Boob Tube
Some of you may know that, among my other fetishes and perversions, I don't watch television. Haven't seen it except in bars and friends' houses (and I have few friends -- no surprise) since about 1996 or so. It's not a big deal; I love pop culture and when I do see TV in a bar I move toward it, mesmerized; but I just don't have time to sit at home and veg in front of it, and where I live you either buy a cable package or do without tube, so I do without.
Fair enough. Anyway, I happened to be in a vacation house with a TV over Labor Day weekend, and I watched some of the new coverage from New Orleans. I must be way out of touch. TV news is even worse than I remembered. Because now, it's there all the time. So instead of seeing the same idiots for half an hour at dinner time, then seeing something else till you see the idiots again at bedtime, they're always there. But it's the same half-hour worth of footage and blab. Just stretched out over 24 hours. Amazing!
I watched Fox, I think it was, for about two hours. The same stuff kept going across the screne, over and over. It got mind-numbing after 10 minutes or so. In the entire two hours I watched, only one new bit of information transpired on screne. And that was Geraldo Rivera finding a new plump baby to pluck from the crowd at the Superdome and make cry by getting all shaky-furious while waving the kid in front of the camera lights.
I'm glad to find Andrea, who notices the same thing:
... and especially don't miss the part that comes after that.
So I'm done with TV again for another decade. Tell me, what do you people see in this? I mean, "USA Up All Night?" Yeah! Spike and E! networds? Definitely! That's great television. That's what Clerk Maxwell probably was dreaming of when he put those equations on paper (hey, he was a geek-boy). But "TV news" was an oxymoron when I knew it in the '80s, and it's even more oxy now.
Fair enough. Anyway, I happened to be in a vacation house with a TV over Labor Day weekend, and I watched some of the new coverage from New Orleans. I must be way out of touch. TV news is even worse than I remembered. Because now, it's there all the time. So instead of seeing the same idiots for half an hour at dinner time, then seeing something else till you see the idiots again at bedtime, they're always there. But it's the same half-hour worth of footage and blab. Just stretched out over 24 hours. Amazing!
I watched Fox, I think it was, for about two hours. The same stuff kept going across the screne, over and over. It got mind-numbing after 10 minutes or so. In the entire two hours I watched, only one new bit of information transpired on screne. And that was Geraldo Rivera finding a new plump baby to pluck from the crowd at the Superdome and make cry by getting all shaky-furious while waving the kid in front of the camera lights.
I'm glad to find Andrea, who notices the same thing:
I’m watching one of the cable news channels yesterday, and the news guy (I forget who he is — they’re all interchangeable after a while) is going on and on about the dirty, filthy water full of filth, sewage, dead-body-stuff, alligator piss (okay, that one I made up), and did they mention filth? And a “cholera-like” bacteria that will kill you, but it’s not contagious, or something… and then he said it over again, and the camera panned up and down the dirty street, and stopped for a while on a canted-over streetlight (he must have been standing on Canal Street, there was still a puddle of the dirtyfilthysewagecholerawater behind him, anyway that street looked kind of familiar), and then back to the guy, who went over again about the dirty filthy and the stench and the cholera and then the news anchor from his comfy studio asked the question we are ALL waiting to hear: “So is it true that the water is full of deadly bacteria, and what about the pollution and chemicals, and is it true they’ve found some sort of cholera-like bacteria…” and the reporter on the scene goes over it again, syllable by syllable, making sure to e-nun-ci-ate clear-ly so all us Forrest Gumps at home sitting in front of the teevee with our Big Macs and mustard drool down our front will get it ...
... and especially don't miss the part that comes after that.
So I'm done with TV again for another decade. Tell me, what do you people see in this? I mean, "USA Up All Night?" Yeah! Spike and E! networds? Definitely! That's great television. That's what Clerk Maxwell probably was dreaming of when he put those equations on paper (hey, he was a geek-boy). But "TV news" was an oxymoron when I knew it in the '80s, and it's even more oxy now.
