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Crap fest 3/3/2011 9:54:23 AM
What has happened to this country's taste? Newton Minnow once famously referred to Television as a "vast wasteland." And those were the days of "Playhouse Ninety," the occasional Shakespearean play, jazz and ballet on the Ed Sullivan Show and Ed Murrow covering the news.
I wonder what Minnow would think of reality TV. But it's not just TV that's on the demise; it's almost everything.
Since I'm a writer my main gripe is the publishing industry. I used to get about half my books from the Book of the Month Club. I could always find two or three midlist treasures in just about every catalogue. These days everything seems to have come from the Literary and Mystery Guilds, notorious shills for what passes for a best seller.
Have you seen the New York Times best seller list lately? James Patterson seems to rule the list, despite the fact that he doesn't write his own books. Tom Clancy has now run out of ideas as well and has hired a ghost. But perhaps the most egregious example is Glenn Beck's mystery, which he freely admits he didn't write. I wouldn't read any of these people if you put an assault rifle to my head. Then there are the books that never go away. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO has been on the list for over a year. Two other Stieg Larsson novels have come out since it was first published in America. I guess the experts were right when they worried that the Random House takover by a German corporation would lead to a crap fest. No midlist writers need apply.
Television is even worse of course. Reality TV seems to have taken over even the niche networks like MTV and Biography. There are no music videos on MTV anymore; there are hardly any biographies on Biography. And if a cable network finds a winner, like "Ice Road Truckers," they show the damn thing a dozen times in a row. On Biography, "Celebrity Ghost Stories" passes for a biography. Somebody must be watching this dreck. Perhaps the worst reality shows are those that employ has-been celebrities like "Dance With the Stars" or that Donald Trump travesty. One would think that when Bristol Palin almost won on DWTS they would have lost all credibility, but nooooo, they're back with Kirstie Alley. This might sound like a rant from an old codger, but this whole matter of taste is more serious than just a matter of poor taste. Look at the women on "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette." They're setting women's liberation back a hundred years.
Let's talk about music, shall we. I used to listen to Casey Kasem's Top Forty every Sunday morning. It was a real eclectic mix. Instrumentals made the list, as did Perry Como and Frank Sinatra. This was in the midst of the English invasion and hard rock. Even Satchmo was singing instead of playing his horn. That would never happen today. Every radio station caters to their own niche and America's idea of a recording star is somebody from "American Idol" or some barely literate rap singer. Last night I watched a PBS special on the Troubador Club in Los Angeles where James Taylor, the Eagles and others came to prominence. It was great. We don't have anybody like James Taylor anymore, unless you count James Taylor.
How about the fascination with Lindsay Lohan and lately Charlie Sheen. We are watching Charlie self destruct. He is acting like John Belusi did before he overdosed, and nobody is doing anything about it. I'll wager more Americans care about celebrity gossip than they do about the Wisconsin governor's assault on public employees unions. Only forty percent of eligible voters went to the polls in 2010, and Scott Walker is what you get when that happens.
I don't know what we can do about this apparent lack of taste in our society. I do know one thing though: the Republicans plan to cut money from PBS and National Public Radio is a stab at intellectualism. They like their constituents dumb.
Dave Schwinghammer's published novel, SOLDIER'S GAP, is available on Amazon.com, new and used.
