Archive for August 27th, 2008


I’d Like to Ruin TV for You: The Weekend

There is so little substance and so much short-talented debris in the cesspool of Saturday and Sunday primetime that I could not give each day its own entry. I’m not feeling particularly funny this evening, as I’ve caught some sort of bug previewing the Fall season for you. It’s that or the fifth of Jack.

The rat network (ABC, owned by Disney), gives us college football on Saturday nights. I’m not as much of a football fan since I moved away from Buckeye territory (I lived less than a mile from the stadium, and High Street was always a drunken hoot), but I still prefer this over any other Saturday offering. Sunday’s schedule is the well-cultivated, yet trite, rundown of America’s Funniest Home Videos (America’s favorite piece of schadenfreude), the manipulatively heart-tugging and saccharine Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, the overdone yet half-baked Desperate Housewives (loved the first season, then I didn’t), and the angrily self-important Brothers & Sisters. Nothing new to see here, move along.

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I’m Praying for YOU! (Part II)

I’ve had a difficult relationship with religion, mainly with fundamentalists, for a very long time. I grew up in a nasty neighborhood. It still makes the news from time to time for shootings, stabbings, or homemade chemical bombs tossed on neighborhood porches. It also has a high incidence of cancer, most likely due to years of illegal dumping by the various industries. I like to call it Brownfield, USA, although that’s not what it’s usually called.

It was a tight-knit neighborhood. With commercial properties intermixed with residential, everything you needed was within walking distance, including a variety of churches. Some Sundays I would attend noon Mass at St. Mary the Whore Roman Catholic Church, and I was compelled to attend CCD on Tuesday evenings at the Whore’s namesake school until Confirmation at 8th grade, where I got to choose a new name. I went the conservative route and chose Matthew, but that’s for part III, if I write it. (more…)