I’m grumpy. I’m FUCKING grumpy, and I’ve been grumpy for as long as I remember (four days). Luckily for the world at large, my grumpiness has been confined to the city’s finest hotel for two days, listening to my non-profit company remain in its non-profit tax bracket by spending its profits on a series of talks from motivational speakers who would have been the sort of preacher men, 70 years ago, whose sons I would have let teach me; fucking dead boring corporate reps explaining what they want from our industry; and financial analysts. Wow. When financial analysts talk, all I want to do is listen. And nail them. The way they can break the world down, it’s beautiful. Anyways, this experience has either taught me or cemented me in the conviction of three things that I’d like to share with y’all.1. Television only exists as a medium to deliver advertising. That’s it. Unless it’s PBS or TVO or something, and when’s the last time you watched that? All those ‘can’t miss’ hours – they’re there to make you watch commercials. The networks are not altruists sharing art and ideas with you. They aren’t even merchants in the sense that they're trying to sell you something. They are selling your eyes to their advertisers. If you’re comfortable with that – if you feel what you’re getting from the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, or whatever crap you watch compensates you, well, you just keep on givin’er, cowboy. If you're watching television to pass the time and aren't engaged, then you're being ripped off, you fucking sucker. Wake the fuck up and go do something. It's a fucking beautiful world out there, shithead.
2. I can chat, amuse, humour, ass-kiss, inquire, inform, tease, cuss, abuse, persuade, argue, request, shock, assure, reassure, deep-throat my entire foot, blaspheme; I can even – once in awhile – titillate. But I can’t shmooze. It makes me choke. I think I used to be able to shmooze, but all the drugs I’ve smoked have robbed me of the ability to speak dishonestly, which is what separates shmoozing from all other verbal acrobatics. Thank you, drug-induced intellectual honesty. Even if it’s your fault I don’t get regular sex anymore.
3. If you keep putting food in front of me, I will keep eating it. Especially if I’m eating at the nicest hotel in the city, and I keep thinking I should eat the food there while the eating’s good because I don’t know the next time I’ll be in the nicest hotel inthe city. Even if the food is kind of heavy, bland, and caker-y, I will eat it and eat it and eat it. In the same spirit, if you keep putting L’Occitane products in the bathroom, I will keep on stealing them. Stealing them and stealing them and stealing them.
Oh, fuck everybody in the world. One more day on the Dragon. My hair is being cut tonight. Maybe that'll fix me.
6 commenti:
Occitan is a language that's being slowly assimilated by French... right? You write good...
I think it's a Provencal dialect, but I don't know. The French have a shitty attitude to dialects. Anyways, in Mlle La Spliffe land, L'Occitane just refers to a line of cosmetics that smell really great and pretend to be all-natural. But ain't. They're super-expensive and the Four Seasons uses them for their little bathroom freebies.
Thanks for writing I write good. I think my sentences are too long from all those Bronte sisters I was addicted to back in the day, but there you are. You photograph good.
Don't get me started on motivational speakers. I've lost count of the amount I've sat through in previous jobs. In the end I found the best thing to do was to drop acid and wind them up during Q&A's whilst desperatley trying not to pass out from supressed laughter...
Couldn't agree more about TV, it's a magnet for the eyes and turns yr brain into cotton wool, and as for the free food, it's good to know I'm not the only person whose appetite increases exponentially when they keep putting it in front of you. Good work Mlle
I'm glad I'm not alone in the limitless binge respect. Honestly, my only regret is that I didn't bring a waterproof purse to carry out all the food that wouldn't fit inside me. Next time I'll bring that. And acid.
I don't own a tv and my students look at me with shock and horror every time I tell them. But not all TV is evil and a vehicle for adverts. What about the BBC, ITV... the four basic channels minus Channel 5? No adverts, just the licensing fee.
I don't have a television either. I hope it's a trend.
The four basic channels in Britain - I wrote something about TVO and PBS, right? Bear in mind I'm writing from an in-Canada perspective.
Even so, public channels are usually selling us the point of view of the organizations funding the stations - you're better placed than I am to tell if that's the case in England. It CERTAINLY was in France and Italy.
I don't think television is evil - just a vehicle. When I get a chance, there are shows I love watching (see sidebar), and it doesn't make me feel like a bad person. Alls I'm sayin is people need to be aware of the transaction they're engaging in when they watch television, or else they're selling themselves short.
Posta un commento