The next time anyone disagrees with my opinions, I’m going to have so much ammunition, I could blow up Hollywood. Maybe that would show them all just how much of a sense of humor we all have….
Race To The Finish
According to the Associated Press, “The new season of ‘Survivor’ will be the race among races. At the start of the reality show’s 13th edition, ‘Survivor: Cook Islands,’ 20 contestants will be organized into four tribes divided along ethnic lines’” black, white, Hispanic and Asian, CBS announced Wednesday.”
Okay, so it won’t end with one race being declared superior over the others. “The tribes, as usual, will merge later in the season, which debuts Sept. 14, the network said.”
Whew, should all be relieved. However, it won’t take long before the contestants start backstabbing each other as soon as it’s every contestant for themselves.
But if it’s going to meld back into the normal format, why this kind of start? Seems like a lot of promotin’ goin’ on. But we can all be assured that CBS was concerned….
“It’s very risky because you’re bringing up a topic that is a hot button. There’s a history of segregation you can’t ignore. It is part of our history. For that, it’s much safer to say, ‘No, let’s just stick with things the way they are. Let’s don’t be the network to rock the boat. Let’s not have “Survivor” try something new. But the biases from home can’t affect you. This is an equal opportunity game.“
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Jeff Probst, Survivor host
Probst reportedly admitted that he and the “Survivor” producers wanted to bring more ethnic diversity to the competition.
“The truth is 80 percent of the people that apply are white. And television, in general, is white. So all these criticisms were valid.”
Okay. As we’re all friends here, let me share with you opinion on the matter….
Mr. Probst sounds like one pompous ass.
He’s a well-paid host of a reality television program. He talks about our history, the history of segregation, yet his show is segregating contestants by race. Don’t get me wrong, the show’s premise is lame and was obviously a bad joke made into reality.
He says they wanted more “ethnic diversity” on the show, so what did they do? Tell all the “ethnic” hopefuls that this was their opportunity to beat whitey? This was never about some kind of social awareness campaign with a pinch of the Olympics. This is racial exploitation by a bunch of goateed, over-pierced, adolescent-brained, self-important, network television snobs who look down upon the very people who consume their brainless handiwork.
But the network lunacy didn’t end there….
Mere hours after people burned to death onboard Comair Flight 5191 that crashed near Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky, NBC’s Emmy host Conan O’Brien was featured in a video piece that spoofed the series “Lost” reenacting the show’s opening plane crash.
Some critics loved his hosting talents….
O’Brien “invigorated his portions of the three-hour NBC broadcast with the same inventive flair and loopy, self-lacerating wit that powers his Emmy-nominated late-night show.”
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Robert Bianco, USA Today
“O’Brien will once again go down as one of the best hosts this show has ever had.”
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Melanie McFarland, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
However, not all got past the bad taste left in their mouths by the “entertainment”.
“Really, is there even one person at NBC with a brain left in his head?”
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Nikki Finke, L.A. Weekly
“It was a live telecast. We were completely helpless. By the time we began to react, it was over. At the station, we were as horrified as they were at home.”
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Tim Gilbert, general manager of the NBC Lexington affiliate
So let’s break it down.
Hollywood, her celebrities and support mechanism, looks down on the ordinary people who consume their goods. News accounts of their actions, including insults and assaults, show their utter disdain for the rest of us. Of course, I personally met some stars who are down-to-earth, genuinely nice people. They are in the minority.
“Our hearts and prayers go out to the many families who lost loved ones in the plane crash in Kentucky on Sunday, and to the entire community that has suffered this terrible loss. In no way would we ever want to make light of this terrible tragedy. The filmed opening during the Emmy telecast was meant to spoof some of television’s most well-known scenes. The timing was unfortunate, and we regret any unintentional pain it may have caused.”
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NBC statement
If a commuter plane carrying the cast of a movie (not cast and crew, just cast) crashed and all inside were incinerated, Hollywood would have shut down for the week. The Emmy Awards would have been postponed.
With the many people at the instant ready at NBC, you can’t tell me that there couldn’t have been some other monologue or something else that could have been written to replace that skit.
The point is this: Hollywood considers land between Los Angeles and New York City hayseed hick, flyover country. Those inconsequential people were stupid enough to vote for Bush, and if some of them were offended, oh well.
Vent
As much as I try and be optimistic, even I succumb to frustration.
Hopefully, in the next couple of weeks, when you go to my website, you’ll see a new “Media Center” link that will take you to an archive of my radio spots, as well as some of my television programs. I write, produce, and edit my own television shows, and they’re aired on cable access channels in three states.
What steams me is that we always see black liberals on television. There’s Tavis Smiley, Jesse Jackson had a show, and local affiliates have their Sunday morning “community” programming, almost all with that liberal flavor. Michael Eric Dyson is a sought-after radio opinion maker. I’ve pitched my show idea to networks, local stations, as well as radio. And to this day, no takers.
Is it the messenger, or the message?
Meter Maid
Had a talk the other day with Kelly Richardson, authorette of Violation! The Bitchings of a Boston Meter Maid.
Putting tickets on cars parked in front of expired meters is not the kind of job I’m presently looking for. So I asked her, “What were some of the excuses you got for creative parking?”
“I was only gone for a minute.” Thats what double parkers always said. Or you’d give them a ticket for say hydrant; you’d swing around your route and when you see the same car, he’s moved it a bit off the hydrant and he comes screaming out to you that he wasn’t on the hydrant…. Lots of lying about how they weren’t illegally parked”
I asked her what will people take away from your book, aside from the fact that Boston has a few assholes walking the streets?
“More than a few. Maybe they will understand that meter maids are just doing their jobs. They will understand why meter maids have that look on their faces; why they react the way they do (they hear the same excuses and the same rhetoric all day everyday). Maybe they’ll laugh a bit and be horrified at what goes on in a meter maids life. Bailey, the main character isn’t a typical meter maid. I made her more obnoxious. and I made her pretty obnoxiously conservative. so I know some people who read the book are just expecting a story about a meter maid, but its more than that. It’s about politics, sex, drugs, rock ‘n roll….”
I asked if this book were made into a movie, who would play you?
“I always thought Jeanne Garafalo, BUT now that she is soo insanely LIBERAL… I dont think so… so I’m not sure.”
So, for those of you who like to cuddle up with a good book, the preceding was a shameless plug.
All Katrina, All The Time
The mainstream media is having fun reminding us of the death and destruction that was Hurricane Katrina. On the one year anniversary, they’re pulling out all the stops, reminding us that the handling of evacuation, rescue, and non-existant rebuilding is all George Bush’s fault.
But as I’ve made every attempt to avoid network coverage, I was again forced (due to employment mandates) to watch Democracy Now! and their commentary on the event that was predictably sad.
Amy Goodman started off a segment with Jed Horne, author of “Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City“. He was “part of the team that won two Pulitzer Prizes for their coverage of the hurricane.”
Let it suffice to say that not one negative was issued to New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin or Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco. No mention of the hundreds of school buses that sat in a parking lot that Nagin should have used to evacuate the inhabitants of the doomed chocolate city. We’ve all been over this, so I won’t waste the kilobytes.
What got me was a little video piece introduced by Miss Amy: “Jed, I wanted to ask you about the dead bodies. When we went down to New Orleans to cover the story, community organizer Malik Rahim, who is co-founder of the Common Ground Collective, took us to Algiers, showed us a dead body that had been there for days — actually for weeks.”
MALIK RAHIM: Now, his body been here for almost two weeks. Two weeks tomorrow, alright, that this man’s body been laying here. And there’s no reason for it. Look where we at? I mean, it’s not flooded. There’s no reason for them to be — left that body right here like this. I mean, that’s just totally disrespect. You know? I mean, two weeks. Every day, we ask them about coming and pick it up. And they refuse to come and pick it up.
AMY GOODMAN: As Malik Raheem was speaking, as if on cue, every level of authority he mentioned drove by.
There’s a dead body right here. Is — who are you with?
SOLDIER: We’re with Bravo 15.
AMY GOODMAN: Which is?
SOLDIER: The cav.
AMY GOODMAN: Army?
SOLDIER: Army, yes. Regular army.
AMY GOODMAN: There’s a dead body right here. Can you guys pick it up?
SOLDIER: I don’t think we can pick it up, but we can call the local authorities to come pick it up.
Amy, any reason why you didn’t pick it up?
AMY GOODMAN: There’s a dead body right here. Can Louisiana State Troopers, can you pick it up?
LOUISIANA STATE TROOPER: You need to talk to our public information officer, Ma’am.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s been here for two weeks. We filmed it last week, and gentleman over here said he has been trying to get it picked up for two weeks. And Louisiana State Troopers, the Police, the Army, no one has responded. We’re looking right over at it right there.
LOUISIANA STATE TROOPER: You need to talk to our public information officer
Amy, any reason why you didn’t pick it up?
AMY GOODMAN: Do you know what they should do to get this body removed?
ROBERT GONZALEZ: I have no idea. I can’t tell you. I don’t know. There’s been several people over here looking at it.
NEW ORLEANS POLICE OFFICER: Our sector is this area here.
AMY GOODMAN: So, this is right in your sector.
NEW ORLEANS POLICE OFFICER: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that body is right in your sector.
NEW ORLEANS POLICE OFFICER: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what should happen then?
NEW ORLEANS POLICE OFFICER: Well, what I can do in my position is let — notify my chain of command and leave it up to them to make those bigger decisions. It would be out of my hands. I’m just a lower level position.
Amy, any reason why you didn’t pick it up?
AMY GOODMAN: There’s this dead body over there. Would the Army take it out?
ARMY LIEUTENANT: No, that’s not really in our jurisdiction. We can’t do any type of police work. So that’s not for us to handle. We can only report it and hope that the cops take care of it. But we can’t do anything.
Amy, any reason why you didn’t pick it up?
AMY GOODMAN: You New Orleans Police?
NEW ORLEANS POLICE OFFICER: Yes, ma’am. I can’t talk, though.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re just — there’s a dead body over here, and we’re wonder if the police would pick it up.
NEW ORLEANS POLICE OFFICER: I have no comment on that, Ma’am. You’re going to have to call one of the press guys. Sorry.
Amy, any reason why you didn’t pick it up?
It was obvious Amy was proud of that piece. The reason why Amy didn’t pick up that dead body herself was because it was merely a prop to her. Just like the soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are nothing but props to her and those who think like her.
To people like her, the real tragedy in the year after Hurricane Katrina decimated the Gulf Coast, is that government didn’t take over. She and her later guest lamented the fact that the Bush Administration is resisting rebuilding the housing projects liberal millionaires like Goodman believe blacks belong in.
As Ray Nagin has no concrete plan to rebuild New Orleans a year later, it’s up to liberals like Goodman to remind us all that the Crescent City was once a liberal utopia, complete with racism and all its inequities, rampant homicide, horrible public schools, drug crime, rapes, illegitimate children, and disproportionate unemployment in the black community.
And people like Amy Goodman wants it put back just the way it was.
Are we really surprised…?
