I'll Have Sex on Your Grave, Next Time You Die

Okay, it's official: I have television. Bunches finally convinced me that we should get basic cable on the grounds that we could have both it and internet access for $20 less per month than we are currently paying At&T for internet and a phone line which we don't use. Although I am no R2B2 when it comes to loving a bargain, this was too good to pass up. So today when I get home this evil little monster will be waiting there, ready to pollute my brain and turn me into one of those idiots who knows that Dancing With the Stars isn't slang for getting really, really fucked up, and watches Good Morning America instead of listening to Morning Edition.

Being a semi-optimist, or at least a semi-realist, I am accepting this new development and trying to make the most of it by remebering all the good things tv has brought me. Two of my most favorite tv moments ever came courtesy of Maury Povich.

The first was an episode in which wild, trashy teens were confronted by their distraught (and equally trashy) parents and a typically livid, disapproving (and, again, equally trashy) audience. One wild teen in particular came under fire for professing to have had sex on tombstones. A lady in the audience took the mic from Maury and berated her for this disrespectful behavior, to which the girl had THE BEST comeback EVER: (in a Southern accent, please) "Fuck you! I'll have sex on your grave, next time you die!!!!"

Number two: Maury, again. This time the topic was "Are You My Baby's Daddy?", one of Maury's favorite topics because he gets to pretend to care about women while making them look and feel like total sluts. So there's this very angry woman claiming that an equally angry man is the father of her baby. He is denying this on the usual grounds (only did it once, she slept with everyone in town and the next town too, the baby doesn't even look like him, etc.) and the woman interrupts and yells "If you ain't my baby's daddy, how come you bought him a brand new Timberland outift to come on Maury?!!" To underscore the point, the camera cuts to the green room, specifically to a very cute 18 month old (who looks exactly like the angry guy, btw) porpped up on the green room couch and decked out in head to toe Timberland to the point where he can't even move his poor little arms and legs and looking tres confused. Indeed, madam! Excellent question! A zinger! Who needs a paternity test? Man wants a kid to look sharp on Maury, must be his kid. Logic at work!

I have also enjoyed many other fine moments of my life thanks to tv. MTV started on August 1, 1981, my first birthday, and I started watching it pretty much the same day. My entire vernacualr is shaped by the cliches of early 80s videos. I can't see a courtroom without picturing the witness box morphing into members of Judas Priest or Sammy Hagar's bands and jumping to Rob Halford or Sammy's defense. I can't take my glasses of and let my hair fall out of a bun without thinking of the transformation scenes in Goody Two Shoes, Blinded Me With Science, or Legs. My entire concept of British colonialism is defined by Dura Duran videos.

I'm a stoner, so you know I'll be happy to have South Park, Family Guy, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and Robot Chicken back. TV does have some good serious shows too, stuff that I get on dvd, like The Shield and Nip/Tuck. I hear 30 Rock is good. I love House. I'm a sucker for a Law & Order franchise, especially now that I hear Coco is guesting on SUV (I know, SVU) with Ice-T. Love him, too. I'm curious about that new show with the ad men in the 60s. I'm wondering if we get Logo, the gay channel (no, not Spike, the other gay channel). They have good videos and you know I like gay people. The Food Channel has its merits. And I can stop bugging my Mom to Tivo Wide Angle and Frontline that I will never come over and watch. I wonder if we will have IFC or Sundance, or both? What about that Turner movie channel with all the goof old movies? Or is that AMC?

And I have heard the siren call of Joe Millionaire, America's Next Top Model, and...well, actaully, that's it. But the best part is that, while I am quite the smarty-pants when it comes to current events, I have pretty much no idea what people in the news look or sound like. I only hear their voices on NPR, which means I only hear certain voices, and I read stuff like the New Yorker and The New Republic that are scant on photos. TV can change this for me. I am also looking at it as a chance to know thy enemy, or whatever. I find the two seconds of Fox News that I catch whenever I enter pretty any public space with a tv to be harrowing, but educational. Who knew so many white women were missing and so many pedophiles on the run???

Okay, mostly, I will admit it - I am dying to see Britney Spears slip on a pile of blow pop wrappers at the VMAs this Sunday. So there.