But I realize some people unwind after their own busy days by relaxing in front of the tube. No thinking required. Sort of like my reading a relaxing novel.
However, last night my wife and I decided we would catch the Country Music Awards, looking forward to hearing some of the ballads and rockers we had heard on our Maine vacation last month.
So I turned on the TV, but was turned off immediately. A show was finishing up talking with enthusiasm about strippers. Then Country Music Awards came on. Instead of starting with a stirring ballad or country rockabilly, the opening comedy routine of Brad Paisley narrowly focused on sex—not that that topic would be wrong if it were romantic or, I guess even steamy, in a good passionate sort of way. When has music ever been prudish?!
But what was disconcerting is that the MC dialog focused mostly—and blatantly--on the raunchy, the lurid, and the vulgar (including the term "full frontal").
Well, I thought, this is TV. It will pass.
NOT! (to rendition the old joke zinger of 20 years back)
In over 3 hours of viewing, the central focus of the awards seemed to be on the profane, the vulgar, the titillating/lewd/salacious…Millions of dollars to paint the sty, the hovel.
Well wait a minute, one award winner actually did sincerely “Thank God” for his win, Luke Bryant.
Yes, I know that country music has always had a vulgar underbelly—crass and coarse references, booze and partying…
But usually, there was also the upside.
When we turned off the TV, a verse came to me from out of the past, from back when I was a Christian and read my Bible regularly:
“Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame…”
Philippians 3:19
Rather tragic.
In the Light,
Daniel Wilcox
