TV Guide: Work of Satan

Some people think that I have problems. Actually, they call them "issues," but I’m not particular. Well, I think they are right, but I’d like to go on record as saying that these are not baseless "issues." These issues may be the result of exposure to countless negative stimuli that attack my intelligence and get in the way of action relaxin’ (kickin’ back). These attacks are legion and are the most irritating when they interrupt an inherently pleasant activity. Take driving. I’ve already discussed the perils of the morning commute, when what should be a pleasant activity is marred by pointless irritation. Well, here’s another one: The TV Guide. Particularly the print edition. It takes an inherently enjoyable activity (watching television) and molests it with a ball-peen hammer.

First of all, I’m not talking about the listing of television shows that normally appears in a simple, easily scannable grid format. For example, the TEEvee listings in the Washington Post – or even TV Guide Online – provide you with the information you need in this easy to use format. Good for them, because that’s what I need. I need to quickly make intelligent choices between Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Femalien 2: The Search for Kara.

What irritates me about the TV Guide is that it is supposed to tell me what I need to know, but it condenses the listings so that I have no idea what is on when I want to watch the TEEvee. What is the grid only good enough for what the have decided is "prime time". Since when was 7 prime time? Who asked the central time zone? Oh, they sure pretend to let you know – they have "listings." But, for example, I turned on the TEEvee at 7:00pm (EST, ‘cause we matter) on Tuesday the 18^th. Now, looking at the listing for this time I see nothing of value. I’m tempted to turn off the TEEvee and read a book or something. But, I would have missed the last hour of Space Truckers on Cinemax. You heard me right, I would have missed out on precious quality time with Dennis Hopper and a pair of apprentices who team up to outsmart a band of pirates. Thank you TV Guide, you asshole.

So, I’ve got a problem with the listings – but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Take the TV Guide in your hand. Open to the day of the week you want. Now curl the book around so it stays open. Ah HA! It won’t stay open, because of all the damned inserts. In the edition of TV Guide out on the newsstands when I wrote this there were 8 separate inserts. And oh, what they are selling! Besides the ballot for the TV Guide awards (the dream of every actor, producer, director, or even the cast of "She’s the Sheriff"), most of these inserts are for "collectibles," which really chaps my ass. It’s not bad enough that every other page is a full page ad for some crap that I don’t need or some show that I don’t want to watch, but apparently 230 pages isn’t enough room to provide all of the advertising space to support this fine piece of "journalism."

And let’s look at what these advertising dollars (plus the $2 at the grocery store checkout) pay for. Besides the crappy listings, we’ve got the shallowest reporting known to man. Pages after pages of what the stars are wearing, trivia quizzes that wouldn’t tax an embryonic sea monkey’s mental faculties, and possibly the world’s easiest crossword puzzle. This week’s "puzzle" includes several answers which are numerals, and insists that "two thousand" is one word.

Here’s the best part. I have to admit, I didn’t have high expectations when I picked up the TV Guide, yet it still fell short of my expectations. Well, nothing could have prepared me for this: the "Letters" section. Oh, such lofty correspondence! I hate to ask mean and derisive questions about the writers of these letters (trained – possibly retarded – monkeys?) and about how empty their lives must be to feel that they have to write back to TV Guide. On the one hand I wonder if I am much better, wasting bandwidth to bitch about all of this. But, on the other hand, I’m not writing about which character on a CBS sap-fest I like best.

Morons. I’d like to send each one another cat.

And this brings me to my point. [Finally- Ed.] Everything that is wrong with this country is what’s wrong with TV Guide. First of all – the fact that we are paying for advertisements (sort of like buying shirts that say, "Nike"). Second, we are patting ourselves on the back by getting the right answers to easy problems (not coincidentally, the cover story was "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?", which is the nadir of this "everybody is smart" trend). Third, we are feeding the cult of celebrity, which blinds us from discovering or appreciating real talent. Finally, we are taking it all too seriously. We’re writing letters about filler. We care about which star has a fluff article written about them. We need to get away from all that nonsense, go for a drive, kick back, and realize that most of what we worry about doesn’t really matter in the end. Not when compared some serious action relaxin’.

I bought TV Guide thinking it would be the answer to everything, but it was the answer to nothing.

Fucker.