SOME THINGS REALLY STINK AND THIS GENERATION SHOULD HAVE SMELT IT AND DONE AWAY WITH IT MUCH EARLIER?
- 20 hours ago
- 5 min read
I was too young to understand the public outpouring of shock and tremendous sadness when John F Kennedy Jr was assassinated, and only felt something to what had happened listening to my parents and my uncle and aunties talk and talk about what had happened in Dallas.
These were the times of black and white television and newspapers and they believed what they were told by a very limited media. When Robert Kennedy was fatally shot, I was a few years older and saw the events unfold on ‘live’ television and thought I understood what was going on, but we were in colonial Hong Kong and I don’t even remember if I was in secondary school.
Over the many decades, I pieced together what I could find about “Camelot”, watching JFK’s funeral, the casket, John John and Caroline saying goodbye to their father, Jacqueline Kennedy, the Zapruder film, what seemed the easy shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby and all the online information available today about that afternoon in Dallas. There’s then the “spillover effect “ into the death of Marilyn Monroe, the supposed role of Sam Giancana in the assassination of JFK, the very interesting Aristotle Onassis, the reasons for Vietnam war, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Richard Mulhouse Nixon and all the conspiracy theories still going on as we deep dive into the information overload on what’s known as “social media”.
Available 24/7 these days is supposedly what’s going on with the former television reality star Donald Trump and seeing how those on his side react and those against him and others needing something to gnaw on like vultures feeding on the dead carcass of an antelope.
It’s also a field day for talk show hosts, comedians and with there being so much of everything including trying to turn certain television reporters into overnight celebrities and not that far removed from what Andy Warhol said about everyone having their fifteen minutes of fame.
I am far more interested in the life and times of Roger Ailes, someone I got to know, up close and fairly personal during my years with Universal Music and then, EMI Music.
Though allergic to him as a person, I admired his intelligence, strategic thinking and marketing chutzpah to have the vision and create what became Fox News, sell the idea to Rupert Murdoch and News Corp, create the content and audition the cast.
What Roger Ailes did was give those in America uncomfortable with the ascent of Barack Obama into the grand theatre of American politics, a television channel that was the complete opposite of CNN. It scared them to see this non-white presidential candidate endorsed by the then very influential Oprah Winfrey- whatever ever happened to cool her relationship with the Obamas?- and being bought and sold by the catchy slogan of “Yes We Can”.
A push back platform was needed and Ailes knew what would work and with a combination of Right Wing ideology and Barbie like hosts and co-hosts and outspoken personalities like Bill O’Reilly and especially Sean Hannity.
These days, and for better or worse, I always look at everything as “content marketing” and who’s used where, who drops off, who is brought in, and watch all this unfold, because maybe I know from seeing Roger Ailes at work, how power corrupts and that nothing is ever what it seems- especially when it comes to the marketing of The Donald.
What’s happening or not happening today has to do with ratings and spin-offs in an ongoing scripted political competition taking place in real time with an ever changing cast of characters.
Some of these characters wear white hats, others wear black hats and with no one really knowing who is who, which makes everything look, especially to those outside of America and who bother to be bothered by what’s going on over there when they’re somewhere else with, perhaps, something to do during retirement.
Like every television reality show, politics has become entertainment and the next “American Idol”.
It’s a divisive ratings game that I see as a cross between “Groundhog Day” and “The Truman Show” and how the “viewing audience” is first being bought and then duped.
There are others I know, meanwhile, in the periphery of all this and who are far more interested in knowing if Ka Ying Rising will win at Shatin tomorrow, though describing the race as the “same old s***”, but, like flies, they are drawn to it.
Me, at least for the very short term, I wonder if the CEO of the Hong Kong Jockey Club will hug Zac Purton after the race, and am taking bets on exactly when the serial HKJC female photobomber will make her presence felt on course and just how puerile and stupid all her showboating is.
As for what’s happening between Israel and Iran and the innocent people caught up in this game of war being played for extremely high stakes, and suffering in this sudden crossfire hurricane, many might feign outrage and sadness, but do they really care unless it affects their daily lives?
War is always an expensive business, as usual, many profiteer off it in different ways, whereas though some might pontificate about the “genius” of Trump, how many really care if he is “taken out”, or what happens to any of those he has chosen to be in his administration?
Everyone is discardable and what many tend to overlook is that as Trump nears eighty and is showing signs of cognitive decline, unless his family somehow takes over the baton from him, time can change everything and nothing that’s long term can be planned.
Meanwhile, how many even know the difference between garden gnomes from Kristi Noem, Bondi from Bondi Beach, and Kash Patel from the Patel’s Indian restaurant down the road?
There’s someone I know who thinks that the Epstein Files might be something good for her nails. She also believes humus is from the Straits of Hormuz, and only cares if I can get her tickets to the upcoming Sammi Cheng concerts in Hong Kong.
Do I blame her? Nope. At least, she’s not some pseudo intellectual served with all the superficial trimmings.
Priorities, it’s all about personal priorities and, at least for me, it’s about not getting lost in the clutter of nothingness and trying desperately hard to stay away from those who are not who they are and with way too much time on their hands and no deliverables.
It’s about taking a break from creative writing every few hours to take le pissoir of those “digital creators” and online “entrepreneurs”, who take what’s never going to come even close to affecting them and speak so knowingly and seriously about. But why? Keeping up pretences? For whom and for what?
There’s no point telling these people to get real and get a job or do something meaningful, because, just maybe, knowing what’s meaningful is something that’s too difficult for them to grasp and also just too much work?
For myself, as always, it’s about trying to find Hope and Happiness and real positivity and pass it along. How? I didn’t say that I had the answers because I am no Chauncey Gardener, but it won’t be AI hope.
Instead of wasting precious time wading through the online quagmire of clickbait and global politics, I believe that the answer lies in getting back to the garden and sowing the seeds of inspiration for the next few generations to inherit and create what’s relevant to them.
My generation has had the time to right the many wrongs with this world and saw the telltale signs, but wasted time by going where they were not needed and creating discardable fluff or being asleep at the wheel and wondering why nothing was working.
Comments