Too Much Reality

Occasionally we had vertical hold issues at our house. If you grew up in 50s and 60s as I did, the Reality of television was that it was quirky, not only problems with vertical hold, but horizontal hold too. There were little knobs you could twist that helped sometimes to slow the roll of the image on the screen. Soon or later though, the man of the house would take the pegboard cover off the back of the TV set, jerk the tubes out, and take them to the Humpty Dumpty, Piggly Wiggly, or Snap-E-Sak to “test” them. Inevitably they would have gone “bad”. Hopefully we could get the new tubes and get them inserted before “Leave It To Beaver” came on.

Sometimes the problem was a fuzzy or snowy picture. Usually a twist of the rabbit ears would fix these issues. Sometimes drastic measures were called for. More aluminum foil had to be added to the telescopic ears. As I said; that was our television reality, if not reality television.

While I’m not an avid fisherman, I do enjoy wetting a worm or flinging a fly. Especially fly-fishing, standing in a cool stream hoping to outsmart a trout. I have a friend who makes regular trips to Alaska to fish. When I see his pictures from those trips, I envy the manliness of it all. I suppose if I were to go to Alaska to fish, I would hold in high regard the endorsements of Sarah Palin regarding a good fishing guide, places to go, bait to use, etc.

I remember as a kid fishing the waters of Lincoln, Union and Ouachita Parishs in northern Louisiana with my Uncle Steve and cousin Danny Roy. My Dad’s roots are there, down the road from the Robertson's of Duck Dynasty fame. It would be fun to go backand listen to the Robertson's tell stories of fishing and hunting there. I would love to hear them swap stories with Uncle Steve. When it comes to fishing or duck hunting I can’t think of any one’s advice I would respect more than that of Phil Robertson, the patriarch of the Robertson Dynasty.

If Phil and Sarah were ever to visit Oklahoma, and want my opinion, there are a few fishing/hunting resources I could recommend to them. Probably, if I were to give them a call to let them know who I might or might not be endorsing for President they would tell me they don’t give a duck’s quack or polar bear’s ass whom I’m considering. And, to be honest, the feeling’s mutual.

Back to reality TV. How in the world have we come to the point where the most cherished endorsements for presidential candidates come from cartoonish “reality” TV stars? I am completely at peace and entertained by the relatives of these celebrities being on “Dancing With The Stars”. But something’s not right here. Maybe we need some more foil on our rabbit ears or a new vertical hold tube.

If I were going to choose a “reality” TV star to trust for a presidential endorsement, it would probably be Dale Gribble. I know, I know. Dale is just a cartoon neighbor to Hank Hill, but he is just as passionate about his worldview as are the other “reality” TV stars: Phil, Sarah and The Donald. And while Ted Cruz doesn’t have his own show, I have no doubt he would if given the opportunity. Show me a guy who will make a mockery of the U.S. Senate by standing on “the Senate Floor” for hours in a pretend filibuster, reading “Green Eggs & Ham”, and I will show you a guy begging for his own TV show.

Since Dale Gribble has not gone public with an endorsement, you might not be familiar with his views and opinions. Allow me to share a few gribbleisms:

“If all you’re goin’ on is my confession, forget it, I’m simply not credible.”
 
“That’s code for U.N. commissars telling Americans what temperature it’s gonna be in our outdoors. I say, let the world warm up! See what Boutros Boutros-By-Golly thinks about that! We’ll grow oranges in Alaska!”

“Guns don’t kill people. The government does!”
 
“If you want, I can teach you how to make a bomb out of a toilet paper roll and a stick of dynamite.”
 
“Whoa! Hold on, son! I want you to keep an open mind so you can make an informed decision! If you want, you can read a bloated government report on smoking, or go straight to the horse’s mouth and get the facts from the tobacco industry.”

“20 years. If your marriage was a murderer it would be out by now.”

“I’d like to live in your fairy-tale world, Hank, but the Fair Play For Cuba Committee is retro-fitting my mower to power Fidel’s one-man escape sub.”

“If you want to elect me, Dale Gribble, president of the Gun Club, running on the ‘Save-Your-Sorry-Ass’ platform, say aye.”

“They wanted to see me wet my pants from fear… but they’re too late!”

Amen Dale!

P.S. Maybe you’ve seen this image floating around the WWW (which of course means it could be true). Makes you wonder if Mr. Cruz has bigger heritage issues than just being born in Canada. Like Ricky used to say to Lucy back when TV wasn’t pretending to be “real”, “Someone’s got some splainin to do.”

candidate cruz and grandpa munster