Saturday 21 March 2020

Sometimes I Offer Advice

I noticed in the news that some naive 'cult' individual suggested that there is "tremendous confusion" in America today. I've sat for three hours this morning thinking about that suggestion.

It's kinda bothered me. I'd like to offer three observations:

1. Outside of the beltway, beyond the metropolitan landscape, in roughly 90-percent of the rest of the nation....there's zero confusion. Things happen, you evaluate your situation, determine your path, and proceed on.

If it were that crazy, you might consult your minister, your local farm product sales-guy, your cousin Larry who does sheet-rock, or your local Bolivian-palm-reader gal who wears a rather lusty open blouse. They'd offer some optimistic view of the situation, and you'd just reset your compass.

2. If things were of some extreme variety of "tremendous confusion", the last people on Earth that you'd consult and feel 'good' from....would be Hollywood personalities, some local meth user, or your crazy aunt who is three steps away from being put into a state nut-house.

3. If you seem to be living every day in terror or confusion, it's been that way for more than a year or two....maybe even going on for ten years or more, then you got a personal issue, that no religion, mental specialist, or TV cult figure can 'heal'. In this case, you might want to dump the TV, cable options, Twitter, and all social media.....retire to some remote Tennessee Valley (Appleton would be my suggestion), and just read Jack London books, listen to Sinatra tunes, and work on Briggs and Stratton lawn mowers.

My Advice For White House Reporters

1.  Probably around 20-percent of Americans now watch the White House 'events' from Youtube, Twitter, or C-$PAN....raw and complete.  We don't watch the evening news folks chop it up or select something to hype their 'theme' or message.  We talk about this to the folks who don't watch the raw coverage.  We also talk about the poor behavior of journalists.

2.  If you waste 60 seconds (two-hundred words) talking about your alternate 'facts' before getting to the question of 30 seconds (ninety words), then react shocked when the President dismisses everything with five words....then you probably weren't prepared for your profession. 

3.  Your facial expression 'game' makes you look childish and immature.  The camera is catching everything and the Tulsa barber, or the retiree from Miami, or the bartender in Cleveland is just sitting there and laughing his ass off.

4.  Wasted four hours on getting one good 'gotcha' question to dump on the President?  That's the best you can do with your time?  Really?

5.  Most regular people are not that impressed with journalists today.  Wonder why?

6.  Personally, I'd limit the room to a dozen midwest newspaper journalists and maybe some semi-retired comedian from Vegas.

7.  Finally, I would make an estimate that out of every ten-thousand viewers watching the whole thing from a Democratic-voter prospective....your act is influencing them to question things, and may be five or six folks each day from that ten-thousand....are flipping their votes to Trump in the fall.  Maybe it's not a big deal, but if he appears forty times over the next few months....that's probably another one-million voters nation-wide....that weren't supposed to vote for him.  Thank about that.