The Networks Did It First
Disappointing myself is something I've finally gotten used to. Long-gone are the days when I'd make conservative estimates of my own willpower and ambition; I just shoot for the stars, hit the ceiling, and make no apologies for my unabashed (and numerous) failures. I insist that this is no fault of my own, but rather the obscure precipitate of a betrayal which I experienced early in life.
I blame FOX for the poor example I live by. It was a very tender time in my life; I'd finally begun collecting a somewhat consistent group of friends, yet, year after year, the school administration seemed to push me into the corner of our elementary campus furthest from my cohorts. My 5th grade year, they did their worst: they stranded me with my two worst friends (they had not done so well as to keep me from my friends altogether) in a class otherwise populated by every person who had ever bullied me during my tenure as a student (as well as a number of inexperienced bullies yet to be rallied to the cause of making me miserable). In a protective maneuver, my teachers looked out for me and befriended me (insofar as a man and woman in their 40's can befriend an 11-year-old), which made me a new, more easily detested form of "Teacher's Pet". I had not volunteered myself, as most pets do, which put me in the peculiar position of resenting my protectors alongside my assailants. Because I had done nothing, asked for nothing and expected nothing in return, the animosity I faced was entirely the initiative of those producing it; in short, they hated me for who I was, and nothing more. Dr. Phil might say that they hated me for what they weren't, but that's the sort of high-mindedness that's likely to get me back into trouble with those around me.
So, back to the outset of this epic excuse: in response to my isolation and estrangement, I became good friends with my Nintendo and my television. The X-Files, Rocko's Modern Life, the whole TGIF block, Pete and Pete.... these shows kept my imagination's pilot light lit in that time of darkness. Rocko and Pete ran on Nickelodeon, so a couple months of Fandom had allowed me to see nearly every episode of their cumulatively weak catalogues; however, the joys of network television were a new discovery that fateful year, and I came to depend on their quasi-weekly regularity. I'd even faced the fact that my shows would disappear shortly before the school year ended. What I had not prepared myself for was the treachery that FOX would unleash upon the world.
6th grade came. I saw my old friends on the playground, heard about all the fun times they were having (nearly all of them had wound up in the same class; the one I'd been in the year before). Under pressure from my mother (you think she's a bitch about pedestrian rights? you should see her when she thinks her child is being neglected by an institution to which she wrote a $10k check to every year. brimstone has nothing on the sulfurous steam she emitted from her nostrils), I'd escaped the bullies while, again, evading my friends. It was a step up, perhaps even a couple, so nobody heard me complaining.... until The X-Files season premiere was pushed back to November 2nd.
Betrayal! Mulder! Sculley! How could the unwitting pallbearers of my social casket just up and abandon me for so many months? At the height of the show's popularity, they had the audacity to arbitrarily extend the season finale's cliffhanger by two whole months!
What does all of this mean? Does it mean that I plan to withhold news of my exciting life from you until November? Perhaps, if that's what it takes to rid myself of these FOX-implanted demons. What I'm really trying to show is how very blameless I am in all of this. I was abandoned by a television show at an early age, and it will forever hinder my ability to provide media entertainment to others. I'm sorry, it's just the way that I am.
-Alan
I blame FOX for the poor example I live by. It was a very tender time in my life; I'd finally begun collecting a somewhat consistent group of friends, yet, year after year, the school administration seemed to push me into the corner of our elementary campus furthest from my cohorts. My 5th grade year, they did their worst: they stranded me with my two worst friends (they had not done so well as to keep me from my friends altogether) in a class otherwise populated by every person who had ever bullied me during my tenure as a student (as well as a number of inexperienced bullies yet to be rallied to the cause of making me miserable). In a protective maneuver, my teachers looked out for me and befriended me (insofar as a man and woman in their 40's can befriend an 11-year-old), which made me a new, more easily detested form of "Teacher's Pet". I had not volunteered myself, as most pets do, which put me in the peculiar position of resenting my protectors alongside my assailants. Because I had done nothing, asked for nothing and expected nothing in return, the animosity I faced was entirely the initiative of those producing it; in short, they hated me for who I was, and nothing more. Dr. Phil might say that they hated me for what they weren't, but that's the sort of high-mindedness that's likely to get me back into trouble with those around me.
So, back to the outset of this epic excuse: in response to my isolation and estrangement, I became good friends with my Nintendo and my television. The X-Files, Rocko's Modern Life, the whole TGIF block, Pete and Pete.... these shows kept my imagination's pilot light lit in that time of darkness. Rocko and Pete ran on Nickelodeon, so a couple months of Fandom had allowed me to see nearly every episode of their cumulatively weak catalogues; however, the joys of network television were a new discovery that fateful year, and I came to depend on their quasi-weekly regularity. I'd even faced the fact that my shows would disappear shortly before the school year ended. What I had not prepared myself for was the treachery that FOX would unleash upon the world.
6th grade came. I saw my old friends on the playground, heard about all the fun times they were having (nearly all of them had wound up in the same class; the one I'd been in the year before). Under pressure from my mother (you think she's a bitch about pedestrian rights? you should see her when she thinks her child is being neglected by an institution to which she wrote a $10k check to every year. brimstone has nothing on the sulfurous steam she emitted from her nostrils), I'd escaped the bullies while, again, evading my friends. It was a step up, perhaps even a couple, so nobody heard me complaining.... until The X-Files season premiere was pushed back to November 2nd.
Betrayal! Mulder! Sculley! How could the unwitting pallbearers of my social casket just up and abandon me for so many months? At the height of the show's popularity, they had the audacity to arbitrarily extend the season finale's cliffhanger by two whole months!
What does all of this mean? Does it mean that I plan to withhold news of my exciting life from you until November? Perhaps, if that's what it takes to rid myself of these FOX-implanted demons. What I'm really trying to show is how very blameless I am in all of this. I was abandoned by a television show at an early age, and it will forever hinder my ability to provide media entertainment to others. I'm sorry, it's just the way that I am.
-Alan
posted by Alan Orlanski at 9:04 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home