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The Most Slickly-Produced Extravaganza of the Season
Sorry, OSCARS, EMMYS, GRAMMYS, Americana Music Awards. You didn’t win. But wait’ll you see what did.
In American politics, there is always breathless worry over some game-changing revelation, or simply allegation, or anything regarded as a sociocultural bombshell, in the last weeks before an election. Almost always, it is later regarded as no-big-deal, but if it hits an emotional chord long enough for people to vote, it matters not how important or even how true or false it is.
Forget the October Surprise. I just experienced a November Surprise.
First, some quick context. You may recall us saying that RFD-TV — in addition to its roots-Americana music programming — has been doing an outstanding job with no-BS coverage of COVID. It's centered on their weekly live show with the Chancellor of the University of Nebraska Medical School, Dr. Jeffrey Gold. And that world-renowned doc brings guests, including, three times, his old friend Anthony Fauci.
It truly has been solid science and it’s probably saved a lot of lives among their predominantly rural audience.
Okay, let’s get to the now.
How fast something can turn. I watch a lot of RFD’s programming. And given my background in Los Angeles media, including broadcast radio, I have sufficient experience to evaluate how well something is written and produced. And, as a viewer with that background, I can assess what's the typical and the highest levels of RFD’s production paradigms. I know who their best writer is, and she is also their best host.
Sunday night, two days before the election, they aired the best-written, best-presented, highest-production-values hour I have ever seen on RFD. It was heavily promoted for two weeks in advance, which is very unusual for them.
So guess what it was?
How about this: filled with every positive superlative word and phrase you can imagine, and repeatedly subjecting you to how morally righteous their subject is — including multiple points of what a lover-of-Jesus he is — and, with a mood-driving perfect musical score, trumpeted sunrises and American flags, plus get-on-the-bandwagon-effect, man-in-the-street, fawning hero worship... it was a full hour to celebrate the perfection of the human being -- in the form of one Herschel Walker.
I’ll give you a moment to be stunned. Because yes, we ARE talking about “Head Injury Herschel.”
I have seen a number of those slickly-produced films from top advertising and image-making Madison Avenue and K Street firms. They are best summarized as the stirring promo short that introduces a political party’s Presidential nominee at their televised political convention, which is itself a production of magnetic propaganda. Those films have always been as good as it gets to deify a human being. THIS was that effectively done. Leni Riefenstahl would have been proud.
I mean, this thing was SO effective that if Herschel wins, the Goppers have RFD-TV’s founder, Patrick Gottsch — who executive produced this— and their most charismatic, popular host, Christina Loren — to thank for putting a babbling, insufferably self-righteous moron in the United States Senate.
This morning, I heard Joe Madison say, “Let’s review. What is Herschel Walker’s resume’? Good at football. Holds the single-season record for impregnating women.”
Madison’s quips go to the essence of the hopelessly flawed candidacy of Herschel Walker. Yet the RFD hour gave smooth rides around his lies, multiple hypocrisies on wanting to ban abortion yet paying to abort multiple pregnancies he has caused, and refusing to be involved in the lives of at least eight children he has fathered by different mothers.
Were any questions about any of THAT featured in the RFD hour? Not even a mention, between all the careful edits of Herschel asserting that he is holier than thou.
If I wasn’t overexposed to “Head Injury Herschel” and all his “What the Hell Herschel” moments, RFD would have me believing he is the greatest statesman since Cicero. Except… each time more newly-found children, fathered by him with so many random women who he couldn't convince to get an abortion, reality collides with irreconcilable images.
But, if I was someone who spent all my hours at work or stuck in a long commute, and that made me a “low information voter” — I would believe, after watching this slick RFD production, that Herschel-the -Holy-Running-Back is God on a White Horse who belongs in the White House. YES, media IS that powerful in its crafted ability to wholly determine false reality.
Oh, and by the way. In seamlessly welding their performance-production-propaganda hour, RFD didn’t miss ANYTHING. They even include a tidbit for the white racists: Herschel, in one quick segment, is wearing a “Cassius Clay” sweatshirt. Have you EVER seen, or even known of, a garment like that?
Except maybe before Muhammad Ali took the new name by which the entire world would know him, and white racists would always try to deny him.
Gads, now I will wonder if I can sleep at all before the election, given the possibility of dream images of the "incredibly inspiring" greatest athlete who ever lived. Which according to RFD, is not Ali, but Herschel. Who, by the way, likes to be interviewed in barns with cows, and likes to talk about how much he loves rodeo. And barbecue. And Jesus.
And, likewise, according to the RFD hour, Herschel as the most universally beloved athlete of all time, "vows to bring his dedication and fortitude" to fix everything that’s wrong in DC.
If you aren’t ready to scream or puke, you haven’t been paying attention.
One final note: since the RFD show exceeded the production values of anything they have ever done, and did so by a vast margin…where did the money come from to make that show? Since the Supreme Court protects “dark money” in politics, we may never know. But it is one more reason why the “For the People Act,” passed as the FIRST piece of legislation in 2021 by the US House of Representatives, should NEVER have been allowed to silently die from a “memo” filibuster in the US Senate.
If you read all this, what more motivation do you need to vote Tuesday?
Rovember 8th. You can let the obstructionists pursue their only agenda, of Big Money running roughshod over all of us and our political system. Or you can say
“No. Need must prevail over greed. Intelligent, thoughtful, fiscally responsible compassion must determine how we govern ourselves. Those who have no agenda but grievance based on lies and demands for insatiable power must never get their hands on power again.”
If that sounds like an impossibly ambitious aspiration in the face of powerful media that creates heroes from dimwits, ask yourself just one thing:
Will I make it better by not voting?
You can ask yourself any follow-up question you like: will Music and Arts education return to every public school for every student if I don’t vote? Will Climate Change be reversed if I don’t vote? Will democracy itself long endure if I don’t vote? Will morbidly rich, bloated billionaires, continue to overconsolidate and concentrate wealth and power until they have it all, if you don’t vote? Add your own questions.
I’ll see you at the only poll that matters: the one where you cast your vote.
~ Lawrence Wines, editor
Acoustic Americana Music Guide
November 7, 2022
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Copyright of this edition is granted without fee provided no use deriving from said use edits the foregoing content to alter its intent from the clear message in the original.
(c) 2022, Acoustic Americana Music Guide, Tied to the Tracks, and Lawrence Wines.