DEAR BEN: SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOUR OPINIONS ARE IRRELEVANT

Recently I saw the snippet of Ben Affleck debating vigorously with Bill Maher on Islam. Personally I was driven to madness by the clip, not because of what you may think. I don't have a personal opinion on Islam. I learned only broad topics that all led to a simple conclusion, the majority of muslims condemn the actions of the very driven extremist minority. What bothered me was the condescending, ignorant attitude of Ben Affleck and his vehement defense of Islam without any real facts to back himself up. It's okay to have an opinion but if you are going to attack people in an attempt to defend what you believe, at least have something solid to counter with. It's annoying to see celebrities with questionable intellectual depth really try and use that very notoriety in order to show the world that they know best. My advice to Ben is simple, focus on your nipple less Bat suit and stick to entertaining us.

FUCK DR. OZ........HARD

I have no respect for Dr. Oz and I never will. I'm not a Dr. but I am the son of a Physician that was the very embodiment of the Hippocratic oath. As a child I remember my father looking upon diet foods and crash weight loss products in a less than favorable manner. This idiot recommends every available product that's willing to pay him a hefty fee for valuable real estate in his show. He was grilled on the floor of congress and basically engaged in self contradictory statements and made himself look like a fool. Fuck you Oz you are not the wizard you want people to think you are.

If you want advice go to a Doctor that's willing to tell you the good and the bad in several areas. Stay away from the Physician featured in  The Canterbury Tales.

SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE FUCK?

I love being a father, I love kids, and I have fond memories of my childhood and a few defining moments that helped shape a large portion of my behavior. When I was a kid I had a very basic and clear description of the "Don't go there regions." Im certain you are wondering what the hell a " Don't go there region" is, so by all means let me enlighten you. The following list covers some of the major "Don't go there regions" of my youth:

1. Stealing.
2. Raising my voice.
3. Interrupting others.
4. Fighting.
5. Disrespecting my elders.
6. Bullying.
7. Tantrums. 
8. Staying up late.

As I grew each region took on a new dimension but essentially the concept was the same. One thing that I did was test the regions, as it turns out my first test was successful in giving me a clear message that further testing would result in some manner of my own demise.  I will never forget it because it involved 3 regions at once as well as my favorite candy.

I was a five year old and extremely outgoing, I had what some would call a winning personality that captured the heart of many, partly because I was a master at engaging people in conversation. My mom and Step Dad took me to the supermarket after picking me up from school. This particular trip was a welcome change as it meant that I could play both sides against the middle and get a box of Jordan Almonds, my favorite candy. 

I attempted to work my plan when, in unison, my parents said " NO." I could see my hope evaporate, the taste of the sweet shell left as soon as it had arrived. In my young and semi- devious mind I was crushed as well as blinded by my ambition. The 1980's were a decade of greed and I was greedy for my candy. Naturally I did what came natural to a child that age and threw a tantrum, my mother squashed it with something I like to refer to as the eyebrow of death. I wrestled the almonds away from my step dad's hand and darted to the comfort of our car. I thought this was done and over seeing as how possession is nine tenths of the law. I was so mistaken as both my parents spanked me, took the almonds, and proceeded to punish me. 

Now I flash forward thirty years and think of some of the kids I see today. Parents are totally afraid to discipline their kids and the little fuckers know, and often take advantage of the situation. I'm not saying this is the majority of cases or even half but I swear it sickens me. Parents don't need to beat the shit out of their kids but some parameters and a spanking when necessary in order to assert authority works way better than a conversation. Spanking is not abuse, using a belt or going medieval is. What was done to our parents in the 50's and 60's helped spawn peace and love and that's great, but seriously. 

I HATE THAT BITCH

I know that the word bitch is unkind but I'm not particularly interested in kindness. I'm not a big fan of the show Full Throttle Saloon but I do watch it when I'm seriously bored. I'll indulge my guilty pleasure occasionally because I have that right. I really dislike that girl on the show,Angie. The reason I dislike her is because she is such a pseudo intellectual domineering individual. Something about that girl just pisses me off, even her boobs don't really do anything for me, in fact, nothing about her does anything for me.  I like the buxom ladies but I think this girl just has that quality that makes people want to throw crap on her.  The rest of the show is pretty cool and I'd love to check out the place one day but until then, eat shit Angie.

THIS IS GREAT IF YOU LACK THE ESSENTIALS

If you lack charisma, talent, and magnetism, you should consider a career in public access television. I think public access is a great way to showcase the boring, unbelievably dull members of society. Every time I watch a minute of public access I feel like my life would be improved through the practice of chain smoking.

Part of my reason for saying this is the fact that I've noticed that public access not only gives the talentless an opportunity but it also makes them far more self righteous and arrogant than they should be. I once met the host of one of those shows and I thought the guy was a total asshole, I called him fat man, yes I was a kid. The man was host of a local drawing show for kids. I remember it like it was yesterday that the dude was eating escargot like it was going out of style. I think the fucker is dead now, as a consequence of being alive.

At any rate I say let's do the right thing and piss on the cars of public access stars.

IF IT ISN'T IN PERSPECTIVE YET, LET'S TAKE IT THERE

I once heard a mind blowing stat that by the end of my high school years I would have watched close to 17,000 hours of television. To me that stat was a clear example that life was somewhat trivial. I thought " What the fuck man?" I was 17 when I heard this and honestly I had no clue.

What I have realizing  is that TV has an incredible amount of power, the power to change life as we know it and society as we see it. Let's put it into a serious perspective here. When FDR died it was a couple of days before the country was completely aware of that fact. When JFK was assassinated it was around in the same day.

Television the medium that gave us Watergate and the eventual fall of a president. Yes, today television gives us a lot of shit that's come around as the result of praise lavished upon the mediocre. Television began the quest of making the world a smaller place, social media has made it an art, but television started it. To put it in perspective, what was once an invention that served as a form of entertainment is today the tool that brought the world together.

It's television that gives us a little to talk about in the water cooler, something to argue about with politics, and the things that bring us together.

REMEMBER THOSE SHOWS?

I used to cherish the moments spent with family watching television shows. For some reason I don't quite understand my favorite shows usually revolved around unlikely hero figures. In my list of favorite shows were the following:

• JJ Starbuck 
• The Master
• Father Murphy
• Automan 

What these shows have in common is the fact that they were short lived series for the most part. JJ Starbuck was a vehicle for the aging Dale Robertson. The show was about an eccentric billionaire trying to solve crimes that were meticulously committed. Even with some good guest stars the show itself only had a single season run spanning a total of 13 episodes. The Master was similar to JJ in that the main character was an aging badass. 

Lee Van Cleef was the star of The Master, which was contemporary to the popular A Team. The premise of the series was an old ninja master (Van Cleef was 58) that gets into super cool ninja adventures with his young protege, Max. I found the fact that an old California guy would be a ninja master simply fascinating. 

I thought the best part of The Master was Van Cleef himself. My step dad would tell me about Van Cleef's work in westerns so I felt like I knew the guy. There's Father Murphy, a Michael Landon production that only ran a couple of seasons starring Merlin Olsen as the tittle character. 

I liked Father Murphy because it really tried to teach people about values while applying a historical context. The show centered on giving orphaned children some protection while prospecting in the old west. The show was slow in terms of pace and it wasn't much for action but it was interesting to look at. In part Father Murphy was the end of an era, as its cancellation, along with Little House in the Prairie signaled the end of western themed series on television. 

Yes, Father Murphy was good but the best, in my young eyes, was Automan. 

The series Automan was particularly high on camp but incredibly ambitious for its time. The series also ran during the 1983-84 season and aired 12 episodes. The series was about a nerdy computer whiz by the name of Walter Nebicher that creates a hologram able to leave the computer and fight crime. The thing that made the show great was not the stories so much as the visual appeal. The show took a lot of its visuals from the film Tron. The car was a souped up Lamborghini Countach, conditioned to look like a futuristic car. The series was produced by Glenn Larson, whom at that time was on a major hot streak with shows such as Fall Guy. 

That time was a time when shows were being cranked out in order to really entertain people. Since that point we've really lost that in television. Right now television is a bastion for imbeciles whose poor choices make them reality stars. Perhaps there will be a return to the glory days, when the audience actually mattered to some extent. 

THE CROWDED MARKETS

As a child I used to love watching Japanese animation cartoons. I was a fan of Astroboy, Voltron, and many others. I later began to watch the films like Akira which were absolutely breath taking. I remember the Sci Fi channel used to play them every Saturday morning, making Sci Fi destination television. Somewhere along the way Japanese animation became a part of the American landscape and 99 out of 100 shows were some Japanese animation transplant like Beyblade, or Pokemon. 

I don't mind that these shows are so popular I just mind that they lack strong stories. I was learning about death, loyalty, and teamwork with shows like Voltron. I think that kids don't really appreciate or understand the idea of a strong story, partly because it's not on their immediate radar as compared to all the bright colors and cool robots.

I guess it's a sign of my times that now I see things the way my parents saw them when I was a youngster. Perhaps my views will change and I'll learn to appreciate the market saturation, but for the time being I won't.

MY PROBLEM WITH PAGEANTS

I have a serious problem with pageants and it centers around the mothers making their daughters look like young Washington wives and not allowing them the opportunity to be children. I was home watching TV and as I flipped channels I came upon TLC's Toddlers and Tiaras and I was shocked and appalled by what I saw.

The mothers were threatening their daughters with taking away privileges while saying that some of the other children were ugly. Did any of these "mothers" have a childhood? Were the mothers so ugly and insecure that they decided to go ahead and put a mortgage on the house so little Suzy could make them feel oh so special?

TLC is a joke of a network that is pathetic at best and this show proves it. I hate to see little girls exploited like this. I hate to see parents engage in this shameful practice, there was a father dressing like a freaking bear, what a loser. I hope this show gets cancelled and all those mothers get molested by a horny sasquatch.

HASHTAG, POUND SIGN, NUMBER SIGN, TIC TAC TOE, LINES SQUARED

I was watching the Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon hashtag skit and laughing and suddenly I realized that jackassery has run away with society. If you are wondering what I mean, please allow me to elaborate. The number sign has evolved into a way for people to state what their feelings are without actually taking the time to write an articulate sentence. I get it, I think it's cool that we want to be less complicated as a society but # FUCK.

If you want to say you are happy in writing I have a perfect solution and that is writing " I'm happy today" as opposed to # Happy, # Got laid Friday, # Sexomatic. People have actually take to using words that do not exist through the use of the tic tac toe board. I am impressed about one thing though and that is the versatility of this symbol.

Prince, an all time great, was once known as a symbol and yet his symbol did not really last. I think that maybe Prince should have called himself Hashtag, or the currently #Prince, maybe prince would still be selling Purple Rain numbers. I want to pin the use of the hash on every dried up bitch of a high school english teacher # Old Whore, # Killed Shakespeare, # Got the pension.

I remember that abbreviation in writing was a no no back in the day, the problem was that when it happened we were chastised and ridiculed. Now everyone uses the hashtag, I wonder if in the future the hashtag will become a part of # grammar. I think this epidemic, trend, or whatever the fuck it is, may well be a conspiracy between trekkies, and other # never got laid fanboys, to start some sort of space language. I wonder how exactly we would express love with the hashtag in terms of love.

I just don't subscribe # out of touch, # I don't really give a fuck, # hash is a hell of a drug, # hash is in a brownie too motherfucker.

REMEMBER WHEN WRITERS ACTUALLY GAVE A SHIT

I was recently watching my Miami Vice DVD set and wondering what the hell happened to good television. When I was growing up writers actually tried hard to put out a good product. Yes, in the 80's and 90's there were a lot of shows that depended heavily on stale jokes and laugh tracks, but at least they tried. Today I switch channels thinking that TV is simply the prostitute you go to for the sweet release of death.

Right now there are a handful of shows that I give a crap about and I have to pay to watch them. When you think about how many channels there are on television, and what little quality is out there, it's impossible to believe the programming is so stale and crack whore like. I don't care for housewives, whores, celebrity self destruction, or anything on the air today.

Perhaps I am becoming old but at 34 I doubt that's the case. I think that I just can't stand the prostitution of the word reality and the constant lies made to look like regular life. I don't give a shit about pseudo celebrities that lack talent, I could care less about roundtables of nonsense, and I don't give a damn about Jessica Simpson. Someone please dust of the real writers and bring back quality programming please.

ATTENTION GETTERS

Nothing gets more attention than a badass car, it's almost like the car defines the driver for a split second. There is nothing more badass than a cool movie car. No vintage movie car owner drives their prized possession on a daily basis but when they do it is a something to behold. I love movie cars because they serve as that part of the movie that actually makes you forget all the things you hate about said movie or makes you focus on what you love. There is something to be said for how those cars transferred into television in some cases actually becoming the centerpiece of the show.

One horrible movie whose car became the only bright point was a film known as Corvette Summer. This particular film was released in 1978 and it really centered around some punk kid's infatuation with a Corvette he put his heart and soul into building in a high school class. The kid also becomes tasked with the life of a prostitute designed to be his loving interest. The movie was shit and pretty much stood out because of the mechanical co- star.

Enter Batman's set of wheels into the equation and you have one hell of party. The Batmobile is the essential badass movie car and it stands alone. There has yet to be one single Batmobile, except for maybe George Clooney's metrosexual one, that did not kick ass in a major way. From the original souped up 1955 Lincoln Futura, all the way to the ones designed for the series, the Batmobile is the ultimate fantasy car, attention getter, TV vehicle and movie car. How can you go wrong with a car that has turbines, rockets, parachutes and occasionally  doubles as a plane or cycle?

The Cooper Minis in the original Italian Job were something else. The Minis in that film were an integral part of the movie that helped establish the timeless and rarely altered design of the Mini. While the film itself kind of gives a big fuck you to the viewer with the irresolute ending, the cars became reason enough to make it again with an even cooler Mini scene.

One particularly memorable car was the Lamborghini Countach from the series Automan. Automan was a series widely considered the Tron of TV without as much attempted depth. The car itself was outfitted in such a manner that it actually looked like it was computer generated. While the series was not such a hit, lasting one season, the vehicles were an integral part of the series that really made up for the lack of interesting dialogue. 

I call this entry attention getters because that's exactly what those vehicles were. No matter how complex the story, how simple, how campy, all those vehicles made for essential props that would draw us in and create a story all their own. Often times we were busy wondering what would happen to the car and not so worried about the star. As long as there is that effort into visuals there is always a good chance for some decent entertainment. 

Top ten ways to become a reality star

I love to channel surf during my spare time. I see different celeb reality shows in every network. I think the whole idea of "creating" something worth watching is no longer one worth thinking up. I see previews for shows such as,The Jersey Shore, I am a Teenage Whore, 16 and Super Stupid, I did Drugs with a Celebrity and many many more. I have realized that there are ten things you can do in order to have a reality series on the air. I have taken the time to create this neat list.

1. Be a crazy whore with a drug problem.
2. Be a washed up celebrity with a drug problem.
3. Have a sex video and then tell everyone you were coerced, drugged, or did not intend to have it seen by the public.
4. Be willing to expose your way of life but have it made way worst for television.
5. Have some plastic surgery and become a huge jackass.
6. Be willing to do porn, regret it, become an addict and go to rehab.
7. Acuse someone of fathering your child and then turn the raising of said child into a reality series.
8. Have more than nine kids at once and then sue everyone.
9. Become a theatre hopeful and make a reality show about that, I am pretty sure it would be lame.
10. Date Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, or any easy celeb and then make shameful declarations in a tabloid. Once you are sued make sure you pitch the case as a possible first season of a show.

There are many more ways to do it but this is my top ten. If you are interested in a reality TV show try any of these little gems and see how they work for you.