Escape from Reality TV

My exposure to reality TV has been limited; just enough, really, to have allowed me to conclude that I despise everyone who ever has or ever will appear on a reality TV show. In fact, I once concocted a plan to cull all such people from the population by placing an ad for a fake reality show in Variety (that's where they put these things, right? I mean, Annonce if you're trying to sell your '82 Skoda, Variety if you're casting a reality tv show. I didn't spend four years in journalism school for nothing). Anyone who answered the ad would be transported to an island with fake television cameras in all the trees (red lights on) and left there to die.

But that was before some friends and I came up with a brilliant idea for a reality TV show of our own. If you'll permit me, I'm going to practice the pitch I'll be giving NBC (that's who you pitch these things to, right? TV Nova if you have an idea for a naked traffic girl, NBC if you're pitching a new reality show. I haven't lived in the Czech Republic for 10 years for nothing.)

Our show was inspired by (is, in fact, derivative of) a real reality show we watched last night in which this chick had to live for a week each with three different guys and then decide which one she wanted to marrry or date or learn the last name of or something (it's blurry, I blame the saki).

The show was, as you can imagine, AMAZING. The girl was a gym queen with a head of artfully highlighted* and permed hair which she kept STRAIGHTENING. She had a gorgeous Manhattan apartment (or had been loaned one for the show) and a chihuahua named Mooky. (This, according to one friend -- the friend who owns a chihuahua and who admitted she'd watch an all-chihuahua reality show, if one existed -- made her "cool.")

I could go into far too much detail about the three guys and the hijinx that ensued, but suffice to say, the show followed most of the conventions of reality shows including that of having participants talk directly to the camera about what they're thinking.

There's also a crazy-ass panel of relationship "experts" who advise everyone and do colour-commentary on the proceedings.

At some point, fed up with the inanity of the dialogue (and the people, for that matter) we hatched a plan for our own, pseudo-intellectual reality show: "Who Wants to Date Noam Chomsky?"

The premise would be similar to that of the show we watched -- three women would each live with Noam for a week, after which, he'd decide...actually, I don't know if he would decide anything, because I think he's married. The big thing would just be his interaction with the contestants, all of whom would, of course, be airheads. We could imagine him sitting in his bedroom at the end of the day telling the camera bemusedly, "I just couldn't believe the way she'd watch television so...uncritically."

Noam's wife, we decided, would be on the panel (and possibly having the time of her life).

It strikes me now that it has the most important quality for a successful reality TV show -- it could translate across cultures. I can already imagine the Czech version, "Who Wants to Date Jiri Dientsbier?" And the Canadian version, "Who Wants to Date John Kenneth Galbraith?" only he's dead, so recruiting contestants might be more of a challenge. But wait, the generic, "Who Wants to Date a Dead Guy?" might be the most brilliant idea of all.

Does anybody have a number for NBC?


*Whenever I think of highlights, I think of Ukrainian figure skater Oksana Baiul who told reporters she'd gotten "headlights" in her hair. I thought at first it was as an aid to night skating, but it turned out to be a malapropism -- she'd actually been to see Miss Clairol.**


**"Been to see Miss Clairol" is a euphemism I've coined for dying one's hair. It could catch on, except that there's really no need for a euphemism for dying one's hair -- it's like coming up with a euphemism for taking a short stroll, or eating a small meal (both of which, come to think of it, sound like euphemisms in their own right).

Munich


I went to see "Munich" at the open-air theatre on the island last night expecting a documentary about the city and its famous October beer festival.

I kid, I kid. I knew it was a movie about the attack on the Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics and that image of the Palestinian kidnapper in his balaclava is one I may even remember from the time. (Yes, I'm THAT old).

What I didn't know was that it was also a movie about plastic explosives, and even more plastic dialogue, and phoney accents of every description, and (inexplicably, to me) elaborate dinners (accompanied by wine, not beer).

I also didn't know it was two-and-a-half fricken hours long (two hours for me, I amputated the last half hour in favor of sitting on a bench, drinking beer, and gazing across the river at the bright lights of the Karlovy lazne night club, listening to the mating calls of the Italian tourists).

I've been reading reviews this morning, trying to piece together just exactly what Spielberg thought he was doing, since simply telling the truth obviously wasn't it. If you want the "facts" about Munich, you should go elsewhere, apparently.

I can't believe the reviewers I've read watched the same movie, "somberly heartfelt, "an audacious political statement, "a brave attempt to wrestle with the impossible, "a film of uncommon depth, intelligence, and sensitivity."

All I could think as I sat on my bench with my beer willing the thing to be over was "I wonder what that movie would have been like if somebody SMART had made it?"

Where is my mind?

I saw the Pixies at Akropolis last night.

If you don't know Akropolis, you won't appreciate what a coup this was -- it's a concert venue with an official capacity of 600 and last night they sold 800 tickets (that's what I heard, anyway, and I always believe the stuff I hear from random people in the crowd at concerts, that's how I found out Elvis was not only still alive he was opening for the Strokes).

If you don't know the Pixies, you're probably Amish and the only music you were allowed to listen to growing up was the stuff you made yourself with your spoons, and god love you.

If you know both Akropolis and the Pixies, then you've just turned bright green with envy and I don't blame you -- I'd be envious of myself too, if I hadn't gone. (No wait, if I hadn't gone I wouldn't have been envious of me, I would have felt sorry for me; if I had gone, I would have envied me. But I did go, so I guess I am envious of myself. This is like one of those puzzles where you're locked in a room with two doors and a guard at each door and one tells the truth all the time and one lies, and you get to ask one question to figure out how to get out. Except my version would be you're locked in a room with me and I don't make any sense whatsoever and you can't get out and you go insane.)

But I digress.

We were packed into Akropolis like tuna in its own oil (I'm trying a new take on an old fish simile, you were expecting "like sardines in a can," no?). The sound check took so long I was beginning to think the guitar-tuning guy was actually a homicidal maniac who'd killed the Pixies in their tour bus so he could steal their audience and force us to listen to his three-chord rock stylings ALL NIGHT LONG.

But then the Pixies came on and my fears were washed away on a wave of mutilation.

We sang, we danced, we sweat. Boy did we sweat -- I could have filled my plastic beer cup with water wrung from my own clothing. Not that I did, that would have been kind of gross, but I could have.

Afterwards, we wanted to drink beer outside, but the outside part (oh, give it a name, call it a "deck" or a "patio") at U Sadu was just closing so we did the next best thing -- we bought cans of beer and stood under the Zizkov tower drinking, doing the post-mortem on the show (Kim Deal looked really happy and surprised by the warmth of the reception and she smokes a lot), and tried to develop "signature dances" in the unlikely case that one of us should become a rock star.

I'm listening to the Pixies right now and I think I'll continue to do so for the rest of the day, grateful that the Pixies got back together, grateful that I attended the show (I got a ticket at the last minute because my friends rock), and grateful that I'm not Amish, forced to relive my concert experience by playing Pixies songs on my spoons.