Blog Love Omega Glee: Television Reality Meets Reality Television (16 May 2012)

The day is beautiful but Jake thinks Francine is more beautiful. The dreamy lovers have followed love's dream to Jake's front porch where they sit on the porch swing nauseating passerbys passing by with their public displays of affection.

Why can't they keep their hands off one another?

That's what keeps the human race going, folks.

Maybe we should cut it down a bit though. There's quite a few of us these days.

"Jake?" Francine says, looking down the street, "There's a guy coming down the block wearing a camera on his hat and talking to himself."

Jake looks up and sees a middle-aged man with a youthful bounce in his gait coming towards them on the sidewalk. He wears a red t-shirt that says "TommyTommy.TV" in white letters, black shorts, and those dreadful black and white shower shoes that should never be seen outside of a shower, accessorized with white socks pulled up to the knee. His baseball hat has a camera attached to the front of it and he is talking, though no one else is near him. "Oh, that's Tommy," Jake says.

When the man gets nearer, Jake says, "Hello, Tommy!"

Tommy waves and says "Hello!" and walks on by. Jake and Francine hear him say, "So I said hello to that nice couple on the porch and continued down the sidewalk. I'm hungry. I wonder what Mom has for lunch. I hope it's not ham still left over from Easter. I'm tired of eating frozen ham. I mean it's not frozen when I eat it, but it's been frozen, and that makes me think of winter, and I'm tired of winter. Today, sure is a nice day though. Hey, there's the mail male. I call him mail male but if it's a woman then I call her the mail female. That's pretty funny. I like to keep myself amused. I hope I'm keeping you amused. Thanks for tuning in to Tommy TV, where it's all Tommy 24 hours a day. Right now I'm using my hat cam . . ."

Francine says, "So he just broadcasts his life all the time and provides a constant narration?"

"Except when he's sleeping, then he just snores," Jake says, turning around from watching Tommy go down the block.

"Weird. Does anyone watch it?"

"I've tuned in a couple times. But his life really isn't any more interesting than anyone else's so I don't know who would really be much interested in watching it a lot. No one told him that all those reality television shows are more edited and scripted than they like to let on. But maybe someone's so bored that tuning into Tommy is interesting. I don't know. His mom probably watches it at least."

"Everyone wants recognition I suppose. Everyone wants to be a media star. Everyone wants love from the camera. It's our last god. Looks like Warhol was right. So was Orwell. Except he didn't think we'd be Big Brothering ourselves."

"I think I see a blog post coming on," Jake says.

"You might be right," Francine smiles, "But you'll have to read my blog to find out."

Let's take our leave before things get uncomfortably mushy again and we feel like voyeurs, shall we? And let's be thankful Tommy doesn't have much of a sex life; though if he did, he might have more people tuning in.

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.