Be Careful Which Executive Producer You Wish For

When did National Geographic get so stupid? Isn’t O’Really’s book on Lincoln considered an academic joke?

This is the channel that brings you such hits as Drugged, Doomsday Preppers, Taboo, Wicked Tuna and Locked Up.

here is the original teabagger. he was teabagging before teabagging was cool.
he had the tea bagging down pat, low taxes and guns. make sure to read the whole story. even though it is wikipedia, it’s all true.
byron low tax looper:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Looper

@BobCens: there is absolutely no greater example of how low american culture, specifically television has sunk than reality tv. many of these shows are produced right here in east teabaggistan by HGTV and scripps howard. the man vs food dude is about dead now from eating all that crap. who woulda thought? at least the guy is keeping it real, unlike many of the reality “actors”. the producers here are trying to nurse him back to health so he can try to kill himself again by eating family sized portions of condensed lard, bacon, and cheese with hot sauce and deep fried double chocolate cake with extra icing twice a day. that’s like making death row inmates complete alcohol and meth rehab before the state flips the switch on the electric chair.

@jwmcsame: This is why my TV watching is mostly sports. Speaking of which, are the Skins trying to kill RG III?

@Dodgerblue: obviously. shanahan shortened terrel davis’ career by making him run for damn near 4000 yds in two years on one leg while carrying a ball that attracts the wrong kinda people. he carried the ball blind a few times from severe migraines. i’m sure all y’all out west were pulling for russell wilson yesterday. he is what tebow wants to be. any peyton manning fans here at stinque?

@jwmcsame: I thought Morgan Spurlock already established that a junk-food diet would almost kill you.

@jwmcsame: That Wilson kid has poise and maturity — very impressive. I have a hard time rooting for the Seahawks tho because of their coach, who coached at the Univ of Spoiled Children for years and then left town right before the NCAA sanctions hit — sanctions for activities that happened on his watch.

@nojo: in my bartending days, i would scoff at salads and salad eaters. for 10 years my only vegetables were french fries and pickles. i even avoided water in favor of gatorade, dr pepper and mtn dew on the rare occasion i wasn’t drankin’ (correct spelling). i can only go about three days in a row like that now. i’ve found recently that 4 days in a row of greek salads, salmon, and fresh cold oranges chased by freezing cold ice water will cure any disease or pain if you walk up and down a big hill a few times each day to build up your hankerin’ for such.

@Dodgerblue: no doubt, carrol got out while the getting was good. if stain kiffin loses 4 or 5 again this year, will pat haden fire him?

@jwmcsame: So I’m watching PBS last night, for the first time in maybe 35 years (I, Claudius is the last thing I remember), and I notice that (a) “underwriting” is now just bald commercials, and (b) the classy Downton Abbey is immediately followed by gaudy promos for Antiques Roadshow and some other reality show PBS runs on Monday nights.

So it’s not just NatGeo, and History, and TLC — PBS is all-in on that crap, too. Because it’s cheap to produce, and people can’t help watching it.

@jwmcsame: Well, Pat just fired his Dad . . . Most people (including me) think that Kiffin is just a place-holder, so to speak, until the sanctions run out, at which point USC will hire a real coach. Latest USC news is that they are closing off the campus at night with armed guards at the few entrances, to prevent more gangbanger shootings. Not good for recruitment, y’know?

@nojo: Yeaahhh, but Market Warriors (the name of that antique reality show) is the only thing on PBS that even remotely resembles the reality teevee dreck found on all the other formerly-artsy or sciency cable channels. The show is vaguely amusing too, because said “warriors” are really, really bad at finding marketable antiques, and it’s fun to watch them lose a shit ton of money at auction at the end of the show. #devoutPBSfan

@flippin eck: PBS Throwdown!

@ManchuCandidate: I’m not saying it was when they became “NatGeo…”

Yeah, I know.

The Science Channel talks about the lives of dragons. After a decade of re-running footage of WWII dogfights, The History Channel is channeling Ancient Aliens, and pretty much all science- or history-based TV is crap.

NOVA is edging toward dumb, and I’m waiting for FRONTLINE to fall. Independent Lens is good.

In 2008, ADM stopped funding NewsHour. It sickened me that PBS was taking their money, and I wonder if it still would today. I haven’t seen the Koch Bros’ names recently on any programs.

@nojo: Use your magic box for good: Adventure Time.

@jwmcsame: Hi, Dad! Do you still put ketchup on every single thing you eat?

@Dodgerblue: Seahawks fans are worse than any Eagles fan I’ve knowN.

@JNOV: Magic Box is reporting AppleTV, AppleTV, AppleTV, as befits a streaming West Wing marathon.

@JNOV: you’re gonna have to explain the ketchup reference to me.
@JNOV: i work with an eagles fan that very recently lived up there. until he verified every single one of the horror stories i had heard about the eagles fans, i thought their legend was much embellished. for instance, i asked if they really chanted “die, michael die!” when michael irvin was laid out with a broken neck, ending his career. he said no, i heard it wrong. the eagles fans were really chanting “die, motherfucker die!”. for the the 12th men and women of seattle to be worse, they really have to be working at it. please cite some examples.

@nojo: Heh.

@jwmcsame: My father didn’t start eating vegetables and some unprocessed food until he was 68 years old. Before then, ketchup was the closest he got to veggies, and it had nothing to do with Reagan’s school lunch program.

ADD: He also loves pickles and french fries.

One evening he berated me for not running spaghetti sauce through the blender. He found a small piece of tomato in his dinner. I was dumbstruck for a minute, and then I told him that was weird and reminded him that I hadn’t lived with him since I was 5 and must have forgotten how he likes his spaghetti.

Seahawks fans: I’ve not yet been to a game, but you always know when a game is on: People holler out the plays and use Philly-type invectives at home and while walking down the street. They scream out of their cars. They are insane. The U-Dub fans are a close second.

Seahawks fans might not wish death on people at games or piss, vomit and fight on the Old 700 Level (they’re too civilized), but the screaming out of the windows and cars? Bizarre. And noisy.

Washington State fans? They almost killed me when I was the only Cardinal in the bar when we beat them.

JWB was the great matinée idol of his day. Famously good-looking and much sought after as a leading man. He was also obsessed with Southron honor and became unhinged by the collapse of the Confederacy. After the incident at Ford’s his brother Edwin, the great tragic actor, had to try to live down the infamy. Not unlike Bette Midler and One For the Boys.

I have a theory that this kind of behavior is associated with the wearing of tights which restrict bloodflow to the brain. I know that I myself once spent a five year period without once putting on trousers. Happily I left behind the olde country and the theatre of Shakespeare before too much damage was done.

@Benedick: We were doing Richard III in high school, and the Costume Broad (as she styled herself) kept bitching that the boys left their tights crumpled in their costume closets.

So she inaugurated the Happy Tights award for the best-stored tights of the production.

I was trailing the pack, until I had a bright idea. One afternoon she opens my closet, and there are my tights, hanging properly inside.

With a big paper Cheshire Cat smile attached to the crotch.

I won.

@nojo: Pictures, please.

@Benedick: From 1975?

Might be able to find one of my brother. He was six at the time, and I was babysitting him after school, so he got cast as a Tower-bound Little Prince.

Definitely looked cuter in tights than I did.

@nojo: Definitely looked cuter in tights than I did. Impossible.

I just hope your feisty wardrobe gal showed you the traditional way to pack a dance belt to be worn under tights: rolled up socks. You have no idea how many productions of Romeo and Juliet have been ruined for me by Paris stuffing salamis or rolls of kitchen towels down his leg. No one is fooled apart from the Catholics.

@Benedick: Wonder if Milton Berle had to have one specially made.

@Dodgerblue: I’m very proud that anyone but me would know that one.

@Benedick:

JWB was the great matinée idol of his my day.

You’re welcome, Darling.

@nojo: Please. It is to laugh.

@JNOV: See above.