Reality TV

Reality shows have sort of come full circle for me. I got hooked on a reality show a long time ago, I think it was on MTV, where there was a guy with HIV named Pedro and a rude bike messenger named Puck livng in the same house together. They hated each other. I watched to see the Hollywood Endng. I was certain these two opposites would clasp hands at the end, see the light, and remind all of us in TVland how essentially alike we are. Didn't happen.

And that's reality.

If you are one of the majority of people who have been compelled to watch the public debasement of unknown human beings cooped up together for sport like me, you know exactly what I'm talking about here. If you don't know what in the Real World I'm talking about, you may have already gone on to the next blog. Because reality programming is an either/or, love/hate proposition for the world viewing public, I say the world because let's face it...we're beaming this crap out all over the globe.

Andy Warhol said at one point during the sixties that in the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes, and for some reason this little quote, this utterance of his, resonated with the American public even more than his Brillo boxes and soup cans did. And how prescient it was of Andy to think of it, because what he was speaking of has absolutely come true. It's not 15 minutes. It's actually a little longer -- 22 minutes without commercial interruptions. And it has been the hottest thing in programming for like what, ten years?

Lately, the trend seems to have metastsized into shows like the regrettable and hopefully forever-cancelled "Anna Nicole Show," or "Surreal World," where Z-List celebrities and their egos are stuffed into McMansions and forced to interact with each other. Reality for them is having to bake brownies to distribute to their new neighbors -- like a has-been welcome wagon.

Can you imagine watching these people walk up your driveway? The folks refused to come to their doors or just stared blankly at them, and the celebrities left uncharacteristically downcast, and more than a little confused.

"I mean don't they get it, we're famous! And we baked!"

In an early "Surreal Word" Corey Feldman objected to the placement in their midst of Jeri Manthey from CBS's Survivor because "she isn't in our [fame] society." It is for nuggets like this that I have endured, I have pressed on in my quest to view, no matter how repulsive (Hello Anna!) or arcane (hello Big Brother!) every single solitary reality episode out there. But no more.

The end of my addiction to reality for me was actually reminiscent of the beginning, On a Road Rules/Real World reunion show, Puck reappeared, unchanged apparently, and, in a masterpiece of aeronautics, spit 10 feet into the eye of another contestant, who refused to accept his apology and had him kicked off the show. We saw Puck, possibly the most repulsive reality "performer" in the genre's history, break down ... his lip quivered, a tear escaped his eye, and he was allowed to stay. It was an epiphany for me.

For as Puck was allowed to stay, I knew it was half-past time for me to go.

I am free of my addiction now. I have been born again! Last week, as a test of sorts, NBC, the same network which brings you Tom Brokaw and Meet the Press, also brought us an episode of Fear Factor that was described thusly in my cable guide:

"Contestants dine on horse rectums."

Don't get me wrong, I still catch myself lingering over these unreal reality shows while surfing. But I resist the urge. I move on. And I settle on more palatable television fare.

Like The Pet Psychic. Whatever happened to her? Or John Edward? He's gone. I guess there are just so many llamas and dead relatives to go around.

My father and his wife actually used Sonia the Pet Psychic. She told them their horse didn't like the color of his bridle. He wanted a red one. ("That'll be $100 please.")

And then they were gone. Psychics must see their cancellation coming ahead of time. I bet they're all great front-end negotiators. Anyway, now we have popular television psychics like the Medium. Or the Profiler. Fictional characters.

My prediction is that in two years time psyhcics will be helping John Walsh catch Howard Stern for murder of Bobby Trendy on Americas Most Wanted.

And if you don't know who I'm talking about in that last sentence, you are most likely both spectacularly uninformed and blissfully unaware of reality TV.

Andy Warhol would be furious!

The Bamboo Arrow

Could it be that I harbored murderous thoughts toward my baby brother? Little Ricky?

We're both adults now, a new generation has arrived, and "Little Ricky's" 18-year-old son still asks me about the time I shot his father in the face with an arrow. "Tell it," he'll say. "Tell about the time you almost killed Dad."

"Oh, Mike," I mutter, embarrassed by the topic itself, yet enamored by my own tale-telling skills -- even if they involve inter-familial attempted homicide.

"Okay, I'll tell it."

The property across the road was being subdivided, just like our property had been ten years earlier. Three new homes would soon pop up on old Mrs. Miles' backyard property -- which presently consisted of an old, sealed-up (some say haunted) guest cottage, a goldfish pond encircled by a thatch of bamboo, and a section of woods that served as our "wild-west" set when my brother and I were in our Cowboy and Indian mode.

This time, it was my turn to be the Indian. And I had fashioned a bow from a tree branch with a piece of string. For an arrow, I used a piece of bamboo, snapped off to a length of about two feet.

I told my brother to stand there. I wanted to test something on him. And then, for reasons I can't fathom today, I turned and fired my arrow at him. The jagged edge of the bamboo caught in his chin and the length of it hung there, off his face. He was wounded.

He wears the scar to this day.

Ricky grabbed the arrow with his right hand and pulled. It came out easy and there was very little blood, but I can still remember the tense, but brief, standoff -- before we took off across the road at warp speed. Each of us was hoping to be the first one to tell the story of exactly what had just transpired between us on old Mrs. Miles backyard property.

Even as I was running, though, I knew my defense was weak. My brother had the bloody arrow in his hand, and the circluar wound on his face, just southwest of his mouth. Clearly I needed a good attorney.

When we got home, however, my mother, with three children under 12 now, merely shrugged off what appeared to her to be a minor flesh wound. She didn't even harp on the newly-emerged homicidal tendencies of her oldest son.

I guess it's like Roseanne used to say in her act: "If the kids are still alive at 5 p.m., I've done my job."

But some stories inspire such incredulity, they are requested down through generations. Hopefully this one won't endure as long.

Rick (he asked that we stop calling him "Ricky" when he hit his teens) forgave me in time, my having just spent my Summer vacation with his family serving as testament to that fact.

But it is was what happened after I got back from vacation that made me realize how truly blessed I am to have a little brother who can take on the role of "big" brother when he needs to. I had to spend some "medical downtime" lately, and wouldn't you know "Little Ricky" dropped everything to come down here and be with me the entire time.

It really looks like he has forgotten all about that bamboo arrow thing. . .

Dumb Luck

True Story

1972

Imagine the confusion: Your mother is a Right Wing Nixon Republican and your father is a Left Wing Liberal Democrat.

Of course they were divorced. Everyone got divorced in the '70's. My folks were like a cute Ricky/Lucy couple who got married in 1950 and just grew in completely different ways. By 1967, the Summer of Love, they were divorced. Mom went on to marry one of the chief engineers on the Moon Landing of 1969. Dad. Well, Dad became a hippie.

The first clue we had of this was when he started a commune in our house.

The commune, which consisted of one other couple, and assorted children, had moved out of the house and onto the Nina ("Neen-ya"), an old racing schooner my father purchased from the Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point. They called themselves The "Motley Crew" and they had decided to leave Northport forever, sailing off to spread a vague message of peace and love to the savages along the intracoastal waterway. My dad told a reporter from the newspaper it was a "spiritual adventure." And for him, that's exactly what it turned out to be. Roseanne Scamardello (the inspiriation for Gilda Radner's Roseanne Roseannadanna) came out in our little outboard with her camera crew. She instructed my sister Sandi and me to dive into the jellyfish-infested waters of Northport harbor. We did as we were told, coming up with welts and translucent blobs all over us.

The Nina was a magnificent schooner, built for the race to Spain in 1929, which she won. Through the years, she had been owned by millionaires and served a term as the flagship of the New York Yacht Club The boat had been immaculately maintained by the Academy before ending up in the hands of the Commune, who outfitted her sleek but hollow hull with makeshift bulkheads to create rooms and bunks. The walls didn't go all the way up, so unless you were sleeping in the captain's cabin, there was little privacy. But she was a sight to behold under full sail.

(In her next incarnation, the hapless Nina would be sold to a swinging singles club in Manhattan which used it for "get-togethers.")

I was 20 in 1972. My sister was 18. I took off with her on a hitchhiking trip that I later realized kind of echoed the plot of "On the Road." My sister fell in love with a Mexican boy we met in New Mexico. He would take us for long rides in the desert in his Lipstick-Red Roadrunner. We talked about Viet Nam, the main topic of the day. Pedro, or "Pete," had been deferred due to a an accident when he enlisted in the Navy and was decompressed too quickly after a dive. He moved me and my sister into his house almost immediately. It looked like we'd be staying in Fort Sumner, New Mexico for a while. Actually, our stay lasted longer than I expected. Finally, I headed East.

I got off in Albuquerque. I was in no rush to get home to Northport, Long Island. My draft number was coming up. I had a physical to go to. They were shoveling America's teenagers into the Vietnam war machine by the truckload. I was cannon fodder, I knew it, but I tried not to think about it.

"Tell 'em you're gay!" my father yelled at me.

"Join the Air Force," my mother told me firmly. (Grumman, my new stepfather's employer, manufactured the F-16 fighter jet.)

I chose to do nothing. I couldn't make up my mind. I actually did go tothe Air Force recruiting station, took a test, and was told that I was qualified for quite a few jobs -- "corpse" being top of the list I'm sure -- but I decided not to follow up. I began a protracted waiting game.

Pretty soon the week cane when I had to report to Fort Hamilton in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, a few blocks from where I live now. My Dad, supportive of anything I had ever done, was apoplectic. I found myself, somewhat distracted as I tried hard to deny what appeared to be the inevitable.

The commune would soon be off to distant lands. And so, it appeared would I. And we would be fighting for freedom -- they from boredom and I from Godless Communism. Don't get me wrong. I was no gung ho Marine. My English teacher had run off to Canada with my art teacher. Nobody wanted to be drafted. But I was a deer in the headlights.

So I occupied myself with chores. During my last week of freedom, I helped the Commune ready the boat for their departure date, which had been fixed for the end of August.

Our departures seemed so intertwined, and yet so diametrically opposed.

Here's how that last week went:

First Day, a rash appeared over my entire body, little red dots, something I've never experienced before or since. It stayed with me that whole week.

Second day, I tied the launch up at the stern, stepped up onto the deck and jabbed my shoulder with the boom, which left a nasty bruise.

Third day, tying my father up on a boatswain's chair as he painted the 80-foot mast, I turned and walked straight into same mast, hard. A goose egg developed immediately.

Fourth day, I moved a 75-pound boat battery onto the boat. The boat,which when I left to pick up the battery was level with the dock, was now lowered with the tide. I decided to jump and came crashing to the deck. I sustained a hematoma on the ankle. The family doctor taped me up before sending me out the door with a worried look and a pair of crutches.

Next day I had to get on the bus. I lined up with 15 or 20 other dejected, nervous-looking guys and we boarded the yellow school bus that took us to Fort Hamilton for our physicals.

I wondered if they thought I was faking the crutch thing. Anyway, I got the big rubber stamp "Rejected." Another appointment in two weeks. You're allowed to cancel once between appointments, so I did. When I showed up that second time, Iwas again rejected. Not healed yet. I cancelled my one, final, allowed time and, miraculously, by the time of my third appointment, completely healed and ready to report for duty, Nixon did away with the draft!

If anyone ever asks you what the expression "dumb luck" means, tell them this story.