Jacob on televisionwithoutpity.com, cowboys, and Kaya

is awesome. You need to watch Battlestar Galactica and American Idol just so you can read his recaps. He sees things I completely miss, and I enjoy the shows much more through him than I do through my own filters, especially since I use my own filters first and then get to supplement mine with his.

Having said that, he doesn't do everything right, and sometimes he doesn't do enough. This is what he said about the American Idol cowboys:

Then there is a thing, a movie parody of sorts, about...aw, hell. Okay, Garet the Turkey Singer is kind of a cowboy, right? And there's this violently sexy dude Sars is in love with named Matthew Buckstein, and he's a cowboy. And there's Michael Evans, who is black, but has a cowboy hat. Right? And Garet, while there are more pressing concerns at issue, seems to be pretty gay, for a preschooler, but will probably never know that, because he lives in the kind of solitude that normally results in Chainsaw Massacres, chromosomal shenanigans, farm animal sex. So. Cowboys: some gay, all prone to crying. In the winter of 2006. About one hundred months previous, a movie came out (hopefully in a theatre near you -- it's a damn fine movie -- but if it didn't, it's not going to, and you should move anyway) that involved cowboys who were somewhat gay in that they fell in total gay love with each other. One of them was really controlling and ruined everybody's life around him for like forty years without even opening his mouth or talking above a palsied, brain-stroke-looking mumble, and the other one was Donnie Darko and was totally asking for it. So what does this have to do with American Idol? Good question. Garet and a turkey, and then Matt and Michael fell in love with his weird little Hobbit ass, and none of them have their act together at all. That's basically the joke. If you just heard of Brokeback Mountain last week, I guess it might be funny -- although it would still make little sense -- but you didn't, so it's not, so we're moving on.

It's 30 minutes later and the cowboys are practicing, and the Brittenums are back, they apologize, nobody cares, Simon thinks they're a fucking joke, which they are, and they for some reason get through. But do not fret! The cowboys come in and everybody cheers, because they love them and then they sing the "Doo-Wah Ditty" song, the only song stupider than "Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch," and it is a shambles. Michael doesn't know the words and has a nice voice, but you can't really tell due to the singing over each other in an ugly fashion and the disconcertingly creepy way each of them is dancing and the fact that they all sing the song horribly. Garet's the worst, singing with his eyes closed like that little girl in Palindromes. Joe R: "Shoulda had a tracheotomy." Jacob: "And not sucked."

Simon stresses hatefully for the seeming ten minutes they sing, and Garet is so nervous, it's sickening. It's entirely a joke. Finally Simon stops them, and Paula laughs, and the crowd laughs hysterically and Matthew makes some kind of joke about how he was about to "do the hip thrusts" and maybe he'll just do those later, and Simon levels. "In a few months' time you will look back and wonder why you blew the opportunity of a lifetime by trying to be bad comedians." Michael begs to differ, like that's better, but Simon compares it to a "just ridiculous, ghastly party with drunken people trying to entertain an audience that isn't interested," which is apt. He's so angry with them! He dismisses them summarily and then Paula kisses her co-judges, narrowly missing Randy's soon-to-be-declared "luscious" lips.

Outside, Michael cries and talks totally crazy: "It makes me angry, what Simon said up there. I get it, it's only one Idol, dude. But it's America...I feel like we got that bond." I don't know what that means, but Matthew agrees, and then delivers a moving speech about how Garet is an inspiration, and they both get weepy about how much they love Garet, and then Garet tries to climb Matthew as they're all crying, apologizing for letting them down, and Matthew wraps himself around the kid and whispers quietly, "Listen, cowboy, you didn't let me down. You did the best you could." Garet is very, very small, and Matthew is very large, and both guys love Garet more than reason should allow. There then detonates a Hobbit-loving sex bomb that is completely above-board and sweet and kind and good, but also awesome to watch at home. Garet is shown leaving the hotel in a neckerchief, carrying a hat box, and yammers at the camera for awhile, and then they all walk off down the street together, probably still crying.

Which is all true, but isn't enough... Because the cowboy's sucked because Garet sucked. Rather than toss him, or wreck him, or even sort of subtely compartmentalize him in their act so that his suckness contrasted with their- whatever they are- the older cowboys went 3 Musketeers. Once they went that route it was obvious they would not make it, so yeah, they didn't try to avoid being comedic.

You need to keep in mind that they never consciously CHOSE to go that route- that decision wsa made long ago when they or the people who raised them created them to be awesome men. So when Michael cries it is not so much because he feels they were good, as that he realizes that his unconscious decision to be a good man resulted in his being ridiculed for NOT HAVING HEART- when in fact he is like Cuba Gooding Jr. in Jerry McGuire, and if he'd been conscious of all this he would have told the camera- "No heart? I'M ALL HEART, MOTHERFUCKER!"

Same goes for the white cowboy. Cowboy's rock.

Kara- Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica, was headed for a nervous breakdown which COULD have led to her becoming even more awesome than what she was... COULD have led to her becoming a higher being along the lines of Edward James Olmos or President Rosling- and then the fuggin' show SKIPS FORWARD A MONTH and all we see is that somehow she recovered from her tailspin as though it never happened in such a way that she hasn't evolved at all...

I CALL SHENANIGANS... Jacob did not. But- so far he has only written a recaplet. Maybe he'll go off about it in the big essay that follows...