Midseason Malaise

I keep forgetting what day it is. I am usually very up on this sort of thing. My week is guided by a schedule. Now, everything is thrown off. All of my nightly commitments that guide my week are on hiatus, I'm staring at the reflection of the window in the dark screen. I know that there is nothing there for me in that box. Besides, if I turn it on now, it will be on all night. But I can't stop staring at it.

And Then I Seacrest a Darkness

Lately, I've seen a darkness in the Seacrest. Sure he's always been a little dark and vaguely self-loathing. But he always seemed OK with his place in life. His skill was always his ability to remain totally unfazed by the paradoxical personalities of the show. He moved seamlessly between the celebratory and the mocking; the cruel and the uplifting. He seemed totally unconcerned with both his own shallowness and that of the show. He simply hosted; for that was what he was born to do.

I think it's starting to get to him. I can see it in his eyes. Pure unadulterated hate. He hates his coworkers. He hates the fans. He hates the contestants. Most of all, he hates himself. He hates that he is known across the universe as an empty vessel. A carrier. A genetically engineered reaity show host. He sees himself through our eyes and he is totally horrified.

Tonight, he randomly sat in the audience and talked to an old woman about how exciting it all was. The banter dragged longer than it should have. The Seacrest has always excelled at filler but this came across as forced. As the cameras were about to move on to something else, he told us she was his Nana. She looked stunned. I wonder if the Seacrest just ad-libbed that. Could he have been trying to convince us that he was indeed naturally created; that his having of a Nana would imply his having of a Mama and thus that he was not created in some sort of laboratory somewhere in a basement in Hollywood? Does he see himself as needing that one last excuse used for Nazis and mass murderers, "He's somebody's son," to justify his overpreened, overpaid existence?

It's an old story: Man sells his soul. Man lives it up on his riches and bounty. Man loses his taste for riches and bounty and is stuck soulless. Man mourns loss of his soul. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. He has ridden Denial for a long time, but it seems Anger has at last arrived. Is this whole Idol Cares or whatever the fuck they're calling it Bargaining?

Some might argue that grief is more complicated and that hs is just bouncing between Anger and Acceptance. However he is dealing with it, I feel sorry for the Seacrest. As sorry as one can feel for someone who has millions and millions of dollars.

A New Schedule for It

It spent the whole day staring at a screen with very little movement except the arm motion that It took to click, drag and paste. It came home bleary-eyed and dazed; the lights had seemed so bright coming on to the street. It came in and immediately picked up the little screen as It tried to catch up on all of the things that It had missed during the day. However, this seemed too similar to the day's earlier monotony, so It turned on the TV. The new work schedule had started to alter Its viewing habits. Gone forever would be early evening 90210 reruns. Prime time came sooner now. There would be less waiting. Of course, the new schedule could prove problematic at some point. The beginning of the eight o'clock hour might now be something more precarious, a source of stress. Would It not make it in time some nights? Also, what would happen when 90210 did indeed come back to the end and beginning? Would It really miss out once more on Donna and David's wedding and Brandon and Brenda's first day at West Beverly?

Future woes aside, It really did have quite a run tonight. With Its Thursday routine additionally shaken up by reruns of those estrogen twins on ABC, It decided to experiment. First It watched the show about the white trash Scientologist and his friend Tuna and his ex-wife who is not Brittany Murphy or Tara Reid. It had only seen this show once before when it was brand new and It had not cared for it. But It was totally diverted by it tonight. Absurdist comedy and totally randon stylistic shifts kept It fully amused. Then It started to watch the show about the sad, quirky people and their mundane, undiginified lives before It came to the terrible realization that It had missed three-quarters of the really, really popular show with the crazy ex-Laker girl popstar and the cranky snooty British man and the bad and good singing things and the Seacrest. It, of course, immediately changed the channel just in time to see one of the good or bad singing things get voted away. It pondered the sad fate of the thing that was way too ugly to remain. It wondered whether if this thing had gotten rid of its goatee and pompadour it might have been more palatable to those who decide which remain. Then It remembered that the thing was a horrible singing thing and that even if the thing shaved its goatee, it would still have a disgusting fat face. Then It felt a moment of pity for the trashy rich thing from New Jersey. True, this thing had proven itself to be, possibly, the most reprehensible seeming thing on the show this season; but It couldn't help but think this thing's nudie picture hobby might have a remained a secret from any Porsche-driving meatheads who may have one day married this thing and kept it as their trophy which would probably ahve been the brightest future for which this thing might have hoped. Now, trophy seekers would look elsewhere for similarly stupid, awful things who had not embarrassed themselves on national television and on the internet and gotten nothing to show for it except that total strangers now think it's a whore. Except It had rooted against this thing to begin with and so, in this case, It got what It wished for, sort of.

Anyway, the show ended and four victims had been dispatched and It did not did not want to watch the quiz show with the children and the terrible comedian or the show with the guys from Clueless and Garden State playing silly doctors, so It was, temporarily, at a loss when It remembered music videos. It had forgotten the overwhelming joy that these had once provided It. But, a pure sugary bubble gum 80s throwback Akon track and the discovery that Jordan Catalano had started a band that apparently wants to be that other emo pop punk hard rock band with the chemicals and the romance and he had directed one of the most self-indulgent videos evert. And then Gwen Stefani brought It even more 80s cavity inducing sweetness and she was calling herself a bad girl, nonetheless.

It felt like It was in the middle of a happy, happy baked dream of TV creme-filling goodness, but it was not to be. Something like Omarion followed the Gwen Stefani and something like Beyonce followed that. Then It flipped to find something like Alabama on the country channel and Its mellow was officially harshed. But, for a blissful 70-75 minutes, It had felt almost at ease.