Throw out your leotards! Go out into the Streets!

What the fuck is wrong with our generation? How did we all turn into a bunch of fashion conscious soulless monsters? Plenty of generations fall off into becoming little embarrassing blips of our cultural history, but it's painful for me to see that it has happened to us. Just look at us, getting brunch on a Sunday morning in our black hoodies and horn rimmed glasses with trashy drunk girls going out to smoke cigarettes before their food arrives (probably so they won't be hungry enough to eat more than a little of it). We compare our fucking ringtones and the best places to download and plug our myspace blogs to our worthless friends. And why is everybody "somebody"? Can't we just accept ourselves as something less than fabulous because let's face it when everyone isfabulous then no one is. I mean I understand that we are the first of the mini-generations (does anyone remember when a generation was longer than five years) to most likely have no memory of our first exposure to MTV and we've been overstimulated throughout most of our coddled existences> It's made us more concerned with being cool than anything else. I guess the peculiar combination of living our childhoods in the decadent 80s, having that interrupted by the short lived mainstream counter-culture of the early 90s and then watching as plasticism took over again and eventually everything became a watered down version of something that had come before during a separate cultural moment. We convinced oursleves that everything had been created, everything had been done. Now, we would just mix and match everything and pretend that we were unique (just like everybody else). So we flit about our lives and we have no real political conscience. Sure, we hate Bush and friends but only because we heard that was cool. Meanwhile, we read Vice magazine and let its insidious anti-humanist agenda slowly seep into our pores. It seems so cool and counter-culture that we somehow miss that its not really ok to make fun of immigrants and have writers fuck random cops just to write about it. And we don't vote. We don't fucking vote! I know the democrats are disapointing. i mean Christ, they are waaaay beyond disapointing and it hurts every time I vote for one. But, that's not the reason that we don't vote. We don't vote because its not cool to vote. It's not cool to vote and it's not cool to care about anything too passionately (except graphic design and fashion). We don't vote because "we're over it" or because we're so anti-this or anti-that. We don't vote so that we can feel superior to those who do. Those poor fucking square saps who still believe that it makes a difference. Those people are sooo pathetic. They probably still shop at the Gap.
The saddest part about it is that none of these people will ever be cool. No matter what high end thrift store they bought their clothes from, no matter how many MySpace friends they have, no how matter how many people came to their friend's art opening, they will never be cool. They will never be cool because there will always be someone exactly like them with their arms crossed, sighing deeply in the corner, commenting to his or her friends how lame that person is for whatever fashion faux pas they have made. Because these people are all alike. They all want to be "different" enough to feel accepted but the only way to be "different" enough is to be better or cooler or hipper than the next person. All our chances at generational unity have been shattered by the culture of cool. We who were born between "78 and "83 will never have a sense of community that isn't based on exclusion, so we'll never have a sense of community.
I would tell you to burn your sideways cocked hat and your leg warmers and your leotards and your American Apparel clothing and especially your copies of Vice Magazine and go out have one sincere thought or emotion. Try being earnest about something anything. Irony isn't cool anymore. I could tell you to do all of that, but why bother you'd just think that I was hopelessly uncool.

The World's Last Living War Criminal

Let's face it, international justice is a joke. We parade Saddam Hussein around every few weeks and have him interrupt people recounting this horror or that horror that his thugs perpetrated on his behalf. I don't think there are too many people out there who doubt what the end result will be. Our boy will wind up swinging from a tree after a long lengthy trial in which every bad thing that happened during his administration is hashed out and debated. If we'd tried him in The Hague instead of Baghdad, he'd rot in jail instead of in the ground and not so many lawyers and jusdeges and relatives of such people would be killed, but we would have the big show nonetheless. It seems that we have the big show because it somehow establishes the dominance of reason over power and brutality. Its a farce and everybody knows it. al Bashir and his cronies in the Sudan certainly know it. They have been operating with impunity for years now perpetrating this genocide or that and barely a finger has been lifted to stop them. Eventually, someone probably will and then they will get their own circus. Whether this circus is thrown at the ICC or by the new temporarily pro-Western government in Khartoum or at the Rekjavik Hilton is yet to be determined, but it will happen.
These circuses don't scare anyone though. No terrorist leaders or strongman butchers are out there thinking "Y'know, maybe I should stop all these mass killings and gang rapes and village burnings because someday I have to be represented by Ramsey Clark." I, however, have a solution: Tyra Banks.
What the fuck am I talking about? you ask. I am talking about the next big thing. I am talking about The World's Last Living War Criminal. We take all of the high profile terrorists and war criminals that we can find (well no more than 20) and, instead of fighting violence and demogaguery with the illusion of international justice, we put them all on a remote island with a camera crew and Tyra Banks. They will have to group up into teams and compete in challenges and every week someone will get voted off the island. Except, when someone is voted off the island, they don't get to go home and appear on the Today Show or trade recipes with Rachel Ray, they get their head chopped off on live TV (well maybe taped, we have to be civilized after all). Why you ask will this scare these people into living better lives and halting massacres instead of hasening them? Because Tyra Banks will be the host/overlord of this show. She will get to come up with all of the stupid challenges and send them Tyra Mail and go through every name at the end of the episode and say "Congratulations, Charles Taylor, you're still in the running to be the World's Last Living War Criminal. Congratulations, Donald Rumsfeld, you're still in the running to be the World's Last Living War Criminal." Then poor old al Bashir will be left having been unable to manipulate his fellow monsters into letting him remain and then chop goes his head. Tyra is the only host that would work because she can outcrazy any of the people I can think of to be on the Island. You'd get to watch a group of master manipulators who will make Ricahrd Hatch and Omarosa seem like amateurs and then you'd get to see their heads on a pike. The winner would be left alive alone with no resources on the island, but we will tell the contestants that the winner gets pardoned. No more cushy Dutch cells where the butchers can die mysterious bloodless deaths. Now, if you want to use mass murder and organized rape to solidify your power, go ahead and do so, but you better be prepared to deal with Tyra.

We are all somewhat guilty of narcissism. Writers, in particular, are very guilty. It takes quite a bit of self-love to believe that the random thoughts in one's head are actually worth other people reading. I'm writing right now. Therefore, I'm guilty. But, my narcissism is but a misdemeanor compared to Aaron Sorkin. It makes sense. In recovery, they teach you all about looking out for yourself. So it makes sense that a writer, especially a moralistic one like Sorkin, would come out of rehab completely obsessed with himself. But, even so, Sorkin has shoved his head so far up his own ass that it is coming back out his head. How self-congratulatory can a show about a comedy show be. And I know I'm not the first person to ask this, but why isn't it funny? At first, I was thrown. Sports Night was technically a comedy-drama and The American President was technically a romantic comedy so he should be able to write a funny scene. But, then I remembered neither one was actually funny. Their appeal stemmed from that breezy dialogue and moral and political correctness that they exuded and The West Wing perfected. Studio 60 hasn't had a funny moment that I can recall at this moment, but it has had a moment so audaciously self-congratualtory and self-absorbed that I still cannot really believe that it happened. One of the characters asked Christine Lahti's character why she is writing about their show and not important world issues. She replies "Because I think that pop culture is important and this show, in particular." Whoa! Get over yourself Aaron. The reason why nobody is watching the show (other than that it isn't funny) is that none of the characters are remotely well developed. The blonde woman is a Christian (and a tolerant one), D.L. Hughley is the token black guy and apparently used to be in the gang. There is also a scrawny white guy with dark hair who we know absolutely about, other than that he is scrawny dark-haired and white. Why don't we know anything about these people? Because they aren't Sorkin's alter egos. Matthew Perry is because he is a brilliant writer too good to be working in TV. Bradley Whitford is because he used to have a cocaine problem. Sure, Amanda Peet could probably make Eva Braun likeable but it's not enough. It's just not enough. The show is doomed. Ratings have fallen off almost by half and how many more times can we stare at Matthew Perry looking at "the board" having writer's block. It's really too bad. I am fascinated with TV production, a sucker for Modernist self-reflection, and an even bigger sucker for shameless emotional manipulation. Yet, somehow, they have lost me. Stop looking into the pool, Aaron! There are other people out here

So, I'm watching 90210 on Soapnet which, embarrassingly enough, is part of my daily routine, and on comes a Comcast commercial advertising their advertising. It is unclear why they have decided to place this spot here as it would not occur to me that 90210 would attract a large audience of people responsible for television ad buys. The commercial juxtaposes a series of caricatured demographic types (like a nun) with products( (like a motorcycle) that, according to marketers, would not appeal to them. Then ,of course, Comcast fixes everything and the nun gets a bike instead of a motorcycle and everybody's happy. But if, as I assumed earlier, no one who controls the advertising budgets for big business or (small for that matter) is watching, then, it would seem they are trying to subtly bully all of us into watching demographically appropriate programming and wanting demographically appropriate products? I started to wonder with whom I was currently sharing demographic space. Most of the ads, as usual, seemed aimed at stay at home moms and other types who want things elegant and easy, then a commercial came on for a revolutionary home diabetes kit. This is what struck me. Why did these ad gurus in the Comcast building decide that the audience for the second hour of 90210 was particularly likely to be in need of this product. Now, I know next to nothing about diabetes (and I am quite sure that what I am about to say will offend some people and you are totally right, I am an asshole), but the only cause that I did know of was obesity. As far as I knew, diabetes was either hereditary or random or it was caused by obesity, so, on that logic, the marketing establishment had decided that I, as 90210 viewer, was particularly likely to be obese. When the program came back on, it all made sense. It was the high camp years, Brandon and kelly were helping a cab driver who had been a doctor in Bosnia and thought his wife was dead find his wife and in the end, they happily reunite the two, all while Brandon and Kelly are trying to plan their own wedding and the last scene ends with Valerie convinced that she has gotten AIDS from a one night stand with a photographer in whose drawer she found heroin and needles, I mean who else but someone who never leaves the couch could possibly find any of this worth watching? Essentially, those watching 90210 are committing a self-nullifying act. We, the 90210 audience, have low self esteem. Why else would we watch the later years of such a show? Thus, the marketers have determined that having low self-esteem, we are more likely to be obese thus more likely to have diabetes. All of this, of course, has just increased my fear of becoming obese and getting diabetes and havingmy legs amputated. Maybe, I should start buying the diet pills they were just trying to sell me.

Embrace your bad taste

I am so sick of people modifying their statements when they tell what TV shows they like. "you know a few months ago I would have never watched Lost but..." This is their way of telling you that they aren't the type of person that you must assume they are for watching a show or that the show is actually so much better than your preconceived notions about it. I, of course, am just as guilty of this as anyone else. I am always trying to explain my rabid Degrassi or Gilmore fixations to people. Basically, we spend our time apologizing to the world for hanging out outside of what we percieve our own demoraphic to be. I am not a teenage girl or even a woman for that matter so according to the marketing statistics that I haven't read I shouldn't be watching those shows...
Speaking of Lost.. I am getting increasingly agitated by people who gush over how great it is as if it is some sort of televisual high art. This goes back to my original point. Some people can't admit that they've been sucked into a compelling mystery show. They need to clarify that it isn't their weakness which brings them back every Wednesday. I haven't, in all fairness, seen Lost, but I have seen Six Degrees and if it is any indication of JJ Abrams talent level then the Lostheads are kidding themselves. I'm all for escapism on TV but the mystical New York where pretty people make fast friends is way too much for my disbelief to suspend itself. Everything is so contrived and New Agey with its chance meetings and spontaneous luck. And the narration would make anyone yearn for Meredith Grey's insipid self-absorbed nonsense. It's a shame because Campbell Scott and Hope Davis are so good in almost everything that they do. Of all the TV shows to pick, why this one? Of course, I have watched this show every week so, once again, I am guilty of apologizing for what I watch. But, unlike those other guilty pleasures, I am usually asking myself "Why the hell am i watching this?" while it's on