Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel, John Perich, and special guest Zack Johnson from Kingdom of Loathing and the Hotdog Podcasts to overthink Glee 3D, So You Think You Can Dance, cotillion, and the use and abuse of good manners.
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Oh, ouch. It hurts my heart a little when you criticize Glee, wrather. I’ve never loved the big group numbers but nothing beats one of Lea’s big solo ballads. As to being homogenized into an acceptable standard…that’s kind of what Glee has ended up being about. Taking all these people from different backgrounds and melding into a caring group that accepts everyone with room for a few sarcastic comments but on the whole, tolerance and cheer.
Glee is like a Reader’s Digest for pop music, abridging stuff that’s already extremely accessible into bite-size packages that are even more accessible. But in my opinion, that’s kind of insulting to the original artists. If I want to hear “Like a Prayer”, I can put on a Madonna album and hear the definitive version, which is about as perfect a version as that song is ever going to get. Glee seems to cater to those people who like to listen to 45 seconds of their favorite song and then switch to another favorite song. I’m glad they’re putting forth that message of acceptance, but do they have to flippantly abuse pop music in the process?
Let me just say, that for the first question I would pick How I Met Your Mother. Mostly because I would almost certainly pay money to see Neil Patrick Harris singing and dancing, because he’s amazing.
They do a Gilbert and Sullivan in Star trek insurection
Given I listen to both Advice and Video Games Hot Dogs (and have downloaded but not listened to Family Hot Dog) I feel I’ve listened to a distressing/awesome number of hours of Zack in the last week of catching up from holiday.
Also, he and Roy answered a question of mine and that made me very very happy.
I was thinking a similar thing as I downloaded the OTI podcast while listening to Advice Hot Dog and having a Video Games Hot Dog to get to. Mostly that I was glad Zack doesn’t have an annoying voice since I’d be hearing it so much this week and now a new VGHD has dropped to add to my list.
I heard your question on AHD and did a search finding the short intro Psycomedia podcast. Any idea when the next episode will come out? Will you have a site to download from, or will it only be on iTunes? I prefer not going there if possible.
feeds.feedburner.com/Psycomedia is our RSS feed, and psycomedia.wordpress.com is our website (don’t worry, when the first episode comes out, I’ll be hopefully promoting it around the web).
Basically, the first episode will be recorded some time in September, because my co-host is a doctoral student who has a thesis deadline at the end of August, so is super-busy with his research and writing it up right now. After that, it’ll still really depend on his schedule – I’m hoping to be fortnightly to start with, as that’s quite regular but it’s not excessive. It might be that we record more than one episode at once and then space out the release. The first episode is definitely going to be on the neuroscience of memory, which is funnier than you could possibly believe.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Psycomedia and http://psycomedia.wordpress.com so they are clickable.
I enjoyed the discussion of manners and etiquette and whether they are relevant anymore.
If I had kids, I’d much rather teach them not to use “retard” or “gay” as terms of derision than the right kind of fork to use for salad. Manners should be a matter of mutual respect and tolerance, particularly in a multi-cultural world, not a way of demonstrating your social status.
You’re not the only one thinking this way. There’s a lot of focus in schools right now on bullying and respect. Parents are also teaching their children not to call others ‘stupid’ or ‘ugly’ or ‘fat’ (which is hard, considering that so much of TV is belittlement and degradation humor).
I think the openness about self-aggrandizing negativity toward others, especially in high school, came on with a vengeance after the Columbine shootings, but then died off once it got intertwined with the dwindling political correctness movement. But lately it’s back in the spotlight, thanks to cyber-bullying and anti-gay harrassment.
Intriguingly, a fascinating, if uncomfortable, discussion of this comes in Zack’s Video Games Hot Dog, episode 13 (the start of that episode), where they kindly call OTI above casual homophobia.
True Story: My undergrad has an “etiquette dinner” available only to juniors and seniors. When I did it as a junior, we were told not to eat whole cherry tomatoes- one must cut them in half! I tried it with my salad and squirted the gal across me in the face. Point: Some of the rules feel more like a hassle and lead to more awkward situations for klutzes such as myself.
Re: Sexism in Etiquette
I think a lot of the stuff with sexist origins is universally applicable, and anybody can do it for anyone else, sex and gender aside. I tend to walk on the outside, for example, simply because I’m protective of everybody I care about and would rather have myself closer to traffic than anyone I may be with; and if I’m going through a door, I appreciate anyone else holding it open for me (and actually think it’s kind of rude when they let it shut on me), man or woman alike.