57 Channels (And Nothin’ On)

It's still a desert out there.

In an effort to be hip, I resorted to watching some of the MTV Movie Awards, but when it took me a minute or two to place High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens, I began to feel old. Cut me some slack though...this is an awards ceremony that not only nominated Bride Wars for an acting award (really, MTV?) but where MILEY CYRUS beat out Bruce Springsteen for best song from a movie.

It was at that point that I changed the channel and worried that the pop culture apocalypse was near.

Watching I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here the following night did nothing to ease these fears, but at least it made me feel a little better about myself. Seeing all of these "stars" with makeup-free faces greasier than if they were working the fry-o-later at Mickey D's gave me more joy than I anticipated.

Spencer and Heidi on the other hand...until last night, I'd prided myself on successfully avoiding The Hills and any affiliated nonsense.

Seeing those morons speak for the first time made me mad. Mad at them for being morons, mad at myself for being complicit with NBC's attempts to cater to the lowest common denominator, mad that I am indeed being sucked into Speidi's web of lies and tuning in to see if they quit the show or not.

And mad that I am now looking forward to The Real Housewives of New Jersey tonight as a quasi-legitimate source of entertainment. What else am I gonna watch...the series finale of According to Jim?

Yep, still on the air (who knew?) and the info button reveals (*finale spoiler alert*) that Jim chokes on a shrimp puff.

Now, if only someone would feed one to Speidi?

Baby Remember My Name

I'm still reeling from my close encounter with Harvey Keitel from last week. Now, I realize maybe this is like, no big deal to you. But frankly, I felt all Courtney Cox in that Dancing in the Dark video, plucked from the crowds and thrust into the spotlight.

Ok, maybe not a spotlight. One of those pocket sized flashlight type thingys (I digress but, even for a Bruce worshipper like me, that has to go down in history as the worst video ever, no?).

How does one follow such a thing up? For me, it was sweet talkin' my way onto the red carpet to go heel to heel with the one and only SJP. That's MS. Carrie Bradshaw herself, out and about to prove her marriage is intact support her hubby's film, and I found myself on the red carpet once again. And while I did indeed ace out a veteran NYC reporter for my 10 seconds with Sarah Jessica, it was all so anti-climatic. What, no invite to shoe shop? And what about her hubby? I thought for sure we'd jump onto the media riser and start singing "Twist and Shout" together, but...nada. And then to find out the next day that she held back baby news from me?

Well, that just kinda hurts.

And so it's back to regularly scheduled blogging.

Which means it's time to bitch about Lost (3 weeks of eps backed up on the DVR and slogging thru all the "Is it now? Is it before? Who's the latest Darma dude?" crap - do I really care anymore?), time to decide if I'll follow Brothers and Sisters to season 4 (did they really dump Balthazar Getty for screwing around with Sienna Miller?), and I'm even holding out hope that Grey's will pull off a nice, juicy brain tumor-wedding cliffhanger fiesta that will hearken back to the days when this show was heart patient-Denny good, not hallucination-Denny bad.

It's good to be back. Finale season lies ahead, so buckle up.

It's time for a different sort of magic carpet ride.

Death Warmed Over

Bruce Springsteen once sang "57 Channels (And Nothin' On)". Well, it's all blizzardy and I just wanna sit around and watch TV and there ain't nothin' on.

And I know I should be gettin' my democracy on and watching something all Inauguration-ish, but...well, the cool stuff was on HBO and dang it I'm poor. Those big fancy cable channels aren't in the budget these days, so I had to settle for bad Youtube video of all the cool music performances that I missed yesterday.

And so today, I spent time clearing out the DVR and had the audacity of hope that I'd find something inspiring to watch.

Instead, a whole lotta dead people turned up:

The Good Is anyone still watching Desperate Housewives? Because even though the whole flashback/flash forward thing they've added isn't exactly ground breaking, it's made the show pretty fun to watch again. Sunday night's episode included flashbacks of both narrator Mary Alice and Bree's dearly departed husband Rex (Did she kill him? Did he have a heart attack? Who can remember?...) and seeing them pop up again was a good way to spice things up.

The Bad I don't know what to do. I was all on Team ER until this year, and now I have a backlog of episodes clogging up my DVR and I just don't know if I can do it. They lost me when they didn't make better use of Mark Green's comeback. Or flashback.

Whatever.

But, speaking of hospital shows and dead people, how much longer is Denny going to roam around Seattle Grace on Grey's Anatomy? Enough already! Well,things over at Grey's aren't completely critical; Eric Stolz as a serial killer IS kind of awesome...but, let's be honest, he doesn't look to be surviving past next week.

The Ugly Don't ask me why I am still hanging in on Confessions of a Teen Idol. Man oh man, has Scott Baio looked at himself on a monitor? Shave, dude. Or at least shower! He is looking chewed up and spit out, weird that he'd not take better control of his image if he is exec producing the show.

Ok, technically, nothing dead on THIS show, unless you count the careers of the people on it.

Hey, speaking of things that are dead, I sure wish they'd bring back Lipstick Jungle for another season. My DVR keeps picking up episodes of this overlooked show and it was actually pretty good.

I mean, if they can revive failed, 10 year old show CUPID, then surely Lipstick Jungle still has a prayer?

More about that soon...

Globe Trotting

I have a lot to say about the Globes, so I'm going the stream of consciousness route. I know it's long, but just compare it to Benjamin Button and it'll seem short! So without further adieu...

Biggest schadenfreude moment Though I don't really enjoy Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt (enough with the Button movie! It was 80 hours long and really does not live up to the hype unless you count makeup), I surprised myself at how much I enjoyed watching Ryan Seacrest squirm when they snubbed him on the red carpet.

Way to kick the night off with randomness Sting, with his shocking suddenly brown hair, and the camera cutting to Colin Farrell having the same reaction of surprise that you were probably having in your living room.

Award that made me the happiest Bruuuuuuuuce. The man is turning 60 this year. You Bruce haters be damned: besides the fact that he looks THAT good at that age, and still runs around on stage like he's 16, the man is a musical genius. Deal with it.

Award(s) that made me the unhappiest I can't believe my man Jon Hamm from Mad Men AND the awesome January Jones (also Mad Men) both lost. Plus it just reminded me how long I have to wait for new episodes. Sigh.

Cringe Moment The brilliant actor, Don Cheadle, being announced as the star of the upcoming film, HOTEL FOR DOGS. Don, please fire your agent immediately.

You know you Googled her after she won Sally Hawkins, who had to walk a mile to the stage because no one thought she had a snowball's chance in hell of beating the likes of Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson.

But why? Can't they just put a damn podium up so people don't have to juggle their awards?

My life's work is so inferior My thoughts as I watch the Stephen Spielberg lifetime achievement award montage.

I hate to digress but I can't believe the only food I have ingested today is the following, with no embellishment: 1 bagel with cream cheese, nachos, Ben and Jerry's S'mores ice cream. But at least I went to the gym! Ok, now back to regularly scheduled Globe blogging. Confessing is cathartic. Ahhhh.

Who knew Colin Farrell was that smart? Not me. That dude rambled forever with no notes and said some pretty great stuff. Check your DVR if you don't believe me.

Blah, blah, blah Is it just me, or does Angelina Jolie seem like she would have one of those limp fish handshakes?

Worth staying up for even if the gym is seeming less and less likely tomorrow morning I am such a sucker for a comeback. Mickey you crazy, crazy dude. Only you could show up wearing THAT, stick your hand down your pants during your speech, have the director flip you off...and yet I was teary eyed and cheering alone in my living room like a total weirdo. (Of course, by living room I mean also my bedroom and kitchen, too. Ah, New York studio livin'.)

Ok, FINE, I'll go see Slumdog Millionaire. I hate being left out!