Scotty, Lauren, Rachel and Tosh.

As I get older, it’s harder and harder to be a true pop-culture junky.

Not to be a curmudgeon, but Movies have been slowly going down hill since Hollywood discovered that 13-25 year have tons of disposable cash. And the next big target is parents with kids in the 5-12 range. I don’t automatically hate a movie targeted to that audience, but how about adding a little depth and style to a glorified 88-minute sitcom. Where is the next John Hughes or Stephen Spielberg hiding? (Ok, my apologies to Apatow, Nolan, and a few others that still make me happy at the movies…but I’m trying to make a point here…the really good movies are few and far between)

Musically, I take refuge in the 80’s, before Rap, Hip-Hop and Britney Spears sucked most of the life out a thing called melody. I’m a piano player myself but there seems to be a qualitative difference between Elton John’s antics and Lady Gaga’s. Elton wrote some timeless melodies to go along with Bernie’s surreal yet usually touching lyrics. I can’t even bring myself to type any lyrics to “Caught in a Bad Romance”.

Fashion I never really cared about, so I can’t say there. Sports used to be about sports, myths and legends. Now, sports is about entertainment and celebrity.

When I grew up, pop-culture wasn’t quite a word yet and there was so little of it, you could actually keep up with it all. Now, it’s just overwhelming how much of it there really is. And I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. In fact, in one area it’s a huge plus that there is so much of it. In case you haven’t guess it, that area is TV.

We are in the true Golden Age of Television, but this blog/rant isn’t about that. This blog is about one semi-perfect night/day of TV, that wasn’t even possible when I was a kid.

While cooking dinner I caught up on two Showtime dramas; Nurse Jackie and U. S. of Tara. I won’t defend those shows or tell you how good they might be. I will tell you that they are different…which is why I enjoy them. At 8 PM, Idol began, but we didn’t start watching it until 8:30-ish (but yeah, we watched it from the beginning, didn’t miss a minute of the actual show). (and did I mention I watched Nurse Jackie and U. S. of Tara from my kitchen a good 30-feet from the 60-inch HD TV in the living room).

I’ve been a Scotty fan all season and he didn’t disappoint. He didn’t wow like he’s done in the past, but he did very well. I haven’t been a Lauren fan, and I’ve hated the judges constantly reminding her to grow some self-esteem. She seemed less tentative last night and she actually killed with her final number. Song selection, as the judges will tell you, is so important and the Idol Engine managed to give her a much better song than Scotty. Idol always tries to make it a horse-race, and this year was no different. As it gets closer and closer to the finals, the judges are nicer and nicer to the underdog.

But…Lauren killed and Scotty didn’t. I still voted for Scotty and ran into many busy signals (a rant for another day about how retarded Idol’s voting system is). But back to perfection.

Following Idol, we went directly to Glee. Glee is definitely a guilty pleasure for me. I’m just entertained by it. Kurt wasn’t as annoying as he usually is. Rachel wasn’t either. Musical numbers didn’t seem as drawn out, missed Sue but not that much, not too much real drama, just mostly fun. Yes, it’s liberal agenda is always there…but at the heart of Glee is this. Just about any two people can meet and fall-in-love and I’m not sure that’s such a bad message.

And at the end of Glee…we moved on to another very, very Guilty Pleasure. Mr. Daniel Tosh. Always shocking, always silly, often stupid, always fun. I laugh and clap often when I watch Mr. Tosh (even when I don’t have a Tequila Sunrise or Glass of Wine in me).

But here’s the nice part. I watched all that TV with absolutely no commercials. Sure, I had to fast-forward through them, but I didn’t watch them. George Carlin had a list called “The 7 words you can’t say on TV”. Those 7 words are all over TV now (sometimes bleeped out, sometimes not, depending on which channel you’re on). But there were 7 other words I never wanted to hear as a kid while watching TV and I now I don’t have to hear them anymore. Those 7 words were…

“And now, a word from our sponsor”