The Thin Line of Reality

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"V", Connecticut, George Clooney, Joe Lieberman, Science Fiction, The men who stare at Goats, TV

I mean, really. Joe does sort of make one feel that the world is upside down. Was it only less than a decade ago that we welcomed him as the Democratic candidate for VP? How can this be?

Either this man has turned as about faced as any one could, or we were duped badly. And that may well be the case, since one must allow that a few folks were duped into actually thinking Dubya had a brain, and we know he was the tin man. Or was that a heart? I can’t remember which.

Joe, clearly a person who thinks of himself as the patriarchal leader of his Connecticut flock rather than the spokesman for said flock, has claimed he will “not allow a public option health care reform bill on the floor of the Senate.” Goodness and mercy me, when did Joe become so powerful? He and he alone controls this power?

Doubly hard since Jon Stewart parodies him so well in that stuffed nose doggy style, making Joey sound like a pathetic minion more akin to the bumbling sidekick to any comedy team you can think of. Who the freakin’ f**k does this buffoon think he is after all? Hate monger and war touter who seems unconcerned with killing folks (long as he is safely at home), has the unmitigated gall to act in direct opposition to the majority of his constituency in making this claim that he will deride any health care bill that doesn’t pass Lieberman cheese muster. A pox on his house!

Okay, that seems to lead inexorably to this next story. Namely that there is a new movie out called as you may have guessed, “The Men who Stare at Goats. ” Note first that it says MEN who stare at goats. Women are just way smarter than men it seems.

Okay, so I figured, George Clooney, sexy George, oh yeah, I can watch this. Somehow it will be good. He’s a fine comedic type after all beyond his allure. Yeah, I can do this. Although how they can make anything rational out of such a concept would be hard. Hard. Right.

IT’S BASED ON A FREAKIN TRUE STORY! I know, I know, but now you see why it said “men” and not women. Some freakin’ brain dead military types actually smelled a bit too much of the gun powder and came up with this idea that you can and should try to think a goat to death. I have no idea why they picked goats. I have no idea why anyone with what appeared to be a loaded brain case would ever in their wildest imaginations consider this possible.

I live in a crazy country, and perhaps in a crazy world. That is my only explanation. This means that it really is true, that with God all things are indeed possible. Man has concluded that everything under the sun, moon, stars, nebula, black holes, quasars, pulsars, dark matter, can and might be true or can happen. End of story.

Come here. Just a little closer. . . . Can we talk? Me and you, Mr. TV producer type? We need to get something straight here.

I’m all aware of how you guys like to be lazy. I mean genre, genre right? A few ago it was reality shows, and now we are all pitching our sorta abnormal, sciencey fiction type stuff? Right? I get that.

But, it is unfair, not copacetic, not within the rules to start ’em and then leave us hangin’, twisting in the wind as it were. Ya just can’t cancel shows without resolving them!

You create these mysteries and then, slam bam, you’re onto something new, and all the while I’m still left in the Everglades with some kinda pods that are erupting there. And there was another thing about some kinda monster along the west coast, swimming around. Never resolved that one either. You claim you will with LOST. Not sure what your intentions are regarding HEROES, but it’s seeming rather disjointed these days. You just kinda slobbered all over GALACTICA didn’t ya?

Time to shape up. And hey, while you are at it, lets put just a tad more thought into all this. You resurrected “V“. Now I understand that that was an old series (my point actually is that you’re being rather lazy doncha think?), and so it’s been clearly established that the Visitors are bad guys. So this just becomes another Law and Order in the old west, individual style? Not exactly inventive would you say?

Why are all aliens out and about to do us in? I mean isn’t this a rather old and pedantic and WORN OUT mantra? How’s about a thoughtful drama about what it means to really try to work with another civilization which is vastly superior? The frustrations and amusements of trying to have meaningful exchanges between what must be akin to chimps and humans? I mean that could cause some real interest couldn’t it? Rather than the old cowboys and Indians type sludge?

Inquiring minds want to know. I’m not holding out a lot of hope for “V” frankly. I mean they wasted zero time in making them enemies. So now its just a lot of spy infiltration, shooting, and killing, and the ending each week is 7 down, and 3,423,756 to go. Not very appealing.

Just sayin’.

It’s America, What Can I Say?

Tags

Entertainment, social mores, TV

The Contrarian and I are TV watchers. Most of you, who read regularly, know that. From 7pm until 10:30 we are watching something.

I say that with a certain mixture of guilt and defiance. I neither condemn nor congratulate those who watch none. There are good reasons for rejecting it in part at least, and good reasons for embracing it, in part at least.

The devil is always in the “in part at least.”

I grew up in the era of when “TV was new.” The earliest shows I recall are Howdy Doody, and Milton Berle. People really did get together to watch these shows, marveling at the technology, although the TV owner spent an overwhelming time fiddling with the aerial, or twisting the dials to bring in the picture and get rid of the snow.

I remember fondly going to my uncles where we saw our first “color” TV, though that was stretching things a bit. Trying to get anything remotely resembling a good blend of red, green and yellow or blue or whatever,  proved interesting especially as to faces, and it seems that no two people were ever satisfied that the tuner had gotten it right.

At some point, concerns started to be heard about the “dangers” of TV. This probably came about about the time that children’s programing (cartoons and such) started to be the norm for Saturdays and then ad agencies realized that there was a dollar to be made in enticing young minds to Kix and Cocoa Puffs as well as toys galore. Then parents began to sit up and take notice a bit.

Still, TV grew into the great “babysitter” of the 60’s and beyond, allowing mom and pop a few extra minutes of sleep on the weekend, as the kids were glued to the sets of America.

Today, we worry about the influence of computers on young minds in much the same way, and in worse ways. Yet, adults feel no guilt by and large about spending vast hours surfing and blogging, Facebooking and twittering, downloading and uploading, photoshoping and of course shopping.

No, we adults are handling the entire thing quite well, thank you.

But this is not about computer time, but about TV. And I merely want to make the point, that while I appreciate and in many ways look up to my friends who don’t watch “it,” I find even the most entertaining of shows worthy of a certain applause from time to time.

I frankly am glad that we are past the days of inane shows about family life in the US. They in no way reflected real life, as we all now know. Bud and Betty and Princess had childish problems and their parents frankly never had a problem worth mentioning. Everybody worked hard, happily, for great bosses, and no body had catastrophic illness or accident to contend with. Nobody had alcohol or drug problems, nobody divorced. It was all happy, and we thought that was how it was supposed to be. But we need only look around the living room, our living rooms to see that we were dysfunctional by comparison. We of course would change all that when we “grew up” and set up our own lives.

So I like the more real lives of the characters around today. One of my favorites is Mad Men. Life in the 50’s in a bigger type ad agency in NYC. Men in charge, women mostly being what they are supposed to be, mothers and supporters of men. Everyone smokes, and a lot. A hint of a gay man, but closeted, still nearly to himself, trying frantically to be “normal.”

The sets and clothing and accoutrements are exquisitely done. I have not found a single error. But of more import are the ways of thinking, the assumptions about life that our characters speak and think out loud. These do provide us with moments of real reflection on where we have come from and what we have learned.

Case in point: last show the  British owners are visiting the agency. An afternoon party is in swing with plenty of champagne. This gives the usual license for secretaries and ad men to drink too much and flirt. A secretary climbs about a John Deere lawn tractor (signifying a new account landed) and begins running down the aisle when she loses control, somehow engages the blades, and runs over the feet of a Brit ad man.

Fast forward to the hospital, where a vigil is in place. The doctors have notified that the injured man will require amputation of one foot. He will live however. The ensuing conversation is insane:

“Well, he was the best ad mad in all of England. I don’t know as how we’ll replace him.”

“Too bad, the poor guy will never walk again.”

“He’ll never be able to play golf again.”

“Such a wonderful career now over.”

I begin to frown and then it erupts. “What????” They are acting like he’s going to be confined to a nursing home for life now. Why does this end his career? Ever heard of prosthetics? I mean they had those even in the 50’s for God’s sake!”

But you see the real idea behind this? In the 50’s we did indeed tie physical defect with mental defect. A broken body cannot do the mental work of a solid healthy body.  People in wheel chairs don’t contribute to society, they are it’s beneficiaries. We take care of those poor unfortunates.

How far we have come. How far must we still go? We would no more think that an accident would end a career of an ad man that think that the moon is really made of cheese today. Perhaps this bodes well for some of the social issues we contend with today. Will we look as silly to our grand kids as we think of those that thought that a physical disability meant the end of a productive life in the 50’s?  I don’t know but I hope it does.

I Got Nothin’

Tags

Catholicism, nuns, tea parties, TV

I’ve just finished perusing nearly 400 blogs, and reading a fair number of them, commenting on a few. While I can categorically say that many impressed me, at least the one’s I left comments on, none inspired me with anything exceptionally interesting to write about.

So, as Jon Stewart is wont to say, “I got nothin’.” Still, I’m way too egotistical to let it go at that. Why I can fire off a good 1500 words having not a thing to say at all. So, if you will so indulge me, I will.

Fully a tenth of all the professional bloggers and not a few of the not-so, are consumed by the continuing saga of the tea parties of last week. The subject is sincerely boring, since they are all pretty much saying the same thing, which I said in a few paragraphs over the last couple of days.

It was ideologically impure, the result of anybody with a beef against Obama or paying taxes in general, or anger that the damn detergent doesn’t get the stains out of clothes, finding occasion to scoot on down and wave a placard for an hour, hoping to spot a celebrity in the process. End of story.

I’m coming to the conclusion that those on the right who are fearful that “right wing extremists” means them, are right. I’m beginning to conclude that the right wing fringe is insane as a naked superman, with a kite tail up his butt, trying to fly. Each day brings new revelations of ongoing nuttery.

It seems a plague of craziness is selectively attacking the right, perhaps as part of an ongoing alien plot to drive us all insane  in the watching of this paranoia driven, tantrum display of, “if I can’t win, I’m taking my marbles and going home!”

Me, I’m staying sane by watching old reruns of “Wagon Train.” This week’s episode features Mickey Rooney as a westward seeking wagon train customer. Oh, and I should tell you that the Contrarian swears that Tonto, (not of Wagon Train, but of The Lone Ranger) wears dress socks with his moccasins.

Oh, I forgot, back to the insane right. It seems Steve Schmidt, late of the failed and dismal McCain campaign, is urging fellow GOP’ers to adopt a gay marriage stance. Yep, when pigs fly, undoubtedly they will. Until then, we can rest assured that they will continue to proclaim that life as we know it will cease should (shudder) gay folks have the enormous privilege of marriage. We heteros are doing such a marvelous job you know in keeping it a sacred and honored institution.

Schmidt claims that if the GOP doesn’t cave on this issue, it surely will become a “religious” party. Guess he’s been in a lock box for the last ten years or better. Look around ya Stevo, it has happened.

In the meantime, speaking of letting the cat out of the bag a few hundred years after the fact, the Vatican is instituting a “doctrinal investigation” of the nunneries across the US. Not the world, mind you, but across the US. It seems they are concerned that the various convents are not properly upholding the Church’s fine teaching on homosexuality and (gasp) women’s ordination quite properly. I think the fine print excludes Mother Angelica and her sisters from the “investigation.”

I could of told ’em that more than ten years ago. Various sisters advised me that nuns were the original “feminists.” And I would be pretty much forced to agree with them on that point. They were indeed liberated before it was kosher. ( How’s that for mixing religious symbols? )

I don’t know about you, but we are done watching Survivor. Yeah, we watch it–actually it was one of the better reality shows around. But as the years go by, the “contestants” appear to be picked for dumbness more and more. A perfectly good “hidden” alliance, broke before it started, and kicked off a truly good guy in favor of keeping insane soccer coach nicknamed “dragon slayer.” We don’t care who wins now, all of them have shown themselves to be too stupid to care.

I’m thinking that most reality shows have had their day. No longer funny, or interesting or well organized, they don’t reflect average people, but bizarro folks from hidden pockets across America. We still watch Amazing Race, but increasingly it makes ya cringe as echoes of “ugly American” come to mind. Snotty preppy brats scream at locals “why can’t you speak English???”

It may come to you that “Geez, these people watch a lot of TV!” And yes we do. I am a product of my environment. I was brought up with it. It was our evening entertainment. I briefly flirted with periods of non-exposure, but hey, cheap thrills satisfy me. What can I say?

Actually, I don’t “watch” a lot. I have it on. I glance over now and then. I don’t “watch” until the evening. With Tivo, we do get to see mostly “quality” stuff, though some would continue to say “it’s a vast wasteland.” To each his own I guess. We don’t play golf or go to bars and clubs.

We do watch Shakespeare and an occasional symphony. We do watch a fair amount of PBS and History and Discovery. The Contrarian is forever watching “Book Notes” and the direct feeds from Congress. Besides I never really believed those various folks who looked down their noses and claimed not to watch the “boob” tube.

Anyway, I’m outta here. Ya see? I had nothin” and my word count is 924. I coulda gone the distance, but you get the picture. I can talk. Oh, that’s 943 now. 945. *wink*