TFP Column: Sequestered, Shut Down, and Debt Limited

In spite of the fact that I seem to be contributing in no substantive way to the number of awards one by the Toledo Free Press, Editor-in-Chief Michael Miller continues to accept my submissions. (We all have blind spots)

Who am I however, to question the judgment of this award winning publication by second guessing their use of "Sequestered, Shutdown, and Debt Limited" this week; while we gear up for the next national financial battle over the Debt Limit even before the previous one over the Shutdown is over.

The truth however is that this is the endless drama in Washington DC has become a dysfunctional reality show, and there's no understanding any of it.  There's no watching any of it either; as their lack of plot, poor dialogue, and even worse acting make "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" a welcome relief.  (Man, I really hate Reality Shows.)

Speaking of welcome relief, it's early enough in the week that you have both the mid-week "Star" edition to look forward to, as well the newspaper that not only continues to be the largest circulation Sunday newspaper, but for the fifth year in a row has one the Best Weekly Newspaper in the State of Ohio (at least according the the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists).  I speaking of course, of none other than the Toledo Free Press.


 

Adult Participation Awards

I was sitting quietly this weekend attempting to come up with a topic suitable for a weekend rant, and decided at some point to do a bit of channel surfing in in attempt to find something to distract myself from the temporary lack of creativity from which I was suffering.  Five minutes and some 100 channels later, all I could think to myself was, "You lousy bastards!"

You know who you are.  It's you timeout giving, namby-pamby can't keep score for T-ball game, let alone paddle or raise your voice to your ill-behaving rug rats that I'm talking about.  If all of that wasn't bad enough however, it was you bunch of bachelor's degrees in underwater basket-weaving cretins who decided that awarding only those who succeed might hurt the itty bitty little feelings of your attentioned-starved crumb crunchers.  In order to nuture their already overblown self-esteem therefore, we must instead give everybody who showed up to play a 'participation trophy'.  Well I hope your happy now.   

Take a hard look at what your plastic handout nurturing has done to the world ... or at least the mid-season line up for television shows on the cable networks, if you want to see the results of your folly.  Every Tom, Dick, Harry, Bubba, Goober, and Billy Bob now thinks they deserve to be the star their own show if they're willing to act like a self-willed two year-old when the cameras are running (unless you're Honey Boo Boo, in which case you have to be six).  Of course if you don't see a gender role or level of immaturity that fits you, have no fear.  Maybe instead you'll get yours if you can be a selfish, spoiled, rich bitch; living a life in any major city around the country in such style as would make you the envy of many; or would if you weren't such poorly disguised trailer trash, flaunting your lifestyle and then having round table discussions on your lack of taste, humor and maturity.

But hey, if you can't get your prize by the lifestyle you lead, maybe some obscure form of employment might get you the trinket you're looking for ... just because you're special.  Maybe you can make your living buying the crap that somebody left behind in a storage container and sell it to somebody else for a lot of money.  Perhaps you can be a star instead if you drive from place to place in rural areas and steal stuff that a from illiterate hoarders with barns full of antiques that you can purchase for as little as possible, so that you can make an obscene profit by reselling them to a bar or restaurant that the rich chicks and their families can have expensive dinners at, while calling them 'quaint'. 

Don't want to waste your time traveling the road for fun and profit ... no problem.  You can instead bake cakes, be an exterminator, give tatoos, or act like an idiot while trying to catch alligators (or turtles for that matter).  Maybe instead you can buy, sell, or repair guns (even evil semi-automatic ones); or catch seafood in the form of tuna or crab, swordfish or lobsters.  If you can't catch and kill animals for the table, maybe you can get a gig on a new show that will explore the interesting and exciting lives of the taxidermists (mounting dead animals for display).  Don't worry, in today's world we award the trophies of cable shows aplenty no matter what it is you do for a living; especially if you can turn yourself into someone seen as a colorful character when the spotlight is shining on you (you know, psychotic).

I know that instead, Reality shows have been blamed (by me in fact) on the almost complete lack of creativity in what could laughingly be called modern entertainment; but from another perspective, all of this could also be construed as participation awards on the part of writers, directors, and producers.  It's certainly an easy enough conclusion to draw from the constant stream of B-movie knock offs and barely updated TV shows turned into movies (and vice-versa).  You know the list, from "The Longest Yard" to "The Magnificent Seven" (which is itself a remake of "The Seven Samurai"); from "The Brady Bunch" and "Starsky and Hutch", to "The A-Team" and "Charlie's Angels".  I didn't mind it so much when they were giving the starring roles in these tawdry productions as participation trophies to actors like Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson (who unfortunately, keep showing up), but now they've managed to convince actors with real skills to participate in these cinematic circle-jerks (shame on you Liam Neeson).

And lest we forget, there's always the shows like "American Idol".  Don't get me wrong, some of these people have real talent, but not nearly enough of them apparently to make these shows run a full season.  So instead of being regaled with top-notch performances, we're tortured by those who won a Kareoke contest that they were the only ones to participate in.  Instead a talent, we're insulted by those who've received so many participation awards that they think they must have talent as a consequence.  Worse yet, we're 'nuclear optioned' with contestants so hideous that they're rewarded by a rebroadcast of their train wreck performance (something so horrible you can't turn away) as their particpation trophy.

So I hope you're happy now that instead of stringing together some literary pearls of wisdom, I am instead forced to castigate you bunch of New-Age, "We Are The World" singing, modern math morons.  I hope that you're enjoying it now that your once self-absorbed rug rats have come into full bloom as the narcissistic, egocentric snobs you always hoped for ... thanks in large part to all the useless plastic hardware that you've buried them in over the years.  I pray that you take great comfort not only in the fact that your participation trophies have proved an unnecessary bolstering of their already bloated self-esteem in most cases, but have created a number of ill-tempered, uncontrollable, and useless mirror watchers masquerading as adults.  In fact, I can't help but be curious if you now realize that your counter-productive trinket ceremonies have not only done more harm than good to those involved, but that you tree-huggers also recognize that the useless symbols you insisted upon are now incapable of even being properly recycled.  

And as you contemplate the years of particpation award child-rearing you engaged in, I hope that you enjoy your high-priced cable menus and the useless Adult Participation Awards that consitute the only alleged entertainment available on them.  Crap!  I hope they're showing reruns of "Downton Abbey" tonight.

It's Murder Out There

Since the tragedy in Aurora, CO early Friday morning, we are once more deluged with an outpouring of tears, a plethora of local vigils, and an over-the-top outpouring of sympathy for the victims.  Pardon me for noticing, but it certainly seems like a number of you are in serious need of reducing the drama (real or imagined) in your phony baloney lives.    

Such a statement is likely going to get me into a fair amount of trouble, but I'm not sure that I care anymore.  I find that while nothing can match the anger and disgust I feel for this lousy bastard and his actions in Colorado, I'm also becoming increasingly sick of the collection of weepy faces around the country that the media seems to think are also important to the story.  I've had it with the non-stop and over-the-top tears of those who never knew any of the victims, have no experience with such tragedy in their own lives, and somehow just suddenly felt the need to express their ability to feel someone else's pain. (And just when a television camera or microphone was around.  Go figure!) 

Hey listen though, if you'd really like to go off on a crying jag, let me share some statistics which might engender some additional flower purchases, candle lighting, and teddy bear placement on your part.  Last year in 2011, 33 homicides were committed in Toledo, OH, 114 in Kansas City, 433 in Chicago, and just over 500 in NYC.  Where were you when any of those lives were ended?  Too busy watching "American Idol" or "Dancing with the Stars" perhaps, or maybe simply catching up on your daily quotient of faked reality shows; the main character of which you would run from screaming if ever you came across their path in 'real life'?

Before we are forced to bring in the grief counselors to conduct the proper level of therapy for you to obtain closure, and lest your outpouring of sympathy become overwhelming for the number of those killed in the US; you should know that six other nations killed more of their citizens per thousand residents than we did last year.  Of course while the US having the 7th highest homicide rate in the world is nothing to brag about, it might mean that there are citizens of nations out there who you might want to save some of that random and anonymous sympathy for on your Facebook page. 

Then again, perhaps we must ask ourselves if we really are sympathetic to every one of those in this nation who've lost their lives through homicide.  USA Today was able to document back in 2007 that 91% of murder victims in Baltimore had a criminal record; while the numbers were 85% in Newark, NJ, 77% in Milwaukee, and 75% in Philadelphia.  Does anyone feel like lighting a candle for any of the member of these homicide statistics?  Can I get anyone a tissue?  

On a related subject ....

Lest there are any of you our there are seeking to turn your mourning for the victims of this particular tragedy into moaning that what's required to properly memorialize their loss is more gun control ... cut it out.  Not only does the fact that 35% of the homicides in the US are committed with things other than guns show your lack of imagination compared to those doing the killing out there, but continuing to beat this tired drum also begs the question as to what other things you'd like to control in your fervor to exert power over the behavior of society.  

Illegal immigrants (sorry, undocumented residents) in this country account for 21% of crime in this country according to Rasmussen (which must by implication include the murder rate).  Are you therefore calling for greater control of Illegal immigration and deportation of those in this country illegally as a way to reduce the homicide rate?  Shall we put a 3-day waiting period on cutlery purchases or ban certain blade lengths and kinds of knives?  How about axes, baseball bats, or plain old sections of pipe?  (Please note that I did not mention chainsaws, as I find that even the movies that depict their use on anything other than trees as at least a misdemeanor criminal offense ... to public taste if nothing else.)  What are we to about those nasty appendages on the ends of our arms that pull the trigger, hold the blade, or are simply used to choke? 

Unfortunately so is the perfunctory, self-seeking, and self-serving blubbering from a mostly superficial and largely uncaring public who use such events to display the same disingenuous fervor as they do for the next winner of "The Bachelor".  (As for the vultures of the mainstream media feeding them juicy tidbits 24 hours-a-day for little more than a cheap ratings boost, my scorn for you knows no bounds.)      

The bottom line here is that murders are committed by people who are evil, crazy, or crazy-evil.  No law, no regulation, and no mandated 3-day waiting period is going to keep them from committing their nefarious deeds.  And as a part of the twisted and malicious acts that these monsters commit, innocent people will sometimes pay the ultimate price.  Nobody wants to hear this of course; but whether you like it or not, their malignant nature is a part of the human condition that's impossible to eliminate.  Despite our best intentions and no matter how much we would like it to be otherwise; it's murder out there.  

(To those of you hoping or expecting that like most Saturdays, today's effort would be an attempt to find a bit of humor in our everyday existence; my profound apologies.  This is my blog however, to use as I see fit; and this nonsense had to be called out for what much of it is .... crap!)

Dancing With An American Idol On The Jersey Shore

It's always a relief to see an election cycle end, not because of who wins or loses the races; but because we don't have to watch and listen to the "half-truths, mis-truths, and outright lies" of political candidate ads any longer. Of course, then I remember about what's left on television, and my relief is short-lived. Actually, I found a number of curious comparisons here when looking at politics and popular culture:

• Many of those eligible to vote know who is on 'American Idol', 'Dancing with the Stars', 'Jersey Shore', and the flood of 'wives' programs from New Jersey, the South, and Orange County. Far fewer knew the cast of characters on their local ballots.
• Many Americans know the names and life stories of the judges on Idol and 'America's Got Talent', but far fewer can come up with even the names of an equal number of Supreme Court Justices.
• Far too many people believe that the level of civil political discourse in this country is defined by 'The View', 'The O'Reilly Factor', and 'The Sean Hannity Show'. They believe that shouting down ones opponents, refusing to let people complete the answers to questions, and walking off of the set qualify as good interview techniques.
• People are often disillusioned and disappointed when public political debate does not turn into a bad episode of 'The Jerry Springer Show'.
• Candidates and TV shows are both defined, not by the quality of the characters or the level of the writing; but on how outrageous, controversial, and manipulative they are.
• Far more people seem to get their news perspective from parody shows like 'The Daily Show' and 'The Colbert Report' on The Comedy Channel than do from network news.

I have nothing against any of the shows or networks listed above, but I have to say that I am grateful for the variety of programming on cable that allows me to avoid such programming. 


Quite frankly, I have never seen television as a medium that did well at providing information. Entertainment sure, but information ... not so much. And even the entertainment value of television has taken a nose-dive in recent years. Information and entertainment are now chopped into discreetly defined segments that can be fit between the advertising that pays for it. Any news story or part of the plot that doesn't fit in these visual slices ends up being left out of the story, even if it makes things more difficult to understand. 


To add to the mixed metaphors here, imagine television as a sports league. When there were only a few franchises, only the best of the best rose to prominence in their game and got their chance. When the league discovers that there is a lot of money to be made out there however and add teams at a frightening rate in an attempt to cash in while they can (like any other evil corporation), it inevitably leads to a dilution of the limited talent pool available. 


Eventually, such attenuation means that we end up with what most professional sports leagues like to call 'parity', but which we know really means a level of mediocrity that most of us watching find more than a little objectionable. Cable has now given us hundreds of franchises attempting to dip into the limited talent pool of writers, directors, and actors that exist. When they reach the shallow end of that pool (which they appear to have done some time back), they are forced create celebrities out of people whose only real talent was convincing someone to put them on TV in the first place to fill the void. There are no plots, no scripts, and no performances worthy of note; only bad behavior, worse hygiene, and faux tragedy to entertain the masses. 


Owners of the Roman Empire's coliseums would be proud of the circuses and bloodsport that we have turned cable into, reveling in these thinly veiled and badly acted gladiatorial contests (and that's before I get started on wrestling). Politics has begun to show the same decided lack of talent when seeking its principal performers. While there are some legitimate artists remaining in the field (for which we should be truly grateful), the sheer scope and scale of government at every level has begun to dilute the talent pool. 


In truth, many of those with any real talent have simply abandoned the auditions; finding what the process has become too intrusive, personally abusive, and to ungraciously fickle to make it worth bothering with. While some with a real gift or an overwhelming desire to participate remain, many of them simply find other ways to express their genius, and abandon the political venue to the more venial and power hungry of the inferior players. 


These elections and shows are now often filled with flawed individuals who do not deserve the limelight or the applause. Their lack of ability is exceeded only by their demands for diva status; and once illuminated on these public stages, they prove themselves mostly talentless and particularly unattractive. Yet we continue watch, helplessly staring, often without any care or understanding of the plot or the meaning of the drama unfolding before us. 


Perhaps like watching a traffic accident, we are simply shocked or fascinated by the appalling spectacle and simply cannot take our eyes away. On the other hand, like many other times when sitting on the couch at home, perhaps we've simply been unable to reach the remote yet to change the channel.

Act Natural, The Cameras Are On

It occurred to me while watching commercials intended to convince me to watch the reality shows on the various networks (they were unsuccessful) that during filming of these mostly unimaginative bits of natural fertilizer, there must be someone standing just off camera saying, "OK, we're going to turn the camera on, act natural." How many of us could fulfill this ridiculous and impossible request if it were asked of us? 


And yet there seems to be a growing number these days who spend their time seeking public attention in one way or the other and finding new and increasingly pathetic ways to place themselves in front of a recording device for later public consumption, in a rather sad form of a game that I like to call: 'Look at me!' We see it in the characters and caricatures that have taken over our television screens on 'reality shows', in contestants attempting to become a star on 'American Idol' or its knock-off counterparts, and in those simply seeking their 15 seconds of fame by leaning into a camera shot while a news crew films a tragedy unfolding. 


And when we are not hypnotized by the antics of these desperate cries for attention by those filming 'human pet tricks' on You Tube, we are dealing with with one of today's media darlings similarly attempting to mesmerize us by convincing us to form the audience of a radio and/or TV show, sign up for a newsletter, and pay them for 'insider' access to their every move; while simultaneously encouraging us to buy books, movie tickets, and T-shirts. Those still attempting to lead a normal life (not that I understand anything about the concept of a normal life you understand) in the wake of such non-stop media exploitation are far too often asked to attempt to do so while the cameras are running. 


Even if you decide that the 'Look at me' game is one that you are not interested in playing, it is likely that you will find yourself unwillingly and unexpectedly caught up in some other player's effort. It often seems these days as if we have no knowledge or control of when these cameras are running, what part of that which we used to consider 'personal and private' they are recording, and who will eventually be watching it with embarrassment or amusement. 


The only thing that we can appear to be sure of is that sooner or later some act that we least wanted to is likely to become publicly displayed. So what's to do in response? Should we succumb to the paranoia fostered by this ever-growing invasion of privacy and hide in our homes? (yeah, as if they were safe) Should we spend our days physically and emotionally paralyzed as we second guess each and every move for fear that someone will be playing back a copy of the poor choices that we have made? Should we simply give in to the 'Ed TV', 'Truman Show' mentality and spend the rest of our lives in a rather stilted performance of a script that no one ever bothered to give us? 


I certainly have no answers. I do know however that these are questions that we had better begin to ask ourselves. The lines between reality and entertainment have now blurred to a point that they are all but unrecognizable (a sad commentary on the lack of originality in the media, but we've covered that ground before); and whether we like it or not, we are asked (or soon will be) to act natural because the cameras are on.

The Irony of Profit

It seems as though I am constantly confronted in the news by the fact that ordinary Americans are outraged by the profits that banks and health insurance companies are attempting to make at someone's expense. I am told by these paid teleprompter readers, pundits, and others of those 'in the know' that this outrage has to do with the greed that these people show in attempting to make money for themselves or their companies at the expense of just plain ordinary folks. I am likewise told that this is not something that the American people are in any way interested in seeing occur in this world. 


Imagine my surprise then, when I see what these same ordinary Americans are watching on TV for entertainment. It is nothing more (or less) than people attempting to do the very same thing that they find so wrong in these corporations. One has to do no more than visit the current crop of reality television shows to see that this is so. "American Pickers" tells the story of two guys who scour the country to find bits of memorabilia that they can buy cheap (obviously in a greedy attempt to take things from ordinary Americans) and sell them at a profit. "Ax Wars" portrays a plucky group of lumbermen who cut down trees in remote parts of the country only to sell them to lumber mills at a profit. (This show carries the additionally disgusting message of lionizing those raping Mother Nature to feed evil corporations.) "Pawn Wars" shows us a family business (and a rather dysfunctional family at that) buying treasures from other families now down on their luck, only to be able to later turn them around and sell them at a profit. 


And these are just the shows on every week on The History Channel, a network whose original purpose was ostensibly to provide information, education, and entertainment relating to the subject contained in its title. The Arts and Entertainment Network has its contributions as well with "Dog the Bounty Hunter" glorifying a person who hunts men for profit and "Billy the Exterminator" who kills pests for profit. The Bravo Network takes this to the next level (down) by simply making shows about people who cut hair, model, or just live in New York, New Jersey, Atlanta, or Orange County; apparently for nothing more than money. The Entertainment Channel finally hits a societal bottom with a plethora of shows about people who live for little other money and the notoriety that it brings (and manage to make even more of a profit by doing so). 


Obviously all of these networks and all of these shows wouldn't be on the air (even on cable) if there wasn't some group of people out there watching them. Their numbers would not be increasing each and every new television season unless these networks were similarly making a profit by broadcasting them. 


And while I certainly don't have all of the answers here (a shock, I know), the question in my mind then becomes whether the American people are actually against the concept of anyone making a profit, or have we merely allowed an elite intelligentsia (who all seem to be doing pretty well financially) to attempt to dictate such standards to us. In the end, little of it may qualify as actual entertainment as far as I am concerned, but there is little doubt that there is a great deal of irony these days in the making of a profit.