What's ... happening ... now

I've got a job interview in 7 hours. It's actually the second round of interviews, which means they liked me enough in the first interview to bring me back for the play-offs. All the same, I'm pretty nervous, so I'm trying to take the edge off by watching "What's Happening Now!", the 1985 series which revisited half of your favorite characters from the 1976 series "What's Happening!!"

[My Canadian/younger readers may not be familiar with "What's Happening!!", so let me summarize: It was on after school and it was awesome, especially when gangsters force Rerun to bring a huge-ass tape recorder to the Doobie Brothers concert to bootleg it, and then at the show Rerun is bouncing up and down with such glee that the tape recorder falls out of his huge trenchcoat and the concert stops dead, and then later the gangsters show up at Rob's Diner to shake down Rerun but then the Doobie Brothers show up to scare off the gangsters! Like I said, awesome. And that was a two-parter.]

You'll notice that the second series has only half the exclamation points of the first series. I think it's because the creators knew the sequel wasn't that great, so they didn't want the audience to get too excited. Very noble, those creators. Not especially talented, but noble.

I am, of course, trying not to draw any similarities between "What's Happening [Now]![!]" and my interview situation, especially that whole "successful the first time, lackluster the second" part. Though I am disturbed by this bit of trivia about "What's Happening Now!" ...

Fred 'Rerun' Berry quit the series after the first season when the production company refused to give him a salary increase. Rerun's whereabouts were not mentioned after he left.

It's a little creepy that a main character can just disappear like that. If any parallels are to be drawn to my own situation, I hope this isn't one of them. For one thing, my affairs are not in order. At the very least, I'd need to hire a stand-in to take over the blog and/or make public appearances for me, like that weird JT LeRoy situation.

In an effort to take the edge off last night, I spent way too long reading about JT LeRoy/Laura Albert last night. You might notice I have a lot of edge to take off. Maybe I should take up drinking or something. I bet the interviewers would love to hear that 5-year plan.