down with mass media!
carbphobic? relax!
heed the rasta elephants,
think gap, buy more crap.
in my experience, television is reliably unwatchable as often as oral birth control is reliably effective. thanks to the reality fad, the two now also have the same potential side effects, such as nausea and extreme irritability. i, for the most part, would rather listen to people discuss their birth control than whichever asinine lineup they ogled numbly the night before, and the night before that, and so on and so on... but every so often a shining star squeaks through, and even if those stars are snuffed immediately upon their discovery, it's good to know that someone is still trying.
i'm not going to list my favorite shows for you because, well, who the hell cares. i am going to tell you that after watching the better part of a "west wing" marathon the other weekend i was sure the only way for me to be happy was to run away and work for howard dean. and that, my loveys, is what art is all about: inner voices and the dream of a better life. i mean, i love weird cartoons and john waters movies and that crazy canadian lady with the butt plugs as much as anyone does, but until the networks are willing to air all of those things during peak hours i'll remain deeply dissatisfied, and the fact that a program about a fake presidency ties with "the daily show" for most inspiring mainstream political coverage is beautiful--but sad.
how much time do you spend every week watching a shiny screen? how often does anything you see on that screen move you? remember, this screen counts, and i'm not trying to be one of the better things you might see. i'm just saying.
so, my lovely and faithful toadie and i have begun to fantasize about owning our own t.v. station. tell me with a straight face that you wouldn't watch all of these shows:
1. "Happy Hour with Dave Attenborough." Sir David Attenborough hosts a British nature documentary series, "the life of birds." toadie and i have turned the hour-long program into a fabulously simple drinking game: every time dave says "birds," we do a shot. because the number of "birds" can be anywhere between twelve and eighty, we tend to play with a pitcher of margaritas instead of a bottle of tequila. "Happy Hour" would mostly consist of the documentary in full screen with a streaming broadcast of the two of us and her pet macaw playing this game in a smaller corner window. maybe you don't think this would be all that funny, but, oh my, it is. and to appease the PETA crowd, no, the bird does not drink with us.
2. "Radioactive Fly." toadie is toadie because she's my assistant at work where, as i've mentioned in past entries, i inject cats with radioactive iodine to treat hyperthyroidism and occasionally perform other nuclear duties. for a while there was a fly the size of a human head in our ward. he was originally fodder for a comic strip, but we think a serial cartoon would be a better medium. he, like all supervillains, is often seen stroking his (frothing, glowing, hideously mutated) pet cat while wearing a smoking jacket. he eventually takes me as his bride, and together we lead a horde of three-legged greyhound minions. we'd love to get jhonen vasquez on board with this one.
3. "the joys of hexing." a weekly martha stewart-esque show where we guide our viewers through a variety of simple yet effective voodoo curses using everyday items found right within their own homes.
4. "michael." michael is a co-worker. he's insane and will talk for hours and hours about anything from the pros and cons of different political regimes to the sex toys he bought on-line last week. we love michael to death, but we aren't sure whether he'd be as effective in a less spontaneous set-up. because of that, the plan is to secretly record his conversations and then play the dialogue over different formats (stop-action animation, puppets, interpretive dance, etc.). we know, we know, this isn't a completely original idea, but michael is a completely original human being, and we don't think any comparisons to "tv funhouse" will be made after the first fifteen minutes. we don't want to distort or distract you from anything he's saying, we just want to complement it.
i'll include program updates in this blog as i think of them. our first feature film involves centimeter-high chenille pipe cleaner chickens and naked plastic babies just the right size to ride the chickens. we're still deciding whether the babies and the chickens coexist peacefully or not. if you pay attention to our fearless leader's public orations, you know that the peaceful coexistence of humans and wildlife (in his case, "fishes") is a key topic, so, just in case you thought that my starting off about "the west wing" was lofty and irrelevant, i have now brought things full-circle. everything is political in one sphere or another.
except "american idol." that's just bullshit.
heed the rasta elephants,
think gap, buy more crap.
in my experience, television is reliably unwatchable as often as oral birth control is reliably effective. thanks to the reality fad, the two now also have the same potential side effects, such as nausea and extreme irritability. i, for the most part, would rather listen to people discuss their birth control than whichever asinine lineup they ogled numbly the night before, and the night before that, and so on and so on... but every so often a shining star squeaks through, and even if those stars are snuffed immediately upon their discovery, it's good to know that someone is still trying.
i'm not going to list my favorite shows for you because, well, who the hell cares. i am going to tell you that after watching the better part of a "west wing" marathon the other weekend i was sure the only way for me to be happy was to run away and work for howard dean. and that, my loveys, is what art is all about: inner voices and the dream of a better life. i mean, i love weird cartoons and john waters movies and that crazy canadian lady with the butt plugs as much as anyone does, but until the networks are willing to air all of those things during peak hours i'll remain deeply dissatisfied, and the fact that a program about a fake presidency ties with "the daily show" for most inspiring mainstream political coverage is beautiful--but sad.
how much time do you spend every week watching a shiny screen? how often does anything you see on that screen move you? remember, this screen counts, and i'm not trying to be one of the better things you might see. i'm just saying.
so, my lovely and faithful toadie and i have begun to fantasize about owning our own t.v. station. tell me with a straight face that you wouldn't watch all of these shows:
1. "Happy Hour with Dave Attenborough." Sir David Attenborough hosts a British nature documentary series, "the life of birds." toadie and i have turned the hour-long program into a fabulously simple drinking game: every time dave says "birds," we do a shot. because the number of "birds" can be anywhere between twelve and eighty, we tend to play with a pitcher of margaritas instead of a bottle of tequila. "Happy Hour" would mostly consist of the documentary in full screen with a streaming broadcast of the two of us and her pet macaw playing this game in a smaller corner window. maybe you don't think this would be all that funny, but, oh my, it is. and to appease the PETA crowd, no, the bird does not drink with us.
2. "Radioactive Fly." toadie is toadie because she's my assistant at work where, as i've mentioned in past entries, i inject cats with radioactive iodine to treat hyperthyroidism and occasionally perform other nuclear duties. for a while there was a fly the size of a human head in our ward. he was originally fodder for a comic strip, but we think a serial cartoon would be a better medium. he, like all supervillains, is often seen stroking his (frothing, glowing, hideously mutated) pet cat while wearing a smoking jacket. he eventually takes me as his bride, and together we lead a horde of three-legged greyhound minions. we'd love to get jhonen vasquez on board with this one.
3. "the joys of hexing." a weekly martha stewart-esque show where we guide our viewers through a variety of simple yet effective voodoo curses using everyday items found right within their own homes.
4. "michael." michael is a co-worker. he's insane and will talk for hours and hours about anything from the pros and cons of different political regimes to the sex toys he bought on-line last week. we love michael to death, but we aren't sure whether he'd be as effective in a less spontaneous set-up. because of that, the plan is to secretly record his conversations and then play the dialogue over different formats (stop-action animation, puppets, interpretive dance, etc.). we know, we know, this isn't a completely original idea, but michael is a completely original human being, and we don't think any comparisons to "tv funhouse" will be made after the first fifteen minutes. we don't want to distort or distract you from anything he's saying, we just want to complement it.
i'll include program updates in this blog as i think of them. our first feature film involves centimeter-high chenille pipe cleaner chickens and naked plastic babies just the right size to ride the chickens. we're still deciding whether the babies and the chickens coexist peacefully or not. if you pay attention to our fearless leader's public orations, you know that the peaceful coexistence of humans and wildlife (in his case, "fishes") is a key topic, so, just in case you thought that my starting off about "the west wing" was lofty and irrelevant, i have now brought things full-circle. everything is political in one sphere or another.
except "american idol." that's just bullshit.
Labels: inventions, tv
posted by juniper pearl @ 9:21 PM
0 comments
