Super Bowl Suckiness

Well, what a week it's been. First, you may have noticed a lack of recent posts. It's not because there's nothing worth writing about for the past week, but it has been so goddam motherfucking cold, I've been in virtual hibernation since early last week. I swear the cold is sapping all my energy. I can barely make it out of bed, get to work, get home, and crawl back into bed. There is just no excuse for this cold. I'm actually kind of glad now that my New York trip isn't happening, I'd be stuck walking around the city for about 8 hours and it's even colder there than here. I'd end up in a homeless shelter just to get warm. So, last night, I finally crawled out of hibernation for the next installment of Grease and my weekend went from bad to worse.

Now, to start with, I swear that when I watched Grease (in order to help keep my sanity, I'm not typing in "You're The One That I Want" every time, just understand that when I say Grease, I'm really talking about the reality show on TV and not the stupid ass movie) last week, Billy and what's-her-name referred to "next week" several times. I took that to mean that there would be a new live show this weekend. Now, to understand where I'm about to go, you need to understand that I FUCKING HATE FOOTBALL. I hate all sports, but football is particularly egregious, partly because for most of the fall season, it fucks up all my Sunday night shows. The games are incapable of ending on time, so shows that start immediately after get pre-empted or we only get to see the last 2 minutes, and it drives me fucking nuts. Then there's the Superbowl. Granted, I am from Chicago, but that in no way gave me any desire to watch the Superbowl, and I am so fucking happy that the goddam Bears lost; while it won't end the craziness, it at least limits it. So, I will happily tune in to just about any type of counter-programming and I thought Grease would really be the ticket. I mean, come on, do the producers of Grease really think that their core audience would desert them for a sporting event? Not this queen. I'd Tivo it and watch it twice. And, on another side note, in recent years, Chicago has hosted more shows that have gone on to major Tony Award wins (The Producers, Light in the Piazza, Spamalot, Aida, Movin' Out) than we've had winning sports teams, and yet, there has never been a city-wide craze over the Tony Awards, even when The Producers, which had its world premiere in Chicago, swept the awards and set a new record. Granted, most of the masses don't have any culture and wouldn't understand a Tony Awards party, but it also shows a short sightedness on the part of our civic leaders. They love the money that theatre-related tourism brings in but don't care enough about theatre itself to do anything to celebrate it. So, back to my original point, I turned on the TV at 6 and found a re-run of the New York auditions. I figured, ok, it must be an hour show this week since they don't need quite so much padding now that we've seen all the contestants' introductory home movies. So, I flipped back to a movie I was watching and turned back at 7, expecting a live show. Nope, I got a rerun of the Grease Academy episode. So, I figured maybe it would be on at 8. Again, Nope, we got a rerun of last week's live show, and I'm a little confused first of all as to why, and second of all, what that means for the vote totals. If the producer's aren't going to count votes from the rerun, why bother re-running it? And, if they are going to count the votes from last night's show, they should have said something last week instead of telling us that "next week" we would find out the results. So, I checked the Tivo's built in guide, and sure enough, it looks like next Sunday (which would actually be "two weeks" from last week's live show) is when we finally get the results and get the next competition. What the fuck??? Please tell me they didn't cave to the Superbowl as well. That completely goes against everything theatre should stand for. I'm already on the fence about the show after last week's mediocre performances and I've lost even more respect for it now. Just ask American Idol what happens when I'm over a show (seriously, any show that would let a Taylor Hicks make it past the first round of auditions, much less let him win the fucking thing should be banned by the FCC on grounds of good taste). If the producers of Grease would like to make it up to me, I would be more than happy to be a guest judge on a future episode. Seriously, why haven't I been asked yet? So, we'll see next week if I feel like watching, and if I do, look for a recap next Monday.