TV
so i'm sure its been said before, and surely it was said more... poetically... but after a long campbells and coca-cola (so what? the blogosphere is immune to product placement?! fuck you, someone tell me how i can get paid...) induced night of insomnia, i spent some time channel surfing and came to the following conclusion:
there is nothing but endless mindless, soul-less, callous, and RIDICULOUS drivel on television. Painfully, the WORST offenders were the news networks. I spent a couple hours trying to find some real news to watch in the backround as I was working on a few various projects, but there is no REAL news. Intellectuals are trapped like dolphins in the tuna nets of 24-hour news networks that are filling their airtime with whatever trash that they hope will ensnare the tuna-smelling channel surfers that get lost somewhere between MTV's latest reality shitpile and ESPN's tenth time re-running sportscenter.
so which are you? the dolphin or the tuna? in the end it wont matter. either way you'll be ground up, and mashed into the same tin can, ultimately to be served with mayonayse on whole wheat to someone who cant tell and wouldnt care about the difference between dolphins or tuna.
the MOST informative news i ended up watching was BBC world, but things appearantly arent much better for TV in the land of the ol' pommy whore than they are here. They capped the show with a story about go-kart racing. Oh, and also a story about how on April 13, 2029, a giant asteroid might destroy the world. happy 43rd birthday jordan. Guess fear sells everywhere.
Maybe the shittiest part of this fucked up psuedo-news culture that cable TV has created is the loss of legitamacy of what would potentially be REAL news. How do I take anything these ass-clowns say seriously when they report Anna Nicole Smith at the top of the news hour with more detail and debate than the US Senate? It got to a point where no matter what channel i put on, they were literally all talking about the same dead fucking junkie. On top of that, they're not even trying to hide their partisanship anymore... took about 30 seconds watching Fox News before the republican slant was obvious, and that was during the Anna Nicole report! So much for journalistic integrity. Also, NBC reports that peanut butter WILL kill you, that RF chips used in credit cards will cause identity theft (btw this reporter had NO IDEA what RF was, and even SAID in the report that she was NOT familiar with them, meanwhile the interviewee was telling her they were NOT dangerous even as the reporter was sensationalising it), that disney characters will attack your children and that George Washington was a moonshiner and got elected because his constituents were drunk. sigh...
So Nancy Pelosi is just a talking skeleton. Someone should non-hit her in her non-face with a non-binding non-baseball bat. I'm sure that would "signal a change in direction." Really Nancy? "Signals?" All it signals is your lack of competence. The people out there with the real power are mocking you and the rest of your puppet-congress. How dumb are the democrats that they can make the republicans look smart?! This is why the Daily Show is the only news that makes any sense. Because youre all a joke. Maybe if you and all your cronies get a backbone, and stand up for something with more than ONE trivial, non-binding sentence, we could take you seriously. Or well, I suppose you can all just continue to posture and dance for the media while you bend over and take it from Bush and sell out to the highest bidder.
As my channel surfing continued, I was intrigued when I saw that from 6a-7a MTV was scheduled to play music videos! Music videos on MTV?! Unheard of. But it ended up just being a ruse, as it wasnt music videos, it was only car/alcohol commercials set to ringtones. No im serious, they had a "buy this ringtone now" flashing in the top right corner the whole time. It was actually the only way I could differentiate the videos from the other commercials. And then it hit 7a, and I came close to slitting my wrists as a show called "my super sweet 16" came on and I was forced to watch it for approxamately 12 seconds while i was trying to find the remote. 13 would have done me in. it might be called "my super sweet 16" because if you make it to 16 seconds into the show, you're already brain dead.
...storm the networks and burn them down...
This is why I would have trouble in TV, because if I ever did make a show, even a silly show like critically insane would have been, I hold myself to a higher standard of integrity and believe that entertainment does not have to be and SHOULD NOT BE braindead. I wonder if that would kill shows I would make the way arrested development and firefly were killed, while shows like "the naked trucker and t-bones show" keep coming up. Beyond that, NEWS IS NOT ENTERTAINMENT. The heartbreaking part is that is all it has become, and short of a revolution, that is all it will probably ever be from here on out. The revolution isn't coming though, because without a free media, the public won't ever be enlightened or emboldened enough to change.
So we are left in a sick downward spiral into cultural ignorance. That may be a bit brash however, because it would assume we had a culture to begin with. We are entering an inverted dark ages... where its not the lack of knowledge, but the over-saturation of it that will result in our blindness and a lack of wisdom. our brains have amazing bullshit filters, meant to differentiate the importance of information, but we are forced to have them on 24/7 and now we don't know whats important, and we start to believe that NOTHING is important. and we wonder why america is a breeding ground for disillusionment and apathy.
and finally, fuck the American Medical Association, et al. for not understanding that freedom of speech is infinitely more important than health concerns posed by the free choice of individuals. How can i defend free speech after all the TV-bashing I just did? Because if free speech goes away (that is, further than it has already), then what do you think the first casualties would be? We would lose the shows and movies that are intellegent and worth watching in favor of MORE of the MINDLESS DRIVEL that I have been going on about. Hey AMA, if you're looking for someone to go after, how bout the FUCKING CIGARETTE COMPANIES that make the product... or maybe go after the spineless congress we just discussed for doing nothing to curb products like these (meanwhile the FDA is recalling peanut butter...). Don't go after ART you assholes. It's like saying "we should ban cars from movies because people die in car crashes." Fucking ASSHOLES. (BTW, the article i linked mentions Superman Returns as a film that features smoking... except anyone whos seen Superman Returns knows that it is BLATENTLY portrayed as negative in the film... sigh)
so the moral of the story is to please smoke from your asshole with clowns because superman, nancy pelosi and anna nicole smith are telling you to, and if you listen to them the AMA and NBC and the BBC are going to come and feed you peanut butter until you buy 16 ringtones for dolphins... or something like that.
is your bullshit filter still working?
there is nothing but endless mindless, soul-less, callous, and RIDICULOUS drivel on television. Painfully, the WORST offenders were the news networks. I spent a couple hours trying to find some real news to watch in the backround as I was working on a few various projects, but there is no REAL news. Intellectuals are trapped like dolphins in the tuna nets of 24-hour news networks that are filling their airtime with whatever trash that they hope will ensnare the tuna-smelling channel surfers that get lost somewhere between MTV's latest reality shitpile and ESPN's tenth time re-running sportscenter.
so which are you? the dolphin or the tuna? in the end it wont matter. either way you'll be ground up, and mashed into the same tin can, ultimately to be served with mayonayse on whole wheat to someone who cant tell and wouldnt care about the difference between dolphins or tuna.
the MOST informative news i ended up watching was BBC world, but things appearantly arent much better for TV in the land of the ol' pommy whore than they are here. They capped the show with a story about go-kart racing. Oh, and also a story about how on April 13, 2029, a giant asteroid might destroy the world. happy 43rd birthday jordan. Guess fear sells everywhere.
Maybe the shittiest part of this fucked up psuedo-news culture that cable TV has created is the loss of legitamacy of what would potentially be REAL news. How do I take anything these ass-clowns say seriously when they report Anna Nicole Smith at the top of the news hour with more detail and debate than the US Senate? It got to a point where no matter what channel i put on, they were literally all talking about the same dead fucking junkie. On top of that, they're not even trying to hide their partisanship anymore... took about 30 seconds watching Fox News before the republican slant was obvious, and that was during the Anna Nicole report! So much for journalistic integrity. Also, NBC reports that peanut butter WILL kill you, that RF chips used in credit cards will cause identity theft (btw this reporter had NO IDEA what RF was, and even SAID in the report that she was NOT familiar with them, meanwhile the interviewee was telling her they were NOT dangerous even as the reporter was sensationalising it), that disney characters will attack your children and that George Washington was a moonshiner and got elected because his constituents were drunk. sigh...
So Nancy Pelosi is just a talking skeleton. Someone should non-hit her in her non-face with a non-binding non-baseball bat. I'm sure that would "signal a change in direction." Really Nancy? "Signals?" All it signals is your lack of competence. The people out there with the real power are mocking you and the rest of your puppet-congress. How dumb are the democrats that they can make the republicans look smart?! This is why the Daily Show is the only news that makes any sense. Because youre all a joke. Maybe if you and all your cronies get a backbone, and stand up for something with more than ONE trivial, non-binding sentence, we could take you seriously. Or well, I suppose you can all just continue to posture and dance for the media while you bend over and take it from Bush and sell out to the highest bidder.
As my channel surfing continued, I was intrigued when I saw that from 6a-7a MTV was scheduled to play music videos! Music videos on MTV?! Unheard of. But it ended up just being a ruse, as it wasnt music videos, it was only car/alcohol commercials set to ringtones. No im serious, they had a "buy this ringtone now" flashing in the top right corner the whole time. It was actually the only way I could differentiate the videos from the other commercials. And then it hit 7a, and I came close to slitting my wrists as a show called "my super sweet 16" came on and I was forced to watch it for approxamately 12 seconds while i was trying to find the remote. 13 would have done me in. it might be called "my super sweet 16" because if you make it to 16 seconds into the show, you're already brain dead.
...storm the networks and burn them down...
This is why I would have trouble in TV, because if I ever did make a show, even a silly show like critically insane would have been, I hold myself to a higher standard of integrity and believe that entertainment does not have to be and SHOULD NOT BE braindead. I wonder if that would kill shows I would make the way arrested development and firefly were killed, while shows like "the naked trucker and t-bones show" keep coming up. Beyond that, NEWS IS NOT ENTERTAINMENT. The heartbreaking part is that is all it has become, and short of a revolution, that is all it will probably ever be from here on out. The revolution isn't coming though, because without a free media, the public won't ever be enlightened or emboldened enough to change.
So we are left in a sick downward spiral into cultural ignorance. That may be a bit brash however, because it would assume we had a culture to begin with. We are entering an inverted dark ages... where its not the lack of knowledge, but the over-saturation of it that will result in our blindness and a lack of wisdom. our brains have amazing bullshit filters, meant to differentiate the importance of information, but we are forced to have them on 24/7 and now we don't know whats important, and we start to believe that NOTHING is important. and we wonder why america is a breeding ground for disillusionment and apathy.
and finally, fuck the American Medical Association, et al. for not understanding that freedom of speech is infinitely more important than health concerns posed by the free choice of individuals. How can i defend free speech after all the TV-bashing I just did? Because if free speech goes away (that is, further than it has already), then what do you think the first casualties would be? We would lose the shows and movies that are intellegent and worth watching in favor of MORE of the MINDLESS DRIVEL that I have been going on about. Hey AMA, if you're looking for someone to go after, how bout the FUCKING CIGARETTE COMPANIES that make the product... or maybe go after the spineless congress we just discussed for doing nothing to curb products like these (meanwhile the FDA is recalling peanut butter...). Don't go after ART you assholes. It's like saying "we should ban cars from movies because people die in car crashes." Fucking ASSHOLES. (BTW, the article i linked mentions Superman Returns as a film that features smoking... except anyone whos seen Superman Returns knows that it is BLATENTLY portrayed as negative in the film... sigh)
so the moral of the story is to please smoke from your asshole with clowns because superman, nancy pelosi and anna nicole smith are telling you to, and if you listen to them the AMA and NBC and the BBC are going to come and feed you peanut butter until you buy 16 ringtones for dolphins... or something like that.
is your bullshit filter still working?