I have no desire to watch this weekend's Comedy Central Roast of Rob Lowe. I don't particularly care about Rob Lowe one way or the other and apart from occasional moments with Jeff Ross and/or Gilbert Gottfried, find those roasts hard to take at all. A lot of them feel like a cavalcade of people who don't know the roastee but they need a job and/or exposure enough to show up, read nasty remarks someone else wrote about the "honoree" and force smiles and fake laughter at whatever shots are taken at them. The Friars, back when they started this tradition, used to say "We only roast those we love." Now it's more like, "Hey, gimme the check and let me outta this place!"
David Sims has more to say about it, especially about the odd inclusion of Ann Coulter as a roaster. Ms. Coulter makes a fine living saying vile things about certain people to the delight of an audience that wants to hear vile things said about those people. But then, that's kind of what "roasts" are becoming, isn't it?