These little town blues...are melting away...

I now have a sweet computer system at home; I'm just not "connected" yet. Whoo-hoo!! Haven't had a lot of time lately to do research on the cheapest high(ish)-speed internet connection...and believe me, it WILL be the cheapest. I don't want cable tv (hate tv), and I don't want a landline (no need for one), so I think I'm stuck. I have awful visions of myself rotting in my apartment in front of VH-1's "Celebreality" or Melrose Place reruns on E! (does E! still exist? an industry friend once told me that the worst, most dreaded job in all of television was to work in assistant production for E!... they have a saying that goes, "You can't spell "cheap" without an E!")

In high school and college, I was a tv junkie - I rearranged my entire schedule around the tv. It was sad, and I don't miss it (not that I didn't have fun in high school and college, but I think I would have gotten out and done more interesting things - especially in high school - if I hadn't been addicted to the tv). We pulled the plug on cable in 2002, and never looked back. I wish I could begin to explain how much better my life is since tv has been eliminated from it. I read more, I write more, I see people more, and inadvertently started a small side business making jewelry (I have since thought better of this, but only because I'm too busy with everything else).

I still watch shows on DVD (God bless you, Netflix!!), but I'm so much happier being in control of what I sit down and watch. And when it's over, I don't mindlessly channel-surf - THAT was my biggest mistake with cable.

My decision was validated earlier this year when I found myself at a friend's house watching My Super Sweet 16 on Mtv b/c there was nothing else on. This show made my brain want to implode on itself. It was a reality show about a wealthy suburban girl who'd been snatched from poverty by adoptive parents, throwing herself a massive 16th birthday party. There was much drama as she played her friends off each other, and ended up not inviting her best friend (who wasn't cool enough anymore - the cool girls wanted to hang with her when the Mtv cameras showed up, apparently). She failed her driving test, which meant she WASN'T going to get the brand-new BMW convertible her parents promised her!!!! The party starts, she and her new "friends" (who insulted her to the Mtv cameras after the party, and admitted that they weren't going to talk to her again once the cameras turned off) come out on litters Cleopatra-style wearing skimpy bikinis. They ground their asses into the crotches of what looked to be the football team for hours. At the end, she got her car. I couldn't help but notice the birthday girl's smushed-in face; she didn't sound entirely coherent when she spoke, as well - both unmistakable signs of the Fetal alcohol Syndrome baby all grown up.

It was like watching a nightmare.

Remember when the spoiled, rich mean kids were the VILLAINS in tv shows and movies? If Weird Science were made today, the jocks (Robert Downey Jr. and Other Guy) who make Gary and Wyatt's life miserable would be the protagonists. The evil brother, Chet, would be the hero.

I blame George W. Bush entirely. Yet another piece of the fallout of his disastrous reign of terror - replacing a healthy questioning of government and emphasis on study, science, and reading with a bullying frat-boy mentality of stamping out any spirit of intellectualism.

I will be accompanying a few pals to New York this weekend - it will be a much-needed break, and I'm pretty excited. I think it's supposed to rain, but I don't even care. It will be good to get the hell out of Alabama for a few days.

Listen to "Back in the New York Groove" by Ace Freehley this weekend and think of me...