April 2000 Archives

The year is 1999, and an epic miniseries/marketing campaign called "The '60s" has successfully dumbed-down an entire tumultuous decade for easy consumption by Joe Sixpack and a nation of remote-brandishing couch jockeys: Vietnam, hippies, drugs, groovy clothes and classic rock -- that was the 1960s. The whole taco. Any other incidental "facts" you may have learned in school or from actually being there aren't really important enough to mention. Buy the "The '60s" soundtrack CD from the website and shut up.

Now, two years later, you've got "The '70s", another two-night, four-hour piece of revisionist TV history which "presents the fictional story of four friends played out against the backdrop of the politics and popular culture of the period," according to NBC. Don't forget the bitchin' soundtrack CD, available at www.nbc.com/70s.

The publicity shot pretty much sums up "The '70s" (and, as far as NBC's concerned, the actual '70s): good-looking Nixon Republican (Brad Rowe), good-looking feminist (Vinessa Shaw), good-looking Black Panther (Guy Torry), good-looking disco queen (Amy Smart). As a bonus, producer Denise Di Novi ("Message in a Bottle," "Practical Magic" -- yes, they both made her resume) has also thrown in Kent State, Watergate, Jonestown, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and those disturbing happy-face symbols. Punk rock? Never happened. New Yawk punkers Blondie didn't really exist before their faux-disco hit (included on the now-ready-for-purchase soundtrack CD) "Heart of Glass," silly.

As it did with "The '60s", NBC wants to have it both ways: They push "The '70s" as a legit history lesson until someone calls 'em on it, then they fall back on the "fictional story ... played out against the backdrop of the politics and popular culture ... yadda yadda yadda" line.

What exactly is the "fictional story"? After college -- Kent State, natch -- the four good-looking friends wind up contentiously spread over the vast political/cultural spectrum of the 1970s and, by the end of the four hours, reconcile their differences after learning Valuable Life Lessons. Basically your average Saved By the Bell episode, but without the edgy presence of Screech.

The real entertainment value of "The '70s", unfortunately for Joe Sixpack and the non-media, comes in the miniseries' 82-page (!) press kit. Dim-bulb young actors expounding upon their roles always provides unintended comedy -- when they're talking about a decade they were barely born in, prepare thy knee for serious slappage.

Amy Smart, whose previous thespian credits include Felicity and "Varsity Blues," on the sounds of The Me Decade: "I've fallen in love with the music of the '70s -- the Bee Gees, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix," she says, blissfully unaware that both Joplin and Hendrix died in 1970. "I think the best music was made in the '70s, because there was so much passion and direction from all these singers. Nowadays, people do it for the money, and then it was just about the heart." (Regrettably, Ted Nugent's heartfelt '77 hit "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang" is not included on the soundtrack, which is in stores at this very moment.) "It's a little frustrating now. I feel like computers, TV and video games -- all this stuff is clouding our creativity." Shifting blame for your stunned-carp screen performance, Amy? How '90s.

Speaking of which, NBC has probably begun production on a The '90s miniseries, since the network has already shown their utter disinterest in the '80s by canceling the Reagan-era Freaks & Geeks and wisely diverting millions of dollars in Peacock money and weeks of on-air promotion toward four whole hours of "The '70s". No clouded creativity at NBC, nosiree.

And who can wait for The '00s? An airdate in spring 2004 seems about right: Haley Joel Osment as Elian Gonzalez in the Cute Cuban Kid Crisis! 'N Sync as popular boy-band the Backstreet Boys! The Backstreet Boys as popular boy-band 'N Sync! John Travolta and Hillary Swank as "Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire?" miscreants Rick and Darva! Lucy Liu as controversial Old Navy spokes-skank Lisa Ling! A randomly shaped block of cheese as President George W. Bush! Or President Al Gore! Doesn't matter! The soundtrack kicks!

This week is "TV Turn-Off Week," and we're going cold turkey! In observance, we haven't watched any television or run any television-related stories this week.

Oh, God, save us. We're so bored. We're so lonely. We can't cope without sweet, sweet television there to ease our pain.

Thank God it's almost over. Only one more piece to go.

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Here's a paradox: The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reports that homeownership is at an all time high and moving higher, yet housing is becoming less and less affordable.

How to explain this paradox? Look at California. It has one of the highest housing costs in the United States. It also benefits from some of the highest housing subsidies. Affordable housing advocates are promoting two bond measures for the November 2000 general election that would fund low-income housing projects. Such remedies miss the point. California has some of the highest housing costs, and highest subsidies, because it is one of the most highly regulated states in the land.

Building a home in the Golden State can be a massive undertaking. Want to build an apartment building? Best of luck. The apartment builder is subject to a labrynth of rules, regulations and ordinances. Land use laws. Zoning restrictions. No-growth laws. Building permits. Planning delays. Environmental impact fees. Regulations, delays and fees can nearly double or triple the price of a new home or apartment complex ¾ assuming some bureacratic agency will not claim jurisdiction and stop a project dead in its tracks. Who pays? Not greedy developers, but buyers and renters.

In the enlightened city of San Francisco, where affordable housing is a contradiction in terms, it is almost impossible to build new apartments today. The reason? Neighborhood residents have effective veto power over development. In the Southern California city of Newport Beach, there is an effective moratorium on new apartment units. The reason? Rent control.

The individual homebuilder faces equally daunting odds. Take the case of Peggy Ann Buckley.

Buckley's odyssey began in January 1988, when she and her husband bought a 2.75 acre vacant lot in Malibu, an unicorportated area of Los Angeles County. The lot was located in a fully developed single-family residential neighborhood. Homes were already built on both sides of the lot. The Buckleys were assured by their real estate broker that any building they wished to do on the lot would have to be cleared with the county first.

The Buckley's hired an architect and engineers to prepare grading and building plans. Almost 18 months after they bought their property, while awaiting approval from county officials for their plans, the California Coastal Commission, a state agency, informed the Buckleys that they needed to obtain either a "Certificate of Exemption" from the county or a coastal development permit from the commission before any permits could be issued.

This was news to the Buckleys, but they were happy to comply. They got their certificate of exemption from L.A. County in October 1989. This should have have exempted single-family residential development of the Buckley's lot from the permit rules of California's Coastal Act. Under state law and court precedent, the Coastal Commission had no legal authority over the Buckley's land once county officials issued the exemption. The story should have ended there, ten years ago.

But the Coastal Commission insisted that no development would be allowed on the rear of the Buckley's property ¾ even with the exemption. The commission claimed that the property was in an "environmentally sensitive area."

This was a sham. As the Coastal Commission later admitted in court, it never legally designated any environmentally sensitive areas in the entire California coastal zone, as required by state law. The trial court ruled that there are no such areas designated by statute. In fact, the Commission's deadline for making any environmental designations within the coastal zone came and went 20 years ago.

L.A. County continued to issue the Buckleys the necessary permits for building and grading. But in the face of the Coast Commission's intimidation, they applied for a coastal development permit. The Buckleys tried to work with the commission for almost a year in an futile attempt to obtain a permit.

To make matters worse, a landslide developed on the Buckley's land. Knowing this, the Coastal Commission still refused to budge. Instead, it issued a series of stop work orders, threatening a civil fine of $10,000 with $5,000 per day fines after that. The stop-work orders were followed by a threatening letter from the California Attorney General's office.

Soon, the landslide on the Buckley's property had crossed their property line. Los Angeles County officials ordered the Buckleys to abate the landslide on their property and ordered them to grade the property according to the permitted grading plan.

Still, the Coastal Commission refused to budge. The stop-work orders remained in effect. Caught between two powerful bureaucracies, the Buckleys were left with no choice but to go to court.

A trial court ruled in 1993 that the California Coastal Commission had no legal authority over the Buckley's property after October 24, 1989, when L.A. County issued its permit. The court also held that there was no evidence to support the Commission's claim that any portion of the Buckley's property was an environmentally sensitive area.

The Commission remained unmoved. After a second trial lasting 15 days, another court ruled in the Buckley's favor again, stating in no uncertain terms that the commission's assertion of jurisdiction constituted a permanent taking. On the 15th day of trial in 1995, the judge issued his ruling. "I am part of the government, as a judge, and I have seen governmental arrogance at it worst until now, and the Coastal Commission exhibited an arrogance that should be for another country, not the United States," he said.

The court awarded $1,355,837 in damages for the permanent taking of the Buckley's property and $831,494.76 in attorneys fees, expert fees and costs. By then, they had incurred liability of almost $1.7 million. The Commission appealed this ruling also. With fines of $10,000 plus $5,000 per day ¾ or $1,825,000 per year ¾ the Buckleys were defending against a liability somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 milion. And by 1996, the civil fine had been increased to $30,000 plus $15,000 per day.

In October 1995, a California appeals court granted the commission's motion to consolidate the appeals of the trial court's judgments. This meant that under the one-judgment rule, even to this day, Buckley does not have a final decision. More appeals and motions followed. In December 1998, the state appeals court affirmed the trial court's ruling that the Coastal Commission had no jurisdiction over the Buckley's land. But the court concluded that a mistaken assertion of jurisdiction by the Commission does not amount to a taking. The damages were reversed.

Virtually bankrupt, and by now a single parent, Peggy Buckley appealed to the United States Supreme Court in March of this year. The Court denied her writ of certiaeori in October. She plans to file for reconsideration.

"When your land, dignity and earnings are threatened, what do you do?" Buckley said. "Either you revolt or you are homeless."

The lesson? "Government can take your property, damage your property, bankrupt you and devastate your life without fear of liability or of having to pay damages," she says. "All a governmental entity has to do is say, 'Oh, your honor, we just made a mistake' ¾ even if it is totally illegal ¾ and not have to pay a cent."

Buckley's case may seem extraordinary. In fact, state and local governments are unjustly reducing the worth of private property through regulation and, in some cases, litigation.

It is worth remembering that, in the 1940s, a builder in California would go through two or three steps to obtain the required permits. Forty years later, in certain parts of the state, there were 228 steps. Today, there are even more than that.

Every day of delay equals dollars lost. Those are units or homes not built, and revenue not earned. Again, who pays? The buyer pays. Renters pay. For many young couples, it is the difference between buying a home and pouring more hard-earned income into the black hole of rent.

What is to be done? First, the state must develop means to ensure enforcement of the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment.

Other, equally important steps:

• As Peggy Buckley's story showed, the length of time required to obtain the necessary permits and approvals is absurd. Time is money. The new home buyer or renter is the one who will end up paying for that time. Also, regulatory changes are sometimes made and fees increased in mid-project. The permit process should be streamlined and fees should be guaranteed at the project inception.

• Impact fees can exceed $25,000 per housing unit. In addition to decreasing the number of affordable units, these fees place a heavy and inequitable burden for public works and local government services on new home buyers ¾ primarily the young and the poor. These fees should be reduced in number as well as amount and brought into line with the cost of the actual service provided.

• Zoning ordinances which limit the number of units built on a piece of property force home builders to overbuild the high-price end of the housing market. Inevitably, when that surplus is realized, crashing property values have a severe economic impact. The practice of downzoning should be discontinued through the adoption of minimum-density standards.

• Broad national standards fitting a certain theoretical model are increasingly applied without exception to the many, diverse communities of the country. At best these regulations are unnecessary or irrelevant. At worst they are contrary to their intended purpose. The principle of allowing local people to decide local issues should be revived.

If the state is to do anything, it should shift its priorities to emphasize housing production rather than regulation. That means setting strict limits on delays, guaranteeing that unless permits are denied within a set period of time, development may proceed as planned. First person to read this far won a free TeeVee t-shirt. It wasn't you. Sorry! State and local governments should use existing funds to compensate for unjust takings.

California's population will continue to grow and the demand for housing in the state will increase. It is time to recognize that life in California will be different than it was in the 1950s.

Overcoming barriers to affordable housing will not succeed by tinkering around the margins. Piling subsidy upon subsidy is not the answer. Market forces should be given latitude in helping California adjust to changing demographics and economic forces. We cannot afford to further stifle opportunity.

It starts with a long, rambling anecdote. It always starts with an anecdote. Maybe it will be about a movie I saw last weekend. Maybe about some girl back in high school who spurned my ham-fisted advances, leaving me with unresolved self-esteem issues that still haunt me 10 years after the fact. Maybe it will be about baseball. Yes, baseball... I like baseball.

The 1946 St. Louis Browns were a forgettable team. Two years removed from its only pennant, the franchise fell back to its perennial second-division status as top-line ballplayers like Ted Williams and Hank Greenberg returned from World War II. At 66-88, St. Louis finished 38 games behind the league-leading Red Sox, with only the equally woeful Philadelphia Athletics there to break the Browns' fall. A lame-duck team about to bolt for the green pastures of Baltimore, the 1946 Browns are remembered only by a handful of fans, the most circumspect of baseball historians and the biographers of Vern Stephens.

And now, after the anecdote, comes the transition. Because just as the St. Louis Browns of 1946 were a forgettable team in nearly every way -- slick hitting shortstop Vern Stephens excluded, of course -- so is this a forgettable TeeVee article.

Why? Because I am not allowed to write about television.

I was never behind this TV Turn-Off Week argle-bargle. When one of my colleagues proposed this crazy scheme -- it doesn't matter who, this isn't about blame -- I made my objections known. "Collier," I said, "this is the stupidest idea you've ever come up with."

I said that then. I stand by it now. Because if I can't write about television, I am a dead duck.

I have no problem saying this -- I am not a terribly bright man. I have very few interests in life and minimal conversation skills. I don't read newspapers; instead, I have interns read me brief summaries of the news until I get the gist of the story. If it's not about sports or television, I quickly lose interest. I have three books to my name -- Total Television, Leonard Maltin's Video Review Guide and a collection of baseball stats -- all to aid me in writing those accursed anecdotes.

In the past, I could coast, get by with some witty repartee and my encyclopedic knowledge of Happy Days. But thanks to TV Turn-Off Week, I've been exposed for the fraud that I am. The emperor has no clothes. My world has turned upside down. We have gone through the looking glass. Night is day. Black is white. The dish has run off with the spoon.

I feel like that guy in that book who was living a lie and, as a consequence, had all that stuff happen to him. You know the book, right? By that dead guy? I think he was foreign...

Oh, God, I'm an idiot.

The other day, I was at a cocktail party, and everyone there was discussing this big to-do about the little Cuban boy. Their talk frightened and confused me. "Why all this fuss over Ricky Ricardo and his son?" I finally asked. "I Love Lucy hasn't been on the air for years."

Someone threw their martini in my face.

I don't know how the other Vidiots feel about this, frankly, because I never read their work. I mean, I've tried. But most of the time, what they have to say puts me right to sleep. Especially Snell. So maybe they're as flummoxed by all of this as I am. They strike me as people who get flummoxed easily, as anybody who's ever seen Wrenn try and work a copier will attest.

Say, what if this is just one of their plots -- one of their carefully hatched, devious plots to embarrass me? None of them like me, you know. All of them resent my success: Rywalt, Collier, Boychuk, that chick who writes for us all the time-- Lita? Rita? I've never bothered to learn her name. Anyhow, they all hate me.

I bet they got together in one of those late-night fast food runs that they never invite me to. "Let's have a big ol' TV Turn-Off Week Extravaganza to shame Michaels and make him look like a jackass," they probably said. "And let's get more hot-sauce packets for our tacos!"

Well, I'll have none of it. No shaming. No jackass-looking. No hot-sauce packets. I will turn the tables on my oppressors. I will turn the hunters into the prey. I will return their snide back-biting with such a vengeance that they will run away in disgrace, never to be heard from again.

Just like I did with Ko.

I will review my co-workers like I review TV shows. And I will do it with all the ferocity that I normally reserve for the likes of Kirstie Alley.

Soon to enter his 29th season, Ben Boychuk is in a creative rut and desperately needs a Sweeps-month stunt to juice his stagnating ratings. Perhaps a trip to an exotic locale. Maybe adding a precocious moppet with a sassy mouth. Anything to distract the audience from Ben's haircut.

James Collier may seem like a funny guy to today's unsophisticated audiences. But where are the "Your mama's so ugly" jokes and "Did you ever notice how white people can't dance?" japes that have proven so successful for Sinbad and Jimmie Walker?

I have always found the character of Greg Knauss to be unconvincing and forced. My vote? Recast the part of Knauss with the redoubtable Peter Falk. I smell spin-off!

No. Wait. It's Jason Snell that I smell. A capable leader for TeeVee, sure, but his personal hygiene? A disaster of E.A.R.T.H. Force-like proportions.

I thought we had fired Chris Rywalt months ago.

While many of the other Vidiots seem to get along with Liza Schmeiter -- or whatever she's calling herself these days -- I find to be a dreary presence around the office, especially after she rejected my latest crude pass at her.

Gregg Wrenn has the smarts of a burglar and the innocence of a three-year-old child. No. Wait. That's the other way around.

There. I'm sorry you folks had to witness such ugliness, but I've been pushed around long enough. Suffered too much abuse. Been neglected for too long.

Much like Vern Stephens and the 1946 St. Louis Browns.

Because along with anecdotes, articles must also come full-circle.

Few are so lucky as to be on the Vidiot mailing list that lurks behind the innocuous teevee@teevee.org address. True, we have to see all the mail from people trying to save Freaks and Geeks, Roswell and the rest. But we also get to witness brilliant repartee and banter among the Vidiots -- stuff you at home never get to see.

But this week -- a week in which we're cleverly not writing about television, in case we haven't beaten this lame premise into you already -- is different. This week, you get to peer behind the curtain.

It began, as it always does, with a reader letter, this one from Erika Dery.

Hiya,

I just wanted to let y'all know who's tops in my personal standings. Peter Ko used to be my favorite TeeVeer, but since he's dropped off the face of the planet, Philip Michaels slid into his place through sheer volume I believe. But, I wanted to warn him that I think he's about to lose his number one spot in my heart. James Collier has been making me giggle entirely too much lately.

I would like to make it clear that in no way do I mean to slight any of the other writers, I love you all. But unlike a parent, I'm honest about choosing favorites.

Thanks for being funny and stuff.

How sweet, Erika! It's nice to know that you like the site. No matter who your favorite is, we're just glad you read us regularly, enjoy our work, and even recognize us by name.

But what's this? A letter from a Philip Michaels.

Erika:

It should be noted that James Collier is a completely unsavory character who is cruel to both children and puppies.

I, on other hand, have been known to send out crisp one dollar bills to TeeVee readers who do right by me.

Just something to keep in mind the next time you read so-called "funnyman" James Collier.

-- P. Michaels
The Vidiot Who's Not Above Tearing Others Down If It Means He Holds The Top Spot In Erika's Rankings

Apparently Michaels is offended that he had zoomed to #1 on Erika's charts merely because he's been churning out the pieces at an ungodly rate while Pete Ko's on the side of milk cartons.

But to write such untruths! To say such lies to such a lovely young lady as Erika Dery! That's an outrage! Because as anyone who knows will tell you, Phil's a cheap bastard who would never, ever give dollar bills to anyone.

However, the stuff about Collier is true.

Matthew Robinson, who is inexplicably on the Vidiot list despite having only written a couple of pieces, chimed in:

I think what will interest her is where you stuff those $20 bills when James does his special dance for you.

We can't emphasize this enough: it's just not true. Michaels would never stuff $20 anywhere except his own damned pocket. He won't even rent porn until it's on the bargain rack.

But perhaps we've said too much.

Proving that all our non-Freaks and Geeks-loving fans are okay, Erika Dery kindly replied to Phil's offer:

Unfortunately, due to your response, I'm now especially torn. I feel all tingly and special having received a response so promptly from *the* Philip Michaels. But, what's that I see up at the top? AOL?! Now I just don't know what to think. About anything. My whole world has crumbled.

But if you send out some of those crisp bills you mentioned, I just may be able to get over the trauma. So how about it?

Yes, it's true. Philip Michaels has an AOL account, and uses it as his primary e-mail address. You may be asking yourself, "How could such a groundbreaking Internet publisher still be using an online service that's currently targeting lower primates with a mass CD mailing campaign?"

Here's a hint: the answer has something to do with Michaels being a cheap bastard.

But enough of this nonsense. It's time for the ultimate Vidiot letter-writer, James Collier, to jump into the fray. Here's the thing about James: his grip on the truth is tenuous. Here's the other thing: he's an evil, evil man. Put those two together, and you've got someone who tends to reply to reader letters personally, with a great deal of care -- and tell incredible lies.

Why, just the other day, he responded to the avalanche of "Save Freaks and Geeks" letters with a note pointing out that Freaks and Geeks has actually been renewed by The WB, so they can stop writing.

A total lie. That's our Collier. Our cruel, evil, brilliant Collier.

And so James wrote back to Erika:

Thank you for your wonderful comments. Reading them made my morning. You like so many other Teevee readers are finally begining to see that I am the TRUE genius of Teevee, not that bastard Phil Michaels.

The bad blood goes deep between Phil and I. Many years ago he and I were like brothers. I can still remember it like yesterday:

Summer in San Francisco. 1992. We were an up and coming comedy duo known as The Danville Brothers. He played the banjo, I sang country songs with racy lyrics.

Things were going for us. But there was trouble on the horizon, in the form of sultry redhead named Susan.

Susan was, for the lack of a better description, a comedy groupie. She had caught our act at a club Sausilito, and attempted to seduce me. I rejected her out of hand, I could see she was trouble.

But Phil, he fell for her in a hard way. Soon not only was she his lover, but she was his confidant. Telling him that I was out to sabotage his career, that I was holding him down.

Soon Philip was making outrageous demnads: not only did he want to sing more, he wanted to ditch the banjo in favor of the sitar, and he wanted to change the name of the duo to Philip Michaels and Friend.

I was of course was outraged. And I quit the duo. And didn't speak for years, hearing only stories of each other through mutual friends.

I would later find out that Susan dumped him for an acordian-playing comic who go on to some limited succcess on the Hollywood Squares.

And of course we would end up working together on the Teevee site. But the bad blood still remains.

Anyhow, thank you again and take care.

James Collier
The Vidiot Who Knows That Bastard Michaels is Spreading Slanderous Lies About Me

This, of course, is total bunk. Philip never learned how to play an instrument, on account of him being a cheap bastard.

But before we close the book on this little saga, it's important to remember that Erika's original #1 Vidiot was the great Peter Ko. What does Ko have to say about this little pissing match between Michaels and Collier?

Not a damned thing. Frankly, we've got no idea where Ko is. But he's still on the mailing list. And you're not.

Additional contributions to this article by: Jason Snell.

OK, it's TV Turn-Off Week. Good. America needs more time away from the boob tube. I know I could certainly stand to spend a few nights without listening to the sweet siren song of the cathode rays. My life is not so small that I can't find fulfillment on my own. After all, my girlfriend isn't really named Buffy and my best pals don't actually live in a Manhattan bachelor pad.

Then again, I don't have a girlfriend and my only pal is the one clerk at Blockbuster who doesn't give me an icy stare when, once again, I return "Caddyshack II" three days late. Crap.

No, no, no. That kind of negative thinking will get me nowhere. TV Turn-Off Week is supposed to be a positive experience, one that gives my already joyous life just a little more joie de vivre. There's got to be a lot to do this week. A lot to see and do and make wise-ass comments about. Once a critic, always a critic.

The phone, for instance. When was the last time I picked up the phone and had a good conversation with some far-flung relatives? It's been far too long, that's for sure. Yep, I'll just pick it up and give good ol' Aunt Ruth a ring.

But Aunt Ruth is something of a windbag. Plus, she always calls me Deano and compares me to her other nephews. "George just got a promotion at the lumber yard. Now he's in charge of two-by-fours and plywood. He said that a Home Depot headhunter gave him a call the other day. They're looking at him for their caulking and grouting department."

Come to think of it, watching Homer Simpson talk on the phone would be a lot more interesting than doing it myself. Sorry, Aunt Ruth. Maybe I'll drop you an e-mail.

Let's see, what else could I do? I've got a shelf full of books here. "The Count of Monte Cristo?" Hey, remember that Seinfeld where George ordered the Monte Cristo sandwich? That was a pretty good one. Wait a minute, this is TV Turn-Off Week! Dammit, brain, no more TV references! These are books, after all, the last refuge of the conscientious intellectual.

How about "To Kill a Mockingbird?" There's a classic. I love that scene when the mockingbird takes a dump on Gregory Peck's shoulder and then Peck throws the bird into a ceiling fan.

Stop. That was Shasta McNasty, a parrot and Jake Busey. Damn you TV, it's high time I break this insidious Vulcan mind meld you've seen fit to saddle me with. TV Turn-Off Week? How about TV Turn-Off Decade?

"War and Peace." Now there's a book. Nobody would dare turn this into television. I'm going to read the whole damn thing right now. Since I don't have to worry about catching SportsCenter for Stanley Cup highlights, I'll be done with it by midnight!

Hmmm. This is a big book. A really big book and I've got things to do tomorrow. Maybe I'll just read the Cliff's Notes.

Holy crap, the Cliff's Notes are 300 pages long. I don't have the attention span for that anymore. Maybe I can get the Cliff's Notes on video.

Here we go, an invitation to my nephew's third grade play tomorrow night. "Hooray for Molars!" Now this will be real entertainment -- the kind of meaningful, straight from the heart celebration of the arts that those Hollywood hacks wish they could produce.

On the other hand, last year's spectacle "Three Cheers for Gums!" was a disgrace. The lead toothbrush must have been studying Jon Seda's Homicide episodes for enunciation lessons and the girl that played Cinnamon Flavored Floss was the grammar school equivalent of Kirstie Alley. My nephew Lionel, almost my own flesh and blood, brought eternal shame on the family name by being so petrified by stage fright that he curled into a ball and started sucking his thumb right there on stage, much like the producers of Action must have done after seeing those first Nielsens.

We won't even mention the script except to say I think I know what the writers of Veronica's Closet were doing once they got fired last season.

Second grade play, my ass. The whole thing reeked of kindergarteners. The stupid ones.

So maybe we'll skip the school play. We'll also skip books and the telephone. There's got to be something else to do, right?

Miniature golf and shadow puppets. That's it? Sweet Saint Josephine, my life sucks.

Screw it. Who's behind this whole TV Turn-Off thing anyway, the Amish? Never trusted them and their little hats and beady eyes.

You know who I do trust? TV. It gives me the adventures, friends, comical situations and life I could never have on my own. I'm sorry TV, please forgive me. I'll never turn against you again. Please don't send Buffy to kick my ass and straighten me out.

Then again, I have been a very naughty boy...

Each year about this time we're besieged with thousands -- well, dozens -- OK, one or two letters beseeching us to make a big to-do about National TV Turnoff Week. This week-long festival of self-denial is the brainchild of TV Free America, part of the group's efforts to reduce our nation's jones for the idiot box.

And each year, as the letters come pouring in, asking us to turn our backs on our beloved TV sets and to tell our readers to do likewise, our reaction is always the same: Get away from us, you filthy Commies. And take your crappy bumper stickers with you.

But this year, we're singing a different tune. Oh sure, when the fine folks at TV Free America first approached us about National TV Turnoff Week, our first instinct was to turn the fire hoses on these presumptuous hippies. But then we sat down and thought about it, and you know what? The shiftless pinkos at TVFA may have a point. We do watch too much television. We could stand to cut back on our viewing, at least for a week. And hey, if we don't watch television, we certainly can't write about it. Sounds like an unscheduled week's paid vacation to us.

To hell with this TV Web site gig folks... we're off to Cancun!

So we won't watch a bit of television this week, not one scrap or tittle. Michaels wants to see how his beloved Red Wings are doing in the playoffs? Buy a newspaper, Slick, because ESPN is verboten. The U.S. government wants to spirit away another five-year-old in the dead of night? We won't know about it from CNN; we'll be reading Chaucer. There's a Must-See episode of ER that we just can't miss? Trick question! ER is never Must-See anymore.

No, to commemorate National TV Turn-off Week, we won't watch a minute of television. Not even UPN.

Only one drawback to our plan, when we brought it to the bossman. "Feel free not to watch any TV this week," the Big Man said, as he primed his fine Dominican cigar. "But I still expect you content-providers to deliver as per usual this week."

"But..." we sputtered. "How on earth can we write for a TV Web site when none of us plan to watch TV?"

"That's your problem, riff-raff," the Boss sneered. "Guess you should have thought about that before aligning yourself with a bunch of beatniks."

Guess we should have.

So there will be no trip to Cancun this week. No repurposed TeeVee reruns. Instead, we'll continue to churn out the articles like we always do, only with the extra handicap of not having actually watched any program.

You know, sort of like our Mission Hill review.

Additional contributions to this article by: Philip Michaels.

Certain things we look forward to at the start of each day. That first taste of cheese danish as we settle into our desks. The bracing sip of coffee to wash that danish down. The way the morning sun glitters on the San Francisco Bay as we gaze out the windows of the plush TeeVee Inc. world headquarters. And, of course, that happy little voice emanating from our computers that says "You've Got Mail!" to let us that another reader took the time to write.

We know, we know. You've read 24 or so of these little mailbag pieces and by now, you think you know us. You think we're a bunch of blackhearted bastards running our ham-and-egger Web site who love e-mail only because it allows us to make fun of the very audience that makes us what we are today -- a ham-and-egger Web site run by a bunch of blackhearted bastards.

Guess you've been keeping up with the assigned reading after all.

But still, we love getting e-mail from you, the TeeVee reader, especially when you've got something interesting to say.

Take the nice letter we got the other day from Terra Stoddard of Seattle, Washington, who appreciated our coverage of the now-cancelled NBC series Freaks and Geeks.

Thank you so much for writing about *Freaks and Geeks* in the past! It's been wonderful knowing that someone cares about such a great television show. I know that *Freaks and Geeks* has touched an emotional nerve with me and a LOT of other people. It is the only show I have ever seen that truly captures the crazy, ugly, beautiful scariness of life, and with such affection and warmth. It even inspired me to fly from Seattle to Los Angeles last month to see the show featured at the Musuem of Television and Radio's William S. Paley festival. And I've NEVER been that way about a mere television show!

Anyway, just wanted to say thank you again for supporting *Freaks and Geeks*. I doubt there will ever be another show as truly inspiring as this one, and if it doesn't come back I just may be done with television forever. Because, when you've seen the best show ever done, really, why bother?

Why bother, indeed. Words that the producers of Shasta can take cold comfort in, as they cry themselves to sleep each night on their pile of money.

Still, we appreciate letters like Terra's. We sympathize with her plight -- after all, we wrote much the same thing the day it was shitcanned by NBC.

Yes, very sad. But to everything, there is a season. Death comes to all men. Don't let the bastards get you down.

Back to the grind.

That's when we got the letter from Patty Eberly.

To: cheersandjeers@tvguide.com, tvg.customer.service@tvguide.com, et@pde.paramount.com, life&cmontgomery@usatoday.com, cnn.feedback@cnn.com, letters@ew.com, editors.showbiz@starwave.com, netaudr@abc.com, teevee@teevee.org, webeditors@variety.cahners.com, news@web.nydailynews.com, kpperkins@star-telegram.com, d_ausoin@globe.com

I am writing to you in the concern of my favorite and critically aclaimed show Freaks and Geeks. It has been given lack of airtime and advertisement but it has a chance to be picked up again in the next couple of weeks. All I'm asking is for is an article or any other type of form of advertisement so it will get picked up by a network for next season or for the summer. I will be very greatful if you do this and trust me it won't be forgotten. I thank you greatly for your time.

Well. That's interesting. We've been included with such stellar members of the media as TV Guide, Enterainment Tonight, USA Today, CNN, Entertainment Weekly, Mr. Showbiz, Variety, the New York Daily News, and the Globe! Obviously Patty has decided that our site is so impressive, she's lumped us in with the mighty members of the media. And about Freaks and Geeks again -- well, who can blame her? It was a good show. Thanks, Patty.

Then we got a letter from Sarah and Gerry Denchwater, up in Canada.

As you may or may not know, NBC recently canceled an amazing show called Freaks and Geeks. They gave it a crappy time slot, didn't promote it and moved their time slot around or pre-empted it for othercrappy shows.

"As we may or may not know?" Of course, we know. A fine TV Web site we'd be if we didn't know what shows got canceled. You know, we wouldn't be surprised if Sarah and Gerry have never ever read our site! In fact, that whole "may or may not know" malarky makes us suspicious that -- why, yes! -- this might be a form letter!

Lousy form-letter sending Canucks!

You can probably guess what came next.

In a letter from Lin Almond, we learned:

Please support another network picking up NBC'c cancelled show Freaks and Geeks!

Kids my age need a show with characters they can identify with. This is a show that makes me feel better about growing up. This is a show that I can watch with my Mom!

NBC did not give F&G a chance! They did not promote it and moved it around in their schedule.

It is nice, we are sure, that young Lin can watch this show with her mother. But isn't it a wee bit unsettling that it's a television show, an entertainment, that makes young Lin feel better about growing up? Adolescence is painful, Lord knows. We do not have many fond memories of that time. But if solace was to be had here or there, it was not found watching television -- an activity as antisocial as they come, short of burning, looting and pillaging -- and especially not watching a television program about adolescents who cope with the plight of their age through friendship and camaraderie.

Next came a note from Elliot, who describes himself as a "23 year old male working at an internet start-up company" -- a statement that suggests he may be both a freak and a geek.

This email is attempt to be recognized by the media at large as a loyal die-hard fan of the aforementioned program.

Congratulations, Elliot. We recognize you as a loyal die-hard fan. Go get 'em, tiger!

Yes, Freaks and Geeks -- it's not just a title. It's a demographic.

Suddenly, our reverie was interrupted by a letter from GarbageND:

Hello. I am writing to say that I would like to see articles on the TV show"Freaks and Geeks." "Freaks and Geeks" was a wonderful show, but was canceled by NBC. The problem was, NBC didn't market the show well.

Indeed it didn't, as we wrote. But thanks for writing in, GarbageND, and especially for keeping it short!

Our next four letters all came from... hmm. GarbageND!

Hello. I am writing to say that I would like to see articles on the TV show"Freaks and Geeks." "Freaks and Geeks" was a wonderful show, but was canceled by NBC. The problem was, NBC didn't market the show well.

When we wrote GarbageND back to chastise him for sending us five copies of the same e-mail, he was kind enough to send his reply only once:

The reason I sent so many letters is because I am part of an organization to revive the show "Freaks and Geeks." I was told to send out five letters to each e-mail address I was given. I was also told that it did not matter if the letters were all the same. I was merely doing what I was told.

"I was just following orders?" Son, that mumbo-jumbo didn't cut any ice in Nuremberg 50 years ago, and it don't cut no ice with us now. Off to the gallows with you! Hang the mad dog!

We also received this note from the great Chip656795.... 14 times.

KEEP FREAKS AND GEEKS ON THE AIR, its the best show out there and will be aninstant hit if another station picks it up, its the only show I can watch these days, it has great actors, and witty and creative storylines.

Sure, that looks like a pretty good letter now. But by the 10th time, we've kind of gotten the point. Chip656795 really likes Freaks and Geeks. And, more important, he's a knucklehead.

Fortunately, we got this letter from Prowl280z only once:

Who wears "sunglasses at night" when the glare from the brilliant Freaks andGeeks is blinding at worst? The best TV in a million years depicts highschool misfits (teenagers from mars?) in tragically transitional 1980. With Joan Jett blasting "Bad Reputation" during the intro, this will evoke painfully poignant and gasping-for-air-funny memories from "the kids in america."

As any informed, media-savvy viewer knows, FnG has been victim of a freak accident: it was canned by geeks at NBC. No Bull, Compadre. This is our massive email campaign designed to resuscitate OUR FAVORITE SHOW.

First, thanks for all of your wonderful support in the past. Unfortunately, our efforts need a TREMENDOUS catalyst to generate enough momentum for us to be heard.

My email is a mere fraction of the great "Blitz" of emails being sent this week. As if this were not enough, we will be mailing peanuts to networks to indicate that our show, like Bill Haverchuck, will not succumb without a fight.

Peanuts. After F&G character Bill, who in the last episode of the series to be aired nearly dies from a peanut allergy. Cute. We'll even forgive the Corey Hart reference for that little tidbit.

Our next letter was from Blublustrk:

Who wears "sunglasses at night" when the glare from the brilliant Freaks and Geeks is blinding at worst? The best TV in a million years depicts highschool misfits (teenagers from mars?)

Hey! If we didn't know any better, we'd think that Blublustrk and Prowl280z were the same guy!

Next up, this note from ChekrdVans:

Who wears "sunglasses at night" when the glare

Okay, we get the idea, kid. Let it go. Instead, let's listen to what Sdark1138 has to say:

Who wears "sunglasses at night"

Maybe that's not the best idea. Perhaps we should sample the note from the entirely-differently-named Mdrcity:

Who wears

Moving on! A letter from Neal Walsh of Knoxville, Tennessee. And Neal, if you make one reference to Corey Hart, we're gonna kick your ass.

If you have not ever seen the show i strongly encourage you to do so. I feel confident that you also will find yourself writing e-mails to people you've never met, begging them to put quality back into television.

Talk about a reason not to watch the show...

Fellow Volunteer State resident Neal Walsh chimed in:

Dear Arms of the Media

Good Lord. Next!

Sandy Brunt of Indianapolis, Indiana, piled on, opining:

As a 35 year old married mom with 3 young daughters, it was the highlight of my week after putting all 3 babies to bed.

That's gotta pump up the husband's self-esteem, huh Sandy?

Now, we've got to be honest here. We didn't appreciate getting all these letters -- approaching the century mark at last count. And we wrote many of our tormentors back to beg them to stop with the well-intentioned but nevertheless stomach-churning spam. A few people apologized. They were very nice.

Robert Miller was not one of those people. After repeatedly pointing out that he found our humble site to be "nothing short of obnoxious," Robert added:

I can assure you that I have never emailed you in the past -- I have never even heard of teevee.org --but you can't blame fans for trying to get some help so that they can save one of the best shows on television...

Your page goes out of its way to tout that it is critically acclaimed -- a mention of Freaks and Geeks and the MASSIVE amounts of email that you got would have been helpful. But you didn't do that. Instead of capitalizing on a good story that may help some folks, you chose to take the low road by sending hateful emails to everyone.

Gee, Rob. Way to butter us up. Where can we enlist?

Rob does not appreciate such sarcasm, incidentally.

You remind me of those band geeks I saw in high school -- they were the kids with the witty remarks, who thought they were so cool because they got carry around an instrument.

A school terrorized by band geeks? Where on God's green earth did this clown attend class?

Well, Robert Miller iced it. We now hate Freaks and Geeks. At this point, we're almost inclined to send letters of support and thanks to NBC Programming Swine Garth Ancier and his lackeys for killing a program that caters to annoying people. We're secretly hoping another network picks up the show... and then cancels it. Hell, we're even mulling forming our own network for the express purpose of canceling Freaks and Geeks.

Because you've irritated us. Frankly, we wish you people would just go back to playing Magic: The Gathering.

Folks -- it was a good show. No, it was a great show. It deserved better than it got, and it left the TV universe a better place for its existence. But when the big bell rings at the end of the day... it's still just a show.

It's not just Freaks and Geeks fans. This weekend, partisans of the can't-be-killed Star Trek franchise plan to demonstrate in front of Paramount to pressure the studio to get the franchise back on track -- by inexplicably insisting that the studio produce a series starring friendly but decidedly B-list actor George Takei.

Blame it on the booming economy, we guess. A flawed and corrupt electoral system? Ho hum. Economic disparity and racial divisions? Bo-ring. Some TV show is in trouble? Honey, get my megaphone! We've got some protestin' to do!

Chew on this: Fans of Freaks and Geeks are passing the hat to buy an ad in Variety to trumpet their cause. At last check, a full-page Variety ad ran somewhere north of $3,000 -- not a life-altering chunk of change, true, but certainly a fair amount of coin.

We can think of lot of good things to do with $3,000 and change. Buying ads on behalf of a TV show isn't one of them. Give the money to the American Cancer Society, to cystic fibrosis research, to anything that will actually benefit from its use. But an ad in Variety? Save your shekels. And develop some hobbies beyond the idiot box.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the letterstorm died down. But just when we thought we were safe, our Canadian correspondent, Sanj Arora, alerted us to this horrific news:

'battery park' has been cancelled!

They hear about these things much quicker in Canada, you know.

For a day we waited. Waited for the inevitable. The shower of e-mails, protesting the cruel bastards at NBC for whacking their beloved sitcom, starring their beloved Elizabeth Perkins. Eight messages from a guy in Biloxi beseeching us to send handcuffs to Scott Sassa in honor of the characters in Battery Park, who work in a police precinct. Strangers hitting us up for donations to buy billboard space in Burbank.

And it didn't come. Could it be? Could things be... dare we dream... settling down?

We knew we were home when we got the note from Eric Schmidt.

Regarding your review of "Get Real": Jason Snell is an idiot. I have 2 seperate graduate degrees and spouse has a graduate also.

Ah. Sweet normalcy. Thanks for writing, Eric. Thanks for making the world make sense once more.

Additional contributions to this article by: Jason Snell, Philip Michaels.

Say! Got a television show you'd like to see returned to the airwaves? Wondering what you can do to make sure television executives listen to you, the common viewer who recognizes television quality when you see it?

Wonder no more: TeeVee has provided you with a step-by-step guide to conducting a successful return-my-show-to-the-airwaves campaign.

Step One: Recruit the Underemployed
Your campaign is going to take plenty of time, so be sure to find campaign staffers who have nothing better to do. We suggest using brain-damaged high school students, bored housewives and shut-ins. Don't know any shut-ins? Consider making friends with prison inmates! They have plenty of free time on their hands, and you might get an award for community outreach. Just be sure to bring lots of cigarettes when you're making your new friends.

Step Two: Build a Web site
And remember -- it doesn't matter if the web site is good, so long as it's up there. All your web site has to do is show how incredibly devoted you are to the show. Nobody's going to care about your spelling or site design, because the purity of your argument will transcend silly things like factual data or compelling reasoning.

Step Three: Begin Compiling Media Contacts
Your best friend is the junior class editor for the yearbook? Recruit her in your crusade! You found a list of television critics through the Columbia Journalism Review? Add them all to your mailing list. A bunch of different Web sites have mentioned your show once in the past year? Sign them all up too. Everybody who writes is an all-powerful member of The Media. Be sure to enlist them all in your struggle for un-cancellation, regardless of what they write or who they write for.

Step Four: Craft the Perfect Plea
Remember, you're going to be e-mailing television journalists to ask them to save a television show. Be sure to give a lot of background information about the show, since they've probably never heard of it. Also, be sure to demonize the network -- all journalists love it when you set up your quest as a David vs. Goliath combat. Develop elaborate theories as to why the show failed: accusing the network of poor marketing is a good one, especially if your only experience with marketing has been as the target demographic for something. Next, emphasize how much you, as a television watcher, love the show. Talk about how much it's affected you personally -- strangers love to hear stories about plucky television show crusaders. Finally, plead for the media to do something -- anything! -- to embarrass the network brass.

Step Five: Fact-check the Perfect Plea
Although some people may insist that using evidence based on observable, repeatable phenomenon -- you know, "facts" -- can only bolster an argument, those people are wrong. Facts are the enemy. They can be used to refute your argument -- showing, for example, that there's no direct relationship between the amount of time spent marketing a show and its Nielsen ratings, or pointing out that your show got walloped in the ratings by "Satan's School for Girls." Therefore, stick to amorphous syllogisms. Don't know what that means? Then clearly you're perfect for writing crusade e-mail for cancelled shows.

Step Six: Edit the Perfect Plea
Reread your letter. You probably don't have enough SENTENCES IN ALL CAPS OR EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!!! In addition, you may have made the fatal mistake of using a rational argument: don't bother pointing out that a low-rated show can recoup money in syndication if it's got the timeless appeal of a St. Elsewhere. Don't bother mentioning that some of the shows most commonly thought of as good for their genre -- Hill Street Blues, Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond -- got off to lukewarm starts. Don't even try for a persuasive argument based on the show's merits. Just focus on TELLING PEOPLE HOW MUCH YOU LOVE THE CANCELLED SHOW. That's all that matters.

Step Seven: Send Everyone Your Plea
Now that you've checked your e-mail and made sure that it has a 2:1 ratio of capital letters to lowercase ones, it's time to send it to everyone. Yup, everyone, from network execs to newspaper critics to a bunch of wags running a Web site. Don't bother reading anyone's work to see whether or not they've already come over to your side. Don't bother reading the newspapers or Web sites, period. You don't have time to read! You don't have time to send individual letters! Whether or not an email message is appropriate for its recipient is less important than following your leaders' directions and e-mailing as many people as possible. You need to email people first, think about whether or not Tim Goodman wants to receive the same email as Scott Sassa later!

Step Eight: Have All Your Friends Send the Same Carefully-Crafted Plea
Nothing hammers home the message like reading it twenty or thirty times. Be sure to have everyone you know send identical messages to the same email addresses. Real overachievers will want to send the same message six or seven times, just to make sure the intended recipient got it. Keep on e-mailing people, just in case they have thus far failed to jump on your bandwagon.

Step Nine: Never, Ever Give Up
You're on a quest. Everything you do is blameless and holy, so don't let angry e-mail get to you. Don't let insurmountable evidence against your cause get you down. Feel free to justify sending woefully incongruous email to anyone you want -- times are tough and you need to recruit by any means necessary. Remember, grammar, spelling and courtesy will only slow you down, so don't use them.

Step Ten: Repeat Steps One Through Nine
Even if your show never does make it back on the air, you've learned some valuable skills. You've now exchanged email with real journalists! You've made your voice heard. Now go on and try to save another show, you plucky protestor! There's LOTS OF E-MAILS to write!

ABC has decided to broadcast portions of an interview with President Clinton conducted by Leonardo DiCaprio that had raised questions about why a movie star was fulfilling a role usually handled by a journalist. The network announced its decision in a terse news release on Tuesday, a day after ABC News executives screened the March 31 interview. DiCaprio, chairman of the Earth Day 2000 celebration committee, talked to Clinton about global warming. The interview will appear as part of an Earth Day special produced by ABC News on Saturday, April 22.

-- The Associated Press

"Goddammit."

"What's the matter, Chad?"

"It's this DiCaprio business, Chip. It really has me steamed."

"I know what you mean, Chad. Sending in some Hollywood pretty-boy to interview the President of the United States -- talk about a slap in the face to hard-working TV news reporters like you and me."

"I'll say. What qualifies some actor to talk to the most powerful man in the world? Because he starred in "Titanic?" Because he has nice hair? Well, here's a news flash. I have nice hair and I'm a professionally-trained journalist."

"Right you are, Chad. I've seen your work. That piece on the new low-fat diet that shaves inches off your hips and adds years to your life? Brilliant."

"You're no slouch yourself, Chip. When you did that story about the little boy who remembered to dial 911 when his mother passed out in the kitchen, I swear, I nearly cried actual tears."

"Thanks, Chad. Now do you think a Leonardo DiCaprio, a Winona Ryder could turn in work like that?"

"Not without years of news-gathering experience, Chip. You have to know what tie to wear, when to take a dramatic pause during your stand-up, what stories merit a live report and which ones only deserve a shot from the NewsChopper. And asking the tough questions -- that's not something an actor can just improvise. It takes hours for my producer to brief me on the right questions to ask. And even then, I usually just rely on an intern to do most of my off-camera legwork for me."

"Well, you've got a lot on your mind, Chad. You have to boil down a complex issue like breast implant surgery or a high-speed freeway chase into a 60-second report..."

"...Or have your editor do it."

"Right. And you have to do all that while remembering where to stand and what words to emphasize and making sure not to inadvertently yell something obscene on camera."

"That's what I'm talking about, Chip. People see a rank amateur like Leonardo DiCaprio interviewing the president, and they think anybody could rise through the ranks to become a respected TV news personality. A beauty queen--"

"Like Diane Sawyer?"

"Or a sportscaster--"

"Like Bryant Gumbel?"

"Or an Ed McMahon-like second banana to Jack Parr."

"Like Hugh Downs?"

"Right. I mean, this job isn't just a matter of reading stuff off a teleprompter and nodding emphatically when somebody else is talking. You have to pronounce the words that you're reading correctly, and you have to pay attention to those other people while you're nodding."

"Remember my interview with Monica Lewinsky, Chad?"

"The one where you sat down for a heart-to-heart about her new lease on life?"

"That's the one. Remember how when she was talking about her new handbags and how that gave her a sense of closure after the scandal? What was I doing when the camera cut to me?"

"You were nodding, Chip."

"Not just nodding, Chad. I was listening. And caring."

"Wow."

"Wow, indeed. Now do you think some actor could do that."

"They could pretend."

"Sure, they could pretend. A real good actor like Anthony Hopkins--"

"Or Keanu Reeves?"

"Right. They could pretend. But could they be convincing?"

"No."

"No way."

"Right on."

"You know what I would ask him, Chad?"

"Who, Chip?"

"The president. If I were interviewing him. I mean, you can bet that Leonardo DiCaprio probably just lobbed softballs at him."

"The softest of softballs, Chip."

"Right. Well, I would look the president straight in the eye and say, 'Mr. President, a lot of scientists believe our planet is undergoing global warming. Do you agree?'"

"Tough stuff, Chip. He may cut off the interview right there."

"Chad, I'm a professional. I get paid to ask tough questions."

"I would ask him about the Lewinsky affair. Or his wife's Senate campaign."

"During an interview on the environment, Chad?"

"Of course. I'd catch him off guard."

"You're a crafty one, Chad."

"Craftier than Leonardo DiCaprio could ever hope to be, that's for darn sure!"

"And it's not just DiCaprio. That woman from NYPD Blue..."

"Kim Delaney?"

"No."

"Sharon Lawrence?"

"No."

"Gordon Clapp?"

"No. The woman."

"Oh. Andrea Thompson!"

"Right. She's leaving NYPD Blue to become a news anchor in Albuquerque."

"No!"

"Oh yes. An actress who's never held a news job before in her life is going to be an anchorwoman."

"Well, she was very good on JAG."

"I'm not denying that. But it's one thing to pretend to be a hard-bitten New York City cop. It's quite another to introduce segments on new exercise fads and shopping mall grand openings. I mean, she hasn't even gone to college."

"What? You and I went to college."

"Right, I majored in communications. And you?"

"I forget. But the point is, I received a formal education for my news career. All Andrea Thompson's ever done is read lines that someone else has written and looked good on camera."

"And how does that prepare you to be a news anchor?"

"Goddammit!"

I was looking at some raw data from the Journal of Statistics Data Archive when I came across a chart titled "Televisions and Life Expectancy." Reading the data, I made an interesting little discovery: the lower the ratio of people to televisions, the higher the life expectancy.

Contrary to popular belief, watching an episode of Profiler doesn't suck the life out of you, it seems it actually makes you stronger. Go figure.

For example, here in the good ol' U.S. of A, there is one television for every 1.3 people. The average life expectancy? 75.5 years.

Compare that the citizens of Pakistan, who have one TV for every 73 people. What does that translate to? A life expectancy of 56.5 years. Over in Egypt the ratio of 15 people to one TV set probably figures in its life expectancy of 60.5 years. And in Iran, the average life expectancy is 64.5 years and its ratio is 23 people to one TV.

The more I think about it, the more this low life expectancy/TV set thing makes sense. I mean, have you ever had a fight with your spouse or a roommate over what you were going to watch on TV? Imagine you live in Pakistan and you're having this argument with 72 other people. Things could get ugly:

PERVAIZ: Tonight, we watch The Mork and Mindy!

SEERAT: No, we tonight watch the sublime David Hasselhoff in the underrated action show, The Knight Rider!

AZIZ: It is Allah's will that we watch cricket!!!

MUHAMMAD: No! It is Allah's will that will that we watch the Ricky Schroder in the classic American sitcom, The Silver Spoons!!!

PERVAIZ: Allah wishes to watch The Mork and Mindy!!!!

ZARALUL: No, he wishes to see The Knight Rider!!!

IJAZ: Allah wishes to watch the comedy stylings of Umer Sharif!!!

MUHAMMAD: I will kill any man who does not wish to watch the genius that is the Ricky Schroder!!!

IJAZ: Death to the infidel!

MUHAMMAD: Arggghhhh!!!!!!

I think you get the picture.

Oh sure, some "experts" might say low life expectancy has more to do with "the quality of medical care" or "bad social conditions." But I know their dirty little secret -- the TV has got magic powers.

Now some of the numbers don't make any sense. France has a higher people-to-TV ratio than the U.S., and yet they have a longer life expectancy. I was confused at first, but I quickly figured it out: the French are all watching TV while dead drunk on red wine.

The ratio of people to TVs in Japan is also higher, and their life expectancy is longer by four years. This could be confusing, until you realize that the Japanese have high-definition TV. They've had it for years, and it is only obvious that a higher quality TV image would translate to extra health benefits. And think about this: why is it that the Japanese already have the Playstation 2, while we have to wait until September?

I'm telling you, they know something.

However, the most puzzling bit of information had to do with Canada. Despite the fact that the U.S. and Canada have virtually the same TV-to-people ratio, Canadians, on average, live longer. This one had me stumped for a while, until I started jiggering around the US-Canadian exchange rates. And according to my math, one Canadian year is equal to 1.3 American years.

I guess that would explain why Michael J. Fox has always looked so young.

So the next time you find yourself complaining about how there's nothing good on TV, count your lucky stars. Because in China, people are dying for a little TV -- literally.

"Women can choose capri pants over hot guys if we want to."
-- Lisa Ling, defending her indefensible Old Navy commercial

Thank you, Lisa Ling! Thank you for pointing out that I can have capris or men. Here I was, trying desperately to thin my wardrobe and fend off my many TV boyfriends, and you've given me an out: I can wear some skanky, boxy pants and clear my calendar.

Those of you about to write me and complain because you love capri pants, chill. I own two pairs myself. What amazes me is not that there's some flap over Old Navy commercials -- take away ancient style doyenne Carrie Donovan and there's going to be a backlash -- but that Lisa Ling apparently hasn't learned a thing about controlling her public image yet. At least Barbara Walters gets in hot water over softballing an interview with the exceedingly creepy Ramsey family; Ling's getting flack for appearing in a genre of commercial that brought us the idiot Brewer twins.

Some of you -- those of you who have been cackling mordantly over the missteps the token View Gen-Xer seems fated to make -- may be familiar with Lisa Ling's already shaky public image. Those of you who aren't as spiteful as I might need a little background: Lisa Ling beat out self-appointed Gen-X spokeswoman and Real World alumna Rachel Campos as Debbie Matenopoulos's replacement on May 3, 1999. Almost four months later -- August 2, to be precise -- Ling was making the New York Post's Page Six for trying to weasel out of a 15% apartment finders' fee in return for an on-air plug.

For those of you not versed in broadcast ethics, negotiating goods and services in exchange for free advertising is verboten. Then again, professionalism doesn't seem to have been a criteria in hiring token hip Gen-Xers for The View. Debbie Matenopoulos was to television anchoring what Ethan Hawke is to novel-writing, and it looks like Ling is shaping up to be the Stephen Glass of the airwaves -- someone whose ethical obligations never got in the way of a good deal.

The real issue is not that the 1970s spawned a generation of lying weasels, but that there's a need to conflate professional accomplishment with some sort of generational allegiance at all. The only people who are enamored of generational zeitgeist tend to be the insecure who rely on media-generated trends for self-identity, and those who profit off the insecure. The ones who buy into it -- including all the twits we love to hate on The Real World, the prim and shellacked Pundits of Tomorrow choking CNN's political shows and anyone who desperately wants to be shown up by Joy Behar and Starr Jones on a daily basis -- are just as bad.

Although Matenopoulos was kind enough to be both an easy and deserving target, she had two things going for her: first, she was the pioneer in The View's mix and therefore had no idea what she had gotten herself into, and second, her mistakes were the natural result of her limited insight and talent. Ling lacks both those advantages: she actively campaigned for the now-a-known-quantity Gen-X spot, and she had ten years of broadcast experience going into the job. She knew what she was getting into and yet she keeps stepping into situations that common sense and experience should prevent. You don't set yourself up as a role model if you're not prepared to be held accountable for it later.

Ling claimed to take the Old Navy job in an effort to combat stereotypes -- a first for any series of ads that firmly reinforced dumb-blond jokes. Her defense -- "I saw this commercial as empowering and pretty cool because it shows a minority woman in control and not submissive to a white man's needs" -- is packed with buzzwords without making much sense; when you apply it to a genre of commercials that specialize in campy non sequiturs, one has to wonder, how was Ling planning on using Old Navy commercials to empower the victims of stereotyping? By confusing their oppressors?

It would have been a far better thing for Ling to have said, "You know what? I took the Old Navy job because they offered it to me. I wanted the money, and after my desperate plea for a mate in the bridal issue of InStyle, I was hoping to score me a blond himbo during the shoot." God knows Starr Jones has said considerably more crass things in print, and she's doing all right for herself.

Then again, that comprehensive honesty policy might lead Ling, or other attention-hungry twentysomethings, to admit that they're working the Gen-X label not because they feel an allegiance to a larger cultural group but because it makes for a good career move. Labels provide simplistic, catchy television, and anyone who can enthusiastically embody a telegenic label has an advantage over the complex iconoclasts hoping to get by on the strength of their work.

The irony of using one stereotype to advance her career and land a television commercial purporting to defuse another is probably lost on Ling. But for those of us who now have considerably more brain power available now that we no longer have to choose between fugly pants or men, it's all too apparent.

The other day, a couple of Vidiots went down to the local cineplex to catch "The Skulls." That's the motion picture that poses the chilling question, "Which is worse: a world where a secret cabal has the power to decide who lives and who dies or one in which Coach's Craig T. Nelson is on the short list to sit on the Supreme Court?"

At the risk of revealing the movie's inscrutable denouement -- and if you plan on piecing together the mystery yourself, read no further -- "The Skulls" ends with a pistol duel between our hero, Joshua Jackson, and the conflicted pretty-boy son of the villainous Craig T. Nelson. Jackson, who has just spent the past hour out-running sport-utility vehicles and exposing the evil machinations of the once and former Coach, is beaten to the draw by Conflicted Pretty-Boy. But, instead of sending our Pacey off to his eternal reward, Conflicted Pretty-Boy turns the gun on Craig T. Nelson and fills him full of lead.

A fairly predictable ending that should have been apparent to any tool-using adult shortly after the opening credits. Western Union doesn't send things this telegraphed. Still, that didn't stop one woman in the theater from shrieking, in apparent shock from this not-so-sudden turn of events, "Oh my God!"

We're pretty sure that this woman is a regular reader of TeeVee.

We don't like casting aspersions here at TeeVee, at least not unless it's at Shasta McNasty. And we like to think only the utmost of our readers, many of whom are as clever and quick-witted as we delude ourselves into thinking we are. Still, despite our best intentions, our inclination to see only the best in people, our crazy love affair with the brotherhood of Man, the evidence we've seen points to one unpleasant yet inescapable conclusion about our readership.

Some of you are a little thick.

How else to explain the startling numbers of readers who fell for our April Fool's Day parody? That's our annual April Fool's Day parody, as in, we've done this nonsense each year for the past four. And this time around, just to make our hoax particularly transparent, we made as if AOL had shelled out big bucks to buy our penny-ante little Web site. That's AOL -- the company fresh off the largest corporate merger in history -- buying us and our total assets of the $3.75 in quarters and X-rated movie arcade tokens that Collier has in his trousers right now.

A pretty obvious fakery, right? A two-bit forgery that could have been spotted by even the densest schoolboy?

Let's have reader Supervixen62 tackle those questions:

What the hell is this shit?

Indeed. What the hell is this shit? A thinly veiled gag that shouldn't have tricked anybody in possession of a calendar and their five wits? A ham-fisted ruse thrown together by a handful of people with apparently too much free time? Or just your run-of-the-mill bamboozle best handled by the boys in the bunco squad?

You want to handle that one, Bookwrm456?

You *were* joking, right? 'Cause if not, I'll just go curl up in a fetal position on the floor.

Hey, at least Bookwrm456 entertained the possibility that we might be pulling a fast one. Other readers -- like Michelle Haskell -- were vowing to hit the road to Dulles, Virginia, ready to burn down the office complex of the corporate Man what wronged them.

GEE, THANKS SO MUCH FOR RUINING ONE OF MY FAVORITE WEBSITES! YOUR LAME ATTEMPTS AT WIT ARE BLAND AND UNPALATABLE -CORPORATE, TO SAY THE LEAST. STILTED, WITHOUT FUN, MAINSTREAM, HUMORLESS, BORING AND JUST GODDAMN UN- JOLLY! THEN YOU CAP IT OFF BY INSULTING THE PEOPLE WHO WERE TALENTED AND ENTERTAINING (THAT WOULD EXPLAIN THE FORMER POPULARITY OF THE SITE!) WITH SOMETHING THAT COULD ALMOST RESEMBLE HUMOR BUT MUST REALLY BE IT'S TOOTHLESS, INBRED, BASTARD COUSIN.

THANKS FOR FINDING ANOTHER WAY TO REMIND ME WHY I DO NOT AND WILL NOT EVER PATRONIZE AOL - YOU SUCK THE LIFE AND JOY FROM THE INTENET LIKE AND INDUSTRIAL SIZED HOOVER. ACTUALLY, YOUR SUCKING POWER RIVALS THAT OF THE MECHANICAL MAID IN "SPACEBALLS" THAT ATTEMPTED TO SUCK UP AN ENTIRE PLANETS ATMOSPHERE. ONE CAN ONLY HOPE THAT THIS IS ONE HELL OF AN APRIL FOOLS JOKE - THAT I WOULD HEARTILY APPLAUD!!!!

Then start applauding, Michelle. And be sure to put down the Molotov cocktail before you do.

Folks, we're touched by the outpouring of support, the kind words, the threats of bloody reprisals against Steve Case and company. But fear not: We're still here, and America Online hasn't done anything hackneyed and awful in recent weeks, unless you want to count the preview release of Netscape 6. So relax, everybody. Take a deep breath, pour yourself a stiff drink and enjoy the good chuckle we intended.

And if any of you that were fooled plan on operating heavy machinery or driving automobiles in areas where we live anytime soon, um, could you let us know first?

Or just follow the lead of self-described "faithful TeeVee reader" Jen:

You guys have outdone yourselves this April 1st.

It's a beautiful example of the evil sarcastic humor I enjoy from your site, at least until you get lucky enough to be swallowed up by a giant multimedia conglomerate. Bravo!

Jen, faithful TeeVee viewer until you become a subscription site then I'm outta here.

Thanks, Jen. We knew we could count on you. Unless money is involved, that is.

While we're on the subject of easily fooled readers, here's Angie, who's been tricked into thinking that a) Profiler is a good show and b) that we give a sack of drunken monkey sick what she has to say.

You really suck, if you excuse me for saying so.

I read your article about Profiles In Banality from aug. 16 1999. And let me just tell you, ALLY WALKER is THE BEST actress ever, don't even dare writing so ever again. And the reason why you never got any mails defending her and the show profiler is because no Ally fan reads those kind of things that you write. I only saw it while looking for material about Ally to my new Ally site.

I think you should write an article about the fact someone defended her, I promise that you will get more mails than this one.

Turns out Angie was right. We got one whole more "mail," this one Elizabeth Vega, every bit Angie's intellectual equal. Our tip-off? When she signed her e-mail " Lots of Sunshine, Ally, and Classic Profiler."

Ok, whoever wrote this STUPID article must not have watched one ep of "Profiler". And your references >to Millenium? I'm sorry, that has so been done by every freakin' newspaper known to man. But, if you >had watched an ep of Profiler and an ep of Millenium you would have found a MAJOR difference.

And the remarks about Ally, ummm, no! She is the BEST actress I have ever seen. And as to your reference to her "coldness" on the show, umm, I don't think REAL FBI Profilers jump all over the place spewing emotion. Its the kinda of job that if you let it get personal, it'll break you. Ally Walker will be the ONLY actress that will be able to portray a Profiler realistically.

Thank God I waited a while to write you or this message would have been ful of anger. How dare you slander the work of a hard-working individual when you yourself have probably never been near Hollywood, and with your current attitude, never will.

Actually, Liz, before his recent move to San Francisco, the author of the article in question, our own Philip Michaels, lived roughly twenty minutes away from Hollywood, give or take a traffic jam on the Santa Monica freeway.

Or were you speaking metaphorically?

There's nothing metaphorical about Animal Planet's "Crocodile Hunter, at least as far as jwfan4life had in mind. Just a few snide words from our Jason Snell about animal provocateur Steve Irwin, and jwfan4life leapt into action, context, self-restraint and reading comprehension skills be damned.

You can tell this idiot Jason Snell, that Steve Irwin is an animal lover who is only interested in conserving animal populations and really enjoys what he is doing. He is doing good for the planet, and teaching people to love animals.

All right. Here goes. Hey Jason, Steve Irwin is an animal lover who is only interested in conserving animal populations and really enj...

Oh hell. Snell can read this on his own. Jwfan4life still has something on her, for lack of a better word, mind.

If he doesn't like the show and thinks it crazy--then turn off the channel. He does not have to insult and belittle the man for honestly trying to help our endangered animals. It is always the way of people to try and bring someone down when they have become successful--Maybe you need to work on your own career and try to be successful instead of bringing someone down to try and make yourself successful.

Will do. We'll get started right away on the jwfan4life plan for success. Step one: Write pissy letters to Web sites. Step two: Repeat step one.

Between easily duped TeeVee readers, insane Ally Walker groupies and Crocodile Hunter fans who have vowed to defend Steve Irwin to the death, you can understand why we might have found this month's mailbag to be a downer. Thank goodness for alert TeeVee reader Paula, who read a sneering Philip Michaels article about televised cheerleader competitions and decided to set the non-Hollywood bound grumpus straight.

As a parent of a varsity cheerleader I am offended at the column you wrote about cheerleading. Obviously you must not know much about this sport or what these girls go through to get to nationals. These girls are the best of the best. Maybe you ought to spend some time with some of them while they are preparing for nationals. These are very smart and disciplined girls. They do cheerleading out of love for it. Our girls competed this year in Florida and came home with white satin jackets and we did last year.These girls raise their own money to get to Florida. It is a shame that you have this opionion about cheerleading in whole. I bet if you spent some time with these girls and really saw what they did and how they got there, you might appreciate the sport more. If I can assist you with anything in this area, I would be happy to.

If we've read Paula's letter correctly -- and we pride ourselves on our ability to read for speed and accuracy -- we get the impression that she's inviting us to spend a significant chunk of time, hanging around cheerleaders. Young, innocent, impressionable cheerleaders. Watching how they train. Seeing how they spend their leisure time. Learning their innermost thoughts and secrets.

This is the best e-mail we've ever gotten.

And, in the spirit of détente proposed by Paula, we'd like to extend her invitation to other, oft misunderstood professions -- porn starlets, stewardess, exotic dancers, information systems managers with favorable stock option packages. By spending time around these folks, we hope to have a great appreciation for what they do and why they do it.

And believe us when we say: this offer is no April Fool.

Additional contributions to this article by: Philip Michaels.

God Bless Television.

Thanks to what our proletarian comrades in the late, lamented Soviet Union used to call The Blue Screen, my innate anti-social "tendencies" have finally reached full flower, even as my attention span and short-term memory hurtle toward the abyss side by side, as if Galileo had dropped them together into the burning maw of hell. "Gravity acts equally on all objects, regardless of mass," sayeth the Heretic, lo those many eons ago.

Well, no duh! Thanks for running around the 14th Century, or whenever the hell it was, yammering on and on and on and on, annoying the shit out of everybody with your great discoveries and revelations concerning the obvious and the mundane. You were a pimple on the ass of the Holy Roman Empire, Galileo. The Pope had your number, home boy, and if he hadn't finally busted a cap in your ass, God knows what stupid stunt you would've pulled--something like, say, inventing radio, founding the Excellence In Broadcasting network, and fouling the airwaves of the Renaissance with three daily hours of Mega Dittoes about what the fucking sun does or doesn't revolve around.

Like it really matters. It shines, doesn't it?

Now, if Galileo had really wanted to leave a legacy that his many bastard children could've been proud of, he would've gotten off his ass, put the cork back in the wine bottle, and done something truly useful. Like inventing television. And the 30-second movie trailer.

Especially the 30-second movie trailer.

I had this revelation, neither obvious or mundane, a few weeks ago. I was sitting in my living room, cleaning my illegal assault rifle, minding my own damned business, when the wife dared speak to me unbidden. Blessed chemicals have blurred the memory of that most unfortunate lapse, but as I recall the conversation went something like this:

Wife: How come we never go anywhere together anymore?

Me: Urp.

Wife: We never do anything.

Me: Beer.

Wife: Can't we at least go to a movie sometime?

Me: Where the hell's that damned beer?

Wife: Movie blah blah blah blah Movie blah blah blah blah Affair blah blah blah Lawyer blah blah blah Divorce blah blah blah I WANNA GO SEE A GODDAMN MOVIE! Blah.

Me: I done told you not to go around hiding my beer.

So, having thus decided that we were going to see a movie, it was left only to decide which movie. And, for that, we turned to our dear friend, the magic box through which passeth all knowledge, our television. Surely, it would lead us through this little rough patch in our holy and consecrated union, and allow us to resume our mutual journey along the path of wedded bliss together.

And such is the beauty of the 30-second movie trailer. See, a 30-second movie trailer is, in fact, the entire damned movie, in miniature. Reduced to its elemental essence, like a haiku of a movie. Free. Beamed straight into your own little out-of-the-way, isolated, heavily-fortified compound, as it were. No sticky floors, no overpriced tickets, no sickening stench of buttered popcorn, no squalling children. And, most importantly, no lengthy attention span required.

At first, wife was reluctant to credit my most logical and evolved reasoning. More blah blah blah, more kvetch kvetch kvetch. But then, we watched the trailer for "Mission to Mars" together, and soon enough it all became clear to her.

Wife: "Mission to Mars" looks interesting. Let's go see this one.

Me: Well, there's Gary Sinise, floating around in a spaceship. Wait, now there are dinosaurs and mastodons running around. A picture of human DNA. Oops, now they're all floating again. Now they're in a big white room watching a comet hit the earth. Woah--a giant Sand Tornado Monster is eating Gary Sinise! Now he's drowning. What's that charbroiled alien thing holding out in his hand, do you suppose?

Wife: Huh?

Me: Exactly.

Wife: OK, no "Mission To Mars."

Me: Well, I did sorta like the idea of grievous harm coming to Gary Sinise. And that big white room was intriguing--I wonder if Brian DePalma got hold of some "2001: A Space Odyssey" outakes at the Stanley Kubrick estate auction?

Or take the trailer for the new Julia Roberts movie, "Erin Brockovich." Some mid-cult pop song by Sheryl Crow starts playing. Some face shots of Julia pop onto the screen, showing her full range of acting talent--bemused yet flustered, and flighty yet coy. Then she makes a comment about hating lawyers, but working for them anyway. Then she says something about her boobs having magical powers to elicit information about something from someone. Next, Julia is in an office, the frame freezes, and "Erin Brockovich" flashes up on the screen--it's at this point when I thought Julia's appearance on Law & Order last year was just a precursor of a sickening career slide into ill-conceived and oft-cancelled spring replacement series on Fox. Hell, what I really expected was for the words "A Quinn Martin Production" to suddenly appear underneath the words "Erin Brockovich."

But, alas, that didn't happen. Instead, there are more pictures of Julia acting her tight little ass off, promising to help some unfortunate in need, and then she slumps against an office door, a look of tired but winsome satisfaction pasted on her face by the makeup department of whichever studio wants us all to experience the slow death of fingernails rasping against the chalkboard of our aesthetic sensibilities. Julia looks cute, Julia flashes cleavage, Julia gets job, Julia does something good but really hard, Julia gets really really tired, Julia is happy.

In other words, it's her autobiography.

And, thanks to television, thanks to the 30-second movie trailer, I didn't have to waste one red cent on it. Didn't have to leave my compound unguarded and dangerously exposed. Didn't, in fact, have to move one lazy bone in my body.

How sweet is that?

So, will I ever bother to sit through a whole movie again, now that I have uncovered the secret of the 30-second movie trailer? I plan to. Actually, once I establish my libertarian dictatorship, I'll be able to arrange my own private screenings of all the latest and greatest Hollywood flicks in that spiffy screening room in the basement of the White House--the very same screening room that luminaries like Gary Sinise brag about getting invited to when they go on The Tonight Show.

When I establish my libertarian dictatorship, I expect I'll do a whole lot of things. You're gonna regret that Cousin Humper remark, Chris Rywalt, yes sir you are--no invitations to the Willie Nelson Memorial White House Rooftop Hempatorium for you, boy, or for any of your ilk. And as for that foul-mouthed, chain-smoking, liquor-swilling vixen bitch Shannen Doherty, well... every maniacal libertarian dictator worth his jism needs a mistress. You just tell El Presidente what you want done with mean old Aaron Spelling, honey, and remember to leave those spike-heeled shoes on when you come to bed tonight, yes yes.

But until that bright and happy day arrives for us all, I'll always have the 30 second-movie trailer to see me through the lean times. The seed times. The times all who would rule by cruelty and caprice must go through, that their bile might be up to destiny's demands.

Did I say it before? Hell yeah, I did! And I'll say it again.

God Bless Television.

Youth and idealism mix as naturally as gin and vermouth. But take too much of the stuff and next thing you know you're driving into telephone poles, or writing The Last Tycoon, or trying to make the world safe for democracy. Pretty soon you get a reputation as an obnoxious jerk, and people stop inviting you to their tony parties and aren't they just a bunch of goddamned phonies, so who needs 'em...?

Twist that metaphor to its logical conclusion and you have a fairly good likeness of Adam Werbach. Who the hell is Adam Werbach? A Gen-X do-gooder, fresh from his stint as the youngest president of the Sierra Club, author of a down-with-greed, up-with-people tract called "Act Now, Apologize Later," Werbach is taking his annoying brand of activism to the Internet. His latest crusade is to "Smash Regis."

The venerable Reuters recently called Werbach's effort a "Regis Backlash." Well, if a platoon of yelping San Francisco pinks with a Web site is what it takes to be considered a "backlash" these days, then I'm an Important Political Pundit.

Hmm... yes, well... anyway...

What did Regis ever do to provoke the wrath of Werbach? "Regis represents everything that is wrong with media right now: money, greed and lack of content," he told Reuters.

That's a bad thing? You'd think Regis personally supervised Kathie Lee's Guatamalan sweatshop laborers. Besides, everything that is "wrong" with television -- because that's really what Werbach is talking about -- is everything that makes it what it is, what it always has been, and what it always will be. Regis is the quintessence of TV. Millionaire is the most popular show on television today because it delivers on all of its promises, which are simple and few. Millionaire is just the latest, grandest, gaudiest example of Giving the People What They Want (and keeping 'em coming back for more). If Regis is wrong, then I don't want to be right.

Werbach's real problem is with the Moronic American Viewing Public. I can sympathize. Nine-tenths of the programming on the air today is stale, twice-warmed over bilge. But, alas, Werbach and his wheatgrass-quaffing comrades go too far for me to join their crusade. They want to "reclaim" television and the Internet with programming that delivers more than the bucketfuls of dollars that shower Millionaire. Just imagine what would happen if the likes of Adam Werbach got his hands on a network, or even got his own show.

As it happens, we don't need to imagine. Werbach does have his own little environmental show called The Thin Green Line, that airs on a little cable channel called Outdoor Life Network. (Not to be mistaken for The Outdoor Channel, touted as "the TV Network the NRA members have waited their whole lives for.") What's more, it turns out Werbach's pitch to ABC was coldly rebuffed by the suits. Couldn't they see that here was something grand, and important, and beautiful, and authentic, and uplifting and right?

And so there you have it. Behind all of Werbach's righteous fulmination against the corporate greedheads who control our minds and arbitrate our tastes is something equally sinful -- envy.

"It's like they've built the biggest megaphone in the world and nothing comes out of it," Werbach says. "Here's the most powerful medium in our lifetime... shouldn't we be using it for something important?"

Like what? The Fight the Power Variety Hour? Or -- please God, no -- more of PBS's Frontline?

Millions of viewers tune into Regis three nights a week. How many people watch Werbach? Half a dozen burnouts, maybe, not counting his parents.

I'd wager you couldn't find enough masochists in all of San Francisco, Alameda, and Marin counties to fill the men's room at the old Fillmore who could stomach more than three minutes of Werbach's braying. Just imagine Mr. and Mrs. America as they flip through their 500-channel universe. "Lessee," they might say, "do we wanna be scolded by some pompous punk-ass or do we wanna watch some fat guy win a million bucks on a question about computer bugs?"

I'll stick with the Fat Guy, and a martini straight up, thank you very much.

Visit My TeeVee.org, TeeVee's April Fools' parody for 2000.