Eating the Can.

Beauty! Perfection! What is it? What do you think it is? What does everybody think it is? What does it matter? What, what, what is with all the "whats?" Last night the wife and I were flipping through the channels. I should say-she was doing the flipping, and at a snail's pace at that. . . but, that's for another day. On our journey through cabledom, we stopped for a spell on a Shania Twain special. I get the impression the show's director doesn't want us to peer at Shania any longer than 2.5 seconds, lest we see she may not be the fairest one of all. I did my best to test this theory, much to the chagrin of the wife. There are certain tools we males acquire through survival-hunting, fishing, starting the weedeater, cleaning cat puke, and of course, calming our wives' suspicion with phrases like, "she's too skinny, she's too fat, she's too phony," and a hostess of others. It's like getting a socket set at Sears. You got one for every job imaginable! Except when we need a metric size. By the way, I think Lucy Liu's on Letterman! Alas, to have another universal remote.

A lot of us boomers turn up our perfectly digital sounding XM radios up to 7 or 8 when the Kinks' You Really Got Me or its twin All Day and All of the Night come on. I, for one, think these songs sound great. Sure, they were performed and recorded with all the technical perfection of roadkill, but they still make me twitch better than any of the digital fare on the all you can stand to eat media buffet open 24/7. So much perfection on the airwaves! No wonder! We have electronic tuners for musical instruments, computer software that corrects vocal pitch flaws, digital drummers that never miss a beat (and don't get drunk and steal your girl). Gone are the days when funny little mistakes like the one left in Louie Louie were unwittingly left in for posterity. Imagine Willie Nelson getting Botox treatments! I cherish these imperfections-they're so human. Now there are programs that make digitally perfect copies of music and movies, all free for the taking. Right now, I'm watching channel 503. Channel 503! I mean, jeez, anyone remember 2 thru 13? I'm not sure with all these choices if there's really much I even want to see.

Abandon the notion that "what was" was better than "what is." That's not fair to all of those who feel inspired enough to express themselves, young and old. Rather it's the idea of "diminishing returns." When you open a can of Pringles, the first chip tastes as good as a thick steak smothered in A-1 (or for you vegetarians, as good as a handful of baby greens smothered in sunflower seeds). But ten minutes later, three-fourths of the way down the can, you feel like you're eating the can (no known vegetarian equivalent)! As we consume the media buffet, after a while one chip tastes (sounds and looks) just like any other chip, and if we indulge too long (more than 2.5 seconds?) we eat the can. You know, it's true, beauty is in the eye of the "beeholder"-ever try to hold a bee?