Happy Trails

(This post is FINALLY getting completed today,22 April--nearly three weeks from the initial incident!)

Manhattan's most famous cowboy (sorry, Jon Voight)...
heading for a golden sunset--or perhaps satellite???

In my new blogging 'mode', I'm only speaking out on items that I need to vent about. So it's only appropriate that I feel compelled to blog about this latest media 'tempest'.

I would like to make a personal confession up front. Although I follow what some folks would call a liberal or progressive ideological philosophy, I am (or after tonight, was) a fan of the 'Imus in the Morning' show. I started to watch it during a military assignment in Maryland back in the late 1990s. After working nearly 18 months in a shiftworking operation that required CNN to be playing on the television 24/7 (that is, except during the baseball playoffs and on Monday nights in the fall), I transferred to a days-only organization and the Imus simulcast would be on screen (right behind my cubicle) for the first few hours of my day. While I would roll my eyes on some of the poor choices of humor or entertainment (I'm not that big of a country music fan), I was intrigued by the guests who would call in or visit Imus in person to discuss the events of the day. When we moved to Ohio, the new unit did not have TVs so I had to get my fix before leaving for work (usually pedaling a stationary bike over in the base's Dodge gym). I went 'cold turkey' during my 33-month assignment to Japan and resumed my viewing once I returned in 2004 and that continued up through yesterday on MSNBC (and today via the internet on WFAN's streaming audio service).

Such a declaration will probably raise a few eyebrows with some of my online acquaintances but my consumption of his programming was of a personal nature and was not transferred or acted out in my personal or professional life. Even though I'm a mid 40-something year old guy with a graduate degree and a 24-year military career behind me, I still have a desire for what some folks might call 'sophomoric' humor. As I was growing up, I was 'raised' by television and experienced the offerings of 'Laugh-In', 'Benny Hill', the OLD 'Tom and Jerry' cartoons (the ones that weren't censored for racial stereotypes) and 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' during my formative years. Although I don't watch much television these days, most of what I do view involves some element of irreverence, snark, or jejuneness ("Countdown with Keith Olbermann", "The Daily Show", "The Tonight Show", all of the Fox Sunday night animation shows, Cartoon Network's "Robot Chicken"). My theory for this immature 'fetish' centers on my lifelong preponderance for seriousness and my attempts at being the 'stern' parent to two teenagers (I'm a Gemini so that 'alter ego' thing attributed to those of us born under that zodiacal sign might also be true).

For whatever the reason, I would endure Don Imus' and Bernard McGuirk's lame skits and crude comments (about nearly everybody and everything) in order to get the opportunity to hear Frank Rich, Bob Schieffer or many of his other intriguing guests during the interview segments. I personally thought most of it was neutral (with some glints of humor) but there were elements that would even make a 'Peter Griffin' fan cringe. The 'Cardinal Egan' parody brought back memories of my Catholic upbringing but McGuirk's 'over-the-top' rendition transcended the experience to quickly ensuring the volume on the TV was turned down low enough to make sure that the kids (or the wife) wouldn't hear his foul rantings. The inclusion of the 'Ray Nagin' character after Hurricane Katrina was topical in the immediate aftermath of the storm but quickly wore out its welcome as the months went by. Stand-up comedian Rob Bartlett's repertoire of celebrities began to gravitate around a few ('Bill Clinton', 'Omar Minaya', and 'Alberto Gonzales') that were frequently performed in very poor taste. The constant verbal pummeling of the show's most recent sports announcer (Chris Carlin) on his physique and masculinity (he did not demand that his newlywed wife take his last name) often went beyond the bounds of good taste.

I had a 'ring side' seat to that infamous moment last Wednesday morning and, considering the tone of the show Imus has, I really didn't give it a second thought (perhaps since I was only awake for 5-10 minutes and staring down at a bowl of cold cereal when I heard it). The next time I became aware of this controversy was in news coverage that started up on Friday evening on MSNBC and at some of my more frequented internet locations. I watched the Monday edition of the show to see how Don was going to handle the controversy and he gave a 15-minute on-air explanation of his version of the incident and how, over the weekend, he had sought out the counsel of several members of the African-American community and requested a personal meeting with the Rutgers women's basketball team to express his sincere regrets. Everything hit the fan later that day when both CBS and NBC announced that Imus would be suspended for two weeks (beginning on 16 April to allow his 2-day radiothon to be aired on the 12th and 13th). The Rutgers team held a news conference on Tuesday afternoon and provided Americans their first view of the 'target' of Imus', McGuirk's, and Sid Rosenberg's racist and sexist words. Late Wednesday afternoon, due to increased public and internal pressure, the television simulcast of the show was permanently terminated. I 'tuned in' to the WFAN streaming audio broadcast this morning to hear what the host's comments were on that quick decision (due to the late notice and the logistics of the already scheduled telethon, the program still emanated from MSNBC's studios in Secaucas, NJ). Knowing that it might be his last broadcast, Imus did let out some venom but concentrated primarily on the radiothon (raising nearly $1 million in 5 hours). The CBS cancellation came late this afternoon, effectively canceling the career of one of the industry's first 'shock jocks'.

I am torn on how to respond to all of this. On the one hand, the comments made were not directed at public figures or celebrities who expect such scrutiny but with regard to a team of 17- to 20-year old women who just experienced the agony of losing the NCAA women's basketball championship game not less than 7 hours prior. Using such language (I will not post it here) to describe innocent, hard-working, intelligent, athletic women was reprehensible. However, the Imus show is an entertainment program conducted in the format of former terrestrial broadcasters Howard Stern or Opie & Anthony (both shows moved to satellite to escape existing FCC restrictions on content and language). Both CBS and NBC knew this kind of thing might happen and kept extending their sponsorship of him and his 'product'.

While Imus was fired for using racist and sexist words, a full-blown entertainment industry has blossomed around those same types of socially unacceptable paradigms in the guise of hip-hop/rap music and the stand-up routines of Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle (a fellow Greene County resident), and Paul Mooney (who, in the wake of the Michael Richard's meltdown, has sworn off using the 'N' word). When I was a young child, I can still remember my grandmother (a woman of Polish-Ukrainian descent) playing 'Eeny Meeny Miny Moe' with me--with the then-acceptable racial term coming from her lips. In my teens, I listening (covertly) to Richard Pryor and his racial epithet-laden and profanity-laced routines and used to laugh until it hurt; however, in the past 30 years or so, a lot has changed in terms of how Americans (publicly) related to their fellow citizens and such language is, IMHO, no longer necessary for ANY community to continue to use. It was probably my military career and the prolonged exposure to individuals who were 'different' than me that has helped me to be the type of person I am today.

Maybe this development and firing is for the better. While a small 'fish' among the other hate-speech media personalities (radio, television, books, newspapers, internet), Imus might be the catalyst for fishing those bigger 'prizes' out there in the public 'pond' that continually ignore social decorum and foster divisiveness between their listeners/readers and their fellow citizens as well as fear. Perhaps his days aren't over just yet. Satellite radio, as a subscriber-based enterprise, escapes the restrictions that its terrestrial outlets are bound by and there could be a Sirius or XM microphone with his name on it. Nevertheless, Don Imus has had a long career and should be able to live out his remaining years with relative comfort and purpose (his cattle ranch for children suffering from cancer and blood disorders is a truly worthwhile endeavor). I doubt that Rush or Neal or Ann could 'fade away' to such a philanthropic 'second' career...nor would they ever even THINK about such 'humane' things.