Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

This goes out specifically to the cast of The Jersey Shore, anyone named Kardashian, anyone who appears in anything titled The Real Housewives of…, any show on TLC set in a workplace featuring a boss with a hair0trigger temper and his doofus squad of employees, and the entire prime-time line-up of TruTV.

Go. The hell. Away.

You know what? Let me amend that. This goes out to anyone who regularly watches any of the shows I’ve listed above: for the love of god, STOP WATCHING.

Here’s the thing: I love TV. I grew up during a golden age of television, when everything from I Love Lucy and The Andy Griffith Show to the entire Sherwood Schwartz oeuvre was in steady syndication and Norman Lear ruled CBS, Fonzie and the gang was ABC’s anchor, and NBC…uh, they had Real People. And a bunch of cheesy sci-fi shows starring people you never heard of. Remember Manimal with Simon McCorkindale?

Good times.

Which was also a good show, but that was on CBS. It was another Lear production.

But I digress.

My immediate point is, I am a child of television, for good or ill. I am the guy that gets every single pop culture reference in any given episode of Family Guy. I love good, solid, scripted comedies, dramas, adventures, sci-fi — anything that tells me a great story featuring people I actually give a damn about, anything that, at its best, creates art.

That is to say, everything reality TV is not.

Take the Kardashians — please. I mean, for example. What exactly do they do? They’re living their lives in front of a camera. They’re not acting (not in the traditional “I went to Julliard and take my craft seriously” context, anyway), they’re not telling a story, and the drama they present is cheap, tawdry, and manufactured so they don’t come across as nothing more than the uber-rich, pampered celebutants they are.

Then there are the Jersey Shore dolts, a group of party-hearty emotionally arresed lunkheads who, I believe, would throw their fellow “cast mates” into a pit of hungry wolves if it would earn them a little more fame and a little more money. They put all their energy into looking (what passes in their world as ) good, having fun, and acting out in ways that could and sometimes do land them in a jail cell.

Do their antics move you emotionally? Do they touch or enrich your life? Do you actually care about their fate? Or do you watch and think on some level “Wow, how pathetic are these people!” ?

Not as pathetic as the person sitting down every week to watch them.

You enable these people. By adding yourself to the Nielsen body count, you send the message to Hollywood that this is what you want to see: people behaving badly; people who are creating spectacle but not art; people who contribute nothing to the betterment of society; people who are getting rich by behaving in a manner that would get any regular person — anyone without the benefit of an ever-present camera crew — shamed by their family, ostracized by their friends, and ridiculed by society at large.

Kim Kardashian? She pockets $40,000 per episode and rakes in $6 million a year for doing nothing more than attaching her name to stuff. Kate Gosselin? Before her show got dumped by TLC she made $3.5 million. “The Situation” made $2 million from The Jersey Shore and various doomed side-projects like his workout video and his guidebook for picking up women.

And are you people even aware of the greatest irony here? How many times over the course of 2011 did you turn on the TV to hear someone on the news droning on about Charlie Sheen’s latest drug-fueled insanity or Lindsay Lohan’s — uh…latest drug-fueled insanity, and said, “Jeez, I wish these people would go away! I’m sick of hearing about them!” ?

Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan are the exact same people you see on The Jersey Shore, etc., with one critical exception: their shenanigans haven’t been presented to you in a slick, deceptive package. Put self-indulgent, self-destructive dopes on the news and they’re pitiable annoyances; put them in a weekly TV series on E! and you gobble them up and beg for more.

You can put a stop to it by, very simply, refusing to watch these shows anymore. The next time the surgically enhanced face (and chest and butt) of a Kardashian appears on your TV screen, change the channel. Find some quality scripted TV. Turn to a news station and learn something of value. Maybe even — dare I say it? — turn the Idiot Box off entirely and read a book, or go to a museum, or go see some live theater or a concert. Go reward some people with actual talent for their efforts with your time, attention, and money.

Say no to trash masquerading as art and glorified clowns masquerading as artists. Say yes to true art and true artists. We’ll all be better off for it.

Oh happy day, readers, because some very long-standing glitches with this blog have at last been corrected, and reader feedback has been re-enabled!

I don’t know what the technical problems were, but the long and short of it is this: for the past year (yes, one whole year!) everything that was submitted to this blog as a comment was placed in the pending queue, as per normal, but the blog wouldn’t let me go in to delete the spam and approve any legit comments. That has been corrected, so any comments from past posts that got caught in the queue have been approved and are now on the blog.

So, if there’s anything here you wanted to sound off about before, go ahead!

10 ) “Occupy Wall Street” movements grow, expand, become more contentious, and remind us that when people rise up against their government, that’s patriotism, but when people rise up against the corporations that benefit from government largesse and favoritism, well, that’s commie talk.

9 ) Herman Cain continues to surge in the polls. Not that I’m a huge Romney supporter, but why are his biggest challenges in the primary from all the biggest loony-tunes?

8 ) Rush Limbaugh denies Mitt Romney’s conservative bona fides. Suddenly, lots of Massachusetts Democrats find themselves all turned around on this Romney guy.

7 ) Somerville public schools continue to clamp down on holidays. After neutering Halloween, one principal now wants to scuttle Columbus Day because it celebrates genocide. Fair enough. Can we also cancel Christmas because it celebrates a religion that killed thousands of people during the Crusades, the Salem Witch Trials, and the Inquisition? No? C’mon, let’s have a little consistency here.

6 ) Mitt Romney’s Mormonism becomes a talking point in the GOP primaries after a key Rick Perry supporter calls it a “cult.” Hey, remember when everyone said John F. Kennedy’s Catholicism would kill his chances of becoming President?

5 ) Friendly’s abruptly closes 60 restaurants as part of a bankruptcy protection restructuring plan. I only wish this was Brigham’s we were talking about, so I could lament how Awful Awful this is. It’s hard to work “Fribble” into a bad joke.

4 ) Netflix retreats on its plans to separate its streaming and DVD delivery functions into two separate operations. And all it took was thousands of customers jumping ship and plummeting stock values!

3 ) The MBTA launches a new campaign encouraging riders to be more courteous. So next time you’re on the T, look for signs reading, “We know we’re jacking up fares for your sub-par service, but that’s no reason to call us greedy jackasses.”

2 ) Theo Epstein leaves the Red Sox for the Chicago Cubs. Tell me, why is it that when the players on a sports team suck out loud, it’s the management that gets the boot?

1 ) Sixteen extras playing zombies in the next “Resident Evil” movie were injured in an on-set accident. Fortunately, none of them were struck in the head.

Sorry for the delay, folks. Life kind of got in the way. Like it does.

10 ) Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder, passes away. Sadly, the tech world does not have anything as bad-ass as the Patriot Guard Riders to safeguard the funeral. A bunch of nerds on Segues just isn’t that imposing, even if they are shouting at the protesters in fluent Klingon.

9 ) The State Senate plugs away its version of the casino gaming bill, and the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe counts the days until it can screw up a sure thing on a much grander scale.

8 ) Chris Christie says, again, he is not running for the Presidency days before Sarah Palin also declares she’s not running. Everyone else in the race breathes a deep sigh of relief before the get back to their busy agenda of failing to impress Republican voters.

7 ) Elizabeth Warren gives US Senator Scott Brown a run for his money in early polls. Those same polls show a lot of voters actually know nothing about her. People, if you’re wondering what democracy

6 ) Herman Cain taps into Florida voters’ senility and scores a straw poll win over Rick Perry and Mitt Romney. Wait, Herman Cain the crazy guy? What the?!

5 ) Leary Family Amusements is up for sale, and is expected to be replaced with offices or retail space. Sad news for this former arcade rat.

4 ) Starbucks suffers another customer relations black eye when a customer finds the word “bitch” scrawled on her Frappuccino cup, which follows a (now former) employee’s YouTube rant. So let me get this straight: Starbucks has awesome coffee AND open contempt for obnoxious customers? How much more can I love this place?

3 ) An Irish farmer kicks Rihanna off his property, where the pop star was shooting a music video, due to the singer’s skimpy bikini. Man, I want an Irish farm.

2 ) Members of the Boston Bruins get misspelled tattoos to commemorate their Stanley Cup victory. Misspellings aside, what were they thinking? Now the Stanley Cup is sure to break up with them!

1 ) The Red Sox choke in a way only the Red Sox can.

10 ) Clean-up continues from Hurricane/Tropical Storm/Buttload of Wind and Rain Irene, but the real damage control — by NStar and other electric utilities — is going to take MUCH longer.

9 ) Michele Bachmann turns the crazy knob up to 11 and declares (allegedly as a joke) that Irene was a warning from God to curb government spending. Yes, nothing says “Cut government spending” than a major disaster that prompts communities to ask for disaster relief funds.

8 ) The Qaddafi family hangs tough while on the run in Libya. I don’t know how they’re managing that paradoxical feat, but they are.

7 ) ABC announces the latest “Dancing With the Stars” cast, further stretching the definition of “star” but, more importantly, pushing the tolerance envelope with the addition of Chaz (formerly Chastity) Bono, the show’s first-ever trans-gender celeb. Wow, who’d have ever thought “Dancing With the Stars” would become a vanguard of the LGBT movement?

6 ) A Florida pastor proposes an “informational” registry for atheists, which he compares to sex offenders and hate groups like the KKK. He also said he would be the first to sign up for a Christian registry if one were to exist. Take some time to plumb the various levels of irony here.

5 ) Sarah Palin makes plans to hit New Hampshire this weekend, further fueling speculation that people are starting to pay attention to important things and she just can’t have that, nosireebob.

4 ) Daryl Hannah gets arrested at the White House, where she was protesting a Canada-to-Gulf Coast oil pipeline. She’s just worried an oil spill might hurt some of her mermaid friends.

3 ) Beyonce and Lady Gaga try to out-sensationalize each other at the VH1 music awards. Next year, they’ll team up to announce that Beyonce is pregnant again, BY Lady Gaga.

2 ) George Lucas reveals the latest round of “improvements” to the original Star Wars trilogy, including a cheesy “NOOOOO!” by Darth Vader in “Return of the Jedi.” Fanboys immediately vow to curse Lucas’s name forevermore…or at least until they go running to Best Buy to snag the complete saga on Blu-ray.

1 ) Director Steven Soderbergh announces he plans to retire and pursue another art form. Whatever he goes into, I’m sure it’ll be a well-made but pretentious mess. But the next one will be a mainstream commercial hit!

10 ) Congress raises the deb ceiling, makes a bunch of cuts, pretends like they did something meaningful, accuses the other side of mucking up the process…same as usual.

9 ) Among this year’s crop of possible ballot questions is a proposal to do away with 209A protective orders…you know, those things that are designed to keep abusive pieces of [expletive deleted] away from their victims. The sponsor? “Men’s rights” advocate Joe Ureneck, who decries “the feminist propaganda movement [that] swindled the US public into swallowing its lies about men.” Did I mention he used to run an Asian mail-order bride operation? Yeah, he’s a winner.

8 ) Massachusetts angers craft brewers with a new regulation requiring them to purchase at least half their ingredients from local sources in order to retain their low-cost Farmer-Brewery License. The cost of a regular brewery permit is $4,000+, which is enough to kill off some brewers. Sam Adams, save us! (The dead patriot or the Boston brewery, I don’t care which).

7 ) Miley Cyrus gets a tattoo symbolizing her support for same-sex marriage, then tells her angered Christian fan base to stop being so judgmental. Good for her, but sadly, no one within the religious right listened to Pat Boone when he said similar back in the 1990s, so her message of love and acceptance for all — you know, Christian values — will likely be as ineffective.

6 ) Mashpee voters launch a recall effort against the school committee after they decline to act on the Mashpee HS assistant principal controversy. If only they were the real problem in that district.

5 ) Bill O’Reilly claims the Norway gunman could not possibly be a Christian, because Christians would “never” commit mass murder. Apparently, Bill never heard of The Crusades. Or the Inquisition. Or the Salem Witch Trials.

4 ) “The Guild” returns to the Internet for a fourth season. Internet hipsters and geeks rejoice. People who cannot tell an Xbox from a PlayStation from a Wii all go, “The what? Is that some sort of World Wide Net page? Wait, girls play video games?”

3 ) Discovery launches its annual Shark Week event, which tries to dispel the many myths about sharks by showing us how damned scary they can be.

2 ) “The Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is already garnering Oscar buzz for its star. No, not James Franco; Andy Serkis, whose character is a CGI chimp. Hooray for Andy Serkis! And wow, James Franco is getting out-acted by a way-cool special effect? Harsh.

1 ) Think the Smurfs are pushovers? Not so! They’re really pretty bad-ass. I mean, they managed to hold off a joint cowboy/alien assault at the box office.

10 ) The debt ceiling deadline inches ever closer, and so far no one in the federal government is budging on their respective stances. Y’know, because they all want what’s best for the country.

9 ) Drunk driving arrests in Massachusetts jump 22 percent over a five-year period. Look, not EVERY town can claim to be a quaint drinking village with a fishing problem, so stop competing for the title!

8 ) Michele Bachman, this is your life…as dissected by the media. Welcome to the Big Time. Enjoy the ride while it lasts.

7 ) Republican Lori Klein, a pro-gun Arizona Senator, points her pink (yes, PINK) safety-less handgun at a reporter during an interview, but claims there was no risk because her finger wasn’t on the trigger. Gun proponents, to their credit, give her grief for her stupidity. So the only thing here half-cocked is Senator Klein.

6 ) The final “Harry Potter” film hits theaters. Warner Bros. is now officially out of non-superhero movie concepts.

5 ) The owner of a Pittsburgh restaurant bans children under 6 from his business, citing the disruption they cause to other diners. Not that I necessarily oppose that, but maybe he should ban wussy, ineffectual parents instead.

4 ) Sherwood Schwartz, the man who gave us Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch, as well as their catchy theme songs, dies at age 94, leaving behind a lot of fond childhood memories.

3 ) The MBTA is allowing riders to pick the new color scheme and design for 20 new trains. The contest began Tuesday and was scheduled to end two weeks later, but tallying votes will be delayed for several hours due to an unspecified “mechanical issue.”

2 ) A mistrial is declared on Roger Clemens’ perjury trial. Three jurors tested positive for steroids.

1 ) The annual Emmy Award nominees are announced. Saturday Night Live receives an impressive 16 nominations, which I think only proves that the nominating committee is still watching reruns of the show’s first season.

In a few days, I’ll be covering one of my least-favorite events ever: a high school graduation.

Graduation is touted as a time of joy and celebration for those involved — which partially explains why I’m so bored by them as a spectator — but I can all but guarantee even the cap-and-gown-clad teens will very soon forget damn near every detail of this special day.

A mere six months after I graduated from Falmouth High School (Class of 1988), I’d forgotten everything that happened at commenceent. Quiz me and I’d have been unable to tell you the names of the speakers or what they said, what sort of music the school band played, et cetera. All I remember was that the FHS field house was hot and stuffy, and that I just wanted everyone to shut the hell up and give me my damned diploma so I could escape that misery factory once and for all.

Celebration? Not so much. More like a profound sense of relief at the end of a long, arduous journey. Commencements, to my mind, are not terribly conducive to full-throttle celebration.

While my friends typically have more pleasant recollections of their high school commencement activities, the “big day” seems to have likewise deteriorated into a soft mush of vague quasi-memories. If they still remember their guest speaker, chances are it was some sort of minor celebrity. Or he dropped an F-bomb during his speech.

What this says to me about graduation is that it is nothing more than the last rote exercise people as public school students will have to endure before marching off to a new set of rote exercises as adults. Graduation is no more than a bland, unimaginative checklist of perfunctory non-moments:

* Entrance to Pomp and Circumstance, one of the most lifeless tunes meant to convey pomp and/or circumstance.

* The principal’s welcome, in which he/she mangles a slightly dated pop culture reference in a doomed effort to appear hip (“As the kids from the show ‘Glee Club’ once sang, don’t stop believin’.”)

* Speeches from the salutatorian and valedictorian, who invariably begin their speeches with, “[Famous person] once said…” or “The dictionary defines [word setting tone for rest of speech] as…” In-jokes about favorite teachers, idealized memories of senior year, and shout-outs to family and friends for their support are standard.

* Speech from the guest speaker, who offers graduates an optimism-tinged gentle warning about their futures.

* The endless parade of students taking the stage to accept their diplomas. One out of every eight graduates will make a face or flash a victory/peace sign or thumb’s up or call out to someone in the audience to disrupt the otherwise dry, dour atmosphere.

* Final speech by the class president, who follows the graduation speech formula.

* File out to, again, Pomp and Circumstance.

* Progress to a be-set site to throw mortarboards in the air so photographers can get their shot, which has all the spirited spontaneity and rebellious verve of any rock guitarist who isn’t Pete Townsend has smashed his guitar on-stage.

Yep. Real memorable.

If by some chance there are any high school students reading this: it is time to kill graduation as we know it.

High school graduation is in desperate need of reinvention. It needs to be seriously shaken up, ripped off his comfortable foundation, changed to something that resembles an actual celebration and not some empty exercise that exists largely for the benefit of parents who want to see their kids get a diploma.

Ditch the caps and gowns. Skip the speeches and let kids put together musical montages or short films or run a PowerPoint presentation of photos they’ve taken throughout the year — something alive and artistic and meaningful. Marching in to Pomp and Circumstance? Screw that. I want to see students enter like they were pro wrestlers on their way to the ring, with ear-splitting theme music, pyro, and a video projected on a massive TV screen.

This, high school seniors, is your day. You only get this day once, so it up the way you want it to.