Summertime Blues

When one of your main outlets in life is writing about what’s on television, not for fame, not for money, but for the purpose of sharing it with nine of the greatest preferred readers an aspiring writer could ever hope for, the summer can be a dark, desolate time. Oh sure, I should be at the beach, at a baseball game, or doing something else outside in the fucking sweltering soupy mass of shit that is summer weather. But being the semi-hermit that I purport myself to be, I often prefer to tuck myself away in my home, blinds drawn, air conditioner at full blast, and enjoy some mind-numbingly poor television. Yes, the networks are in reruns during most of the summer, save for the new crop of reality-based dogs that they’ve marched out:

• Dancing with the Stars: Not to dwell on this since I’ve covered it before, but I’m not sure I could come up with a less interesting concept than watching washed up pseudo-celebrities demonstrating newly acquired ballroom dancing skills in front of the post-Saget, post-Fuentes host of America’s Funniest Home Videos, three judges you’ve never heard of and an audience of people with what seems to be a ridiculous amount of free time on their hands, even if you were to rip off my fingernails and dip my hands in bleach, only allowing me to take them out when I came up with a less interesting concept. How’s that for hyperbole?

• I Want to Be a Hilton: Or, as I like to say, I want to piss on the legacy that my family has created in order to get rich and gain acceptance into a family with two members whose only claim to fame is that they are rich Hiltons. Oh, and performing fellatio on tape, but who am I to judge?

• The Scholar: With the success of their Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, ABC just can’t pass up an opportunity to tug at our collective heart strings. What better way than to take a bunch of kids who want to go to college and fuck with their minds by dangling a scholarship in front of their faces while making them demonstrate their prowess in such critical areas as oral examinations and school spirit? As Principal Skinner told the children of Springfield Elementary as they prepared to accompany their parents to work: “This is your chance to apply your knowledge of gym and fractions to the real world!”

• Hell’s Kitchen: Hey look, it’s another show where an insufferable prick puts a bunch of spineless shits with no sense of self-worth through complete misery in hopes of winning a vaguely ambiguous contest! And it’s on Fox, no less! What will they think of next?

As you can see, there’s oh-so-much to choose from that I hardly know what to do with myself. Do I watch Evander Holyfield do the waltz? Do I cringe as seemingly normal people vie for a chance to be part of the Hilton clan? Or watch some pimply-faced nerdlingers compete for the right to become clear-faced nerdlinger college graduates free of charge? Or watch some Australian asshole shove plates of spaghetti into the chest of one of his young charges? So much quality entertainment, so little time.

That’s why I haven’t touched any of this shit with a ten foot pole – I can honestly say that I’ve watched a grand total of 11 minutes of all of these shows combined, and 8 of those minutes were spent seething with rage at the fact that fucking Trista is still on fucking TV!!! But the summer has not been a total loss when it comes to quality television programming. Take, for example, MTV’s True Life. Now, I know what the nine of you are thinking right now: “Who wrote this blog piece and what have they done with our good friend J?” No, it’s still me, folks – and to prove it, here’s a little sidebar rant that could only come my twisted mind:

I am sick and fucking tired of all the jocksniffing sports talkers on local radio, national radio, national TV and even online harping about what a weak division the White Sox play in (for those of you who couldn’t give a shit, it’s the AL Central), yet these same folks are just as quick to shove their noses straight up the ass of the AL East, simply because this division houses America’s “darlings” the Boston Red Sox, and America’s favorite enemy, the New York Yankees. Yet if one were to compare each division from the bottom up, one might see an interesting trend:

• Royals-Devil Rays: Everyone says the Sox and the Twins have the best chance of making the playoffs because they get to beat up on the Royals. But last I checked I wasn’t even sure if the Devil Rays had any major league players on their roster. Granted they can beat the Yankees, but the Royals have a World Series Championship, and in my mind that gives them the edge. So, if one truly wanted to argue about the absolute futility of a division’s bottom feeder, I would look no further than the team with the ugliest uniforms, stadium and city in America.

• Tigers-Blue Jays: The Battle of Windsor, Ontario. As of the writing of this mad rambling, the Tigers stood ½ game better than the Blue Jays, whose entire 1993 squad got a blanket gonorrhea wish from yours truly. Joe Carter and Dave Stewart can rot in hell for all I care.

• Indians-Yankees: In theory, the Yankees are the deeper, more loaded team. In theory, Communism works.

• Twins-Orioles: These teams are separated by a percentage point in the standings, but who would you rather face with the game on the line: Torii Hunter or head case Sammy Sosa? Yeah, me too…

• White Sox-Red Sox: Yes, they’re the defending champs. Yes, they are really heating up. Yes, they put themselves at risk of countless barbs from homophobic fans across the nation with their recent appearance on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Yes, every bandwagon jumper within reasonable distance has become a member of the severely jingoistic Red Sox Nation. Still, it’s tough to argue against the BEST RECORD IN THE MAJOR LEAGUES.

So there you have it – don’t even get me started on the other divisions. It’s time to stop this irrational prejudice against the AL Central – wake up, America!

Where was I? Oh, right – True Life on MTV. Basically, this is a chance to peer inside the life of someone who’s got shit a lot worse than you do, which as we all know makes us feel superior, high-and-mighty, above others, and all that other healthy stuff. Each episode is framed from the mind of the individuals it focuses on (typically someone ranging in age from 16-26 – Generation Y, I presume), and this frame is typically summed up with one simple sentence – for example, the episodes I have watched are as follows:

• I am on a diet.
• I am poor.
• I moved back in with my parents.
• I am obese.

Yikes – they should have just grouped them together and called the show “I wish someone would bash my skull in and end my misery.” But for all the times I’ve criticized MTV in the past, I have to say that this is a fascinating show. “I’m on a diet” featured stories ranging from a high school wrestler – you know, the freakish kind who runs 7 hours a day in a silver jumpsuit and eats 4 grains of rice in order to make weight – to a 250 lb girl who had admittedly “let myself go a bit” and wanted to lose some weight before heading off to Cancun with her friends, and then just about died on the spot when her nutritionist told her it might be a good idea if she stopped eating potato chips. No shit, you mean putting more saturated fat into my 250 lb frame WON’T help me lose weight? I’m FLAB-ergasted! (I’ll be here all week).

“I am poor” was much more depressing, as we watched a couple with a collective credit score of about 2 apply for a new apartment and almost shit themselves with excitement when the landlord didn’t require a full month’s rent as a security deposit, as well as a girl who planned to go back to high school as soon as she got a car to get there with, but she needed to work in order to buy a car, but she needed a car to get to most of the places she could work, and she got fired from the one place she could work without having a car (a bar waitress job) because she decided to show up on her night off and smoke pot in the bar. And yes, she was from the South.

The only thing I took from “I moved back in with my parents” was that, God willing and even though I love them to death, I hope I never have to move back in with my parents. Maybe it was watching the one kid who had quit his job at the bagel shop because it interfered with an art show compete with his father in a Beer Hunt on Easter Sunday. Now I may be wrong, but I believe the South was somehow involved once again.

Finally, “I am obese” featured morbidly obese people who, for example couldn’t fit in a regulation size school desk. In fact, one featured lady was in such trouble (500+ lbs) that all she could really do was sit on her couch and eat. It didn’t help that her husband (a saint of a man) began the process of cooking her dinner by filling a deep frying pan with about three quarters of a bottle of Wesson oil, but hey, at least he knew enough to watch out for those pesky carbs when he went shopping! And the campaign of misinformation continues.

What did I learn from this MTV experience? I learned that there are a lot of people who are worse off than me. I learned that MTV’s commercial breaks are longer than each segment of their half-hour shows. I learned that there is a tampon out there that’s both comfortable and absorbent. And I learned that the Real World has become nothing more than an excuse to throw a bunch of young, sexed up people together in the hopes they will have sex. Hats off to you, Generation Y – thanks to you, the future is a dark, desolate place!

Until next time...