'll see how that goes); but it's really much simpler than that. When Danny Gokey was voted off to leave just Adam & Kris, his voters swung to Kris, the other clean cut, middle America, Christian instead of the eyelined, ultra vamp showman, Adam. Seems kind of duh.
So, I wish them all well, and hold onto the remote between taking mountains of medicine, not at all sure what to do with it since there's nothing worth watching. We're in the dead zone between network season finales and the new cable seasons of Weeds, Dexter & Entourage. Read, write, rest and get better.
Peace, out, y'all
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