JULY 9th - Be a Dick Clark

On this day in 1956, Dick Clark became the permanent host of American Bandstand, a position he would hold until 1989. In those 33 years, he aged three years. That was the ratio. One year of aging for every decade, cause that dude was stuck in his late thirties for the majority of his life. Must have found the Elixir of Life from the Fountain of Youth. He actually got the gig because his predecessor got arrested for drunk driving, which I didn’t even know was thing in the mid-50’s. I bet you had to be pretty sloppy drunk to get arrested for drunk driving in 1956. Apparently the law has been around in some form since 1907. But before this Marking gets completely hijacked by the history of drunken driving, I feel we should circle back to Dick. Dude spent 33 years as host of one of the most seminal music programs in our history. He shuffled off this mortal coil in 2012, leaving a bit of a hole. The applications for the next Dick really come down to two people. Carson Daly and Ryan Seacrest. Daly had the closest thing we’ve seen to American Bandstand in TRL. But a good majority of those years were filled with boy bands and teeny boppers, which probably has more to do with the music scene in general than Carson Daly. Dude painted his nails black. Whenever a big album dropped though, that act was on TRL taking the mic from Carson’s black fingernails. Seacrest got his big break because he was willing to make the contestants squirm in anticipation (your results…after the break) on the 1st Season of American Idol (Poor Dunkleman could not—he does have a pretty funny Twitter, and that’s not nothing). Seacrest also has that hair. And the fact that he’s a human cyborg that works 23.5 out 24 hours a day, only stopping to lube rusted joints with WD40. He’s been on Idol for what 13 Seasons? And he does radio. And produces every reality show on E! But Carson has that late night show nobody watches. And The Voice. And he was around first. Still gotta give the edge to Seacrest just on sheer abundance of work and viewers reached. I don’t particularly dislike Daly or Seacrest (don’t particularly like them either), but neither compares to Dick Clark. America’s Oldest Teenager. Dude was dropping the ball in NYC in his 70s. And he looked 50. Seacrest might have stolen his Elixir of Life from the Fountain of Youth, but I’m not quite sure yet. His hair was so horrible the first few years of Idol, it was hard to look at his face. Honesty, I’m seriously regretting that I didn’t go down the history of drunk driving path. But life is full of regret. I bet you Bob Horn regretted getting drunker than Dean Martin at a Scotch Festival and then driving, paving the way for Dick to take over. Dick Clark probably didn’t regret it. He made the most of it. As should you.

This Day has been Marked.