One From The Vaults

Okay, I don't really have time to whip up something new. I have to be at work in a couple of hours and there's still a few things that I have to get done. So, in the meantime, here's one from the vaults. This is one that I haven't really sent out to anybody because, well, I'm not really sure why not. It's on the state of the television medium (a term I use very lightly seeing as how television is, by and large, a vapid cesspool of mediocrity. Enjoy this dip in the cesspool then. I have two days off coming up after tonight.

Alright, for me to go on record as saying that television equals shit is no real feat, is it? In fact, I’ve heard that in some corners of the globe there are office pools that have been formed based on the exact day I would finally make it known that I think television equals shit. For ease of sorting the winners from losers in those pools, it was November 3, 2004 at approximately 10:35 p.m. and 37 seconds. For the people who didn’t win their pools, you fucking suck. Anyway, I was thinking about it really hard for about three days and I came to the conclusion that television equals shit (sorry, I just had to repeat it for posterity and plus every time I say it I imagine that the members of Slipknot gnash their teeth for improving their marketing ploy of “people = shit”). And you know what? The fact that it’s so shitty on the airwaves fucking irritates me. Television is a medium that has a lot of potential for greatness. It’s a feat of human technology. It can communicate to millions and millions of people instantaneously. It can do all of these wonderful things to bring the people together around the world. It can let me watch Dr. Phil condescend to people every fucking afternoon. It can let me see who will be the next American Idol.

That’s it? That’s the pinnacle of our imagination? That’s how we make the most of our technology. I’m sorry, but that fucking sucks. I’m making a more valuable contribution to the human race just sitting here and jerking off into an old Spice Girls t-shirt (don’t laugh, it was a fucking gift and the person who gave it to me is what the French would call La Douche Bag). The more I think about Posh, Baby, Ginger, Scary, and Sporty simultaneously blowing me the closer I come to finding the true road map to world peace (and I just depressed the fuck out of myself because the memory retention to keep those names straight probably means something more valuable was unlearnt). Okay, probably not. Okay, definitely not, but it’s a daisy chain of the world’s assholes and fuckwits closer to achieving peace than any “World’s Scariest Diarrhea Explosions” broadcast.

But why is that? Why are there only a handful of tolerable television shows punctuating a programming grid that seems to be nonstop Paris Hilton fucking with people’s lives and entertainment gossip magazines shows that are really half hour fellatio sessions for whichever celebrity has a mediocre movie to plug or tragedy to profit from? It’s actually quite a simple answer if you think about it. The reason why we’re being spoon-fed right from the asses of network executives is because the advertisers who sponsor the non-stop scat parade want as many people in the world to stay stupid as possible. And I am loath to make a statement like that, believe me, because I hate sounding like some sort of hippy conspiracy theorist. I don’t wear tin foil hats and I don’t hold secret meetings down by the docks, but I sure as fuck know that stupid people are more likely to part with their money for stupid-as-shit products than people who have successfully completed a remedial reading class or two. So why give them television shows that might evoke thought? Why, indeed.

Now get this, in Germany, and I shit you not, there are plans being made to launch a version of the popular show “Big Brother”, which in America is a show revolving around locking up a bunch of assholes in a house and hopefully somebody gets naked for a web cam, that would go on forever. What does that mean. Well, the producers of the show would build a town and have contestants go to live in this town and live their lives and it would all be on television and it would keep going and keep going until they die. That’s right. So theoretically you could take a break from your own uninspiring life to live somebody else’s uninspiring life vicariously. This is the golden age of technology folks!

But Michael, you don’t know for a fact that the people who are going to be on this show are going to be uninspiring. They might get some cool, radically thinking people who could evoke tremendous amounts of dialogue about many of the issues that are facing this planet.

You’re naïve nature is almost cute. If it goes on television it’ll be cut to appeal to the lowest common denominators. Sure, some “Big Brother” contestant might accidentally say something that would make you think, but I doubt that anybody would actually see it on the air. They’ll probably cut to some mall denizen mid-20’s blonde bimbo berating her roommate for leaving the toilet seat up again. That’s your fucking entertainment, you fucks! Now, a word from our sponsors.

And the whole prospect of people participating in a reality television how until they die is kind of fitting in a way. If you think about it, watching a reality television show until somebody dies puts you that much closer to death yourself, which means I get to rifle through your stuff, so watch away. Now if they could find a way to follow them through their reincarnation as the cum stains they should have been in the first place I might just have to tune in from time to time.

So what does it all mean? What can we do to weather this non-stop tidal wave of feces that comes in through the cable? The beautiful part is that the solution is so fucking simple and it’ll make you a fucking genius too. All you really have to do is turn the TV off. If there are TV shows that you like, ones that engage you in one way or another, get them on DVD because everything is finding its way to DVD these days, or only watch TV for those shows and turn it off otherwise. You’re making yourself a mark for corporate America every time you let them talk down to you with their shows like you were some kind of fucking fresh from the womb placenta-wet newborn. Read a book or something. Hell, write a book. You’ll be doing more for humanity and feeling better for yourself.