Pop Culture Confessional

Bless me, reader, for I have sinned. It has been quite a while since my last confession. In the interest of putting off the work I'm supposed to be doing today, I find myself watching a repeat of "Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll," aka, "America's Next Top Talentless Skank." Call it what you will - morbid curiosity...shameless procrastination...whatever...I actually read a write-up that classified it as shameless guilty pleasure TV, and though I already have plenty of shameless guilty pleasures, I really don't want to face that grant proposal before my second cup of coffee. So...here we are. And I feel the need to share some of my thoughts:

- There is one girl who says she is a dancer, not a singer. She "makes no pretense of being a singer." Okay, I realize this is the Pussycat Dolls, not..you know...an ACTUAL singing group, but COME ON. They ARE a recording group - shouldn't they at least put up a front of looking for people who can actually sing??? Although I suppose I have seen ACTUAL Pussycat Dolls forget to hold the microphone to their mouths when they're "singing," so she may, in fact, have a good shot.

- One girl quit her "punk rock band" to audition for this because she thinks "singing and dancing...at the same time" is the ultimate challenge for her and what she is meant to achieve. Yeah. You do that. And here I've been wasting all this time trying to cure cancer.

- There is one girl who says she is a singer, not a dancer. Okay, yeah, you don't have a snowball's chance in hell. And I think I recognize you from Making the Band 3. Not that I watched that.

- On second thought, I think Making the Band Girl and Can't Dance Girl are two different people. Too many Melissas, and I sure as hell don't care enough to keep them straight.

- Melissa count: 3. I think.

- Plane Crash Girl: Yes, it is horribly tragic that your parents and brother died in a plane crash and that you were supposed to be on that plane. However, since you begin every statement about your limitations with, "since my parents died, it's hard to..." you have already used up your sympathy points.

- "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer" count: 1

- While I appreciate the high drama factor involved with half of the girls coming down with a vicious stomach bug the night before the big elimination, do we really need the closeup on the girls while they puke? MTV has mercifully toned down the amount of vomit footage since Jackass went off the air - apparently somebody felt the need to pick up the slack.

- One of the two girls receiving an IV offstage at the audition/elimination just said, "The doctor said he needed to put an IV in me...I started shaking...whatever it was he put in me just went straight into my bloodstream." There are no words.

- Making the Band Girl - way to wear a little skirt that flashes your panties with every step you take. Now THAT's the way to become the Next Doll. But IV Girl is giving you some tough competition in that regard. The former has white panties, the latter black - it's like you're the Skanky Angel and Skanky Devil sitting on the shoulders of the Lead Doll. Aww...that's almost sweet.

- Non-Singer Girl just made it through. Honey, there HAVE to be better ways to use your classical ballet training. Get out while you still can.

- IV Girl made it - that decision can not have been made on her performance, because girl looked like leftover hell warmed over. It must have been the panties.

- Plane Crash Girl did not - good, because now I don't have to continue disliking her and feeling guilty about it because, you know, her whole family died in a plane crash.

- Oh...OH...but next week the celebrity guest judge is...LI'L KIM!!!! Okay, that might be enough to bring me back for one more try. So yeah, the show is complete trash, but there is enormous cattiness potential and it's fun to watch the Lead Doll seethe as she tries to figure out who is least likely to upstage her.

Okay, that was mildly amusing. Now "Crossroads" is on...aww...Britney Spears when she was still cute and not yet batshit insane...ah, but Britney is a pop culture confession for another day.

Feel free to post your pop culture confessions in the comments...it really is good for the soul to get it out there.