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If Elvis was alive today, I'd invite him over so he could shoot my TV. He liked doing that, and now I understand why.
This weekend, the TV was very mean to me - like John Cusack in Better off Dead, or James Woods in Videodrome... except they got off light.
First, I caught a couple of episodes of an old favorite TV show, and I had forgotten that the lead character's name was the same as mine. In this episode, he is involved with a woman who happens to have the same name as my recent ex-girlfriend. The ups-and-downs paralleled our time together, and one key episode was nearly an exact recount of something we went through together. In the end, the "moral of the story" broke them up, which is exactly what happened to me.
Ouch.
So, I went to the video store and rented something that I knew was going to suck, but it was similar to something I had an idea for, so I had to watch it. The movie was predictable and corny - and there's even a sequel. I suppose I should be grateful that the people who made this film saved me the trouble of writing one just as crappy, but that thought was waylaid when the DVD ended and the TV came back into view. Now, I'm watching my ex-girlfriend's favorite movie, which she always believed was an abstract reflection of her life.
Ouch, again.
As I write this, I am watching an old episode of Roseanne. As I watch Mark and Becky argue in their trailer, I can't help but look at Glenn Quinn and think "You're dead". It depresses me, because I liked Glenn Quinn. He seemed like a likable guy, and he took the character of Mark Healey from teenage bad boy to stereotypical dumb guy.
Every show needs a dumb guy. Whether it's Joey on Friends or Linda on Becker or Woody on Cheers - who replaced simpleton Coach (and the show Coach had two simpletons) - there's nothing like a dopey character to unload some laughs on. I'm even referring to the Paris/Nicole show as The Simpleton Life... and I've never seen anything quite so amusing as these two morons. I'm afraid to watch Paris' naughty video because it make her look smarter than the Fox show does, and nobody wants that.
It's been a year (12/3/02) since Glenn Quinn died from a drug overdose at age 32. I know he wasn't a big star, and his death wasn't big news, but it's all relative. I was much more of a fan of Glenn's than I was of Marilyn Monroe or Kurt Cobain, and I'm exposed to him so much more.
People love to blame Hollywood for exposing the world to bad things. People that are too stupid to take care of their own safety are let off the hook when someone says they were imitating something they saw in a movie. People driving too fast saw it in a movie. Teenagers committing suicide did it because a song told them to. Kids hit each other because cartoon characters hit each other. People become gay because Will and Grace train them to be gay.
Before Hollywood, there was no violence, disrespect or homosexuality. Remember the headlines in last week's newspaper when Saddam Hussein was captured? They said things like "HUSSEIN WATCHES TOO MUCH TELEVISION" and "SADDAM BLAMES BUGS AND DAFFY FOR VIOLENT TENDENCIES". Who knew you could get a desert cave wired for cable? Hitler, Stalin and Genghis Khan all saw Die Hard too many times, and Al Capone was known to be a big fan of both Charles Bronson and Clint Eastwood. Ask any crackhead how he ended up the way he did, and he'll tell you he saw how beautiful crack made people look on the big screen. Every time a urine-soaked wino asks me for a cancer stick, I'm reminded of Marleena Deitrich smoking out of one of those fancy cigarette holders.
We have acceptable standards in our society, and whether they make sense or not, most people follow them. 53% of marriages end in divorce, but people are fighting to get married because that's what you do. If you get divorced, it's okay, but if you never get married, people think there's something wrong with you. If you stick a needle in your veins to escape reality, that's wrong - but if you get drunk every night or eat candy and pizza until you're too fat to fit in a car, that's legal, so it's okay. Honestly, I don't see any difference between Glenn Quinn doing too much drugs and John Candy eating until his heart exploded. I know more people that have died from diabetic complications due to their weight than I know who died from drugs or alcohol.
Everything in moderation, people... and that includes TV watching. It's not that TV is, in itself, harmful, but if I see one more commercial for the new season of American Idol or for My Baby's Daddy, I just might put my fist through the set and electrocute myself... and that would be a less dignified death than Elvis having a heart attack on the toilet.
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