I finally pulled myself away from the TV.
I admit it. I watched Michael Jackson’s funeral. Every bit of it. And I watched the clips repeatedly replayed and all the commentary. I spent many, many hours watching TV today. I guess it was like a holiday.
Did everyone else do this too? Or should I have been working?
Everyone certainly did not do this. A lot of people went about their business and did their jobs. And, in my defense, I worked all weekend — so I deserved a little break.
But obviously a lot of people did make a holiday of it. I have a fairly basic cable package and I noticed seven channels carried the funeral. It’s not just that I’m 53 years old, part of that generation, blah blah blah — it was a worldwide phenomenon. Described by some as an event of “epic proportions.”
In my defense, I did do a little work. I went to a meeting and rushed home in time to see the funeral. And — I drove my papers to Mooresville, stopping briefly on the way back to take a picture off a peackock crossing the road (more on that later). Made the trip in record time — so I could get home and watch more TV. I broke away again, later, and went for a walk — about an hour. Now I’m writing this — fast. Soon, I’ll see if there’s something new on the telly about Michael Jackson.
The last time I got this addicted to TV was the night Obama won the Iowa primary — and that lasted quite a while. This won’t, but…
One interesting thing. When Jennifer Hudson sang Will You Be There — my wife wondered aloud, “Is she pregnant?”
A few hours later, I sort of wanted to know — so I typed into the Google search bar, “Is Jennifer Hudson pregnant?” and noticed this article, informing me that this was the second most searched phrase of the day. Just to check, I looked here. This was a few hours ago and it still ranked number two for the day. I notice that now, a few hours later, it’s dropped to twenty-one.
I just read Jeff Jarvis’s book, What Would Google Do?” He talks a lot about the dying — or rather, the death — of mass media. Today, we have so many choices. Small is the new big. A lot of folks have been writing about this, and acting on it — and I find it all quite fascinating.
What is also fascinating is that while mass media is dying, mass thinking is not. How many millions of people searched for “Is Jennifer Hudson pregnant?” in order for it to rank second? A lot of millions — worldwide.
What’s my point? I’m not sure — except that we may not be watching the same three channels and reading the same newspaper — but we sure are having the same thoughts. Not much of a point, though, since it’s really stating the obvious.
Okay. Confession over. I do hereby resolve to get some work done tomorrow and have some thoughts I can call my own.
And yes, she is pregnant.