Reality Check

Do you watch reality television shows?

My parents watch the original reality TV show Jeopardy every night and sometimes Wheel of Fortune.

My husband records and watches several - Amazing Race, Survivor, The Apprentice, Deal or No Deal and others as they come and go. Our family even made a video and applied for a spot on the Amazing Race. We were way too normal to get selected. Ricky and I are waiting until we're old enough to qualify as the "old married couple" in the race. Maybe we'll get lucky a couple of years from now - you'll know it when my blog goes dormant for a few weeks!

My highly educated daughter is addicted to shows like Bridezilla and America's Next Top Model. She could name by sight the eight children of Jon and Kate. My boys watch crazy obstacle course contests. I'm not sure how many original episodes there are, though, since whenever I ask about a particular contestant, they already know whether he wins or not.

I generally stay condescendingly above it all, maybe pausing for a peek as I walk through the room with laundry.

However, if it's "America's Got Talent" night, you had better not get between me and the remote control. I started paying attention to that show a couple of seasons ago when a local area ventriloquist, Terry Fator, won the show. He's gone on to sign a $100 million Las Vegas contract. Last season's winner was an incredible opera singer. My favorite, who didn't win, was a Broadway style singer who had lost his voice in an auto accident and gradually recovered. He has since produced a CD. (Maybe Santa will wrap it up for me this year?)

I watched nearly every episode this summer. The judges picked over one hundred and fifty contestants from auditions around the country. They ranged in age from seven to over seventy. The acts included magicians, dancers, singers, harpists, triplets playing violins, drummers, animal tricks, comediennes, chain saw juggling and anything else you could think of.

During the preliminaries you saw more of the train wrecks - the people whose friends and families did not have the guts to tell them they really weren't very good. The judges had no such scruples and their comments could be brutal. I still recall the young woman who thought it was a talent to open her suitcase on stage and have a friend crawl out. What do you say to that?

After the preliminaries, the judges culled the group down to forty, at one point giving three groups twenty-four hours to rehearse and have a dance-off for the remaining spot. The producer added eight (including one of the losing dance-off groups) and the voting season started with quarter-finals of twelve acts each. For each quarter-final, the fan votes picked the top four advancing and the judges picked the fifth. After taking two weeks to do the quarter-finals, two semi-finals were used to reduce the twenty contestants to ten with fans choosing eight of the ten. Those ten competed on Monday night.

I am proud to say that I voted every time. There were some very good acts that did not advance far enough, but all in all, the American people did well in their choices. And many of those that did not make the finals, like the guys combining trampolines and basketball dunking, carved out solid stepping stones to future opportunities.

As one of the judges mentions regularly, this show is what America is all about. The contestants come from all parts of the country and all social strata, but start on an equal footing. They are judged on their abilities alone. If they advance, it is because of their performance, not their past. If they fail, it is because they are not as talented or appealing as the other guy.

One compelling aspect of the show is the remarkable goodwill shared and expressed between contestants. Nearly every competitor, upon his or her exit from the stage, graciously recognizes the achievements of those moving on, understanding his own performance was lacking. He wasn't robbed, someone else was better. The "losers" learn from the experience and vow to try again. The "winners" appreciate and acknowledge the efforts of those that came up short.

There are some common characteristics of those that move ahead.

First, they have worked very hard and were prepared for the opportunity in the preliminary rounds. Second, they were able to use the judges' criticisms and suggestions to improve subsequent performances. Third, they were able to creatively work under pressure to improve their act or routine for the next round of competition.

Would that we applied these concepts to our own failures and successes of living and working!

It is amazing to see, over the course of a few short weeks, the finalists transform from ugly ducklings into swans using the production resources of AGT. The pretty opera singer, originally wearing a simple sundress, now has the evening gown, hair-do and bling to match her powerful voice. The former chicken catcher has emerged from the poncho and baseball cap in stylish clothes and a visible face that only enhance his ability to hold a crowd breathless with his music.

I watched ten great acts compete for the top prize. I voted forty times for my two favorites. But no matter who wins this season, I won't say "oooh." This time they were all that good.

The Agony and the Ecstasy

I have umpteen tax returns left to complete before the end of the day tomorrow, September 15.

The power has been out earlier this evening, slowing me down. (All the electrical lines in our county have to be water-logged by now!) For a while I had a flexible flashlight wrapped around my neck to see my workpapers  as I worked on laptop battery power.

I have had a "blog" percolating in my head and partially drafted, ready to finish tomorrow afternoon, when the furor has faded. The blog is about the finals of my favorite television show, which I assumed would air on Tuesday night.

The show is TONIGHT, and I can't watch it later, because I want to VOTE.

Watch a little, compute a little, watch a little, compute some more............vote, vote, vote, then back to solid working.

One more day.........

I Am So Lucky

Music brings peace and comfort and joy. It inspires both wonderful and terrible things.

Best of all, music is timeless. Or at least the music of the sixties and seventies seems to be. That's the music I grew up with and love.

There has been a lot of news this week about the fortieth anniversary of the Woodstock Festival. There were clips of many of the singers, including Joe Cocker. Yesterday, on "America's Got Talent," a contestant sang "You Are So Beautiful." It was fabulous and the audience loved it, definite goose bump time. That song performed by Joe Cocker was on the radio all the time in 1975.

What keeps the "pop" music from that twenty year period so fresh and interesting? Perhaps it is because our society had such a transition during those decades and the music reflected it, in both the tunes and the lyrics. Even when the lyrics were ambiguous, the words were at least understandable and you could wrap them around your own experiences. And you still can.

Except for a few Christian pop and country songs, I haven't a clue about more current music. I hear it every now and then blaring out car windows, sometimes blaring out my own window if my son is driving. I wonder if, thirty years from now, any of those songs or raps will still be on the radio.

I bet my seventies music will still be there, though, playing through the speakers of my comfortable SUV as I drive off into the sunset.

How Old Am I?

My age has always been a little "off." Of course, there are those in my life who would say that many things about me are a little off. But I will admit to the age part.

My birthday is in April and as a youngster I ended up a grade ahead. So I was usually one to two years younger than my peers. I enjoyed that uniqueness most of the time, especially when I married a man from the class behind me who is actually older than I am.

But there were a few times it was inconvenient. For example, I turned sixteen (can we say driver's license?) near the end of my junior year of high school. For most of my high school years my mom took me to school or I rode the bus. Not fun. Then through my first year of college I had to make other plans when friends went clubbing and my age seventeen ID would not admit me.

I finished school, graduating with a Master's degree, got married and started my career a month after turning twenty-two.

When I began working full time there weren't many professional women in my field and being young was not an advantage. As props for seeming older I learned to drink black coffee and imply I was older than my chronological age. I don't know if the coffee drinking did the trick, but it all worked. In fact, when it somehow slipped that I was turning thirty, my boss demanded to see my driver's license because he was convinced I was lying about my age and had to be older than thirty.

In my early thirties I decided I would go by fives, always rounding up. It's just easier, plus when you do that people think you really look good for your age! Whenever the question of age came up, I would say thirty-five, or almost forty, or ...... There were a few years when I actually couldn't remember my "real" age, having to think back to my birth year and do the math. Right now I'm fifty-five.

Often when I meet or see an older person, I try to envision that person as he must have looked as a teenager or young adult. It's not hard. When you actually have an opportunity to look at old pictures of a friend or family member, you can usually recognize the person, even if the picture is from half a century ago. I have puzzled over what makes a person familiar over his life span. I think that, absent disease or debilitating life circumstance, a person chooses the age he is. Age is an attitude more than the numbering of days. Someone steps toward old age only when he sets aside the interests and passions of his youth without replacement.

Some people become old and insular with that first whiff of adult responsibility. Others stay engaged with the world to the end. I see a picture of my dad with his college classmates, or sitting on his horse at age sixteen, and I see the same earnest, young man with a zest for life that I see now. I see a school-age picture of my mom and I see the same determined, anxious young woman I see today, a woman reluctant to rest or sleep for fear she might miss something or run out of time to complete her ever growing agenda. My father-in-law was an engaging, handsome man well into his seventies. Then, with the onset of macular degeneration, he determined his functional life was over. He rapidly settled his affairs and declined, becoming an unrecognizable little old man waiting for time to expire. We started missing him well before his physical death last year.

There is a nationally televised talent show that allows contestants of all ages. This week there was a sixty-two year old dancer who walked on to the stage in her simple clothes and dancing shoes, with gray hair and deep circles under her eyes. The judges smirked. The lady left the stage, at the end of her dynamic, funky dance, with a standing ovation and a ticket to the next round. When interviewed, we find out she's a single mother working hours on her feet each day as a grocery store checker. The passion of her life is dancing. She works every day in her dancing shoes to remind herself that she is a dancer, not a store clerk. She spoke of this audition as one she had been preparing for her entire life. Another thirty-five year old contestant came on to the stage in his jeans, backwards cap and guitar. He spoke of his regular job on a chicken ranch and his inability to do simple math. The crowd guffawed at his country drawl and plain looks, loudly anticipating his quick exit from the stage. Twenty seconds into his performance the audience sat in stunned silence, mesmerized by the singer's heart piercing rendition of a country ballad. One of the judges said the singer could end up winning the competition. Afterwards, the emotional contestant spoke of the years spent singing and song writing, waiting for the opportunity to be heard. Both contestants are truly young.

I think of my father-in-law, before the end, as forty-two. My dad turns thirty-seven on his birthday each year. Next month will be the thirty-ninth celebration of his thirty-seventh birthday. My mom is twenty-eight.

Me? I'm twenty-five, just with a little more judgment and generosity, and a few more varicose veins.

How old are you?