I
am the entertainer
The
idol of my age
I
make all kinds of money
When
I go on the stage
Ah,
you’ve seen me in the papers
I’ve
been in the magazines
But
if I go cold I won’t get sold
I’ll
get put in the back in the discount rack
Like
another can of beans
The Entertainer; Billy Joel; Streetlife Serenade; 1974
The definition of the word “entertainer” varies a little from source to source, but the common core to the various definitions is “a person whose job or goal is to perform for the amusement of others”. Singer, dancer, actor, musician and comedian are listed as examples of professions in the entertainment industry to almost every definition you find online.
Without a doubt, there have been actors, comedians and music artists who have enriched my life. They move me…sometimes forward and sometimes back. They can take me to places that I’ve never been or they spiral me back to a special time, person or place in my life.
There are movies that I can’t stop watching. For example, if I’m flipping through channels and Rainman, Dances with Wolves, Last of the Mohicans, The Natural, Forrest Gump or Tombstone pops onto my television screen, I can’t turn the channel…I have to finish watching that movie. That’s probably a character flaw of mine, but it’s one I’ve learned to live with, and make no mistake the list of movies that will get me to plant my ass on the couch for a couple hours is a lot longer than those I just listed. Those movies all create an emotional reaction of some sort in me. They touch me in some way. I empathize with the characters. I feel a connection to them. Even though I’ve seen those films dozens of times and know how they’re going to end I get caught up in them every time. Roy Hobbs last at bat in a New York Knights uniform…I know he’s going to hit that dinger…he’s going to park all 108 red stitches in that white Spalding baseball into the stadium lights behind the right field stands just as lightning flashes in the night sky, simultaneously propelling himself into a legendary status, the Knights to the pennant, and Pop Fisher out of debt to the judge with one mighty swing of a bat called the Savoy Special. I’ve seen it a hundred times….and every one of those hundred times, I’ve been on the edge of my seat almost like I’m sitting in the stands right behind home plate. That’s one of many movies that take me to a place I’ve never been. Movies do more than that for me though. They lighten my mood at times. If I’ve had a bad day or just need to clear my thoughts John Belushi, Denis Leary or Eddie Murphy can always put a smile on my face.
Some television shows have much the same effect on me. I almost feel like I’ve sat beside Norm and Cliff at Cheers and had Coach pour me a cold one. My heart sinks every time Henry Blake’s plane gets shot down over the Sea of Japan and Andy Sipowicz falls off the wagon after his wife’s murder.
Music is a little different than movies or television for me. Whether you believe or not after the last couple paragraphs, I don’t watch that much TV or that many movies…but I’ve got music playing constantly. The one thing music has in common with movies and TV is that music touches me…it stirs emotion in me. Music takes me back in time and place. Certain songs take me back to childhood, high school or college. Some take me back to Kuwait, Oahu, Okinawa, Somalia or Afghanistan. Whether it be good memories or bad, I can remember the people I was with and what we were doing at the time. Most songs bring smiles with the memories…some, not so much.
Now…with all that being said…It’s probably not my place to be contrite with those who define the words of our language, but this is my website not theirs. Personally, I feel they need to update the examples they list for entertainers. I think to limit the examples of entertainment to actors, comedians, and musicians is a little short sighted. There are many others out there who make their living out of providing amusement for us.
Let’s take a look at athletes. Sports entertain us. It’s hard to argue that fact. I mean, why else would we watch? Sports provide us with excitement, drama and at times comedy…sometimes all three in the same ten seconds. Hell, a last second drive to win a football game will keep me on pins and needles even if I don’t really care who wins the game. I swear sometimes I don’t breathe while that Hail-Mary pass is soaring through the air…everything else on earth just seems to stand still…I’m completely engrossed in all that hangs in the balance of that one simple last-ditch effort to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. That’s entertainment at it’s finest.
The athlete spends most of their lives honing their skills just as actors and musicians do. Their chance of making it to the professional level is just as slim as that of actors or musicians as well. When you look at them objectively athletes are merely people earning a living by performing their craft for our amusement…they’re just entertainers. Over the last forty years, entire cable networks have been created so we can keep up with all the happenings in sports every day. You can’t watch every baseball game every day, but you can watch an hour long show on a dedicated sports network and get caught up on every second of excitement, drama and comedy from every game of the day, along with all the interesting stuff that happens in the lives of the athletes. When you look at how available sports are to us it’s easy to see that more effort and money is invested to ensure sports access than is spent on other TV programs and movies combined.
So we’ve got actors, comedians, musicians and athletes who entertain us. Their job is to keep us buying CD’s, DVD’s and tickets to movies, shows and games. If they’re not performing up to the standard, they’re not generating revenue which means they’re not going to stay in the business very long, are they? Entertainers have to keep our attention. Each entertainer has a target audience that they need to stay engaged with. The individual members of that target audience are usually referred to as “fans”. If the fans aren’t buying tickets or tuning in to the games and shows on television or buying the prospective teams jerseys, hats and big foam fingers then entertainers aren’t doing their jobs…and if that’s the case, the entertainer gets pushed into another line of work by the people who pay the bills and write the checks.
The key to this is knowing and understanding your target demographic, otherwise known as your fan-base, and catering to their wants and needs. Take a concert for instance…if you were Willie Nelson you’d never let Marilyn Manson be your opening act. No Willie fan wants to sit through an hour of Marilyn. In much the same way, the Quarterback for the Denver Broncos shouldn’t show up to a press conference wearing an Oakland Raider hat and a Chiefs jersey…his fans would turn on him instantly. As well, could you imagine casting any male cast member from the Big Bang Theory as an action hero in a movie or TV series? Nobody wants to see Jim Parsons trying to play a tough guy…nobody. In every case the fan-base would be disappointed or disgruntled, ticket sales or TV ratings would plummet and revenue would be lost.
That’s the entertainment business in a nutshell. Use your talent to keep the fans happy and the money coming in…or find another line of work.
SO….with all of that in mind, can anyone tell me what medium has become the newest form of entertainment? It hits all the wickets. The entertainers keep the emotion high and fill the air with undue drama, dark comedy and sprinkle some music in. It has a very distinct fan base almost like a football fans…very loyal, very fervent and unwavering to a fault. It has to keep the fans in a frenzy to ensure the revenue will continue to roll in. Any guesses? No? Well…I’ll give you a hint…just some initials and we’ll see if you can fill in the blanks.
CNN, FOX, MSNBC, ABC, CBS
That’s right, folks…the network news.
Take a minute and digest that…I’ll wait.
Okay, ya ready? Here we go.
Forty years ago you got your news from a pretty monotone voice with very little passion or prejudice on one of three networks, NBC, ABC or CBS. You were presented with facts as they were known at the time of the broadcast by people who loved the country and wanted nothing more than to see it strengthen. Speculation in the news was taboo…you just didn’t do it. Americans could believe what they were being told. They were getting actual news without the propaganda slant to it. Walter Cronkite was once voted “The Most Trusted Man in America”. Could you imagine anyone you see sitting on a network news show being even remotely considered for such an honor? He repeatedly covered both Democratic and Republican conventions without an ounce of bias, and consistently maintained that his political views were nobody’s business but his own. Peter Jennings was a Canadian citizen until 2003 and couldn’t even vote in American elections during his time one the air. News reporters and anchors used to do more than sit behind a desk and drink coffee while spouting biased stories to the world every day. They all went to the story in search of the truth, regardless of the dangers. I don’t see a soul on any of the network news shows that would attempt to travel the paths those guys did. Rather, Murrow, Brokaw, Jennings and Cronkite….read up on them if you don’t remember them.
Today….well, today you have talking heads inciting division among the masses in an effort to bolster the chances of a specific political party gaining or maintaining power. You have boisterous, often obnoxious personalities who attempt to belittle or bolster everyone from the President to the common middle class working parent in order to gain ground for the political agenda of their network. You have everything from speculation to outright lies. You turn on the news to get facts and more often than not you get statements from “unnamed sources” delivered to you as if they were researched and confirmed facts.
You basically have two teams in the nation…for the sake of argument we’ll call them….oh, I don’t know….let’s just call them Republicans and Democrats. Those teams have fans. The entire job of the teams is to win contests, otherwise known as elections. The winners of those elections gain power and, in turn, money. In order to win they need to keep their fans motivated, so they put the entertainers out there to ensure that happens…because the tickets for this game are called votes and if you don’t sell enough tickets to this shit-show it’s career ending.
What you have today isn’t news…it’s entertainment. It’s designed to keep you watching, complete with bright and bold graphics that seemingly jump off the screen at you telling you “BREAKING NEWS” is coming only to be followed up by some uncorroborated, slightly twisted story full of half-truths that fits that networks political agenda. Pay attention to the last lines before every commercial break…you get a “Who Shot J.R.?” moment right before they have to break away in order to ensure that you don’t change the channel while they get their money-makers the air time they’ve paid for and keep their ratings up. Ladies and Gentlemen….this is not NEWS…this is political propaganda at its best, wrapped up in undue drama and sprinkled with whatever tidbits of bullshit they can throw together to keep you watching and listening to their skewed and twisted messages long enough to keep their ratings up high enough to keep the advertising dollars rolling in and keep you pissed off enough to get out and vote for their team.
It’s not news, it’s entertainment…that’s the only way I see it anymore…and now that we’ve got that settled, let’s go back and look at the other entertainers for a minute….Athletes, Actors and Musicians.
The ones who master their art or at least find a way to perform colorfully enough or do something disdainful enough to keep our attention become household names, don’t they? Those who become household names become “celebrities”. To be a celebrity is nothing more than to be famous. People know your name. Famous entertainers are endowed with the moniker “celebrity”
Do you ever really watch the credits roll by at the end of a movie? How about open the cover on a CD and read all the names involved with creating the forty five minutes of music that’s burnt onto the disc? Have you ever paid attention to all the people on the sidelines of a football game who aren’t wearing a jersey? Yeah…me neither. But it’s important to understand that for every celebrity you see there are dozens, if not hundreds, of people involved with doing all the necessary things that allow them to perform. Producers, Directors, Stuntmen, Studio Musicians, Sound Mixers, Coaches, Trainers, Agents…the list is quite extensive. A lot of people put in a lot of work so Deniro can ask if you’re talking to him, Serena can crush a serve and Garth can tell you about his friends in low places. Most of those people are highly educated as well as artists in their own fields. Yet, it’s the celebrity at the mic, in the spotlight or on the field who gets all the credit and adulation. Your celebrity in most cases is merely the talking head for all the people in the background doing the grunt work. The reason they’re the celebrity varies from case to case. They may have a specific look or a lilt in their voice…they may be able to throw a ball hard and fast…they may be able to cry on demand or be willing to get naked in front of a camera…but without all the intelligent people behind them calling the shots or all the people on the team with them, they’d be useless. Need a good example to make it stick…look at Michael Jordan before Phil, Scottie, Steve Kerr and the rest of the guys arrived…not even Mike could do it all on his own.
Now…exactly how educated is your average celebrity? The research for this is daunting, and I’ve yet to find one good link that has all the answers to that question. However, the results of my research so far is a little disheartening. Most actors, comedians and musicians made it through High School although there are many who dropped out without receiving their diploma. (Dropped out in the 9th Grade, Cher? Really?) There are a few celebrities with graduate degrees and even fewer with post graduate degrees. Most of their higher education though dealt directly with their chosen profession, whether it be drama or music. And then there are the athletes. Most athletes stay in school and do just enough to get by until they get the opportunity to step up to the professional level. Some go back and finish their degrees when their professional career is coming to an end and in most cases they take courses that will enable them to become a coach, journalist or commentator so they can stay close to the game.
Insert Disclaimer Here: Now…before everyone starts throwing names at me, understand that I’m basing all of this on averages. There are actors with engineering degrees from MIT and Rookie Quarterbacks with Masters Degrees in Kinesiology…I get it. As well, I’m not being judgmental…I’m just making a statement. I actually admire the amount of dedication it takes to master an art, and I fully understand that to do that some things have to fall by the wayside along the way and a lot of sacrifices have to be made.
So, in reality here on Earth, your celebrities are undoubtedly dependent on a host of others to enable them to achieve their success and most of them are educated primarily in studies that deal directly with their art. At what point did these people decide that they’re the voice of reason and experience on climate change, politics, or military operations on foreign shores? Does anyone really believe a celebrity actually knows more about the polar ice caps than the guy who rotates your tires or the nurse who comforts you through your ER visit? Are there special seminars held somewhere that cater directly to the celebrity in order to enlighten them on the issues plaguing the planet? No…there’s not…they get their information from the same place the rest of us are forced to get ours…the OTHER entertainers spewing biased reports all over the network news. Personally I trust the mechanic and nurse to be more in tune with the trials and tribulations of humanity than someone who just drove their Tesla from their gated mansion to tell me the President sucks, war is bad and baby seals are dying in Antarctica.
What I’m saying today is simply this: Don’t get your news or advice from an entertainer. Their job is not to inform you, or enlighten you…their job is to amuse you. In most cases, they’re no more informed than the rest of us and their opinion is based on emotion rather than logic. In other cases, their JOB is to sit behind a desk, look pretty, stare into a camera and tell you the world is going to Hell in a handcart if some political party isn’t given free reign to change the Constitution to their liking. Always consider the source of your information, friends. If you dig deep enough you’ll find there’s normally a reason someone famous is taking time out of their life to tell you something…and ninety-nine times out of a hundred when you get that hole dug deep enough you’ll see that they’re just doing what they need to do to keep themselves relevant and keep the fans in attendance…in other words, they’re making sure the money keeps flowing their direction.