9:24 p.m. - 2004-12-12
reality tv and a night out
When you watch reality television, do you think about if you'd be good on it or not? I mean, I'm not a big tv watcher, but I have seen most of the major shows once or twice. I mean, would you be a great strategist, switching gears left and right and lying through your teeth, such as would be necessary to win Survivor? Would you be super discplined and personally committed, as to be successful on Big Loser? Would you own up to your mistakes and remain positive and believe in yourself despite defeat, which would be an asset on The Apprentice? Would you let your mom go out with a guy, so he could decide (without meeting you) whether or not he'd like to go out with you? OK, yeah, let's stop right there. Have you SEEN this? These teenage (like 18 or 19) guys go out with three different girl's moms, to determine if they'd like the girl. It's horribly scripted, and really unnatural, and every mom seems like she's hopped up on prescription medication Anna Nicole Smith style, and they ALL say "My daughter is the smartest, most beautiful, talented girl in the world and you'd be crazy not to pick her." So, basically it's incredibly boring. They should put my mom on there. She'd be like "Well, she keeps her room pretty messy, but sure can tear it up on dirt roads on a 4-wheeler. I'm never quite sure what her next step is going to be, but she always seems to land on her feet. Though one of my better days of the last few years was the day she took her nose ring out, in general she does have good judgement."
What would your mom say about you?
Hey, why does everybody want to thank God when they're on television? I just don't get that. Psst, He probably doesn't pay a lot of attention to prime time, folks.
It's sucha strange time for me...all of htis television watching and sudden intense doses of pop culture in a way I don't normally experience it. I want to know what's going on, what people are into...the cultural phenomenon of the day...but these shows are just so...exploitative (is that a word?) Some of them are based on pretty clever ideas, but I can't help but think that there are some rich people sitting aorund at the country club thinking of ways to make some of their fellow Americans look like idiots while they rake it in. this isn't right. I mean, seriously.
So last night, my friend Kelly and I went out to this club in Pittsburgh called Matrix. They have a few different rooms with different types of music. One is the Salsa room, with professional salsa dancers that dance on the actual bar, demonstrating moves, etc. One is a techno-themed room. One was more disco-ish. Then there was The Diva Room. Well, that is where most people were. It was pretty good dancing music, and we had a fun time dancing, but within two minutes of each other, came the dual high (low?)lights of the evening. There was this platform where people could get up and dance, and it was mostly hootchie-type girls up there, getting all over each other and guys gathering around gawking at them. OK, fine, that's sort of par for the course in these establishments. But two of the girls suddenly started to scuffle, jumped down off the platform and got into a serious fist fight right there. Bouncers came running over and carried them out, kicking and screaming, losing earrings, pants sliding down their fannies as they tried to writhe their way out of the meaty arms of the club bouncers. Wow. Kelly and I resume our conversation, and we're kind of watching these two blonde, very scantily clad, very drunk girls dancing together on the platform. Kelly whispers "It would be hilarious if one of them fell." Not a moment later, BOOM. Dangerously high heels, plus drunken drink spilling do not mix. I mean, she just went, splat. One hit onto the platform and then a sort of bounce off onto the barstools below, and then another bounce right onto the floor. The other blonde drunk girl just sort of stood up there helplessly looking down at her, reaching out her hand and going "Omigod...Rachel....Omigod...." Don't worry, she was fine. She broke the heel of her knock off Manolo Blahniks and bruised her sex-appeal, but she hobbled away largely in tact. As this all happened, these big beefy guys standing near Kelly and I just leaned over and grabbed us in that "Oh my gosh, that was so funny, I have to share this with a stranger" kind of way. They were our dancing buddies for a lot of the remainder of the evening. Although I wanted to reach over and slap the guy for spending an hour salivating over this girl and then laughing his ass off at her misfortune. But com eon ladies....can we objectify ourselves any more? Ugh.
We did admittedly have a fabulous time getting our groove on to such mega hits as "This is How We do it" and "Sexual Healing." Aw yeah.
I knew I had one too many beers when I talked Kelly's ear off about fair trade, human trafficking and sweatshop labor the entire ride home.
