“In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.”-Andy Warhol
In any bar, on any night, in any town in America, if a 40 year old, doughy, hair thinning, married guy walks in, what are the chances he walks out with a single, 23 year old school teacher and goes back to her place to get jiggy with it? Pretty slim usually….unless you’re a reality t.v. star!
Aaaaaah…reality t.v.! How could we live without it? I was nearly a reality t.v. star once upon a time. “What’s that you say Phil? We could have known you as someone besides the brilliant and funny blog writer you are?” That’s right kids. Sit down and I’ll tell you the story:
Many moons ago, about 6 months before the first season of Survivor, I came across a tiny ad in small print on page 2 of my local newspapers sports section. It seems some network was looking for people to volunteer to live on a deserted island for a month as part of some new game show. The winner would get a million dollars. I thought, “Hell, I can do that. I’m not afraid to eat bugs and sleep outside.” I was serious. So I proposed the idea to Mrs. Phil. Her reaction was, “No way. You’re not going away for a month and leaving me here with the kids.” “But honey, it’s for a million dollars!” “NO” That was the end of that discussion and the end of my shot at immediate fame and fortune. I have forever held a grudge against Survivor and have not watched a single episode.
Now it seems we have reality t.v. overkill, even without me being a part of it. There are shows about families, shows about fat people, short people, people cooking, people selling their houses, people looking for their houses, people having surgery, people building motorcycles, people sleeping, people having babies, getting married and just about anything else. I made up the one about people sleeping just to see if you’re paying attention.
Survivor: Yeah, we get it already. A bunch of self-centered, arrogant, model-type a-holes bicker endlessly in a tropical location. Like E.R. I think this show has overstayed its welcome in our living rooms.
Big Brother: A bunch of self-centered, arrogant, model type, a-holes bicker endlessly in a house. If I wanted to watch a bunch of drunk, immature, 20 somethings stab each other in the back and make every little perceived slight into a volcano of petty drama I’d go back to college.
The Bachelor/Bachelorette: A bunch of self-centered, arrogant, model-type, a-holes bicker endlessly about who gets to marry a self-centered, arrogant model-type a-hole.
Would somebody out there just go back to writing sit-coms? All I want when I sit down at night is to empty my brain and fill it with 22 minutes of insipid one liners that require no thought at all to absorb. Maybe a sit-com about the life of a funny blogger would be good. The Phil Factor could be a very catchy title. Hollywood, are you listening?
