Stupid TV

[Doreen Peri]

I just saw the stupidest show on the local public access TV station. Three guys were sitting in their backyard on lawn chairs drinking beer and smoking cigarettes and trying to name all the songs which had "dance" or a name of a dance in the title. They amused themselves very much. They were laughing and drinking and smoking. That was the whole show. I think you have to pay to use the local public access TV station and equipment. I don't think it's free. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm I'm right, I can't imagine paying good money to sit in front of a camera and smoke and drink and laugh to broadcast it into people's living rooms. Even if it's free, why would anybody want to do that?

Lots of stupid stuff on TV . Reality TV is idiotic. Some of the game shows are also stupid.

There IS a lot of good TV also... movies, public TV, discovery channel, science channel, ovation TV (an arts channel)... they all run some decent material. But you have to dig for it.

I also like "My Name is Earl" but that's stupid, too, but a funny kind of stupid. I like it! Sometimes "Desperate Housewives" is amusing. "The Simpsons" is a great show (stupid, of course, but great). "House" is also stupid and he's a jackass but it's funny so I like that one. "The Office" is very stupid. But sometimes funny. I've seen a few good "CSI" episodes and anther similar show about missing persons.

I spend way more time on the internet than I do watching TV... I only watch TV when I'm too tired to actually DO anything, including read. I'd much rather read, but sometimes too tired.

TV's like zombie land to me. The whole purpose is zoning out.

[SadLuckDame]

I don't have cable now, but when I did I liked stupid reality shows: Hell's Kitchen, Survivor, Amazing Race stuff. I'm also big on Bite me and River Monsters or animal planet. Occasionally, I'd find a little gem on a writer or painter.

[Barry]

I just saw the stupidest show on the local public access TV station. Three guys were sitting in their backyard on lawn chairs drinking beer and smoking cigarettes and trying to name all the songs which had "dance" or a name of a dance in the title. They amused themselves very much. They were laughing and drinking and smoking. That was the whole show. I think you have to pay to use the local public access TV station and equipment. I don't think it's free. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm I'm right, I can't imagine paying good money to sit in front of a camera and smoke and drink and laugh to broadcast it into people's living rooms. Even if it's free, why would anybody want to do that?

(bold font mine)

Bet those three guys, watching us sit here in front of our computers and scroll thought the pages of this website, would probably think the same thing.

"How lame. How stupid. Why would anyone do that?"

One person's trash is another person's treasure.
But I'm just here to yank everyone's chain is all, not to judge.

Peace,
Barry

[Doreen Peri]

This is them...

http://1600.tv/

The website and blog is much more interesting than the tv show.

[Barry]

Fifteen, twenty years ago, there was a woman here in Portland doing a cable-access show called Where's the Art? Her tagline was, "Oh that's right; it's cable access; nobody's watching," and she would smile into the camera. It was a great show. She also ran the 24 hour church of Elvis, which I think is still extant, though her cable-access show is long gone. http://www.24hourchurchofelvis.com/

I could watch her show for hours. It was pointless and strange, not at all didactic; perfect art.

Joseph Campbell said somebody, I think it was James Joyce, said didactic art is pornographic, and that true art seeks not to teach, serves no purpose but to arrest the viewer, reader, listener, etc., and provoke an emotional response - the arresting experience. You might be moved to tears. You might be moved to anger. You might be moved to be offended, anything, but art, real, true art, should move you.

You were moved by these three men, Doreen. You were moved to make this post.

I think they have been successful in what they were trying to do.

Art comes in many forms, and often we don't recognize it for what it is: work; artwork

People hated that guy who put a crucifix in a jar of pee. And they hated the piece that required you to walk on the American flag to view it. But the artist arrested people in thier mental tracks and provoked an emotional response in both instances.

Not all people like art. Not all people get it. But art is what it is, like it or not. Art is work. Those of us who do this work should be the ones most likely to respect another artist's work, whether we "get" it or not.

Peace,
Barry
PS: What's the point? Television, whether "stupid" or not, whether you "get" it or not, is art.

[mtmynd]

tedium is unfulfilling.

[Barry]

LMAO!!!