Reality TV vs. Reality

Reality TV vs. Reality

Ok I’m not gonna talk about those people with all those kids, if you want to read about that go to the grocery store, look to your left…and it’s tabloid mania about Jon and Kate plus eight. However I’m really not interested, whose life is so interesting that it could be a TV show? It’s this weird voyeurism. And those people, don’t they want privacy, isn’t anything sacred to them?

If I wanted to see reality wouldn’t I just look out my window, why would I pay for Comcast Or the Dish Network or whatever it is you have in your neighborhood? Why are we paying for REALITY? Last time I checked it was the only thing in life that’s free.

The thing is: you have a neighborhood, why don’t we hang out in that instead of watching other people hanging out in their neighborhood? (Remember Mr. Rogers, “ It’s a beautiful day in your neighborhood…Would you be my neighbor?” The man was psychotic, am I right? He was so nice. Yet he may have been on to something).

If not mistaken The Real World by MTV started all this. That was when MTV used to play music.

That was a good show, but it was staged. Now it’s like reality, reality. I mean the Housewives of Atlanta got it goin’ on, I agree with you, but are they real? They’re like married to football players, they live in mansions, their biggest concern is this weird chick named Neneh, if I’m not mistaken. I’m not even gonna look that up. Some things aren’t worth it.

How about we watch people in line for food stamps? How about we watch what’s goin’ on in Iraq on a daily basis? I mean I know it comes on the news, but I want to see what really happens instead of just reading about it in some guilty memoir twenty years later. I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m gonna write a pathetic memoir and things like being in New York on September 11th will be in it…but…I didn’t watch a moment of TV news when I was there the weeks and months after. Reality on TV and in reality was too much for me.

Except one time I watched Oprah and there was this woman from Minnesota or something who said she was too scared to walk outside after the attacks. I was so pissed off. Fuck her. I’m not saying that the only people that were affected were the people there, but come on. I look Muslim, I lived next door to a Jewish cultural center. My brethren wear turbans, you know that about the Sikhs, right? The men wear turbans….And I walked outside, proudly, every day.

I didn’t have to watch it on TV, I watched TV to escape the reality of it. (Did you notice all the shows pretended like there was no 9/11, even like Sex and the City? I find that fascinating). The signs on the subway platforms for missing people…The candlelight vigils…and anyways…I live in the suburbs right now. I don’t’ even talk about it because there ain’t that much goin’ on outside my window except professional lawn mowers.

If you want reality from me you aren’t gonna get it. These words just don’t come out spontaneously out of my head. I think about it. I edit it. I add to it. I subtract the shit. If I just sent out what was at the top of my head you’d be bored out of your mind (assuming you are not bored right now).

Is art mimicking reality or vice versa? Art is a lot of work. Reality Bites (good movie though). It’s also fun and beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but if the seventies was not like Three’s Company and more like Woodstock, I’d like to know from Ang Lee’s perspective rather than seeing some guys youtube video of it.

I don’t know, that’s just me. Anyways, on a lighter note…ummm…what am I gonna do today? Go shopping with my sister and then get my nails done and hang out at the bookstore then have dinner… Yup…then I’m gonna…see how boring this is? See how boring I am?

Maybe you have a more interesting life. Maybe you I don’t know, what do you do that could be worth us watching? The truth is, maybe you abuse your kids, maybe you are plotting something dangerous. The REALITY is it’s a sick, sick world.

I’m Sikh, not sick, though. That’s a stupid joke I tell people. It’s not funny, I know.

None of this is really that funny is it?

nina