Opposites

In this edition of Opposites, we look at the writers' strike.

So, this,

Is the opposite of this.

Things We Lost In The Mire

Tonight was one of entrances and exits. Oddly smooth, perfectly coiffed entrances by Nate Archibald into Blair Waldorf's precious snatch, and an untimely exit by Chris, our big, fat, geigh costume designer friend from Project Runway.

Both Runway and Gossip Girl were vaguely depressing and wrong tonight for vaguely the same reason. There are just not good choices being made.

Are there really debutante balls on the UES? I don't think so. Deb balls are something far too gauche and nouveau riche for the withered old sacks of bones that haunt the east 70's and 80's.* So the whole conceit of the episode just felt woefully off. Couple that with the sexy-pex preview for this decidedly unsexy, unpexy episode and Houston (pronounced Howston), we've got a problem. While Chuck's rejection promises some wonderful revenge schemes in the future, where the hell is this show really headed? The whole elderhip parents storyline is growing sillier and more useless by the day. Jenny has become whiny and insolent and so far removed from the books' Jenny character that it's just not worth drawing comparisons anymore. The Minorities both got lines tonight, but they were boring and only served as exposition. This show is in trouble. Delicious, ridiculously watchable trouble.

On to Bravo and their "talent breeds entertainment" reality phenom. Tonight's judges made a wildly inappropriate decision. Ricky, for all his loose-fitting, ugly, tacked-together garments, was the clear choice to go home. Also, he wears mesh hats. Mesh. Hats. Chris was fun and fat and really should have stayed. These producers seem to be making not only bad decisions based on talent, but also bad decisions based on entertainment value. Ricky's weeping and silliness will only carry us so far. Chris's pleasant queeniness would have been great for another several episodes. But I guess he was just too fat for TV. (Did I mention yet that he's overweight?) The team that won deserved to win and Michael Kors was reasonably tame, but are we really being asked to stomach such an erroneous decision? Mrs. Seal ought to flex a little of her exec-producer muscle and tell the powers that be that big, fat, gay guys are always better to watch than little sadsack shits wearing mesh hats. Yes, you read me right (again.) Mesh hats.

So, oh well, here we go. The circle game continues on. These two great shows continue to falter and we're all left stupified and sad. And we don't want that.

If we wanted that, we'd watch the news.

*CORRECTION: Apparently they do. But! Still! The thing was clearly filmed at that "We maik ur dreemz come tru!!" place in Brooklyn. So, still not "classy" or WASPy.

The Future May Not Be Dead

The writer’s strike has been scary. The Office is gone, 30 Rock isn’t far behind, and my precious, precious Lost may have a truncated 4^th season (if a season at all.) So, it was with great joy that I saw this article that says the strike may be coming to a close. It also divulged some interesting tidbits about writers’ salaries. Apparently the mean income is around $62k a year. That’s pretty good! But, the writers of course don’t think so when that figure is measured against how much the industry as a whole profits off of their sweat, blood, tears, Hawaiian shirts, and prostituted MFAs in playwriting. Sigh. May this horrible, horrible tragedy (the worst in our planet's 6,000 year history) soon come to a close.

What Makes Me Sad

My roommate, Rose works at a restaurant, and she works late. So, often times I am home all by my lonesome. Many of you may read books, or magazines, or the backs of cereal boxes, but I choose to while away the hours watching hour after hour of television. I've had some sort of Digital Video Recorder (DVR for those who are techno-savvy and/or nerds) for about three years now, and the fossil records have started to reflect a sea change.

I started with Frontline and Lost and The Sopranos. Then, Little People, Big World and Project Runway started. These are both fine reality television programs, but (un)fortunately the mudslide didn't stop there. The DVR (Digital Video Recorder for those of you with no memory and/or who are not nerds) has now become stockpiled with episodes of Teh Hillz and The Real World and [shudder/gurgle] A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila. Am I reacting to these war-torn times, simply seeking out the easy pleasures of drunken fools hurling themselves (emotionally and, quite satisfactorily, physically) at each other in the hope that my mind will be diverted from that which is too horrible to bear: that our world is broken and melting, that we are living in the heady days of the swan song?

Erm, maybe?

But, really what I think it is is that my brain has become lazy and atrophied. Why this happened I don't know, but it seems to directly correspond with when I stopped writing plays. Yeah, that's right. I used to write plays. And sometimes they weren't even awful. But, I seem to have given up and so I've just slumped down, gravy-smeared inch by inch, into the general miasma of American television wartchin'.

But, this isn't the thing that makes me sad.

What makes me sad is that some people don't realize HOW GOOD THESE SHOWS ARE. They're arch entertainment when viewed through the proper lens (one acquired through years of back-breaking couch sitting and Entertainment Weekly reading). Where else can you find the words "society" and "(self) respect" tossed around like popcorn at a particularly rambunctious showing of This Christmas? Where else do the lines between pop-art, social commentary, Milton's Paradise Lost, and fecal matter so casually blur into one another? Now, this is quite a trite argument, but some people just don't seem to be won over yet! And it's truly mind-boggling. I still watch "good" television, but it's so hard to find these days, and there are many hours to be filled. I urge you: please, please, please give these truly hideous shows a chance. They'll enrich you beyond your wildest dreams. Call it schadenfreude, call it alcoholism, or call it abject sadness, but for whatever reason, these programs really connect. Humanity is achingly beautiful. But, friends, that's two words. We need a little ache with our beauty, a little sea salt in our martyr wounds.

So, please tune in and turn off. For every lame walk outdoors, phone call with friends and loved ones, or Marquez book you read, you could be spending countless hours absorbing the Chekhovian brilliance of Beauty and the Geek. Once it's done, you can turn it off and think on the actual world. One that is filled with the kind of sadness not so easily articulated as "That bug was scary. I hear its face could eat me."

Yeah, you read that right.

Its face...could eat you.