Tuesday, October 24, 2006

July 7th 1997

Watched a show called “Real World” last night, I hope it won’t be on when you’re a teenager, so here’s what it’s about—It’s on MTV and it takes seven men and women of different races (mostly white,) with usually one lesbian or homosexual, all in their late teens to mid-twenties, and sticks them in some fabulous house in some cool city and videotapes them night and day for five months. The raw material is edited into half-hour segments, and there is your TV show called “The Real World.”

Every generation has some kind of dumb fad, some kind of revolting thing they flaunt in the faces of their parents to horrify them. All this is done in the name of individuality, but somehow everyone looks the same, they think the same, talk the same, dress the same. They think they’re wild and crazy, living life much fuller than their parents.

Every single generation goes through that. Every one. The costumes change but the people do not.

Anyway, a couple of the really stupid fads in vogue with young people today are: cigar smoking and body piercing.

Cigars stink, they cause lip and throat cancer, they stain your teeth and make your hands smell. Enough said about that.

Body piercing—nose, belly button, eyebrow, nipple, tongue—this is the big sign of rebellion and hipness right now.

Not only do you lisp with a pierced tongue, but food and bacteria collect around it and it just becomes a little garbage heap in your mouth. Plus, you drool a lot.

I’m glad these fads will be quaint when you become a teenager.

I can only imagine what your generation will be into. Global Terrorism? Macramé? Transcending the dumbness of Conform-or-Die society and becoming true individuals connected to the awesomeness of the universe so the world can be changed in a positive, beautiful way?

Work on that with your friends, kid.

Love ya.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

hahaha...too bad the "real world" is still on, and probably will be for the rest of forever.

i agree with everything he wrote. nice journal entry!

p.s. all of your quotes about NYC makes me want to live there.

Dina said...

that is sooo cool to have for her!! My parents never wrote such a journal, but if I just find an old b-day card with what little they wrote ( but filled with sooo much love) my world just STOPS!! those memories cannot be compared...

what a treasure!!

Katie Bowen said...

Yes Shaniqua, it seems as if that show just won't die.

I was an editor on one of the first reality shows, "The It Factor," for BRAVO, but it was actually quite good, more of a documentary than anything else. Then came the big reality boom and although it was awful, I, as well as my editor friends were quite pleased at the prospect of being regularly and gainfully employed. We also said it wouldn't last, that reality TV was going to be gone before long, but unfortunately that was 5 years ago.

Oh well, people enjoy it, and besides, what are they gonna do with their free time, READ BOOKS?! EXPAND THEIR MINDS?! (Okay, now I'm being critical and judgmental and that's not nice.)

Thank God the beauty in the real world outweighs the ugliness in the Real World.

xoxox,

Katie

P.S. Glad you like the New York quotes, I'll have to fish around for more.

Katie Bowen said...

Dina, you are an appreciator of all things familial.

I like that.

xoxox,

Katie

Reverend Shawn said...

Pure poetry ... the words of a loving prophetic parent to a wonderful new life filled with potential, possibility and hope ...

I wish I would have written more of what I felt as my three grew ...

You have a true mitzvah for Annie ...