Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Clay Aiken Nation

If you bother to analyze “reality TV,” it’s hard to comprehend what took the vultures who run things so long to exploit the concept. No multi-million dollar deals for a pampered cast, minimal crew, essentially no sets at all...it’s practically all profit, plus: It caters to both sides of the all-American voyeurism/exhibitionism duality.



I’m not much of a TV watcher so I’ve only seen snippets and/or a stray episode or two of such programming. Is there anyone out there who watches these shows, is willing to admit it in public, and might wanna explain the appeal...from your perspective at least?

Even better, any ideas for a radical reality show? Sticking with the recent t-shirt motif, I’d like to send people into public places (work, malls, school, stadiums, etc.) wearing the most radical t-shirt messages and images we can muster...and film the reactions. Or maybe rewire people’s TV sets so they get, say, a public talk by Chomsky or Arundhati Roy instead of the cooking channel...just to see what happens.

Higher concept: Take 50 CEOs and Cabinet members and make them live in Haiti or Mali for a year...on one dollar a day.

===

On a more serious note: Allan Nairn offers some perspective on Aceh:
ZMAG.

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Posted on 01/05 at 05:37 AM
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Tuesday, January 04, 2005

The T-shirt Dilemma

Alex from Truth on Tees (http://www.truthontees.com) just told me about his fundraising efforts to help Jello Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles Legal Defense Fund and the Greg Palast Investigative Fund. Alex is donating proceeds from Alex’s “BUSH America” t-shirt...so you might wanna check it out.



Alternative Tentacles

Alex’s timing is impeccable because a couple of friends and I have been casually (and I do mean casually) discussing the idea of creating a t-shirt business (forgive me: when your source of income has always been dubious, you never stop scheming). The shirt messages would run the gamut from radical to funky to comedic to whatever. Organic when possible, union-made, and all that.

So, how about an impromptu focus group? What do you all think about message t-shirts...and why?

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Posted on 01/04 at 02:10 PM
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Monday, January 03, 2005

Clinton and two Bushes get their heart on

When Dubya named Poppy and Bubba to head a campaign to help raise private donations for tsunami-stricken areas, he said:

“Both men, both presidents, know the great decency of our people. They bring tremendous leadership experience to this role. And they bring good hearts.”



He is speaking of the same George H.W. Bush, who once said:
“I will never apologize for the United States of America. I don’t care what the facts are.”

And the same William Jefferson Clinton, who said this about the situation in Somalia (1993):
“We’re not inflicting pain on these fuckers. When people kill us, they should be killed in greater numbers. I believe in killing people who try to hurt you. And I can’t believe we’re being pushed around by these two-bit pricks.”

Two hearts beat as one…

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Posted on 01/03 at 10:18 PM
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