WilliamBruceWest.com He's Forgotten More About Pop Culture Than You'll Ever Know…

Saved By The Bell Sick Day & Lil Wayne’s Virgin Fest Failure

"All of my friends have a ring on their finger, they have someone"

It's been awhile, and I don't even know where to begin. I'm actually sick right now, and had a kickass day off work. Well, that is, if "kickass" translates into "felt like I was going to boot for a 24-hr period". Plus, I'm guessing the abundance of Clyde's rum & cokes last night didn't help matters, either.

Anyway, it was a GREAT day for daytime television. First off, I got to watch 2 of my favorite Saved By The Bell sagas, back-to-back. Things started off with the 2-parter where Jessie's old-ass dad was gonna marry the aerobics instructor and Jessie wasn't havin' it! You know, there weren't a lot of episodes focusing on Ms. Spano, but whenever she got center stage, it was always a doozy. She was a diabolical beeyotch in those episodes. Plus, if her dad owns that resort, she must be LOADED - which, btw, conflicts with the story we were told back in season 1, about her parents being hippy protestors. I mean, her dad is clearly suckling on the big, sweet teat of capitalism now. That was followed up by the "Sorry You're Homeless at Christmas" saga. Yes, the show does establish Zack as quite the poonhound, but I will never see what he saw in that homeless girl. Sure, she was sweet, but wasn't that the point? "Homeless girl with the heart of gold"? Zack's never cared about golden hearts unless he could sell them. The older I get, the more smarmy Zack's tactics appear. I've said it before, but I think if The College Years had made it to a second season, we might've seen a very special episode with a date rape charge.

Next, I watched an all-day marathon of the short lived UPN show, Jake 2.0. Damn, was that a good show! Long story short, it's The Six Million Dollar Man meets Chuck. Anyway, thanks to the show, my new celebrity crush is Keegan Connor Tracy. Go ahead and Google her, I'll wait.

Then, I watched an entertaining episode of Gunsmoke, complete with William Katt playing a criminal, and a young Nick Nolte as a dead sheriff's deputy. Say what you will about modern entertainment, but TV was awfully violent back then.

Then, I was surprised to stumble across Love, Actually, which is one of my favorite movies of all time (I love you, Martine McCutcheon!). Plus, this was followed up by A Goofy Movie, another of my favorite movies of all time (I love you, voice of Jenna Von Oy, attached to the sweet ass of Jenna Von Oy!). All this was capped off by a fresh episode of Ben 10: Alien Force, and my regularly scheduled Tuesday night onslaught of Whose Wedding Is It Anyway? If not for the fact that I felt like shit, it would've been a great day.

Let me just say that I don't give a flying shit about professional sports, but I have loved every minute of the Brett Favre saga. You see, ever since There's Something About Mary, Brett has belonged to pop culture. I don't think I'd ever visited ESPN.com in my life, but it was a regular fixture on the BlackBerry over the past month. It might be worth me actually paying attention to football this season, just to see how this all plays out on the field.

So, I also went to Virgin Mobile Fest again over the weekend. Not as action-packed as last year. Foo Fighters were clearly the best act of Saturday, while I think Kanye took the title on Sunday. Kanye's still dealing with the death of his mom, so he just starts freestyling and going on these rants, but you know they're coming from someplace deep inside. You wonder if he's having a breakdown right in front of you, but it's a powerful form of "group therapy". I LOVED Chromeo, and everyone should buy their album, Fancy Footwork. That's right, I said BUY. Can't get "Momma's Boy" out of my head. The most... interesting performance, however, had to have been Lil' Wayne.

So, Weezy F. Baby comes out on stage 45 mins late. By this point, the majority of the crowd has already begun to boo the stage. His posse comes out for about 10 mins, and they just strut around to a pre-recorded track. When he finally comes out, Weezy decides to get religious on us. He tells us that, first, he believes in God. He then, for some reason, asks the crowd if they do, as well, which is met with a pretty resounding "no". Not sure if it was because they're pissed at him, or if the Virgin Mobile Fest is simply the largest atheist music festival since John Lincoln's "Jesus Ain't In My Guitar" Tour of 1987. * Anyway, he goes into all his hits, plus he runs through all the guest verses he'd done on other people's albums, which was a bit weird. You'd hear the music start for "Put On", Weezy'd sing his verse, and then he'd move on to the next song. Then, he really kicks us in the collective balls: he surprises us with Kanye coming out (5 hrs before his own set) so they can do the Lollipop Rmx. Kanye gets through his verse, and when it's Weezy's turn, he gets 3 words into it, stops, and says, "Aw, man. I don't even know that verse noway!" And he's done. He doesn't start back up. He doesn't try to finish up by switching to the album version. No, he's done. He proceeded to tell us hw much he loved us, which kicked off Whitney's "I Will Always Love You", and he ran around the stage. Then, they covered him in a red, terrycloth robe and he left the stage. I shit you not...

Energy levels fading fast. Well, that's all I've got until next time. Oh, and I hate the New Facebook. Just sayin'...

*Don't Google it - I made that shit up.