Interesting, isn't it, that something tags along in today's internet world of everyone forcing dramatic opinions at the drop of a hat. There also has to be full transparency. There can no longer be mysteries on WHY things happen. They have to know HOW it happened...that way, life can continue. For so many, surprises come so rarely...they don't want them to hang around.
Oh man, look at that reporter from channel 2...she's drunk! No, wait, she totally had a seizure! Hold on - she's speaking in tongue! She's possessed. The world explodes!
(And then, the actual story comes out: she suddenly had a complex migraine. Total comments: 2. Life goes on.)
It's best not to go through life suspending belief when we're talking about reality. Entertainment is a different topic, however. How does the set move like that? Well, it's TV Magic...until you go to a taping and see 3 fat guys shove the set into place. Did he know he was going to get hit with a coconut? He acted upset. Oh, they planned it before.
Go back 30 years, and you have a moment that confounded and stunned nearly the entire viewing public.
You can't really do things like this on free television if you ever expect to work again, so things were carefully planned so it would seem real. And look at that ending. People moving around - it's sensational. Andy gets talked about by adoring comics (Magicians appreciate the craft & how it's performed, not that they know how it's done, right?) and the public at large. Fridays gets renewed automatically, though it enjoyed higher ratings than Saturday Night Live at the time. Everyone wins!
The news cycle wasn't quite as quick as today, but it did respond. The New York Times headline (in the C section) the following Tuesday: "Was 'Fight' on TV Real or Staged? It All Depends." It starts out with a continued parade around the truth. "It looked like a spontaneous fistfight on live television. Whether it really happened is a matter of interpretation." This is a newspaper reporter, and the "magic" continues to spin. What we can't really tell, beyond interest in the show and the story, was the level that viewers actually cared if it was real or not. Fridays increased ratings would make one think that viewers saw the series as something where anything could happen. (SNL is live for very arbitrary reasons, and is not known for open moments such as that)
Andy's crowning moment, a sandwich of "behind the scenes TV" and "this is really happening" lives on today. What really happened? Who was in on the joke? Man, I don't know* but that sure was crazy! Hey, can you get me another beer?
*I do know, but it gets in the way of enjoying the moment.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Friday, February 04, 2011
The Randomness of Nothing
When it all goes down into a boiling stew of Human Destruction, nobody will be alive to remember. So there won't be anyone to look back at this crystallization, and to evaluate it. We'll never get there, because we're here, and we can't photon-jump. As it all rains down and we forever slip into memory, no one will stand on that edge and say these things.
But I can tell you what *I* would think....
If the Bible has taught us nothing else (and it hasn't), it's that printed words about things that are debatable for the rest of human existence are, in a manner of speaking, the only true immortal things. That languages, races, buildings... virtually everything that constitutes the human experience are all subject to (and destined for) eventual elimination. But the words.... they remain. If you can debate something, it stays forever.
They used to debate sun moon and stars. Telescopes proved one side right. They debated ethics. Mouth-breathers brought that down. But spirituality... that one could never be proven or disproven. It just was. It carved a line in rock and forever and ever, new children will be born into the question and it will breathe eternal.
We will debate the concept of eternity, eternally.
This of course would lead you to a conversation about the San Francisco 49ers.
-------------------------------------------------
Bill Simmons spilled a tanker-truck of ink a few years ago on a book about basketball. It, at its most ambitious, strove to define what makes teams successful throughout history. It aspired to identify a formula, and ride that into some sort of hypothesis about sports across the board. Obviously, this is a concept designed for a blockhead. It is astounding how much is written about sports in the theoretical mindset. How much we search both stats and intangibles and seek to "define" things. Why, oh why, did the Pistons win that championship? Why did Dan Marino never win the big one? What's the formula, Larry Brown??? It's all such garbage. It's garbage because sports is one long, unending unknown. Every single action in a sporting contest is an unknown. Sure, trends develop. But as far as the concrete history... it unfolds in complete randomness.
But we sure do talk about it, don't we?
It happens all the time... the perfect season ends in a loss. The team from nowhere makes a run. These concepts are so ingrained into our sporting experience... we act like idiots who have never seen this before. HOLY CRAP A TEAM THAT WON THE SUPER BOWL IS NOW GOING BACK TO IT, LET'S FIGURE OUT HOW THAT HAPPENS AND CHILI DOGGZ! There is quite simply nothing that can be said for each sporting contest that resonates as new material. And, in one of the few arenas of life where this is actually true, history means nothing. It means less than nothing. It only serves to confuse. Is there any relevance, in any way whatsoever, to a sporting contest that took place years ago with different players?
I'm not stupid. I know these things happen to placate idiot fans who have senses of tradition that only exist to sell more mud-flaps at Wal-mart. I know it all works to crank up the machine and create a narrative. The structure is bare for all to see... no one looks because their mouths are full of Hogg Sundae.
But there is faux-intellectual debate that takes place around the Super Bowl that literally calls to mind two pea-brains arguing about which part of the lake is deeper. Irrelevant statistics and incorrect motivations... it all swirls into a gigantic vortex of debate about nothing. And not even nothing. An UNPREDICTABLE nothing.
When the long-legger from Oregon goes up against Arizona State, that - my friends - is predictable. When ol' Gas Pedal Jones decides the Horned Frogs haven't QUITE scored enough... that's predictable. But when you play a nut-twister in a neutral stadium with the game likely being decided on one single play.... why all the mouth?
And so, I guess, we can just keep the whistle going full volume. Just keep the flag waving and we'll go around the office and everyone can say what their favorite book is. Because you'd be just as likely to predict what pant size you are going to be next year at this time (hint: LARGER) as to be accurate on "Who wins: Steeler cornerbacks or Green Bay tight ends???"
It's only at the end of the movie that everyone wants to proclaim how predictable it truly was. And when Jordan retired, we all crystallized that vision of him in our brain, and we wrote history.
But I remember actively thinking: "No fucking way he does this without Scottie". And that's also correct. So what's the fucking formula?
Ok, hell, here we go. Up the balloon string, reach out and grasp some sky. It's all going to end someday, and we'll be lucky to have ever gone through this shit.
But I can tell you what *I* would think....
If the Bible has taught us nothing else (and it hasn't), it's that printed words about things that are debatable for the rest of human existence are, in a manner of speaking, the only true immortal things. That languages, races, buildings... virtually everything that constitutes the human experience are all subject to (and destined for) eventual elimination. But the words.... they remain. If you can debate something, it stays forever.
They used to debate sun moon and stars. Telescopes proved one side right. They debated ethics. Mouth-breathers brought that down. But spirituality... that one could never be proven or disproven. It just was. It carved a line in rock and forever and ever, new children will be born into the question and it will breathe eternal.
We will debate the concept of eternity, eternally.
This of course would lead you to a conversation about the San Francisco 49ers.
-------------------------------------------------
Bill Simmons spilled a tanker-truck of ink a few years ago on a book about basketball. It, at its most ambitious, strove to define what makes teams successful throughout history. It aspired to identify a formula, and ride that into some sort of hypothesis about sports across the board. Obviously, this is a concept designed for a blockhead. It is astounding how much is written about sports in the theoretical mindset. How much we search both stats and intangibles and seek to "define" things. Why, oh why, did the Pistons win that championship? Why did Dan Marino never win the big one? What's the formula, Larry Brown??? It's all such garbage. It's garbage because sports is one long, unending unknown. Every single action in a sporting contest is an unknown. Sure, trends develop. But as far as the concrete history... it unfolds in complete randomness.
But we sure do talk about it, don't we?
It happens all the time... the perfect season ends in a loss. The team from nowhere makes a run. These concepts are so ingrained into our sporting experience... we act like idiots who have never seen this before. HOLY CRAP A TEAM THAT WON THE SUPER BOWL IS NOW GOING BACK TO IT, LET'S FIGURE OUT HOW THAT HAPPENS AND CHILI DOGGZ! There is quite simply nothing that can be said for each sporting contest that resonates as new material. And, in one of the few arenas of life where this is actually true, history means nothing. It means less than nothing. It only serves to confuse. Is there any relevance, in any way whatsoever, to a sporting contest that took place years ago with different players?
I'm not stupid. I know these things happen to placate idiot fans who have senses of tradition that only exist to sell more mud-flaps at Wal-mart. I know it all works to crank up the machine and create a narrative. The structure is bare for all to see... no one looks because their mouths are full of Hogg Sundae.
But there is faux-intellectual debate that takes place around the Super Bowl that literally calls to mind two pea-brains arguing about which part of the lake is deeper. Irrelevant statistics and incorrect motivations... it all swirls into a gigantic vortex of debate about nothing. And not even nothing. An UNPREDICTABLE nothing.
When the long-legger from Oregon goes up against Arizona State, that - my friends - is predictable. When ol' Gas Pedal Jones decides the Horned Frogs haven't QUITE scored enough... that's predictable. But when you play a nut-twister in a neutral stadium with the game likely being decided on one single play.... why all the mouth?
And so, I guess, we can just keep the whistle going full volume. Just keep the flag waving and we'll go around the office and everyone can say what their favorite book is. Because you'd be just as likely to predict what pant size you are going to be next year at this time (hint: LARGER) as to be accurate on "Who wins: Steeler cornerbacks or Green Bay tight ends???"
It's only at the end of the movie that everyone wants to proclaim how predictable it truly was. And when Jordan retired, we all crystallized that vision of him in our brain, and we wrote history.
But I remember actively thinking: "No fucking way he does this without Scottie". And that's also correct. So what's the fucking formula?
Ok, hell, here we go. Up the balloon string, reach out and grasp some sky. It's all going to end someday, and we'll be lucky to have ever gone through this shit.
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