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WEEKLY COLUMN:
JDM vs the WORLD

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FINE PRINT

Swarms of US troops are surrounding the Persian Gulf. To tear a line from the Annie songbook: War’s only a day away. Or a couple of days, anyway, but either way this might be the big one. This might be the grandmother of all battles, the war to end all wars to end all wars. Some are already calling it the End Times struggle. Others are calling it World War III: The Search For Spock. Except without the part about Spock.

But while we’re on the subject of searching, the Marines have deferred Lance Cpl. Josh Gracin’s deployment so he can compete on American Idol—also known as Star Search on steroids.

Didn’t think I could make the connection, did you? Don’t underestimate my Vulcan powers.

Anyway, I’ve got a question and here it is: Why? As in, why would the world’s most effective fighting force even consider taking a backseat to reality TV? Could it be that war’s not imminent after all? Unless this is some sort of zany publicity stunt to kick the enlistment process into high gear, let’s hope so. Look, I mean no disrespect towards the singing Marine whatsoever, and I certainly wish him the best of luck in achieving his dream, but ousting Saddam Hussein is clearly more crucial than competing for fabulous cash prizes.

I mean American Idol? Have you seen this show? I watched it once. Once. It’s chock full of scene-splicing and whiny wannabe rock stars. Sure, that one British judge is a funny bastard. Yes, the really, truly awful auditions are worth watching alone. But it’s all so forced, so mechanical and corporate. Music’s supposed to have soul. It’s supposed to fester in smoky clubs and ought-to-be-condemned concert halls. Watching these people become big stars on national television, it just makes me wonder: Have they heard of hard work?

According to my calculations, reality TV negates hard work as a concept. It’s about instant success and not much else.

I don’t know if current events will, indeed, precipitate the Third World War, but I’m hoping that scenario never unfolds. America remains unbeatable militarily, sure, but have we really got the gusto? I wasn’t around during WWII, and I never saw the Greatest Generation’s dedication and sacrifice up close, but their legacy speaks for itself. Those Americans didn’t forget Pearl Harbor. They didn’t make nice with the Nazis, either. They ate the Nazis for breakfast and flossed their teeth with Fascists. They wiped their rear ends with anyone who looked at them funny.

And back then, you had to work for years and years to become an overnight sensation. That’s the way it should be.

It would seem to me that hard work is disappearing from the American vocabulary. There are millions of us who work hard, of course, but that’s not what I mean. What I mean is that, even while we work hard, we still look for an easy out—a lottery ticket, maybe, or a million-dollar court case. Reality TV is the result of this mentality. It’s trash yet we treat it like gold.

Hard work has gone the way of family values, I’m afraid, which is to say it’s gone right down the kitchen sink.

And while we’re on the subject of family values, another so-called reality show that irks me is called Meet My Folks. If you haven’t seen it, don’t. To put it nicely, this show is complete and total crap. If you went to the corndog stand in the mall and asked for crap on a stick, you would want it to taste like this show.

Here’s how it works: Basically, a family opens its doors to a small army of morons competing for their son or daughter’s affections, plus an all-expenses paid vacation to an exotic locale. It’s a dating show, you see, and it’s a clever one, too, because it plays on the fact that parents are so often skeptical of their children’s romantic interests. You hear me? It’s clever. Clever!

Listen, this show—along with The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, Joe Millionaire, Temptation Island and most of UPN’s love-for-money line-up—is the next best thing to being a hooker. Why even bother with TV? Walk the right streets and you’re bound to meet someone who’ll buy you that vacation. If it happened to Julia Roberts, it can happen to you.

Fifty years ago, Lucy and Desi weren’t allowed to sleep in the same bed. They weren’t even allowed to use the word “pregnant.” But nowadays, you’ve got parents picking sex partners for their kids on NBC. Is it any wonder the Gores are off writing books on family values when they’re not busy inspiring Love Story?

(By the way, I’d rather enjoy an Al and Tipper reality show a la The Osbournes. Here’s the premise: They’re stuck in their house and they can’t get out. We’ll call it Iron-Clad Lockbox).

But if there’s one reality show that gets me—and I mean really gets me—it’s The Anna Nicole Show. I hate this show. I mean it. I hate it. The fact that it’s been renewed for a second season honestly offends me.

Somewhere along the line, someone at E! had the audacity to say, “Let’s find the planet’s most miserable creature and tape his or her everyday life. Hilarity!” And since the Discovery Channel wouldn’t let the three-toed sloth out of his contract, someone at E! decided to go with Anna Nicole Smith instead. Hilarity, however, has not ensued, unless you like laughing at the planet’s most miserable creature instead of with her.

In a way, Anna Nicole represents the ultimate rags-to-riches reality TV-style story. Here we have a woman who’s never been accused of having talent, who made a name for herself on a moment’s notice by marrying into elderly money, and now they’re paying her to be herself. Well, I don’t get it.

First of all, how the hell does The Anna Nicole Show constitute a show? I’ve seen shows before. Shows have content. They show us something. That’s why we call them shows. The Anna Nicole Show is not a show. It’s torture. All she does is waddle around complaining. It’s a show about nothing, but unlike Seinfeld it sucks.

Secondly, I’m not convinced that Ms. Smith is a contributing member of society, and quite frankly, if she wasn’t siphoning such big bucks off her sponsors, I’d feel bad for the girl. People seem to think she looks like Miss Piggy. They’re not necessarily wrong, but I couldn’t care less how hefty she is. I’ll leave the fat jokes to her more hard-hearted critics. Me? I’m just concerned that, with all her hot air, she might have an impact on our environment. Every time she speaks, you might as well score one for global warming. She’s El Nino, an SUV dealership and a lifetime’s supply of aerosol rolled into one. If Streisand and DiCaprio haven’t got a problem with this woman, I’d like to know why.

But in all fairness, I’m not sure The Anna Nicole Show really counts as reality TV, since nothing she does reflects reality in any way. If she were any less in touch with her surroundings, she’d be the president of France or the chancellor of Germany.

And if my reality was like her reality, I’d stab myself. Twice.

On the whole, these shows are a bad omen for Western civilization. Yeah, you can exercise your right to choose by choosing to turn them off, but the fact that anyone’s watching this trash just boggles my mind. It doesn’t bode well for this world when folks are more concerned with Big Brother the TV show than with the ever-expanding government of the same name.

Look, I was all for reality TV when it first came around. I’ll admit it. More than a decade ago, long before Survivor, MTV introduced Real World and Road Rules, and I watched them because they were different. Lots of people did. But that was then and this is now, and now the cast members have become full-time reality TV players. They appear in some recycled variation of the Real World/Road Rules challenge every couple of months, meanwhile drifting further and further from the reality they’re supposed to represent. Sort of like actors. The only difference is they make schmucks out of themselves without a union gig.

Come to my reality, why don’t you? Come wake up at 6:30 a.m., take a cold shower on a winter’s day, eat crackers for breakfast and scrape windshield ice while the winds paint your face red. Come ride with me on a one-lane back road going 15-mph below the speed limit because of some Chrysler LeBaron-driving dolt who’s too scared to drive when there’s snow on the ground. Come sit with me in a purple cube all day long. Come watch as my reality unfolds. It’s not exciting. It’s not worthy of TV. It’s not even worthy of cash prizes, save for the ones I receive on the 15th and 30th of each month.

Reality’s a messy venture, sure, but I’m used to it. Most of us are. We enjoy the good times, few and far between though they may be. We live week-to-week and drink-to-drink, and we relish every rotten moment of it because we know, in our hearts, that it could be worse. That’s life. This is America.

But if the networks absolutely must fill their airwaves with the kind of gratuitous glitz and glamour outlined above, they should at least have enough respect to stop calling it reality. Reality is dying alongside your best friend in an Israeli grocery store. Reality is not being allowed to drink from the water fountain on account of you’ve got dark skin. These shows? They’re not reality. They’re just a distraction from it.

As for Josh Gracin, I hope he wins American Idol. I do. I hope he wins it going away. Whatever it takes to make Americans idolize their true heroes again, I say go for it.

Besides, it couldn’t be worse than FOX’s Boot Camp.

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