DOLOR

hey, remember when there used to be some good programs on television? the reason i ask is because there’s a communications scholar on campus this evening who will be discussing reality tv, and i’m obligated to attend. so i figured i’d take a day off from exhuming the wealth of information and ideas from my brain to rant briefly.

i don’t watch reality tv. it’s always been a joke, but now it’s gone on for so long it has become a weird mockery of itself. maybe it’s a red-state, blue-state issue. the luster of the medium is gone, and it’s been replaced by plastic surgery and cheap, not-so-thrilling thrills. enough already. let’s find some people (like myself, of course) who can revive situational comedies or dramas. it’s depressing when the only shows that have progressed and routinely deliver are cartoons, arrested development, and conan o’brien.

now, in honor of tonight’s guest speaker, i’m going to run off a few of my reality tv show ideas. if any of them are actually developed (here’s looking at you, FOX broadcasting), i’ll sue.

1) “spic and span” modeled after those TLC shows where they change around people’s houses. our staff of illegal immigrant workers will clean your house and rearrange all your furniture. once they’re finished, you’re contractually bound to employ them. it’s funny ’cause they’re mexican. no one wins.

2) “westward, ho!” take a fifty-dollar hooker from atlantic city, new jersey and send her across the country performing menial tasks. the hitch is, she starts the journey with no money and no ride. can she make it to each destination on time? only if she can find a john to suck off and give ‘er a lift! think “the simple life,” but with less whores.

3) “the neil world” each week we search the online sex offender registry for someone named neil. it’s is a pretty common pervert name, i think. each neil is given a complete make-over so that they look like the biggest fucking freak you’ve ever seen. the coke bottle glasses, the greasy hair, the unkempt collared shirt, a button that says “i love touching little boys,” dandruff on the shoulders, bermuda shorts, the works… then they’re placed in general population at a state prison. if they survive they win an orphan boy. to be aired on BRAVO!

4) “plantation island” a rich african american chief-executive is supplanted from his cushy home and forced to be a cotton picking slave in the deep south. it’s not an island, but the title works too well to worry about accuracy. the slave will dress in pre-civil war garb and be ritualistically whipped by his hard-nosed task master. then at the end of the series he’s lynched and a white man takes his old job at the fortune 500 company.

5) “smile, you’re dead” i’m getting tired so this one will be quick: made up prizes are awarded to barely-there old folks… each senile twit/alzheimers patient wins by not dropping dead. they don’t actually receive any prizes, but it’s not like they’ll know what the fuck is going on.