Walked over to BJ’s yesterday to put in an application for the dishwasher position. The place is pretty much a pit, and the application process consisted of me writing my name and phone number and the hours I was willing to work (‘any’) on the back of an unused check for one of the waitresses, which gives me hope they aren’t going to be all that fussy. The job would only be maybe 25 to 30 hours a week at minimum wage, but anything will help out our local economy at this point.

Beyond that, there isn’t much to say. My RAW character, Tamara, got her popularity up into the 70s, got a shot at a title belt, and managed to convince someone (The Hurricane) to be her manager. This last was a major accomplishment; none of us had been able to figure out how to get someone to agree to be your manager (turns out, you have to do various things with people displayed on your ‘friends’ list until one of them likes you enough to be shown in green on it; then they’ll be your manager if you ask). Then I went into my room to watch NYPD Blue (Paul doesn’t like police shows) and while Paul continued to play, the game froze up. Naturally we hadn’t saved, so all that progress was lost.

Then Pat came by last night to take the game back to Blockbuster, so, ce la vie.

Mom’s health isn’t great again, so Paul and I called her yesterday to cheer her up, and this is a very depressing subject, so I’m not going to dwell. Scott Shepherd, classy guy that he is, sent me an email asking for my snailmail address so he could send me an extra copy of a Barenaked Ladies CD he has for my upcoming birthday, which, well, as I say, he’s a classy guy. Jillian Lee surprised me with an email yesterday, which was nice, since I thought I’d thoroughly annoyed her by now. Her email pointed out to me something that, despite me generally trying to be considerate and empathic, is, nonetheless, a failing I have… I tend to not really be all that thoughtful of the fact that other people who are much younger than I am may be more sensitive to what they regard as negative opinions than I am. Jillian’s feelings had apparently been hurt by what she considered to be some brusque commentary on the blog regarding her not sending me email in a timely fashion. So this is something I have to be more aware of, but while the subject is up, let me say this:

I do understand, certainly, that people’s feelings can be hurt by negative comments. I’m simply at a point in my own development where, if I feel someone has treated me with less respect than I merit, I shrug my shoulders, enter them on my ‘assholes’ list, and minimize my dealings with them as much as possible. Similarly, I keep it very much in mind that I myself am really only significant to myself and maybe a few other people in the world, and that my opinions and judgements of the value and worth of other individuals isn’t worth that much, except as a basis whereby I decide who I’m going to pay attention to, care about, and trust, and who I’m not.

What I mean to say is, if someone is a dick to me, it hurts, especially if I wanted to be friends with them. But I blow it off, because, ultimately, I feel that nobody else’s opinion of me is as important as my own opinion of myself. (Mind you, there are people out there whose opinion of me is very important… my mom, some other family members, a very few friends… and those people can hurt me badly, but, well, there aren’t very many of them and they aren’t going to do that to me deliberately, and if they do, I assume it’s just a mistake on their part, or a misperception on mine, and either address it if it’s important enough, or just shrug it off if it’s not.)

My thing is, I probably expect too much, which is to say, I expect other people to treat my opinions in the same manner. I also expect other people to understand that simply because I list someone as an Egregious Email Violator, it doesn't mean I loathe them or think they are horrible. It’s not even an insult. It’s just my way of saying ‘these people owe me email’; something I vent about.

Jillian apparently thought I was angry at her and had a negative opinion of her because she had failed to answer my email promptly, and that’s a misperception on her part. It may be a common one. So, for the record: I understand that other people have lives and their priorities are different from mine. Even before email, back in the days of snailmail, I tried to be a conscientious correspondent and answer my mail as quickly as I could. I enjoyed getting personal letters (I think we all used to) and I hated it when people made me wait for months between mails. So I simply got in the habit of answering my mail quickly, because not having much of a life, I could. This habit has carried over to my email; I tend to answer my email very promptly.

All of which means I tend to get annoyed with people who don’t answer my email promptly, and when something annoys me, I will generally blog about it, because, well, I don’t go to church, I don’t drink, I don’t have close personal friends to talk to about important things, and I don’t play sports, so this is where I vent. The fact that I’m annoyed over overdue email responses doesn’t mean I’m annoyed with YOU if you’re one of the people that owes me email. I can distinguish between the two. I know you’re busy. I’m just annoyed that you’re busy.

Now, I can try to be more sensitive and considerate on the blog, and to some extent I will, but there are levels of filtering and self censorship on this goddam thing that I don't feel like imposing on myself. So, one time:

My personal opinion of you, whoever you may be, means nothing… or, at the very least, if you think it’s negative, then it means nothing. You are what you are, and you need to learn not to go through your life worried about other people being annoyed with you, because, guess what, other people are going to be annoyed with you no matter what you do.

Now, as a general rule, whatever else I may be, I am not a bully, I am not mean, and I am not cruel. I have never in my life responded to a critical email or post with hostility, unless that communication was obviously disrespectful or deliberately offensive. (Okay. To the Infamous Jess Email of October 2, 2002, I responded with an email that was angry and hurt. It was inappropriate. Circumstances were extreme. Let’s leave it at that.) When I have gotten a little obstreperous with some folks on this blog, it’s because they’ve been assholes to me first, and even there, I’ll usually just shrug and blow it off rather than engage. There have been exceptions who really pissed me off, but in general, if you are cordial to me while you say it, you can pretty much say anything to me, and I don’t think anyone would disagree with that. (Well, maybe Tuxedo Slack would, but he’s a big baby anyway.)

So, in general… if you read something and you get the feeling I’m mad at you but I haven’t exactly come out and said I was mad at you, well, I’m not. If I’m mad at you, trust me, you will know about it. As a codicil to that, if I am pissed off at you, so what? You can’t live your life looking for my approval or anyone else’s. So, if anyone is reading this blog regularly and getting their feelings hurt when I mention them in an apparently less than fully affectionate way, well, I regret that, but I must ask that you get over it, at least a little. If I want to tee off on you, I will have what I consider to be a good reason and I will explain it in detail. I do not throw around casually cruel insults and contemptuous little dismissals the way some very popular bloggers do when one of their readers has the temerity to disagree with them about something. I try to be more measured than that.

As a last word: if there are any lurkers out there who are, for whatever reason, afraid to post comments on this blog because they think they may get ridiculed, either by me or someone else, I would ask you to look at the entries and comments on this blog and try to get past that misperception. My regular commenters on this blog are generally a very civil and cordial bunch, and I try to reflect that. Furthermore, I cannot stand bullies, so I absolutely promise this: as long as you’re reasonably polite, you can say whatever the hell you want on this blog and if anyone tries to be a bitch to you about it, I will clobber them so fast their heads will spin.

So far, we’ve had only one real case of someone I’d call a troll coming and going on the blog, and he seems to have lost interest. But if someone like that shows up again, I’ll deal with them. Until then, if there’s something you want to say, just be polite about it. You’ll be okay.

Now, I reserve the right to make exceptions for things that truly truly aggravate me, like hoity toity fucking Harry Potter fans who start posting comments using a lot of fucking Harry Potter-speak. Cutesie in references are always risky. If I simply don’t understand them that’s fine, I’ll just find the comment containing them bewildering, but there is a lot of pop culture stuff I find annoying. So don’t call anyone a ‘muggle’ here and don’t write in Klingon. Other than that, you’ll probably be okay.

Just bear in mind, at least around here, artifice is not considered to be cool.

Oh, and on the subject of Egregious Email Violators and publicly listing them, hey… it works. Both Jillian and Alli sent me email within hours of me putting up that entry. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

TV Funnies

I spent so much time on that idiotic essay on appropriate offense yesterday that I didn’t mention the two new FOX shows I checked out Monday night (given that the Chiefs/Raiders game didn’t interest me overly).

The New Joe Millionaire is what most reviewers are doubtless going to call a ‘guilty pleasure’. I agree with them, but not the way the phrase is always used, which is, generally, with a sly wink and a leer… ‘yeah, you’re not supposed to watch trash like this, but admit it, you like it, and it’s okay’.

I hadn’t really managed to isolate exactly what it is about nearly every reality show that I find so disturbing until I watched this one, and I suppose I’m the last person in the world to realize this, but still:

These things are all about feeling superior to the idiots on your TV screen.

I suppose a lot of scripted TV may have that as an element, too, but, while it may be somewhat demeaning to get a kick out of feeling, say, smarter than Forrest Gump or Joey on Friends, at least these are fictional characters. When we watch something like Survivor or The Bachelor, it seems that we do so, in large part, so we can feel smug about what assholes the rest of the world must be, if they’re willing to do stuff like we see on our TV screens for, in many cases, no money at all.

And the thing is, these are real people. So, as with Jerry Springer or some other car-wreck freak show like that, we can sit back and really smirk to ourselves about how “Jesus, at least my life isn’t THAT fucked up”.

It’s very mean spirited, and I’m honestly baffled that I only just figured out that this is why people watch these things.

Hey, I watch Survivor too. I’m not saying I’m any better than anyone else. But while Survivor encourages really loathsome behavior, and I gather that in general the most loathsome contestant generally wins each time, I find that when I watch Survivor, it’s to root for the two or three cool people that may be on the show, and I tend to lose interest once they’re eliminated.

Shows that I’ve watched once and simply can’t watch again are things like The Bachelor. And since Joe Millionaire is simply a blatant rip off of The Bachelor with an even more profoundly mean spirited twist, well, I can’t watch that, either. But, I admit, I was curious, after FOX’s big advertising build up, to see if the European women were really as nasty and conniving on this show as they’d been depicted in the commercials, or if FOX had been presenting them out of context.

So I watched, and it was, in fact, the added little element of ‘say, now we can hate foreigners, too’ that really made me realize that, indeed, hating other people, and feeling infinitely superior to them, is what these shows are all about.

On The Bachelor, for example, you watch and you feel superior to everyone depicted on it. Generally the guy on the show who is supposed to pick from these various women is a hound, because guys are like that. I know guys are like that, I know that if I were young, affluent, and good looking, and surrounded by babes willing to do a great deal up to and including have sex with me in order to win the game, I’d go for the gusto with both hands, too. But this show is very much edited to make that typical (if, admittedly, somewhat swinish) male behavior look even more contemptible than it is, given the context (none of these women are exactly unwilling or even being coerced).

So women get to watch the show and say “Yeah, all guys are pigs”. Guys get to watch and say “Look at that asshole”, which is especially fun because he’s better looking, has more money, and at least in my case, is much younger than I am. (I myself am always aware when I see ads for this show on TV that if someone set up a reality show where 24 gorgeous women were supposed to compete for my love, the women would meet me for the first time and then pack their shit and git.)

As to the women, well, same thing, but this is even better. We guys get to watch a whole lot of really hot women who would never in their lives consider going out with any of us display really bad behavior and show just how shallow they actually are, and it undeniably makes us feel better about that hottie at work who won’t give us the time of day. Now, believe me, I deeply dig on that vibe, but it’s still not emotionally healthy to feel this much contempt for real people, even real people who are complete strangers we’ve never met.

As for the female watchers, well, they get much the same thing… they get to sit at home and say “I would never ever do that, that’s just ridiculous, and if I DID get on that show, I would be so totally above that kind of low and manipulative behavior”. And, again… it’s all about feeling superior, which is simply another way of saying, it’s all about making ourselves feel better by hating other people we regard as less than we are.

Now, Joe Millionaire immediately took this to another level by doing what FOX does… isolating the most objectionable and attractive element about some other show and bringing it right out in the open. Where The Bachelor neither hides nor emphasizes the fact that its bachelor contestants are always affluent and successful as well as good looking, FOX slaps you in the face with the notion that all women want is a paycheck on legs. Oh, the two Joe Millionaires to date have both been really good looking guys (who are also kind of slow and dimwitted, and FOX makes sure you know that, too), but FOX is right up front with it… these girls are there for the money. They are willing to do anything to win this guy, not because he’s cute, and certainly not because he’s smart, and most likely not because he’s sweet and kind, either (if you were really sweet and kind, you simply couldn’t do this kind of thing to a bunch of strangers). They just want the damn money. The fascination on Joe Millionaire is the same as on The Bachelor but magnified, because there are no illusions here. The women on The Bachelor can say they want the guy because he’s handsome, he’s nice, he’s a good kisser, whatever, and well, maybe we can buy that, or at least, smile indulgently about it. On Joe Millionaire, there ain’t no way. Those bitches are there for the loot.

And we all feel good about that, don’t we?

However, with The New Joe Millionaire, FOX has outdone itself, by adding the new element I’ve already noted above: nationalism. Not only can you feel superior to the guy on Joe Millionaire because he’s a dope, and the women because they’re scheming greedy sluts, but now, you can feel superior because THESE scheming greedy sluts are European!

And man, does this show serve that up on a platter. In the one episode I saw, the editing is clearly designed to make all these European cuties look like anti-American bigots. They jeer at everything about poor Joe Millionaire, especially the fact that he’s a ‘real American cowboy’… one chick even goes so far as to note “we are European women. This is a joke.”

I’d just like to note here that in point of fact, it’s a mistake for any of us watching these shows to feel at all superior to any of the people on them. Where I’ve said, above, that if you were really sweet and kind you wouldn’t go on these shows? Well, I’d like to think, having watched a few of them, that I’d be smart enough to turn down such an opportunity, but let’s face it, it’s easy to say that when you’re an average looking (at best) guy who is, by our conventional social standards, quite unattractive. No network would build a dating show like this around me (well, FOX might, maybe it’s the next version of “Joe Millionaire”… how far will young, attractive women go to get a fat middle aged geek-troll when they think he’s got a lot of money?) so it’s easy for me to say “I’d never do that”. The fact is, if you get picked for a show like this, it is presented as an honor… and in fact, people apply for these shows in the thousands and compete fiercely just to get on them. The reason I don’t is I know I’d get rejected, and who needs that?

My point is, the people who go after parts on reality shows really aren’t all that different from you and me. A lot of times, they don’t even know what the show they’re sending a tape out for will be about. They just want to get on TV. They want attention; they’re hoping that fifteen minutes of fame will translate into lifelong celebrity and riches. And, honestly, how many of us wouldn’t like that?

If you’re going to watch these shows… and I, at least, will keep watching Survivor at least until Rufus gets sent packing… what you should keep in mind is that, well, there are a few things. First, everyone you see on that show is there, primarily, for the attention, and we are all, every one of us, attention whores. (Unless you’re someone with the enlightenment of ObiWan Kenobi, or the Unabomber, anyway.) If you watch these shows and find yourself idly daydreaming about what you would do differently if you were on it, well, stop feeling superior. Maybe you’re realistic enough to minimize rejection by not making an audition tape and sending it out, but that simply means you want to be wooed. If ABC or FOX came knocking on your door and said they thought you’d be perfect for a new reality show they’re developing, exactly how fast would you be signing contracts?

Second, the other thing we all know and think we keep in mind, but that it’s so easy to forget, is that this is television and it is very carefully edited. The producers of Survivor, for example, want heroes and villains. They want the readers to like some people on the show and hate other people; it keeps us involved. And when you shoot hundreds of hours of video footage of anyone over the course of 39 days, I strongly suspect it is possible to carefully pick and choose your footage so that you could make Mother Theresa look like a bitch, and Howard Stern look charming and likable, if you really wanted to.

Other reality shows simply want you to, in general, feel smugly superior to nearly everyone on the show, and, again, with hundreds of hours of videotape on each contestant to choose from, it’s not hard to present each of them in a way that allows us couch potatoes to preen a little at how much better we are sure we would have behaved in their positions.

I’m not at all sure I’d behave any better than anyone depicted on any of these shows, were I stupid enough to get into their positions, and I’m also not going to say I’m not stupid enough to end up there. I find it highly doubtful any network wants to put me on a reality show, but given the opportunity I’d probably take it. (I cannot imagine me not being the very first person voted off any Survivor type show I managed to get on, though). And even if I got on such a show, and I did generally behave in a nicer manner than the other contestants (and I’m not saying I would), how I wound up being portrayed would largely depend on the producers. If they wanted me to look like a dick, well, I’m sure there would be enough little private and public hissy fits (I’m an emotional sort; I don’t internalize, I vent, and I’d be really aggravated on a show like Survivor nearly all the time) that they could portray me that way pretty convincingly… in fact, I suspect it would tax their genius to make me look like a nice guy. ::grin::

All of which is to say, I think the world would be a better place if we didn’t want to watch mean spirited reality shows. Given that we apparently do want to, though, well… we should, at the very least, try to bear in mind that no matter what the TV tries to tell us, none of us are really all that much better than the idiots they are providing for us to hate.

Now, having written all that, I will add that I also watched Skin and was pleasantly surprised. This is very much a real guilty pleasure; it’s an unabashed soap opera with a carefully calculated blending of sensationalistic elements meant to appeal to our most prurient interests, but hey, that’s never bothered me. I’d have been a big fan of Melrose Place and Beverly Hills 90210 if it had had good dialogue, interesting characters and decent plots… and let’s face it, the shows I think are among the best on TV certainly don’t mind showing us good looking women (and men, but I pay less attention to that) in very little clothing for a few minutes at least in every episode, as well.

So Skin can hardly be said to be objectionable simply because it has provocative content, if you’re willing to be fair about it. And I found the characters surprisingly three dimensional and interesting, the dialogue to be generally a cut above what you find on most similar FOX shows, and while the plotlines are a bit overly melodramatic, well, it’s more or less an updating of Romeo and Juliet, and Shakespeare, whatever else he may have been, was never exactly subtle.

The two kid characters, and the actors that portray them, are at the center of the show and like the WB’s Tarzan, the whole show was going to rise and fall based on whether we bought the central obsessively passionate teenage romance. I, personally, found the chemistry between the two entirely convincing; there were more genuine seeming ‘moments’ of bonding and growing intimacy between these two in the first episode than I suspect Tarzan will manage to give us in an entire season. I actually like both these characters and find myself rooting for them, and I’m interested in their parents, also. The press releases claimed that one of the things Skin had going for it were three dimensional characters who had good and bad character traits and who, ultimately, you would not be able to fully hate or love, and that’s very true of the adults, all of whom have individual quirks, as well as stuff to like about them and stuff to loathe about them.

It’s just the first ep and the show could start to suck in a big hurry… I’m especially leary of a developing sub plot featuring a black gangster who is going after the porn king father character, which could really easily get ridiculous if it’s not handled carefully… but so far, I’ve liked it a lot.

RULES OF THE ROAD

In one of his many invaluable essays on life in Hollywood, Mark Evanier described his first meeting with legendary TV comic and icon Milton Berle. Upon being introduced to Uncle Miltie and shaking hands with him, Mark, who is a pretty witty guy, blurted out without even thinking about it, “Wow, I didn’t recognize you in men’s clothing”. According to Mark, this soured Uncle Miltie on him from that point forward, because Mark had broken Rule Number One When Hanging With Milton Berle, namely, Never Be Funnier Than Milton Berle.

I’m reminded of that anecdote now.

Recent experiences at Electrolite being pretty much entirely similar if not completely identical to my previous experiences at Uppity-Negro.com and TampaTantrum.com, I thought I’d take the time to extrapolate whatever wisdom there is to find in the whole mess. Here’s The Deal, as far as I can see:

If you want to make friends and influence people when you head out onto the blogging trail, at least, as regards your posting comments on other people’s blogs, you MUST NOT:

Rule E comes mostly out of my experiences with Aaron Hawkin’s Uppity-Negro blog. He gets a lot of female posters and like any of us male geeks would be in that admirable position, he is thoroughly whipped by them. If a new reader comes along and does anything whatsoever to offend the babes on Aaron’s blog, that new reader can expect a cold shoulder from Aaron roughly the size of the Greenland glacier. I don’t really blame Aaron for this; for a male geek, positive female attention is a jewel beyond price, and if I ever had any women posting to my blog who weren’t related to me by marriage, I’d most likely dance and sing like a puppet on a string when they cracked the lash, too.

I should add to this that I’ve learned, from Electrolite, that one Must Not Be Whimsical, Oblique, or Overly Geeky When Posting To A Big Important Political Marketplace of Ideas Type Blog, because those guys just have no time for Theodore Marley Brooks or Cornelus van Lunt references, regardless of how amusing or entertaining you and some others may find them.

Now, I am posting this to point out that while these may be the universal Rules of the Road on other blogs (and as far as I can see, they are, indeed, pretty much universal) you can ignore them here. I don’t care if you:

Oh, and I like geeky references and would just adore whimsical, cleverly elliptical posts to my comment threads, although I suspect I’d get annoyed if someone started posting a whole lot of Harry Potter-speak here, just for one example.

If there is a universal rule on this blog, it is quite simply, Do Not Be A Bigger Asshole Than The Blogger. In fact, if you can avoid it (and most of my small number of regular posters avoid it with style and panache) Don’t Be An Asshole At All. I am quite a big enough asshole myself to supply all the assholiness necessary for any blog, and I will continue to keep this blog well furnished with stupid remarks, doltish mistakes, whiney rationalizations, and defensive recriminations by the ton lot, there can be no doubt. You need bring none of your own asshole nature with you, I have plenty and am always willing to share.

THE INEVITABLE DISCLAIMER

By generally accepted social standards, I'm not a likable guy. I'm not saying that to get cheap reassurances. It's simply the truth. I regard many social conventions in radically different ways than most people do, I have many many controversial opinions, and I tend to state them pretty forthrightly. This is not a formula for popularity in any social continuum I've ever experienced.

In my prior blogs, I took the fairly standard attitude: if you don't like my opinions or my blog, don't read the fucking thing.

Having given that some more thought, though, I'm not going to say that this time around, because I've realized that what this is basically saying is, 'if you don't like what I have to say, tough, I don't want to hear it, don't even bother to tell me, just go away'.

And that's actually a pretty worthless attitude. It's basically saying, 'I don't want to hear anything except unconditional agreement and approval'. And that's nonsense. This is still a free country... for a little while longer, anyway... and if you really feel you just gotta send me a flame, or post one on my comment threads (assuming they actually work, which I cannot in any way guarantee) then by all means, knock yourself out.

Unless your flame is exceptionally cogent, witty, or stylish, though, I will most likely ignore it. You do have a right to say anything you want (although I'm not sure that's a right when you're doing it in my comment threads, but hey, you can certainly send all the emails you want). However, I have an equal right not to read anything I don't feel like reading... and I'm really quick with the delete key... as various angry folks have found in the past, when they decided they just had to do their absolute level best to make me as miserable as possible.

So, if you don't like my opinions, feel free to say so. However, if I find absolutely nothing worthwhile in your commentary, I will almost certainly not respond to it in any way.

Stupidity, ignorance, intolerance... these things are only worth my time and attention if they're entertaining. So unless you can be stupid, ignorant, and/or intolerant with enough wit, style, and/or panache to amuse me... try to be smart, informed, and broad minded when you write me.