I am paralyzed by a potpourri of possibility. The plethora of potential post topics exceeds my fingertips’ capability to type and my frontal lobes’ processing power to compute. This is system overload, which I sense is the dark side of the internet. Plugged in, hard-wired, wireless, wary, weary, jacked in, jacked up, jacked off, jaded, downloading, multi-streaming, multi-tasking and trying to assimilate millions of megabytes in a morass of mass hysteria media, I wade through the swamp of mindless mediocrity that threatens to swallow us all.
Thus, today, though there are a variety of media musings that scream for consideration, only one will receive a nod of attention as opposed to a full booty check. This is called restraint. I shall attempt to ponder only a few pixels, targeted to receive my ire, but I can already feel the tug of tangents tearing the tethers of my outline from the fractured focus of my mind.
Awards shows make my ass twitch. I’ve never liked them, even when I was watching films. I don’t care who won for Best Use of Gaffer’s Tape to Keep the Lead Actress’ Tits in Her Dress in an Extreme Close-up, Mr. DeMille. The Academy’s ostentatious display bores my balls blue. Its tone of excess and filmdom’s extravagant waste of resources by the majority of its players are only surpassed by the absurd appeal of actors to enamored fans who think bad behavior, poor fashion sense and 20-thousand dollar sequined gowns are an inspiration.
I don’t own a TV. I prefer my world to be interactive. Yes, I’m a computer addict and avid gamer. I live on the Gold Coast of sunny Southern California, but the only surfing I do is online, which is where I read all of my news and watch any media. Buying a newspaper or magazine in this day is totally irresponsible towards the health and sustainability of the environment. I don’t care if companies go out of business because they weren’t smart enough to adapt. Look around. Do you see any Dodos? Birds, that is. The human variety, sadly, have been propagating all too well.
Yes, the web can be annoying and fraught with gargantuan amounts of wasted gigabytes, but the good news is: I can choose and quickly click away, assuming the pop-ups don’t kill me. The bad news is: There’s so much crap I have to wade through to find anything worth my time. Ah, life. Even a good virus or worm is better than most of the shit on the ‘net. At least a worm is mildly amusing, for a moment, unlike 99% of YouTube.
Actually, YouTube sounds like some sort of suppository you would insert, filled with a new Merck wonder drug, to get rid of all the Google Map stretch marks from where Big Business, Fat Politicians and Mass Media have been bending you over the Boob Tube for decades and ramming home their capitalistic mind control that just makes you want to buy something — anything — now and now and now.
That the Academy Awards are watched by a billion people is an unsurprising, yet sad indictment of the human race’s ability to collectively numb itself to reality, like we needed further proof, lately, as Paris, Britney and Anna have become the poster-celebs for narcissism. The media should be more discerning, since it has a huge impact and someone ought to be the mature adult in the room, but they’ve become rabid starfuckers, themselves.
Who let these pitbulls of paltry pablum loose to terrorize the airwaves? You — the people — who are addicts to every roadkill, car chase, freeway shooting and tabloid panty raid. If you don’t buy it, they won’t sell it.
When you come crashing down from your shallow, hollow high of Hollyweird glitz and are faced with the glaring truth — that you are what you eat, read and see — then you’ll realize that too many people are enamoured of escapism and there are fewer noble souls minding the store, these days. So it would appear, at least, but that may merely be the result of mass media’s penchant for pushing its nose into the offal of every little mishap, then broadcasting it 24/7 with bold and overbearing headlines like Bowel Movement Watch 2007 or The Great Douche Debacle at Denny’s with updates every fifteen minutes for fame fans, everywhere.
It’s no longer Film at Eleven of the truly important news. News sells. Snooze doesn’t. News is big business. Billions are at stake. And when there is nothing newsworthy — hey, it happens; you can’t expect an airhead celebrity to drop dead, everyday — they start digging up dirt on some two-bit star-wannabe and splash it across the canvas like it’s a friggin’ Picasso.
Mass media, anymore, is a frenzied tribe of monkeys slinging shit and they don’t care who gets hit. Now, with the advent of smaller camera technology and the ease of uploading to the world-wide-web, everyone’s a producer, director and star. Sadly, not everyone is a writer, so the stories they tell bite the big trapeze. In case you can’t tell, I’m not a proponent of the infinite monkey theorem. If you put enough monkeys in a room and let them bang away on typewriters — when they’re not bangin’ each other or slinging shit — you’re not, at the end of the day, going to have the next winning screenplay.
I fully admit to being a looky-loo, myself, and staring in astonishment at much of the trash that floats by my overwhelmed senses. It takes a willing effort to be mindful and not get carried downstream by the flotsam and jetsam of that shitty little upstream village’s poor waste management system. If raw sewage is pouring into your water source, you might want to consider moving — or taking only a sponge bath, as needed. Full immersion can be hazerdous to your health.
Usually, no single technology is completely bad or good. Well, I would make a case for the atomic bomb being a bad technology, but there are always classic exceptions, everything being relative. For a less strategic example, however, I can just as easily kill you with a shovel as I can use it in digging a ditch to the village to bring in fresh drinking water.
How a tool is used determines whether society is either improved or degraded. Don’t blame the shovel. Shovels don’t kill people — people kill people. Film at Eleven! Of course, shovels won’t melt down and irradiate 20 square miles of habitat, so I don’t support a Shovel Regulatory Commission. Likewise, a National Shovel Association, to protect our right to carry shovels, does not need to be organized.
And when I see the billions of dollars spent on and generated by the excessive whims of most storytellers, plus the starry-eyed patrons who, understandably, want to step out of their sorry little lives into a make-believe world where everything winds up with a Hollywood ending, I empathize and understand. Until we make more shovels — instead of movies or bombs, or movies that bomb — plus men and women willing to use them, the real work will never get done and the shit will just keep flowing downstream.
Movies, books, song and dance are wonderful expressions of human spirit, which can inspire, teach and connect the souls of Earth in a mass consciousness of entertainment that may help transform the world. But you must choose wisely, Grasshopper. Conflict creates drama — and humans love drama. I feel it is the only reason we exist. However, I think the monkeys are minding the machine and, until people stop going to the zoo, the monkeys will just keep slingin’ poo.
For me, I’d like a lot less celebrity and a little more cerebral, and I would actually prefer to see more gore in films. Al Gore. Now, he gets my vote. Of course, though his film An Inconvenient Truth won an Oscar for Best Documentary, last night, I’m waiting for the Supreme Court to step in and reverse the decision. Sadly, this reality show is called America, but I’m getting really tired of the immature plot. It’s time to change the channel or round up some new monkeys.
The Kat
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