January 30, 2013
I would be remiss if I didn’t again mention the strange influences my postings seem to have. It could be just coincidence – but right after the posting of “Kobe Needs a Shrink” – the Lakers started playing differently, AND, better. The Lakers have now won 3-in-a-row. It almost seems like someone in the Laker organization took my article to heart…and…and…nah, it’s just coincidence.
For readers wanting a quick definition for the term “juxtaposition” it means: placing two things side-by-side for the purpose of contrasting them.
I caught one of the new Bill Maher Shows the other Night, and, aside from falling head-over-heels for Rula Jebreal, an Arabic journalist/author (and Giti said go ahead and chase her – but the oxytocin has woven its spell on me and left me with only a platonic appreciation for Rula), I recognized something about American Culture that I don’t believe I’ve written about before (although perhaps I have — as my Can’t Remember A Fucking Thing gets progressively worse-and-worse): US make jokes about everything. We sanitize everything to make it palatable so that it is consumable.
Rula J. came onto Bill’s show pretty much talking fire and brimstone about the Middle East situation. She even admonished Bill for the language he used; but acquiesced saying, “It’s your show.” Martin Short tried to mix it up with her a bit – but I don’t think Martin was accustomed to talking about genocide in “real time”; and, Martin and Bill, along with Rula – presented me with that strange juxtaposition that I now write about: horrible shit goes on – but when US talk about it – we don’t “feel” the actual horror (like Rula [and many others have]) – we buffer ourselves with humor: we are sufficiently de-sensitized to escape the pain.
I’m pretty sure this de-sensitization dynamic is something we picked up from the Brits who probably used humor to “buffer” the atrocities they committed on, well, on everyone! US probably developed our unique humor to buffer our genocide of the Native American and the perpetuation of slavery till, till…has the slavery thang really ever stopped?
So I was struck by the contrast of Rula Jebreal’s authentic and genuine comments concerning the violence in the Middle East and the staggering death toll; and, Bill Maher’s humor-wrapped concurrence. I find this dynamic similar to the child reared in a home where-one-or-both-parents is/are using a substance; or, imbibing alcohol (or both): all interaction tends to be buffered or mediated through the substance(s) and the child never experiences its parent in a genuine or authentic manner.
I-hate-to-think that we need to televise American casualties up close like we did during Viet Nam – where guts and gore were shown on the nightly news at dinner time. Now we get the sanitized version of our wounded: wearing multi-million dollar robotic prosthetics – which is pretty cool – and stops us from truly realizing how severe the wounds were.
Yep. I think it’s time for the nightly news to get as-bloody-as those Hollywood slasher films, again. Bloody Hell! It’s time to repair the disconnect between bloody reality and the American consciousness.