A New Post on the Same Old Slime
I woke up thinking that I should write a post about TV, and then I read Flip's post (www.blueruin2.blogspot.com) about a ridiculous new commercial and decided that this post must be written.
I just finished a large book for children called "The Mysterious Benedict Society". I got it for Stevie for Christmas and, because parents raved about it on Amazon, and because I wanted to know what Stevie would be reading, I read it. In it, a group of child geniuses try to stop a madman. The madman wants to re-educate the people of the world by soothing their fears with meaningless claptrap broadcast via piggybacked TV and radio signals and, thus, control them and become an overlord far more pervasive than the Vikings in that Led Zeppelin song.
The children chosen for the mission had several things in common, but the most important was a feeling of irritability when watching TV or listening to radio. They were irritated because their strong, independent brains were resisting the secret brainwashing messages being sent--weaker brains just complacently soaked it in.
Am I a child genius? Stop it--I'm blushing! But I do feel their pain. I am growing more and more irritated by television, and I find radio just plain hateful.
When removed from my element and placed in hotel rooms or my mom's house, I'll indulge and watch way too much. How else can I explain watching about 8 episodes of "Brett Michaels: Rock of Love" except to say that I was at Mom and Dave's, it was Christmastime, and everyone else was watching, too? I like college football. I like a couple of the Thursday night comedies (The Office, 30 Rock). I don't have cable but, if I did, I would watch "The Daily Show". And I have waited with baited breath to see which song VH1 would deem the #1 1-hit-wonder. (Sorry--can't remember what it was.)
But on a regular day, I just can't stand the damn thing. Kevin turns on the local news in the morning to get the weather, and then leaves the damn thing on! That's how I pick up on all the things I don't want to know, such as the status of the latest pretty pregnant woman who was just murdered (status: still dead), or the status of the latest pretty little girl who has gone missing (status: still missing, very likely dead), celebrity interviews, useless political commentary, and all the other worthless bullshit. I'm constantly admonishing him to turn the damn thing off (unless he's actually watching something), and read a book. Thanks to a timely Barnes & Noble gift certificate from Uncle Ted, he bought some books and is, more and more, turning off the damn thing and reading books. Victory!
When I do pause to watch, as I wrote about last time, it's clinical--like a scientist watching with awe and dread as her beakers spew toxic sludge all over the lab. Something's gone horribly wrong!
Last night Kevin put on "The Big Lebowski" for the 210th time and I caught a few of my favorite quotes as I read the third Harry Potter book (I've moved past Stevie!). He fell asleep, and I was awake as it ended. As I rewound the video, which requires that the TV be on, I turned it to the one channel we were receiving clearly and was accosted by the smug face of loathesome Jimmy Kimmel, a man who I would describe as "inexplicably famous" except that, given our astoundingly low standards for fame, I realize that of course he should be famous! Even more famous than he is! (The Dude would describe him as a "human paraquat".) I mean, wasn't he one of the untalented boars behind "The Man Show"? And now he has his own late-night talk show, in good company with the other ridiculous men of late-night (Conan excluded), and last night he stood there making one mean and unfunny comment after the other. Then he brought out two sad-sack "American Idol" first-round rejects, exploited by that show and, now, exploited by Jimmy Kimmel by way of a horribly mean and a straight-to-you-tube music video that wasn't even stoned funny. The five minutes that I sorta watched was just the sort of thing that should be put in a time capsule under "this is the worst shit that our culture produced, maybe ever". If I had had a wand like Hermione, I would've turned him into a walking, talking turd.
It was then that the thought hit me: "He already is! There is some magic in the world after all!"
But then I thought, "People like talking turd."
And the magic slipped away....
I just finished a large book for children called "The Mysterious Benedict Society". I got it for Stevie for Christmas and, because parents raved about it on Amazon, and because I wanted to know what Stevie would be reading, I read it. In it, a group of child geniuses try to stop a madman. The madman wants to re-educate the people of the world by soothing their fears with meaningless claptrap broadcast via piggybacked TV and radio signals and, thus, control them and become an overlord far more pervasive than the Vikings in that Led Zeppelin song.
The children chosen for the mission had several things in common, but the most important was a feeling of irritability when watching TV or listening to radio. They were irritated because their strong, independent brains were resisting the secret brainwashing messages being sent--weaker brains just complacently soaked it in.
Am I a child genius? Stop it--I'm blushing! But I do feel their pain. I am growing more and more irritated by television, and I find radio just plain hateful.
When removed from my element and placed in hotel rooms or my mom's house, I'll indulge and watch way too much. How else can I explain watching about 8 episodes of "Brett Michaels: Rock of Love" except to say that I was at Mom and Dave's, it was Christmastime, and everyone else was watching, too? I like college football. I like a couple of the Thursday night comedies (The Office, 30 Rock). I don't have cable but, if I did, I would watch "The Daily Show". And I have waited with baited breath to see which song VH1 would deem the #1 1-hit-wonder. (Sorry--can't remember what it was.)
But on a regular day, I just can't stand the damn thing. Kevin turns on the local news in the morning to get the weather, and then leaves the damn thing on! That's how I pick up on all the things I don't want to know, such as the status of the latest pretty pregnant woman who was just murdered (status: still dead), or the status of the latest pretty little girl who has gone missing (status: still missing, very likely dead), celebrity interviews, useless political commentary, and all the other worthless bullshit. I'm constantly admonishing him to turn the damn thing off (unless he's actually watching something), and read a book. Thanks to a timely Barnes & Noble gift certificate from Uncle Ted, he bought some books and is, more and more, turning off the damn thing and reading books. Victory!
When I do pause to watch, as I wrote about last time, it's clinical--like a scientist watching with awe and dread as her beakers spew toxic sludge all over the lab. Something's gone horribly wrong!
Last night Kevin put on "The Big Lebowski" for the 210th time and I caught a few of my favorite quotes as I read the third Harry Potter book (I've moved past Stevie!). He fell asleep, and I was awake as it ended. As I rewound the video, which requires that the TV be on, I turned it to the one channel we were receiving clearly and was accosted by the smug face of loathesome Jimmy Kimmel, a man who I would describe as "inexplicably famous" except that, given our astoundingly low standards for fame, I realize that of course he should be famous! Even more famous than he is! (The Dude would describe him as a "human paraquat".) I mean, wasn't he one of the untalented boars behind "The Man Show"? And now he has his own late-night talk show, in good company with the other ridiculous men of late-night (Conan excluded), and last night he stood there making one mean and unfunny comment after the other. Then he brought out two sad-sack "American Idol" first-round rejects, exploited by that show and, now, exploited by Jimmy Kimmel by way of a horribly mean and a straight-to-you-tube music video that wasn't even stoned funny. The five minutes that I sorta watched was just the sort of thing that should be put in a time capsule under "this is the worst shit that our culture produced, maybe ever". If I had had a wand like Hermione, I would've turned him into a walking, talking turd.
It was then that the thought hit me: "He already is! There is some magic in the world after all!"
But then I thought, "People like talking turd."
And the magic slipped away....
posted by lulu | 7:57 AM
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