Here and There

Most people who know me know I don’t watch a lot of television. The fact that I know Jimmy got kicked off “Hell’s Kitchen” last week is pure coincidence, I promise.

I live in San Francisco, and I don’t have cable. For all you non-San Franciscans, that means I pick up a whopping total of five channels, audio AND video. And that’s on a good day.

But this isn’t about TV. Well, not directly.

I add myself to the 1.3 million nightly viewers of The Daily Show, though I’m entirely at the mercy of the clips the show makes available on their Web site.

Last week, Jon Stewart had a guest on his show who really struck a chord with me. His name is Bernard Goldberg, and he’s the author of 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken Is #37), a book that takes a detailed look at what’s ruining our republic.

Early in the interview, Stewart says of the book, “First of all, thank you. To have a handy guide to America’s 100 enemies …” Who knows, maybe the sarcasm is lost on Goldberg, who replies, “Yeah.”

Stewart goes on, cheapening Goldberg’s thesis by saying, “It’s like one of those bar games … where you sit around going, ‘You know who I hate?’”

Goldberg’s defense, “No, that wasn’t … that wasn’t it. There’s a serious part to the book, and I hope, I hope people find part of it funny” is beyond pathetic.

“A lot of people out there, and I bet a lot of people in this audience, have noticed that we have gotten angrier in the culture, we’ve gotten nastier, we’ve gotten more vulgar.”

A minute later, Goldberg further elucidates his argument. “I don’t think that liberals anymore than conservatives want to sit around during the family hour with their kids and watch a show that has one cheesy sex joke after another. I mean, I’m not the Church Lady … I don’t care what people say.” Then, to stave off Stewart’s obvious opening, he says “Don’t do it, c’mon.” Goldberg’s discomfort is now apparent. He goes on, “… the people who seem to care most about the environment somehow seem not to think that the cultural environment is all that important.”

You know what, Bernard? You’re right. I for one could care less, and it’s not a matter of “Change the channel” if you don’t like it. Not for me.

Stewart makes a point I strongly agree with. “This always seems like a red herring argument to me. People always say this, ‘The culture is getting more crass.’”

Stewart didn’t mention Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, and George Carlin, to name just a few recent examples of people who’ve been accused of “screwing up the country,” an interesting choice of words in and of itself.

As Stewart says, “The culture war seems fake … most everyone in your book is powerless … but there is a larger issue of people in power creating problems, not Barbra Streisand on her blog. So much focus is on culture, and so little is on government and the real seats of power … in Washington, transparency is the real issue. And I wish smart guys like you spend more time, not worrying about Barbra Streisand, but worrying about, you know, Richard Perle, Karl Rove, or whoever the Democrats would’ve had in that position during the Clinton years.“

Modern America is too complex, too connected (yet somehow also isolated), too full of contradictions to spend time worrying about wardrobe malfunctions, “curse” words, and purple dinosaurs. And, c’mon, every generation pushes the boundaries of the last.

There’s a war going on, remember? A couple of wars, really. There’s a grand jury investigation of the current administration going on. We’ve still got record budget deficits, trade deficits, and no agreement for how to fix Social Security. I can handle a couple of epithets by some nitwits in suburbia with a show on public access cable. I’m more concerned with who’s really running the show.

© 2005 Jeff Hunt. All rights reserved.

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