That's about right
I have seen some remarkable things on Live TV.
Some remarkably dumb things as well.
I saw Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald. I was ten. I was basically pretty pissed off that I was home from school and had freedom to watch as much TV as I wanted but there was not a single cartoon on. The famous prisoner transfer scene came on. I had no clue this was not an episode of Dragnet. Until they played it over and over and talked a lot about it. I will never forget it. The look of pain on Oswald’s face.
Live TV showed me the news about Kennedy’s death. I saw Walter Cronkite take his glasses off and cry, announcing the “flash, apparently official.” from Dallas, Texas. It endeared Walter to me, bonded us in a way. Here was an adult, like my daddy. He had lost his composure. And it was OK, even though big boys weren’t supposed to cry.
Later in life I saw Walter take off his glasses again. When man landed on the moon. He was also like a kid that day. I think he said “Boy!” Walter was pretty cool, for an old guy with glasses.
I saw the moon landing live. I had mononucleosis. I was pretty sick. I watched the whole moon deal with a fever, my head feeling like two balloons. I thought I was hallucinating. It was the 60’s.
I saw Janet Jackson’s tit on Live TV. I think I did. To this day I am not sure what that was. In my admittedly limited experience with the female mammary gland I have not seen any metal there. Either I have led a sheltered life or just haven’t looked hard enough.
Live TV is uncontrolled, uncensored, and spontaneous. Anything can and does happen. Bono can say the F@#$ word. People can slip and fall. Streakers can streak.
Nowadays Live TV can be regulated with a delay. The dirty little secret is that often live events don’t run with a delay. Technically it’s a pain in the ass. The person who is actually supposed to watch for stray boobs or F bombs usually has a whole dashboard of controls in front of him and a myriad of other tasks to perform. It’s easy to take your eye off the ball.
I don’t know if the AFC championship tilt was on a delay or not. I will guess it was. Modern NFL football is fairly controlled. Players get big fines for cursing. But emotions run high. Things can get out of hand. So assume the game was on delay.
So why did Mark Sanchez get to do what he did on Live TV?
Just like when I saw Jack Ruby pull out his gun and do that stiff little choreography on Live TV I wasn’t sure that I saw what I saw. I turned to the long-suffering wife and asked her if she had noticed. She was not paying rapt attention to the game. She is an Eagles fan.
If you have just returned from the outer rim of the Crab Nebula and don’t know, Sanchez mined his nostrils, found gold and gave his teammate’s coat a coat.
He picked his nose and wiped it on his buddy. On Live TV.
Why would Sanchez do such a juvenile, disgusting act? Why would it be shown on the TV? Why did his team-mate, Mark Brunell, pay it absolutely no attention, like having snot wiped on you is just part of the game?
These are questions for the ages.
Two things that I am grateful for:
1. Mr. Sanchez did not wipe his snot on Troy Polamalu’s hair. Mr. Polamalu’s do is insured for one million dollars, after all.
2. Mr. Sanchez did not perform a “Dirty Sanchez” on Live TV. I have no idea what that is. That’s my story. I am sticking to it.
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Reach Jim at contact@jamesrising.com Even more rants are on his blog, updated every day at jamesrising.com
Go back to today’s Blog post for 1/26/11
