The Revolution will not be televised! And there's a reason ...

Cafe Society
#1

It’s because all the channels will be showing programs like Rich Girls and replays of the party for the wife of former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski, that Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart said, “Would make Caligula shiver.”

Seriously, shouldn’t the proletariat be rising up sometime soon? This is getting ridiculous! And still, I can’t turn away. This is so surreal and I’m not sure it’s actually happening. Other people are seeing these things, right? These are real and not parodies? I feel disoriented. I should probably go lay down.

Quote from some spoiled kid on Rich Girls: “I don’t like Bloomberg, he’s not Republican enough.”

Reports of the week long birthday party on Sardinia (or was it Corsica?) that talked about the ice sculpture of Michaelangelo’s “David” that was urinating Stolichnya vodka into crystal glasses.

Make Caligula shiver indeed!

#2

I heard about that statue and I’m both incredibly curious and rather disturbed by the thought. I want to know if there was a pump or something inside, or if maybe the his balls were used as a valve, even though I don’t want to think of the statue that way.

#3

I now finally have an excuse to give an ice sculpture a blow job!

#4

The proletariat is busy watching the shows and can barely be arsed to get off the couch to get a beer, much less rise up in the streets.

#5

I think I read that a waiter stood behind the sculpture and poured vodka into it. I think there must have been a pipe leading out through the penis. What I want to know is whether anyone there was repulsed by the tastelessness of the vodka-dispensing sculpture or the excess of the party as a whole.

#6

I tried watching “Rich Girls” to see if it would be good for a few laughs, but ended up changing channels a few minutes later in disgust. I sure hope people like this aren’t real, or at least are rare, or else my faith in humanity will be deeply shaken. (not like it already hasn’t been, though)

#7

What’s ‘Rich Girls’?

Simply the ADS for ‘Joe Millionaire’ make me feel like pulling and Elvis on my television. And what’s with that “Joe Average” thing? Who do they think everyone else dates? Who do they think that chick dated BEFORE she got on tv?

::sticking my nose back in ‘The Human Stain.’

#8

Larry Niven once proposed that Americans don’t revolt because, however pissed-off we may be, we still have too much to lose.

Not like a couple hundred years ago, when the typical citizen had nothing to look forward to other than 25 years of back-breaking farm labor (occasionally interrupted by sex with someone who hasn’t bathed in four months) then death at 35. Under those conditions, getting killed in a revolt must have seemed like a welcome change of pace.

Now, however, we have rather long lifespans, mostly good health, lots of toys, air conditioning, soap, an incredible array of foods, Viagra, books, TV… nobody wants to jeopardize all this cool stuff just so their descendants can have another hundred years of freedom, before the aristocrats take over again.

#9

Re: Statues urinating alcoholic beverages

Actually, this practice has a long history in Mediterranean cultures, dating back to the days of the Roman Empire. Typically, though, the statues dispensed wine, and they were representations of Dionysus, or cherubs.

I read somewhere, I wish I could recall where, that Roman decadences included catheterizing eunuchs, filling their bladders with wine, and then sending them out into the crowd to dispense libations directly into partygoers’ goblets. I always wondered if this was true, or some homoerotic fantasy inspired by the statue practice.

#10

Well, I think the point is that she’s supposed to be too good-looking to have to put up with dating mediocre guys. Maybe she has one of those bumper stickers I’ve seen, that says “Life’s too short to date ugly men.”

It is a nice change of pace to see guys on relationship-oriented reality TV who aren’t drop-dead gorgeous.

#11

It would be an even bigger change of pace to have a “Jane Average” show with a bunch of mediocre-looking women competing for a handsome guy – but are networks prepared to take that kind of risk? Mediocre women? It would be like giving TV play to Richard Simmons’ “Sweatin’ to the Oldies.”

As for the OP – I guess the thinking at the networks is that viewers get off on wealth-oriented pornography – or maybe “plutography” would be a better word.