[New blogs posted every weekend. For previous blogs please visit “blog archive” to the lower right of this screen. Click on the small black arrows for a drop down list.]
[Note: This posting was drafted over a period of several months off and on because the topic is unpleasant and required more research than usual and my position on the topic is unpopular with family and friends. Some of the information may be slightly outdated but the guts of the piece remain current.]
Several months ago, perhaps even a year or more, after a disappointing night’s sleep, I crawled to the kitchen and made my perfect coffee. It’s my routine. I fed the animals, grabbed the coffee, and managed to make it to my little home office. While waiting a long time for my computer to boot up (as I do every day) I sipped my yummy coffee and by the time my screen appeared I was in better shape.
My home screen has been set to Yahoo for years. It’s my friend and I know everything about it. I don’t subscribe to a newspaper anymore because the delivery car ran over my lawn and refused to fix it. No one in my neighborhood gets the paper anymore because of similar problems (very loud music as she drove through the neighborhood throwing papers everywhere she could find a puddle, her noisy car with screeching brakes, and so forth). I think we all get our news online now. I also tune into a San Francisco all news radio station, KCBS, while I’m working on projects. Once I’ve heard most of the stories I flip on my iPod which is connected to my Bose and that remains on all day.
I usually scan the Yahoo headlines and read a few stories before checking my email but not always. On that morning there was a major headline everywhere I looked: Jon and Kate were getting a divorce. It was shocking. I stared at the headline for a while trying to take it all in. Even my hot coffee wasn’t helping me. It would have been easy enough to click on the headline and read the story but I needed to process what I was looking at. Then, to my dog and two cats I asked, “Who in the hell are Jon and Kate?”
I actually do not live in a cave. I’m out and about in the world quite often. I have a large network of family and friends. I participate in events where I have conversations with strangers. I’m friendly and outgoing and meet people easily. I read. Why didn’t I know Jon and Kate? That’s a rhetorical question. I know the answer. It’s because I am very picky about what I put in my brain. Pickier than what I put in my mouth. My brain must last me a long time, possibly longer than my body (chilling thought) so I’m very careful what I feed it. That includes reading material and music and movies and activities. It does not include being picky about people because I believe having a large selection of weird friends is very rewarding. (You know who you are.)
Taste in all areas of life is subjective. I’m somewhat weird because I don’t like a lot of things everyone else does. But it doesn’t bother me that they like things I don’t like. It often bothers them that I don’t like what they like however. How weird. I think I’ll cover levels of weirdness in another blog but for now I’d just like to concentrate on reality TV.
I subscribe to basic cable service. I know people who do not own a TV. My son does not have any type of TV service though he has a TV to watch DVDs. My daughter has gone through periods of zero cable access and she rarely even watches DVDs. She used to leave the TV on all day on the Animal Planet for her dog. It kept the little dog company while she was at work. She turned it off when she got home.
I took a wonderful humanities class once with an instructor who had actually met Joseph Campbell. The semester was filled with special stories of the man’s experiences and the life of Joseph Campbell. Throughout the course the instructor often mentioned reasons why he had never owned a TV. He was in his early 70s. He said he had too much to do to watch TV. When asked what he did to relax he said he cooked wonderful dinners with his wife for their family and friends and listened to great music and wrote letters and read and went to the movies and worked in the garden and worked on projects around the house and often just sat quietly.
Not that I haven’t had a TV addiction. I have. It’s a great substitute for the wrong husband and helps when up all night with a sick child. Of all the nasty habits we can indulge in it’s a little safer than some like drinking, drugs, and other bad habits. We can still drive a car safely if we watch bad TV. But I believe it’s as bad for us as food additives, a high cholesterol diet, unclean water, and pollution. It’s pollution of the brain.
I have visited the homes of family and friends with expanded TV services and have always been mortified to observe what is foisted upon the American public. Or the world for that matter. Those nasty little satellites show the entire world what Americans look like. In particular, reality TV. Jon and Kate, et al. But that isn’t who we are as Americans. None of my family and friends would ever be eligible for a reality show. We’re just plugging along working, raising our kids, and keeping it simple. I don't know a single person like Kate or any of the other “real” people.
Before criticizing me for complaining about reality TV if I don’t watch it, I have to confess I have watched a couple reality TV shows. One was the first season of Survivor. Halfway through the series I disliked the contestants tremendously and did not want any of them to survive. I completed the entire first season and after the last episode I knew it would get worse. According to my recent research, it has.
In order to do a proper job on this diatribe I have forced myself to watch a few episodes of some of the most popular reality shows. Of the shows my cable package doesn’t provide I was able to find them online. Some are so bad that I can’t bear to see a commercial about them. Others are so bad I had to stop watching them and read about them instead. So I ate a few light dinners to avoid stomach upsets and did watch a few (including the aforementioned Survivor and learned I’m a prophet.) Because many of the reality shows are limited by my basic cable access I’m protected from them. It’s a blessing.
When viewing TV dramas or sitcoms we know we are watching scripted fiction. Some are silly, some quite good, some for young people, some for seniors, etc. They are pretend. In the world of scripted TV I have found quite a few I like. They are well written and directed and the actors do a great job. I enjoy House even though I would never ever want to be admitted to his hospital since he almost kills all his patients and I believe he has killed one or two. Guess that’s sort of a reality fiction TV show. There are others I like and there are a few sitcoms I enjoy. There are great concerts, and amazing informational shows and documentary shows on the History Channel, wonderful travel shows via The Travel Channel, especially No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain, and PBS has something worthy of viewing every single day. And the yummy Food Network. (Which I don't get with my cable package and have to watch at my mother’s.)
I know a lot about reality TV shows even though I haven’t watched them because of conversations with family and friends and at the office. Not a gathering goes by where the conversation doesn’t turn to American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, etc. Sometimes the conversations are heated! I usually sit there with a blank expression on my face praying for the conversation to end. (I am including “contests” along with regular reality TV because they have that nasty bickering chastising component instead of being true contests.)
And I am not singling out Jon and Kate. In my research I discovered Kendra (oh, dear Lord), The Kardashians (yikes), More to Love, various takes on bachelors/etts, prep school kids, Big Brother (oh, God), Top Model, chefs run amuck, and probably the worst of the bunch, the “real housewives” of various major cities. Though the fictional TV show of real housewives never interested me, it’s a scripted show with storylines and professional actors. With the truly real housewives, we’re talking actual people who are exposing their conspicuous and excessive lifestyles (via the aforementioned satellites), their hooker clothing and accessories (no offense to hookers because they do so much more with so much less), makeup left over from horror movies, their over-the-top home “decorating” that mostly looks like it belongs to a movie set for The Sheik of Araby (very old movie), their bratty obnoxious children, distant (wealthy) husbands, and foul-mouthed unintelligible conversations. Perhaps individually, and when they are not on TV, they are better people, better parents, better friends, better daughters and sisters, better dressed. I hope so. (I know they are not.) Not only do they have these horrendous shows those same housewives are often guests on TV talk shows. Ew.
And the reality “contests.” I watched a few episodes of Biggest Loser for dieting and exercise tips and soon began to hate these sniveling babies who were given the chance in a lifetime to turn their lives around and they cried and carried on and connived and plotted against each other and were prodded and screamed at and forced to play ridiculous games, in particular, the temptation challenges which brought out the gluttony and avarice in them, to the point I wanted to throw a projectile at my TV. A true contest where people compete with other talented folks would be okay. But the majority of the talent contests on TV are so mean and contentious I just can’t find value. It’s not in the spirit of sportsmanship by any stretch of the imagination.
Why do we enjoy demeaning and demoralizing each other? We must love it because of the number of these shows. It’s a form of mass voyeurism. We feel better about ourselves when we see others being pounded into oblivion. The viewing public is invited to participate by voting. What does the average person know about singing? It’s a popularity contest. Friends discussing the events on American Idol were often stunned by the winners. Contestants with great voices were not selected in favor of those with an over the top personality trait. And Simon. I can’t write what I want to in this posting about Simon. Except to say . . . no, I can’t.
Many people believe TV contributes to crime and bad behavior. It’s a bad influence. May even drive people to violent crimes, drugs, promiscuity, adultery, you name it. I believe it’s the opposite. I believe TV reflects our behavior, it does not create it or influence it. Why? Because Jack the Ripper did not watch TV. If he were alive today he’d have a realty TV show.
The TV industry and advertisers develop shows to attract an audience and if we weren’t attracted to the crappola that is on there they would not broadcast it. If we all loved basket weaving we would have countless shows about basket weaving. We have unimaginably awful programming because we like it. We are surrounded outside by a real world of pure violence and over the top competition for jobs (my college is superior to your college), housing, parking lot rage (hey, that’s my spot, I saw it first, I’m going to kill you), freeway shootings (hey, you cut me off back there, I’m going to kill you), religious fanaticism (my religion is better than your religion, I’m going to kill you), riots at sporting events, shootings at sporting events in parking lots, children’s’ sporting events filled with screaming out of control parents and coaches, classroom bullies, students killing their classmates, kids wearing hundred dollar or more sneakers (that they grow out of before they wear them out), racial and gender hate, gang against gang (my gang is better than your gang, I’m going to kill you), corporate greed unchecked (my company can screw more people than your company), politicians unchecked and behaving and lying outrageously before, during, and after elections, sports heroes living large evil lives at the expense of family and fans (and sometimes murdering their wives,) horrific customer service on almost every level and almost every day (we want to serve your needs but don't call us), food contamination (in a rush to get food to market to topple the competition, safety standards be damned), airplanes flying into buildings (my God is better than your God even though it’s the same God), and let’s not forget wars, the ultimate competition. (War is a competitive business endeavor. Our neighborhoods should be so lucky to have that kind of money.)
So I had a talk with my cable provider the other day and complained that every few weeks I lose more channels. The “customer service rep” told me that if I paid “x” number of dollars more per month I’d get them all back. I told him I don't like most of the channels and there are only a handful I want. I don't want more bad channels. He apologized and said “so far” they cannot provide channel selection by the customer and they have selected packages that would appeal to almost everyone. Not true. I had planned on ending the conversation with closing my account except that I’m expecting company in the fall and will need at least basic cable because the first thing they asked was if I got American Idol. Heaven help me I do. But not for long.
www.sharonstrawhandgarner.com
[No part of this content may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.]
Each week in this spot I will report an instance of good customer service (if any) but without embellishment. Just a business or entity that knows how to treat customers at least some of the time if not always.
This week I received excellent customer service from:
N/A
[No part of this content may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author. Blog series began in March 2009.
