Audio R4NT

If you've been dumb enough in the past while to turn your television on, and actually watch it for any distinct period of time, you've managed to notice that every single social problem that's existed in the last year is somehow being turned into either some form of reality television show or TV movie. Recently, when the sniper was captured in Maryland, right after informing everyone that they had found this person, they then told us that a TV movie was being made of the incident, much like they told us a TV movie was being made of the September 11th incident. I don't know what perverse desire these people have to make movies about incidents that are probably still painting most of the individuals involved.

In fact, I think it's going to be a good 10 years before we can start making those Band of Brothers-style films about the September 11th incident and, frankly, informing us that you're making a TV movie about a person who killed off 14 or so people in the Maryland area. Right after telling us that you've captured him probably isn't the smartest thing to do in the world. And I wonder what greasy monkey they have hiding behind a mahogany desk in some corporate megaplex who rubs his hands together in glee the second he hears about some crazed postal worker who melts down and buys himself an M-16 and then goes out and shoots everybody in a Denny's.

What is this person doing?

I mean, more and more it proves to me that they don't actually have anything left on the creative board, they have no TV they can make anymore. They've cancelled everything that actually made any sense and contributed anything useful to our society. So now we have to make up all the crap and bullshit that's happening around us into some badly fucking filmed by some ex-German commercial for milk maker fucking director who's so far detached from the situation. He films something that's so glib and pathetic and bad that you feel pain and sorrow for the people involved because it's as bad as Masterpiece Theater. It doesn't make any sense.

More and more it speaks to this voyeuristic desire to watch other people's lives unfold while ignoring our own. We live vicariously through all these sad documentaries while clutching hopelessly to our sense of security like a child's safety blanket. I think we've grown so detached from our neighbors and co-workers, we glue ourselves to the tube and witness these things in some attempt to understand them. Rather than face the harsh reality that our world is fucked up and that we need to do something about it, we can dismiss the problem as easily as turning off the TV. I mean, if it's filmed by Guy Ritchie and co-produced by Aaron Spelling, then it's easier to believe that these heinous acts are nothing more than another script written down by some feverish California playwright who needs another hit of espresso and craves that glorious paycheck.

But that's not true.

It's not some remote place in a galaxy far, far away.

It's here now. Perhaps it would be better for us to put down the controller and head out into the streets, pull our heads out of the sand and take stock of our lives and countries. Because things aren't going to get any better by pretending they're movie magic. They aren't going to fix themselves. Perhaps it's time for some bloody revolution to throw down yet another empire into history and start again.

Because the day we stop caring and forget the brothers and sisters and we leave the children unattended in their cribs and we dream of a life better than this by sitting in front of some putrid device is the day we've given up being human beings and are merely another form of rodentia whose only purpose is to eat and procreate and leech the world of its life.