Gandhi With A Unibrow December 22, 2007
Posted by rosolio in Los Angeles, Media.Tags: adam carolla show, bonaduce, carolla, change, klsx, strasser, teresa
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Everyone always looks at the end result. This is true for everything. The Spanish American War; who won, who lost, how many people died. Watson & Crick: don’t tell me what they had for lunch, just tell me what they did. The middle doesn’t really concern anyone. But there’s something to be said for the journey, and you can’t accurately describe it until it is over. So it was officially on when I saw the headline:
Danny Bonaduce is gone from The Adam Carolla Show.
The show has been a larger part of my life than it probably should be. I haven’t missed a minute of the show since August 2006. Literally, not one minute. I can’t listen to the show live, and when I do, I still go back and listen to the whole thing on the podcast. The show made my day job in Chicago beyond bearable and all of my drives in Los Angeles entertaining. I get all of my news from Teresa Strasser, and there really isn’t much to say about Carolla that hasn’t already been said. The guy is a genius, a Howard Stern for people who like to think.
And then there was Bonaduce.
When he started, my reaction was one of confusion and rage, partially because it removed Dave Dameshek from the show, but primarily because Bonaduce is a classic radio personality; all shock and ego. He put on an air of intelligence, but it was nothing more than surface level, considering his repetition with the things he seemed to know and understand. The Duce personified a transaction from A Fish Called Wanda:
“Apes don’t read philosophy!”
“Yes they do, Otto. They just don’t understand it.”
I don’t think he ever caught on, but the recurring bit Dick Gobbler’s Morning Zoo was a shot at Bonaduce’s style. Anyway, it wasn’t until late February that I started tolerating his presence on the show.
Fast forward to Ace’s “illness,” a mysterious two-day, three show hiatus that confused the bejeezus out of all of his regular listeners, who know his rants about work and The Rally Gene. Something was amiss. Either Lynette or one of the kids was sick or no one was. Anyway, that Wednesday show with Teresa and Bonaduce wasn’t so bad. It actually had me thinking, “Wow, Bonaduce is actually holding his own here.” And then there was a sequel the next day, and the strangely non-Ace-like Christmas Special.
It was odd because I found myself getting frustrated with the Bonaduce haters on the message boards and the occasional phone lines. I guess the idea was that I had accepted Bonaduce’s presence as being a part of Carolla. I wasn’t going to stop listening to the show because of the Red Man’s contributions.
But then every now and then he’d be late…and the show was better.
There was no denying it. My acceptance of Il Duce was nothing more than that. My frustration with people who hated him was the same as with the people who complain about the government and don’t vote. I knew Jack Silver liked Bonaduce, and I know that he was extended, so there wasn’t any point in complaining about it. And now he’s out. And the show will be better for it.
Whether it was actually true that Carolla’s absence was a hunger strike to get Bonaduce out of there has yet to be seen. I’m guessing he’ll be honest about it when the show returns in January, considering the level of candor with which he approached the removal of Jimmy Brusca, Fat Tad, and Dameshek last year. He always talks about how little he cares about his fans, but that’s the only reason Carolla would do this, considering the improving ratings throughout Bonaduce’s tenure.
But it’s a testament to how good Carolla is that all of his fans stuck with him during the Bonaduce-Era. We all accepted it. We needed to know what he and Teresa had to say about anything and everything going on in the world. And we’d do it even though we had to listen to snippets of a regular morning show running in the middle of our extraordinary one. And for our loyalty, we get the old Ace back on January 2nd.
We’ve earned it.
Steve Perry, take us out… June 11, 2007
Posted by rosolio in Media, Movies, TV, Terrorism.add a comment
I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet that at least 50% of the people who have Don’t Stop Believin’ stuck in their head this morning will be weighing in on The Sopranos finale. A similarly large number probably cursed the name of Comcast, thinking their signal died the second the series ended in the spectacular cosa nostra crescendo everyone was betting on happening. The quick and easy explanation is the David Chase was flipping off the pundits and talking heads who debated whether Tony Soprano went down in a blaze of glory or vanished forever in witness protection. You’ve heard everyone else’s two cents, why not hear mine.
The last episode was about fear.
You’ve got A.J.’s awakening to the ills of the world and a sudden urge to do something about it. This wasn’t out of rage, but out of paranoia. His anger at Bobby Bacala’s funeral at the mundane conversation wasn’t in the Michael Moore “You Should Be Outraged!” vein. It was more “things are horrible and you’re just trying to distract yourself.” Tony and Carmela consulted A.J.’s psychitrist out of fear for their son’s safety. They expressed similar concern, although less so, over the impending marriage of Meadow. Sure, two lawyers getting married doesn’t seem like cause for concern, but every parent is worried about their kids. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t care. And then you have Tony visiting a senile Uncle Junior, afraid he was going to be taken advantage of by his conniving sister.
Mostly, you have a scenario where Tony will be afraid for the rest of his life. Every time that bell in the diner opened, he, like everyone watching, was terrified it was going to be a hitman seeking revenge for Phil Leotardo, or maybe Furio, or the Russian who escaped in the woods, or the Feds with enough evidence to put him away. “The Life [He] Had Chosen” was no longer simply the way things were. It was uncomfortable. And maybe that was the ultimate evolution of Tony Soprano. The matter-of-fact mafioso now had to look over his shoulder like everyone else. And he’ll do it for the rest of his life. And maybe that’s our future who wonder when we don’t have to worry about terrorism anymore. The War On Terrorism cannot be won because Terrorism doesn’t have a nation, flag, or shelflife. Neither does fear. Even though Tony vanquished Phil Leotardo, there’s always going to be another one. There, we’ve got some cultural significance.
Great show, great finale. With The Sopranos gone and Deadwood about to rap up (don’t know when), HBO has only The Wire, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Entourage (a series at a serious crossroads) to carry the torch. They’ve thrown a thousand new shows up, every single one of them previewed before the Sopranos and one, John From Cincinnati, premiering right afterwards. While HBO execs were obviously thinking that JFC (not too soon for an abbreviation, is it?) would benefit from viewers too catatonic to change the channel after the Sopranos faded to black, I argue it had the opposite effect. I was willing to give it a shot, but was too shell-shocked to give a damn. All I caught was Luke Perry on a beach sounding like the teacher on The Peanuts: waa-waa-waa-waa…right, you can’t really read that. Whatever, you know what I’m talking about.
A few random things:
-Saw Ocean’s Thirteen and enjoyed it. It wasn’t anywhere close to the first one, but after the huge steaming pile of flop that was the second (or twelfth), I don’t think anyone was expecting it to. A lot of people were ready to hate it because it was just basically a camera turned on a bunch of A-List celebrities having a good time, kind of like an US Weekly with a caper soundtrack. Going in ready to hate it isn’t the right move, it’s a good time.
-I think Transformers is going to either break the $100million opening weekend or it’s going to collapse like River Phoenix at the Viper Room. Either is a distinct possibility. It would be hilarious to watch it gross like $30million and having the producers go, “Wait…WAIT…this is what you wanted! Why in the hell didn’t you see this?” It’s a movie based on toys from the 80s. Hot Wheels: Tokyo Drift isn’t going to catch Spiderman either.
-Moving is insanely expensive. It’s about $1,200 to rent a Uhaul. That doesn’t include the convicted sex offender I’d try to pay to move it. I shouldn’t say that, not all movers are convicted sex offenders. Some plead no contest.
-Don’t stop….belieeeeevin’… Son of a bitch, where’s The Final Countdown when you need it? And how much different would the ending have been if Europe was blasting on the jukebox? Or Rock Me Amadeus? Okay, so 80s stuff is sort of coming back, but that music all blows ass, let’s be honest. I can appreciate Party All The Time for what it is; concrete evidence that cocaine can make anything happen. Too bad we can’t FTD a few kilos to Axl and Slash, with forged notes from each other. Let’s bring that one back.
-I’ve got 8 1/2 hours on a plane tomorrow. I’m pretty sure I could get to Spain on that.
Kobe Bryant and Occam’s Razor May 31, 2007
Posted by rosolio in Basketball, Los Angeles, Media.add a comment
The term ‘Conspiracy Theory’ carries a hell of a stigma. The first image conjured is usually that of the Kennedy Assassination, the rumors of alien landings at Roswell, and a remarkably horrible movie starring a pre-Himmler Mel Gibson. That history forces all logical theories under the umbrella of the insane. Well here’s one that’s not: Kobe Bryant meant exactly what he said when he requested a trade from the Lakers.
“Why would he do that?” gasp the talking heads on the ESPN channel fleet. “He’s the most marketable star in the second largest market in the country!” Okay, so we’ve eliminated one possibility: exposure.
It rarely makes sense to listen to someone’s explanation because most people lie, especially when it involves their career or money, but what the hell. Kobe’s demand for a trade came as part of a yelling match with the David Carradine of raising one’s voice, Stephen A. Smith. He claimed to be angry that he wasn’t getting any help from the front office, that they weren’t committed to surrounding him with championship caliber talent. That makes sense, considering that Kobe has been surrounded by young players such as Andrew Bynum and Kwame Brown. But then you recall Kobe’s part in running Shaquille O’Neal out of town. So that’s out; Kobe doesn’t want to share the spotlight.
It could be that Bryant’s having trouble with Head Coach Phil Jackson again. Jackson killed him in his book, calling Kobe “uncoachable.” Who can blame him there? There isn’t a point to drawing up a triangle offense with five players involved if one of them refuses to pass the ball. But Kobe has thrived under Jackson, and they’ve seemed to have buried the hatchet as the Zen Master still roams the bench at the Staples Center.
Wait…it’s got to be money. Hang on,…Kobe netted $17 million this season. Scratch that.
Well, those are the reasons that The Artist Formerly Known As Number Eight would want to leave the Lakers. What did I miss?
The Lottery…the NBA Draft Lottery.
The Celtics, Hawks, and Sixers all had a shot to land Kevin Durant or Greg Oden in the lottery, but the coveted top picks were swiped by Portland and Seattle of the Pacific Northwest. With the exception of LeBron James, all of the league’s stars are buried west of the Eastern Time Zone. The aforementioned Shaq is the beginning and end of the star power out East, and his time is quickly drawing to a close. Sure, Paul Pierce and Gilbert Arenas are big time players, but you don’t see either of them doing Sprite ads anytime soon. No one transcends the sport out there.
And the league is dying because of it.
Boston and New York used to be die-hard hotbeds. Between the Boston Garden and the hallowed MSG, some of the most devoted fans called the East home. People whine about an East Coast bias in sports, look at the results of the major cities on the Atlantic Coast this season:
Washington: 41-41
Philadelphia: 35-47
New York: 33-49
Atlanta: 30-52
Boston: 24-58
Of those teams, only Washington made the playoffs, and they were dead men walking with Arenas out.
The NHL moved Wayne Gretzky to Los Angeles to build the league out West. The NBA was banking on an Oden or Durant (or both) to bring save the league back East. And while they could be great players, Corey Brewer, Jeff Green, and Joakim Noah aren’t going to do that. Kobe Bryant, on the other hand…
Everyone was looking for a sequel to the famed “Frozen Envelope” draft that landed Patrick Ewing in America’s number one market. I wouldn’t be surprised in David Stern had a hand in getting one of the league’s best players out of American’s runner-up.
Even though he’s in a gigantic market, Bryant is quickly losing star-ground to fellow westerners Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki. That will only increase with the addition of Oden and Durant to Pacific Standard Time. In a coast devoid of star power, however, imagine how bright Kobe’s could shine.
I guess the truth really is in the first place you look.
Common Sense Man: Global Warming, Great Apes, and other Bedtime Stories May 1, 2006
Posted by rosolio in Common Sense, Media, Politics, World.add a comment
Rush Limbaugh does not believe in global warming. While the term ‘believe’ may seem out of place there, it’s because it is his own. He and many of his acolytes are under the distinct impression that global warming is a mythic abstraction that is accepted or rejected by the respective sides, despite boatloads of physical evidence. I for one would like to counter by saying that I do not believe in orangutans. I have never seen one, and am guessing that the ones featured on TV and in print are simply baboons wearing costumes.
Is he insane? Clearly not; he’s made multiple millions countering intelligent discourse with shouting and throat-wobbling (I’m not sure exactly how else to describe it, but if you hear the man talk, it sounds very much like he has a neck 94 inches in circumference; the acoustics in this man are similar to that of a gigantic festival tent that has collapsed on the band who, because they don’t get paid if they don’t play, power through the distraction). There is no such thing as an idiot-millionaire, but there is certainly such thing as a millionaire who plays an idiot on TV (or the radio). On the list of truly vile and dangerous people, he cannot possibly overtake Ann Coulter, for the sole reason that he is often seen as a sideshow, and not as a real person. However, he does preach a doctrine of seperatism and hate, so it’s always nice to watch him roll down a few notches.
The Jabba the Hutt of the AM dial is in the news for pleading guilty to prescription drug fraud. He went to three different doctors to load up on three supersized orders of OxyContin. It’s looking like he’s getting away with five years probation, but he’s already cracked once (the first warning was in 2003), so it’s likely it’ll happen again. Even if he doesn’t see the inside of a jail cell, at least we’ll get a chance to see if Limbaugh believes in constipation, nausea, somnolence, dizziness, vomiting, pruritus, headache, dry mouth, sweating, and asthenia. Then again, side effects could be part of the Jewish-Liberal media agenda as well…
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In more pressing, less morbidly obese news, the Sudanese Government is drafting a proposal to end the violence in Darfur. While this is the most optimism yet to appear from the situation, things are not looking tremendously positive. That is, it is very unlikely that the rebel groups and/or the Janjaweed are going to accept any kind of deal.
With all of the attention on Iraq and terrorism, immigration and race relations, the situation in Darfur is and has been the worst conflict in the world for the last three years. Obviously, we can’t all pull a Lord Byron and join the war, and, frankly, it is not in the interests of any world power to intervene. The best we can do is pay attention. Eventually, we may have some kind of a voice in determining the future of Darfur, and when that time comes, it’s a plus to know about it so it doesn’t get swept under the rug.
Ann Coulter: Lunatic March 28, 2006
Posted by rosolio in Common Sense, Media, Politics, Racism.add a comment
There is an old trope of writing that I’ve always chosen to ignore, and that’s beginning an essay with a thesis statement. This time is going to be different, however, because I believe Ann Coulter to be completely insane.
I don’t really need all that much evidence here; there isn’t an intelligent person on the planet who could possibly disagree. They may agree with her politics, that’s perfectly fine, but even the most extreme right-wing-prayer-in-schools-anti-gay-marriage-pro-racial-profiling Republicans know that she’s out of her mind. But she’s their lunatic, so it’s okay. It’s exactly the same way that Democrats view Michael Moore and his self-righteous struggle against the Bush family. Moore and Coulter are equal on the level of hyperbole and showmanship, although Moore’s doctrine is incendiary where Coulter’s is hateful. The woman was quoted as wishing Timothy McVeigh blew up the New York Times building, and in the next sentence calls people who are against the war in Iraq traitorous anti-patriots. She’s not the guy from Memento, okay, she’s just a walking contradiction: a New England born New Yorker who hates the blue states like they’re the Red Menace.
There are people who agree with Ann Coulter’s statements; her legion of acolytes who think Rush Limbaugh is too moderate (quick sidenote: while an unquestionably dangerous spewer of disinformation, Limbaugh is less dangerous than Coulter for the sole reason that he is a caricature. He comes out and says that global warming is impossible, using theology as evidence. His credibility is so out there after getting torn to shreds by Al Franken that he’s really nothing more than a guy on the side of the road with a “The Apocalypse Is Coming!” sign and a tiny tip jar). Coulter’s posse is made up of two kinds of people: people who like her because she’s loud and brash and angers democrats. If you hate your neighbor, you’re going to smile whenever the pit bull from across the street takes a shit on his lawn. You know it’s a bad thing, but you love seeing the neighbor have to get out the shovel and clean it up. The other kind of person who loves this vile harpy uses the word/phrase “Sum’bitch.” They own a great deal of Larry the Cable Guy memorabilia, including a “Git-R-Done” shotglass. They see an honor in being simple and view intelligent people, no matter how modest, as arrogant. They often utter the sentence: “I don’t have a problem with them, they have a problem with me.” They’ve all used Rush Limbaugh as a gateway drug, thinking they are graduating from radio evangelism to Big Boy Politics, even though their Athena of serrated jingoism is just as criminally misinformed as the fat man of the AM dial.
Coulter hides under her rain-delay-tarp of free speech (which she only sees as constitutional law when it applies to her), saying the millions of people who loudly call her out on her shit are anti-American because they are attempting to squelch her right to free speech. I am not saying she should not be permitted to belt out her message of militant partisanship. One day, like Joe McCarthy, William Jennings Bryan, and David Duke, Coulter’s voice will get a little quieter as the rest of the world starts to tune her out. That’s the end of the road for a zealot. The sooner people stop listening, the sooner she’ll shut the hell up.
Rotten in Denmark? February 4, 2006
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Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or just don’t have any interest in international news you’re going to have heard about this (if your idea of international events revolves entirely around Simon Cowell, you’d better hurry and go vote for this week’s “Who Wants to Marry My Cat” on Fox). To make a long story short, a Danish newspaper decided it would be prudent/hilarious/incendiary to publish a week-long series of illustrations depicting the prophet Muhammad as a psychotic terrorist with a bomb-shaped turban (By the way, according to the Qu’ran, you can’t depict the image of Muhammad at all in any fashion, good or bad. So the fact that he’s drawn like a terrorist is irrelevant in many eyes). Before we get into the actual topic here, let’s get this out of the way: can a Western nation, powerful or otherwise, repeatedly make sweeping judgments and openly mock a gigantic organization of people who are currently embroiled in a culture war with the predominately Christian and Jewish West?
You can’t do that.
(The Can You Do That? feature will be launching shortly. Consider this an appetizer, a little piece of toast with cream cheese and smoked salmon. Main course to follow.)
Anyway, so the Danes made a mistake, I think that’s clear. A lot of people are trying to play the Freedom of the Press card, forgetting of course that the Bill of Rights does not cover the entire world and that America’s laws do not apply in every corner of the globe. It’s alarming, but true, there are other nations with other governments. Even the people who argue that our policies are always correct and that the citizens of foreign nations would have better lives if they adopted our ways can’t disagree with this one. When you satirize someone who looks differently and acts differently than your majority does, you’re just begging for someone to get offended. If Al-Jazzera, the Fair and Balanced Fox News of the Middle East, responded to the outbreak of sexual assault by priests with images of Jesus (H. Christ) engaged in deviant activity with small boys, you’d see Rumsfeld and Cheney tossing the phrase “act of war” around. So something’s rotten in the state of Denmark, they showed staggeringly poor judgment (this wouldn’t be the first time; historians have found Danish illustrations of Fortinbras wearing a baby bonnet and holding a rattle). Because the ratio of psychotic fundamentalist muslims to laid back muslims is about the same as rainy days in Tucson, yeah, the Danes were out of line.
That being said…look at the result.
The Danish embassy in Jakarta was stormed (a word forever associated with the Bastille) by angry protesters. The protesters did not reach the embassy itself, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying. Danish flags and effigies of the Prime Minister of Denmark were burned in the streets around the world. Gunmen raid the EU office in Gaza demanding an apology. Death threats were mailed to the newspaper and Denmark’s government officials.
This is not exactly a rational response. While a lot of people do not want to say it, one of the reasons so many apologies are being issued is that no one in Denmark wants to get blown up. And you know what? Everyone in the world right now, no matter how free thinking and accepting of all peoples, thinks it’s about to happen.
You do not protest a blasphemous cartoon by acting them out. You do not challenge people who make sweeping judgments by making your own. It wasn’t like the Government of Denmark released an image of Muhammad doing something ridiculous and declared it their new national seal. The country is being blamed for something that happened in a newspaper. That’s like a family in Brooklyn being called insensitive over a controversial cartoon in the New Yorker. That doesn’t exactly follow.
Attention Middle Eastern and Islamic nations: if you want people to stop depicting your religion as one based in violence and lunacy, stop reacting to controversy with violence and lunacy. There are civilized ways to do this, the world was already on your side in this matter. Those M-16 bullets don’t have to burn a hole in your pocket, you’ll have another chance to fire them into the air. Chill out.
A great example to follow is the one taken by Ali al-Sistani, the Grand Ayatollah of Iraq who, in the same speech, condemned the drawings while making no call for protests, suggesting that militant Muslims were partly to blame for distorting Islam’s image (MSNBC, 2/3). The true leadership of Islam understands what’s going on and knows that they are responsible for policing the out-of-control members of their following. The Vatican is equally responsible for keeping a leash on their fundamentalist Christian groups. The Philadelphia Eagles as an organization are responsible for keeping their fans from throwing batteries at opposing players and fans (there’s actually an NFL mandate penalizing a home team 15 yards if the fans throw things on the field; they hold the team responsible). Every group has its share of crazies and it is up to the leadership to keep them under control, lest their whole group gets lumped under the same umbrella.
-Mike Rosolio
Omarosa and Captain Freedom January 19, 2006
Posted by rosolio in Common Sense, Media, Movies, TV.add a comment
It has been the role of art to, in some way, advance society. Some pieces extend well beyond genius into the realm of historical significance. We listened as Nirvana woke everyone up from the glammed-out nightmare of hair bands. We swam through Ulysses, hearing the words of Joyce take gigantic chunks out of the previously impenetrable wall separating ‘decency’ and vulgarity’. We were mesmerized by the onscreen savvy of Sidney Poitier, as his Virgil Tibbs met the hurricane of race relations head on. The funny thing is that very often, we don’t recognize these milestones as they occur; it takes a little time. There wasn’t the 90s equivalent of Disco Demolition Night with people in ripped flannel going door-to-door collecting Dio albums for immediate disposal. Despite what ESPN would have you believe, history takes a while. What’s my point and what does this have to do with the pursuit of common sense?
Go watch The Running Man.
The somewhat satiric Schwarzenegger vehicle places the hero in a world obsessed with an ultra-violent reality TV show, in which felons run through a gauntlet of gladiators to the visceral delight of millions of viewers. Betcha thought that was far fetched in 1987. Not so much anymore.
The evolution is clear with all of this. The first reality show (and there’s no need to challenge this) was MTV’s The Real World. Some brilliant producer recognized that there were few things Americans liked to talk about more than other people, and gave them a group of people that everyone could talk about together. It was meant to be an objective look at regular kids, like sitting on a bench in Central Park and getting to hear about everyone’s lives. After that wore a little thin, they raised the stakes by being more particular about the characters for the show; for one thing, they began to find people to play their ‘real characters.’ They’re not idiots, they’ve been to a football game where a fight breaks out in the stands: everyone turns, everyone’s got to see that loud jackass in a Browns jersey get pummeled by loud jackasses in Raider jerseys. They started paring card-carrying Klan members with Black Panthers, right-wing conservatives with atheist vegans, Balco-ed out ‘roid ragers with silicone enhanced frequenters of the electric beach. The (Fire)ball was in motion.
The next step was to add fuel to the fire: make it a competition. The old Real World was like watching a soccer game: you go in knowing there’s a good chance the game will end in a zero-zero tie (the Real World corollary being everyone gets along on real world), but you could also see a bicycle-kick game winner (the equivalent being Surfer Joey barging in on Goth Amy and Indie Rocker Steve mid-coitus in a walk-in refrigerator and a huge fight breaking out). They added the Chuck Rule to the NFL to open up the offenses and add more scoring, and they added competition to the reality shows to give everyone something to fight about. Hello, Survivor.
Soon it wasn’t enough to simply pick and choose who to like and hate. The Apprentice designed a scenario where a collection of amoral ass kissers jockey for position to massage the ego of the modern day Auric Goldfinger (side project: go watch Goldfinger, and watch The Apprentice. Same guy. I’m officially waiting for one of Trump’s henchmen to decapitate a contestant with a bladed bowler hat). We don’t even need to find someone to like: we can hate everyone and hope to god they make a fool of themselves. What’s better than that, eh?
(Another sidenote on The Apprentice: the New York Times, which annually shirks journalistic integrity to list the official catch-phrases of the year, included the line, “You’re Fired,” which was copyrighted by NBC. News for the Times: That’s not a catch-phrase, not any more so than “What’s your name,” “Could we have some more bread,” and “It’s inoperable.” Saying it twice doesn’t make it historically significant. Getting canned at work is not going to be done as an allusion to Trump’s Wilde-like wit.)
So Fox, the Vespuggis of good taste and common sense (still lookin’ for that border), kicked out ugly people dating hot chicks, midgets getting married, and gold-diggers going after Joe Millionaire’s fake fortune. I was reminded of Winston Churchill’s famous line whenever that show would air a commercial: “-Madam, would you have sex with me for 10 million pounds? -Yes, I guess I would. -Would you have sex with me for 7 pounds? -No, what kind of girl do you think I am? -We’ve already established that, my dear, it just seems to be a matter of price.” Brilliant. Anyway, Fox trudged down this road until they hit solid gold with American Idol. Originally devised as proof that Americans will buy anything they’re told to buy (Clay Aiken sells out Madison Square Garden, ladies and gentlemen), they found a whole new purpose by releasing the audition tapes of the worst singers the world has ever seen. We get to see these poor saps get their souls torn apart by an ornery British gentleman with an encyclopedia of insults and Paula Abdul, whose cred comes from dancing with a cartoon cat in the late 80’s. They might as well rename the show “Abuse” and people would still watch it. “Today, on Abuse, a 17 year old kid makes a courageous leap for fame and is met head-on with a comparison between his voice and the sounds of Robert Plant dry-humping a car alarm. Followed by your local news.”
I’m not trying to make any sort of stand for decency or ethics here, that’s not what this is about. I just want to make sure we’re all a little more realistic about why we watch this stuff. ‘Dancing With The Stars’ is not about appreciating ballroom dancing. It’s hoping Jerry Rice or Master P kung fu kicks their Columbian partner in the face, intermittently dispersed with shots of Stacy Keibler (a Baltimore native and certifiable 10 1/2 if there ever was one). Sex and violence, it’s all we need. They ignored the sex element on “Skating With Celebrities” and went straight for the death-defying spin moves attempted after two weeks of televised training. While this may be ridiculously dangerous, it’s not hard to book these D-list ‘’stars” for this show; Dave Coulier would absolutely fight Sub Zero to the death to regain his mid-90s Full House stock.
Watch The Running Man again.
The most significant scene in that movie (I love breaking this down like it’s Beowulf) is when Producer/villain Killian (played with gusto by Family Feud’s Richard Dawson) decides that he’s had enough of Schwarzenegger defeating his MetRx Minotaurs and removes the chance element from the show by staging the Austrian’s death at the hands of Jesse Ventura’s Captain Freedom, in what became the nation’s first Governor-on-Governor melee, meant to represent that no matter how high and mighty California might aspire to be, the midwestern sensibility of Minnesota will always prevail. Killian’s audience wanted to see the convicts get their comeuppance in the bloodiest possible manner. The reality show audiences of today want to see people look like idiots or get in fights.
Watch The Running Man again.
Here’s a steaming pile of Common Sense: “Reality TV” is a misnomer because nothing on TV is reality. Omarosa was a construction of careful scripting, strategic editing, and a willing participant. Finding William Hung was more significant to Fox than finding whoever won that year (and isn’t it interesting I don’t know their name?). There’s a reason these people get agents as soon as they are signed to a show. There’s a reason they have AUDITIONS for Reality TV. They’re not going out to the Damen Blue Line stop in Chicago to find people to toss onto an island for a month. At least not without a headshot and stat sheet.
But I don’t blame these TV execs for doing this. I am by no means calling for them to wake up and find better stuff to put on their networks. We won’t watch it. The acolytes of common sense are begging for the next All in the Family or Seinfeld, and Fox has to cancel Arrested Development, the smartest show in the last ten years, because no one’s watching it. Millions tuned in weekly for The Simple Life, and SportsNight came and went with only a couple people noticing. People like their drama formulaic and predictable and their comedy as easy to digest as possible. We get both from a single episode of The Biggest Loser, along with ample “Look At That Fat Guy” gawking opportunity. In the words of Killian, “We’re giving them what they want.”
There is an end to this, and it may be watching Scott Peterson joust on a motorcycle against Ted Nugent (which, by the way, would land Super Bowl-level ratings). Eventually the well will run dry, as the country’s thirst for freak-shows will outrace the network’s creativity. We will get over this; fads come and go. We’ll find something new to talk about at work and plan our gym schedules around. It might be a renaissance of political satire and it might be raccoons doing Shakespeare. Somewhere the Kurt Cobain of television is writing the show that will snap us out of this Reality TV nightmare. Either that or he’s auditioning for Paradise Canoe.
