So, first blog post. Honestly, I have never been a huge writer, especially a daily one. I adore blogs, but I have resisted blogging. I think that there are far better writers with better topics going at it on the internet, but why not throw my hat into the ring?
Now, what will this blog be about? Most people pick one subject and stick with it. The more specific the blog, the more people view daily. I think that is the mathematics of blogging, but I really am not going to do only one thing. The area I'm most comfortable with is film, but you might see sports, current events, and maybe even politics. So if you stick around daily, you are probably here for my writing. Don't get too cozy because I could change it all.
So, I have been recently reading whatever Zak Smith (or Zak Sabbath, to those who know his work outside of fine art) musing I can find. I would love to read his book, We Did Porn, but all I can afford right now is that lame stuff like rent and light. Anyways, if you want a fun read, take five minutes and go through his feelings on Sasha Grey's appearance on the Tyra Banks Show a few years ago (I've cited the link at the end of my post). Strangely, my girlfriend is currently watching a repeat Tyra Banks Show that is featuring sex workers from the "famous" Bunny Ranch in Carson City, as well as a young girl auctioning off her virginity to the highest bidder at said whorehouse.
Picking on the inherent ridiculous nature of Ms. Banks' show is too easy. Her show is the height of daytime schlock, run by an egomaniacal she-bitch from hell, whose microphone melts into a pitchfork around minute fifty to lead her Ann Taylor-wearing mob of thirty-something women to destroy whatever poor soul is on stage. It is infuriating to watch so much stupidity on display, and to listen to a runway model tell a grown-woman that she doesn't know what self-respect is. Not even Oprah passes as much judgement as Tyra, and she's basically the sweet baby Jesus in biblical talk show land.
The one thing that struck me between reading Smith's essay and watching that horrific atrocity on television was that our culture is still a car-accident kind of culture. As much as Tyra Banks wants to preach about how women should feel about pornography and prostitution (which, I must add, have nothing to do with each other outside of the sex), she spends two minutes at the end of her show saying just that. For the first forty minutes, she grills the steely Sasha Grey about anal sex and puts poor, opportunistic whore-to-be Natalie next to her would-be suitor, who, of course, is a 59-year-old, lanky white-haired man who looks like "The Thing" from Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark (who, I might add, has not placed a winning bid, as her virginity is still very much for sale on the Bunny Ranch's website). We are ninety-five percent Faces of Death and five-percent Public Service Announcement, culturally speaking that is.
The coverage of Michael Jackson's death is a prime example of this, with the gossip headlines and the detailing of his tragic downfall filling hours of talking heads, except without the moral lesson we use to get from our news. The reason for news coverage is not just to inform but to teach. Somebody once said television was the biggest classroom (actually, I think Ralph Fiennes said that playing Charles Van Doren in Quiz Show, but whatever), but now our teacher is TMZ "reporters" and we aren't learning much. Television news has turned from highlighting important global lessons into just some shit you watch to see what freakshow-massacre happened today. After the King of Pop's death, CNN and E! have somehow melded into the same station. They both have scrolling bars at the bottom showing news they can't be bothered to report verbally, and they talk about virtually the same stuff. It is quite sad, but looking at things like the Tyra Banks Show, it does not surprise me in the least.
I normally don't like to point fingers at anyone, but...you, TMZ. You are to blame for the perpetuation of this mentality that has infected all forms of expression. TMZ has a lot to do with how recent news events like Jackson's death have been portrayed in the legitimate medium, starting before the world really knew the pop star was dead. That day, I remarked to my girlfriend how badly a certain anchor wanted to report him dead, as TMZ had pretty much guessed it from the onset. Cardiac arrest is typically a twenty-percent survival rate affair, so predicting his death was not a feat to be measured against Nostradamus. But that afternoon, this guy was alluding to TMZ and its post, salivating to be the first newsman to call a man, who most people didn't think about anymore, dead. And when a reputable news organization actually got a valid source, MSNBC suddenly turned into a Harvey Levin-esque office with better production values, complete with some buffoon yelling "LA Times says he's dead!" TMZ runs off of the Paris Hilton's of the world and they are trying to interject themselves into what can be seen as "actual news", and we should all be frightened.
These people are promoting the base stupidity we already get on daytime talk, but they have somehow trojan-horsed it into the one place we thought we were safe from gossip: prime-time news. We, as a society, don't want news interpreted for us, just reported. A 140-character Twitter from our favorite celebrity seems to be enough news for us, and we don't need Anderson Cooper telling us what constitutes legitimate news versus the trash sites like TMZ and Perez Hilton peddle. It is all talk and no discussion nowadays.
Everyone wants to be the first to see the accident, but no one wants to get out of their car and help.
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