Barking up the wrong tree
Ever since I was a kid, I've really loved PBS programming. It's intellectual, entertaining and well-produced without ever seeming smarmy or glitzy. Grew up watching Sesame Street and Zoom, Cosmos profoundly interested me in science, I love a lot of Masterpiece Theater productions, and I watch Frontline almost every week. What I can't stand, however, is PBS's fund-raising efforts.
I've been awaiting the broadcast of Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance since I saw an ad for it a week or so ago. The Medici family had a profound effect on art, politics and science during the Renaissance, so it's something that I'm interested in finding out more about. Last night I got about half an hour into the program and was really enjoying it when they broke for a fund-raising break. I ended up changing the channel.
It wasn't just their asking for money by abruptly stopping the show that irritated me so much. That I grudgingly accept because it's *public* television, after all. No, what caused me to find something else to watch was the WGBH spokesperson who stated that the station was looking for a modern-day equivalent of the Medici family to make sure these shows continue to be produced. Give me a freakin' break.
This just rubbed me the wrong way. The Medici were an incredibly powerful and almost incalculably wealthy family whose influence extended to many of the great artists, architects and scientific minds of the age. They were also master manipulators of politics and religion; they were warlords; some of them were right bastards too. That's one reasons why the special was subtitled "Godfathers of the Renaissance." As in, Don Corleone.
I'm just some schmuck sitting in my living room with my hand in a bowl of microwave popcorn. I'm no fucking Medici, and don't want to be compared to one, and sure-as-hell know that giving WGBH $30 certainly isn't going to get me any closer to greatness.
I admit I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, but it's that sort of cavalier pseudo-intellectual idiocy on the part of the station managers and staff for PBS -- regardless of what city you're living in -- that just frosts my tomatoes.
Somewhat tangentially related, I absolutely adore the new TV ads for Quiznos Subs. Watch them in Flash on the Web site if you haven't seen them.
Comments
Heh, heh, this reminds me of a time when I was living in San Francisco and became similarly irritated with pledge breaks by the PBS station there, KQED.
The two staff members kept using the word "wonderful", over and over again, in the same pseudo-intellectual way that you've described.
It irritated me and my friend so much that we called the station and told them, dammit, we'd pledge, but ONLY if they found another adjective!
What's funny about this is that someone actually DID pass the word, and you should have seen their faces turn purple every time a "wo..." came out of their mouths.
Long story bearable, they COULDN'T DO IT. These people could NOT utter two coherent sentences without using the word "wonderful".
In complete frustration, the female announcer finally turned to the camera and sputtered the word WONDERFUL, in capital letters, appended by the comment "The things some people think are important!"
Posted by: Capecoder | February 15, 2004 06:01 PM
Wow. Just... wow.
Those commercials... just wow.
On a related note, is Quizno's any good? Believe it or not, we don't have one in our podunk town of well over a million people and six or seven colleges. Since a couple of the (admitedly tourist-oriented) towns we drove through in the Yukon (a Canadian province with 33,000 people living there) had them, I'm not sure whether or not to be incensed.
Posted by: Rufo Sanchez | February 16, 2004 02:14 AM
Wish I knew. The closest Quiznos is more than an hour away, so I've never been there.
Posted by: flargh | February 16, 2004 08:02 AM
You should check out the Science Channel. They've got some GREAT stuff on there!
Posted by: lyssa | February 16, 2004 11:17 AM
Quiznos have just started popping up in Manhattan in the last 6 months or so. I'd rate them a step or two above Subway for sure.
-Colin
Posted by: Colin | February 16, 2004 11:27 AM
Flargh...please please tell me you have solid info that Feature Casts album is coming out in March..and is Channel Surfing gonna be on there you think?
e
Posted by: elise | February 19, 2004 10:29 AM
If the info on iTunes Music Store is to be believed, yes.
Posted by: flargh | February 19, 2004 10:56 AM