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LifeFiles: How 'Hot' Is Your Beer?

What Should We Make Of Bad TV?

Updated: 9:14 a.m. EDT April 8, 2003

"The beer's OK," I thought. "Not really worth the $3 extra I paid for it."

That's what I get for watching too much television.

I was drinking Firestone lager. The name probably sounds familiar to you. It either brings up images of exploding tires or that bloke from the reality TV show "The Bachelor."

He has his own beer.

Some rich fella with a tarnished family name and a fledgling brewery shows up on reality television to be chased around by women.

That's a bit convenient, don't you think: Several weeks of free advertising and good PR for your expensive beer and "really not that bad" family.

One would suspect that the man who will be chosen for the next season of "The Bachelor" will be related to Enron's Kenneth Lay.

Obviously I am getting old -- I'm complaining about the quality of television. But does it really have to be this bad?

The Marx Brothers (there's a pretty dated reference for you) once famously interrupted their vaudeville routine (vaudeville -- there's another dated reference, soon I'll be making witty allusions to the Boer Wars) to watch a cockroach crawl across the stage.

Yeah. Modern television is a lot like that.

This weekend I watched the finals of the "Are You Hot?" competition.

It made me wish my apartment had roaches. Unfortunately, a group from "Fear Factor" has already come through eaten all the insects in my apartment complex.

My brain hurt, and screamed for more input. I started to notice how dusty the top of my television is and that there is a little bump on the bottom of my foot that you can feel but not see. I started doing word problems in my head: "If I leave San Diego traveling at 75 mph, and my brother leaves Minneapolis traveling at 70 mph, where will we meet?"

The point of this show was to look at people.

And to say the word "hot."

At one point, the host said something to the effect of: "Let's take a look at our hot four 'Hot Or Not' contestants and their hot journey down the road of hotness to become the hottest person in Hot-merica."

I'm not lying -- the contestants were required to make a "declaration of hotness."

Their level of hoticity was judged by a hot-ocracy of class-D celebrities:

Bloke you've never heard of.

What's-her-name whom you had a poster of in high school until your mother made you take it down.

Bloke from that one TV show that was on the USA network.

To make up for their excessive use of the word "hot," all involved kept their vocabulary limited to no more than 20 words.

At one point, Bloke from that one TV show that was on the USA network made the mistake of (incorrectly) using the word "lackadaisical." It was met by a confused and frightened silence from the audience and contestants.

Then, the next day, I went out and bought a 6-pack of beer that cost $3 more than it should, because I saw the brewery's owner on television.

In George Orwell's 1984, the lesser classes are kept complacent in part through the mind-numbing effects of crappy state-produced entertainment. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Obviously that's not the case, however. Actual government-produced entertainment would be of a higher quality -- like "WWE Smackdown!"