The reality is...

It's my day off! I have my quad shot mocha in front of me...ahhh! Cheerio spill cleaned up...damn it!! I have my favorite grungy flannel shirt on that I don't believe has been washed since Kurt Cobain lived. Remote control in hand...yes! Life couldn't get better.

After catching up on the ESPN highlight reels and meaniless opinions and checking in to see how bad the Dow is tankin', I go on to other seventeen thousand channels. Just moving around, looking for something, anything, to watch, but jeez, there just doesn't seem that there is anything of value on the tube anymore. Nothing.

Not that there was a whole lot to choose from back in the day. Hell, there was only three channels to choose from, and PBS, but that doesn't count. And kids don't have dad screaming "Get up you lazy shit and change the channel. Christ, you know 'All in the Family' is on, same time, everyweek! And while your up get me an 'Oly!" So you change the 'knob' and slink into the kitchen toward the fridge, you hear him laughing, saying, "Damn'd if that Archie Bunker don't have the world figger'd out."

Okay...I understand that it is Wednesday afternoon. And Regis was off the air before I ever woke up, but I'm bored and I want to watch something. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough. So I continue.

What I find is disturbing. There's the normal crap. Soaps for instance. They've been on the air since the invent of the televison arguably by Philo Taylor Farmsworth (arguably because there was this guy named Vladimir Kosma Zworykin who might have invented it...but his name is too hard to prounounce). Farmsworth was a privately funded Utah farmboy who first transmitted television signals in 1927 in order for the Republican National Convention to go off without a hitch so all the NRA and pro-lifers could watch from the comfort of their high horses. Then there are the news channels that broadcast the same stories over and over til, finally, an Amtrak derails in Toledo, or a three legged cat named Tripod gets stuck in a tree somewhere other than a place where I'm at, so why the hell should I care?

I flip on, but I am finding that I shouldn't have because what happens next is beyond frightening...the realization that the world is doomed, Armageddon (without Ben Affleck), the second coming of Christ is apon us.

Reality Television!!!!

Did you know that not only does reality t.v. rule the airwaves during primetime, but it is king during the day as well? MTV, Bravo, VH1, CMT and Paris Hilton TV. Celebrity Chef, The Pick-Up Artist, Top Model, 20 Greatest Celebrity Fights, Made, Celebrity Rehab, Brett Michaels Creates a New Strain of VD (OK...I made that one up, but do you really think we'll have to wait too much longer before it is reality?). Why can't there be more sitcoms on like Scrubs or Family Guy re-runs or Dane Cook stand-up broadcasts or a good movie on, even one I've seen a dozen times. Heck, even more Judge Judy during the day would be better than the faux reality that litters the airwaves.

Entertainment on television. Rembember what that meant? Don't know about you but sometimes I find myself beginning to forget.

It' all too much. I think I'll grab myself a can of 'Oly and take a nap.