Showing posts with label reality TV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reality TV. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Cops crewman shot to death
as Omaha joins deadly meme

Bad boys, bad boys whatcha want
Whatcha gonna do when sheriff John Brown come for you tell me whatcha gonna do.
-- 'Cops' theme


Welcome to the worst day of Todd Schmaderer's life -- or at least a lead-pipe cinch for one of the top five.

The Omaha police chief welcomed the crew of the Cops reality-TV show to River City with open arms, seeking to showcase his officers' professionalism and, he hoped, improve relations with the community. Now a crew member of the show is dead -- fatally wounded by shots fired by one of Omaha's finest at the scene of a robbery in progress at a local Wendy's.

Officials know the sound man had to have been killed by police bullets. The fast-food robber was armed with a BB gun.
 

Clark Griswold doesn't know how lucky he was.

Welcome to the national narrative, Omaha. Welcome to the eye of the storm over police weapons, police tactics and police training. Welcome to the national conversation over shoot-first mentalities.

Welcome to public-relations hell. Welcome to our national never-ending tragedy.

A stupid robber with a fake gun is dead. That's tragedy enough. But when an innocent TV-show crew member gets killed in the process of a cop turning a perp into Swiss cheese, we're firmly into words-fail territory.

From today's Omaha World-Herald:
A crew member with the “Cops” television show was fatally struck by police gunfire as Omaha officers confronted a robber — who also was fatally wounded — at a midtown restaurant, law enforcement sources said Wednesday.

The World-Herald has learned that at least 30 shots were fired at the Wendy’s near 43rd and Dodge Streets.

Officials said it appears the only shots fired came from police.

The robbery suspect apparently had an air gun, a type of BB gun that looks like an actual firearm. He apparently was a prison parolee from Kansas, law enforcement sources said.

The names of the two dead had not been released at midday Wednesday. Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer has scheduled a press conference for 2:30 p.m.
I KNOW it's difficult being a police officer. God help me if I were forced to make a split-second, life-or-death decision in the dark of the night. God help me if I screwed it up, which I probably would.

Still, it's becoming apparent that what we're dealing with here is a nationwide, systemic problem of deadly proportions. Back to the newspaper account:
The TV crew member who died was a sound engineer, who holds the microphone during taping. The camera operator was not injured, nor were any police officers.

According to the show’s website, “Cops” crew members wear bullet-proof vests on the job.

The crew has been working in Omaha for much of the summer.

David Brown, president of the Omaha Chamber of Commerce, called the shootings a tragedy.

“We are deeply saddened that this happened and offer condolences to all of the family members involved,” he said.

The shootings occurred after an officer discovered a man, wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt and white bandanna, robbing the restaurant, Deputy Police Chief Dave Baker said late Tuesday.

The first officer at the scene called for backup about 9:20 p.m.
The east-facing windows of the Wendy’s restaurant were riddled with bullet holes, and Dodge Street was closed for several hours.
The two shooting victims were taken to the Nebraska Medical Center in critical condition. They later died.
Officers honor TV 
crewman via Facebook

"AT LEAST 30 shots were fired. . . ."

"The east-facing windows of the Wendy’s were riddled with bullet holes. . . ."

"
The robbery suspect apparently had an air gun, a type of BB gun that looks like an actual firearm. . . ."

Something is very wrong here, and not just because an idiot felon and an innocent man are dead.

We have to be careful about saying too much that's too specific because, after all, we don't know what we don't know. We have to be careful because, in a split second . . . at night, you can't tell a BB gun from the real thing.

But we do know enough that we must admit that something's horribly wrong with the Big Picture here. Ferguson. St. Louis. A guy shot dead by Ohio cops because a scared Person of Walmart saw a black man with a BB gun (which he had just picked up in the toy department) and called police, who shot first and asked questions later.


SOMETHING is wrong, this we can say. The specifics, we're still grappling with.

But something tells me it has something to do with a nation amid a societal and cultural meltdown that, coincidentally, also happens to be armed to the frickin' teeth.

Last night, it was a stupid criminal and a TV guy trying to do his job. Two dead and an officer's life perhaps ruined. Nobody asked for that, I wouldn't think.


Tomorrow, it could be you. Or me. Or anybody.

Be afraid. Be very afraid here in Firearm Nation.



UPDATE: The police chief's press conference just ended. Here's what he said:


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Cybergun-Taurus-PT92-Replica-Spring-Powered-Airsoft-Pistol-Metal-Slide-/200943638556
An Airsoft replica Taurus PT92
Three officers were involved, a detective and two patrol officers. The suspect, Cortez Washington, 32, fired at the officers with an Airsoft pistol inside the Wendy's restaurant. Schmaderer said that, judging from  footage by the Cops crew, that the Airsoft gun not only looked like a real handgun, but sounded like one. Airsoft guns fire plastic pellets, and Washington's was a replica Taurus PT92.

The chief said the cameraman entered behind the two officers the crew was riding with and was able to take cover, but that the sound engineer, Bryce Dion, got caught in the vestibule. After being hit by officer's gunfire, he said, the robber tried to escape through that vestibule as the cops continued to fire.


Dion was hit by a round which entered under his arm through a gap in his bulletproof vest. Schmaderer said he didn't think Dion was visible to the officers at the time.

The chief, in response to a reporter's question, said he hadn't slept since the incident.

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Omaha Picker


You know who have the best jobs in the world? The American Pickers guys.
Put me in a thrift store or at an estate sale, and I turn into the Omaha version of Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz. I see relics of a time long gone, and I start to see who the original owners were and maybe what they did.


What some folks see as junk, I -- like Mike and Frank -- see history you can touch. History you can make your own.

CALL ME continually amazed at the stuff folks throw out that I find in the record stacks at our neighborhood Goodwill.

Retail, this Glen Gray album would be worth a few bucks, maybe a little more. At the Goodwill, 99 cents. And look, it's autographed! That should add a few bucks to the value.

Welcome back to 1956.

I love this stuff. So does 3 Chords & the Truth.

Friday, December 27, 2013

Jesusland 1, Anti-H8 Brigade 0

Well, it certainly didn't take long for A&E to quack . . . er, crack

"Tolerance" is one thing in television. Money is another, and in this case money won. A&E execs could see the network losing a lot of it if Duck Dynasty went away.
"After discussions with the Robertson family, as well as consulting with numerous advocacy groups, A&E has decided to resume filming Duck Dynasty later this spring with the entire Robertson family," the channel said in a statement. 

In an apparent gesture to the advocacy groups, A&E said that it would "also use this moment" to broadcast public service announcements "promoting unity, tolerance and acceptance among all people."
EXPECT THE Forces of Tolerance (TM) to pitch another fit. Because that's what we do in this country.

Friday, December 20, 2013

Ol' Phil from Jesusland


Nuance is dead.

Hyperbole is alive.

Willfully reading the worst into every word out of every mouth, then demonizing The Other for "hate speech" is a growth industry for which there is no apparent ceiling.

OK, so Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty notoriety ain't down with the gay agenda. Considering that he's a 67-year-old evangelical Christian from north Louisiana, that should be no surprise. 

Given that the A&E cable network is raking in record earnings based on the proposition that the hirsute, duck-call-making Robertson clan is a postmodern version of the Beverly Hillbillies -- minus the Beverly Hills part -- and do wacky things because they're wacky rednecks, it beggars credulity that the TV execs are shocked and offended that ol' Phil gave an interview that sounded like something you'd expect from Ol' Phil from Bumf***, Louisiana. For example:
“We’re Bible-thumpers who just happened to end up on television,” he tells me. “You put in your article that the Robertson family really believes strongly that if the human race loved each other and they loved God, we would just be better off. We ought to just be repentant, turn to God, and let’s get on with it, and everything will turn around.”
(snip)
“Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” he says. Then he paraphrases Corinthians: “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.”
I GUESS some things are too real for "reality" TV. Probably a good quarter of the United States' population is too "real" for TV, actually.

Two things are absolutely true today. First, we are a nation divided and at each other's throats. Second, what a person says is way more important than what a person does, and the muddled things we think -- or haven't thought out, exactly -- will get us written out of polite humanity, regardless of how we actually live our lives or treat our fellow man.

Amid the never-ending tribal warfare that passes for American society today, Phil Robertson made the fatal error of sounding weird in saying something politically incorrect. The man A&E made famous for being a "good ol' boy" -- a rich good ol' boy, but a good ol' boy nevertheless --  has been made a non-person for living out his typecasting.

And 25 percent of Americans just got the message, loud and clear. Throw another stick of dynamite on the fire, wouldja?

One thing I appreciate about being Catholic is that Catholicism knows the value of nuance when it comes to things like homosexuality. In other words, we try to make it clear that the person is not the sin, and the condition is not the sin. Only the sin is the sin -- it's what we do that can become problematic, not what we are or who we are.

OR . . . as the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about homosexuality:
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,141 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."142 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.
I WISH Robertson had the moral, cultural and religious vocabulary to have been a lot more nuanced about this matter. And not flippantly gross. (You'll know it when you read it in the GQ piece.)

Saying the right thing the right way probably wouldn't have kept GLAAD's indignant harpies at bay, and it might not have even kept Ol' Phil in the good graces of Hollywood, Inc. It, however,
would have been more faithful to the biblical truth Robertson seeks to proclaim -- and added just a little clear water to the muck of another culture-war fever swamp.


*  *  *

THEN, OF COURSE, there's what Ol' Phil from Bumf***, La., had to say about race. Which, again, is utterly unsurprising. Which means the man is completely clueless, and perhaps morally obtuse.

As others have said, he's lucky the gays have made such a stink because it's taking attention away from this:

“I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field.... They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’—not a word!... Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.”
OH, GOD . . .  the Happy Negroes live on in Southern lore. This ain't religious; this is the staying power of a disordered and deviant culture. This is how one is formed by that rotten culture, and formed to the point where the deviant looks completely normal.

Where vice looks like virtue. Where empathy not only fails, but moral blindness prevails.

And it's just ignorant.

Well, we
at least can say Phil Robertson deserves a good shunning because of that, right? Well . . . hold on there, Hoss. There's this:
Willie has just come back from Washington, D.C., where he accepted an award at the Angels in Adoption Gala. (He and his wife, Korie, adopted a biracial child named Will and are dedicated advocates of the practice.) As we speak, there’s a film crew outside the house, prepping for a State Farm ad that the family will be shooting here on the property tomorrow. The Robertsons receive more than 500 media requests a day, and Willie had to negotiate down to four shooting days a week with A&E just so the family would have a bit of breathing room. Phil knows it won’t last. He can already see that the end is near, and he’s prepared for it.
MR. IGNORANT REDNECK managed to raise a son who adopted a biracial child. He raised a son who tirelessly advocates adopting biracial children.

I'd say it would be reasonable to assume Phil Robertson loves that half-black grandbaby with all his heart. No matter what crazy s*** he said for the benefit of a magazine writer. Meantime:
“So you and your woman: Are y’all Bible people?”

Not really, I’m sorry to say.

“If you simply put your faith in Jesus coming down in flesh, through a human being, God becoming flesh living on the earth, dying on the cross for the sins of the world, being buried, and being raised from the dead—yours and mine and everybody else’s problems will be solved. And the next time we see you, we will say: ‘You are now a brother. Our brother.’ So then we look at you totally different then. See what I’m saying?”

I think so?

We hop back in the ATV and plow toward the sunset, back to the Robertson home. There will be no family dinner tonight. No cameras in the house. No rowdy squirrel-hunting stories from back in the day. There will be only the realest version of Phil Robertson, hosting a private Bible study with a woman who, according to him, “has been on cocaine for years and is making her decision to repent. I’m going to point her in the right direction.”
OBVIOUSLY, we're dealing with a horrible person here. Absolutely irredeemable. Mandatorily ostracizable.

Life isn't always logical, and neither are the people who live it. A lot of times, the heart is a lot smarter than the brain, and our actions are a lot nobler than our words. God forbid that the total of our human worth should be less than the sum of our all-too-human faults.

Not that that matters anymore. Not here, not now.

Crucify him!

Monday, November 11, 2013

Well, there's always Viagra ads


First, the Silver Zipper jumped a 30-something-year-old trophy wife. Then he jumped the shark.

Or, to quote the Rolling Stones in the wake of Gov. Edwin and Trina Edwards' creeptastic reality-TV show getting axed by A&E, "You can't always get what you want." But if the 86-year-old ex-Louisiana governor and convicted felon tries sometimes, he just might find he gets what he needs.

In other words, can a Viagra commercial be the fallback position for these May-December lovebirds?

THERE AREN'T many reasons my hometown paper, The Advocate, is a must-read for me (I haven't lived in Baton Rouge since 1988), but among that small number is Louisiana gold like this:
After three weeks and a dwindling viewership, the fairy tale appears to be over for former Gov. Edwin Edwards’ reality show.

A&E announced Monday that “The Governor’s Wife” has aired in its entirety.

The network yanked the reality show from its Sunday night time slot this past weekend after the show lost thousands of viewers. Episodes chronicling the former governor’s release from parole and the birth of his son Eli aired in a block of back-to-back shows at the same time as Sunday morning church services.

“We believe in the show and appreciate all of the hard work that went into the series from the producers and the time and access the family provided,” Laurén Bienvenue, senior manager of publicity for A&E, said Monday.

Edwards’ wife, Trina, and the show’s creator, Shaun Sanghani, said “The Governor’s Wife” still could have a future chronicling the former governor’s post-prison life with his 60-something daughters, decades-younger wife, stepsons and newborn baby. They declined to elaborate.

Possibilities include “The Governor’s Wife” migrating to a network with a bigger audience of women. Reruns of the show aired on Lifetime.

“We made a time change for now, but you never can tell where we will end up,” Trina Edwards said by email.
 
VIAGRA commercials. Definitely Viagra commercials.

I'm just happy that a country that tolerates prime-time displays of Miley Cyrus twerking like an estrous baboon still has a few standards left -- that it still can be creeped out by something.

The bad news for my home state is that it seemingly is creeped out by nothing. Laissez les temps étranges rouler!

Monday, September 30, 2013

Louisiana jumps the shark


The Times-Picayune's J.R. Ball wants to know why Louisiana is so in love with Edwin W. Edwards, the ex-con ex-governor who, in his long public life, hasn't exactly covered the state in glory.

No doubt, that streak of ignominy -- more like a skid mark, actually -- won't be broken by his and his grandchild bride's new A&E "reality" show, The Governor's Wife. But the man's popularity persisted through thick and the federal pen, and no doubt it will continue to go up as he continues to drag the state's reputation down.

This mystifies the New Orleans paper's Baton Rouge editor and columnist. I don't know why, but it does:
Between pops of an adult beverage, my newfound friend informed me that Edwards, with a personality second-to-none, was the greatest governor to ever grace this state. My mention of Edwards' decade-long stay at a federal penitentiary brought, without hesitation, the explanation that "the governor" was simply robbing from those who could afford to be fleeced to help fulfill his larger, nobler quest to help the "little man" in Louisiana.

This bit of information prompted an epiphany: I need some new friends.

Before going our separate ways, my soon-to-be, newfound ex-friend dropped this nugget of wisdom: "Edwin Edwards would easily beat Bobby Jindal if he could run against him. Hell, there's not a politician in the state right now who could beat Edwards."

This was hardly my first exposure to this state's perverse love affair with Edwards. Most times, I adopt the learned Deep South behavior of smiling politely and simply walking away, silently stunned by the ignorance of such misguided opinions. As usual, I walked away without confrontation, but this time there was no incredulous internal laughter. Maybe it was latent hostility from having my television hijacked earlier that morning by a steady stream of commercials for "The Governor's Wife," a new reality show devoted to Edwards' ginormous ego. Maybe it was the ego of Edwards' attention-seeking trophy wife, using the show to introduce herself to a national cable audience. But this time I was angry. Or maybe it was just the increasing tempo of the "mist."

Regardless, can someone please explain this state's ongoing -- and seemingly never-ending -- fascination with one Edwin Washington Edwards?

SOMEONE doesn't need to explain it. I think Ball already knows; he's been around the Louisiana block more than a few times during his decades in the Gret Stet. As a journalist there, he's written about more stupidity, skullduggery, sleaze and stealing by those who run the state on citizens' behalf than most journalists from most other states would in three lifetimes.

You know and I know that in his heart of hearts, J.R. Ball knows.

The hard part is the admitting. And the accepting. And then acting upon what one has admitted and accepted. Yeah, that's the hard part. The longer one can prolong the "mystery," alas, the longer one delays some painful admissions and tough decisions.

In my opinion -- as someone born and raised in Louisiana, and as someone who lived there through more than half of Edwards' four terms as governor -- there are a few reasons you could be fascinated by the Silver Zipper. (Guess how Edwin got that nickname.)

One is that he's so foreign to you and your experience, you are fascinated by how exotic he is. That one's a non-starter in Louisiana. It just is.

Another is the Jerry Springer syndrome, otherwise known as "Look at the freaks!" and "Golly, I'm not as f***ed up as I thought!" But you don't elect your average Springero Erectus governor four times.

OR, IT JUST might be that you think, on some level, that Edwin Washington Edwards is just like you -- or perhaps a better, smarter and more powerful you. Massive corruption is OK, just as long as I can get some crumbs from his larcenous feast at the public's table.

J.R.'s game-day pal said as much.

Generally, states, like individuals, get what they tolerate, and they tolerate what they find tolerable. There lies the key to the riddle of Louisiana and its taste for crooks in high places.

To paraphrase what one colorful son of south Louisiana once famously proclaimed, "It's the culture, stupid!" Which just might be why "reformers" there spend all their time spinning their wheels, yet getting nowhere.

What was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Friday, August 02, 2013

Later's news now . . . or 'Sorry, Wong number!'


There's a birth announcement  you need to know about in today's Morning Deviate. It might be the biggest Louisiana news since all the courts recessed for the day at 4 p.m.

Take a look, because that's the way it is . . . this day in August, 2098.
It’s a boy for ex-Prefect Eli Wallace Edwards and his wife, Yob.

The couple welcomed T. Wong Edwards in Baton Rouge early Thursday morning just three days after celebrating their second wedding anniversary at an offshore strip club floating above the submerged ruins of New Orleans. Yob Bebe Edwards posted the announcement on her Spacebook page early Thursday.

“Everyone except me is getting to sleep. It’s ok though ... I’d rather just lay here and stare at my little Cajun prince!!,” she posted along with a photo of herself gazing into her son’s face.

Born at 12:52 a.m., T. is Edwards’ fifth child and his wife’s third son. The former prefect of the Louisiana Autonomous Region has four grown children. His wife has two sons from a prior marriage. T. weighs 6 lbs., 3 oz., and is 19 inches long.

The baby shares his name with his late grandfather, Edwin W. Edwards, a former American congressman who served four terms as governor in the second half of the 20th century.

Father and son came close to sharing a birthday as well. Ely Edwards will turn 86 next week.

Despite a difficult pregnancy, Yob Edwards was well enough to post updates on Spacebook as she awaited the baby’s arrival Wednesday afternoon and later announce his birth.

It was full house in her labor room at the oceanfront campus of Baton Rouge General Medical Center -- Bluebonnet Hoverway. A stereo-V crew hovered in the background, capturing the moment for the couple’s reality program, “The Prefect’s Squeeze.” A broadcast date for the program — which will air on the Booze&Poontang educational stream — has been pushed back several times.

Edwards, 85, met his 18-year-old wife while he was serving his sentence on holographic-cyborg-poker racketeering charges in a Greater North American Authority penal institution.

The couple said they wanted to share as many experiences as possible in the short amount of time they likely have together.

They live in a yacht anchored over the swamped family ancestral home where the city of Gonzales once existed.

Yob Edwards said their new son is a perfect little boy.

“F*** yeah, bitches! Mah lil schwing man got it goin' lol!” she posted on Spacebook about the new scion of the autonomous region's Zipper dynasty. Meantime, the proud geriatric papa -- popularly known as the Titanium Zipper, following his father the Silver Zipper --  was spotted passing out electronic cigars and holographic casino tokens on the medical center beachfront, buxom blondes on each arm.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

It must have been the 'secret sauce'

Bad things happen when swamp people get not-so-secret sauced on some resort barroom's high-octane "goo-goo juice."

Ask "Trapper Joe," who found out the hard way that while Louisiana alligators might be marginally meaner than Florida cops, they ultimately lack the power to throw your ass in jail.

Which is where your ass is going to end up when your drunk girlfriend tells Orange County lawmen your drunk self assaulted and battered her, says the
TMZ website, which in this case must stand for Too Many Zombies:
Trapper Joe -- real name Noces Joseph LaFont Jr. -- was arrested for assault and battery in Orange County, Florida early Wednesday morning.

According to the arrest report, a witness told police Trapper Joe and his GF were arguing at the Buena Vista Hotel and Spa just after midnight ... and both appeared very drunk.

The witness claims he watched Joe punch the woman in the chest ... and then grab her by the arms and shake her very hard.

The GF told police Joe had received a call on his cell phone ... and she wanted to know who was calling ... but when she reached for his phone, he tried to burn her with a lit cigarette.
I'M SURPRISED they both didn't burst into flames, actually.

Well, at least the Florida cops didn't choot 'em. That's somethin', at least.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

If you can fake being sincerely annoying. . . .


Oh, thank God.

The people on House Hunters aren't that priggish, superficial and annoying all by themselves. That's just who they play on TV. Just like they're playing at actually looking for a house.

Because the HGTV "reality" series is a great big ol' fake. We heard the news today -- oh, boy!


Er . . . I mean, Yahoo!

The blog Hooked on Houses is giving fans a dose of reality about the HGTV series "House Hunters." According to an interview with a former participant, Bobi Jensen, much of the popular show, which has been on the air since 1999, is faked.

The premise of 'House Hunters' is that viewers follow a buyer as they anxiously decide between three different houses. Jensen says that, in fact, one house has already been purchased--the producers wouldn't even finalize her as a subject until after the closing. "When I watch other episodes of the show now I can usually pick out the house they were getting based on hair-dos alone," says Jensen. Houses are sometimes shot months apart. While the two rejected properties may be on the market, in Jensen's case, "They were just our two friends' houses who were nice enough to madly clean for days in preparation for the cameras!"

A former subject of the spin-off "House Hunters International" confirms that one house on the program has already been bought before filming begins. Ted Prosser, who did his real estate search in the Virgin Islands, said in an interview with a St. John blog: "The show is not really a reality show. You have to already own the house that gets picked at the end of the show. But the other houses in [my] show are actually the other houses we considered buying."

Hooked on Houses originally busted the program for using houses already in escrow in 2010, but now they are providing more dirt about other phony details. Jensen says producers tweaked her storyline to make it more TV-friendly. "The producers said they found our (true) story--that we were getting a bigger house and turning our other one into a rental--boring and overdone." Instead they had Jensen emphasize that their old home was too small, something that she claims makes her "cringe" with embarrassment when she watches the episode.
I GUESS at HGTV, if you can fake insufferable, you've got it made. Such is life in this land of bread and circuses.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Really? You think? Nahhhhhhhhh.


The man with his finger on the racing pulse of reality TV thinks it's only a matter of time before someone in the genre goes "too far."

Did I just write "before" reality TV goes too far?

Of course, you have to understand that every time our culture goes too far, we have to come up with a new, more "out there" definition of "too far." For the first decade or two of the Television Age, "hell" and "damn" were "too far." And you couldn't say the word "pregnant." It was "family way," darn it!

And Rob and Laura Petrie slept in separate beds.

THESE DAYS, says Today's blog The Clicker, "too far" pretty much is a reality-TV snuff movie. "Too far" is Americans sitting slack-jawed on their couches, shoving their faces full of chips and delighting in a "magnificent violent act."

"People will watch to see if we can find signs of 'did we see that coming?'" said Robert Galinsky, founder of the New York Reality TV School. "'Was I a good enough detective to see the signs that Russell Armstrong was going to take his own life?' 'Did I tap into my inner David Caruso and detect that Kim was faking her wedding?'"

(snip)

Reality is all about the here, and the now -- if it’s done, it's over. So they have to keep pushing the envelope. And with both "Housewives" and "Kourtney & Kim" we’ve been invited to watch the evolution of two of the worst things that can happen to couples -- sudden death and divorce. It's hard to imagine that other reality shows won’t find some way to give us more somewhere down the line.

Galinsky figures we haven’t even gotten close to ultimate reality TV: "The line we cross is when we see something ultra-violent -- domestic violence or the like -- live," he said. "Reality TV still has a filter, yet a questionable one, and we haven’t crossed the threshold yet, but we'll see it soon in the form of a murder, suicide or some other magnificent violent act that will make its way onto the screen."

Waiting for that "magnificent" violence to erupt may be some viewers' idea of a good time. But what we have now, the slow crawl to the inevitable ending we know is coming, doesn’t really feel much like entertainment any more. It’s evolved into something else, something we may not have a word for yet.

I SUPPOSE -- whether or not we actually get to see "snuff TV" -- the mere fact that there is such a thing as the New York Reality TV School is yet another sign that we are the new barbarians. That we stand to push the exhibitionist genre beyond, in its worst permutations, mere casual cruelty and idiocy and into bloodlust and criminal intent, all for our entertainment, is a sign that we may be monsters.

Monday, September 26, 2011

With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps


The above video contains not-so-adult language. NSFW.


Apparently, this video was the big thing on the Internets last week.

Today, the big thing on the Internets is a debate on whether last week's big thing on the Internets was all a big set-up for the benefit of Bristol Palin's reality-TV show. That's TMZ's and the Today show website's story, and Bristol's co-star is sticking to it.

Today's blog, The Clicker, posts the above video and warns "The following video contains adult language." Trust me, there's nothing adult about any of it.

There's nothing adult about Bristol Palin cashing in on being an unwed-mother daughter of a flaky Alaska politician with national pretensions. There's nothing adult about doing the above clad in an "Empowered" sweatshirt (Phil. 4:13) with a "lightning" cross.

There's nothing adult about a half-drunk guy yelling whether Bristol rode baby-daddy Levi Johnson like the mechanical bull she was on. Or adding that "Your mother's a f***ing whore! She's the devil!"

THERE'S NOT a thing adult about Bristol -- wrapped in the cross Jesus Christ hung and died on -- getting in the guy's face and asking "Is it because you're a homosexual?" (Oddly enough, she apparently jumped to the correct conclusion.)

And there's nothing adult about this confrontation going on and on, with a camera crew to record the whole thing and put it on the Internet . . . and later, television.

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NOPE. Nothing adult to be found in TMZ tracking down the profane heckler to get the "scoop" on whether it was all a put-up deal, and nothing adult in Stephen Hanks justifying his bad behavior with his passion for politics. There, however, was plenty ironic about his saying he was originally from Louisiana and, therefore, knew white trash when he saw it.

Probably in the mirror every day. Just a wild guess on my part.

Finally, I wonder whether there's anything adult about my giving all these people an extension on their 15 minutes of fame. I wonder whether there's anything adult about adding to our nation's cultural and media dysfunction by highlighting all this bad behavior going on in the name of ratings and revenue.

I tell myself it's because it's all so metaphorical. That it somehow sums up who and what we've become as Americans today.

I fancy myself as being the "adult" here. The adult pointing and yelling
"Look at the freaks! Look at the freaks!"

Lord have mercy, I think we all may be "the freaks" here. May someday we be "Empowered"
(ZAP!) to just stop.

After all, "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me."

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

First Snooki, now Crooki


I'm not exactly sure how you can beat the 1991 Edwards-Duke debate in the universe of whack-job, bizarro "reality TV."

Apparently, though, somebody is willing to try to top the "reality" s***storm that was the gubernatorial runoff between Edwin Edwards
(the crook) and David Duke (the Nazi).

In Baton Rouge,
The Advocate isn't prone to considering that. I just did.
First a fiancée and now a reality show?

Former Gov. Edwin Edwards is unfolding the chapters of his post-prison life on a Facebook page that features a photograph of him snuggling with his fiancée, Trina Grimes Scott.

The latest installment is a possible reality show on his personal life, including his engagement to Scott, who is in her 30s. Scott would be Edwards’ third wife.

Edwards recently posted on Facebook that he and Scott are in talks for a reality show.

“We have received a lot of questions but have no answers at this time. Thanks for all the interest and we will try to keep you posted!” Edwards wrote in an update Monday.

Edwards, who was released from federal prison in January, lists his residence as Gonzales.

He said he and Scott are working with producer Shaun Sanghani of SSS Entertainment.

Like Scott, Sanghani has ties to Alexandria.

One of his latest works is “Girls, Guns and Gators,” which follows a 25-year-old girl’s management of her family sporting goods store in Bastrop. The show is scheduled to air on the Travel Channel.
WELL, I GUESS it theoretically could get weirder. The Silver Zipper could get his own reality show, then commence stepping out on his grandchild-aged fiancée -- on camera -- with Snooki.

But then people would lose all respect for the man. Even Louisiana has its limits.

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Life in these United States: Shores apart

On the Jersey shore

"I'm the best thing in this town," she arrogantly declared after cops busted her for being a drunk nuisance Friday, according to an insider.


"She was bad-mouthing everyone who walked by her [in the police stationhouse]. She was saying 'I'm a star, you can't do this to me.'"

Snooki unleashed a boozed-up, expletive-filled rant after being arrested for disorderly conduct, and attempted to use her new-found fame as a "get-out-of-jail-free" card.

"You can't tell me what to do - I'm Snooki," she yelled at officers, according to witnesses. "Do you know who I am? I'm f------ Snooki. You can't do this to me. I'm f------ Snooki. You guys are going to be sorry for this. Release me!"

Not surprisingly, her harsh language didn't do the trick.

The pint-sized reality TV star was hauled away from the Jersey shore boardwalk in cuffs Friday as her oversized shades slid down her nose. A photo of her looking dishevelled with mascara running down her face while in custody also surfaced yesterday, as locals took stock of her unruly behavior and lashed out at the reality show cast.



On the Louisiana shore

"My world's been turned upside down," says Chris Wilson, a charter boat captain in Venice, La. "Our life as fishing guides and marina owners — and everybody down here. We used to fish every day. Now we ride around and look for oil, or ride people around, you know. They say we're working, they say they're paying us, but nobody's got paid yet ... I guess it's coming."

This quotation comes from photographer David Zimmerman's latest series, "Gulf Coast." A fine-art photographer based in New York and Taos, N.M., Zimmerman relocated to Louisiana just after BP's April oil spill and, for the past few months, has been using a large-format view camera to put faces to the oil spill. "For all the devastation I saw offshore," Zimmerman writes in his artist statement, "the worst of what I saw was onshore; in the faces and voices of the people who call this place home."