Man, ya’ll are lucky I didn’t have my tape recorder working earlier this morning; if I had, I’d be transcribing every last obscenity I uttered when, just as I was preparing to save my second posting about yesterday’s panels, the internet connection hiccupped and lost everything I’d written…and I didn’t have time to re-write it before heading downstairs for today’s first panel. So, anyway, here I am, in my first live panel – i.e. I’m online as the panels are going on in front of me – but, at the moment, I’m just playing catch-up on yesterday. I mean, it’s the Disney Channel panels; they’re entertaining, but, to my knowledge, no-one here needs any real details on them, am I right? (If I’m wrong, of course, let me know; they provide transcripts, so I can still pick out a few quote highlights.)
Okay, let me grab a cup of coffee and get this show on the road, so I can be all caught up before the SoapNet panel on “General Hospital: Night Shift” begins!!!
Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders: Making the Team (CMT):
I’ll say this right now: any panel which opens with 12 members of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders show team coming onstage and doing a full routine that ends with lots and lots of high kicks…well, my friend, that’s on the short list for Best Panel Opening EVER. And it was a pleasant little panel, too. You could tell there was a certain amount of cynicism from some of the writers in attendance, particularly when one fellow asked (rather snarkily, I felt), “Is this a stepping stone onto something else, or is this the pinnacle of your career?” The response from veteran cheerleader Megan Fox, however, was heartfelt and honest:
“For those of us as performers…I mean, really, most of us have danced or done some type of cheerleading our entire lives, so this is really that bar that we’ve really worked so hard to reach. So for those of us, it’s kind of the icing on the cake. I really think that this is a dream come true. And for some of us, it will be the end of our performing careers, but for others, we’ll go on to teach, hopefully, and continue to be involved in the dance and performance world. But, really, this is just the icing on the cake for most of us.”
Take that, Cynical Boy!
Ty Murray’s Celebrity Bull Riding Challenge:
Okay, I admit it: I’ll watch this show. I always feel guilty when I watch a reality show that rounds up a bunch of celebrities who are, by most people’s definition, grade-C at best…but, c’mon, it’s a celebrity bull riding challenge. Senior Editor David Medsker giddily asked, “So is this our big chance to see Vanilla Ice gored by a bull live on camera?” Well, I don’t think so…or, if it is, he’s since gotten better:
To make David feel better, however, I clarified that, at the very least, we do apparently get to see Steven Baldwin get the shit kicked out of him by a bull; I felt comfortable saying this since, at one point in the preview clip, Baldwin – who, sadly, was not in attendance – is wearing a sling as the result of his encounter with a bovine. Some of the other celebs in the show who WERE in attendance, by the way, were former NFL player Rocket Ismail, actor Francesco Quinn (“24,” among other shows and films), and Jonny Fairplay (“Survivor: Pearl Islands”). What I learned from this session was a buddy show starring Jonny Fairplay, Vanilla Ice, and Rocket Ismail needs to be pitched to Spike TV; they’re clearly kindred spirits.
First up, the celebrities described the thrill they got from riding the bulls:
“As opposed to every other sport in the world, the bull is actually, you know, in control. So you learn to control the bull. And that’s what Ty, in his wisdom, was trying to teach us, how to control the bull. But this is an animal. This is a crazy, wild, strong animal. So there’s always that element. And that is where the thrill comes in: that you’re never really in control.” – Francisco Quinn
“The thrill was more like an intense feeling in your gut that was, like, ‘What the heck am I doing here, and where’s the bathroom.’ The thrill does come when you have a little bit of success, and you get either thrown off or you’re able to dismount properly and you’re alive and everything is working, and the bull didn’t run you over and step on you and gore you and you are feeling, like, ‘Wow.’ Then you’re like, ‘Wow, that was a thrill. That is the ultimate thrill.'” – Rocket Ismail
“I think for me, like, the first second sucks, like, ’cause you’re pooping yourself a little bit. Seconds 2 through 7 are the coolest rush you’ve ever had in your entire life. And second 8 means you have to get off, and he doesn’t let you off, so second 8 sucks, too. But 2 through 7 is really cool.” – Jonny Fairplay
“It’s an ultimate rush, adrenaline rush, for an adrenaline junkie like me. I’m telling you, it was amazing. I never thought I could do it. Ty made us all bull riders in nine days, and none of us really believed we could. And then after we did it, we felt like we accomplished something. So it was an accomplishment, an adrenaline rush, and, hopefully, it will make into a great show. It’s intense. The bull does not like you on his back. That rope is not wrapped around his balls, just to let you know. Everybody, even us, thought that was the reason they bucked. They buck because they don’t like you on your backs. If you get on the thing and you don’t take all those ropes off, that thing’s going to come at you. The bulls don’t like you. That’s just what it is. They got a bunch of mean bulls up there. They blow snot out their nose when they’re riding. It lands on you. (And) they poop inside the shoot before they’re about to go out because they’re, like, nervous.” – Vanilla Ice
Nice, Ice. And, by the way, he didn’t let that fascination with snot drop. Immediately thereafter, he was all but elbowing Ismail, saying, “Remember that? The snot came up and landed on the face and all over you.” (To be fair, Ismail reminisced fondly about the fecal matter himself, musing, “Poop. Man, that’s, like, explosive coming out of that bad boy.”)
By the way, if there’s ever any question that inside every man remains the little boy he was was, it was confirmed by the fact that Ismail pointedly avoiding telling his mother that he was doing this show, lest she worry about him. In retrospect, perhaps he should’ve maintained that mindset for his wife as well.
“I told my wife I was going to try one more event,” said Ismail, “because the PBR (Professional Bull Riders) was coming to Dallas, and I was really tempted to call up Ty and say, like, ‘Hey, man, do you think you could bring a bull down and I can get another ride?’ My wife is, like, ‘Let your emotions calm down. You’re too close to it.’ And we get to the PBR event in Dallas, and the cowboys – just best in the world, literally – were getting bucked off left and right, slammed against fences, stepped on the head, a lot of this stuff…and my wife literally turned to me, nice and slow, very serious, and said, ‘Your bull-riding days are over,’ turned around, and that was the end of it.”
Seven Ages of Rock (VH-1 Classic):
I haven’t had a chance to check out any of the episodes of this mini-series yet, but I have, at least, heard what the so-called “seven ages of rock” are: Birth of Rock, Art Rock, Heavy Metal, Punk, Alternative and Grunge, The UK, and Stadium Rock. Since Steven Van Zandt was on the panel (along with original MTV VJ Mark Goodman, who narrated the special), I had to ask if garage rock was being incorporated into any of the “ages.” But, first, I had to wait for someone to get the obligatory “Sopranos” question out of the way…which took until, oh, the second question. (“I didn’t think it would take this long,” said Goodman, who also wondered why anyone would ask Van Zandt, anyway. “He was in a coma. What does he know?”)
Van Zandt answered the question politely. “Right from the beginning, David Chase broke every rule in the book, and everybody loved him for it,” he said. “Literally, he just refused, all along, to sort of compromise and play that sort of Hollywood-imposed game of fradulent closure, you know. I mean, that was his position. He’s, like, ‘Life doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t get wrapped up every 30 minutes or every 60 minutes, and we’re not going to play that game.’ He’s just, like, ‘This is my last show on TV. I’m going out without compromising.’ And I think that’s how…he kept it that way right to the end. I thought it was a brilliant ending, myself.”
Van Zandt laughed when asked if he saw any similarities in working with Bruce Springsteen and David Chase. “Yeah, there’s a lot of similarities. I mean, just seeing New Jersey become fashionable twice in a lifetime was remarkable enough!” Getting more serious, he decided, “They’re both crazy and uncompromising and singular in their visions. And they both have been very, very inspirational to me. I’m proud to call both of them my friend. But whenever you sort of falter and you feel like, you know, ‘Jeez, maybe I should compromise a little bit,’ you look at those guys, and it’s, like, straight up. They’re not…they don’t care. They don’t do any marketing research. They’re not asking anybody’s opinions. They just have a vision, and they’re going to realize it. They’re just brilliant at that.”
Me, I just wanted to know if Steven’s favorite musical genre – garage rock – was touched on at all during the course of these so-called “7 Ages of Rock.”
“I think it’s interspersed throughout,” he said, though he also admitted, “I haven’t seen the whole thing. But garage rock is a little hard to define. It’s almost a state of mind, but in contemporary terms, what we feature in the show is…contemporary garage has a reverence for the ’50s and ’60s. If you could hear the ’50s and ’60s in the music of new bands, it’s usually garage rock. And then the classic garage rock era, of course, of ’66 or so, where there were a lot of the one-hit wonders, as they were called, that ended up on Lenny Kaye’s Nuggets package, were kind of like the freaks, you know, the misfits of rock n’ roll. And, you know, I’m not sure there’s actually an era that you can say is the ‘garage rock era.’ Maybe now…? Yeah, on the next one, Part Two, we’re have this era as the garage rock era…!”
Steven had a lot to say about the music industry in general, and I got even more of a earful when I sat down next to Steven after the session, along with two or three other writers, and he spoke at length about how the industry is imploding. I’ll work to transcribe that after I return, but in the meantime, I have to offer up this anecdote, which made me laugh out loud.
Steven was talking about the success of Born in the USA, and he was observing that “we had seven top-10 hits off that album! Seven top-10 hits! I mean, you think about that, and…like, we’re not the kind of artist you expect that from. You think of Michael Jackson, you think of Prince, you think of…”
Suddenly, a voice pops up from across the hall: “…Vanilla Ice.”
Our heads turn, and we see this man grinning at us:
My appreciation of the man jumped about ten points at that moment. It might not stay there, but it’s there at the moment, anyway.
Whoops, the “Night Shift” panel is coming up fast. Stay tuned for my wrap-up of “The Salt-N-Pepa Show” (I missed the panel because I was sitting with Steven at the time), as well as the BBC America and Discovery Channel panels…
