Television's New Low

Since about 1999 reality television, the type of tv shows that depict "average people" consorting in all sorts of nefarious behavior, has been a staple in most house holds. What started with "Survivor" a battle of the fittest to combat elimination at the hands of your fellow contestants, has morphed into an obvious incantation of greed, which at it's root, is reality tv.

Vh1's "I Love Money" is about as grass roots as one can get, in the realm of greed-fed reality television. The formula is unsurprisingly simple: Take the most notorious cast offs of every Vh1 inspired "I'll Fuck a Has-Been for Fame/Love" show in the last two years, and strip away all the bullshit. There's no decrepit former gangster rapper to suppress your gag reflex around, nor a balding middle aged one hit wonder with a love for bandanas and scarves. It's simply the money these contestants will (again) prostrate themselves in front of while Americans sit at home and watch and wonder how much more embarrassing can this all really get.

News flash America: It's can't. This is it. This is the last stop on the Freak Train, make sure you bring all your belongings with you and have a great day. Stand clear of the closing doors.

The show is literally a who's-who of scandalous characters, mixed in with some other also-rans who didn't make the cut the first time around. There's Toastee, the Flava of Love cast-off of obscure ethnicity who may or may not have posed nude on the internet. There's Pumkin, the venomous spitter, who will forever be remembered for her attack on I Love New York's New York, and then fled cartoonishly towards a camera, wide eyed as a 7 foot tall black bitch (who easily could've been confused for Wesley Snipes in drag) clawed her backside into ribbons.


















There's also some of the contestants from the various I Love New Yorks. Minuscule Chance, as well as all around weird white guy Mr. Boston have been resurrected to compete in ridiculous challenges that seem to be left over from last season's "Road Rules/Real World Challenge: The Gauntlet Inferno of Herpes IX".

But beneath all this lacquer is a commendable effort being made on Vh1's behalf: They're cutting through the bullshit. When I watch a marathon of episodes where a bunch of strippers vie for Brett Michael's attention, I know it's complete bullshit. No one can fall in love with someone after knowing them for three weeks, while also plotting to kill a houseful of other demented and poorly supervised strippers. The body's chemistry does not work that way, no matter how much free alcohol and coke you give these people on a daily basis. So with the veneer gone, all that's left is greedy sociopath's battling gladiator-style for our entertainment.

We've gone completely full circle from the days of the Romans- where slaves and Christians would be led out towards lions and panthers and a crowd of people would watch. The drama would be played down and the violence played up, that's really the only difference when I watch a grown man named '12 Pack' stuff floating 100 dollar bills into a tiny little pair of swim trunks on cable television.

I say bravo to Vh1 for having the balls to do what no other television network has been willing to do in ten years; call America on the bullshit of reality television, while at the same time, calling itself on it as well.

Best Of: August 2007

Jim originally posted this back in August of 07, regarding Comedy Central's usage of "comedian" Carlos Mencia to be the flagship for their network since Dave Chappelle went all ...Mariah Carey-crazy and bolted for fucking.... Africa.

"Africa-Africa?"

"...Africa-Africa."

Anyway, enjoy. -ed.

"An Open Letter to Comedy Central: re: Carlos Mencia"

Dear Comedy Central/Viacom,

"The Mind of Mencia" has been airing on your network for almost two full years, and since has spawned something like four or five seasons since its inception. I'm writing you today to ask you to please cease and desist with this tripe.

I understand how it happened: Chappelle went Mariah Carey-Crazy, jumped the first jet to Africa and left you suits holding the bag in regards to a culturally relevant, hilarious 22 minute television programme starring an influential minority. You saw that you needed to plug the leak in the dyke as fast as possible, so you removed your thumb from your ass and jammed it as hard as you could into the widening gap.

No one blames you.

So you thought to yourselves that you'd find another "controversial" minority comedian who probably had some sketch comedy ideas kicking around, and Carlos Mencia seemed to fit the bill at that time. And again, no one blames your decision on this; Mr. Mencia at that time was relatively still underground but a fast rising star. He was "The Punisher of Comedy" and you guys wanted to bet it all, thinking you should snag him up before ABC gives him a sitcom ala George Lopez.

So you brought in Mr. Mencia and said "look Carlos, we love what you do, and we want to bring you to a wider audience. We want 'Carlos Mencia' to be a household name." And I'm sure he was on board for this. You gave him some creative licensing control, let him do his own writing, developing, etc. But what you didn't count on was that Carlos Mencia is a one-trick pony at best.

I've watched a number of episodes of "Mind of Mencia" and I find the title of the programme to be both ironic and telling. "Mind of Mencia" is twenty-two minutes of mindless jabbering and soap-boxing. The diminutive host dresses as if he shops at Baby Gap, with his "youthfully hip" t shirts and hoodies. It seems that he takes great pains to get his jokes across to the masses, and I'm sure he's under some oversight from Standards and Practices to keep things somewhat tasteful, even though the show is rated TVMA. But we know the big black block of a rating that pops up at the beginning of the show is a bait and switch tactic. There's nothing very adult about his humour at all.

Let me break down how I view the show in its entirety: There might be a half-hearted sketch at the show's opening depicting something overtly racist. Maybe Mr. Mencia has donned "white-face" make up and is acting like some pompous politician, or maybe he's donned "black-face" make up and is acting like some overzealous rapper. Either way he hops around his sketch like a wounded Ashlee Simpson at a live recording of Saturday Night Live.

Next there will be the typical splash graphic opening that I suppose is "edgy" and "urban" for the RedBull swilling kids who are just getting home from their jobs at Domino's Pizza or who are too stoned to change the channel after watching the same South Park you've been airing since May. Then Mr. Mencia will make his first appearance.

So he comes out holding a microphone, even though he's wearing a lapel mic. Mr. Mencia will then go on roughly a four minute mini-monologue about something about living in LA, or being a "beaner" or whatever happens to be the topic of the day. He tries very hard during this part of his show to really reach out to the television audience to get his socially charged point across. But again, he's falling short. He laces what could easily be a thoughtful speech with "duh-duh-duuhs" and mindless yelling. And then Mr. Mencia will shepard a D List level comedian who might really need the exposure on a nationally televised basic cable tv show, out on to his stage and let them rant, while he forces himself to laugh at weak attempts at humor. The whole thing is staged and very fake. For a viewer to convince themselves otherwise of the fact would be doing a disservice.

Then there's a commercial break, and when the show comes back, we the viewer are typically treated to a "man on the street" type waste of seven minutes, where Mr. Mencia and what I presume to be a small film crew, scour the streets of LA talking to tourists. The subject matter is usually something race driven, because the bulk of Mr. Mencia's schtick is racially motivated.

For instance, Mr. Mencia will ask a white person to immitate a black person, or have a black person immitate a jewish person, or have a hispanic act like their really mad at their boyfriend and hit him over the head with a chanchla... or sandle in English. He may or may not incorporate the use of a dwarf or his mentally handicapped brother Joseph in this portion of the show.

We go to break, and come back.

The last vignette is usually an in-studio sketch with a remarkably elaborate setting. I do have to give the set designers they're due in that regards. I wish I had more nice things to say about the show other than that, but I will give credit where credit is due.

On the subject of in-studio, how do you sell tickets or ... fill the seats of this set? I find it very hard to imagine people lining up to get into this show, but then again, the collective intelligence of Americans is somewhere between Forest Gump and Peter Griffen.

Anyway, so this last sketch will exhibit a number of horrible actors parading on to the set playing the role of despondant teenagers who are in need, apparently, of an attitude adjustment from Mr. Mencia. Mr. Mencia will usually take the role of some sort of authoritarian and the template is always the same: You'll have a depressed white "emo kid" who Mr. Mencia will tell "you're white, you have nothing to be depressed about!" a gay asian "you're gay, but it's ok, you like to do nails!" a butch lesbian "you should go try out for the Olympics... the Male Olympics!" a dumb blond "thank god you've got titties!" And finally a stereotypical black "gangsta" who Mr. Mencia will tell "you're homeboys won't always get your back when you go to jail, but he will!" and cue an obviously homosexual character who will come out and chase the character around the set and that's a wrap.

It's all very analgesic, and yawn inducing.

Again, suits, I appriciate the bind you were all in when you lost the greatest star to Comedy Central since Jon Stewart. But I urge you, on behalf of lovers of intellectual and thought-provoking comedy, please cancel "Mind of Mencia." I'm sure you could fill the empty time slot with another episode of South Park or Scrubs, or MadTv, or Drawn Together. All these shows are genius examples of greatly inspired writing and production.

Or, ... or you could stay the course and keep contributing to the "dumbing down" of America. ...But do you really want to be responsible for another Republican president? ...Think about it.

Thanks for your time,
J.

PS: And while we're at it. Let's hit the brakes on anything "Blue Collar" or with Larry The Cable Guy involved in it.

Our Country's Love of Stupid Shit

If there was one thing I enjoyed immidiately following 9/11 was that the nation took this somber tone. No one cared about scandals; cheating politicians, murderous husbands, what-who-was-putting-up-their-nose, etc. People focused again on what mattered most in life, which was community.

But almost seven years later, we've pretty much reverted back to our pre-September of 2001 ways. You can't turn on a television without seeing some celebrity leaving rehab, or watching Britnay Spears self destruct or whatever. We've folded back into the days about caring about stupid shit.

I understand that we, collectively, need a distraction from the mundane aspects of our lives. And hey, I'll browse through the entertainment section on Huffingtonpost.com once a day myself, but as a whole, we are so unbelievably fucking consumed with high amounts of talentless ridiculousness that we're practically begging Al Qaeda to blow up one of our shopping malls.

Americans love stupid shit, and it's been showing for years, and by "years" I mean since about 1971, when hippies stopped caring about the world, and started caring about cocaine. Since then, we as a nation have been inandated with such excessive bullshit that we willingly swallow it piecemeal and grin happily as we chew.

And this is how we ended up in Iraq.

Why do we give such a big shit about little shit like some hick climbing his way up the steep slope that is "American Idol?" How come everytime Lindsay Lohan leaves a Rodeo Drive couture, there's a fucking helicopter following her? ...America, we need to refocus.

There was this ad campagne when "The Sopranos" were just wrapping up; it was called "The Family vs. Your Family" as was largely featured in print ads as well as in commericals on HBO. The ad went like this: On one page you were first presented with a list of three questions pretaining to the HBO hit drama, such as "Who Shot Tony" and "What's the name of Adrianna's Club?" and so on. You'd flip the page and there'd be one question: "What's your grandfather's middle name?"

I knew more about the intricacies of a fictional crime family than I did about my own, and I think that's what the ad was getting at in a round-about way. I was stunned, as I sat on the toilet trying to think of grandfather's first name, let alone middle. I too was a victim of caring about stupid shit.

I'm not saying we should totally boycott TMZ.com or People Magazine, but we don't need the "text2phone" updates every time Paris Hilton puts on oversized sunglasses or blows some douchebag. I'm just saying that for once in this country's history, could we possibly start focusing on the important things in our lives before we're reminded about it later by the next bridge collapse or terrorist attack?

For Once, A Post Not About My Roommate

Yesterday I was at the mall, by myself.

I like going to the mall by myself because when I do go by myself, I'm like a special forces soldier; I know my objective, I know the location of the target, I'm in, I'm out, and no one's the wiser. It's like I was never there, no bullshitting around, no staring at the cute chick that works at the hair salon, ... I just do what I got to do, all the while skirting the ridiculous grunge-emo kids in black parachute pants and Insane Clown Posse hockey jerseys and the sexual predator-esque T-Mobile kiosk salesman.

No, I'm not going to "just buy" that over priced fucking Blackberry wannabe, to return it tomorrow... and everyone knows T-Mobile is the shittiest of the big-three networks. I mean, I have AT&T, so I would know all about shitty phone networks, bro.

Anyway, so I'm in the mall looking for a birthday present for a, uh, friend, and a copy of Capote's "Breakfast At Tiffany's" for the roommate to hopefully inject some culture into his Volcom covered skull (granted I said I wasn't going to post anything about the roommate, but... well fuck it, there it is.).

So I make my purchases at Barnes and Noble, and then cruise over to Best Buy to browse cds and dvds, make a few selections (first season of [adult swim]'s "Frisky Dingo" which is probably the most genius show that network has ever made) and then head to the register. What was interesting about all of this was that for the first time since I can remember I had actual paper money in my wallet.

My roommate paid his portion of the bills in plain old-school-ass cash. So here I had like, 100 bucks in my wallet in various denominations: 20s, 10s, 5s... I felt as if I was playing Monopoly.

The point I'm trying to make is that, in order for me to cash out from Best Buy, all I would have to do is simply hand the correct amount of bills to the overweight blue-clad cashier and be about the business of getting an Orange Julius.

But what was hampering me was the fact that some dude, someone's dad I presume, was trying to purchase a Nintendo Wii with his credit card, and could not maneuver the little card-swipey thingie at the register.

C'mon man, I know you're old, but shit, those little machines have been around since like, 1998, if not before that. You mean to tell me, that in the last ten or more years you haven't had to fucking navigate one of these things often enough to understand that you swipe your card as indicated by the little fucking picture of the card on the top of the slide, and then when prompted, enter whatever information they want - WITH THE FUCKING PEN, YOU JAGOFF - not your fat fucking finger or ... coke nail or whatever you're jabbing at the screen with, and then sign.

I mean, even my dad... my pot-smoking, anti-technological, hippie father can figure out e-Bay. Seriously.

This ... Mayor of Doucheberg... swiped his card about eleven-hundred times before realizing it wasn't being read. Then he flipped it a few times, tried it that way, so on, until he got the right combination. Then when asked to enter is PIN or whatever, he just started punching the screen with his finger, over and over again, while giving plaintive glances to the non-pulsed cashier who clearly was only thinking of his upcoming 15 minute break so he could stand in line in front of me at the fucking Orange Julius. After struggling to enter whatever had to be entered, the cashier, still off in Oz forgot to click something on his end of things, ... fuck people, you do this shit all day everyday! Get your head in the fucking game, Kevin!

Or... Hank! Or... whatever!

So now this guy, who's created a line longer than that of which one would have to stand in to get Hannah Montana tix is told by the cashier to sign in the box.

"What box?"

"The box on the screen," says the helpful cashier.

"What screen?" And the man paws at the bag which contains his fucking Wii. The cashier leans over and touches the box. "Oh, what do I sign it with?"

HOLY FUCK DUDE! Are you serious?! Are you kidding me! ...

By now I'm sighing like Al Gore debating G-Dub back in 2000; my eyes can't roll harder. I look back at the people behind me in line, and no one seems to have a problem standing there, being held up by someone else's ineptitude.

Fucking cattle.

Finally the guy realizes there's a little electronic pen tethered to the box. Audibly expresses his discovery, and scribbles. He scurries away, not realizing he came *this close* to getting his spinal chord removed like I'm Scorpion from Mortal Kombat.

I reach the front of the line, pull out the cash that my roommate gave me for his share of the bills, and it should be mentioned that since it was the first time I've paid actual cash for an item in a while, I did fuck it up. The total came out to $41.98, so I gave the guy $41 even, and just stood there, looking at him. Conversely, he stared there looking at me, waiting for the extra dollar. When I asked him what was wrong, he kinda just looked at me like I was full on retarded and just lifted the wad of bills for me to see and count.

My thing is that, unlike an XBox 360, I'm not backwards compatible. I'm always moving forward.

Like a shark. A Special Forces Shark.

Obits: The Simpsons - 1989-2008

For nearly twenty years, The Simpsons entered our homes on Sunday nights (a real fan would know that back in the early 1990s, FOX aired them on Thursday nights for about two years, before returning them back to Sundays, where they originally aired) and filled our televisions with a warm glow of smart off the collar social satire and whacky antics.

However, The Simpsons are no more.

The Simpsons tv programme died after a long struggle to maintain it's cutting edge humor and relevance. This past summer, The Simpsons Movie generated enough hype to get people talking again about the aging (and currently longest running network televsion series) show, but even this writer was mildly bored with the film, which brought nothing new to the show, except a longer episode and Marge Simpson's usage of "goddamnit."

Oh, and Bart Simpson's yellow cartoon penis.

Regardless, what really started spreading the cancer in what was left of The Simpsons was the advent of competitive adult-oriented cartoons, on the same network, virtually in the same time slot.

Family Guy was first introduced to viewers in early 2000, but was much lauded for it's similarities to that of The Simpsons and soon went away. However, in 2004 there was a resurgance of interest when reruns of the Family Guy programme aired on Cartoon Network's [adult swim] line up, causing a renewal in contract for Family Guy. This did not bode well for The Simpsons.

At the same time, over across the way on cable television, South Park, a crudely animated, absolutely filthy cartoon was getting much hype. For the creators of South Park it was easy to stay cutting edge of the day's news and events due to a faster turn around time to create new episodes (Though there have been 19 seasons of The Simpsons to date, there are 12 of South Park, who have been on the air for half the time.), while The Simpson's seem to reference current events some time after they've expired.

Sadly, towards it's end, The Simpsons simply fell out of touch with the average American, as the plots of each episode seemed to gravitate towards some crazed scheme involving Homer, which would make Marge upset. And with the simple, almost ADD-like quality of the writing on Family Guy (with most of their pop culture references stemming from 1980s television...) most average viewers seemed to lament the obscure pop-culture references of the Simpsons (need further proof? Read this guy's blog...he's a writer for the Simpsons and although he's cool enough, something about what he's talking about gives me the impression that the show's writers are really reaching too hard to be "funny" ...read it here: http://time-blog.com/nerd_world/ ).

Like all things that were great twenty years ago, The Simpsons should fade away gracefully and with dignity (ahem, Metallica, Tom Cruise?). For millions of fans of the beloved show, and the generations that have had the chance to make The Simpsons a part of their weekly life the show will be missed.

But fear not! There's still plenty of really good tv out there! The Office, Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles, and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia are just to name a few of outstanding television shows that can take your mind off of the absence of your favorite yellow-toned family.

To The Simpsons, personally I'd say: You'll be missed, but then again, I've been missing you since 2001.

Trends of the Last Century Present: ESPN

If you're like me, between the years of being in middle school and up until now, ESPN's been apart of your morning. You might leave it on in the background as you go through your morning routine of getting coffee and getting dressed. Also if you're like me, you've probably noticed how different ESPN's become over the years.

ESPN sucks now.

Sadly it's true, from the top down, the "World-Wide Leader in Sports" has a heavy crown to bear, and I believe the weight is slowly breaking the network's own neck.

Gone are the days of Rich Eisen (The NFL Network) and Keith Oberman (MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Oberman) manning the helm of SportsCenter, cutting through highlights with one liners that you'd take to school or to the office with you and use all day. What we're left with is the one leftover from those days, Stewart Scott - an analyst as lazy as his own left eye.

It's true, the analysis of ESPN's desk people is shallow and uninspired at best. I routinely watch "Baseball Tonight" with Chris Burman and his panelists, and listen to the scraped-together facts provided by some statitician in the bowels of the ESPN Complex in Bristol, CT. For instance, "Baseball Tonight" panelist, and former first baseman John Kruk grunted and pushed out this gem a few nights ago:

"The Red Sox have such strong hitting in the middle of their line up with Ortiz, Ramierez and Lowell. You can't pitch around Ortiz without having to face the power of Manny or Mike Lowell's ability to bring in runs."

What the hell is that? I'm not getting anything that I couldn't readily figure out for myself by browsing the stat section of my local sports page.

I don't necessarily blame ESPN though, I think the problem mostly lies in the fact that ESPN has gotten too big. Literally, the network is a monster, and it has to be, because they claim to be the "World-Wide Leader of Sports" and that means something. That means, if there's a cricket match in Bombay, ESPN's there. If there's F1 Racing in Germany, ESPN's there. If there's women's basketball playoffs, ESPN2's there. They even cover competitive eating, I shit you not.

So with all this coverage, of course analysis has to be shallow. The longest SportsCenter of the week comes on for two hours on Sunday. After all the highlights, score updates and recaps, the obligatory interview with some sports writer from some local town where something's happening, and a soft feature piece with some retiring college coach/NFL star giving back to his crack-addeled community/recently outed gay high diver, there's little room left over for in-depth sports analysis.

Of course if you're a fan of a huge, well known team say as the Red Sox or Yankees, The Patriots or Eagles, Tony Stewart or Tiger Woods, sure there's going to be just enough coverage of your team to sustain you. But what if you're a Padre's fan? Or a Bangels fan? Or a proud follower of the Montreal Canadiannes? You're just shit out of luck.

Also, the rest of the line up at ESPN are these adversarial topic shows, such as "Pardon The Interuption" or PTI as it's referred to, where two assholes scream over each other to the tick of a clock counting down before they have to move on to the next subject. It's literally like taking two drunks from a bar, giving them a list of talking points, and running an egg timer. I should also mention that they have two or three other shows that use this same format, one of which lovingly comes with a mute button (Around The Horn), thank god.

Again, if I want to watch a pack of dickheads yell at each other, over each other, about today's sports topics, I'll grab a stool down at Mulligan's, where someone will eventually get punched in the side of the head, and no one's wearing a pretentious-looking suit.

I really wish ESPN would back it down a bit. Not everything in the sports world needs 24/7 coverage. If you miss a Busch Series race or a college football game here and there, so what? Don't bear the burden on yourselves, hand off some to the local area sports networks like NESN or New England Sports Network (that is, if you're reading this and live in New England). I'm sure other regions have similar networks in place.

Go back, ESPN, to your roots of just doing highlights with witty commentary. Get rid of the college interns/boss's sons who sit behind their desk on set and read from the paper, sounding as if they're actually reading from a paper. Put a little heart into the shows you're putting on the air. And for the love of Christ, no one cares about those soft little feature pieces on the handicapped karate instructor or the Iraq War Vetrans Vollyball League.

Turn back before it's too late.