Robin, If ‘That’s Life,’ I’m Not Sure Where To Turn

I’m not a TV critic – I mean, outside of my home – but I was in a room where there was a TV at the time of day when Robin Swoboda’s new show, That’s Life, was on, so I decided to check it out. Even if I were a TV critic, I would never criticize a show based on watching only 10 minutes of it; that would be extremely unfair. Luckily, for me, I am not a TV critic.

I know that Robin used to be really popular as the anchor for WJW’s news. I rarely saw her in that capacity, though, because I rarely watched that station’s news when she was on. At the time I found it a little “lite,” if you know what I mean; it didn’t exactly seem like a newscast. Of course, that was before Channels 19 and 43 changed the direction of their “news” programs. Now, after seeing 19 & 43’s news, practically everyone else’s newscasts look like Pulitzer Prize winners to me.

I feel the same way about 19 and 43 newscasts as I do about Rush Limbaugh’s radio show and a few others of his ilk. It’s like this: Years ago I was watching that show That’s Incredible when they did a bit on this Air Force experiment in which a guy got into a small room that was heated to 400 degrees to see how long a person could last in what was essentially an oven. The people running the experiment watched him through a window and communicated with him audibly as well.

After a few seconds they asked him how he was doing. He said, “I’ll try to do it for a few more seconds.” A few seconds later they asked him again. He said, “I’ll try to do it for a few more seconds.” That went on for a short time until he suddenly burst through the door. He withstood it for as long as he could, then he just couldn’t take it for one more second.

That’s the way I feel when I try to watch19 and 43 newscasts or listen to Rush Limbaugh’s radio show. I really kind of want to know what they’re saying and doing, but after a little while, I just can’t hit the button fast enough. They make me want to hear something much more pleasant-sounding – like death metal music, or gangsta rap, or Yoko Ono’s singing.

To be fair, I give Channels 19 and 43 credit for at least trying something different. Now if they could only come up with something that wasn’t disgusting.

In retrospect Robin’s version of the news looks much better to me now. It was just a bit chatty and goofy for a news show (which is more the norm now, almost everywhere). And she was always laughing during the news – and she seemed to be laughing at things that I believe only she found funny.

But she was certainly always kind and pleasant – unlike almost everyone on 19 and 43. And she spoke the news, she didn’t shout it at the top of her lungs. (Why do they do that, anyway? You know, in the classic first-season Saturday Night Live bit, where fake newscaster Chevy Chase says, “And now here are tonight’s headlines for the hearing-impaired,” and Garrett Morris, in an inset up in the corner, shouts everything that Chase says, I don’t think he yelled as loudly as some of the 19 and 43 anchors do.)

And I don’t think Robin called people in the news names, or gave her personal opinions of people in the news, or told us what we should think about the news stories. Of course, almost all news anchors today, at every station, give us their opinions when it’s pretty safe to do that. Like, say, when a baby dies, apparently it’s written into their contracts that they have to say, “That’s so sad.” Ironically, that makes me laugh every time. There are stories that really are sad enough that they literally bring tears to my eyes – until they say, “That’s so sad.” That always cracks me up.

They do that to make sure we know they’re nice folks; that even though they’re tough, hard-boiled newspeople, they’re really human, just like you and me, and that they really understand when something is sad; and if they didn’t let us know that they really know when something is sad, we would think they were mean, and that would make us sad.

But newscasters at most channels obviously don’t seem to know when, for instance, someone is a pervert, because they don’t tell us that, like the newscasters at 19 and 43 do – even the newscasters’ definition of a pervert, or whatever they’re calling someone, isn’t necessarily the same as yours or mine.

Come to think of it, Carl Monday, WKYC-TV3’s investigative reporter (sort of a sad and ironic designation, don’t you think? I mean, what are their other reporters?) does call people names, like, maybe, “pervert.” Last year, Monday ambushed a guy who was found looking at porn on a computer in a corner of a public library and masturbating. Kind of weird, to be sure. The guy wasn’t exactly doing it publicly – in other words, he didn’t seem to be an exhibitionist – so why didn’t he just do it at home? So, yeah, it was kind of creepy. But the amazing thing is that Monday managed to do a piece – actually a series – on the guy in which he somehow managed to make himself look creepier than the guy, and, as is often the case with these “investigative TV reporter” techniques, a greater menace to society.

Carl, here’s a real topic: There are literally hundreds of thousands of Internet porn sites. As with any business, they would not survive if they were not being used. More than half the population of this country looks at Internet porn, including millions of kids whose parents don’t or can’t monitor their activities. There are porn producers right here in Cleveland. Why don’t you go after the people who produce the porn?

Is it because that’s not the way bullies operate? Everyone who has had a kid – or has been a kid – knows that bullies only go after the smallest and weakest; those who are least able to defend themselves.

Okay, if you can’t do that, then why not do something that in the long run might prove far more beneficial to society? Sneak up behind people in restaurants who are dumping ounces of sugar in their ice tea. Then stalk them and chase them and accost them in their driveways until they say, “Yes, I know I have a problem … .”

But Robin never did that. She probably did tell us when things were sad, but not who was a pervert. And she certainly never told us who was a pervert when she left WJW TV in 1998 and went to work in radio at WFHM 95.5FM, known as “the Fish.” Words like that don’t exist at the Fish, they don’t need to. It’s “music that’s safe for the whole family,” they say, which means mostly Christian Rock. There’s no news and no talk of issues, so there’s no need to call anyone a pervert, which really is refreshing these days.

I listen to the Fish. Well, it’s one of the stations I listen to. Whenever someone asks me what my favorite radio station is, I say S-C-A-N. I just put the radio on scan and stop it when it hits something that either I know I like or that sounds interesting, which could be an oldie on WMJI or an experimental-rock song on WCSB (CSU) or a new acoustic singer-songwriter on WRUW (CWRU) or WKSU (Kent). But I listen to the Fish because the records they play tend to be some of the best-written and best-produced on the air, and whether or not I get anything from their messages, I can appreciate and enjoy their craft. And the Fish is where Robin could be heard until a couple of years ago.

So I tuned in to Robin’s new TV show last Wednesday. The first thing I saw was a filmed bit about Robin and some other women testing mattresses at a mattress store by having a sleepover in the store in their pajamas. It was kind of cute, but in a sort of sickening way that had no point to make and was actually a huge waste of time and, I’m sure, money.

Robin also had four women on to discuss gossip. And whom did they choose to talk about? Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Why would they do that? There can’t be a single human in Cleveland, or anywhere outside of a few sections of Los Angeles, who (A) care anything at all about those two any more or (B) haven’t already heard the three or four same old stories about them many times.

I’m certainly not above listening to gossip; in fact, I welcome it at times. But it seems that if you’re trying to make an impression with your brand-new TV show, you would want to at least try to be a little bit interesting?

But by far the most offensive piece I saw was a taped bit about Robin going to meet her idol, the so-called “conservative” radio and TV host Glenn Beck. I put “conservative” in quotes because I think – or I thought – conservatives were supposed to be about decency and morality and some kind of values.

In the piece, Robin spends the entire time fawning and gushing over him and telling him how much she loves him and telling him how cute he is and touching him all over the place and sitting next o him and putting her head on his shoulder. I think it was meant to be funny. But besides being over the top, it was difficult to reconcile Robin – who has made herself a symbol of niceness and family values – and this monster lunatic.

Here are just a few examples of the kind of things Beck says, as reported in the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Discussing disclosures from a caller who claimed to have tortured prisoners in U.S. custody: "I've got to tell you, I appreciate your service. ... Good for you. Good for -- I mean, good for you. Is it because you did it for the country? ... I have to tell you, when all is said and done, I'm glad people like you are on our side."

On families of the victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks: "[T]his is horrible to say, and I wonder if I'm alone in this -- you know, it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims' families? Took me about a year."

On Hurricane Katrina survivors who remained in New Orleans: "And that's all we're hearing about, are the people in New Orleans. Those are the only ones that we're seeing on television are the scumbags – and again, it's not all the people in New Orleans. Most of the people in New Orleans got out! It's just a small percentage of those who were left in New Orleans, or who decided to stay in New Orleans, and they're getting all the attention."

On filmmaker Michael Moore: "Hang on, let me just tell you what I'm thinking. I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out – is this wrong?"

On the father of Nick Berg, the American civilian executed in Iraq: "The want to be a better person today than I was yesterday says he's a dad, he's grieving; but I don't buy that. I'm sorry, I don't buy it. I think he is grieving, but I think he's a scumbag as well. I don't like this guy at all."

A few more (of many) recent examples, as reported on the MediaMatters for America Web site:

During a November 14, 2006, interview with Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), who recently became the first Muslim ever elected to Congress, Beck said: "I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.' "

Beck called antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan "a pretty big prostitute." He later described her as a "tragedy pimp."

After airing a clip from the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth in which former Vice President Al Gore states that global warming could cause many highly populated coastal areas to be submerged by seawater -- including the entire city of Shanghai – Beck responded: "This is what would happen to Shanghai. Does anybody really care? I mean, come on. Shanghai is under water. Oh, no! Who's gonna make those little umbrellas for those tropical drinks?"

Beck claimed that there are three reasons that an illegal immigrant "comes across the border in the middle of the night": "One, they're terrorists; two, they're escaping the law; or three, they're hungry. They can't make a living in their own dirtbag country."

During a discussion of the "politically correct world we live in," Beck claimed that Braille on walls (used to identify rooms for blind people) "drives me out of my mind." He then said, "Just to piss them [blind people] off, I'm going to put in Braille on the coffee pot: 'Pot is hot.' "

Okay, that’s enough. That’s way more than enough.

One definition of the word pervert is: A person whose behavior deviates from what is acceptable. See, now … Glenn Beck – that’s whom I would call a pervert. He doesn’t sound “conservative” to me; he sounds radical, evil and inhuman.

Robin seems like a nice person, the kind of person everyone would like to know, which is obviously why she has a TV show. Her idolization of someone like Glenn Beck makes me wonder, though.

And the producers of her show at WJW … well, as I said, I’m not a TV critic, and I know the show is brand-new – but maybe they should think some of this stuff through before flinging it at us.

From Cool Cleveland contributor David Budin popcyclesATsbcglobal.net

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