Thank You Jerry Springer

I want to thank the right wing media for showing us how and what Middle America thinks. Of course they are not responsible for the way they act. We can thank Jerry Springer for that.

Years ago when I found myself in a bind, I moved in, for a short time, back to my mother’s house. To say the least, this was very traumatic and the slight beginnings of an ulcer. It also was the beginning of a healing between my mother and me that was long overdue.

The house was a two family structure with an apartment upstairs that was rented. I got the spare bedroom in my mother’s first floor level apartment plus the whole finished basement. As a musician/composer and a teaching artist, some of my days started at 8:30 AM and some started about 1PM. Regardless it did not matter. I would awaken about 6:30 AM, have coffee and go to the basement to practice, compose and work on lesson plans for my classes. On the days that I started work late, I would usually go back upstairs and have breakfast with my mother. My mother would get up around 9:30 AM.

This is where the healing happened. We would talk and argue about everything. No topic was left untouched. My mother was not well educated or sophisticated, but she was smart and no one could ‘pull the wool over her eyes’. She loved acting dumb, just so she could see how far someone would go to try and con her. Her greatest line was, I’m just an old lady and I don’t understand things. Bless her soul she understood everything.

My mother was also a racist as well as a was a devout Jesus loving Catholic (sound familiar). She also hated Gay people. I would say to her, Ma! When you come back again, you are coming back as a black gay women. Her attitude was based on fear and not being educated. She did not know any black or Gay people. She had no idea of black families or gay families. If you weren’t Italian, you couldn’t be trusted. The mafia was good and they protected their own.

Before she died, she needed home care. The Universe acts in strange ways. Many of the nurses were black. She became very close with some of them and her attitude changed.

Why am I writing about my mother when I should be writing about Jerry Springer?

It was during those morning get togethers’ and sometime afternoon gatherings that my mother would put on the Jerry Springer Show. I would sit there, keep my mother company while she watched the most despicable people scream, kick, bite, curse, attack, cry and act out like I’ve never seen before. I, who have worked in mafia owned striptease joints and have seen everything, had never watched spectacles such as these. To say the least, I was in shock. My mother would laugh and enjoy this while I would get angry and say, how can you watch this garbage? She learned a lot about all kinds of people from that show. It enforced what her own prejudices.

She would dismiss me, but in my mind these TV programs were not funny. How can people go on TV and act this way? Why did we as an audience allow it and why, to this very day, is this kind if mental midget ness still on the air? We see it in the so-called reality shows and now we see it in the town meetings, Congress and in streets of Washington DC.

When ex president, Jimmy Carters, says he sees it as underlying racism, there is polyphony of voices from the right-wing community. Where was the outrage when New Orleans was devastated by Katrina and it’s citizens left to rot? I personally saw it as racism. What about the lies that got us into a war that cost billions of dollars and American lives? I saw that as the worst kind of dishonesty. How about the profits the insurance and drug companies make or the banks or Black Water or the dishonesty of the right wing Republicans?

Before you can claim dishonesty or lies, you have to be honest and truthful first. To quote a wiser man, “ let he who is without sin throw the first stone’

Let’s see the Republican Party and the right wing conservatives and media own-up before they stir-up!

Everyone in this country has a right to speak up, disagree, march, even shout, but do it with some dignity and self-control. Show respect where it is due. The office of the Presidency demands respect. This president more than any deserves, at the very least, some kind of co-operation and in a dignified manner. You can disagree with every word he says, but disagree properly not like some thug.

Again, we have to thank Jerry Springer. He opened the door for thuggish behavior. He showed the American people how it's done and ‘boy’ did they learn'.

Imagine this, anyone working for Fox News, in order to get hired has to take mandatory classes in:

1.How To Be A Thug and Get Away With It
2.How To Be Rude,
3.How To Lie On The Air and Look Like or Sound Like You’re Telling The Truth,
4.Go Out and Commit A Crime, We’ll Hire You!
5. And the Piece de Résistance you must watch 60 Jerry Springer Shows In One Week

Complete this and you will become a full-fledged Fox News person or better yet, you can work for Russ Limbaugh or get elected to congress!

Again I say, thanks Jerry. You did a great job!

DM