Clio, fighting tl;dr since 1979
So because I love my Rymon peeps, and I'm feeling that love back y'all, and because you must read this, I've gone through Jacob's essay on The Effects of Late Capitalism on Geopolitics, aka, the recap of Wednesday's Idol Gives Back, to pull out his thoughts on Ryan and Simon's African Honeymoon. Enjoy.
Jacob starts with Ryan's fuck up and Simon's low neckline, and Ellen, and Earth, Wind & Fire, and Randy in NOLA. Then it's the Quincy song, and some hating on Ben Stiller, and then finally:[Ryan] mentions his Africa trip with Simon again, a major feature of this night's entertainment, and Paula totally cocks one eyebrow like, "...And then they did it." Ryan is very earnest saying that they will never, ever forget that trip. Like you'll let us! Some African kids sing God songs, and Simon and Ryan watch. The twelve-year-old man of the house answers a few questions bravely before abruptly breaking into sobs; Ryan Seacrest holds him tight, and starts to cry. Simon watches. It's super goddamned intense but not especially awkward. It's not the bad kind of naked. To see Ryan Seacrest on a dirty floor, overcome with love and admiration for this kid, to see Ryan Seacrest recognize that kind of strength, and lay himself down in front of it, is nothing short of amazing. I didn't know you could love Ryan more; I literally did not know that was a possibility. I thought I'd hit the brick wall on that one.
In a country of 50,000 orphans, in a palimpsest of horror, there's a twelve-year-old boy named Grauman. He's a father to orphans; from nowhere he pulled out bravery and power and managed to do something most of us are still working on. He's more exhausted than any one person I've ever seen. The sons and daughters of Grauman sit and lean and stand; some of them could be older than him. Ryan begs the fathers of America to see this boy, their brother, to see the grace of what we can do, what's possible, what we're capable of doing. "This is the world's hardest working dad right here," says Ryan, and almost loses it again. Grauman smiles through his tears and continues to stand. Ryan and Simon can't even look at each other any more, it's too intense. They're like two men at adjoining urinals, only instead of their junk hanging out, it's their all of it. Story is the only way we can transmit any knowledge of anything, to each other or to the future; telling stories is how we distance ourselves from things, but it's also how we rise, and that's what they're trying to do here. Grauman pops out of the palimpsest and Ryan can see him, can see he's real, and it changes Ryan, because now he knows a Grauman, forever. And we already knew Ryan, so it's real now too for us? Or: Ryan holds onto Grauman with one hand, and with the other tries to tell us the untellable, to demonstrate simply by staring, naked, at the camera, that if we are not alone, then neither is Grauman, and neither is Ryan, and I don't know how to do this.
Interestingly, he skips over the awkward on-stage moment.
There's saving Melinda, Paula goes to the Boys and Girls club, Il Divo, Jack Black, saving Blake, Rascal Flats, Kentucky, the Pimpmercial containing the silly video, saving Phil, and then:This next part's rough, but luckily it's also twice as intense as before. Back to Africa, where Ryan and Simon are visiting a family that sleeps fourteen people in a "house" that's about the size of a tent. Three of the kids are Emily's; the rest are AIDS orphans. When it's time to go to sleep, they lie down, all in a row, on the floor, and she covers them with the blankets she's got. Three of them are HIV positive. In another house, there's Emma, who was doing well when Simon and Ryan first met her, but has sharply declined. She lies face-down on her bed, unable to speak or move. Simon starts to cry, in the heat and the smell of it, and begins to storm around. "This is not the right place for her." He completely breaks down, like, he can't handle it all. I never wanted to see him lose control. He leans against a wall and stares out into space. "It's just...wrong." Ryan's speechless, his whole body like a sounding board, like a tuning fork. Simon heads outside and drops himself onto a stone wall, weeping, almost ignoring the camera altogether. I mean to say that he runs outside, and throws himself down, because he can't handle it in there. With Emma and death in that tiny room. Ryan watches him cry; can't meet the camera. Then there's Ruth, twenty-eight years old, two kids, skinny as shit. Skin stretched across her cheekbones. She would have been beautiful once. She looks twice her age. Simon orders her out and into the truck; follows behind a man carrying her outside in his arms. She looks like she could just blow away, or crumble; he holds her tenderly. There's nothing in her eyes. They get her placed gently in the truck, Simon and Ryan with their hands on their hips, staring at each other and not seeing each other. "Would she...be more comfortable ... lying down? Or sitting." Simon's eyes dart from Ruth, to the man, to Ryan. Nobody's answering. Nobody knows. Ruth died two days later. Ryan and Simon stand in a tent city in Africa, shaking under the sun, full of enormity. All over Africa there are projects, pills and food and AVR cocktails; all over Africa there are mothers, like Ruth and Emma and Emily, getting sick and getting better, getting sick and dying. "We just have to get there in time."
I adore Jacob's characterization of Ryan as a tuning fork, because to me in Africa Ryan became 100% reaction, just running on instinct, completely opening himself up and only knowing what to do in any moment by paying incredibly close attention to everyone's nonverbal cues. While Simon, naturally, is busy being a Brit in Anglophone Africa, until he realizes that it doesn't work anymore, and has a breakdown, and then rallies and gets Ruth to the hospital.
Ellen intros Josh Groban, and then we get to the one part of the show that I was personally offended by, when fucking Exxon Mobil trotted out their nice African professionals. It was vile and disgusting, not only because it made Exxon Mobil look "better" but also because it exposed the kind of dance with the devil that you have to do when you're born in bad circumstances, or even generally when you are a person of color on this planet, even though fuck you because there are more of us than there are of you, White Man. (Sorry for those of you who've never heard me talk about race; I'm a Tragic Mulatto, though probably a quadroon to be accurate, and sometimes I gets tiiiired.)
So then Ryan talks about malaria, and Kelly sings, and there's a Simpsons cartoon, and LaKisha is safe, and Ryan gives a shout out to the charities, and Celine sings with Elvis, and Madonna does whatever, and Ryan actually has to do the Idol Challenge, and everybody vamps, and Annie Lennox sings amazingly a song that thank god none of the Idols sang the night before, and Chris and Jordin are safe, and Bono shows up, and there's another group sing, and Jacob has some final thoughts that oddly end up in the same place that Springer's always do: Take care of yourselves and each other.
Jacob starts with Ryan's fuck up and Simon's low neckline, and Ellen, and Earth, Wind & Fire, and Randy in NOLA. Then it's the Quincy song, and some hating on Ben Stiller, and then finally:[Ryan] mentions his Africa trip with Simon again, a major feature of this night's entertainment, and Paula totally cocks one eyebrow like, "...And then they did it." Ryan is very earnest saying that they will never, ever forget that trip. Like you'll let us! Some African kids sing God songs, and Simon and Ryan watch. The twelve-year-old man of the house answers a few questions bravely before abruptly breaking into sobs; Ryan Seacrest holds him tight, and starts to cry. Simon watches. It's super goddamned intense but not especially awkward. It's not the bad kind of naked. To see Ryan Seacrest on a dirty floor, overcome with love and admiration for this kid, to see Ryan Seacrest recognize that kind of strength, and lay himself down in front of it, is nothing short of amazing. I didn't know you could love Ryan more; I literally did not know that was a possibility. I thought I'd hit the brick wall on that one.
In a country of 50,000 orphans, in a palimpsest of horror, there's a twelve-year-old boy named Grauman. He's a father to orphans; from nowhere he pulled out bravery and power and managed to do something most of us are still working on. He's more exhausted than any one person I've ever seen. The sons and daughters of Grauman sit and lean and stand; some of them could be older than him. Ryan begs the fathers of America to see this boy, their brother, to see the grace of what we can do, what's possible, what we're capable of doing. "This is the world's hardest working dad right here," says Ryan, and almost loses it again. Grauman smiles through his tears and continues to stand. Ryan and Simon can't even look at each other any more, it's too intense. They're like two men at adjoining urinals, only instead of their junk hanging out, it's their all of it. Story is the only way we can transmit any knowledge of anything, to each other or to the future; telling stories is how we distance ourselves from things, but it's also how we rise, and that's what they're trying to do here. Grauman pops out of the palimpsest and Ryan can see him, can see he's real, and it changes Ryan, because now he knows a Grauman, forever. And we already knew Ryan, so it's real now too for us? Or: Ryan holds onto Grauman with one hand, and with the other tries to tell us the untellable, to demonstrate simply by staring, naked, at the camera, that if we are not alone, then neither is Grauman, and neither is Ryan, and I don't know how to do this.
Interestingly, he skips over the awkward on-stage moment.
There's saving Melinda, Paula goes to the Boys and Girls club, Il Divo, Jack Black, saving Blake, Rascal Flats, Kentucky, the Pimpmercial containing the silly video, saving Phil, and then:This next part's rough, but luckily it's also twice as intense as before. Back to Africa, where Ryan and Simon are visiting a family that sleeps fourteen people in a "house" that's about the size of a tent. Three of the kids are Emily's; the rest are AIDS orphans. When it's time to go to sleep, they lie down, all in a row, on the floor, and she covers them with the blankets she's got. Three of them are HIV positive. In another house, there's Emma, who was doing well when Simon and Ryan first met her, but has sharply declined. She lies face-down on her bed, unable to speak or move. Simon starts to cry, in the heat and the smell of it, and begins to storm around. "This is not the right place for her." He completely breaks down, like, he can't handle it all. I never wanted to see him lose control. He leans against a wall and stares out into space. "It's just...wrong." Ryan's speechless, his whole body like a sounding board, like a tuning fork. Simon heads outside and drops himself onto a stone wall, weeping, almost ignoring the camera altogether. I mean to say that he runs outside, and throws himself down, because he can't handle it in there. With Emma and death in that tiny room. Ryan watches him cry; can't meet the camera. Then there's Ruth, twenty-eight years old, two kids, skinny as shit. Skin stretched across her cheekbones. She would have been beautiful once. She looks twice her age. Simon orders her out and into the truck; follows behind a man carrying her outside in his arms. She looks like she could just blow away, or crumble; he holds her tenderly. There's nothing in her eyes. They get her placed gently in the truck, Simon and Ryan with their hands on their hips, staring at each other and not seeing each other. "Would she...be more comfortable ... lying down? Or sitting." Simon's eyes dart from Ruth, to the man, to Ryan. Nobody's answering. Nobody knows. Ruth died two days later. Ryan and Simon stand in a tent city in Africa, shaking under the sun, full of enormity. All over Africa there are projects, pills and food and AVR cocktails; all over Africa there are mothers, like Ruth and Emma and Emily, getting sick and getting better, getting sick and dying. "We just have to get there in time."
I adore Jacob's characterization of Ryan as a tuning fork, because to me in Africa Ryan became 100% reaction, just running on instinct, completely opening himself up and only knowing what to do in any moment by paying incredibly close attention to everyone's nonverbal cues. While Simon, naturally, is busy being a Brit in Anglophone Africa, until he realizes that it doesn't work anymore, and has a breakdown, and then rallies and gets Ruth to the hospital.
Ellen intros Josh Groban, and then we get to the one part of the show that I was personally offended by, when fucking Exxon Mobil trotted out their nice African professionals. It was vile and disgusting, not only because it made Exxon Mobil look "better" but also because it exposed the kind of dance with the devil that you have to do when you're born in bad circumstances, or even generally when you are a person of color on this planet, even though fuck you because there are more of us than there are of you, White Man. (Sorry for those of you who've never heard me talk about race; I'm a Tragic Mulatto, though probably a quadroon to be accurate, and sometimes I gets tiiiired.)
So then Ryan talks about malaria, and Kelly sings, and there's a Simpsons cartoon, and LaKisha is safe, and Ryan gives a shout out to the charities, and Celine sings with Elvis, and Madonna does whatever, and Ryan actually has to do the Idol Challenge, and everybody vamps, and Annie Lennox sings amazingly a song that thank god none of the Idols sang the night before, and Chris and Jordin are safe, and Bono shows up, and there's another group sing, and Jacob has some final thoughts that oddly end up in the same place that Springer's always do: Take care of yourselves and each other.