Blog Rolling

This week, for one of my grad courses, I have been assigned the task of creating a blog roll. Essentially, this is a list of blogs I read on a regular basis. Except, of course, that the only blog I read with regularity is kind of mortifying. Let me explain first, because I will post it eventually in the spirit of honesty, why this is something I read.

I like crappy tv. More specifically, I enjoy crap reality tv. To be fair to myself, I gave up Real World and the Battle Real World shows a few years back, but I have been sucked into equally poor shows since then. Am I unoriginal in saying that it is freeing to watch a reality program that has no basis in my reality? Is it unethical of me to take viewing pleasure from viewing individuals with what I deem to be poor decision making skills? Perhaps...

Long ago, as a adolescent without cable at her house, I would travel to friend's homes that were happily equipped with stations like MTV and VH1 and relish the pop culture menagerie. I watched episodes for the original Real World, whose cast is now in their 30's or more. In college, I could easily get sucked into marathons of Real World instead of doing my homework-- or was I multi-tasking?:) Anywho, I also enjoyed the first season of Survivor, I love the Amazing Race and I weekly got together with a girlfriend to watch The Bachelor. In recent years, it's been all about Bravo and their shows: Top Chef and Project Runway. Unfortunately, motherhood and life as a busy teacher and adult has narrowed my tv viewing time to an hour or so a week. Nowadays, I am more likely to quote a Pixar movie than anything else.

And then, there was a lone evening when my son and his father were at Dad's Class (Early Childhood Family Education-- check out the website if you know of someone with little ones http://ecfe.spps.org/) and I was eating dinner and flipped on the tv to VH1 and there he was: Bret Michaels. Back in the day, I was a typical teen who liked her "hard rock" on the Top 40 radio station. Poison was known to me, as were his blond locks. And here he was, back for another season (the third, I would learn) to find love. How deliciously trashy and fun. The next hour sped by for me as shallow remark followed nearly indecent exposure and cliche interview after another. It was freeing and my mind was emptied of all thoughts of schoolwork, house cleaning or stress.

So the thing is, the only blog I read weekly is Rock of Love Bus because I am not compromised enough to sit down to watch it every week. I do have other pressing things to do:)

When I started to search for blogs I might like to read, I went immediately to NPR.org. I'm a public radio junkie, having given up on Clearchannel years ago. I found their pop culture gal and decided that as a people.com addict, this would be a good one for me, but alas, once I started reading it, I found my interest lagging. And then I glanced to the right of the screen and saw that blog's blog roll and I went through that and there were more hits and misses. Feeling a bit vexed by my own pickiness and the inability of other bloggers to satisfy my appetite for pop culture with every post, I went to VH1.com to relax and catch up on one blog I know I can count on: The Rock of Love Bus.

So, with apologies, one entry on my blogroll will feature a slightly tasteless, but to my mind harmless (and also biting) accounting of Rock of Love Bus.

On a slightly related note, my students learned that I watched this "gem" of a show and were in hysterics. Once the laughter died down, one student began an animated discussion with me about the show. In no way do I deliberately watch shows like this to "connect" with kids, but there is value in knowing or being familiar with some of their world. Well parents, colleagues and students, what blogs do you follow? How do you stay connected with young people's influences and interests?