How many

times are we going to hear about how the people on this

TV show are gonna eat rats?

If you have been hiding in

a closet somewhere with Elian Gonzales for the past few

weeks and haven't heard about "Survivor," it's

a new game-show-like TV program that sets a number of

semi-nude people on a semi-deserted island to see which

ones can "survive."

Somehow, having a camera

crew filming all the events doesn't make me think life or

death. It makes me think, "America's Favorite Home

Videos" meets "Gilligan's Island." I am

hoping by the third or fourth episode some faux-Hanson

band will crash land on the island to lead the castaways

in a rousing go-go party. This is what we need more of

these days... more fake realism.

"Survivor" is the

icon for everything that is wrong with our thinking

nowadays.

A semi-unknown island,

Palau Tiga off the cost of Borneo, is the setting for the

Regis generation's, own private "Real World."

Like MTV's "The Real World," there is

bickering, almost-romances and lots of inhumane living

conditions on "Survivor." "The Real

World"'s gross-you-out digs are generally

million-dollar loft apartments, though - just being

kept up by misunderstood losers who make the token

fire-breather/rap-singer/lesbian roommate look normal by

comparison. Which reminds me, why in these real life

shows does the person with the worst body always work the

hardest to show it off?

So, here is what most of

the country is watching; mankind's real-life struggle for

survival that would be a vacation emotionally from what

most of us face in our lives daily. This stuff is just so

fake.

At least in professional

wrestling they smirk at us once in a while. Pamela

Anderson Lee's fake chest is at least watchable. This

stuff is embarrassing. How fearful are we supposed to be

for the contestants when there is a round-the-clock

medical crew on hand.

At least Jim Bakker went to

jail for his fake world. Jail was probably a relief from

living in that Hades known as Tammy Faye.

It seems like everything in

our society today is blatantly contrived. It is the

politician's image that matters, not the man. Every

singer or band is just a cookie cutout of another: N'Sync

are the Backstreet Boys, Christine Aguillera is Britney

Spears. I could make anyone into a rapper - just

have the kid break the law a few times, get a criminal

record, get a drum machine, and recite Dr. Seuss,

substituting an obscenity for every fourth word.

"Survivor" is a

ruse. It is a nothing more than "Frankenstein,"

a fabrication of semi-honest moments in a semi-honest

location filmed with semi-shaky cameras.

It's "Lord of the

Flies" for Prozac Nation. It's "Robinson

Crusoe" as reported by the National Enquirer and

Entertainment Tonight. Like the house-of-cards companies

that fuel the Nasdaq, this thing looks great on paper but

will never turn a profit. In addition to the million

dollars that the winner gets, does he or she get a date

with Darva Conger? Now THAT would be a show.

I love the excess of

television and the crazy sensationalism that goes along

with it. Just quit trying to sell me the garbage as

truth. I want the garbage to be garbage. I want fiction.

We love fiction. We don't want or need to know

everything.

Even my innocent parents

knew that to get little Ricky, Lucy wasn't always alone

in her separate twin bed. Yet, I am sure they were happy

to be spared the details (It would have been funny

though, to end the episode with Big Ricky's signature

line... "Lu-cee!!! Huwhat happened!!").

"Survivor" is a

ruse. It is a semi-truthful representation of semi-actual

events. Because, like with all of us, as soon as the

cameras start rolling everyone plays to the audience, not

to themselves.