Don't Hate Me Because I'm Intelligent

Here's what gets me.

Full disclosure: I was graduated Phi Beta Kappa from college, where I took an IQ test for a psychology class and scored 160, which was classified as being "genius."

Consequently, I have usually been successful at what I did, not always at what I wanted to do. For example, although I decided at an early age that I wanted to be a writer and was writing stories even earlier, I was a reporter for my high-school weekly newspaper and co-editor-in-chief my senior year, I received a journalism scholarship to college, but then I changed my major from journalism to English literature because I decided that I wanted to be a famous novelist instead of a reporter or own a newspaper.

Eventually I did publish a novel, Plastic Man: A Novel of the Sixties.

Which brings me to television, and for those of you too young to know or too old to remember, the title of this piece is a play on the catchphrase for a Panteme commercial in the 1980s featuring Kelly LeBrock, a beautiful and famous woman at the time, which was "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful."

Speaking of old, I am old enough to remember when television became socially popular and pervasive and when TV executives and society in general debated whether television should give the audience what they wanted or give them what they needed. In other words, to use newspaper terminology, should network television be produced to appeal to the least common denominator of the viewing audience or should it be of higher quality and enrich and enlighten the audience.

There was even the notion that television was going to educate the masses either actively, for example, from "educational TV" or passively from just watching worlds and customs and countries different from our own.

Just look at your TV schedule today, and what do you see? So-called "reality-TV" shows, which are anything but, because they are cheap to produce and they are scripted to bring out the worst in its participants. Unfortunately, "give the producers what they want" won out, and the producers and network executives are greedy and want money.

Which brings me to politics.

I was very much interested in politics and believed that I could make a difference. I attended my first precinct caucus in 1976 for the Democratic party and was disillusioned when the candidate I supported didn't win and another attendee urged me to change my vote to the leading candidate and said, "It's a shame that you won't be represented at the state convention."

In other words, she believed that the best way I would be represented would be if I voted for a candidate I didn't support.

However, I did attend the state convention and became even more disillusioned when I saw most of the people there spending more time wheeling and dealing to be selected to attend the national convention than they did in conducting the business at hand.

Although I stopped participating actively in my party, I continued to vote in every election as I have done since I became eligible to vote, and except for 1976 I was disappointed in every national election for president.

Then came 1992, and I again attended my precinct caucus. Bill Clinton was the candidate I supported, and not only did he win the vote in my precinct, but because the precinct chairman was resigning after the caucus, I volunteered to be the precinct chairman, a position I held without any assistance until I became burned out in 2008 when Barack Obama was running, and I essentially retired from active politics.

I was still writing during that time, however, and wrote and published the newsletter for the county Democrat party.

Politics today is obscene when elected officials vote according to what their pockets and lobbyists tell them instead of what their constituents want.

Which finally brings me to religion. Although I was raised by my parents to be religious, I lost my religion when I thought about all the inconsistencies I was being taught as absolute truths, and I even published a book, An Atheist's Handbook, about my experience.

And to complete the trilogy, I also published The Searcher, my secular response to the hugely popular The Prophet.

I don't need or desire approval from other people to make me happy, and I don't care what other people think about me.

I don't use Facebook or Twitter. I am content being me.

I rest my case.

Equal Opportunity Filthiest Limerick

Here's what gets me.

I believe it is agreed that the filthiest and possibly most popular limerick ever written is the one about the man from Nantucket:

There once was a man from Nantucket
Whose dick was so long he could suck it.
He said with a grin
As he wiped off his chin,
"If my ear were a cunt, I would fuck it!"

Given that the women's liberation movement has been going on for decades, I am surprised that no one has written a similar limerick with a woman as the subject. I have corrected that oversight:

There once was a gal from Nantucket
Whose cunt was so sweet she would suck it.
She said with a grin
As she wiped off her chin,
"If that stick were a dick, I would fuck it!"

There is no need to thank me. Just reading it is reward enough.

I rest my case.

The Force That Changed America

Here's what gets me.

Star Wars was changed, as you know, and in 1997 could also have been changed to "Twenty years ago in a Hollywood universe far, far away a young man named Lucas fulfilled his vision and managed to make a sappy space opera filled with mythological overtones, innovative special effects and filmmaking techniques that were a throwback to Saturday matinee serials, and young Lucas was also farsighted enough to keep all the merchandising rights for his creation, which became so successful that it changed how we look at movies, how Hollywood makes movies and society itself, which became seduced by the Dark Side of merchandising and greed."

On May 25, 1977, Star Wars opened in a little over 30 theaters and went on to do blockbuster business, earn obscene amounts of money, spawn many equally successful sequels, make George Lucas a wealthy man and an unequaled force in the entertainment industry and perhaps "single-moviedly" create movie fan clubs and people obsessed with collecting every collectible associated with the movies they could get their hands on.

However, Star Wars is more than just a sappy space opera filled with mythological overtones, innovative special effects and filmmaking techniques that are throwbacks to Saturday matinee serials. It is also a transference of power and importance from one generation to the next, and it might not just be coincidence that the "special edition" came 20 years later, the time of one generation.

If you were one of the millions who stood in line at one of the 1800 theaters in which Star Wars (Special Edition) opened January 31, 1997, you might have noticed how it was not as interesting if you already knew everything that happens and what everything means. Wait! We already knew that from the many, many times we had already seen it, whether in theaters the first time around long, long ago or on TV from either broadcast showings, movie rentals or our own private collections.

We already know that Mark Hamill was a wooden actor, that the story is sappy at the beginning when Luke Skywalker is with his aunt and uncle and that scenes go on way, way too, too long to show us the razzle-dazzle of special effects rather than advancing the story. And we already knew that the superficial banter between Han Solo and Princess Leia is just a cover-up for their mutual attraction.

Yes, we knew how the movie begins, how it middles and how it ends. So, why were we so fascinated to want to see it again when it was already etched in our brains like a historical myth?

Well, that depends on who "we" is. Some of us were (ahem) old, old enough to have seen it the first time around, which means we were probably Baby Boomers and didn't want to grow any older and were reliving that experience again, which helped us to think we were still that age of 20 years earlier.

Some of us were just old enough to have children, and we probably wanted to see it again with our kids, sort of like passing a sacred totem on to the next generation.

And some of us were (ahem) young, young enough to have never seen it on a large screen, where Lucas maintained it was meant to be seen.

Lucas said he was only 50% to 60% happy with the film 20 years earlier and later he was 80% happy with it. He said, "The only thing I joke about now is it would be fun--and we can't do this for another 10 years or so--to go back and digitize the entire movie and clean it up."

May the Force help us!

Was this how we wanted Hollywood to treat our icons? Was this how we wanted movies made and remade as new technology allowed filmmakers to ignore the limitations of their raw material?

Think of Independence Day. Think of Plan 9 from Outer Space. Heck, think of Mars Needs Women.

Star Wars created Hollywood's obsession with the blockbuster, it created the phenomenon in which merchandising earns more than the box office and it probably has a direct influence on why magazines and newspapers contain more advertising than text over time, companies now sponsor sporting events and even uniforms, and athletes make more money from endorsements than they do from playing their sports.

Star Wars is the Force that changed Hollywood, and as Hollywood goes, so goes America.

I rest my case.

Stop Saying "Take a Look"!

Here's what gets me.

Take a look at this.

The three most overused and unnecessary words you ever hear on television are "Take a look."

Take a look at this.

First of all, except for blind people who only listen to the television set, we are already looking at it, and so people on television don't have to tell us to look at it!

Take a look at this.

And for all we know, blind people might get offended by being reminded all the time that they can't see anything whenever told to "take a look."

Take a look at this.

Second of all, what does saying "Take a look" add that a simple "Look" doesn't convey?

Take a look at this.

And third of all, the expression in either its shortest form of "Look," its longer form of "Take a look," or even its longer forms of "Take a look at this," "Take a live look," or "Taking a look at the temperatures" are all just a lazy way of introducing what the meteorologist, traffic reporter, or any other on-camera person wants to talk about next. Much worse is "take a listen."

Take a look at this.

I first became aware of this lazy crutch of an expression back in the past when I would attend a presentation by a programmer I worked with, and he would mangle it by saying "Take and look" instead of "Take a look."

Take a look at this.

For example, he would have a visual aid displayed before us and say something like, "If we take and look at the coding, we can see how the reverse Polish notation affects all the lines that follow."

Take a look at this.

Then I began noticing that the weather girl on the local news that I watch every morning was saying "Take a look" much too often and even more much too unnecessarily.

Take a look at this.

Then I began to notice that the traffic reporter who would follow her weather report was using "Take a look" in his reports, too, and sometimes even saying "Take a look" twice in the same sentence.

Take a look at this.

And then I began to notice that national reporters on television and hosts on national talk shows were being lazy and using the expression, which, when you think about it, doesn't add anything to the introduction of whatever follows that we are being told to look at.

Take a look at this.

Rather than saying "Take a look at these temperatures," the weather girl could simply tell us that the temperature in Denver is a pleasant 65 degrees, compared with the temperatures in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City.

Take a look at this.

Rather than saying "Take a look at the traffic map," the traffic reporter could simply say "The traffic is heavy on the Interstate highway, so you might want to avoid it."

Take a look at this.

And rather than saying "Take a look" when a national reporter or a talk-show host wants to introduce a piece of video footage, a simple description of what is going to be shown would suffice or even a simple "Play it" when the person might not know what is about to be shown.

Take a look at this.

Now that I have made you aware of this excessive and unnecessary overused expression on television, start counting the number of times you hear it said, and if you use social media to follow either the person you hear say it too much or the program on which you heard it said or even the network on which the person or program appears, write using either of the more popular social-network tools directly to the person, program, or network and encourage them to stop using that now offensive, unnecessary and overused expression.

Take a look at this.

Unfortunately, this might turn out to be a lost cause. Emphasis on good language and effective communication might have been lost ever since the Baby Boomers became a major influence in society in the Sixties.

Take a look at this.

I don't watch religious shows on television, and so I don't know if televangelists use the expression in their sermons or requests for money, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did, because I am hearing the expression almost every time I turn on the television.

Take a look at this.

The same goes for politicians.

I rest my case.