In search of the ordinary
by Jon Worley

The YMCA up here in York is much spiffier than the grand pink building in St. Pete. There's two pools, a well-stocked free-weight room, four racquetball courts and an extensive exercise room (though the machines are hydraulic rather than Nautilus, which is something of a bother).

But they don't pump the local crap 40 station into the room, so I have been forced to watch MTV for the first time in more than three years.

There are a few things about MTV that the casual watcher picks up almost immediately. First, the commercials are better than the programs. MTV has never created a good show (my brothers' slavish devotion to the divine Kari and Remote Control notwithstanding), and most of the stuff is damned near unwatchable. Not from a taste perspective, but from an entertainment perspective. It's just not interesting.

The videos haven't changed. There's a new Aerosmith album, which means millon-dollar mini films featuring the same old high school fantasy material. There's some chick (I think she'd take that as a compliment) named Meredith Brooks, who seems to really want to be known as a cheap Alanis clone. And then some guy named Jonny Lang, who has a pretty decent rock-n-blooze tune called "Lie to Me". Unfortunately, the video is a shot-for-shot remake of Great White's "Once Bitten Twice Shy" (you can tell when I last studied video form), although the women are much more interesting looking and they're sitting on a couch instead of doing that stand-up full-throttle pout. And what exactly does it mean when a tribute to the Notorious B.I.G. uses "Every Breath You Take", the ultimate stalker anthem, as its backing music?

One good use of MTV is to explain popular culture. When we decided to wander down to Baltimore in search of some block-rockin' beats, Barbara wondered just what the hell I was talking about. One look at a Chemical Brothers video and she was convinced. Unfortunately, it seems that most Baltimore clubs' idea of techno is Judas Priest's "Turbo Lover". Oh well. Better luck next time, I guess.

I have been watching more TV up here, particularly the History Channel. Well, the History Channel at 4 a.m., to be exact. Last week I caught something about the pyramids, a treatise on some important battle of WWII and the replay of the last game of the Red Wings-Avalanche series. Oh, wait. That was on ESPN2. At that time of night, the channel indicator gets kinda blurry. It's getting pathetic. One night, I caught myself wondering just what was on the Golf Channel, which is a premium channel up here (really). And I don't even like golf.

Sure, I must be bored. But I'm writing a lot more drivel than I have in a while, so at least there's some productivity in my malaise. And as a friend of mine noted, the TV is there for a reason: to empty your mind of thought. Call it the zen box, he said, and use it appropriately. Of course, he then proceeded to tell me about the cosmetic surgury chart he had prepared while watching Baywatch and comparing the differences, so perhaps the TV merely extinguishes all rational thought. I think Vonnegut said that one first.

So, in this quest for the mundane, am I finally getting in touch with the real America? That mythical land where if you work hard enough and you're white enough, you might make enough money to cover this month's car payment? I just don't know. I don't even know if I want to go there. All things being equal, I'd much rather be in San Francisco.

Jon Worley is wondering precisely when Smashing Pumpkins became a U2 clone, and thus by guilt of association a David Bowie clone.

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