Sportcenter, during the playoffs, when the Tampa Bay Rays had won a game by hitting a home run.
"What went through your mind as you were about to hit that home run?"
I love how the media comes up with all these questions, that don't really mean anything, but are designed to take up time. As we all know, the 24 hours news reel must be filled up with "un-news," made up news, repeats of news, or just gossip that people might think important or attractive. It wasn't so made before Turner revolutionized the cable industry and brought about the information age (one might even argue that he is the single most important person to media and print since Gutenberg and his printing press, much as Ford was to the Industrial Revolution. anyway...) Back in the 1970's and earlier, before cable, journalists didn't have all day to spurt out information and opinions, they only had an hour or so each night. It was much easier to contain biases and maintain journalistic integrity. Btu now, anyone can go on the air and say pretty much whatever they want, in the name of journalism and free speech, and get away with it. And the citizens of this country, who have thought for years that the news, with Kronkite and Brinkley and Hunt being masters of their trade, was the absolute truth, now take whatever the media (and that includes the AP, Internet, Radio...etc...) tells them as truth.
And while this makes the media powerful and dangerous, it also allows them much room for mistakes and hilarity to show the absolute stupidity that they sometimes demonstrate. Which brings me back to the question above. What would he be thinking about? Sports people have been taught to answer the media with vague nothingness, with answers that would satisfy the tongues and the ears and bring about some sort of nobility, as if they were a part of the gladiators of old, having honor and courage before their deaths. Or they exhibit some sort of modesty that makes them seem meager servants to the great game of whatever, or the commissioners that reign over them (and are taking more and more leeway to control their minions). But shouldn't the obvious answer to the question be:
"To hit the ball."
It struck me as so funny that someone would ask that question, but it also struck me as odd that the answer (which probably thanked God and praised the other team and considered their teammates ....etc...) was everything but the obvious.
2. A news program was giving the nightly body count (which has become almost preferred over politics or the economic forecast of doom.), and they described a 70 year old man, who, after going to the grocery store, had been shot several times by someone else who fled in another car. Upon hearing this, two women in an adjoining business rushed out, and, upon seeing the man barely conscious and bleeding from several gunshot wounds, asked, "Are you all right??" It's like, "Hello!! I'm bleeding!!! Of course I'm okay!!!" Don't know if he lived or not, but he was able to tell police who it was that done shot him.
3. Heard this on a stand-up comedian routine on Comedy Central. And it was odd cause I had thought the same thing myself. Recently a commercial from Direct TV has been airing a modified version of Poltergeist, where the girl looks back at the father from the staticy TV screen and says, "They're Here!!" You've seen the scene, but the dad says, No, we just forgot to switch it to Direct TV from Cable. The creepy thing about this is that they're using a scene in which the kid (the girl) is dead (she died during the making of Poltergeist II). Just odd, which is what I thought when I saw it.
Just some of the oddities I've heard on TV recently. Thought I'd share.
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