Some Assembly Required

The popular rhetoric for this year’s election is “Change”. And this is one of the most unspecific goals out there. It has no firm definition what so ever. And that will come back to bite you in the ass. Here is my prediction. “Change” will be the message for 2012 election. The 2016 election. And the 2020 we will still be hearing again about “Change”. Due to inflation the 2024 election theme will be “Can you break a 20?”

This is the best poll out there for the election.

It is all nonsense.

I just want to say that I am not one of those hardcore sports fans. I know enough about football to be able to enjoy a Buffalo Bills game. Let me side track for a moment. It is not easy being a Buffalo Bills fan but this year with a 4-1 record to start has made things easier. The problem is the ability to remain cautiously optimistic. I am afraid if I get too optimistic I am setting myself up for a major letdown. That being said let me get back on this brief topic. It is ironic that as not being a hardcore fan I find myself listening to sports radio a lot lately. I know it is complete nonsense. In the end it means nothing. The reality is it does not have to mean anything. It does not have to be anything of major consequence. I use to listen to political topics on the radio but the consequence to those topics can really mean something in the end. The sad reality is that the current state of it is nothing more than being completely ridiculous. It is all just screaming the other side is wrong. Talk radio is not a conversation of the issues what so ever. A conversation not only involves talking but it also includes listening. This is the basis for honest debate. I do not care what side you are on but you are kidding yourself to believe you are hearing any really conversation and debate in this election year. It has all become one elaborately displayed infomercial by all sides. The person who promises you the most will deliver you the least in the end.

But to get back to sports. I had a professor in college who says man invents sports because there are no absolutes in life. The rules in the game are rigidly structured to insure the competition. We like honest competition. There has been a lot of talk about how unfair competition is and how we do not like it. If that was true then why do watch so many sporting events in this country?

Enough of my attempting to lecture. If you want to call it that.

There was a television show called Sports Night
that was on ABC from 1998-2000. It was a series about the behind-the-scenes of a sports talk TV network. The show was best known as being called by several critics as being “The Best Show You Are Not Watching”. The show may have been about a sports network but it was not always about sports.

It did have one of my favorite scenes on television. Let me give you some set up about the scene. The sports network is in 3^rd place by a distance in the ratings. There is a lot of pressure from the corporation that owns it to improve the ratings or else there are going to drastic actions taken. The following scene is about the pressure being applied. In this scene there are two characters you need a little more information about to grasp the situation. There is the show’s managing editor Isaac Jaffee (played by Robert Guillaume) who has come back after surviving a stroke. The network is trying to use this as a reason for his replacement. Sam Donovan (played by William H. Macy) is an outside expert who has been hired to fix the show.

Click here for the scene. I was unable to embed it into this posting. So please watch it before reading on.

My favorite part of the scene is the anecdote about Cliff Gardner. I think that he is the type of person many of wish we could find more often in our lives. The person who can help provide you with what you need to accomplish the goal. Too often people like to be in the way then be helpful. They would rather point out how you fail rather than point out how they may be able to help. And the people who talk the most more often than not are the ones who will do the least. We all have skills but we all cannot be skillful in everything. But any person who thinks he is the “smartest” one in the room is setting up his ego for big letdown. It is hard to find those willing to help. There are too many people out there like the network people in the scene. They think they are the smart ones and they feels this entitles them to act like bullies and dictators. It’s a petty power play to hold back “knowledge” in order to control people. In the end, more times than not these types of people are the real “idiots”. It is like a kitchen where everyone thinks that the “cook” is what makes it happen. But in reality the kitchen is run by a group of people working together to produce the “meal”. Example, the dishwasher is treated as “low man” of a kitchen but what good is a meal if it is served on a dirty plate.

We are all trying to create or be a part something that is bigger than ourselves. We can be aware of what we need to do. But we cannot have the skill level needed to get the job done. Example, we all can put a bad-aid on a cut but we also know that if the cut is severe enough to need stitches. And the majority of us do not have the skill to put in the stitches but we know how to go about finding the person to do it.

And on a technical note. Watch how Sam moved the network people through the scene and where he stops to talk to them. Personally, these are the things I look at when watching TV. I am not saying that I am “smart” for noticing these things. It is just that I watch TV differently than most of the people I know. I study TV and film in order to be a better writer/creator of such things. It is part of the process.

then I may as well sink to their level.

I AM SO TIRED OF THIS PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CYCLE!

It has been going on for almost two years. And still most of the people have no idea about these candidates. The greatest idea of this country is that anyone can rise to the office of the Presidency. And the problem is that these are the people who have floated to the top this year. I wish I could find the link to this following idea. I heard a political expert (whatever that really is) talk about the importance of the “Independent Voter” and how the candidates must win them over. Here is what he summed up the way that this is done. This expert said that you cannot be specific what so ever. In other words, be vague and sound good. This idea should scare the shit of you. But I have watched two debates so far and I have watched a lot of TV interviews with these candidates and I have come to one conclusion. This guy is absolutely right.

The problem is a modern media that places style over substance more than ever before. A media that can now dissect anything said and reconstruct it into something else. It has infected the Election Process. Are we really living in the Matrix?

So I have decided that we should change the procedure of the Presidential election to be more in line with current American culture. Since this country on a whole has the mentality of five years old then it does not take a genius to run a crowd like that. So I am proposing that all candidates must prove their basic intelligence level by appearing on the game show Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?

There will also be a series of debates. However, they will all be moderated by the same person. There is only person on television that can get his guests to get to “heart of the problem”. And then they are inspired into action. That person is Jerry Springer.

But maybe we need a new citizen to this country to remind us why we should vote.