July 2000
Grandpa on TV
On The Tube

Here I am, another month passed by and Fox and Friends kicked
ass the whole month long. I have been waking earlier recently and
the entire show is now not disturbed by rushing a shower or dressing
or getting an early morning phone call. F+F is getting better. I
do not need to say this, but I will regardless: Fox and Friends
is the best morning show on television. Just watch it. I am very
serious about this. I take television very seriously.
***
Hey! Hey! SportsNight is no more! Thank God! I find many shows
to be terrible, but I can ignore them and hope that they go away,
but SportsNight was too terrible. Let's not mention it ever again.
***
It is one year since John F. Kennedy died, and the media loves
it. Fox and CNN spent days and weeks sticking cameras in the noses
of every Kennedy alive last year, but they evidently did not play
the footage enough. While the mid-east and Irish peace processes
were having tense moments, the networks asked themselves if they
had over-covered the event. Am I high? Are they?
I think celebrities should plan their deaths to occur at the same
time of the year so the rest of the human population will be able
to commit atrocities against itself without nosy cameramen and reporters
filming it. The world would seem more peaceful that way, you think?
***
The Gap Kids are related to this old woman, I think she is an
aunt, who adopted a rainbow coalition of her own for use in television
commercials. She and Old Navy came to an agreement a couple years
ago and have been rolling every since. Recently they were in my
doghouse because they were advertising Capri "pants" as
if they were cool. But a recent tee-shirt add has called them back
into my home.
I love tee shirts on people who look like they eat and exercise.
Their cousins at gap don't eat or exercise, and look terrible for
it. That batty old woman is doing something right!
***
I noticed Futurama is still on at 7pm on Sunday night. When will
this aggression end? Send more hate-mail to FOX! (please note, however,
that F+F and Mr. Factor are doing just fine.)
***
NBC began it's Olympic coverage again this week and they reopened
an old wound. Before every race they told a story about one of the
participants lives. It's like the people from Behind the Music are
working with NBC telling tragic stories about underprivileged upbringings
and puppies that died. In 1996 I vowed to get even with NBC. In
2000 I reaffirm that vow.
Can Olympic athletes be compelling because they are racing for
a medal that is offered only once every four years? Can we be excited
because these men and women may have one chance in a life time to
get there? No life is without it's ups and downs, but can a man
race and be loved for his talent and not his actions?
Lucky for NBC, the people of Atlanta made a mess of the Olympics,
rendering their evil to just foolishness, but that does not mean
they should do it again!
***
OZ (on HBO) is the best show on Tee-Vee this summer!
The Real World is good as well.
***
Network TV is no good in the summertime (see Airwave
Pollution).
***
HBO's When it was a game III premiered this week. I love to hear
the stories about my favorite game told by those who lived them,
but I hated this show. How many people lamenting the old days does
it take to bore me? One! We get enough of that crap from WWII veterans
and their ilk. Face it, baseball was cheaper and you thought the
players were gods in cotton pants. Well, there is no Easter Bunny,
you have trouble satisfying your new, younger wife, and those wrinkles
are not going away as you gain weight. Also, just because you hate
your life now is no reason to tell me I have to think the same thing.
If they just told the stories and cut the crap I would be happy.
But instead I have to listen to George Thorogood talk about the
Big Red Machine like it was his first Christmas. Or, if I am lucky,
Bob Costas can tell me about how great the seats in Yankee Stadium
were when he was a kid. Big deal. Back then, rich, white, Protestant
men told us how to think and how to treat women and other minorities.
I would rather be an American now than at any time in its existence.
I don't need this crap.
***
Top five shows to watch this month:
1: Fox and Friends
2: OZ
3: The Real World
4: The O'Reilley Factor
5: Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN. John Miller and Joe Morgan are
the best. They are the Gary Thorne and Bill Clement of Baseball.