Entertainment What's-The-Point

Here's my copy of a recent Entertainment Weekly.  Now watch me as I read it. 

There.  Done.

Inexplicably, I am still a subscriber to this magazine which comes in the mail every Friday.  You remember magazines?  Those little pamphlets that sometimes contained news and/or opinions.  You actually had to move the pages with your fingers touching real paper and not a computer screen.  It used to be so much fun.

Ah, I remember the day when Entertainment Weekly first started publishing in 1980.   I was an early digit participant in their weekly paid subscription.  And not a casual reader.   I devoured the whole issue.  Cover to cover.  A publisher's dream.  I went through every single page.  And likely looked at the ads, too.  Boy, did the folks at the Time-Life Building really love me or what?!

Back in the day, Entertainment Weekly was a must-read for this media-saavy consumer.  It covered it all.  Movies.  TV.  Music.  Books.  I gobbled it up every Saturday morning.  It would help me decide what movie to see that Saturday night and the absolute must-see TV program next week.  It would give me show business news that I was too busy to notice.  And remind me that, oh, yeah, such-and-such died and what a legacy he or she had left for the entertainment world.

I never ended my original subscription.  I moved 3000 miles and kept it coming.  And, like an obedient and well-mannered child, it would show up on time in my mailbox every Friday.  Except for the time when the neighborhood mail carrier was this fat Black chick who liked to read my magazine in her truck while she was chowing down on a quarter-pounder. 

Despite the brief bouts with ketchup stains, I rarely missed an issue of Entertainment Weekly.  But a curious thing has happened.

I don't read it anymore.

I barely skim it.  It comes.  I open it.  I flip through the pages.  I glance briefly at the letter grades their reviewers give the new movies.  I then ignore them as I have been frequently burned by an Entertainment Weekly A- which usually translates to a Len D-.  But, whatever the case, I am completely finished with my EW read in perhaps two minutes.  Three minutes if I'm a little distracted.

So what has happening with this love affair?  Is it me?  Is it the magazine?  Or, as is usually the case with most romantic fizzles, a little of both?

Over the years, I have become less and less interested in mainstream media.  I don't run to see the new movie opening this weekend.  I have a very high threshold for placing TV shows into a "must-see" classification.  I already know all the show business people who croaked this week.  And music?  What the hell is a Gaga anyway?

I discover that EW spends more and more time on reality TV stars.  Maybe it's because America is doing that and there's a convincing argument for moving to Switzerland.  I realize that I don't give a rat's ass for anything that has mass popularity in this country.

My God, I'm now my father.  Or even worse.  My grandmother.

I used to be on the cutting edge of all the hottest things in show biz.  But, of course, now it's more biz and less show.  I can't tell one Bachelorette from a Big Brother or a Survivor or an Amazing Racer.  No, I don't think I can dance.  And, yes, I have talent but that doesn't mean all of America does.

My friends, I have officially fallen...with a thud...out of Entertainment Weekly's core demographic.

Okay, the magazine doesn't go blameless here.  The writing is now sophomoric.  The reporters are a bit suspect.  And, lots of readers must agree.  There are weeks where EW is so thin that it would take longer to read an Easter greeting card.  They are really putting this out to the public and calling it a magazine?  Really?  The Chinese take-out menu that arrived in the same mail delivery has more substance.

Meanwhile, I just renewed my subscription for another two years.  I guess some habits are hard to break.  Biting your nails.  Picking your nose.  And, oh, yeah, buying Entertainment Weekly and then not readng it.

Dinner last night:  BBQ spare ribs at Half Moon in Dobbs Ferry.