2004-02-09 - 10:13 a.m.
After years of resistance, we have succumbed to the temptations of the Beast.
We have cable.
Now I can see what the fuss over "Sex and the City" is, I can get my Iron Chef jones, I can monitor TVLand for old "Batman" episodes, and J gets to watch all the interior-design programs and sitcom reruns she wants. For the Professor, there is Noggin - educational programming, 24-7, and the Just For Kids music channel. No visuals, just stuff from various kid's albums. Most of it's pretty cool, like The Zucchini Brothers, The Muppets, Pete Seeger, and The Babysitters (Weavers side project), with the occasional sugar-sweet glitch (Raffi, anyone?). We make sure the Professor doesn't get too much TV, but when she's down for a nap, look out.
I've been having an especially good time with MTV Español. There is more weird, creative stuff coming out of Latin America these days than you can imagine. Hip-Hop, ska, hardcore, dance pop, bizarro flamenco mixups, and some truly freaky visuals. Take, for example, the video for Natalia Oreiro's "Que Digan Lo Que Quieran" (Let them say what they want). Natalia Oreiro is Uruguay's answer to Britney Spears: kid's TV gamine turned sexpot. The video is reminiscent of '80s hair-metal productions: science-fiction story line, band members with superpowers fighting evil and rocking out. In this particular confection, Natalia is this sort of live-action hentai angel princess running around zapping killer robots with her halo while her hyperintelligent rhesus monkey hacks a computer and flies a little airplane. All this is interspersed with shots of Natalia and her band dressed in white leather bondage gimp gear, complete with masks. It's like Slipknot suddenly taking up Christian metal. Completely and utterly ridiculous. Then there's Sóniko (how can you go wrong with song titles like "Furniture from the Planet of the Apes" and a video that features a giant guitar-shredding chicken?), Ilya Kuryaki y Valderramas (funky-ass circus freaks meet the Wu-Tang Clan and the Beastie Boys circa "Hey Ladies"), Maná, manu chao, Molotov, Panteón Rococó … dang. Check it out. The lyrics don't matter; just watch the videos and be amazed.
As Bart Simpson said: Let there be crap.
