Television Is Actually Kinda Awesome

Throughout my lifetime and beyond television (or TV) has been cast in a negative light. It has been hatefully referred to for generations as the boob tube and the idiot box. During times of war or political differing the television has been maligned as a propaganda spewing device responsible for making people fat, uninformed, irresponsible lemmings. Further, TV has also been charged with desensitizing us to the point where we no longer have feelings which in turn leads individuals among us to go on killing sprees. What the critics and  pretentious pot stirrers commonly fail to comment on is the reason why television has such a profound effect on our lives, that being that it is actually kinda awesome.

Based on technical merit alone television ranks among the best inventions ever created by humans. There is no denying that TV paved the way for computers and by association the internet.  Some may postulate that technology has had more negative effects on the way we live our lives or that humans were not intended to dwell indoors and be hooked up to machines and blah-dee-blah-dee-blah.  My blanket response to this and all other heinous arguments of the ilk are this: Earth although we like to think of it as a constant is a finite resource. Until a Shaman on a hilltop chants an ancient incantation and releases us from our corporeal form we have to protect these bodies and the bodies of our descendants.  To do that we must develop and refine new information in the name of progress, in order to survive. On a long enough timeline the minor grievances/hidden side effects of a technology will be neutralized in face of the greater good that they create. Television gave us the ability to transmit audio/visual information all over the world almost instantly, that is an AMAZING thing.

Although we like to think of television as an independent force that preys on us, it is actually nothing more than a mirror reflecting our interests. The problem is that most of us are ashamed of who we are as individuals and in order to misdirect ourselves from this shame we retreat to judging to mask the true desires of our Id.  What I mean by this is that most of us are fake, stupid, assholes.  We don't want to admit how petty and shallow our actual level of interest in most things is. We go so far as to create a fake group of people who we imagine watch the Jersey Shore and mock them with disgust. We will say: "Can you believe the people who watch this shit? Look at Pauly D and Vinny and the Sitch, can you believe these assclowns are getting paid to do blow and rub up on skanks all summer long?" We will imagine scores of deadbeat teenagers glued to their televisions sets idolizing these morons and grow more disgusted and fearful of the future of humanity, but the truth of the matter is that Snooki is not watching. We, "the educated" normal life 9-5ers are watching with both hands over our eyes peering through the cracks in our fingers, hanging on every mispronounced word and every incorrect historical reference uttered. 

While we often emphasize the truly horrible side of television we rarely if ever talk about how it equally reflects the best of us. For every crazy gun toting killer that television produces it calms and soothes 10 000, maybe more.  The world can be a cold, misunderstanding and unloving place and while we should be good and caring and loving towards others, most of us just aren't. Some of us may not have access to family/friends who are capable of adequately nurturing us or engaging our minds. Television at its best combines what makes humanity great aurally, visually and artistically.  Because of this sometimes televised moments are superior to real life, healing us, making us feel more connected and gain new perspective on how to live. In a scripted world everything has a meaning, a moral message and a succinct ending.  In a scripted world we get to live through the moments that we missed or flubbed in our own lives, to get them right, to finally be heard. 

Rest In Peace Parody

Over my life time I've watched and listened to a good share of parody music, movies and television shows. Weird Al Yankovic, Tenacious D, The Lonely Island, Jon Lajoie, Richard Cheese, (*takes a breath*) Spaceballs, Hot Shots, UHF, Mad TV, Saturday Night Live. What all of these things that I've mentioned have in common is that they attempt to satirize popular culture. They provide an absurd look at something that otherwise attempts to appear serious.


Humour in general often tries to make the same attempt. Irony presents the opposite of the anticipated result. Comedy pushes the envelope by taking the absurd to extreme levels. Whatever experience one may have in real life parody turns up the volume, color or contrast in order reveal a truth about humans and their behaviors. The truth that is generally revealed is that one part of the species is acting in an idiotic manner. As stated in my previous essay, the desire of satire/sarcasm is to make idiotic human behaviors visible and shame them out of existence.

But lately we have been presented with an ever increasing problem. We once thought that reality and parody were two distinct sets of tracks running parallel indefinitely beyond the vanishing point of human perception. But, we were wrong. Much to the chagrin of our intelligent ambition, or primitive lizard brains love watching crap, and not just one piece of crap but several helpings of the same crap. This crap might change in color from red to blue to green but we love it regardless of shape or smell. I don't think that any of us need to apologize for liking crap, we just do and that's a fact. We as a species and as individuals hold ourselves to a higher standard in public as a matter of ego but advertising dollars don't lie. For the record, not liking crap and not complaining about it/boycotting it is considered liking crap.


The problem with crap is that it is high in caloric content and it is clogging up the arteries of parody causing it to die a premature death. While many parodies are generally poorly done and typically considered a lower form of humor their inability to be expressed is evidence of a bigger problem. That bigger problem is of course the merging of reality with parody. This means that the arc of crap that we call reality has risen so high that it is now exempt from being ridiculed. In other words the absurd/silly has become the serious. Shows like The Jersey Shore and Toddlers and Tiaras are free from scrutiny because they parody themselves. The sane among us regard these shows as little more than mindless entertainment but (and it's a big but) we are not aware of the hidden and long lasting effects.

My wife and I have listened to several people pronounce the word "chipotle" incorrectly. Also, everyday our Inbox's are flooded with LOLCATS. The way that others say chipotle "chip-poat-el" is amusing to us, thus we adopted it as an inside joke. Further, LOLCATS are hilarious and as such we often find ourselves speaking in LOLCATisms. We know we are not serious but the world at large does not. So, often what happens when we are out in public or meeting new people we will accidentally mispronounce chipotle (or words like it) because of our programming. What once was parody for us has now become reality and often because of it we appear stupider than we are. The next step of course after being incorrectly programmed is to slowly devolve into the thought patterns and topics of interest of the people who we were at one time mocking.

Recently on a tabloid show I watched them do four minutes on Kendra Wilkinson Baskett. At first, I hope you are thinking "Who is Kenda?" Well, Kendra was a former live in girlfriend of Hugh Hefner who finagled her way into a television show with two other prostitutes who lived in Hugh's mansion. She eventually went on to C-list stardom with her own reality show which landed her a juicy spot on Dancing With The "Stars". Still with me? good.

In this particular video Kendra was practicing her dance moves while talking to one of the producers of DWTS. Instead of a nip slip she accidentally offered up a left cheek sneak which was made audible by the enormous boom mic hovering around her posterior. Ten years ago this inconvenient truth would have been edited out to preserve the credibility of the young starlet. These days Access Hollywood not only teased the spare the air incident three times throughout their show but they played the fart about four times in succession during a video breakdown segment. They then followed up on the story the next time that they saw Kendra on a red carpet to get the details about what happened on that fartful day.


Access Hollywood: What happened?
Kendra: I farted.
Access Hollywood: Do you fart a lot?
Kendra: Yeah.
AH: Have any of your farts ever gone too far?
Kendra: What do you mean?
AH: Have you ever shit your pants from farting.
Kendra: Not that I know of but I gotta be me ya know? Everyone once in a while you need to crack a few eggs to make a shit omelette.
AH: Ain't that the truth.


Zoom out on a pregnant Kendra doing a booty dance on the red carpet.


Enjoy it while it lasts folks, parody/comedy are going the way of the Dodo, Blockbuster and Bookstore. There is no sadness, there is no fear, the future is here and progress doesn't have room for shame or humility.

Honesty Is Never The Best Policy

Fat, dumb, ugly, annoying. One or more of these words applies to you, does it feel good knowing that? Though we've never met are you glad that I was honest with you or would you rather that I just kept that to myself?


No one wants to hear the actual truth. What's the first thing you do when someone says something about us we don't like? We try to convince them that are wrong. If you thought that I hurt your feelings and think I'm an asshole, you would not be wrong in that feeling. No amount of me logically explaining my behavior is going to make you think "Yeah, I guess he's not an asshole."

The only reason people will claim to admire honesty or to be "brutally honest" is because they want to excuse themselves from the horrible things they are about to say to you. In a perfect world we could all be narcissists surrounded by a bunch of androids, built to pay us flattering comments and accept verbal abuse. Unfortunately, the world is not perfect and people don't want to hear the truth especially in the vile, offensive way in which you present it.

Even on occasions when I say I want the absolute truth, I still want a softer version. I want to hear: "Yeah, unfortunately we're going to have to lay you off due to cutbacks." I don't want to hear "We're firing you because you are a lazy inept piece of shit worker who brings down the productivity of the company whenever you are here." Both of these statements achieve the same result, but one is less hurtful. Even if my wife was having a sordid affair I'd rather her say "Yeah, me and my friend Thomas were just exchanging massages, that's why we had our clothes off."

From what I know about society everyone recycles, no one watches television and no one eats fast food. Yet streets and garbage cans are littered with bottles, American Idol consistently gets 30 million viewers and there is a fast food chain of every name in every town. The reason we claim to recycle without fail is there is nothing but a negative connotation carried with not recycling. If people say that watching television is bad for you, then you project the image that you don't watch it. Fast food is unhealthy and you don't want to be seen as unhealthy or fat, so you deny it. Let it be known that your individuals reflections on each of these things mentioned do not concern me. These are merely rhetorical to drive home the bigger point. The bigger point is that people are dishonest when the doing or not doing of something carries a stigma.

If we are honest with ourselves we like a little dishonesty spliced in with our honesty.