Losing My Religion

[Ed. Note: I have embraced swearing in this posting. Get over it. In fact, I think I'll add even more swear words now. Therapy, my friends, and on the cheap. A beautiful fucking thing.]

Stephen Colbert is leaving the Daily Show. Sort of. The fucker.

Clearly, my desert island lost cable transmission abilities for a short time, so I’m only six weeks behind in discovering this.

One day, I will begin reading newspapers again and you people will be very, very shocked at the change of pace on this humble little site. I’m a very political girl but I’ve been embracing my apathetic alter-ego since November 2nd, 2004.

There’s optimism that the Bush administration may yet self-destruct, so perhaps my burn-out on politics will segue into a feisty desire to see big, bad Rove Republicans going boom.

In the meantime, though, I get all the politics I need from reading a few blogs (including the always wonderful Transcendental Floss) and by watching the always great Daily Show.

But I’m saddended that Colbert is leaving. Happy he’s getting his own show following the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, (which you’re instructed to pronounce with a faux French accent, as “The Co-Bear Re-Porr” because “it’s French, bitch”), but again, I’m sad, because I don’t get fucking Comedy Central.

No, no, I’m a free-cable whore (among other things). The powers that be in the Vancouver cable industry happen to be such fuckwits that you need to beg like a high-school boy after his prom date’s pussy in order to get them to CUT the cable when you cancel it. They subcontract the work out, so the subcontractors look at the list and if it's cutting a service, they claim they've cut it, get paid for it, but nothing ever happens.

To get the service cut, you basically have to hound the bastards for weeks. So, I went from 57 channels down to a lowly 23 or so, but only after I begged, and begged, and fucking begged for them to cut it.

I think the dialogue went like this:

“Excuse me, I cut my cable six weeks ago, but I still have 57 channels.”

“Oh, well, my records show we cut it off.”

“My channel listing disagrees.”

The customer service guy lowers his voice and says, in hush-hush “what’s wrong with you” kinds of tones, “Um, excuse me, but what precisely are you asking?" And slowly, enunciating, he whispers, "I have no record of you retaining any of our cable services.”

“Your records are wrong, bub. Look, I know, you probably think I’m nuts, or on drugs to be trying to get rid of something I’m getting for free, and truthfully, I am. After all, who dislikes free? But I’m an addict--addicted to cable. I’m a writer, I can’t be doing this watching-TV-24/7 shit. You. Must. Help. Me.”

“Uh... you are wanting the cable cut, then?”

“Yes. Like I asked, six weeks ago. For the love of God, people, I’m getting bed sores, laying here nursing my fucking remote control. HELP me.”

Well, it took another couple of weeks and instead of losing all 57 channels, like I’d asked, I still have 23 channels left a year later.

So, I get the Daily Show on this shitty local channel and it airs after midnight, but God help me if I ever get to see the Colbert Report.

But life without the God Machine is too fucking much to ask.

When money dribbles back into this squalid existence I call life, I think a priority will be investing in a Colbert/Daily Show double-dose.

I think journalism today’s a fucking joke. I think journalism, five years from now, has a lot of hope for it, and only because of people like Stewart, Corddry, Colbert, and Bee saying precisely what the hell they think, and calling the “pros” on the shit they’re airing. It won't take long, now, for North Americans to realize that news can be informative and entertaining without having to fucking spoon-feed the masses about the latest Brad/Jen Catastrophe and its equivalent.

I doubt the Comedy Central folk ever imagined it, but the best watchdog we’ve got on the media is The Daily Show. A great thing for Stewart and his team, but a fairly depressing report on the status of the media, don’t you think?

And if you want to hear more about my rants on the media, check out this old posting here.