All this conjecture has reached stupefying dimensions, but I find myself helplessly drawn in. You can join in the fun, or just read and grin, at the following blog watering holes:
onlinehome.us/blog/archives/000725.html">As I Live The Questions Part 1 and onlinehome.us/blog/archives/000729.html">Part 2
Roooossssebuuuud.
UPDATE:
Caroline says: I told you the language on Layne's site was Polish.
Ryan says: I know. I just need to polish my Polish.
Ryan says: Do you have any Polish polish?
Ryan says: Because, you know, I'd really like to polish my Pole.
I know I'm tempting the television gods with a question like this, but: can television shows possibly get any dumber?
Thanks to my long-awaited cable access, I can now surf through a staggering number of channels, but what I'm discovering is that having a staggering number of channels just means I have access to a staggering amount of bad television.
To illustrate my point, let's visit some of the more distasteful television tidbits out there today that are apparently passing as entertainment.
Trading Spaces: My girlfriend used to love this show with a passion, but even she's finally getting tired of it. Think long and hard, people. Would you trust your neighbors to transform a room in your house into something different, if limited to $1,000 and the questionable interior decorating skills of someone with very few qualifications?
American Chopper: A large grumpy man, who I would be scared of from ten miles away, yells at his sons while they build loud motorcycles. It's always the same scenario. Will they finish the chopper on time? Long answer: yeah. Short answer: yep. How they can devote an hour to this crap is beyond me.
The One That Got Away: This is, of course, a reality television show that has nothing to do with reality, which means, of course, that my girlfriend loves it. Which means, of course, that I have to watch it. The premise? A guy with rugged good looks and questionable intelligence is hooked back up with several women from his past who all, for some inexplicable reason, profess to love him. It's great for the guy. I mean, really, he gets to canoodle with a harem of adoring hotties. You know, just like real life! Eventually, darn it, he has to choose just one, at which point, I'm sure, my girlfriend will find another reality television show to watch. Somebody shoot me.
E! True Hollywood Stories: Take the following template and make it into a television show. Tell the story of a Hollywood celebrity, and be sure to talk about their descent into drug abuse and subsequent recovery. It's enough to make me wonder if that's a prerequisite for stardom. Imagine, if you will: you're auditioning for the role of a lifetime, and you're perfect for it. Suddenly, the producer approaches you: "Hmm, it says here that you've never had a drug problem. I'm sorry. I just don't think you're right for this part. Here's a vial of cocaine. Come back after rehab."
World Poker Tour: We've all felt the urge, haven't we? You're in a casino, and you're just burning with the desire to go over to the poker table to watch people play poker! What? You haven't felt that urge? Well, tough! There's a television show devoted to it anyway. How is this stuff entertaining? HOW?!! Is it the huge amounts of money the players are supposedly wagering? Because, I have news for you. . . they're not actually wagering any money at all. It's play money. It's a fictitious number that looks impressive but, in reality, they're just keeping score. It's points, nothing more. And why do the announcers talk in hushed tones? Is there a baby sleeping somewhere in the back of the room?
Celebrity Poker Showdown: Consult the above gripe, except add a bunch of lesser-known celebrities who really aren't all that good at poker.
The O'Reilly Factor: If ever there was a forum in which a grumpy man can shout at people he disagrees with, this would be it. It's like a political version of American Chopper, except the large man is replaced with a small man with creepy eyebrows that make him look like The Joker from the Batman movie.
I could go on, but there's work to be done.
I submitted this little story to Reader's Digest quite some time ago (think years), but it never graced the pages, and I never received $400. *sigh* But, what's not good enough for Reader's Digest is good enough for Rambling Rhodes. Keep in mind, this isn't the version I sent to RD. This is the long version. The version I sent to RD was much more, er, concise.
My first job out of college, following a depressing unemployment stint of four months (thanks for the warning on THAT one, life), was as a news editor for a newspaper called the Stewartville Star, a little weekly with a circulation around 3,500 or so.
It was one of those jobs I believed to be well below my talents, until four months of unemployment and rejection letters basically spelled out for me that I had little in the way of talents. It was the classic catch-22: I had no experience, so no one wanted to hire me. Okay, well, then how in the hell am I supposed to gain experience? No one ever bothered to answer that question. They just sent rejection letters.
Anyway. . .
As news editor for the Stewartville Star, I was basically responsible for a little bit and a lot of everything. City council meetings? I covered those. School board meetings? I covered those. School events? Me. Photography? Oh, that's me. Everything that ever happened in the town and surrounding area? Yup, I was there. I had very little in the way of a life.
Well, one day, I was at the high school, sitting in the office patiently awaiting an audience with the superintendant to discuss something or other that was brought up during a school board meeting.
Now, the thing was, I was a young-looking 23-year old, and I could have probably easily passed as a student if I had wanted to. So it was, I found myself sitting in the school office with a bunch of students who were awaiting an audience with the principal to discuss their less-than-acceptable behaviors.
Prinicpal's office time is nervous time. I remember my trips to the principal's office as a young 'un. The sweaty palms. The disaster scenarios playing in the head. The utter feeling of lonliness. The desire to reach out to whoever may be in front of you at that point in time.
One student, in particular, was really fidgety. He was rubbing his hands together, and it was obvious that whatever brought him to the principal's office was probably pretty bad. He studied me for a bit, probably a bit confused as to my calm demeanor.
"So, um, what are you here for?" he finally asked me, like an inmate in Alcatraz.
"Huh? Oh, I'm just reporting here," I tried to explain.
"Tell me about it," he sighed. "I report here a lot."
From what I can gather, and let me tell you here that the news coverage on this has been maddeningly sparse, apparently Ronald Reagan died on Saturday, or something like that.
I kid, of course. News coverage has been so omnipresent on this story, you'd think Reagan dying was somehow a catastrophic event or something, when in reality most of the world has been writing him off as dead for about the last seven years or so.
News organizations have been waiting for Reagan to die for years now, too. They've had the Reagan memorial stories on tap, all written up and laid out, tucked in some memorial drawer somewhere. They've no doubt been itching for the man to die so they can have a little bit of an easier few work days.
Some reporter probably wrote the old Reagan memorial story a couple of years ago. He was probably pretty proud of it. He couldn't wait for the Alzheimers-stricken ex-president to gasp his last so his article could finally run. Who knew he would hold on so long? No problem. Most of the article could be salvaged, with a little updating, of course.
I imagine that newsrooms across the nation erupted in cheers when the news about Reagan's death was announced. Half day work days for the next four or five days! All that work was done years ago! Now let's wait for Ford to keel over! We have oodles of articles and memorials written up about him!
I don't have much to say about Reagan, really. Hell, I was only five when he was first elected. I only had a vague understanding of what a president even was. Honestly, about the only vivid memory I have about the night he was elected was that I thought his name was Ronald Ray Gun, and I remember thinking what a super-cool, super-futuristic name that was.
Oh, and I see J. Lo is married again.
