Random Thoughts

Dec. 3, 2003

Where the TV twain never meets

Over the past few years, I‘ve fallen into the unfortunate habit of watching some of the cable TV talk shows such as “Hardball“ longer than seems healthful.
Mostly what you get from these right-leaning shows is five hours of praise and bum-licking for the Republican Party that would make any public relations firm blush with embarassment. Then too, the token hand-picked “liberal“ on these shows usually ends up agreeing that, yes, indeed, the Bush administration‘s plan to gut the Clean Air Act or pave our forests for the convenience of strip-miners and loggers is a swell idea.
But, by a lucky accident recently, the channel changer fell out of my slumping hand as I was drifting off into a coma induced by the blah-blah-blah of the pundit parrots, and up popped MTV.
MTV. I haven‘t tuned in for the past 10 years. Nor VH-I. Like Rip Van Winkle, I found that everything had changed during my long nap. As is the case with Rolling Stone magazine, there‘s no longer much rock & roll on MTV -- it‘s all rap and sugary pop. But as I watched the jiggle-fest of hip-hoppers and the likes of Missy, Alicia, Eve, Beyonce, Pink and Jewel, it occurred to me that the difference in a few channels is the dividing line between youth and age.
No young person that I know of would be caught dead watching the TV talk shows with their crotchety, aging, conservative male hosts (in fact, Roger Ailes, chief of FOX “Fair & Balanced News“ says his target demographic is “age 50 to dead.“). You‘d run the risk of your brain turning into a chunk of petrified wood if you tuned this stuff in anytime before your 35th birthday.
On the other hand, I don‘t know of any middle-aged person who watches MTV or VH-I except to tell their kids to turn that racket down, and maybe catch the Spring Break bikini & stud specials with a sense of wistful remembrance. Your I.Q. could end up matching Jessica Simpson‘s bra size if you went down that road (no different than watching “Hannity & Colmes,“ come to think of it).
But still, they say you know you‘re getting old when you don‘t know who‘s playing the pop songs on the radio. So take it on faith that you can reverse the aging process just by changing the channel.
I‘ve grown younger watching MTV and VH-I. I now know who Outkast is (the Earth, Wind & Fire of the rap generation), and I‘m up to date on the Fountains of Wayne (today‘s equivalent of The Archies). And I‘ve seen the bootylicious Alicia Keys and Shakira shake their groove things. I also know that The Darkness has the funniest video ever -- rock stars fighting a giant squid in outer space with guitars shooting lightning bolts -- and that their lead singer can hit notes equal to that of having a piano dropped on your toes. Ryan Adams? He‘s Bob Dylan lite and the chameleon of rock. John Mayer? Dullest video on the tube, but he sho’ can sing.
I must confess, I haven‘t solved the mystery of Justin Timberlake. What anyone sees in this exceptionally slight guy, I can‘t imagine. Maybe I‘ll never get young enough to figure out why he‘s such a big deal.
There aren‘t many old musicians on MTV or VH-I. I‘ve seen the occasional U2 or Lenny Kravitz video as a tip-o‘-the-hat to old-timers, but for the most part, the TV music shows are like a science fiction movie where everyone over the age of 30 gets fed a suicide pill.
On the other hand, there aren‘t any young people on talk shows such as the “O‘Reilly Factor,“ except for the 30 seconds or so it takes for Mr. Bill to shout down how stupid their ideas are before cutting them off with, “I‘m not going to listen to this garbage anymore.“
And so it goes -- age and youth -- unknown countries sharing a common border.
Funny thing is, I‘ve come away from MTV‘s music videos feeling that I‘ve learned more about what’s happening in the world than the times I‘ve tuned in “Scarborough Country.” And I feel younger too. Go figger.