Yeah, it's harsh, but cable is required for being poor and trashy in America.
The poor can be without retirement plans, education, teeth, and health insurance, but they MUST have HBO's debauchery. It's scarey.
Since you put the words together, I feel that it won't hurt to point out that "poor" and "trashy" are not necessarily correlated. I have known some people who were really poor, and were also of very good character. Definitely not trashy. Conversely, there are some very well-off people who are trashy. Why, right offhand, I can think of one person who has received an advance of $8,000,000 for a book she "wrote", and is still one of the trashiest around.