Saturday, July 06, 2013

Reruns

Please understand that I am a huge fan of The Daily Show. But I have a beef: It's a lie. While Jon Stewart and his colleagues dish up delicious mounds of political satire and thought-provoking satire on a regular basis, it is hardly on a daily basis. The show is on four days out of seven, as if the most important news would take a nice three-day rest while the writers and staff catch their collective breath to pursue whatever zeitgeist catches their sometimes bawdy sense of humor Monday through Thursday. This doesn't take into account the number of times each of these "live on tape" shows are repeated throughout the rest of the viewing day on Comedy Central. In this regard, it becomes more of a "Multiple Times During The Day Show." It's not a news show. It's a comedy show, and therefore shouldn't be held to the structures CNN or Faux News. That's probably why, in the midst of a three-month sabbatical for its host, the Daily Show is taking a two-week break for the summer.
Okay.
Now I turn my attention to the magazine that sits on my coffee table each week: Entertainment Weekly. It arrives in my mailbox with frightening regularity, sometimes Thursday, sometimes Friday. That lets me know that I need to wrap up the last few articles in the previous week's issue, and then prepare to take on whatever fresh showbiz news that shows up between the covers of the next. I will sit down on the following Monday with that new issue and try to make it last: features, reviews, and finally just before the back cover, the Bullseye. That works pretty well until they do me the huge and uninvited favor of sending me that Special Double Issue. The one that covers two weeks, usually around a major holiday or vacation. It would be fine if those special issues could be parsed out over the two weeks that appear on the cover, but inevitably they are filled with pictures and lists that translate into much quicker perusal than the standard issue issue. I know if I'm trouble if I find myself wanting to buy another periodical. That itch to purchase a Rolling Stone or TV Guide usually passes, but I can only blame the editors of Entertainment "Weekly."
Instead, I prefer to keep the pace here in my corner of the Internet. One a day. Sometimes they're a little thin on wisdom, but mostly they're consistently my thoughts. Daily.

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