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Living in
the Great Midwest
February 1, 2006 Before I get started, I'd like to thank everyone, especially Jeff, for their patience. This column means a lot to me and I'm thankful to still have it after my three month sabbatical to planet U-Haul. To those that give a good goddamn, everything is in order and the weekly submissions will resume. Again, thanks. Now that I’m back, what kind of clichéd, worn-out bullshit should I complain about today? How about reality television? Yeah, that’s clichéd and worn-out enough… An Open Letter to Reality Television: You suck. I hate you. So does everyone I know. I can’t find a single person that will speak on your behalf. Everybody thinks you blow Oprah-dick…except the people at the ratings firm. Dumbass production companies keep producing you at an increasingly rapid rate as well as at an increasingly poor level of quality. Networks keep airing you and for some reason, the folks over at the ratings firm keep claiming that people are watching you. I don’t know what the deal is with that. Perhaps you have some orally embarrassing photos of the Nielson Corporation spending time with Dustin Diamond? I fought valiantly up to this point, reality television - by bellowing at top volume [quick aside: I wanted to use the word “extol” here to explain the volume at which I told people that I hated reality television. Then I thought about the word a bit and realized that it might not mean what I thought it meant. I turned to my wife and said, “Hey Honey? Could you please use the word ‘extol’ in a sentence?” To this she replied, “What am I? The fuckin’ spelling bee moderator?” If you are curious, “extol” is a verb that means ‘to praise highly, to exalt’ and was not appropriate back there, so I didn’t use it. Thanks for nothing lovely wife – no extolation for you.] to all who would listen about your cheap production quality, the talented writers you would put out of work and the fact that someone who could watch people eat worms on television once a week must be the mental equivalent of a person who has suffered recent and severe head trauma. And what was my reward for this effort? A show where Gary Busey gets hopped up on goofballs and yells at people for twenty-two minutes. I tried to remind people of the quality scripted police drama starring that talented dead character actor whose face bears a more than slight resemblance to your average scrotum. You responded with a show where Dick Butkis gets hopped up on adrenaline and yells at underage gridironers for twenty-two minutes. I’ve tried, Reality Television. I gave my greatest possible effort and you have bested me at every turn – from washed-up B-list celebrities living in a house together to “interior designers” teaching young suburbanites how to apply paint to drywall. The purpose of this correspondence is to inform you, reality television, that I fucking give up. I thought that you were nothing but a passing fad. You were a pet rock. You were a hula hoop. These days you are my future. Resistance is futile. I will now spend my work hours sitting in my office, looking forward to the evening when I will finally get to hunker down with my “a-carefully-chosen-couple-is-going-to-select-one- of-three-carefully-chosen-houses” watching blanket. It appears that the only joy I might derive from a night of television is the possibility of the woman with the large breasts staying with the other 200 people on the deserted island for one more week. These are dark, dark times. Please reality television, I beg for your mercy. Maybe you could throw me a bone and create the ‘reality sitcom’? You know, where they create a proscenium-style set and we pretend that some smokin’ hot woman would marry somebody who looked like Jim Belushi – and then they get into all sorts of wacky situations while avoiding Mr. Roper’s wrath? And then the reality part…the actors will freeze mid-scene and a spotlight will shine on the studio audience. Then Richard Dawson or some shit would come out with this briefcase and choose an audience member at random. He would slowly open the briefcase while Regis plays ‘suspense-enhancing music’. When we just can’t stand the suspense any longer Richard Dawson would either pull out a cashier’s check for a million dollars and hand it to the lucky audience member, or he would pull out a barbecue skewer and jam it in their neck. Then the actors would resume the scene as though nothing happened. You could call it Million Dollar Belushi’s Company or Maybe Get Stabbed in the Neck. I bet the ratings for that would be almost as high as the ones for Throwing a Guy Into the Pit of Lions on “Thank Goodness it’s Funny Friday.” I look forward to any help you might be able to provide. Well, unfortunate master known as reality television, that’s about it. Let me take a second to go ahead and recap what we’ve talked about tonight:
I look forward to serving you well into the foreseeable future because God knows that no matter how bad things get, I’d still rather be watching television than…you know…reading a book or raising my family or whatever. Love, JRM Comments to metten0@lycos.com |
