Hello Out There from TV Land!

Maybe it was the writers' strike.

Not that I believe in striking, I think it is an adversarial way to try to get a point across, but nothing makes you realize the value you place on something someone does for you quite like that same someone depriving you of it.

Like the time I went on strike in my own home and refused to wipe the blobs of toothpaste out of the sink for a week to see if anyone noticed how perfectly icky and gross it is to have to look at when Mom doesn't rub it away while she neatly and politely gets rid of the blob she herself created while brushing....They noticed. They noticed and asked me to clean it. A failed mission.

But during the writers' strike, while all the creative genius voluntarily stuffed a sock into its own mouth, for philosophical reasons I am not sure anyone remembers (Sorry, guys, I have my own issues to contend with.) the less talented, or at least the lesser known, un-signed folks circumvented the whole mess and filled in the schedule with all manner of reality-based TV shows. "We don't have to write!" they must have said. "The material writes itself!"

And it does.

Paris Hilton snoots around the deep South making fun of less shiny more resourceful people. With her friend with whom she shares only one thing in common. They are both famous for no reason.

Bitchy, foul-mouthed, manipulative brides stomp their feet and hold their breath and screech and poke French manicured nails in people's faces until they walk down the aisle on their picture perfect wedding day.

The Kardashians. Need I say more? Keep up with them? Keep away from them!

And my favorite. America's Funniest Home Videos. Not only does no one write it, they don't film it either! So, an hour at a time, we all get to watch amateur video of Uncle Moe's pants falling down while he dances the Macarena at his niece's fire hall wedding. And a bunch of dudes in wife beaters drunk driving mini bikes off a makeshift ramp in some field until one of them face plants in a pile of manure. And half a dozen adorable clips of junior hitting daddy in the crotch with a golf club, wiffle ball, Frisbee, grill spatula or some other instrument not normally intended to inflict injury.

And now I think, "Isn't that really what I am doing with my blog?" I may not have the chops to crank out a first rate work of fiction, and I may not have the patience - or the interest- to pen a great biography. My material literally writes itself. And finds humor, very often, at others' expense. All I have to do is give it air time.

Feeling less full of myself, I think I'll go find the clicker and tune in to whatever show Kate Gosselin and her kids have been misguided into filming these days.