DawnPapuga.com — Reality 101

Surprise, surprise… I’m not the only one with a rant!  I’ve had a number of folks contact me about wanting to contribute to a “WTF?! Wednesday” post, or to Reality 101 in general.  Some aren’t comfortable yet with broadcasting their names all over the internet (Can you believe that?  Someone uncomfortable with the thought of their name or information scattered all over the place… the nerve…), others want the lovely shield of anonymity (from?  Who knows… family, friends, colleagues… hell, people can be judgemental, ya know?), and even others just want to let loose and rant.  I say, “Have at it!”   (See the rules below)

With the Olympics having concluded this weekend, I know you’re all going through incredible withdrawl.  I’m finding myself waking up at crazy hours only to be incredibly frustrated when I can’t find some team competition on my television at 3:30 in the morning.  So I saved this guest rant for just this kind of occasion.  It was sent to me while I was away, but I haven’t had the prime opportunity to post it until now.  Here are….

Top Ten Reasons Why I  (A.k.a. Guest Olympic Blogger)  Hate Chris Collinsworth…..

#10.  It’s the Effin’ Olympics!  That has absolutely nothing to do with being a C-team WR on a crappy Bengals team!  For the love of god, it’s effin’ swimming!  At no time was Icky Woods wearing floaties…..
 
#9  Audience participation.  Dear Chris, I, on occasion, do watch the pieces that you do on TV in place of real news and I have one criticism…ok, that’s a lie, I have lot’s of criticism, but in the interest of #9, please stop trying to take part in these athletes’ work outs. We get it.  You used to play football.  Now you look like everyone’s uncle Eddie.  Stop trying to do sit-ups with T.O. and just tell the damn story!
 
#8  No, Tom Brady will not date you….now wipe off your chin.
 
 #7  Chris, I get the feeling that you think that you are Pat Summerall to Bob Costas’s  John Madden.  You are not worthy of holding Pat’s 1950’s-era kicking boot, even if you could go shot for shot with him on a bottle of Gin.

#6  Everytime I think of you, I also picture Bryant Gumble….and I throw up in my mouth a little.
 
#5  Jillian Barbery used to make you blush–why?  Just because you look like a mormon doesn’t mean you have to act like one.
 
#4  You have your own desk on NBC Sunday Night Football.  I guess this isn’t so much a crticism of you, Chris, as it is of NBC, but whenever you and Jerome Bettis are placed that close to each other I expect the Looney Toons theme to be playing in the background and you both to be wearing bike helmets “for your own safety”…
 
#3  Yes, again, I know, “you played for the Bengals”…. Also, on another note, “water is wet.”  I only mention that because both of those statments are about as equally useful during a football conversation.
 
#2  Because you and Bob just segued to Andrea Mitchell to talk about swimming….seriously.  $300 million for opening ceremonies and I get the half-time show staff…. I’m selling my GE stock now.
 
#1   According to Wikipedia your name is “Anthony Cris Collinsworth.”  You have two first names and you dropped an “h”…. and you wonder why Howie gave “swirlies” before every broadcast….really??

So there you have it boys and girls… the very first Guest Rant.  Leave your comments, share the love, and feel free to shoot your own my way!  They won’t always be posted on Wednesdays, but I thought this was a good way to kick it off.  Oh… and they don’t have to be in a 10 point count down format either.  Strangely, though, most of the ones I’ve received have been… Hmm.

More next time!

The Rules:  You can submit all you like, but if it’s over the line, inflamatory, derogatory, or makes me think of any “-ism,” it’s not likely to be posted.  Who decides?  That’d be me.  Edgy and in good humor is fine.  Offensive is not.  My site, my rules, comprende?  I may ask you to edit or tweak something  for clarity or because it’s a Monday (I am the harbinger of the Red Pen of Doom, after all…).  Who knows… Send them to my email and let’s get ranting! 

I realize that not everyone is capable of dedoublement*, and I don’t know if it can be taught.  What I do know is that there would be an significant decrease in drama, wasted time, pain, and anger if it could.  I would wager that only roughly 45% of the people I know are capable of detaching themselves from situations to look at things from a cold, factual, objective point of view.  Those people tend to achieve whatever goals they set for themselves.  Sometimes they’re also considered cut-throat or heartless, but it’s not necessarily a requirement. 

I have watched family, friends, and even public figures nearly, if not completely, destroy themselves (careers, relationships, friendships, you name it) because they refuse to even attempt to remove their own emotions from the equation and look at facts.  I don’t just mean personal feelings, as in how you feel, but how society plays into your understanding of circumstances as well.  If people were more honest about facts, behaviors, and their contributions, people’s lives would be a hell of a lot more different.

It seems like every year I get word that someone I know ODs, and, unfortunately, they’re usually very young.  Last night I was informed of yet another friend of my cousin’s who ODed about two weeks ago–one year and a day from his own friend who ODed.  Yes, addiction can be hidden.  I don’t deny this.  But how long can the people closest to an addict turn their heads from obvious problems and signals?  I don’t buy that people just “don’t know.”  That might work in your own head to help justify the circumstances, but everyone–including you–knows that’s absurd.  I fought for years with a friend who refused to admit her boyfriend was an addict.  It was always the fault of his friends, or his family, or stress.  Eventually, after he ODed, she admitted that it wasn’t anyone else shoving needles in his arm.  She blamed herself.  Honestly, it broke my heart.  When there are problems with the people closest to you, somewhere–even if it’s that little voice in the back of your head nagging and casting doubt–deep down you know.  It’s that same little voice or feeling you get when you know that something is wrong in a friendship.  You know. 

I’ve never understood why people shy away from doing the hard things, the things that may be painful at first, or embarrassing, or difficult, in order to help someone they care about.  Isn’t the ultimate goal to live happy, healthy lives and help those you love to do the same?  I’ve known people who looked the other way for decades of abuse and addiction because they didn’t want people to “talk” or to feel like “a failure” in the eyes of the people who mattered most to them.  Newsflash!  You and the ones you love are the only things that should matter.  When you’re faced with the disastrous consequences of sticking your head in the proverbial sand, you won’t get any pity from me.  Maybe that’s cold.  Maybe that’s heartless.  But when given days, months, years, even decades to right a wrong or intervene when someone can’t for themselves, and you choose, instead, to go about your merry way pretending everything is just fine, I just can’t help you.  In fact, if you bring that to me the first thing I’ll do is lay the cards–all the cards–on the table.  It’s not an attempt to make you feel worse, but an effort to help you see what actually happened.  That’s not to say I won’t be there to help.

I’m aware that not everyone feels the same.  I’m also aware that there are plenty of folks who don’t believe that their friends or relatives are their responsibility.  To each his own.  Personally, I find that to be colder than brutal honesty.  I just know that I’m tired of attending funerals for people I’ve coached, taught how to swim, or taught in a classroom because no one wanted to upset or embarrass them (or themselves or their family).  Problems are problems and everyone has them.  No one is perfect.  Once we all can admit that to ourselves, maybe our roads will be just a little bit smoother and filled with the people we care most about.  I have enough stops at roadside cemeteries to make through this life, I’d like to avoid adding any more.

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*Dedoublement, in this sense, is not the direct translation of “split personality,” but the psychological/literary concept discussed by French author Andre Gide.  In essence, “dedoublement” is the ability to split oneself in two–one aspect that interacts and feels the world they live in, and the other to stand back and observe.  The second “self” is responsible for the detached analysis of the facts of the world around the individual.  Without this second self, it becomes inherently more difficult to act for the greater outcome or good.

It’s no secret that I hate (and I do mean hate ) “Reality” TV.  There’s nothing real  about it, to begin with.  It’s an obvious placating of antiquated cravings to use entertainment to make individuals feel better about their own lives.  As the seasons pile up, any attempt at opacity disappears.  These shows are pandering to the Star and Enquirer crowds with shameless abandon.  If you’ve been paying attention to any of these shows for the last few years, you could fill out a “cast” list as easily as the producer.  You need one or two members of the cast who are older than the rest, the young, dumb girl, the young girl with the attitude, the athlete, the republican, the homosexual, the homophobe, the bible banger, and the girls who think that sleeping their way to the winner’s circle is the smartest route.  Oh, and don’t forget the men who take that very same approach.  You have a Benetton ad of race, religious, and political diversity.  I’ve said it before, and I stand by it… people watch these shows not to see who wins, but to watch people lose.  Why else are many of the the most memorable “characters” from these “reality” shows the ones who lost, got fired, kicked off the island, made to turn in their chef coat, didn’t get the rose, or who was evicted from the house?  We root for our favorites, but it’s so much more fun to root against the ones we hate, isn’t it?

There are only a handful of these shows that I can stomach to watch, and most of them are only because I enjoy the rantings of my friends about these shows.  Hell’s Kitchen, Amazing Race, and Big Brother  are really the only ones I can tolerate.  I stranded Survivor after the first season when the “tribes” didn’t realize that they had to put up their food so that the animals wouldn’t eat it.  And they did.  And I knew immediately that modern television was in for a dumbing down like this media driven generation has never seen.  Anyone who has been a boy or girl scout–or even been camping, for that matter–knows the basics of survival!  I can’t watch any of those Bachelor or Bachelorette shows without feeling the need to become a nun, and don’t even get me started on Flava-Flav and his atrocity of a show.  Fear Factor  jumped the shark when it became a game of “who can eat the grossest thing without puking on camera” (though I suppose that counts as a game show, not a “Reality Show,” but where do you draw the line anymore?).  And The Apprentice just got worse every season.  I don’t know why people even bother trying to feign friendship or humanity on these shows.  It’s about a dollar amount and winning.  That’s it.  I don’t even understand why people would watch most “Reality Shows.”  America’s Next Top Model?  Celebrity Rehab?  Baby Borrowers?  Celebrity Circus?  Being Bobby Brown?  The Simple Life?  I Want to be a Hilton?  Are you KIDDING ME?!  If finding 99% of the “Reality Shows” on TV  disgusting, low brow, utterly mindless, and more suitable for means of torture for anyone with a shred of intelligence than entertainment makes me a pretentious snob, then so be it.

Of the “competition” shows, So You Think You Can Dance  and Last Comic Standing still manage to maintain the skill level I can appreciate in a show.  The others have turned into jokes (and these are close to the edge too).  I cannot, under any circumstances, stand to be within earshot of American Idol.  And the current season of America’s Got Talent  confirmed my fears that all “competition” shows have tried to copy the success of American Idol  right down to the the need for canned cruelty and catch phrases.  I had high hopes for Nashville Star, but it succumbed to the same fate.

All of that is to say that tonight was the premiere of Big Brother 10, and it lives up to everything you would expect out of a “Reality Show.”  Go check out the cast of characters and you’ll see what I mean.  If you want, you’re welcome to watch the surveillance cams in the house 24/7.  If you do, send me a detailed report.  Three times a week (if I ever manage to watch more than one) is far more than a healthy dose for me, thanks. 

((I actually have a post planned on the positive reasons that “Reality” TV is so popular… okay, so maybe they aren’t “positive” in the sunshine and rainbows sense, but they’re perfectly good reasons.  It has much to do with the reasons people read any series an author writes–or why spaghetti westerns, detective novels, and bodice ripping romance novels have been and continue to be popular.))