Catch A Tiger by His Ho!

I miss the golden age of Hollywood!   Scandals were hushed, and if revealed they played out like great directed movies.   Maybe it was simply the black and white and limited technical advances back then that made things seem more stylish and demure.   The fact is that the harsh colored glare of todays scandals and shockers reported seem tawdry and cheap.   They don't hold up.   I chalk it up to our reality show based ethic that renders us powerless against twitter tweeting CNN headline crawling shorthand texting (OMG!) based culture.   We have officially created our own society of attention deficit disorder public.   I do not use the term A.D.D. lightly.   When I was an assistant teacher in a public school system in the early 1990's there were very real signs of students with A.D.D.   The disorder, A.D.D., like many mental dysfunctions took a long time to be noticed by the medical community and it seemed by the mid 1990's that we had just begin to get a lot of these kids and adults some much needed help when the tech world just exploded with all kinds of bells and whistles guaranteed to entertain, awe and yes, (quote, unquote) save us time.   However no one made the statement or admitted to the realization that it would steal concentration, common manners, social graces, and well the list goes on.   I firmly believe we as a society catapulted ourselves into a nationwide epidemic of our own synthetic brand of A.D.D.  

Who can be bothered to listen to the actual news, just watch the crawl at the bottom of the TV, or get updates via Twitter, or better yet, forget in depth investigating altogether and just text our own version of the news 24/7.   Driving has become extremely dangerous as on an almost daily basis I have to break, stop, or honk at someone who is to busy texting or talking via cell phone to realize they have drifted into my lane or cannot be bothered to heed the stop sign or red light.   And just when I thought it was the driving that was dangerous it is the walking as well.   As a city dweller for many years I have loved the fact that most of my needs can be met by walking.   Now not only do I have to be very careful of those not stopping at signs and crosswalks behind the wheel because their attention is dedicated to their cell;  but I have to dodge other pedestrians because they are too tuned out on their texting or talking while walking that they cannot be bothered to realize they have bumped into you or are standing in your way carrying on a conversation as you try all kinds of body manipulation tricks to reach around them to get to something on a shelf they are blocking in a store.   Oh they see you; but something about their cell phones renders them stupid and generally able to not give a shit that you are in front of them doing gymnastics to grab a six pack of butt wipe.

Which brings me to reality TV shows and Hollywood scandals in general.   The last decade has seen an explosion of no talent nobody's become rich and famous for whining, bitching, moaning and crying themselves into melodramatic lathers and meltdowns in a show about themselves.   If you are a washed up rock star by all means get a reality TV show built around you bitching about the music industry, and close ups and you dealing with not dealing.   And if your are a washed up TV actress please please get a TV reality show built around the size of your big fat ass with endless shows built around kvetching about how you used to be gidget sized and now you are plus sized buffoon cartoon punching bag for late night comedians.   Beyond all of this it is the ability of the American public to even believe any of this is "reality."   It is as staged and scripted as Tiger's press releases.   Bringing me back to Hollywood and its scandals.   Can it really shock any of us that a very rich and powerful athletic personality was having affairs?  Really? REALLY????  (Okay one more time for dramatic flair)~ REALLY ???????????  In the old days of Hollywood this kind of dribble was accepted by those that knew the star as a true reality of power and privilege and money.   So no one went out of their way to "report," these infidelities, etc.  It only became "scandal," if it somehow got leaked or public attention. In the event that a gossip columnist had an ax to grind with a studio star in those days the studios usually was able to "convince," the columnist otherwise or at least put their own glossy spin on it.   The public was happy and the star did their appropriate amount of time out of the limelight and returned when their next movie was a hit and all was forgotten against the praises and flash of front page headlines of success and glory.  

I hate to use the phrase; but "back then," we really cared about the news.   Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher was the Angelina and Brad of their time but as scandalous as that was this Hollywood tale did not upset the daily news or even front page headlines of any newspaper.  You had to search an entertainment mag if you really truly felt the need to indulge in someone else's misfortunes and fuck ups.   Today it all has just become too accessible.   You no longer have a career of headlines, nor even a clichéd fifteen minutes of fame, you are lucky it is five minutes.   Once in a while you have a Tiger being caught with his ho(s) and it has the ability to flood and overwhelm every available news, blog, entertainment news, and gossip outlet preempting serious stories.   Sure Haiti maybe got a good week squeezed in; but we eagerly got back to the latest in a line of confessions from Tiger and his defrocked liaisons.   There was another huge earthquake somewhere and then a mining disaster in one of the fifty states but I really couldn't see or hear the news over the all important approval polls, commentary, and all out media blitz over Tiger and his return to the scene in the Masters.

It is dizzying and sad.   I think we don't want to wake up.   Sadly or maybe cynically I think we want to just accept our A.D.D. as a nation and find it easier to pseudo-focus on the latest sound byte rather than insisting on real news and shows based around storyline, plot, and characters.  

An acquaintance recently told me it was much easier just to just keep walking than offering an apology for their rudeness if they had run into someone while walking and texting. After all it was only a split second, no one was killed or even really injured and in fact the person texting told me that the other person should have been watching where they were going and realized that the person texting was "busy."   When I hear rationalization like that I can't help and think that we have a helluva lot more issues and headlines in this nation than a pro athlete putting his johnson on every nine hole he visits.   I'm just saying!