Vote For Me And I'll Set You Free

Many of you* have been asking me, "Joe, we just love your blog so much! You're awesome! Short of actually handing you piles of cash, is there any way we can show our appreciation for you?" Well, now there is!

CBSPhilly.com is the catch-all site for the local CBS-owned TV and radio stations, including CBS-3 television, KYW Newsradio (1060 AM) and sports-talk WIP (610 AM -- at least for now; it's been reported that they plan to move to/simulcast on FM next month). At their website voting has now begun for Philadelphia’s Most Valuable Blogger Awards 2011, in the following categories: Dining/Entertainment, Sports, Lifestyle, Local Affairs, Health/Fitness/Medical and...Everything Else.

And guess who's been nominated in the "Everything Else" category?

Go on...guess!

Okay, I guess the image at right sort of gives it away.

Now, the stakes aren't that high. The only prizes they're giving away are $50 Amazon gift cards (12 in total, 6 to the top vote-getter in each category and 6 "Editor's Choice" picks.

You can go here to vote in my category. (Scroll down -- the nominees are listed alphabetically, so I'm in the T (for "The") section. And you can check out all the categories here. The voting is open now and runs through September 9, and you can vote once every day. And feel free to pass this on to your family, friends, neighbors, frenemies, acquaintances, pets, the supermarket cashier, the file clerk at your office, the toll collector on the turnpike, etc. Thank you for your support!

*"Many" in this case equals "no one." This is called "writer's embellishment." But it seems I have my friend Kurt to thank, as he told me today that he nominated my blog. How I became a finalist, I have no idea.

CBS Encouraging Bad Behavior? Or Desperate?

Another blog item at EW.com caught my eye today. It seems that a doofus jumped over a fence today during the CBS "Early Show" and did a shout out to Coney Island while putting his arm around co-host Harry Smith. Why is this interesting?

During football and baseball games, if an idiot runs onto the field, usually the TV cameras cut away, not showing the intruder because they don't want to encourage others to try and get their moment in the spotlight the same way. Unfortunately, that leaves only poor-quality video when something special occurs. CBS has, according to the blog, put the video of today's interruption on their website and YouTube.

You think, "Okay, CBS desperately wants people to watch their morning show. The ratings have always been terrible during the morning. So even if other dimwits now hop the fence and manhandle the hosts, at least people will watch."

But then the blog mentions an "Early Show" overhaul that begins next week -- which means even if someone sees that clip and thinks, "Wow, I like how those hosts handled that! I think I'll start watching this show!" -- as improbable as that is -- on Monday there will be all new hosts! So why bother putting the clip online?

(The image above, by the way, is apparently how the CBS logo looked in 1966. I kinda like it.)

Amazing Race: Smith Still In There (Plus: I'm Famous)

I won't bother with the big SPOILER ALERT!!!!! warning here. If you haven't watched Sunday's "Amazing Race" by now, well, as Scott Rolen once said, "Sorry about your luck." Former Phillies coach Steve Smith and his daughter Allie, in 4th place starting this week's show, are still alive but have dropped to 7th place out of the 9 remaining teams. How this happened is hard to tell because they got virtually no screen time. I guess the EW.com writer is right about them being too boring.

She does have a good point in her latest recap, regarding Jet and Cord, the cowboys who currently hold the lead:

The one truly disturbing moment of the episode for me came when Jet and Cord were on the boat going to Isla Margarita. They were gabbing about how they didn't bring swimsuits and Cord says "I've been skinny dipping once or twice" at which point Jet scoots away from him as if his partner were a leper. I have lost all patience for this kind of jokey homophobia. What's wrong Jet? Would swimming with a naked guy make you gay? If you really think that or feel you need to make that "joke" you have bigger problems than a plastic bag on your cowboy hat. And Berty V-M, let's nix the homophobic jokes in editing, shall we?

Totally agree. It's possible that it was left in because of the gays in the race. Perhaps there's a bit of foreshadowing of a future conflict with the lesbian couple (currently in 3rd place) or the gay guy teamed with his straight brother (8th)? Meanwhile, last week's leaders, "Big Brother" couple Jordan and Jeff, are now in 6th place and the team that includes the ditsy former Miss Teen South Carolina are 4th.

By the way, since I hadn't seen anything in the local papers about Steve Smith being on the show, I decided to share my "scoop" with them. I emailed the TV critics and the local features/gossip columnists from both the Inquirer and Daily News. I got nice replies from all four writers. Both papers reported the story and one, the Inquirer's Michael Klein, was kind enough to mention me and my little old blog. I'm a rising star, baby! ;-)

Amazing Race: Good Start For Ex-Phils Coach

As I previously reported -- apparently exclusively, since as of this writing neither the Inquirer nor Daily News has mentioned this in their papers or at philly.com -- former Phillies third-base coach Steve Smith and his daughter Allison are contestants on the new season of "The Amazing Race" on CBS. The series debuted on Sunday night, and since I'm writing about it I can use this phrase for the first time on this blog...

SPOILER ALERT!!

THAT'S RIGHT -- DON'T READ FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED YET!!

THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING, DAMMIT!!!!

There. Wasn't that fun? At any rate, the racers were off to Chile, where at one point they had to grab some paint, brushes and a ladder and run to the house whose outside matched their color to paint an unfinished wall. Some of the teams had trouble finding their house. Among them was Steve and Allie, who at one point went inside a building and began painting, to the confusion of some local workers. It was edited out of the broadcast, but the Smiths eventually completed their task well enough that they finished in 4th place when they arrived at the first pit stop.

Alas, in the EW.com TV Watch recap for the show, the writer has already declared that Steve and Allie are one of the teams she's "already feeling bored with." Phillies fans had a different feeling when first experiencing the work of Steve Smith (see my previous blog).

I have to decide whether or not to continue watching the series. It's on at 8 pm, the same time as "The Simpsons," which means I'd have to DVR one of them and hope for no delays due to sporting events running late -- especially since I have "Family Guy" and "Desperate Housewives" at 9. But it could be entertaining. Among the participants are a lesbian couple, a gay man with his straight brother, former "Big Brother" contestants Jeff and Jordan (she won on that show, apparently) and the former Miss Teen South Carolina who brought us this magic moment:

Adam Lambert and TV Network Lunacy

So let's sum this up: on Sunday ABC televised the American Music Awards. The show ended with a performance by Adam Lambert. It was wildly over-the-top in his sexual acting-out, including simulated oral sex, among other things. The mildest part of the whole thing was probably when he kissed his keyboardist, another man.

Then the morons took over. ABC canceled Lambert's scheduled Wednesday performance on "Good Morning America" because they were afraid of more of the same. CBS eagerly snapped him up to perform on "The Early Show" the same day, and interviewed him about the controversy. While doing so, they showed a clip from the AMAs, and CBS blurred out the kiss between Lambert and his keyboardist. Moments later, they showed footage of Madonna kissing Britney Spears from the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards -- unedited.

What we have here are two networks so afraid to alienate part of their dwindling audience that they made utterly stupid decisions that end up alienating another part of the audience -- the part with working brains. The broadcast networks are a shell of their former selves anyway. Where there were once only three networks and some independent stations, there are now hundreds of cable networks, the Internet, DVDs, iTunes, cell phones that play video, and so on. The audience is fractured, probably forever. So it behooves a network to not give in to foolishness, to not be conservative and boring. To stand out in the crowd it takes boldness.

ABC struck out by canceling Adam Lambert's GMA appearance without, oh, contacting him on Monday or Tuesday and saying, "Hey, Adam, we loved what you did on our awards show. The ratings were up, which we're grateful for. But that type of performance wouldn't really go over at 7 a.m., you know? You probably know that, so you'll tone things down, right?"

CBS struck out by displaying hypocrisy. It's okay to show two women kissing, but not two men? Double standard much, CBS? Let's refine the question. It's okay to show two straight women kissing each other, but it's not okay to show two men, at least one of whom is gay, kissing?

Two network dinosaurs, slowly dying. With decisions like these, they won't be missed.