May 25, 2011--Daytime TV
One of the dubious benefits of no longer having a normal office job is the opportunity to keep up with daytime TV. I do spend more time than I'd like to admit doing this.
About half a dozen times a day I tune in to CNBC to see how the stock market is faring. Whether the gyrations of our portfolio will allow us to go out for a nice dinner or will we need to think about home-cooked pasta and tomato sauce.
I flip around the various ESPN stations to see if there is any news about the two teams I'm currently following--the Yankees and, as a Florida snowbird, the Miami Heat. The former are struggling and the latter have finally gelled as a team and I am feeling are likely to make it to the NBA finals.
And this week there is the French Open which is available on the Tennis Channel. We like to follow Rafa Nadal because he is from Mallorca and for a decade we had a place on that magical island.
This week as well is Oprah's last; and as a student of popular culture, I have checking in with her. Yesterday the show was devoted to tributes to her inspirational and philanthropic work. I know she has appealed to many with her blend of self-actualizing, secular spirituality; but to tell the truth I found the show excruciating to watch.
The part I saw was a version of a chorus of young girls and celebrities like Katie Holmes telling the tearful Oprah what she has meant to them. How one lost 30 pounds and was doing all she could to keep it off; how another was motivated by Oprah to stay in school and study hard so as to make something of herself. This testimony was surprising and felt phony since I assume these kids are in school when the Orpah Show is on and when they are at home they're not watching TV--they're too busy texting and tweeting. It felt as if they had been hired from Rent-A-Kid.
How could Oprah, I wondered, who has done much good, command and script this sort of thing (and scripted it surely was--everyone was reading off the teleprompter)? What sort of inner insecurity and colossal ego was required for her to call for and then sit still for this tacky charade?
Then yesterday, on a channel named Tru, I caught the defense's opening statement in the Casey Anthony murder trial.
I assume you know at least a little something about this. Her daughter, Caylee, went missing about three years ago and Casey apparently didn't report her disappearance for a month. This of course made her the prime suspect. It didn't help that during that month she was spotted have a good-old time all around town.
People following the unfolding of the evidence since she was arrested have come to hate her. Her every court appearance is not only followed by the rabid press and gossip corps but also by local people bearing signs calling for her execution. From the looks on some of these neighbors' faces it would appear that they would welcome the execution even before the trial.
The prosecution seems to have a strong case, but just yesterday afternoon for the first time the defense rolled out Casey's story. And apparently, to the cognoscenti, it is quite a whopper.
They are offering the Oprah-defense: the classic abuse-excuse. Casey's lawyers are claiming that her daughter drowned in the family swimming pool; and since she, Casey, as an eight-year-old was allegedly sexually molested by her father--Caylee's grandfather--with him she conspired to dispose of the body.
I probably don't have it exactly right--I was also trying to catch a nap while this was going on--so I can't yet figure out why being molested would cause one to not want to call 911. If Caylee truly drowned, this would be a tragedy but not a crime and it all would have been all over in a few days and not be dragging on for three salacious years.
But we'll see. The good news is that Geraldo is on the case--his juiciest gig since the OJ trial--as the reporter covering the trial for Fox news, and I am certain that in great and lurid detail he will make sense of it all.
In one more day Oprah will be gone, by next weekend the French Open will be resolved, and I am convinced that our portfolio will manage to keep us above water, so I'll stay tuned to Tru, whatever that is, and check in with Geraldo and try to do a better job than I have thus far here to bring you the important news of the day.
About half a dozen times a day I tune in to CNBC to see how the stock market is faring. Whether the gyrations of our portfolio will allow us to go out for a nice dinner or will we need to think about home-cooked pasta and tomato sauce.
I flip around the various ESPN stations to see if there is any news about the two teams I'm currently following--the Yankees and, as a Florida snowbird, the Miami Heat. The former are struggling and the latter have finally gelled as a team and I am feeling are likely to make it to the NBA finals.
And this week there is the French Open which is available on the Tennis Channel. We like to follow Rafa Nadal because he is from Mallorca and for a decade we had a place on that magical island.
This week as well is Oprah's last; and as a student of popular culture, I have checking in with her. Yesterday the show was devoted to tributes to her inspirational and philanthropic work. I know she has appealed to many with her blend of self-actualizing, secular spirituality; but to tell the truth I found the show excruciating to watch.
The part I saw was a version of a chorus of young girls and celebrities like Katie Holmes telling the tearful Oprah what she has meant to them. How one lost 30 pounds and was doing all she could to keep it off; how another was motivated by Oprah to stay in school and study hard so as to make something of herself. This testimony was surprising and felt phony since I assume these kids are in school when the Orpah Show is on and when they are at home they're not watching TV--they're too busy texting and tweeting. It felt as if they had been hired from Rent-A-Kid.
How could Oprah, I wondered, who has done much good, command and script this sort of thing (and scripted it surely was--everyone was reading off the teleprompter)? What sort of inner insecurity and colossal ego was required for her to call for and then sit still for this tacky charade?
Then yesterday, on a channel named Tru, I caught the defense's opening statement in the Casey Anthony murder trial.
I assume you know at least a little something about this. Her daughter, Caylee, went missing about three years ago and Casey apparently didn't report her disappearance for a month. This of course made her the prime suspect. It didn't help that during that month she was spotted have a good-old time all around town.
People following the unfolding of the evidence since she was arrested have come to hate her. Her every court appearance is not only followed by the rabid press and gossip corps but also by local people bearing signs calling for her execution. From the looks on some of these neighbors' faces it would appear that they would welcome the execution even before the trial.
The prosecution seems to have a strong case, but just yesterday afternoon for the first time the defense rolled out Casey's story. And apparently, to the cognoscenti, it is quite a whopper.
They are offering the Oprah-defense: the classic abuse-excuse. Casey's lawyers are claiming that her daughter drowned in the family swimming pool; and since she, Casey, as an eight-year-old was allegedly sexually molested by her father--Caylee's grandfather--with him she conspired to dispose of the body.
I probably don't have it exactly right--I was also trying to catch a nap while this was going on--so I can't yet figure out why being molested would cause one to not want to call 911. If Caylee truly drowned, this would be a tragedy but not a crime and it all would have been all over in a few days and not be dragging on for three salacious years.
But we'll see. The good news is that Geraldo is on the case--his juiciest gig since the OJ trial--as the reporter covering the trial for Fox news, and I am certain that in great and lurid detail he will make sense of it all.
In one more day Oprah will be gone, by next weekend the French Open will be resolved, and I am convinced that our portfolio will manage to keep us above water, so I'll stay tuned to Tru, whatever that is, and check in with Geraldo and try to do a better job than I have thus far here to bring you the important news of the day.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
5:06 AM
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