First, let me say that I love television more than I love my own children just about anything in this world. It’s much like a full-time job for me. I try to fit in about forty hours a week, if I can. (Or at least I used to.) Heh.
I love all kinds of programming, ranging from the guilty-pleasure stuff like Hoarders (which is so ohmygodIcannotbelievethesepeople!) to Cousteau-type stuff on the National Geographic channel. I love it all.
A few years ago, we added the Sex TV station to our cable roster which made me so very happy, I can’t even tell you. It’s not porn, incidentally – not unless you count that uber-crappy porn-lite stuff that gets aired after 11 PM for children and old people – nay, it was a really excellent information station, often times airing mini-documentary-style snippets of a range of tidbits under the GIGANTIC and SPLENDID umbrella of Eros.
Straight sex. Gay sex. Everything-in-between sex. It profiled artists of all kinds: photographers specialising in art nudes or Suicide Girls or working girls, painters who depict pop-art images of sex and cannibalism, or old-school hook rug makers who craft super-sized rugs depicting the likes of Brigitte Bardot or Raquel Welsh. Some people knit penis-cozies out of latex. I’m not sure why they do this, but it’s available, I’ve come to understand. Hmmmmm.
It was an entire channel dedicated to all the sessy things. It aired documentaries about the history of whoring in New Orleans. Or of swinging in Berlin. Or of burlesque all over the world. I watched a segment about people who like to dress up like ponies, and the people who ride them… they organised a fox hunt. One burly man with a handlebar moustache got to be the fox. It was very strange. But oh, how they enjoyed themselves! I wonder what such an after-party might be like, though I’m glad I wasn’t invited, thanks. (Besides, if one doesn’t own fetish-gear, what would one WEAR to such a party?!)
I once watched a segment about grown men who enjoy dressing up as babies. (It’s called Infantilism.) I mean with curly, golden wigs atop their heads, and mary-jane shoes on their enormous man-feet. They enjoy wearing diapers and having them changed by the “mummies” they hire for the privilege… there are services for these sorts of things. Some enjoy being breast-fed by lactating women. Um…
Okay, that’s super fucking weird, but whatev.
The best part for me, is coming to understand what people think about a myriad of sexual subjects. How they behave in a society like our own, which is still so heavily puritanical. It is a rather large world out there, but thanks to all-things-cyber, the world seems much, much smaller – it’s easy to gain access to niches, or to find others with a similar “fetish.” It’s interesting to me to see what people like. If you’re not harming anyone (and if children aren’t involved in any way) then people should be free to do pretty much whatever (or whomever) they choose.
The sad thing is, this station is no more. I tried to pull it up several weeks ago and saw Sandra Bullock in pagent costume. Eh? Why are they airing this piece of crap? (Okay, I’ve seen that movie several times – part I AND part II, in fact – but why are they airing this piece of crap HERE?!) The movie to follow was Dying Young with Julia Roberts (yet another film I’ve seen many times, but not exactly what I’d call “sexy”) and immediately following that was Janeane Garofalo’s The Truth About Cats and Dogs.
Wait just a fucking minute.
This was starting to smell very… “woman’s network television” to me. Holy fuckballs.
And what do you know? It actually IS called Woman’s Network Movies or some such crap. I have no issue with such a station existing, but c’mon, man! Where’s the SEX?!
Gone, that’s where. And it took my TV-watching patience with it, I think.
We’ve also had the Biography and the Documentary channels for many years, which are both awesome. I love that at any time of day or night, you can learn about the life and career of Mohammed Ali, or Peter Lawford, or Katherine Hepburn, or Katherine Heigl, or of the Vanderbilts (Hi Anderson Cooper!!), or the Astors, or the Osbournes. You can watch a film about salt milling in India, or coal mining in Virginia, or about euthanasia, or about the youths in Asia. Day or night, there’s some excellent information to be gleaned out there. I love that about TV.
I’ll tune in to one station or another, hoping to see the life and times of Liza Minelli or even Liza with a Z if I’m lucky (because that’s all kinds of awesome, no matter how you spell it) or perhaps to check out an episode of Iconoclasts, where the likes of Dave Chappelle and Maya Angelou sit down together and chat a while. Renee Zelleweger and Christiane Amanpour. Isabella Rossallini and Dean Kamen. One of my favorite pairings was when Eddie Vedder spent the day with Laird Hamilton, wherein the rock-god and the surf-god parlayed about all things music and surfing and art and love and family and the past, present and future… swoon! It was awesome. What a delicious bit of programming that show is…
So imagine my surprise to find Flavor Flav on my screen with a bevy of gangsta-babes all vying for his affection in some sort of “contest.” (Ew.) I suppose it was much like The Bachelor in it’s inception, though I can’t be certain because I never watched that show. And sadly, there are more shows like this cropping up all the time, and they get more and more lowbrow at every incarnation. I believe there are TWO different shows about sad, New Jersey boys living in their parents’ basement, interviewing potential wives. The grammar coming out of the mouths of these people alone makes me want to slap somebody. Whenever I catch a glimpse of such a stinkfest, I grip the sides of my head, in an effort to keep it from exploding.
Are you kidding me? And WHY EXACTLY is this programming on the Documentary channel? Oy.
I don’t care to see washed-up rockstars in rehab either. It’s just embarrassing.
I love Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, at least in theory. I love what it’s about, and I couldn’t have come at a better time… I’m just a little sad that is has to be in crappy reality-tv format. If he’s made a two-hour documentary about his efforts, with a beginning, middle, and end, I would have watched it. I do not need to watch the executive-produced “drama” between Jamie and the surly we ain’t changin’ lunch ladies who are pissed as hell at him for coming onto their turf. For goodness sake. Nor do I need the DUN-DUN-DUN cliff-hanger of the fat preteen, anxiously awaiting the news as to whether or not he has developed diabetes (yet.) Oh my god, people. Get a clue, and stop eating pizza for breakfast. And PS – the term “all you can eat” is not a challenge.
Can’t we just cut to the chase? Are people so easily distracted that if there isn’t some insipid form of drama, the population won’t ingest the information?
Oh, and is Jerry Seinfeld broke or something? What the hell kind of crap is The Marriage Ref? There’s an audience out there that finds it funny and entertaining?! Oh. My. Lord. SAD!! I weep for the future of television.
It scares me.
Sometimes I’ll see a trailer for something, and I have no idea if it’s for a new show, or a comedy series, or for a new soda, or what. I think I’m getting old and curmudgeony.
But seriously, if I never have to see Flavor Flav’s mug on my TV involuntarily again, it will be too soon. (That dude is ugly. Whoa.)
All I can say is thank you baby Jesus for HBO, only it’s Bill Maher who’s here to save us all. He’s my own. Personal. Jesus.
Amen.
G.G.
NOTE: My pregnant-neighbour-fox birthed a girl-pup early yesterday morning after a less-than-three-hour labour. Whoosh! She called me during the last 15 minutes of the Glee season finale, but naturally I took her call… I’m pretty sure I heard To Sir With Love being sung in the background, and although I ADORE that song with a passion, I didn’t lose focus chatting with my babe about her new babe who is the cutest little baby I’ve ever… joy!
