Why I am supporting “Cage Against the Machine” for the 2010 Xmas #1

Every year seems to be YET another year of reality TV and I really really really am losing any sort of restraint when it comes to reality TV! On exactly what planet does “Big Brother”, “The XFactor”, “I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here” or “Britain’s got Talent” represent reality? Have I slipped through a wormhole into an alternate universe where this piped sewage dribbling into our living room is normal “real” behaviour?

I have to say that I am overjoyed that the tedious months of endless drivel that was Big Brother and it’s even more odious Celebrity Big Brother is now over forever! No longer will we be force fed the inanities of those farting, whinging, petty and oh so poor examples of the citizens of this proud land. Who for some dubious rationale are given months of air time wrapped up in Davina McCall’s inappropriately effervescent sycophantic dribbling in the hope that the result will amount to “entertainment”.

However as Big Brother ground to a halt, the X Factor seems to have gained in popularity hand over fist. For the first half of this annual waste of time we endure the painful humiliation of people who really should be advised by people that actually care about them before allowing their friends to be shown as talentless, tasteless and sad people who are only fit for the derision of the judges and our laughter at their expense. This section of the program for me carries the dank smell of the freak show tent with it, we pay out shiny penny and we laugh at, and not with those people paraded before us, and we revel in the vaguely disgusted looks and snide comments of the judges as they finish these innocents off in a bloodless but no less painful coup de grace.
It is not the boring that we are shown, it is not the ordinary we are allowed to see. The producers year after year parade the truly awful in exchange for our cash. Do not forget it is we the public that that pay Cowell and his coven of cackling Svengalis for this annual bacchanalia of idiocy every time we vote for “our choice”. Cowell has now become the the patron saint of the talentless. This man’s claim to fame is that he gave the world Sinitta, Robson and Jerome, The Teletubbies and Sonja, you do have to say this man really knows his shit!

Do not get me wrong, I do like pop but to dislike The X Factor is not to dislike pop. Cowell’s creation is not about creating great pop songs, it’s about managing you, the punters, to part with cash every week in the build up to the eventual elevation to very brief stardom of the winner. The last act in this annual play on our purses is the “must have” X Factor Christmas single. It has becomes almost impossible not to be willingly dragged into the sewer that is the kingdom of Cowell both here and in the US and pay buckets of hard cash for the banal scripted shit he has created for his willing subjects.

.. and this is why I am backing “Cage Against the Machine”,  John Cage’s 4’33” of silence remixed by actual talented musicans for the UK Christmas #1. If it gets there, which I hope it will, then at least the people of Britian will have 4’33” of relative silence to reflect on the real music (of whatever genre that makes your soul fly) rather than the odious pap xFactor churns out every year.

*** End of Rant ***