This is NOT your practice life!

How To Face Daily Challenges and Harsh Realities To Find Inner Peace through Mental Mapping
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Test

The Tarnished Golden Bachelor

12/1/2023

0 Comments

 
I’ve never watched The Bachelor, not even a minute of it; haven’t in fact ever channel-surfed by accident to it while it was on. I do know it was at least once shot on location at a swanky hotel in my area. Never mind. But I did see a recent commercial for The Golden Bachelor during a football game broadcast on ABC. It shows a guy crying over something he did with someone sometime somewhere. Don’t know for sure, wasn’t really paying much attention as I waited for the return to the game. But those tears of regret on an elderly gentleman made me wonder about all the need to display oneself on TV, on SnapChat, on TikTok, on FaceBook, on…


Here’s an aside: Do I even need to see the food you’re about to eat at a fine restaurant? Is this a perversion of the old postcard from vacationing friends? “Having a wonderful time; wish you were here” becoming “Look what I get to eat while you’re sitting at home eating leftovers.” Do we need to display every event in our lives? Or every emotional low?


Rub Some Dirt on It


Some might say I’m just too old school, the school in which we were told to “rub a little dirt on it” when we got hurt. I mean, com’on now, everybody gets hurt sometime; everyone has some regret, or, as Scotty P spells it in his tattoo in We’re the Millers, “ragrets.” Anyway, this bachelor guy piqued my interest by his videoed reaction to something he did or said to a woman, especially because, though younger than I, he appears to be a senior citizen, thus, “the golden bachelor.” Surely, he must have grown up in a time before safe spaces, PC cops, cancel culture, and people offended by pronouns. Surely, he grew up in some tougher time. What’s this need to wear emotions on a sleeve?


My knowing someone who has starred in a couple of realty shows has given me the insight that the golden bachelor’s tears could have been edited out or edited in—the choice lay in the director’s hands after the scene had been shot. I suppose that in this Age of Hurt Feelings, the inclusion of those tears was meant to establish the humanity of the man, particularly his vulnerability and sensitivity. I’m pretty sure that by comparison, I’m an insensitive boor.


“Ragrets”


It’s not that I don’t have “ragrets” over this or that. Sure, I’ve been human. But nothing in my upbringing motivates me to mimic Gerry save crying at a funeral, where I might also think, “If only I could have…” or “I never told her (or him)….” Of course, I have regrets over either consciously or unconsciously not treating others with the respect they deserved, or in not working even harder to uplift others in their moments of doubt or despair. I have some regret over not perfecting skills, gaining more knowledge, or working on projects that I thought of only in passing. But “water under the bridge” stuff can’t be sent upstream once it’s flowed past the bridge supports. I can’t get back the unproductive time I spent.


From what I saw in the commercial, Gerry made a public display of regret in a confession to a stranger whose role I can only guess was as some program moderator. His “confession” was filmed for public viewing. But there’s a reason that confessionals are private booths. Gerry’s tears don’t substitute for just going to the offended party to say, “I’m sorry” because he has no way of knowing whether his apology reached the person he offended. Was he thinking it was like some jumbotron proposal during a game? But jumbotron proposals are made in the presence of the person to whom they are directed.   


The Truth Will Out in a Nosy Society


This morning I saw this headline: “The Golden Bachelor’s Not-So-Golden Past: Secret girlfriends, a juiced-up résumé and the selling of a septuagenarian stud: The secret history of America’s senior sweetheart, Gerry Turner.” * Yeah. Who needs to read an article whose headline fully describes what it’s about? Apparently, I do, so even having never seen the show, I read the article. Lord! I’ve joined the world’s gossip groups.


The Hollywood Reporter article, written by Suzanne O’Malley and Barbara Lippert, reveals that Gerry wasn’t exactly who he said he was, that he was not a super successful restauranteur, for example, and in spite of his saying he hadn’t dated in 45 years, actually had a live-in girlfriend among others he dated, starting a month after his “beloved” wife died. Gerry, Gerry, Gerry. Seventy-two years old and you still don’t know that just about anyone can discover just about everything about another person. Nor did Gerry mention in his pre-show vita his successful life as a hot tub installer, or as a maintenance man at the Vera French Mental Health Center in Davenport. Not glamorous enough, I suppose. But, hey, I’m not knocking those professions because I believe there’s dignity in any kind of work, especially because I’ve been over the years a garbage man, a ditch digger, a carpenter, a janitor, a pneumatic-hammer operator, a local delivery guy taking cloth diapers in a time before paper diapers from the laundry to homes of newborns and picking up the soiled ones to return to the laundry, a road construction worker, and then all that “academic stuff” and environmental research associated with my main career. No, I have no problem with Gerry’s hot tub installation. Why didn’t Gerry acknowledge those last two jobs on his Bachelor vita? Had I been a fan of the show, I would have been impressed that he did the kinds of jobs I did when I was young. Work and dirt, Gerry. That’s what I appreciate.


Is this the sign of our times? Have we senior citizens become the generation we fathered and mothered? Nay, even grandfathered and grandmothered? Where’s that generational separation we talk about in local bars? Where are the “Kids these days” comments made with a shaking perplexed head? Where’s the dirt we used to rub on a wound?


Oh! No. I’ve Become My Children


You know that moment when you catch yourself saying or doing something that reminds you of your mother or father? That thought, used in so many TV shows and movies, can be summed up in “Oh! No. I’ve become my mother (father).” Now, it seems, we say it in reverse. “Oh! No. I’ve become my children (or grandchildren).” That’s what’s happened when older adults adopt the emotional weakness of the current snowflake generation whose need to display themselves to the world is irrepressible. Too much pressure among the retired? Too much stress? Too much work? Too many demands? Too many searches for identity and fame? As the Eagles sing, “Get over it.”


That’s what I think when I think of Gerry’s emotional display on that TV commercial. Sorry, Gerry. Your tears might have been real; you might be a very compassionate guy feeling empathy for someone you wronged over the past 72 years. But on TV? In front of millions around the world and not personally in the room with the offended person? Gerry, you’re now stuck in temporal nowhere because that scene can be replayed next week, next year, next century, and it will be played in the context of your uncovered deceit and in the context of a contemporary but younger generation of people who needed safe spaces and who were offended by pronouns or face paint or by “appropriation." A century from now, if the trend reverses, people will say, “Look at what the adults became in the early twenty-first century. Think they never heard of the healing powers of dirt?”


The Context of Deceit


Gerry’s reality wasn’t the reality his audience was led to believe according to the article by O’Malley and Lippert.


That Gerry isn’t the Gerry everyone thought he was because of his deceit (“I haven’t dated in 45 years” and “I’m a successful restauranteur”) is reason enough for taking his crying spell as an act. Reality programs aren’t really real because they’re edited. Someone chooses the “reality” you see. And that harks back to the first so-called reality TV show, An American Family, that centered on the Loud family. Such “reality” was at the time seen as novel, cinema verite, and praised as such by figures like Margaret Mead. ** After the Loud’s divorce, the show was itself the subject of documentary and fictional films that portrayed the sobering reality of the Loud family. Will Gerry’s story be retold like the Loud family’s story? Will people years after the Golden Bachelor’s final episode weigh in on the reality of the reality the way Jean Baudrillard wrote about the Loud family in his book Simulacra and Simulation? Will the viewers have viewed a simulation? Does Gerry live in the Matrix?


Were Gerry’s tears real or just a simulation put on for an audience eager to see more TikTok-like displays? I don’t know. I’m glad I don’t watch The Bachelor or The Golden Bachelor. I have to suspect in light of the deceit that Gerry is no Adam molded from dirt by the hand of God. I think that if any dirt is involved, it’s of Gerry’s making.






*https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/golden-bachelor-gerry-turner-ex-girlfriend-speaks-out-1235683869/


**Maybe Margaret was unaware of the Hawthorne Effect. Certainly, walking around in front of cameras is the perfect example of how observers can influence people they observe. And knowing that millions of observers will see behavior has to have a greater Hawthorne Effect on the observed person or persons than observation by a single anthropologist working alone with a pad and pencil.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    July 2025
    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015

    Categories

    All
    000 Years Ago
    11:30 A.M.
    130
    19
    3d
    A Life Affluent
    All Joy Turneth To Sorrow
    Aluminum
    Amblyopia
    And Minarets
    And Then Philippa Spoke Up
    Area 51 V. Photo 51
    Area Of Influence
    Are You Listening?
    As Carmen Sings
    As Useless As Yesterday's Newspaper
    As You Map Today
    A Treasure Of Great Price
    A Vice In Her Goodness
    Bananas
    Before You Sling Dirt
    Blue Photons Do The Job
    Bottom Of The Ninth
    Bouncing
    Brackets Of Life
    But
    But Uncreative
    Ca)2Al4Si14O36·15H2O: When The Fortress Walls Are The Enemy
    Can You Pick Up A Cast Die?
    Cartography Of Control
    Charge Of The Light Brigade
    Cloister Earth
    Compasses
    Crater Lake
    Crystalline Vs Amorphous
    Crystal Unclear
    Density
    Dido As Diode
    Disappointment
    Does Place Exert An Emotional Force?
    Do Fish Fear Fire?
    Don't Go Up There
    Double-take
    Down By A Run
    Dust
    Endless Is The Good
    Epic Fail
    Eros And Canon In D Headbanger
    Euclid
    Euthyphro Is Alive And Well
    Faethm
    Faith
    Fast Brain
    Fetch
    Fido's Fangs
    Fly Ball
    For Some It’s Morning In Mourning
    For The Skin Of An Elephant
    Fortunately
    Fracking Emotions
    Fractions
    Fused Sentences
    Future Perfect
    Geographic Caricature And Opportunity
    Glacier
    Gold For Salt?
    Great
    Gutsy Or Dumb?
    Here There Be Blogs
    Human Florigen
    If Galileo Were A Psychologist
    If I Were A Child
    I Map
    In Search Of Philosopher's Stones
    In Search Of The Human Ponor
    I Repeat
    Is It Just Me?
    Ithaca Is Yours
    It's All Doom And Gloom
    It's Always A Battle
    It's Always All About You
    It’s A Messy Organization
    It’s A Palliative World
    It Takes A Simple Mindset
    Just Because It's True
    Just For You
    K2
    Keep It Simple
    King For A Day
    Laki
    Life On Mars
    Lines On Canvas
    Little Girl In The Fog
    Living Fossils
    Longshore Transport
    Lost Teeth
    Magma
    Majestic
    Make And Break
    Maslow’s Five And My Three
    Meditation Upon No Red Balloon
    Message In A Throttle
    Meteor Shower
    Minerals
    Mono-anthropism
    Monsters In The Cloud Of Memory
    Moral Indemnity
    More Of The Same
    Movie Award
    Moving Motionless
    (Na2
    Never Despair
    New Year's Eve
    Not Real
    Not Your Cup Of Tea?
    Now What Are You Doing?
    Of Consciousness And Iconoclasts
    Of Earworms And Spicy Foods
    Of Polygons And Circles
    Of Roof Collapses
    Oh
    Omen
    One Click
    Outsiders On The Inside
    Pain Free
    Passion Blew The Gale
    Perfect Philosophy
    Place
    Points Of Departure
    Politically Correct Tale
    Polylocation
    Pressure Point
    Prison
    Pro Tanto World
    Refresh
    Regret Over Missing An Un-hittable Target
    Relentless
    REPOSTED BLOG: √2
    REPOSTED BLOG: Algebraic Proof You’re Always Right
    REPOSTED BLOG: Are You Diana?
    REPOSTED BLOG: Assimilating Values
    REPOSTED BLOG: Bamboo
    REPOSTED BLOG: Discoverers And Creators
    REPOSTED BLOG: Emotional Relief
    REPOSTED BLOG: Feeling Unappreciated?
    REPOSTED BLOG: Missing Anxiety By A Millimeter Or Infinity
    REPOSTED BLOG: Palimpsest
    REPOSTED BLOG: Picture This
    REPOSTED BLOG: Proximity And Empathy
    Reposted Blog: Sacred Ground
    REPOSTED BLOG: Sedit Qui Timuit Ne Non Succederet
    REPOSTED BLOG: Sic Transit Gloria Mundi
    REPOSTED BLOG: Sponges And Brains
    REPOSTED BLOG: The Fiddler In The Pantheon
    REPOSTED BLOG: The Junk Drawer
    REPOSTED BLOG: The Pattern Axiom
    REPOSTED IN LIGHT OF THE RECENT OREGON ATTACK: Special By Virtue Of Being Here
    REPOSTED: Place
    River Or Lake?
    Scales
    Self-driving Miss Daisy
    Seven Centimeters Per Year
    Shouting At The Crossroads
    Sikharas
    Similar Differences And Different Similarities
    Simple Tune
    Slow Mind
    Stages
    Steeples
    Stupas
    “Such Is Life”
    Sutra Addiction
    Swivel Chair
    Take Me To Your Leader
    Tats
    Tautological Redundancy
    Template
    The
    The Baby And The Centenarian
    The Claw Of Arakaou
    The Embodiment Of Place
    The Emperor And The Unwanted Gift
    The Final Frontier
    The Flow
    The Folly Of Presuming Victory
    The Hand Of God
    The Inostensible Source
    The Lions Clawee9b37e566
    Then Eyjafjallajökull
    The Proprioceptive One Survives
    The Qualifier
    The Scapegoat In The Mirror
    The Slowest Waterfall
    The Transformer On Bourbon Street
    The Unsinkable Boat
    The Workable Ponzi Scheme
    They'll Be Fine; Don't Worry
    Through The Unopened Door
    Time
    Toddler
    To Drink Or Not To Drink
    Trust
    Two On
    Two Out
    Umbrella
    Unconformities
    Unknown
    Vector Bundle
    Warning Track Power
    Wattle And Daub
    Waxing And Waning
    Wealth And Dependence
    What Does It Mean?
    What Do You Really Want?
    What Kind Of Character Are You?
    What Microcosm Today?
    What Would Alexander Do7996772102
    Where’s Jacob Henry When You Need Him?
    Where There Is No Geography
    Window
    Wish I Had Taken Guitar Lessons
    Wonderful Things
    Wonders
    Word Pass
    Yes
    You
    You Could
    Your Personal Kiribati

    RSS Feed


Web Hosting by iPage