I: Maxims and Barbs

Forward

As the better part of August comes and goes, I thought it a good time to post the first section of my long unawaited Twilight of the (American) Idols: Or How to Philosophize with a Remote Control, a philosophical tract on the status of the American Public and its Media.

I. MAXIMS AND BARBS

1
Ours is the age of celebrities as whores, and whores as celebrities

2
The genius of Scientology, like the genius of Viva-La-Bam, is its sympathy with (its identity with) its audience: Scientology was Tom Cruise long before Tom Cruise was a Scientologist.

3
Oprah is the opiate of the masses

4
By violently wedging non-sequiturs and flashbacks between plot points, Family Guy achieves in twenty-two minutes an A.D.D. semblance of the pop-culture-shredding absurdist genius it has taken The Simpsons thirteen years to craft.

5
Andy Warhol later said, “I'm bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is, ‘In fifteen minutes everybody will be famous.’” It is now approximately 13:52.

6
Boardroom adage amendments passed by unanimous vote: “(homo-, metro-, bi-)sex sells”

7
If I had a bullet in my lower intestine for every time MTV played back-to-back music videos, I’d retire at age 67 along the Florida panhandle.

8
Reference is the new meaning

9
To wit: it is possible among men of our age to converse exclusively in bits of Will Farrell dialogue.

10
Precisely what’s wrong with Seth MacFarlane and most university students is that they think nos. 4, 8 and 9 are good things.

11
It should surprise no one that as hip-hop artists shift from have-nots to haves, so too does their audience.

12
Pimp my Ride as exemplar of media marketed to 18-25 year olds: hot bodies and digital effects slapped on the same rusted out old frame with the same shitty transmission.

13
Give it five years and ABC will look like HBO, HBO will look like the Playboy Channel, the Playboy Channel will look like a hardcore gangbang flick, and a hardcore gangbang flick will look like a bunch of Asian children being taken out into the street and shot.

14
Precisely what's wrong with me is I think (most of) no. 13 is a good thing.

15
I mistrust all Six Feet Under fans and avoid them: the will to melodrama is a lack of integrity

16
Zack Braff’s worst crime was making it impossible to like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, since it is an immutable law of nature that every girl who lists Garden State among her favorite films lists it as well.

17
That Conan O’Brien evades any mention of his Harvard education on his show—usually by knocking over his desk mike and making a poop joke—is what success with his target demographic has meant.

18
I was once at a poker table in Atlantic City across from a young man wearing a t-shirt with “NO LIMIT TEXAS HOLD’EM” printed across its front. Sizing up our competition, a friend remarked to me that he had never seen a New York Yankee wearing a “PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL” t-shirt. Apply analogical reasoning when interpreting a Surreal Life cast-member’s claim to be “an actor.”

19

The only thing we have to fear is Fear Factor itself.

20

The Axis of Comedic Evil: Andy Dick, Kathie Griffith, and Kathie Griffin

21

I have been called, among other things, a metrophopic. These charges are unwarranted. I said only that I have a sneaking suspicion that the Queer Eyes are running out of Straight Guys, and that as a result I fear for my flannels.

22

Heron and Trippi had it backwards: The Television will not be Revolutionized.