05 On Television

The man with the camcorder in his pants harbored a dark secret. Ail was a blind filmmaker. Riding on past successes he thought it prudent not to tell the studio executives of his fading eyesight.

Ali was a sad and broken man. His only saving grace was that he had not had to see any of his last five films, or The Blair Witch Project for that matter.
Speak to us of television, he said.

And the prophet answered:
In the evil east, television is run by the state (a collective gasp of horror), as a propaganda tool. In the wicked west, television is run by advertisers, as a teaching aid. Television teaches us many meaningful lessons about the meaning of life. The modern world, to which I’ve recently been, is full of shiny things. Television teaches you to collect them all. It teaches you how to need. That is it’s role. That is it’s purpose.

To buy these shiny things, you must needs rise early tomorrow morning, so better go to bed soon. You will return tired and late, desperately seeking an escape from your life. And in the comfort of your own home, there shall be a large black box, to transport you far, far away from this drudgery.

The box does not demand wakefulness. It does not even demand your attention. You’ve had a rough day. And the couch is comfy, is it not?

In your semi catatonic state you are hardly engaging company. Fortunately the box does not judge you, but simply accepts you as you are. It lulls you into sweet, comfortable rest, like sleep. So very much like sleep, but not of the deep variety. For in deep sleep, there can be no alpha waves.

Without alpha waves, there can be no dreams. And the black box wouldn’t dream of depriving you of yours. It nurtures them kindly, allowing you to float freely in a boundless sea of alpha waves.

And in so doing, the black box happily obliterates the remaining hours of your day, the dangerous hours in which an idle worker, a waking worker left unattended could turn into a blundering political force.

Happily such nightmarish scenarios are as unlikely as unhappy endings. So hypnotists of Orphalese, please take a deep bow before the ad man with a budget.

And even as the sun is a thousand times brighter than the moon, so the ad man’s budget shall be decided by a simple mathematical formula: The budget for each commercial programming shall be equal to the entire budget of the forty two minutes of filler that are required to round out an hour of programming.

The reovolution, my friends, is not being televised. Or, if it was televised, then surely we blinked and missed it.

Here the prophet paused, caught his breath, and took a lengthy drag from his fag.