"You can run but you can't hide." How many times have we all heard this adage? Well, here is the current spin on that universal aphorism: "You can channel-surf but you can't hide."
I can surf with the best of them. If channel-surfing had a championship event like the Duke Kahanamoku Invitational Surfing Championship on Oahu's fabled Sunset Beach on the North Shore, I would be the Big Kahuna of the Remote Control.
I like nothing better than kicking back at 6 a.m. in my double-wide vibrating La-Z-Boy burgundy suede recliner, with optional refrigerated triple cup holder and card-table-sized pull-out snack tray, to get ready for the day's televised lineup. I select "Full Recline Mode," and the chair buzzes and hums into supine nirvana.
I clutch my 104-button multifunction remote with both hands and pound away at the buttons, keys, and built-in 3-inch touchscreen, activating everything from the 52-inch HDTV flat screen, the Dolby 7.1 digital surround sound, the independent 16-inch wall-mounted woofer arrays, the DVR record function (which has been maxed out since last summer), room lights, and automatic curtain closers.
When our programs, as they inevitably do, become infested with 17-minute blocks of commercials, interrupting the three or four minutes of America's Got Talent air time, I start pounding away at that 104-button remote like some over-caffeinated sugar-saturated high school kid text-ing "where r u at" to 30 or 40 of his best friends.
I surf channels so fast that, at night, entire families from all over the neighborhood gather on our front lawn just to watch the light show as the 52-inch HDTV LEDs flash faster than a '70s disco floor synchronized with Donna Summer beltin' out "Last Dance." On warm summer nights, it's like a church picnic out there. They settle in with blankets, beach chairs, picnic baskets, and coolers. I have to go out every morning and pick up greasy pizza boxes, greasy fried chicken buckets, and greasy Big Mac wrappers. And whatever bones the neighbor's dog missed.
It's not that I am against commercials. Well--let me rephrase that. I'm not against legitimate commercials. You know--the ones that provide a vital role in helping us, as informed consumers, to make wise and prudent purchasing decisions.
If it were not for the legitimate commercials, how would we know that Froot Loops help us to start our day with all the nutritional goodness that Mother Nature intended for a sugar-addicted, Type-II diabetic population? Or that Dodge Ram has been voted the No. 1 truck in the Who-The-Heck-Can-Build-The-Most-Obnoxious-Biggest-Honkin'-Front-Grille class. Or, that in blind taste tests, where well-rehearsed, well-paid, ostensibly random "subjects" (wink-wink) sipping from generic white paper cups, overwhelmingly prefer Diet Dr Pepper to brown ditch water.
So you see, I agree that legitimate commercials play an important role in helping us to be better-informed consumers, unencumbered by something so frivolous as money.
It's the frivolous commercials that I disdain. You know the ones I'm talking about: all those dang political ads. It's enough to make me wish that I lived in some non-swing-state like Idaho or Utah where folks aren't bombarded with all this political pap. Not only are their candidates inconsequential, but the five or six folks who actually bother to vote either have their rigid minds already made up (most are older than 65) or they don't watch television after 7:30 (again, most are older than 65). I have an uncle in Montana, and he told me that the last time he saw a political ad on his roll-around Zenith was back in '64 when Goldwater ran against an incumbent President Lyndon Johnson. I guess Goldwater was desperate.
The other night Joanne and I were watching the much-anticipated semifinals of America's Got Talent and the Froot Loops, Diet Dr Pepper, and Dodge Ram commercials were all pre-empted by another Tom Cotton/Mark Pryor fusillade (the fifth salvo of the night). It wouldn't be so bad if just once, just one time, either one of those fellas would simply and clearly explain to us what the heck they stood for. Or what the heck they plan to do if we would be so kind as to elect them.
But alas--without exception, every one of their so-called "political" ads is an attack ad. Their commercials have sharper fangs and foamier slobber than a pit bull tied to a rusty '78 Buick in a redneck's front yard.
The three or four minutes that were allotted for program time were over just as some freckle-faced kid from Florida finished yodeling the Star-Spangled Banner, and our two Arkansas boys were shelling each other again: "Cotton is rotten," "Fire Pryor," "Cotton wants to kick your gramma out of the nursing home," "Pryor will charge you $10,000 a week for a qualified Obamacare health plan," and the ultimately adolescent: "Pryor loves Pelosi."
Joanne stood back and cheered me on as I went into Defcon 3. Thumbs flailing and channels flashing. ESPN--more Cotton. HGTV--more Pryor. Spike TV--Cotton and Pryor. History Channel--Pryor in a PC Civil War uniform: gray jacket and blue pants. Fox News--a three-hour Cotton-A-Thon.
In desperation, Joanne screamed, "The cartoon channel! Try the cartoon channel!" One quick flick of the index finger. Sure enough ... there they were. A Cotton and Pryor cartoon.
No, wait! That's not a cartoon.
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Bill Rausch is a freelance writer from Little Rock. Email him at [email protected].
Editorial on 09/20/2014