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TV sucks. It's the cry of the hipster, the catchphrase of the bookworms who believe television turns your brain into a worm-infested apple. For the most part, they're right. For every "Seinfeld" there are 20 "According to Jims."
Flip the channel. Yes, without television our minds are saved from 20 shows riddled with puns and laugh tracks, but in the end, it's all worth it for one "Seinfeld."
Think about that. How many jokes have you stolen from "Seinfeld" or "South Park" or "The Simpsons?" I'm willing to believe that half of the people out there wouldn't know how to be funny without them. I had a friend who made his entire schtick out of Ralph Wiggum lines.
"Me fail English? That's unpossible!"
It's just one simple, brilliant line written by a member of the Writers Guild of America. He deserves our respect for it. They all do.
I thought I was above the whole thing, actually. Being the self-defeating elitist that I am, I didn't think the strike would affect me in any way. I'd read more books. I'd write more. I'd rub my eyes and go out into the sunshine and jump rope and play hopscotch and exercise and enjoy life.
That was before the Iowa caucus. I needed news! It's a time of Indecision. It's time for "The Daily Show."
But there was no "Daily Show." When Jon Stewart went back on the air last week, he called it "'A' Daily Show," not "'The' Daily Show." A few episodes in, it's obvious he was right. The show is missing something. The simple lines. The brilliant lines. The lines written by 14 writers carrying picket signs.
Without "The Daily Show," I'm not sure I'll be able to survive.
We now know the amount of money that the producers alliance would lose would be equal to that of leftover popcorn kernels on the theater floor. It's the equivalent of one bomb, one "Golden Compass" or one "Basic Instinct 2."
They're greedy. They want the whole pie, all the leftover crust. Now, three months in, their greed has switched. The studio chiefs are hungry for a win.
A bearded David Letterman called them "cowards, cutthroats and weasels" when he came back on the air. The public agrees. They rank the producers somewhere between yellow snow and flaming bags of poo.
Yes, the strike has reduced me to potty humor.
I need to learn to be cynical like House. I need to steal my jokes from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Sure, watching Conan O'Brien spin his ring and play his guitar was funny the first night, but how long can it last?
The message the writers are trying to get across is so simple: Be fair. Give a dog a bone. Yet, the old men in Hollywood choose to roll home and stare out their large windows in their large mansions. It is not a question of who will go hungry first. It is a question of what is right.
Do the right thing. Find a compromise and end the strike.
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