Telebobo
Quite recently I had an insane banter with a cyberbuddy.
This smart-Alecky chatter have been quoted in my past entries under the stern condition that he shouldn’t be identified in my blog as the source of disparaging and snide remarks. Actually he didn’t mention anything disparaging or offensive but knowing the nature of this blog he might as well take extreme precautions.
Which boggles me: This particular cyberbuddy, an interior design professional, is well-brought-up, well-mannered, and very urbane so this incognito clause is beginning to hit my paranoia meter into an all-time high. Is it possible that instead of trading rug swatches he’s trafficking contraband?
Kidding.
During the course of our aimless repartee he exhumed one of my semi-forgotten mortifying memories. All at once it dug itself out from the graveyard of embarrassments and ricochet into my brain’s frontal lobe. And that involved the blasted television!
I have written about it in the past and in the interest of public curiosity I am recycling it here:
People look at me in equal parts disbelief, disgust and disdain when I say I don't watch television. This is very shocking, if not mildly disturbing bit of information and was very unsettling for a starstruck Pinoy Big Brother fan when I nonchalantly asked over lunch many moons ago, "Who IS Sam Milby?"
Silence. Glacial silence.
Someone coughed, another suppressed a giggle, and my best friend chuckled with the same glee and decibel Stalin did before he enslaved Europe. The star-obsessed gal, well, she thought I was a snooty, pretentious schmuck who leapt out of a petri dish in a lab experiment gone haywire.
This is baffling for some people, that someone presumably evolved as I am is immune to the influence the television. Growing up I was imposed with a daily regimen of reading at least two major broadsheets and an alert but critical absorption of the daily news telecast. That was when intelligence plague the screen and the murky daily pulps.
For the past six years I avoided headlines and I suspect I am the only resident in our building who owns an obscenely-priced plasma screen and not subscribe to cable TV, nor have I had a TV antenna installed. This earns me brownie points among DVD-toting friends and certify my being a complete retard when it comes to the trivialities of say, Desperate Housefucksor the larynx-bursting proceedings of American Idol
Apparently this is a state of devolution for majority of people. For a cynical few it's a desirable thing. Being free from the plague of idiocy, be it in print or in broacast is not a democracy. It's a choice. Depending on which IQ level you fall in: It could be an apathetic one. Or a smart one. Considering the virulent political circus streaming recently the TV comes in handy: As a surefire gauge of your threshold for insanity.
Being constantly mocked for my idiotic lack of knowledge on what’s brewing around me I caved in and begrudgingly had cable service installed in my flat recently. The very second the connection was installed I maniacally channel-surfed like an ampethamined geek.
I clicked through scenes of Babe, or Charlotte’s Web, I am not sure. All I know is it’s about a talking pig who isn’t Cristy Fermin. Then my pop culture ignorance screeched to a crashing halt when I snapped my thumb on the clicker and beheld the magnified nostrils of Boy Abunda.
National Geographic Meets E! Channel.
It's Planet Of The Apes all over again.
2 comments:
Boy Abunda and his flaming nostrils are reason enough to become a cave-dwelling, stick-rubbing Luddite.
misterhubs! - my sentiments exactly! you're always a riot. the comment is a classic, trademark misterhubs wit! haha
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