A Few Thoughts On Television
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I hate bumper stickers. They are almost universally ugly and, without fail, unfunny. What I desperately want in my car, though (and I'm saying this half so I have proof that I thought of it before it became common place) is one of those scrolling red electronic signs, the kind that announce incoming trains and stock market prices, you know? The little rectangular ones. I want to plug one into my car's cigarette lighter, stick the thing in my back window and harass the people behind me. "HEY FAT GIRL .. COME HERE ARE YOU TICKLISH .."
But there is one particular bumper sticker I hate more than any other, and it's the KILL YOUR TELEVISION bumper sticker. Nine times out of ten there will also be a "Free Tibet" sticker next to it. (On a side note, while China's treatment of Tibet is a valid international cause, why don't you stop daydreaming of meeting Adam Yauch at a huge arena concert and direct your attention towards any of the hundreds of other ridiculously ugly situations in the world and the country that need your help just as much as the Buddhist monks. No, they don't have any pretty boy rock stars helping them out. All the more reason.) (On another side note, a brief list of what's played on "alt-rock" stations: Beastie Boys. Eminem. Everlast. What's not: Tribe Called Quest. OutKast. The Roots. You make the connection.)
Kill my television? Fuck off. Precious, precious box of joy and love. It is to you I make my nightly pilgrimage. Simpsons, you understand me. M2, you were once so glorious although now I cannot see you. Daily Show, enlighten me with all the political commentary I really need. People who trash the TV have never watched good TV. What about KILL YOUR MOVIE THEATER bumper stickers? I sit there and zone out for two hours while my mind is flooded with inane drek and product placements. Cause that's all movies are.
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A couple of years ago, a number of random people in my life simultaneously decided to tell me that I am exactly just totally like this character "Xander" on this television show called "Buffy" that you may have heard of. Having never seen the show (to this day), I can't comment on the validity of this observation. But I was told this regularly, by people I've known for a while and, on a couple occasions, by people I only just met.
About a year ago, this suddenly stopped. No one mentioned Xander or Buffy to me again, and since then, I've gotten no Andy/Xander comparisons. It struck me as a bit odd, I guess, but only recently have I begun to worry.
Maybe the character Xander has died. With an omen as horrible as the death of my fictional duplicate, perhaps my friends are trying to lay it easy upon me, and not remind me of my imminent but entirely symbolical demise. Perhaps they are milking the last few moments out of our relationship. They are waiting for Xander to catch up with me.
Andy Pressman had to be corrected on the proper spelling of "Xander"