That’s right, folks.
I do occasionally flip the remote on the equally remote chance that I will run across something on TV that might be “interesting”. And boy howdy, did I find something late last night!!!
So there I was, post-midnight trying to stop my mind’s occupation with a compositional problem. Click click click click click click click. The usual tripe. Just missed a Porter Wagoner rerun from the ’70s on the Farm Channel…you don’t know about that show? Young country singers right out of the hills and coal mines? Young Dolly Parton, young George Jones and Waylon Jennings, etc? Singing with a great roots bluegrass band? Just out of the folk culture, before the inevitable American transformation from brilliance to Kenny G?
Priceless cultural history.
Das de music ob my PEOPLE, pendejo!!!
Anyway…click click click, and here’s this group of 20/30-something state college-type middle class Americans sitting in a hot tub pool. Doing NOTHING!!! Eyes blank, strange artificial lighting, surrounded by what appears to be Astroturf and a fake wooden fence.
Hmmmm…!!!
What is THIS!!!???
Read on for the awful truth.
What is it?
The scarily named Big Brother After Dark is what it is.
Now…I have never before successfully watched more than three minutes of ANY “reality” show except for a piece that I wrote during the Pie Fight over at little orange where I deconstructed the program that staged a FAKE “reality” show (They’re all fake, of course. This one just made no appreciable attempt to hide it.) on the theme of Gilligan’s Island. Which was ITSELF an early piece of empty hypnomedia shit. And as I said there…it was “The most disgusting thing I have ever held still for.”
However…this one tops it.
Why?
Because it is an unbelievably accurate look into the emptiness that is America today.
The America that “counts”, anyway. The prime demographic.
The VOTING demographic of the future.
Victims of the dread Paris Hilton disease, every one.
On parade for all to see and emulate.
Good looking girls…well, “good looking” in that antiseptic, Hooters-ish kind of way (Look but don’t touch.)…in bikinis, good looking men in bathing suits or at least mostly bare chested (Plus a couple of gay guys, including one real swisher for contrast. Strange…or not so strange…none of the females are apparently allowed to be gay. Just the men. Comic relief and all. Gay guys. The Stepinfetchits of our time.), sitting around a fake suburban manse-house (YOU know…those SUV/Hummer-looking houses that have sprung up by the millions safely outside of the war zones and high roller neighborhoods of corporate urban America?) doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
Except blathering at one another.
Apparently this is a spin-off of a network half hour.
Three hours every night on SHO TOO.
A live feed. Of spiritually, emotionally, mentally and largely physically dead people.
Billed as “uncensored”. Which I thought might mean at least a little nudity and titillating sexual contact. But which really means being able to say “fuck” a lot.
I was fascinated.
Now…I understand the human tendency called voyeurism. If you can’t DO it, sometimes watching it is almost as interesting, and usually a whole lot safer as well.
(Voyeurism. It’s sometimes called “network news”, y’know. Or “movies”. Or…”That’s ENTERTAINMENT!!!” Yup.)
But…WATCHING PEOPLE DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!???
Hmmmm….
And then it struck me.
That’s what they WANT us to do.
Eat, shit, and talk.
And…vote.
They do not even need us to work much anymore. Just consume. In the 1/2 hour that I watched, NO ONE ever mentioned “work”. Whatever it is that they do outside of this little planet upon which they are being filmed 24/7. There is a door to the outside world…I saw people open and close it. It’s right next to the refrigerator. But the outside world does not exist. At least it does not exist for the purposes of this show. Just the house and its demographically correct slice of future Omertica.
Empty semi-grownup boys and girls.
Empty eyes.
Empty.
The MTV generation.
EMPTV.
And y’know…it’s working.
I spent a dreary day recently in a suburban house much like this one with two families (Mommy/Daddy/several kids)..don’t ask what brought me there, it’s not worth it.) and some of their friends from the largely nonexistent “neighborhood”. And I wondered the whole time…”WHAT ARE THESE PEOPLE ABOUT?” Because…there was no one home in this home. No one.
The giant TV was on.
Baseball…
There were several iPods…each with its own little nasty sounding speakers…playing bullshit music in several rooms.
People were eating literal CRAP.
And no one SAID anything.
Not really.
“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it” wrote Samuel Clemens a century or so ago.
Well here…everybody talked about nothing and nobody did anything about ANYTHING.
NOW I understand.
This is what is in store for us all. If we are not careful.
They didn’t name it “Big Brother” for nothing.
Orwell wrote the book. But he was wrong.
It’s not going to be “newspeak”.
It’s going to be NEWS speak.
“20 people were blown up today in Iraq. Buy McDonald’s. What’s for dinner. The President violated the constitution once again. Nice titties. And now the news.”
24/7.
Everything is equal.
Everyone is equal, too.
Equally uninteresting.
Equally unimportant.
Equally empty.
And now the news.
GOTCHA!!!
And y’all wonder why I espouse the ideas of MEDIASTRIKE!!! and NEWSTRIKE!!!
There it is.
Your future.
Tune in and see for yourself.
Big Brother After Dark.
Yup.
(Fade to snow….)
AG
I’LL fix this shit!!!
Oh.
Wait a minute.,
We do not have a Minister of Culture.
In fact…we barely have a living culture of any kind.
Sorry.
Nevermind.
I’ll settle for some tips and recs, I guess.
Later…
AG
Oh well.
I guess they wouldn’t bother the Big Brother children.
Why should I worry?
It’s all over but the lack of shouting anyway.
Right?
Riiiiiighht….
(Do you think it’s something in the water?)
AG
You mean “appoint me,” don’tcha. You’re not the type to try to get elected, but an appointee can really have an effect, right? Then you might feel sympathy for the dead-eyed ones. Most of us are always wondering what we’re doing here anyway.
You’ve got my vote, luv.
If you’re a minister, do I have to call you “the Reverend?” Forget that – I’ll go for “the Honorable.”
I could get elected.
I just won’t.
Bet on it.
AG
We are a nation of compliant, idiot robots, lulled into a coma-like state by the teevee. Just the way they like us.
So… the idea of this show is that these people KNOW they are being taped? Or that they DON’T? Either way it sounds creepy. And … boring. My friends are much more interesting. (But being middle-aged, we aren’t nearly so photogenic in skimpy bathing attire.)
Reminds me of The Truman Show, the Jim Carrey “reality show” movie. Anyone see that? It came out before any of the reality TV shows, but it played with the concept, taken to a ridiculous extreme.
Most of the reality shows don’t interest me in the least. Except the historical-period ones, where modern people attempt to live like people in another time period did. (But that’s because I’m a living history geek.) I was greatly amused when Lost became such a big hit — I read the premise and thought, “Now, THIS is what Survivor shoulda been like — scripted by someone who knew how to tell a real STORY.” Especially when it started throwing in weird stuff. (But I never did watch it, I just heard things about it occasionally.)
The thing that gives me hope, however, compared to the banality of so much of what passes for “entertainment” on the network and cable channels, is the internet. Not just political sites like this one and DKos and My Left Wing, etc. Not the polished, Flash-enhanced professional business and promotional sites, though those too have their uses. But the tremendous explosion of creative, personal stuff that ordinary people put up — ranging from geneological research to YouTube, photography sites, hobby sites, sites that give people raising kids with the same rare genetic conditions a chance to trade stories and experiences, or discuss everything from obscure physics to Victorian poets to sports statistics to the latest album from a favorite band or latest gaffe from a city council member (or presidential candidate).
Whether it’s original music videos cobbled together from favorite songs and video fragments, or fan fiction about favorite TV characters, or the Saturday Painting Palooza, or someone building a 1/6 scale Blackhawk helicopter from cardboard and ducttape and resin in their garage, or documenting a family trip biking across Europe (or Iowa)… or allowing political activists a place to foment rebellion and build a movement for change. The internet gives people a creative outlet that is not merely passive, but interactive, and allows them to connect at least briefly with other people who share the same interests, hobbies, or experiences — even if they live thousands of miles apart.
Yeah, most of what is out there is… well, amateurish. Some of it is utter crap. But some of it is incredibly good. But the sheer scope and tremendous AMOUNT of creative energy out there, when even ordinary non-glamorous, non-Hollywood people get passionate and engaged in something and have a way to share that passion with the world, is just amazing.
And I guess that’s really why I hardly ever watch TV, even now that I could afford cable if I wanted it. Between the internet and, well, real life…. I just don’t have time to waste. (Okay, I make an exception for Keith Olbermann sometimes, but come to think of it, I watch HIM online too…)
So maybe there’s hope out there. All those little exits and private dirt roads off the information highway… the pubs and public libraries and shrines and family picnics and independent media outlets and kids telling ghost stories around a virtual campfire. If we can keep the roads open, and the trolls in the shadows under the bridge instead of blocking the way.
And boy howdy (Arthur, you get points just for using that phrase), am I wandering off topic…. so I’ll shut up now. (Shows what an evening of random web-surfing will do to your brain….)
It’s ‘MURRICAN.
Jes’ lahk me.
Glad y’all liked it.
And you are right.
There is a TREMENDOUS creative force building up below all of this corporate-sponsored banality and bullshit.
It’s capped now. Leaking out on the net. Almost nowhere else for it to go.
Someday…
Maybe…
GUSHER!!!
Let us pray.
AG
This is your best piece in quite a while.
I don’t say this to denigrate your recent diaries, just to say that this came together very well.
Good job.
This is the first several days in a row in months that I have not been running around all over the world and/or recovering from/preparing to do so.
The mind is connected to the body. And the body gets TIRED. Especially during air travel as it is currently constituted. Disastrously inefficient, disatrously lacking in common courtesy for the travelers who are literally FORCED to partake of its torture, many of whom must do so in order to make a living. We have all been reduced to potential criminals in the eyes of the people who work in the field. Yet one MORE thing for which we can thank CheneyBush.
Thanks again.
I DO keep trying.
Later…
AG
Yes, I can tell when an artist is tired.
On that subject, the blogosphere suffered a collective body blow after the supplemental passed and the energy level (and audience) went down substantially across the board.
I know how to make a fire.
The purpose of the fire is to warm my friends.
Sadly I am the last of my kind,
this care about others you see.
This searching for knowledge about uselful and practical things.
They may benefit myself and others.
Like I said last year.
Last Summer Before Armageddon, Enjoy.
Hey, even George Orwell was off on his dates!
Good evening mr. Gilroy.
A nice diary & it again reminds me that you`ve inculcated me with a bit more suspicion of the reality of nothing.
At first there was nothing.
Then god created light.
There was still nothing, but now you could see it.
that it is an excellent diary, but not with your premise. How do you look and feel when you are tired? and when you’re sick? Doesn’t mean your soul is dead.
These people on TV are young. They’re sick and tired. We raised them in a culture where money becomes your lifeblood and fame is sex appeal. This is the world our generation has created to replace that of our parents, and it is a curse upon our children.
People are so desperate for life they are naturally zombified. So we’ll call it real and fool some of the people enough to get their money from them.
Think about the Okies during the dust bowl, they couldn’t even fake a smile.
I’m reading “The Worst Hard Time” about that and there is a newspaperman who keeps saying day after day how grand it all is, and the that the dust storms are not their karma, but all come from a neighboring state. It’s a fascinating study of America.
That is our future – when planet earth wakes up and shakes us all off in one way or another.
They ARE young.
And “we” HAVE created the situation that has produced them. Those of us who have surrendered, anyway.
Perhaps more precisely, chance has produced a situation…essentially the accrual of absolute power during the time between the end of WWII and the effective fall of the USSR…that has corrupted this society in a terrible manner.
Absolute power DOES corrupt.
Absolutely.
On the evidence.
On the historical evidence AND the on the evidence of how far we have fallen as a nation.
Chance. That’s all it is. Hitler doesn’t invade Russia? Something else happens. The US nuke scientists don’t get their atomic act together in late ’44/early’45? Something else happens. Someone stabs Hitler in a street brawl as he is coming up? Something else happens. Etc. And that set of “chances” has produced contemporary America. A society that runs on:
Fear
Power
Guilt
Lies
Criminality
And the absolute primacy of wealth.
No WONDER so many of us have closed our eyes and/or looked away.
It’s sho’ hard to handle, yess’r’am.
The Seven Deadly Sins took over. It is no accident that someone wrote them down long ago and far away, and neither is it an accident that they became a dominant meme in Christian societies.
Maybe we ought to review them.
Lust
Gluttony
Greed
Sloth
Wrath
Envy
Pride
Hmmmmm….
Sounds jes’ lahk ‘Murrica t’me!!!
Christianity..and in fact EVERY successful mass religion, no matter how much the ideas may be dressed up in references to deities, no matter how far the actual religions may stray from their roots…Christianity is a set of societal rules and proscriptions.
It speaks of how the individuals that comprise that society must behave in order for it to continue to function successfully.
And we done fucked up.
I am not blaming those grownup children sleepwalking through their lives on that TV show, Alice.
To tell you the truth…I do not even blame Bush, Cheney and their minions. They are accidents, too. But sometimes triage is in order if the continuing “accident” is to be stopped. Impeach? I would EXECUTE them, myself. At least life imprisonment. Ain’t gonna happen, of course. But…
I am simply pointing out here that THIS series of accidents is not only far from over, but that it is still expanding. The sheer gravity produced by the endlessly repeated images of which this group of sad children is but one small part provides an almost irresistible force that pulls and pulls and pulls on the souls of every American who mindlessly watches them.
ESPECIALLY the young.
“Awwww fuck!!! I give up. ZZZZZZzzzzzzzz…”
Yup.
And…again, just like CheneyBush only on a lower level of power…these people and their involvement in this series of expanding “accidents” is going to bring this whole system crashing down upon our ears.
And upon the ears of our children as well.
And most frighteningly…remember I called this piece “Big Brother After Dark Frightens Me. Really”…I fear it may result in the end of human society itself. Because when THIS house of cards falls, it will most likely go down in a nuclear boom.
Scared yet?
I am.
So I keep on punching out this one idea.
I do not care whether you call it “Cultural Revolution”, “Newsstrike”, “Mediastrike”, “Culturestrike”, or any other goddamned name that occurs to you.
WE MUST REFORM THE MYTHIC STRUCTURE OF THIS SYSTEM IF WE ARE TO SURVIVE.
This MUST be done.
And soon.
Want to talk about fear?
I fear that it is too late.
That the power of the establishment as it now stands (the corporate establishment) combined with what could be termed the critical mass of people who have reached the same state of exhaustion, weakness and sleep as have those people in the Big Brother show…has already sounded our death knell.
That our precipitous decline is now literally irreversible.
We shall see.
And soon.
As I said elsewhere in this thread…I do keep trying.
As must we all.
Either that, or else cut and run.
Because once this thing starts to crumble…something that in my view could be accomplished by only one more serious hit to its already seriously weakened societal infrastructure…once this thing starts to go down it is going to be BLOODY HELL here.
Keep on truckin’.
Because as Winston Churchill once remarked about old age…the alternative is totally unacceptable.
Peace…it’s the ONLY thing for dinner if we are going to survive.
Later…
AG
Chance.
For some reason we are compelled to try to understand and reason things out. It’s just too easy to look at other people and wonder “what is WRONG with them?”
It’s only because of chance that you and I can communicate in this alien way.
You are a brave man to use the ‘execute’ word. Please don’t do it again, because you do begin to look like a convenient ‘lone nut.’ She said adjusting her tinfoil hat.
Yes, I do believe its all a conspiracy. Watch yourself, dear.
Let’s review the 7 cardinal virtues. Reading you makes me feel a slippage of my love, hope and faith in humankind. That’s why I argue.
I am not afraid of the secret people.
Fuck ’em.
We have to face them. Not duck and hide.
Murderers have punishment coming. Or at the very LEAST elimination. Permanent elimination of those who absolutely, positively cannot be reeducated. By RULE OF LAW. Treason is a capital offense, although lately it has obviously been no kind of offense in the Capitol. Punishment? Elimination? Butch certainly believes this. How many murders did HE condone while Governor of Texas? And how many deaths can be laid at his feet in the last 7 years? His and Cheney’s. He who lives by the edict should die by the edict.
But this will not happen.
Bad for business.
Virtues?
Faith?
I STILL believe in the redemption of humanity.
DESPITE all of the evidence that contradicts that idea.
Sorry if I shake your faith.
Not my intention.
If I did not maintain that faith myself, I would have cut and run already.
I hear that it is beautiful in France this time of year.
Cuba, too.
New Zealand…
YOU know.
Later…
AG
I know. Spending this rainy day contemplating a return to my ancestral roots in Dun Laoghaire. Seems like trying to figure out what the Irish are saying is the biggest language challenge I can face nowadays. That and thinking in Euros instead of dollars.
I don’t know – maybe too Catholic. Could that really be any worse than here?
You’re right – execute. Although tar and feathers is a fine old American tradition. Rule by mob. But we’re trying to evolve away from that.
Our local Boston right winger Jay Severin is warming up to Iceland as his alternative to America. Wonder if they will let him emmigrate there.
the “jenny cam” on tv
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JenniCam
I more worried that Paris Hilton goes to jail for traffic infraction, and scooter doesn’t for lying to a grand jury…all equal..
Nice piece. The popularity of those ‘reality’ shows really puzzles me. But this helps me get it, a little.
“Zardoz” (starring Sean Connory, no less!)came out in the mid-1970s and had a very fast, short run. The key concept was a community of human “immortals” (created by information and biological regeneration technology) who, though they could be killed, COULD not die (the automatic technology would always bring them back, complete to their last recorded memory), created as a control group for a prototype of interstellar space travel–and having no other purpose. Unfortunately, they began to suffer strange emotional consequences. Some became “apathetics,” lying around in self-generated mental stupors.
(The film itself centers on the methods that one of the immortals has concocted to create an exterior force to overcome the immortality technology and destroy the community.)
The “apathetics” would have been right at home on this show you saw.
The other film is, of course, Fellini’s “Satyricon.” Based loosely on a Roman satire of Roman decadence of the same name, the purposeless depravity it records is nothing if not vivid, inventive, and energetic.
–What a contrast to the listless boredom you describe!
As cryptogon on his blog frequently warns us, die-off will not be left to chance, but will involve kill-off. It seems that, to this end, a dull passivity is being cultivated, and not as a survival trait.
Hasn’t it always been the same?
Damn kids and their rock & roll.
Damn dirty hippies.
Damn apathetic zombies.
And the wheel turns anew…
Nevermind the fact that 18-29 year olds were one of only 2 age groups (the other 60+) to vote Gore over Bush in 2000.
Nevermind that the same age group was the ONLY age group to vote Kerry over Bush after the world had ALREADY SEEN 4 years of extraordinary fuckedupedness wrought by the Bush administration.
How about some more fun reading material:
Don’t read too much into a TV show or the commercials. Just because the younger generation is the target of the most aggressive propaganda a bunch of crusty old geezers can push on us, don’t believe that we’re all buying that brand of bullshit.
Thank you.
Not all of you.
I have a 21 year old son, and he isn’t.
I play with 20-something musicians all the time, and they aren’t.
But this still frightens me.
All the Rats really need is a slim margin of victory.
SOCIETAL victory.
They do not NEED “all of you”.
All of us.
A clomp-clomp here
Here a clomp
There a clomp
Everywhere a clomp-clomp
Old McCheney had a farm
Ee-i-ee-i-O SHIT!!!
THEY FUCKIN’ WON AGAIN!!!
The death of a thousand clomps.
They are only gong to have to win one more time, youngblood.
Bet on it.
Been on the campus of a state university recently?
Scary.
AG
I agree with most of your points, I just don’t understand why you are tying in the generational argument.
Yes, I spend a good deal of my free time around college kids and campuses (including state colleges) and don’t see whatever you’re seeing that is so frightening.
Well…all I can say is that sometimes I see things a little earlier than other people.
I see the dreaded Paris Hilton virus infecting HUGE numbers of middle class, mid-level young white Americans. The next center, God help us all. Men AND women. I have seen it on airplanes, in shopping malls, at fast food highway rest stops, and on mid-level college campuses. And I see it being hyped on TV.
Listen.
W.B Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert.
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
The poet as prophet.
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold…
…everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
Do you not see this?
Here?
Our heroes are gangsta rappers and Jackass fools.
Our leaders are muderers and thieves.
Full of passionate intensity, alright.
While the center…sleeps.
And lacking passionate conviction, CANNOT hold.
“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
Good question, eh?
He even pinned the base location of the coming disaster.
Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born.
That’s what I see, anyway.
Why the generational thing?
Because it is only youth that has the power to at least try to awaken.
Begin the journey.
And I am not seeing it.
I lived through…in the middle of…a youth movement that was passionately intense. I remember the smell.
This is different. We are in dire NEED of a vital, new center.
And instead large segments of it are Big Brothering around copping dead sex from Paris Hilton clones.
THAT’S why.
AG