I am so out of the loop that the loop doesn’t even look like a loop any longer … it’s more like a spiral my eyes can’t follow very long before they start to water and cross.
I’ve not lived in the US since 1993, and a lot has happened in America in the intervening years.
Politics are almost unrecognizable to me, for example. I still haven’t been able to wrap my head around the fact that an election went wonky and that the “decider commander guy” has been running the show for quite a while now. And my home state, the land I remember as Jerry Brown country, now takes orders from Arnold. That’s just too strange.
I haven’t seen any one of the past three years’-worth of Oscar winners and can no longer do the NYT crossword puzzles. Who am I trying to kid? I can’t do the TV Guide crossword any more. I have never seen an “Idol” show, or Reality TV of any kind … well, not since Candid Camera. I have no idea who anchors network newscasts, and although I do know Rush Limbaugh … he used to be a loud-mouth fat jerk in Sacramento, so we bumped into each other (shuddering yuck) often … but have no clue what an Imus is or sounds like.
Since it’s a small island in the Indian Ocean I live on and not Uranus, there are whiffs of pop culture that occasionally drift in, and certain times of the year we even get Larry King Live here … and what better smorgasbord of celebrity is there on offer than Larry’s? … but just hearing a name yacking about themselves for the half-hour before CNN switches to the BBC mid-way through whatever I’m trying to absorb does not necessarily convey context, and it’s context I’m so definitely lacking.
For example: Who the hell is Paris Hilton, and why do even I know her name? I get that she’s blond and rich, but I don’t understand why anyone cares.
I suppose I could pass for the celebrity litmus test … If Sandra’s heard of you, you must be famous … just don’t ask me to have an idea about who you are or what you do.
A collection of my short stories:
I'm in this one, too ...
And I'm in here, as well ...
Paradise Preoccupied 