"Gift of Blankness"

If you’re like me, you are sick of VH-1 specials of eight hundred comedians giving their three million different takes on one theme. I love to hate the “I Love” series in which a network pays people to sit and make snide comments about pop culture. If I wanted to partake in this, all I have to do is have a couple of friends over for dinner and a film like Point Break starring Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves.

To my horror, this trend of superficiality laced with irony is no longer a fad but a way of life. This movement was coined by Jesse, and best explained by Alex Blagg (and observed by many) as the “New Sincerity.” If I were to process this into my magical critical/social theory skills, I would say that Americans particularly are sick of crap. Particularly hypocritical crap. Case in point, we want to “shock and awe” a country because we believe they may have WMD. Motive: We want oil. They have a lot of it and probably can’t defend themselves. Hey, coincidentally, we also have this excuse of a domestic terror attack that we could use as a scapegoat. Unfortunately, our leadership did not foresee the less than peaceful welcome.

Another example is paying an exorbitant amount of money for "health care" wherein exchange we receive overpriced and limited medical attention in addition to extremely long waits in office lobbies wherein we contract additional diseases from wailing, young children who do not have parents that teach them the importance of god forsaken covering their mouths whenever they cough, sneeze, vomit and emit piercing squeals. [And I thought Indian health care was bad. I would forego "health care" for Indian hospitals any day (but there are no Indian hospitals in Indiana so we will talk about that another time). This is not considering the American population who neither have the luxury of health care nor hold a CDIB card. You get the picture?]

In our search for some sort of real meaning and depth, we look to our recent past that was so real that it was unreal. Like Bret Michaels donning pink, glittery lip gloss and singing, “UnSkinny Bop.” These people were serious about their stupidity, whereas now we are just stupid by being too serious. We prefer fortified cereal with marshmallows and high sugar content. Or gummy bear vitamins. Or glamorizing reality television. Or buying artists’ records that were produced before they ever played live. And then forgiving them for lip syncing live. Or supporting our children’s education with lottery money.

So ‘tis the Spirit, bitches. Alas, I did not win the holiday new sincerity contest hosted by the aforementioned Blagg Blogg and Splangy. So, in the words of Point Break’s Brodhi, this is my “gift of blankness” to you.

Providing Impoverished Third-World Children with Fashion Dolls
The Official Christian Charity of the New Sincerity

Because Mattel will save you from hell.

"I found the most beautiful bride Barbie doll somebody sent. And down that little rocky path again came little Sarah, and this time grinning from ear to ear. She bathed her little face and combed her little hair so straight and found some kind of a little -- not a ribbon. It looked like it was a piece of cord like she found a cord like someone tied a horse up or something. And she made it all like a bow. And she stuck this in her hair with a little piece of wire. And she was the cutest little thing. Bare footed but clean. And when she walked up there and I was able to hand into those little arms the little bride doll and showed her the picture of Jesus on it. And I said Sarah who gave this to you? And that little hand went straight up to Jesus, Jesus did. Jesus did. And that's the joy of being able to do that.”
- Journal Entry from Jan of “Praise the Lord”
http://www.smileofachild.org/about/index.php/1/6.html

In essence, Barbie dolls are more filling than food.