Television Love Letter

Last Night I Went To A Potluck and i was so spent from the weekend that i had like, NEGATIVE personality and was a COMPLETE DIALTONE for the most part, AND i broke a cardinal rule of white person etiquette. I was kind of intimidated by the crowd a little bit. People kept on making jokes about the travails of being a grad student and talking about (what i think were) different types of major academic papers or rubrick systems or something and pretty much EVERYBODY WAS LAUGHING except for me, my friend travis and the slightly creepy bohemian guy from next door who was actually kind of funny because he congratulated travis and i on NOT going to UofA, which i thought was kind of aware and clever. everybody was super nice, i don't mean to say they were snobby or unapproachable, because they weren't, it was just some ADVANCED COLLEGIATE-ESE being spoken and i'm a pretty smart well read guy, i think, but they may as well have been speaking ewok or something


The big reveal that i didn't know about going in was that the pretext for the party was defrauding a Pro-Zionist "charity" that i guess pays jews who have made their pilgimmage to have dinner and talk Zionist values or something and the more people you take to dinner, the more of a budget you are given... with our very cool hosts redirecting the money they get from the group (18 bucks a head) to a "Real" charity. So they got everybody together for a group photo, which they send in, and then they get paid. Tucker, the host, made the very funny comment that he couldn't think of a worse idea for a charity than paying people who could afford to go out to dinner to go out to dinner or something to that effect, which i thought was just ROFLMFAO exactly right. I myself have some very strong anti-Zionist feelings (not to be confused with anti-jewish sentiment AT ALL) and against the Israeli government's US backed military (500+ billion a year), so i was glad to help.

The Lulz turned to HORROR when i broached the subject of television. i asked Tucker's boyfriend Forrest if he'd seen some show or something, and he said that HE DIDN'T LIKE TV. i kind of lost it a little bit and i just kept saying "WHO DOESN'T LIKE TV?!" like he'd said that he douses hobos with kerosene while they sleep and then sets them ablaze or something. Even TRAVIS turned on me, and was like "i don't really like tv, either. I watch a couple of shows that i like," and yeah. I started to argue with him that the fact that he WILL NOT DO ANYTHING on the night LOST is on because he is so deeply devoted to the show kind of undermines his claims of general ambivalence, but i stopped because i wanted to berate him in a playful manner, but i could see forrest and this pretty black girl who was fixated on miniatures were looking at me like "oh no! he's getting mad at his friend!" and i didn't want to be misread any further as i'd already given myself away as a cretin what with my love of the idiot box. seriously, though- i don't know what to say to that, other than just a mask of horrified disbelief. Finally, after more confrontational questions directed at Forrest, who thought i was joking or something, i turned to travis and was just like "Come on Travis. Let's go outside." I was still stuck on the subject, though, and once i sat down around the firepit (with actual fire!) i was like "WHO DOESN'T LIKE TV?!" and pretty much EVERYBODY THERE was like "I DON'T HAVE A TV!" it was BAD. i can't remember the last time i was this oblivious to who my audience was (audience meaning 'the people around you,' i don't actually think that when i am invited to a party that the people there are MY AUDIENCE, because that's GROSS unless you're a drag queen or something an it happens to be automatically true no matter where you go or something, but i am NOT THAT CAPTIVATING, this i know, lol). that's one of my life rules- "KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE." so that's a big red mark in the PERSONAL FAIL column, i guess. frowny face :(

Later, Tucker would say that he didn't own a tv, but he immeidiately said "but we talked about loving 30 rock," and so i grant him immunity, and he does not need to be voted off of the island.

seriously, though, i do not understand how anybody can say that they don't like tv? there are SO MANY amazing shows, i personally believe that TV is in it's TRUE golden age, and has been for over 10 years now. Also, i find that TV allows for a much more satisfying experience for me, a viewer. there is a much more comprehensive exploration of themes and characters and so forth, and thus the investment on my part is greater. This is to say nothing of the opportunites for MASSIVE, multi-season plot arcs, that when done properly, is nothing short of rapturous.* I love movies, too, don't get me wrong, but i don't understand why movies are a medium that is accepted as art, but TV isn't? that's some bullshit.

i'm going to go out on a limb here, and just go on the record: if for some reason i was forced to choose between never being allowed to see a movie again or never being allowed to watch TV again, i would WITHOUT HESITATION choose TV, despite my VERY strong love of film. it's so easy to say "oh, there's so much trash on tv! all those reality shows are so bad!" and I AGREE WITH YOU- nobody wants to see the Kardashian's pushed into a vat of acid more than me, i ASSURE YOU, but you know what? go to your local multi-plex and take a look at what's playing there. i think that the ratio for complete shit is about the same.


**OFFICIAL EFFORT AT CLARITY**
Tucker and Forrest are just super nice guys and i really like them.

*examples that quickly spring to mind: season 5 finale of buffy (originally prepared and conceived as the series finale), season 6 finale of buffy (just what they did with willow, and how it referred to all this stuff that you barely noticed for the entire series and had it culminate in a brutal deconstruction of one of TV's alltime most beloved characters is EPIC), the end of (i think?) season 5 of The Shield when they killed Lem, The Wire in general, but ESPECIALLY season 4, the season that focuses on school, the series finale of Six Feet Under (which actually isn't my favorite show in the world, though good, i find it to be VERY OVERRATED, but the series finale pulls it the fuck together in one of the finest sequences i have ever seen on film, be it movies or TV... and the list goes ON, but you catch my drift. TV IS AWESOME, LOVING TV DOES NOT MAKE YOU STUPID (necessarily, lol), TV HAS NEVER BEEN BETTER THAN IT IS NOW, TV CAN BE ART IN A WAY THAT FILM NEVER CAN.

*UPDATE: Damages, Breaking Bad, Skins (british series), Sons of Anarchy, seasons 3 and 4 of Supernatural (which isn't even consistently good), John from Cincinnati, Deadwood, 30 Rock (seriously, i know it's mainstream, but netflix it from the begninning, it's hilarious), etc etc etc...