Hollywood and the Media - Peas in a Pod.

What is the difference between the media and “the” Hollywood? Not much. Both are at best C minus actors, with limited skills and even more limited cerebral charging. For example, the media has a herd of folks that pass everyday as “reporters,” “journalists,” “political analysts” or some supposedly (promoted as) razor-sharp professional pundits—take your pick: legal, historical, economic, etc. It doesn’t matter—at least to them. Like the Hollywood slobbering actors, the media slobbers with nonsense from commentators that sounds as if Ed Wood produces the world’s daily news and comment, and does it as well as he did with the ghost of Bela Legosi.

Ed Wood, R.I.P.

The two things they (Hollywood and media) always have in common is they have makeup splashed on them, and a camera held on them. However, there is a third commonality: They are, for the most part (and at best) mediocre in the various fields that they respectively claim to represent. As long as they are picturesque or pretty (or at least not ugly), they get the big screen presentation that is entertaining for whatever "fans" cheer for them.

In the past half of a century, contemporary Hollywood actors both (actors/actresses) have won multiple "Best" Acting awards when their skills are mostly an ability to deliver less-than-Shakespearian dramatics like F*** you! Or Holy S***! This is the "method" of the give-him-an-Oscar crowd. Poor writing brilliance, perhaps, but then writers have poor subjects in both Hollywood and the media from which to feed for feedback. Again, C minus at "best".

But all love themselves; so, honesty to the fan of fiction is much like honesty to the viewer of the news media.

And the pay ain’t bad. Not as good as drug cartel profits but about as useful. And both are addictive, that is, applause and getting high. Will Smith and Robert DeNiro race to the stage presentation to throw punches or curse—sophistication from the cheap seats. Joe Scarborough and Brian Kilmeade seem to identify as giggling schoolboys. And that Gal-Friday of Scarborough's reminds me of Buffalo Bob and Howdy Doody chatting.

And with a cast of dozens and dozens in both outlets, the imagination can run wild insofar as crudeness, classlessness, and often just plain stupidity.

The media also exercises the same arm of self-aggrandizement that Hollywood does, absent the Oscar awards. That is to say, the media’s rendition of the mutual admiration love-in. Often this is pointed at themselves while their dastard deliveries point to the South while claiming always, always, always to possess an all-knowing brilliance of mankind and their crème de la crème of love and happiness, that damn shining light on some Yankee hill.

This is the media's moment of OSCAR! Their news, their startling revelations (called news) about what they call fools of the past, are shorn up by today's PRESENTISM. They smile, oh so virtuously, through the T.V. make-up powder that reveals the clown look of the clown mind. But the phony smile, like the profanity used by Hollywood, is the media's metier. If these people had to reason or resolve for survival or analyze the past for understanding the present, they would drop like Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Their soul belongs not to any truth or virtuous truism, or certainly not to any roots of what they may have learned at the knee of any father (God forbid)-figure.

To them, study, or perhaps fortuitous knowledge of the Socratic Paradox means, they perceive, nothing more than that maybe a guy named Socrates chose the wrong fraternity at Harvard or some other bastion of bastardized waived literacy throughout the "university community."

In former days one could read a newspaper or print magazine with articles or essays written with at least appropriate and apposite chronicled topics assayed (whether correct or misplaced). Today the media and its various news outlets are like believing the barker at the state fair when I was a boy. The freak shows they barked for were fun but mostly untrue.

Hollywood? Once you could see movies with actors using dramatic or comedic dialogue that struck your imaginative emotions. Today they can't seem to deliver a line unless it sounds like my drill instructor's introduction on our first day at Parris Island, many many years ago.

Like Paul Harvey used to say on the radio: "Any fool can cuss." Well, that seems to fit, considering.

And Harvey was one of the few with media class.