Cable On--Oh, What I've Been Missing

Our cable got turned on yesterday. The few days of not being plugged into that black box came to a careening stop. And because I'm like everyone else when faced with the banalities that are offered hourly from that box, I sat down to flip channels--all ten of them--to find something entertaining. And what did I find? None other than VICTORIA BECKHAM, the former Spice Girl, who has spun herself off as style setter, wife of the very famous footballer, and now best friend of Katie Holmes. Yes, I do read that gossip rag, US Weekly, like everyone else to keep up the many downs of Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Nicole Richie. Now, seeing that Bobble Head of a woman--no woman's head should be so much bigger than her teeny body, minus the unnaturally big boobs--being chauffeured around in a black SUV as she shops for an appropriate home, and meets with 'dignitaries' of Hollywood, well, what can I say? It was beyond compelling, it was more like a Farce.

Isn't it telling that a woman who was mocked, ridiculed, and made fun of in her own country--a place full of absurdities--is now being feted, petted, and treated like royalty in LA? The best part of the show was when she would speak directly into the camera to us, her barely concealed lower-middle class accent saying pithy things about her sons and her husband. Great television, I'm telling you.

I know summer is when the networks are off season, getting ready for that onslaught the public will suffer when they trot out their new shows, all promised as the new, "Friends," new "Seinfeld," or just plain new something. But really! I know it's bad when that maniacal chef, Gordon Ramsey, who does seem to froth at the mouth, is the most entertaining thing on. Granted, we don't have many channels here, in fact, it's almost like when I was growing up with the three networks and the two other channels.

What's so fascinating and also a terrible commentary on our current culture is how these "reality" based shows have taken over our national psyche. What about watching inane people doing inane things is important enough for us to sit for an hour? Very few of us could, or would, sit through an hour documentary on any number of important subjects, but a show where Victoria Beckham struts through one mansion of ridiculous proportions, well, that's a whole other proposition entirely. This reality show about Victoria Beckham is a new breed, indeed. You know I'm dying, absolutely dying, to watch Paula Abdul's newest addition to the growing shelf of stimulating shows. I think the tide turned to this strange voyeurism we are currently suffering when everyone watched, "Being Bobby Brown," another classic.

Tonight, since I have the option, I may or may not turn on the tube to see what other stimulating shows are on the air. Or I may just turn on C-Span and watch those law makers standing in twos and threes, their heads together as they gossip, I'm certain this is what they do when the microphones are turned off, about John McCain's Presidential campaign imploding.