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February 7, 2007
kicking television
it is one of the perils of my job that i am - on occasion - sent on business out of town. it's really not something that i mind all that much. i enjoy traveling and seeing new and interesting places - especially in the winter time when my 110 year victorian life partner takes on a chilly disposition. the problem is, the company rarely sends me to interesting places. during my most recent excursion i spent 6 days in baton rouge, la. actually, my hotel was in port allen which is separated from baton rouge by the mythical mississippi river. and by mythical i don't mean that it does not exist - obviously there was a large swathe of dirty water that i drove over every day. i just happen to believe that this particular river is man made and really nothing to fuss about. i mean seriously...have you seen that murky mess? no way that is a natural body of water.
anyway, with the exception of one glorious day it rained for the duration of my visit so i found myself holed up in my hotel room for large chunks of time catching up on all that cable television had to offer me. it should be noted that i am much too cheap to install cable television at 4808. also i've learned that you can watch cable television once every couple of months and not really miss anything at all. there are so many reruns and marathongs - it's simply not possible. some of my favourites during the week: engaged and under age; the bad girls club; rome; extras and my sweet sixteen
but far and away the show that piqued my interest the most was a little gem on spike tv known as pros vs. joes. the premise is simple enough: round up some average mildly athletic guys and pit them against formerly elite athletes and allow them to compete. the athletes on this particular program were michael irvin, jose canseco, kevin willis, and some ultimate fighting dude and of course the pros dominated the joes and it wasn't really entertaining at all but it got me thinking.
obviously - it will be a rare occurrence that an average man would be able to cover hall of fame wide receiver michael irvin on a post pattern...so why not change up the format of the show a little bit in an effort to level the playing field. i wouldn't advocate elminating the athletic competition because obviously that is an essential element. but maybe - just maybe there could be a classroom competition wherein the jocks would have to read and interperet
great works of literature. and how hilarious would that be - watching jose canseco struggle to wrap his steroid addled brain around proust or tolstoy - it would be completely riveting television. certainly more riveting than that fat kid on charlie sheen's sitcom pandering for laughs. sort of a pros vs. prose competition as it were. obviously spike tv executives are not capable of such enlightened thought but i dream of the day that all of this might be possible in post 9/11 amerika.
| By young_christopher | 2:44 PM
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