The Decline.

I'm really disappointed in humanity.

Mostly just humanity's taste in entertainment. I'm not really talking about celebrity gossip, although I do despise it. I'm talking about the laughable, (and by that I mean "pitiable/ dismal/depressing") prime-time, lauded and loved, worthless... garbage.

A few examples.

I'm sick of hearing about Stephanie Meyer, the "Mormon equivalent of J.K. Rowling".
Although I haven't read any of the Twilight books (boycott) I have read a little J.K. Rowling (only enough to be able to say I read... I think it was 4 chapters of the first book). I don't think Harry Potter is any real... gem. I think these sort of books should be shrunk to 1/16 their original size and sold in those little 25 cent vending machines in store entrances, along with all the fake tattoos, toxic Superbounce balls, and of course plastic jewelry and fake gems. I expect for at least one or two people to accuse me of being a numskull, who thinks he knows things about things he knows nothing about. they'll say I can't judge a book by it's cover, and that I am jumping on a bandwagon of fellow nay-sayers of the Twilight series.... I say to them that I have not judged the book by it's cover, I have judged it by it's place in our culture. it's readership (not to be harsh) is an indication of its quality. I am surprised at the phenomenon of the "Times bestseller" lists... why do so many people pay money for such mindless, wastes of words? I think that PETT (People for the Equal Treatment of Trees) should be in arms about the wanton destruction of vast forests, all being rendered flat for such a senseless purpose(may I emphasize SENSELESS).

Continuing on that note, I have a thing or two to say about another book. Stephen Colbert's "I am America (and so can you!)". I found the opportunity and the willingness to indulge the author of the book (admittedly NOT Colbert, although he does claim to have dictated the writing of it... which essentially means that he wrote --probably in all caps letters, a couple of them perhaps backward, or at least as sloppy and obtuse as his sense of humor-- a little memo authorizing the authorship of a book to be printed and produced with his name all over and throughout the book. I would call it shameless self-promotion, if only it were he who had written it, instead of some open mouth breather, dreaming-of-stardom, intern/equivalent task force assembled to throw together some hokey, "what-WILL-he say-next?" lines that wouldn't even make it into a Bob Saget monologue. The content was offensive. No, not in any explict, or bigoted kind of way, it was offensive that it was printed with the understanding that people like you and me would appreciate it. Why would would we appreciate this marked depreciation in the quality of entertainment? I was offended that I had been suckered in to giving it a chance, despite my skepticism. I was offended that, in the first chapter the author attempts to absolve his heinous composition by reiterating the fact that it is nothing more than a commercial attempt to garner more attention (and money, obviously) to the TV segment hosted by Stephen Colbert. It does't even apologize for being a pointless, witless bunch of blather amassed in just a little longer than it took to put it through a spellchecker. Any given page in the book looks like it was typed by a 9th grader; double-spaced(or at least each sentence is given it's own paragraph), and with this deluded idea that it's somehow going to fool the reader that any sort of intellegence was devoted to it. The mind of a 9th grader is an amazing thing, as Mr. Colbert (or proxy) exemplifies here, he has demonstrated how, when one considers himself to be funny, he makes all of his jokes without sort of forthought or censorship, in both 15-year old's and Stephen Colbert's case, they just come off as obnoxious. Stephen, thanks for making my 3 minutes on the toilet completely depressing.

Sorry, I wish I were done. But I have one more dissapointment to vent about here.

Pushing Daisies. I heard so much good stuff about this TV show. I'm not really partial to TV so I never sought it out. But it just so happened that one of my best friends got the first disk of the fist season in the mail today from netflix. I was over at his place tonight for dinner and they invited me to watch it with them. I am bothered by the pretentious narration (...exactly 9 years, 7 months, 25 days and 2 hours old....). I'm going to keep this short and say simply this. The narrator fails, despite a tremendous effort, to attain the tone and grace found in the narrator of Babe. The lead role is a close match to John Cusack, but only close enough to be irritating. though you have to applaud the efforts of the casting director on that one. The main girl "chuck" is clearly based on Audrey Hepburn, but only realized with enough resemblence to be irksome at least once per episode. The waitress character, whose love for the Piemaker is unrequited, is actually pretty hot for being 40 years old, but her existence is lacking a certain....validation. I know I only saw the first 3 episodes, and surely something more happens later, but its not so keenly intriguing that I will continue to watch.