The economy is in the toilet. Advertising revenue is down. The cable news networks were assured the largest TV audience they're going to see this year and only one broadcast network will see numbers approaching this when the Super Bowl is aired, yet they all went four hours commercial free. That's the staggering power we, the people, wield in those rare moments when we unite. Yesterday we used it for four hours of commercial-free television. We used it to get some peace from crass commercial messages so we could focus on other crass things like Mariah Carey, Joesph Jackson trying to reform his image, and a family of celebrities giving stage directions to a traumatized 12-year-old who unexpectedly had her "coming out" party. I don't know when we'll use our clout again or what we'll buy with it. Maybe it will be noble and maybe it won't, but it will be ours. You are now free to return to wherever you are.
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Article comments
1 - Lisa McKay
Good stuff, Josh. I've been puzzling over this one for the last couple of days myself and not coming to very many conclusions. I do think that as a people, we're much better at making the grand gesture than we are at doing any actual work.
2 - Josh Hathaway
Thanks, Lisa. That's a very good point about grand gestures. I hadn't really thought of it that way but I think there's an awful lot of truth in that.
3 - Ruvy
Is this the last of the flood of "news" about Michael Jackson? Or are there going to be post funeral re-caps. I'm sick of hearing the name already.
A man died of a heart attack before he reached 51. Boo hoo. He's been buried. Good riddance.
Enough already!
4 - MarkSaleski
josh again provides scientific evidence that it's impossible to write the word Nickelback without 'wretched' in close proximity.
oh wait, this was about Michael Jackson. sorry.
i didn't watch much of the coverage myself, feeling strangely disconnected from the whole thing. i was around at the birth of mtv/Thriller, etc. but he never had a whole lot of impact on me. obviously talented, just not my thing.
5 - El Bicho
that's a coincidence. I am sick of hearing Ruvy complain about the coverage. if you don't like it, STFU and move on. I didn't see anywhere anyone asked your opinion about it.
btw, as of the time my comment is posted his body has not been buried yet, but then why would you let facts start informing your comments at this point? rather silly I even considered it.
6 - Josh Hathaway
As I mentioned at the top of the article, I didn't actually bother to watch the service on TV, either. I am a grownup and I know how to work a remote control. Sometimes I care about what the majority of the world cares about. More often it seems I don't. I put in a DVD. Problem solved.
7 - Ruvy
I am sick of hearing Ruvy complain about the coverage. if you don't like it, STFU and move on. I didn't see anywhere anyone asked your opinion about it.
El Bicho,
Too bad.
Ear-plugs are availale here, if you do not like what I have to say about your empty, celebrity-ridden, pornographic culture, and the evil it unleashes upon the rest of us who have to tolerate its trash. That message will continue to come your way from the mountains of Liberated Samaria, ISRAEL.
Have a good week!
Love and kisses,
Ruvy
8 - Josh Hathaway
It's true, Bicho, we can ignore Ruvy just as easily as he can ignore the coverage he doesn't like. Let's set the example and show him how it's done.
9 - Ruvy
we can ignore Ruvy just as easily as he can ignore the coverage he doesn't like. Let's set the example and show him how it's done.
Go ahead, Josh! Show 'em how it's done! Plug your ears; turn your faces away. Turn the sound down! Turn the page! But read this comment first.
When William Talman was near his death in 1968, did the one act that will earn him a place in eternity. According to Imdb.com, Near the end of his life, Talman did something that, while common nowadays, was an extraordinarily courageous thing for an actor to do at that time. A heavy smoker for most of his life, he was angered by a newspaper article he read about actors being afraid to make anti-smoking messages for fear of losing opportunities to make lucrative cigarette commercials. He decided to do something about it. Talman volunteered to make a short film for the American Cancer Society, part of which was shown in late 1968 and 1969 as a television anti-smoking commercial. He was the first actor to ever make such a commercial. When the message was being filmed, Talman knew he was dying, was in a great deal of pain and was in fact under heavy sedation for it. The short film begins, "Before I die I want to do what I can to leave a world free of cancer for my six children . . . ". Talman, in that one commercial, did more than Michael Jackson, or all the other fools you worship as icons, did in a lifetime.
My mother-in-law, may she rest in peace, used to plug her ears and turn down the sound on the TV when those ads came on. She didn't want to hear anything that would take away from her pleasure from smoking. She smoked until her heart gave way, and she needed a triple by-pass and the constant proximity to an oxygen tank to just survive.
Your society and your culture suffers from a terrible cancer of pornography, violence and perversion of moral values. The economic collapse you are suffering is part of the result of that perversion of moral values.
So go ahead and ignore the message I bring you. It is no sweat off my butt. I don't live in that sick, perverted, empty culture of yours.
I left it, and I'm glad I did.
Have a great Tuesday!