MUSIC NAVbarz 2
AMERICA UNITED IN OUTRAGE OVER MOVIE STAR'S
SCOLDING OF BRATTY OFFSPRING
(oh yeah, and something about black water)

By Polar Levine, April 24, 2007
While the world continues to generate events that require our attention and action, the corporate newzbiz never fails to deliver an easy-to-read sideshow that effectively upstages all information of consequence. At least the Imus event was coincidentally about something other than a celebrity melodrama.
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And now that the atrocity in Virginia is fading out of endless loop mode, we have a new celeb bombshell to divert attention to everything else vital -- the Alec Baldwin message to his daughter. This diversion is even less newsworthy than the Anna Nicole Smith soap opera and far more disturbing for its very existence in the public sphere. Besides the perversity of keeping important events out of public consciousness, there’s the issue of what the fuck that recording is doing on the air and why so many people are shocked that a parent might blow up at his pre-adolescent offspring. Was there time to report a new book on Blackwater, a huge private American militia we’re paying to fight in Iraq which has no oversight or accountability, whose thousands of troops are not listed in official counts of troop strength or casualties?
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Ok, it’s America and with so many means of discomfort-avoidance available at Wal-Mart for low low prices, we’ve developed an impenetrable cocoon against awareness of our pain -- much like the MO of the infotainment biz. We project what’s left of our life force onto celebrities instead of living our own lives and finding meaning in our own sob stories. So we get to feel the rush of achievement that we, ourselves, never get around to achieving or even striving for. We feel the painless pain of other people’s tragedies and -- most fun of all -- we get to trash-talk celebs for doing the same assinine things we do ourselves but don’t want to account for. So now we can be shocked that a parent could treat his child in such a way and we can gloat about how a loud-mouth like Baldwin is getting his just deserts. Conservatives have license to blow gaseous explosions of outrage because the perp is a card-carrying member of the Hollywood liberal elite.
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My wife, a straight-haired honky female human, is sure that the vast majority of our good citizens and their media spokespersons, particularly those who are parents themselves, will be unshocked. They will surely recognize that these kinds of outbursts -- ugly and unedited bursts of fury -- are not uncommon even when the family unit is intact, unlike Baldwin’s which is quagmired in ugly domestic and legal combat. To my spouse, I say, “ha ha ha.”
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So far, I’ve only seen the standard issue snarling of righteous outrage. If the likes of Hannity, Olberman and Geraldo don’t get it -- either they don’t have kids or they make sure their interactions with their kids remain well within their parental convenience zones. Yes, adults are responsible for keeping their cool and making all the sage-like moves. In real life on Planet Earth. . . well, you know. What Baldwin said to his daughter was not something one should say to one’s child, or to anyone else’s child. And I’m sure he knew that long before his tirade was broadcast to the world. People should never speak to their kids that way. But even when the best of parents do it, it’s because raising kids is one of the hardest things in the world to do. It’s a daily drama, for better and worse, for years and years on end. We say things we know are wrong, not because we intend to, but because sometimes we just lose it. That’s why the noted authorities on child rearing now tell us that our most realistic goal is to be “good enough” parents.
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So what’s the correct, the proper, the right way to lose it? I think the only answer we could all agree on is this: the wrong way is the way everyone else does it. Present to any reasonable adult a recording of a parental meltdown -- with all contextual material deleted -- and they will claim to have heard an appalling example of child abuse.
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I’m a pretty dedicated and hands-on dad, but I too lose it at times and I feel like a real jerk afterwards. I often apologize -- to my kid, not to a blood-hungry mob. Baldwin’s rant was no more incendiary than what the rest of us have the good fortune to let loose -- in the privacy of our homes. He’s a particularly noisy guy. I am too, so I can relate. My kid is used to my noise, and as lame as it gets sometimes, it’s no more shocking to him than his personal brand of assholery is shocking to me. He’s embarrassed by me and sometimes thinks I’m a jerk. That’s ok. He’s genetically programmed to feel that way. He’s also affectionate, trusts me and knows I’m always there for him. In the heat of battle we sometimes scream things at each other that we’d never say in public. That’s basic kid-raising in a culture that values self-expression. I can’t imagine how much more stressing our situation would be in the environment that Baldwin and his daughter have to function in.
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If anybody deserves to be publicly sandblasted over this event, it’s the infotainment hacks who put this stuff on the air. But, then again, how do infotainment hacks stay on the air? By performing nightly tirades about whatever the Media Pigeon drops on their plates. And we all get to be shocked and appalled; and more, after this message. . .
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By Polar Levine for polarity1.com
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