Reality

I watch a lot of T.V. this summer. I read a lot, too, though. I'll still be sharp when I enter The Work Force (which makes me think of a large group of men, muscular and gigantic, marching in the street, identically suited and shiny-shod, briefcases in hand ready to go out and do something). The thing about watching this much television is that it really rots your mind; this isn't just some lie your parents fed you when you were little, it's the god's honest truth. The filth that they put on T.V. is astonishing! Can you see the executive director of a channel saying to himself, “Yes, yes, it's brilliant! We'll have a bunch of vapid and voluptuous girls compete for the attention of a man but- here's the catch!- his mom is the one who gets to pick out the girl and they don't even know it! And, improbably, they all think he's rich but he's really a construction worker, or vice-versa! And maybe he's actually a transsexual as well!Or, wait, he's actually in jail for murder, although they think he's a millionaire! And they haven't a clue!”( Not that, of course, I would think that a television executive would have enough knowledge to use words like “voluptuous” or “vapid” or even “improbably.” And you can forget about “vice-versa,” too!)

Now, here's what I think would be a swell turn of events for reality T.V.: they might have real people in them, but when television writers go on strike, they go off the air because they're all scripted. The network executives are thrown into a panic and they replace reality T.V. with nature programming, which is completely unscripted and also completely uninteresting, because it's not reality T.V., it's real T.V. Real life is a lot less interesting than reality on television. People keep waiting for the drama and excitement to begin, but a lot of it is of animals sitting around cleaning themselves and producing excrement. When it comes right down to it, a lot of peoples' lives are spent sitting around and cleaning themselves and producing excrement. That's what I think should happen to the reality television industry. No more! Throw it away! Burn the negatives! Toss it out into the street where it belongs and never give it a second thought!