These real-life Looney Tunes scare the hell out of me
Normally, I settle in on Saturday mornings at the keyboard and start pounding out my weekly missive.
In the background, I have the television tuned to one of the national news networks to keep up with the incessant breaking news. Got to keep it current, right?
Today, about five minutes in, I scrapped my original writing plan, canned two backup column ideas, and shelved another because, well, I started getting nostalgic for the good ol’ days when Saturday mornings were reserved for Looney Tunes cartoons.
I turned to Cara, the most understanding spouse a guy could ask for, and said, “I am so over this 2020 campaign. I know why Elvis used to shoot out TVs in his hotel suite.”
And the thing is, The King didn’t have CNN or MSNBC or Fox News to deal with. Back then, Donald Trump was just a punk with a bad haircut, and most of the 2020 wannabes were just toddlers who, like me, were tuned in to watch Bugs outsmart Daffy, laugh at Sylvester as he chased Tweety Bird around the house, and laugh until our bellies hurt as Wile E. Coyote employed the deadly Acme tools in his quest to capture the speedy Roadrunner.
This morning, I watched one of the presidential candidates make promises he cannot keep, listened in on why Donald Trump cannot (will not?) release his tax returns, and even was teased about special broadcasts recounting the unsavory side — was there any other? — of Richard Nixon.
Take me out, coach. I’ve had enough. These real-life Looney Tunes scare the hell out of me.
It’s no wonder when we go to the polls these days that by the time we get ready to punch in our ballots, we hate everybody on the ticket.
Our attention span only lasts for so long, and our BS meters have long since exploded from the lies and outrageous behavior of the candidates.
I already have voter fatigue, and the election is about 19 months way.
The fertile ground of politics has turned fetid, even for political wonks like me who have immersed themselves in studying and analyzing it for decades.
And when the wonks walk away from politics to embrace the whimsical wiles of a “wascally wabbit” instead of wading into the fray, the world has spun into a dangerous wobble.
So I switched over to a channel broadcasting golf.
Now, to explain how desperate a move for me that is, let me divulge that I’ve played golf maybe half a dozen times in my life. As a golfer, I’m a really good cart driver. The most fun I ever had on a golf course was when I would go out and bash a bucket of balls, sending them flying in all directions but working out some pent-up aggression.
Golf on TV?
I have no idea who most of the golfers are, nor do I care.
I like it because the announcers aren’t yelling over each other.
I like the pastoral look of the fairway, the gentle swing of a real pro who can loft the ball high into the air and send it a million yards away.
I like the concentration when they putt, the Zen-like trance most good golfers seem to fall into when they slip into “the zone.”
I knew little about golfer Payne Stewart other than that he wore the traditional plus-four knickers and peaked cap like in the old days and that he was a pretty good golfer. But I loved watching him, in all his campiness, strutting his stuff during the PGA tournaments. Perhaps what makes golf so good as background garble is the fact that it doesn’t matter who is up on the tee because they all look the same in their Nike swoosh caps, Dockers, and pastel polo shirts, which makes it easy to take a nap while the tourney is on the tube.
Baseball is a close second as far as mindless diversion goes.
It is also pastoral, calm, and not as numbing as a linebacker rupturing the spleen of a running back. But the solitude is interrupted often by the sound of a bat cracking out a line drive or some demented discussion about how a certain baseball player is truly worth a 12-year $430 million contract. That really touches my working class soul, you know?
So I’ll listen to some guy with an accent whisper about how Phil Mickelson made such a fantastic nine-iron shot to approach the hole. I’m not sure what all that means other than the fact that birdies, eagles, and pars are important elements of the game. It was never that complicated with Bugs and Daffy, even when they were arguing about whether it was duck season or “wabbit” season.
I’ve peeked in at the new generation of ‘toons, but they pale in comparison. It’s kind of like watching the Three Stooges with Curly Joe or the current flock of political hopefuls and the pundits who slice and dice them into indecipherable nuggets of trivial offal.
I can’t help but wonder if there is much left of anybody to hang our hopes on by the time 2020 rolls around. I mean, one of the reasons why I think so many people found the candidates so distasteful last time around was because of this thing called voter fatigue.
Neither came into the race as a likeable candidate, to be sure, but by the time people went to the polls, voters were fed up and just wanted to be done with it all.
So you can have your Berniecrats, Cory, The Donald, Mikey Pence, and most of the rest of them. Go ahead, turn the channel and you will find one or all of them being flayed and splayed on the news and commentary shows.
You can tune in to hear the paroxysms of neo-pundits who barely look old enough to vote misrepresent historical events and mangle political theory.
It could just be why voter turnout in the United States lags so far behind the rest of the world.
It could also be why so many people of voting age in the United States have said “That’s all, folks,” and turned away from the polls.
Peace.
The viewpoints expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Independent.
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Ok , looney tunes or looney toons? See the Mandella effect. Yep, I too watched golf on Saturday morning and Sunday too. What a great Masters tourney! Now the real question, if you take a year off, refrain from all news, will you miss anything. I know the answer. It is all Kibuki theater and perhaps humanity is a cartoon entertainment for some of our more advanced galactic neighbors. By the way Marvin the Martian is the coolest of all. Enjoyed the article.
I’ve rarely thought you were anything, but looney tunes. But, I did have to laugh when you said Trump had a “bad haircut.” Really Ed, look in the mirror.