{"id":4099,"date":"2009-04-15T06:48:06","date_gmt":"2009-04-15T10:48:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=4099"},"modified":"2009-04-15T06:48:06","modified_gmt":"2009-04-15T10:48:06","slug":"programmed-dyspepsia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/programmed-dyspepsia\/","title":{"rendered":"Programmed Dyspepsia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"[This is the second of three brief(ish) posts on the experience of being sick, sorta-kinda-like, for four (sorta) days. (Here<\/a>‘s part 1.)]<\/em><\/p>\n

So I was sleeping quite a bit. Going online or otherwise sitting at the computer, almost not at all. Beyond that, pretty much, I was on the living-room floor, with The Pooch. Watching daytime television.<\/p>\n

Two highlights, if that’s the word, and disregarding all the low spots (like ’50s-game-show re-runs, infomercials, and talk shows\/soap operas whose unintelligibility to me would be helped not at all by closed captions, since everyone (including the captioners) speaks a language other than English): (1) the MD show, and (2) the Food Network (daytime edition).<\/p>\n

Disclaimer:<\/strong> Yes, I know, I know: this is <\/em>television I’m ranting about here<\/em>. It’s not a rant about the great issues of the day, of which there are many. Give me a break. I was sick<\/em>(ish). When little Billy has a fever or Susie can’t keep her porridge down, surely you don’t rebuke them for wanting to read comic books all day. (Or do you, you wicked old witch?)<\/span><\/p>\n

I don’t know what network or channel the MD show was on. It may even have been embedded in some larger context, like a CNN “feature news” block or some such thing. The set consisted of a simple dais and a sort of anchorperson’s desk, behind which sat four people. At least a couple of these people were doctors; one might (or might not) have been a nurse, and\/or a non-professional medical person at all.<\/p>\n

They discussed two topics in the brief moments before I changed the channel:<\/p>\n

(1) Which direction to wipe. Yes, that<\/em> kind of wipe.<\/p>\n

(2) Farting, which one of them actually called “tooting.” He said, with a straight face, “It’s completely normal to toot 10 to 20 times a day.” Another offered the detail that a typical adult’s daily output is about a gallon of gas. The perhaps\/perhaps-not medical host said it’s a little-known fact that while the gas doesn’t smell good outside the body, when it’s bubbling through our veins it’s very diff—<\/p>\n

Click<\/em>.<\/p>\n

About the Food Network, I’m surely not the only (let alone first) person to note the differences between the day- and nighttime editions:<\/p>\n

At the outset, the Food Network brought to its audience a wide variety of cooking techniques, cuisines, restaurant reviews, and other food information<\/em>. After all, food comes with its own rich palette (ha ha, no pun intended) of sensory drama (aromas, mouthfeel, crunch and crackles, and of course tastes). To a foodie, you don’t improve on food or recipes by forcing them into a narrative arc: telling a story<\/em> with food, let alone dramatizing one, contributes nothing to the food’s appeal. All it does is paper over thin content in a (mostly failed) attempt to be “relevant” or “cool.”<\/p>\n

And yet, from the inside looking out, it must have been terrifying to be a Food Network executive a few years ago. You’d read the trade mags. You’d commiserate at cocktail parties. You’d see the statistics — the only genre of TV programming whose audience seemed to grow, and grow fast<\/em>, is reality-TV programming. (It wouldn’t hurt that reality TV shows are immune to writers’ job actions.)<\/p>\n

What can we do with food to make it more real<\/em>? you’d wonder. How can we make it exciting? How can we make it… make it… <\/em>competitive? fun<\/strong>, even?
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Thus was born “Food Network Nighttime,” as they call it. No recipes. Not counting Alton Brown’s Good Eats<\/em>, which has always occupied a niche of its own, Paula Deen’s and Bobby Flay’s are the closest thing to “cooking programs” on the nighttime schedule. But even they are tainted. Paula’s Party<\/em> is to Deen’s real cooking show what Peewee’s Playhouse<\/em> is to Sesame Street<\/em>. And Flay’s Throwdown<\/em> gives only marginal insight to the food he or his competitors prepare.<\/p>\n

“Food Network Nighttime” seems to me — I’m no ratings guru, true — a perfect illustration of what goes wrong when you sacrifice a known audience (not growing, but fiercely loyal) in pursuit of an illusory one.<\/p>\n

And for true reality-TV junkies, how many of them are gonna switch off Dancing with the Stars<\/em>, American Idol<\/em>, The Great Race<\/em>, or Survivor<\/em> to watch five unknowns battle it out in Food Network Challenge: Sushi Madness!<\/em> or The Next Food Jedi<\/em> (or whatever the topic of the evening is)?<\/p>\n

Right: none.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, foodies, Food Network’s daytime<\/em> programming is like Old Reliable. People still cook there, still explain why they’ve made the seasoning decisions they’ve made, still barely<\/em> get the food to the table before the show’s over (without the artificial “suspense” of juggling a five-foot tower of it to a camera setup*). Get your food processor back from under the counter and put it right up on top — next to your DVR-equipped TV.<\/p>\n

___________________<\/p>\n

* Well, Rachael Ray’s armloads of produce and bowls and jars of spice and miscellaneous implements come close sometimes. But, well, come on<\/em>, people: she’s Rachael Ray<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This is the second of three brief(ish) posts on the experience of being sick, sorta-kinda-like, for four (sorta) days. (Here‘s part 1.)] So I was sleeping quite a bit. Going online or otherwise sitting at the computer, almost not at all. Beyond that, pretty much, I was on the living-room floor, with The Pooch. Watching […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[183,95,196],"tags":[1142,1143,1147],"class_list":{"0":"post-4099","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-everyday-life","7":"category-science-medicine","8":"category-television","9":"tag-sickness","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-food-network","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-147","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4099"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4139,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4099\/revisions\/4139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}