We the People of the United States...

...in order to form a more perfect union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the right to do whatever the hell it takes to get on Television.

Yeah...you probably didn't hear about this but they changed the preamble to the Constitution. Nice, huh?


Welcome to the United States where one of our favorite pastimes is forcing our children to hide in attics, releasing giant balloons, lying to the authorities about our children being caught in said balloon and then sending the authorities on a wild goose chase after said balloon in hopes of saving the non-existent child.

This "15 Minutes" syndrome is a strange sort of dilemma that seems to be enhanced by the advent of reality television. It used to be that people had to have some kind of talent to get on tv. You know: You can sing, or act or dance or tell funny jokes. If your talent didn't fall into these traditional A/V realms, maybe you'd find yourself in a human interest piece on your local news channel and you'd get your 15 minutes that way. But not these days. The talent pool seems to have expanded to include things that I wouldn't really consider talents.

For example, TLC seems to think it's a talent to have a lot of babies and then, *gasp* take care of them! What a novel idea!: Having children and then taking responsibility for their well-being! I guess the fascination with these large families come from the fact that the average American family these days only has about 2 children. It's interesting to see how they deal with their abundance of children. But, put this show on a couple decades ago and I don't know that it would be so intriguing. I can understand a short special here and there with updates and whatnot. But what about watching the Gosselins and Duggars every week do everyday things is so fascinating? Yes, they have 10 billion kids, but I'd be satisfied with looking at a picture, going "Wow, that's a lot of kids" and moving on.

Another fine example comes from MTV, who seems to think it's a talent to be rich and spoiled. I guess it could be considered fun to be a spoiled bitch but a talent? I think not. I'm not sure what the purpose of these shows are; shows like "My Super Sweet 16" and "Laguna Beach" and "The Hills." I like to think that MTV is being ironic with "My Super Sweet 16." I mean, I hope we're supposed to pity and not envy those kids. As for "Laguna Beach" and "The Hills"...I'm thinking it's MTV's lazy attempt at a teen drama. They just formulate some story lines and get some rich kids to ad lib for a bit. No having to pay writers! Or, they really expect us to be SO fascinated by the lives of the privileged. I guess some people like to agonize over the dilemmas of the oh-so-rich: "What will LC do? She must decide between buying the Gucci or Chanel bag! She can't buy both because no more rich people stuff will fit in her Mercedes! Find out what she does next week on The Hills!"

The thing about all these "reality stars" is they're famous for being people who are either a) willing to humiliate themselves for money or b) willing to have cameras invade their lives because one tiny aspect of it is abnormal. Unless lacking dignity is a talent then I don't see what makes these people worthy of all the attention they get. As for the "willing to have people invade their lives for something abnormal" stars, sometimes what's abnormal about their life isn't so abnormal at all. What's so abnormal about Brooke Hogan that we should follow her around all day? I guess being completely and utterly useless to society is kinda special but does it warrant a TV show? I'll let you decide. (Hint: NO)

So, I'm guessing "15 Minute" Syndrome kinda comes from a "If they can be famous, why can't I?" place. ( I mean seriously, if Kim Kardashian and Heidi Montag can be famous, why can't I?) If you have some sort of "talent" (ability to stay awake at your boring job, cooking Ramen noodles, etc) then you start to think you deserve some recognition for it because, hell, Paris Hilton got herself a TV show for just being stupid!

Then, I think it also comes from all the glamour and perks of being a celeb. You know...obnoxious people shoving cameras in your face, your "friends" selling you out to trashy magazines, strangers making fun of your cankles on gossip blogs...all that glamorous stuff. (Flossy, flossy) We love celebrities in America. We love telling them how beautiful they are and how much better they are then all us commoners. We pay them millions of dollars every year to make us feel fat, ugly and worthless. It's only natural that we'd get fed up being a commoner and want to be a celebrity.

So, if we can't sing or dance or act or tell funny jokes (or act like we're singing funny jokes while we dance) then we make something up or do something stupid in hopes that TLC or MTV or whatever will come knocking and begging to share in our shame for the entertainment of the American people.

Oh, America the BEAutiful.

ciao :)

P.S.: See what little Falcon Heene thinks about being a reality star. Take that, Papa Heene! (Or not since he doesn't seem to give a damn)
Keep reading...

Life, Liberty and the Making of Petitions

America is a great country. Here in America, we enjoy classic, unique pastimes such as eating apple pie, playing our nation's favorite sport, football, um, I mean, baseball, shooting things, watching reality television and spending valuable hours on Facebook. But there is no pastime as classic and as special to America as creating petitions.

Americans love to create petitions and protest stuff. I guarantee you - if you announce you are going to do something- anything - you will get at least two people willing to protest it. This phenomenon is even more pronounced in the age of Facebook where every issue spawns a group or two in protest. Here are a couple of my favorite most recent protests:

1. Breaking Dawn Petition. A group of Twilight fans (now former Twilight fans) asked that author, Stephenie Meyer, acknowledge the fact that many thought Breaking Dawn was an "EPIC FAIL." The best part of the petition is the response of Seth, Stephenie Meyer's brother - which is on the page in the link. (I honestly don't know who Seth is to Meyer besides being her brother. Is he her webmaster? Her assistant? I don't know, nor do I care.) I beg you to read it. Does it not look like it was written by an angry 15 year-old boy? It just reeks immaturity. Anyway, moving on...


2. Midnight Sun petition. Still in the Twilight spirit, we move on to the many petitions to keep Midnight Sun alive. Midnight Sun is part five of the Twilight "Saga." It's from Edward's point of view. She put up a rough draft of the first chapter a while ago and I recently read it. Shoot me in the face. It was like reading the secret diary of some 18th century emo kid. Anywho, if you haven't already heard, Mrs. Meyer went and handed out copies of her rough manuscript like it was candy on Halloween night and some very kind person leaked it to the internet for the world to read. Well, Mrs. Meyer was not happy about this so, she pouted, said she was putting it on hold indefinitely and then, said something to this effect: "I wish you wouldn't read it because I'm not done with it yet but I'm posting it on my website so you can read it anyway. If you were my real fans you wouldn't read it! *pout* But here it is anyway." Lots of sad 12 year-old girls read it and now want her to complete it. Why? Well, gee, I just don't know.

3. The "New Facebook" petitions. One of my favorite most recent petitions has been the many Facebook groups that popped up in response to the "new" Facebook. Now, I use Facebook (Probably a little too much...I need to work on that) and I was also a little confused by the new layout. But it didn't irk me as much as it did some. Some brave souls have threatened to cancel their accounts. Others have vowed to stop using Facebook. To me, the whole issue is ridiculous. I mean, yes, the new layout is kind of annoying and a bit unnecessary but, it's not that bad. AND it was gonna have to change sometime; couldn't be the same forever. It just makes me laugh to see people get all worked up over the layout of some site. Poor kids - they must lack lives even more than I do!

4. Half-Blood Prince Release Date Petition. This one also makes me smile. See, I'm a big HP fan and I too was disappointed by the delayed release of Half-Blood Prince. (Juicebox Rants was supposed to have a HP themed November!) What most disappointed me was that WB pretty much flat out said they're doing it for the money. Don't they have tact! Most other productions companies would be smart and lie! ("Uh, yea, we decided to re-shoot the whole movie...so we're gonna need a couple more months") But why protest? Does anyone seriously think that just because some people want to see it in Nov. that's gonna stop the WB from trying to rack in a couple more millions? Let me tell you something kiddies: Here in America we like money. Lots and lots and LOTS of money. So if some little fly whispered in the ear of the WB folks saying, "Hey, move the release to summer and you'll make LOTS of money like you did this summer with The Dark Knight," then the WB folks are gonna smile, get dollar signs in their eyes and announce a press conference.

Maybe I'm just a pessimist. Or maybe I'm not a real American. (What? Does no one else agree that baseball is almost as boring as golf?) But I really think that there are certain situations where petitions are useless. Sorry Twilight fans - Stephenie Meyer is too much of a baby to admit her book sucked and she's too much of an attention whore to forfeit the opportunity to raise another cash cow. So, don't expect any acknowledgment and look out for Midnight Sun sometime within the next 5 years. Sorry Facebook users - "New Facebook" is here to stay. Get used to it. And sorry fellow HP fans. We're just gonna have to wait a couple more months to see Daniel Radcliffe (aka D.Rad aka THE SEX).

Sometimes petitions are useful. Sometimes they're a genuine waste of time. But most of the time, they're just good for the lulz.

ciao. Keep reading...