... and guess what, I've got a lot to say about nothing!
Reality Television
It's true. TV killed the radio. Years later, filled with guilt, TV reloaded the same gun and pointed the barrel towards itself. Today, TV is dead. I tried to watch a little reality television tonight as I was incredibly tired and was nursing a groin injury.
Canadian Idol is not worthy of my analysis. But I'll offer a brief one. The 'judges' on those shows are the definition of puppets. They say, what needs to be said, to impress the sponsers. After the first few weeks, we know who's going to win on any Idol show. You knew Ruban was gonna win in like Week 2, he's a Teddy Bear. And you knew this Kalan Porter guy had it locked, cuz for whatever reason, girls loved him. (???) But how is it that 3.6 million viewers watch this show even tho almost all 3.6 million will admit that the show is too drawn out?
Here's what you do: You get 3 judges to randomize their 'critiques' of the idol's performances. You get them to say, "I love you, u're a star, u'll go far" one week, and then when Canada has shown they love him, you turn around and call the guy a hack the next week. So everyone votes for him the first week to show support, then just when it seems like he's going to win for sure, the judge calls him a hack, less people vote (some, b/c they think the judges are professional judges of talent, and some, b/c they figure the rest of Canada will vote). And then, "Like OMG, (idol) is on the hotseat!! He almost got kicked off!!" 3.6 million people send in text messages, and if they're stupid enough, pay Bell, or Telus, or Rogers 35 cents to do it! Plus they watch 2 hours of television (which could be 1/2 hour of television) each week to make sure their vote mattered. Oh, Canada! I guess at least one comforting fact is, that of the 3.6 million votes, the average person probly votes like 5 times (my buddy's mom voted like 50 times once!), so really only less then a million people wasted their time and money on this. For whatever reason, there's still 29 million reasonable Canadians out there! I'm ashamed to say that for 2 episodes, i was not part of that 29 million. (That is to say, i watched 2 episodes... i have never voted!)
Survivor pisses me off to no end!!! Allow me to save everyone from having to watch the following season of Survivor. The season will go as follows:
The Usual Cast: 18 Americans, specifically, one elderly woman and one old man (both caucasian), a token a black, a token asian (female most likely), at least one really fat person, one female with lots of attitude, one mischievous caucasian male of poor moral upbringing, and the rest will be strapping young lads between the ages 20-29, all white. Oh yea, and one of them will have a trendy and exciting career, like a Navy Seal, a soccer player, a cowboy or in this case, the FBI agent.
The Usual Season: People will emotionally attach themselves to the old people because they will show a lot of heart and determination as they pass through the 'physically strenuous' immunity challenges. You know, the ones where they have to walk over planks holding something in their hands, or stand in a stationary position for a long period of time. Tasks which coincidentally are not unlike your average shopping experience at Wal-Mart or the local supermarket. One of the old people will make it to the final 4, while the other will be on the council of disgruntled losers hoping for the best. The girl with attitude will also make it far, as although everyone hates her, nobody wishes to show that they're voting out of emotion, because that would spell their own demise in the weeks to follow. According to the trend, this is the time for the 'trendy career guy' to lose early on, i fear. Why? See if an FBI agent, who should possess most of the required skills to win, can't succeed in this 'incredibly intricate' game, then who really CAN? Questions like these provoke curiosity, and in turn viewership, and in turn sponsorship, which makes ABC, Global and the other syndicates happy. The black guy, who is usually shown to be lazy, but in this case is simply fat, will be out before the final four. His spot, sadly was already reserved for the pretty girl who, although weak at the knees, proves to be stronger then a chauvinist would expect. (Girl POWER!) So with the old person, the bitch, and the princess already in the top 4, the final spot will be captured by what I call, "the threat." This is the guy who seemingly poses a threat to all other contestants, but somehow stays alive everytime. Like the gay guy who struts around naked, or the cowboy or soccer player whose physical dominance is far beyond the others, and so on. The winner is always a surprise to me. Americans don't make much sense to me, and the winner is normally selected to make America happy, so I guess you'll all have to watch the last episode. I won't, I have no interest in it. The only thing about Survivor that I want to know is, "Where are the token Puerto Ricans at?"
Aside: Actually, the answer to that is simple. In America, immigration is like the first year of college. You have to go through a "hell week" where the rest of established Americans haze you and put you through shit and beat you, confine you, etc. until finally they accept you for no other reason then they have to. Except, this is more like a "hell 100 years or so" and instead of paddling a guy, or making him run around naked at a frat party, you hang a few of them, lock most of them up, make them run naked on an episode of COPS, force them all to find refuge in areas of poor social construct, and finally slow the process of their development by placing liquor stores, on every corner. And of course, low-income housing, convenience stores and poor drug enforcement all over the place helps too. With the new LCBO at morningside, and with the Beer Store smack in the middle of Malvern Mall, i wonder sometimes if Canada is any different.
Anyway, the Blacks and Irish have pretty much made it into the fraternity, they paid their dues, (we all saw Gangs of New York), let's see how long it takes to see an abundance of Mexicans on the Board of corporations, or lecturing at Universities. The point which I definitely strayed far away form is that as latin people in the states are still being hazed, the fine people at ABC are hardpressed to find a Latin Guy, hustling in the streets and living hand-to-mouth, that's willing to leave his 'career' to willingly starve himself, with no definite payout. It's kind of ridiculous.
I spent the hour thinking about this blog and typing it out, meanwhile, the Apprentice was on. The Apprentice I like!! But that's because it's new. And, the formula for picking the winner is always laid out during each episode, as Donald Trump chews out some people in the board room. There's minimal hipocracy in the selection process, no underlying formula for fooling viewers. Trump tells them why they've been sent 'down to the street!' That is to say, there's no hipocracy until it really matters. In the end, Mr. Trump aint going to hire the high school grad to run a multibillion dollar company. The entire board of directors, which the Winner will be in charge of, will have Graduate degrees. They won't take orders from who's never even attended a Finance lecture. And yet, he's not going to give an obvious advantage to the Ivy League Grad either, cuz the show would seem biased. And of course, the fine producers of Survivor are the same producers of this show as well, so you know the black girl is going to have a nasty attitude, and the Black guy is going to appear as though he has a fair chance of actually winning the show, when really he doesn't.
The Winner: I'll do a quick tutorial on what we business folks call 'hedging' or, securing yourself against risk. What you basically do is make investments on opposite sides of a market, so that no matter what happens, something will give you a payout. So you might invest in fine imported pasta AND Kraft dinner, so that whether the economy is booming or not, one of your investments is probably doing well in sales. In the case of selecting a winner, if you're taking bets, this is the best scenario for hedging, as there can only be 2 winners. Either, a) the guy who has the most chizled jawline, best golf-swing, and non-abrasive attitude;
or b) The 2nd hottest chick on the show!
-A guy won last time, so if you're conservative, place a bit more money on the chick winning this time. It wouldn't be profitable to ABC or to Trump's businesses to face media-based allegations that only males rise to the top on the Apprentice!
So all-in-all, TV sucks but we've got sattelite at my place. I watch Soccer, the Movie Network (and other movie channels), and teletoon for Family Guy and Home Movies... oh yea, and now they're showing The Flintstones!!! Out of "600 channels," which is actually about 200 channels, which minus the french channels and time-shifting channels is about 150 channels... I watch, about, 5-10 channels... *sigh* What happened to the good old days?
Cheers,
Me
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