Dude, hold ma brewski.

Does anyone have a connection with the cable network TLC?

I'd like to pitch an idea for another soft-scripted, pseudo-reality, puddle of runny male-bovine excrement television program. 

Redneck Retreat.

Booze, Bibles and Roadkill BBQ.

The premise, we isolate, say four dozen rednecks, hillbillies, good ole boys, evangelicals and trailer trashites here.  

We'll supply them with weed, a still or two for moonshine, a meth-lab and The Nascar Network.  Then we sit back and film the hijinx and hilarity.   I picture a "Survivor" type format, with the contestants being divided into clans.  I thought about assigning clans based on genetics and DNA.  But that might mean we only have one tribe.  Through the course of several challenges, the beer burp off, the "Hold my beer, and watch this." and the ever popular sleep with your cousin, we narrow the field down to a final winner who receives these, replica clones of course, non-running, and sitting up on concrete blocks for yard decorations.

We can start the series off with the Duck Dynasty boys, The Honey Boo Boo Clan and the Duggar family, all 256 of them.


Wooooo hooooo!!! Mucho grassy ass compadre!!!
Here, hold ma' beer.  This is gonna be EPIC!!!  Yee-HAWWWWWWWW.

See you tomorrow.

Fine, fine television viewing options.

Once again I get to rant about quality American television programming.  Once again an old favorite adds to my disgust, forcing me into a drastic decision.  I'm giving up on the history channel.  Discovery and National Geographic aren't far behind.

The History Channel has announced not one, but two new Pawn Stars shows.  For cryin' out loud.  I could almost forgive one, but now three?   It's still not just The History Channel,  Discovery, National Geographic and even Animal Planet are just as bad.  Now you can find crab fishing, lobster fishing, swordfish fishing, giant river monster fishing, hillbilly hand fishing, at least two versions of shrimping in the Gulf of Mexico.  

By my count, there are at least three and possibly four television shows about repossession agents and staged repossessions on anything from pinball machines to airplanes.  Truck driving, truck driving on ice, truck driving on stupid ass, narrow, dangerous third world roads.  Auctions of delinquent storage units.  Gold miners in Alaska, gold miners in the Bering sea.  Asshole roughnecks in Texas.  More pawn shops.  Oh, how could I forget Swamp loggers, American loggers and Axe men.    Oh and feral hog hunting,   Weed wars and Moonshiners. Cops, Border wars, Bait car and Alaska State Troopers.  I will admit to watching the first season of Flying wild Alaska, I'm a sucker for airplanes.  This season, not so much. 

Do people actually watch this shit?

I  guess I'll go back to the SYFY channel...

Another Rant to Syfy.

I thoroughly enjoy the story of Moby Dick, and have for as long as I can remember.  It's probably the repressed sailor in me, No, not like that.  Get your minds outta the scuppers you land lubbers.

With the past month I have watched the newest version broadcast on Encore starring William Hurt as Ahab, Ethan Hawke as Starbuck and Charlie Cox in the role of Ishmael.  Saturday night I set the DVR to record Moby Dick on SYFY.  While not science fiction, I decided that I would give Sigh Fy the benefit of the doubt, and another chance. The listing claims it to be the 1998 version with Patrick Stewart as Ahab and Henry Thomas as Ishmael. 

I decided I would kick back, relax with a glass of lemonade and a bowl of popcorn and enjoy the film.  But Nooooooo.  Someone fell down on the job.  Someone chose the WRONG version of the story for the listing.  Instead of the classic story I got this shit...Moby Dick 2010.  Oooooo, lets go whale hunting with nukes!!!  I shoulda known better, after all it is Sigh Fy...

It took me, oh about 30 seconds to realize that someone scrood the pooch somewhere.

"Rig for silent running, and set the active sonar scans"  Excuse me?  Really?  How the fuck is that supposed to work?

It was when the giant white whale bit, yes I said bit a nuclear powered submarine in half and hauled part of it back into the depths beneath the Arctic ice cap that the sigh fy factor kicked into overdrive.  I should have known better. 

Oh, so sadly disappointed with the premiere Science fiction network once again.


Stop playback...
Erase recording...
I'll watch The Cartoon Network instead...

An open letter to the Sigh fy network.

Thanks folks.  In your infinite wisdom you've done it again.  First you canceled Stargate Universe, now you've tossed Eureka.  What's next? Another show about ghosts?  More wrestling?  Oh, how about a lame ass show about lame ass super heroes, you could give it a catchy science fictiony sounding name like, oh, I don't know, something like Alphas...We could really use programs about haunted artifacts, and maybe a hunt for mythological artifacts.  Oh, how about Sharktopuss II?  I hear that WWE rasslin needs more exposure.  Maybe late night infomercials.  You could give us a look at classic Sci Fi films like Blade Runner, The Fifth Element, Total Recall and Robin Hood Prince of Thieves (classic science fiction that one.) Over, and over, and over, and over again.

The weekend of August 20th  and 21st looks especially intriguing;  Snakehead Terror, Supergator, Dinoshark, Mega Piranha, Malibu Shark Attack, Deep Blue Sea, Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus, Swamp Shark, Mega shark vs. Giant Octopus and DinoCroc.  I can hardly wait.  Maybe I can catch reruns of another lame ass excuse for science fiction.  Falling skies could rerun on TNT.

You changed your name to SYFY because it sounded less geeky, maybe now it's time for a new name, The Sell out channel...

An open Letter to the History Channel

Dear History Channel.

I understand that times are tight and that television programs about history are expensive to produce, but Top Gear USA, Really?   Top Gear USA belongs on local community access cable.

Yes, I realize that that off-hour, early morning infomercials such as Light Relief therapy and Bosley Hair Loss Answers bring in revenue.  Yet, you choose to spend that revenue on absolute crap such as Top Gear USA, Only in America with Larry the Cable guy, Ice Road Truckers, Top Shot and Stan Lee’s superheroes.

I’ll give you partial credit for Pawn Stars, American Pickers and American Restoration only because of the minor historical connections that some of the items featured may have.  I can almost forgive Swamp People for “cultural” reasons.  Notice, I said almost.

How bout taking one of your programs to heart…”Save our History”, either that, or change your name to the “Infomercial and bullshit programs channel.”

An open letter to Advertisers

Ladies and Gentlemen, if you are in advertising, whether designing ads for your clients, or accepting the advertising for your goods, products and services please give us a break.  We, the American viewing public are not idiots.  Your absurd, idiotic, moronic, inane, insane and stupid ads are not likely to inspire us to support those goods, products and services.  You may find that those advertisements have the opposite effect and drive the intelligent viewers to ignore or avoid your products. 

I don't fault CNN for the obnoxious Blue tax commercial., nor any of the idiotic J.G. Wentworth ads .  I hope they are making lots of money for running these.

I'm not talking about Super Bowl quality ads here.  Just give us credit for being smarter than a box of rocks.

When an idea grows old and stale let it die gracefully.  It's so easy that a Geico caveman could do it.  Geico, take the hint here. 

Tell us about your product. Sell it, convince us, you, as well as us, especially us, aren't benefited by your lame ass gimmicks.

Our friends at J. G. Wentworth seem to have chronic cranial rectumitis.  If these commercials are in any way indicative of your business and financial acumen and savvy you're not getting anywhere close to my $2.58.  

Television for the masses

"Television is the first truly democratic culture - the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what people do want."
Clive Barnes

There was a time when I turned on the television and tuned to The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel and even SciFi on occasion. Those times are gone. Now, you get lumberjacks, dysfunctional motorcycle builders, truck drivers on ice, swamp denizens hunting gators, a swamp dweller trying to teach his bartender brother how to become an animal wrangler, sword fishing, lobster fishing, and crab fishing. Oh, and who can forget "Hogs gone wild". Mythbusters is nearly the only saving grace for Discovery, and only when Adam Savage isn't trying to do his lame ass accents and comedy routines. Thankfully, I have a mute button and I'm not afraid to use it.

The Science Fiction Channel started calling itself SciFi and then finally in order to sound a little less geeky, SCFY. It should be pronounced sigh fy. Professional Wrestling, really? Ghosthunting? Haunted history? The quest for forgotten movie props to sell at auction? C'mon. Sharktopus and now Swamp Shark? Seriously? Reminiscent of what Fox did to Firefly, SYFY did to Stargate Universe. Fifty thousand people joined a Facebook group in the attempt to save the show. The Facebook group promptly got hacked, the Admins kicked off and that voice was silenced. It's enough to make a semi-rational skeptic start believing in conspiracy theories.

Evidently, if you want decent Science Fiction on television you should tune to BBC America.

If you want to watch television intelligently, my dad has the perfect words of advice for you. "Turn the Damned thing off."