Much like the Suck-cut of Wayne's World fame, Iowa is sucking my will to live. It's not that Iowa is inherently bad (tho the food is, both morally and tastingly), it's that I am drained of purpose here. My days are structured by when I go online, when I watch tv, and when I eat junk food. Perhaps partly because of jet lag, but probably mainly because of my own degeneracy, I spend the hours 11pm-4am aimlessly watching tv. Important parts of my life - like finding a job, preparing grad school aps, writing about politics, and moving more than 5 meters at a time - are thrown aside, and I descend into a quasi-suburban hell.
On the plus side, I am now reacculturated to American life. A week in southern California brutally reintroduced me to car culture, and now I've been reacquainted with television. Whether good clean fun from Adult Swim, the lassitude-inducing experience of watching tv news, or simply watching the same 6 videos repeating endlessly on MTV, I know I'm home.
Speaking of which, based on field research this is MTV's current rotation:
1. Kanye West, the video about blood diamonds,
2. a video by one of five interchangeable pop punk bands, moving in the ruts of safe alternativeness established 15 years ago, but more upbeat,
3. one of six interchangeable gangstas-and-hip-hop-hos videos (interchangeable except that the 50 Cent video contains not just black hip hop hos, but white ones and Asian ones as well, each with their own section of the video, the Asians complete with Oriental fans),
4. either Jessica Simpson's slutty video or Pussycat Dolls,
5. one of two No Doubt videos, sometimes substituted with Gorillaz,
6. Coldplay. (repeat)
And by far the best video here is the Jessica Simpson one. It is hilarious! I can just imagine the production team, thinking "We have the whole bar girl w/stripper hip action sequence, followed by a dancing Hooters waitress sequence, but there's just something missing. Wait, that's it! A bikini car wash scene!"
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