Freshly back from my week of sunning in the lake with an ice cold domestic, working on my tan and napping away afternoons, I turned on the television last night to find out...
Terrell Owens is STILL on the Sportscenter.
I can't express how much I don't care about this.
It does, however, bring me to a very important point. It's hard to be a sports fan these days. OK, stop laughing. Seriously, seriously, hard to enjoy watching sports these days. There's just no mystique anymore. I mean, we now know why the sluggers can hit that far (Viagra, obviously) and how football players can take those hits and bounce right up (they're all clearly insane.)
It used to be that sports could be a vacation for real life. You could turn on the tv and watch Mattingly's sweet swing, or Boggs rap another double off the wall, and it would be a refuge from the commute to work, or the shittiness of another day of school. Now, you need a law degree (or at least a subscription to Court TV) to follow sports. I now know what salary arbitration means, and I understand why the Sox would consider trading Manny despite the fact that he's one of the best hitters in the game, and has nice hair to boot (plus, the Manny Ramirez fielding highlights dvd will be a best-seller someday.)
What is there as a release from real life now? There's more reality shows than comedies, and none of them will ever be the equal of a show like Cheers (which was funny without being mean.) Watch MTV for five minutes and you see more T and A than you used to see on the late night showing of skinemax. Where's the mystery? Poker on tv is now mainstream, there are more fixit shows than there used to be channels (none as good as This Old House, by the way.)
Sports, in a lot of ways, are worse. I know now that Kirby Puckett was not just a delightfully round centerfielder for the Twins, but a serial groper. Barry Bonds is a prick, Ricky Williams a pothead. Paul Pierce is a 12-year old girl, Rafeal Palmeiro can't get it up (or out) without meds, OJ Simpson is not a funny character in a movie, or the spokesperson for Avis. Kobe Bryant can't keep his pants on, but at least he could afford to buy off the his wife, his victim, and the state of Colorado.
So...
the gf and I have decided to cancel cable. Cost was a factor, but a minor one. The real problem is that there are 200 channels of nothing that are sucking our brains away. And I for one, don't have enough brains to lose mine watching MTV. Or Sportscenter for that matter.
Don't worry about us though, we'll still get the newspaper, so I'm sure I'll still manage to be disgusted by the goings on around us.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
that was one of the funnier blogs. i especially liked the floating w/ domestic.
but i agree about the sports, however i still get enjoyment out of watching just the games (red sox and pats mostly / obviously).
i have noticed that a lot of shows resort to getting laughs by insulting someone. i for one never found that as funny as true comedy. have you seen the new show on fx "starved"? it's very twisted, but when it hits it hits big.
the only channels i want on cable are fx (rescue me is just a great show, mainly b/c of denis leary but also b/c of his supporting cast), nesn, espn (for PTI and less for sportscenter b/c i don't have time to watch SC everyday. it's too long and i don't care about the rest of the sports world outside of baseball and football), and fox (for when Lost comes back, which by the way you should be watching b/c it's one of the best shows on television).
to end, i leave you with 2 questions:
what happened to having rabbit ears on a tv and not paying for cable?
but w/ netflicks, and sports bars, do we really need cable?
I'll tell you why I don't watch shows like lost. I missed a bunch of episodes and then I started being interested, I had no chance of following what the fuck was going on in the show. Same with 24, same with the Sopranos, etc.
What happened to shows where you could just check in to see what sort of crazy theories Cliffy had this week?
they are like soap operas. you have to know what has happened previously to understand the episode.
it's a dual edged sword. you get to know good characters better, but if you miss an episode or two you're screwed.
what has happened to tv where you can miss episodes and not be lost? they're still around, except they all suck now. granted will & grace is a laugh every now and then (especially the drunk chick), but cheers, seinfeld, everybody loves raymond (notice the IT shows have gotten less funny over the years) are all gone. there's nothing now but crap, reality tv, and late night soap operas.
I can't believe you just admitted to watching Will and Grace.
i'm not sure seeing all of 5 total episodes of the show count as "watching", but flipping through the channels sometimes i do stop on it.
Whatever, you're a fan. It's ok, you don't have to get defensive
Post a Comment