The Blog I'm Not Writing

Oh, please, shut up already!

Son K smirked in solidarity when I yelled at the woman who was speechifying on television. “This is the kind of person,” he said, gesturing at the TV, “who gives social justice warriors a bad name.”

Let me set the stage: you are watching a stage, a stage from which, you sense, there is going to be a Pontificating Moment. You are, for whatever reasons, *** watching an awards show on TV. Not one of those candy-ass People’s Choice imitations, but one of the “biggies” – The Oscars; The Tonys; The Emmys (it usually doesn’t happen at The Golden Globe Awards, because the participants are too tipsy to be serious).  The winner’s name is called; they feign surprise, make their way to the stage, clutch their trophy…and you can see the warning light flash in their eyes. Instead of a heartfelt thanking of family and friends, or a recitation of an interminable laundry list of industry asses to kiss, [1]  they’ve decided to take advantage of the situation and torture a captive audience make the stage their platform and educate (read: lecture) a global broadcast audience.

 

 

I refer of course to last Sunday’s 2016 Emmy Awards, and the full-of-herself windbag excited winner in the My Show Is More Smugly Diverse Than Yours Best Director of A Comedy Series category, Jill Soloway, creator of the Amazon series, Transparent.

*** Before I continue with my rant thoughtfully considered illumination of a cultural phenomenon, let me explain the afore-mentioned You are, for whatever reasons, watching an awards show on TV.  The whatever reasons in my house = what has turned into a family tradition: watching an entertainment awards show on TV whilst dining [2] on “movie food.” Movie food is defined as hot dogs, popcorn, nachos,  Skittles and Junior Mints and Red Vines licorice and/or your favorite movie theatre candies and snacks, washed down with liberal amounts of a sparkling beverage.

Our family friend LAH has been part of our tradition for years, and she joined MH and I on Sunday, along with our son, K. Responsible College Graduate And Gainfully Employed Young Man ®  that he is, K no longer lives at home but could not pass up the opportunity for an Awards Night Movie Food Dinner ©  [3] …even though a few of us ANMFD participants (read: everyone but K) now try to lower the life-shortening effects of authentic movie food by substituting tofu/veggie dogs and/or burgers for the Scary Mystery Meat Sodium Bombs traditional hot dogs.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yet again, I digress. Back to the awards show.

I’d only seen one episode of Transparent, and was meh-impressed (trans – no pun intended – lation: Meh as in mehbe I’ll watch another episode, some day, when I’m folding laundry and nothing else is on.). [4] Soloway’s bloated, self-important acceptance speech made me never want to watch another episode of her series, on principle.

Is this person on stage giving an oration about winning an award for a Very Very Very Important…TV comedy? I wondered aloud.  Because her oh-so-serious-and-earnest emoting seems more fitting for a filmmaker documenting a Doctors Without Borders group of volunteers battling an Ebola epidemic.

“…this thing that these people call television, but I call a revolution.”

Yep, the director compared what she does to a revolution – you know, the thing defined as “a (usually) violent attempt by many people to end the rule of one government and start a new one.” I was reminded of advertising hacks who use hyperbole to shill mundane products that are, in fact, anything but world-shattering (“Oral-B-Clean’s Vibra-rama strip is the revolutionary [5]  way to floss!”).

BTW, I hope any Syrian refugees watching the show, or anyone with the misfortune to be involved in an actual revolution, took comfort from realizing that their struggles are comparable to – if less entertaining and worthy of prime time TV coverage than – the subject matter of a TV comedy series.

Soloway ended her sermon speech by raising her trophy aloft and chanting, “Topple the patriarchy! Topple the patriarchy!”

 

 

 

 

 

After Soloway’s harangue the Emmy Awards show’s emcee, comedian and talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, [6]  had the tricky task of segueing to the next award presentation. Kimmel provided a mood-lightening transition when said he wasn’t sure how to respond: “I’m trying to figure out if ‘topple the patriarchy’ is a good thing for me or not,” he quipped.

Certain Actors, Directors and Show Biz People ©  :  I love you, love your work, even (usually) agree with your politics [7] – I mean, topple the patriarchy, I am so there – but  wise up, please. An entertainment awards show is neither the time nor the place to promote your political or social (or even human rights) agenda.

So. Attention, Self-Important/Self-Anointed Spokespeople For Righteous Causes: yeah, we get it. Just thank the audience and awards presenters, say something nice about your family, then shut up, go backstage, and fondle your trophy.

 

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Department Of When You Don’t Know Which Noun To Use

Last week’s Science Friday program provided a brief but golden moment for us neologism lovers. It featured an interview with Ann Druyan and Frank Drake, two of the creators of Voyager’s Golden Record – the phonograph record collection placed aboard both Voyager probes launched in 1977.

The records were chosen to provide a combination ship-in-a-bottle/time capsule selection of sounds and images to illustrate the variety of Terran life and culture. Drake spoke about having to be careful re what to include: scientists wanted the collection be culturally and scientifically representative…but then there are those prickly human sensibilities to consider: [8]

“NASA got nervous, because they knew (including anatomically correct drawings of naked people) could create a big public  _____.”

My mind was a split second ahead, and expected Drake to finish the sentence with either outcry, or uproar, but instead he neologized [9]  outroar.

 

 

 

 

 

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Department Of Things That Just Strike Me Every Now And Then

 

One evening last week, as MH and I were doing après-dinner kitchen cleanup, I began singing a song. Seemingly apropos of nothing and without really being aware of what I was doing what it was, I chuckled when I realized I was warbling the Hank Williams classic, ”Your Cheatin’ Heart.

When I was a young child my father would sing to me after reading a bedtime story. Chet Parnell had a nice, mellow singing voice; he loved Hank Williams’ music, and YCH was one of his favorites. I learned to sing along with whatever the song was, although as a three year old I didn’t pay much attention to the words.

Looking back, YCH – a mournful song about cuckolded husband predicting heartache for his straying wife – was an odd choice for a bedtime lullaby. But it wouldn’t have mattered if it were an ode to the sinking of the Titanic – it wasn’t the lyrics that meant so much to me then…or now. It was that my daddy sang me to sleep.

 

 

 

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May your acceptance speeches be short and sweet;
May your hopes and dreams be Golden Record-worthy;
May you not shuffle off this mortal coil without having sung someone to sleep;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

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[1] “I’d like to thank my long-suffering agent, my genius publicist, my courageous accountant…”

[2] In the loosest definition of the term.

[3] Plus, I bribed him with homemade guacamole.

[4] Okay, when MH – or someone else, anyone else in this house – is folding laundry. Homey don’t play that.

[5] Is there no one in advertising – surely, at least one English major populates the profession – who actually cares about the definition of words? Can a dental hygiene product – or laundry detergent or weed whacker or shoelace organizer or any consumer product – rightfully be described as revolutionary? I sincerely doubt that governments will be overthrown if people find a new way to pick their teeth.

[6] IMHO all award shows should be hosted by quick-thinking comics who can provide on-the-spot retorts to prick the overinflated ego balloons of award recipients.

[7] It’s that liberal Hollywood elite crowd, after all.

[8] Prudish early ’70’s media criticized NASA over the nudity (line drawings of the figures of a man and woman which, along with other  symbols, were designed to provide information about the origin of the spacecraft) included on the Pioneer plaque.

[9] Itself a neologism, courtesy of moiself. I’m open to changes in spelling.