Home Town Connection

This is a post that I had written, but then refrained from actually posting on the blog because the blog was open to the public...however, now that we have gone "private", I have gone back into my draft folder and posting it with the date that it was originally written on...

Okay, I have to admit that I did watch two or three episodes of the first season of Survivor back when it originally aired nine or so years ago. Then I stumbled onto the last half of one episode last season. That's it. I'm not much of a TV person. I do most of my blog browsing sitting next to Grant as he watches "Cash Cab" or "Extreme Make-over Home Edition" or whatever DVD series he is currently working his way through. At least that way we are companionably sitting next to each other. If I didn't have the reading on my computer to keep me entertained, though, I would be getting distracted and wandering away after a few minutes. TV just doesn't "hold" me. (I'm NOT a channel surfer...that just drives me insane! And, on the rare occasions that I am watching TV alone and I do skip through a few channels during the commercial break, I honestly and truly FORGET what it was I had been watching and can't remember if it was worth coming back to or not! My brain just doesn't HOLD onto what I've been watching even when I am the one who chose to settle on that particular show! I'm THAT distractable.)

I say all that simply to explain that it is no surprise that I never got hooked on Survivor. I don't get hooked on any TV show. I've only seen a few minutes of American Idol once. Had no desire to ever see it again. I've never watched any of the other reality shows. This season of Survivor was different, though, because we had the home town connection! Of course I had to tune in to see the coach of our women's soccer team. I had never met him, but, hey, he's "one of us"! It only took me the first episode, though, do develop a terribly unfavorable first impression of him....ummm, really, that is putting it unfairly MILDLY. Grant got a little disconcerted at me SHOUTING at the TV!

Even the "home town connection" might not have hooked me if our hometown player had been a middle of the pack, blend in, kind of guy. I would have preferred to find he was a man that exemplified the values of the school he was so recently employed by (he was fired a few days after the first episode aired). But, finding him to be the most self-absorbed, delusional, hypocritical, arrogant character that I have ever seen on television had it's own engrossing effect. Like watching a train wreck in motion. "Coach" brought out such an evisceral reaction in me that I find myself hanging on every episode. My head just spins as he speaks with such sincerity about how INTEGRITY is everything to him...how HE alone will play this game with INTEGRITY when the man LIED to the girls on his soccer team and his employer last October when he flew out of town to be on Survivor. He didn't just lie...he left them with the impression that he was leaving to have treatment for life threatening cancer. He KNEW before he left that that was the impression being drawn and that it was devastating "his girls". He told his employer he would be gone for "one week", when, duh, he KNEW it would be more than a week....it was eight weeks. He began the game on a foundation of lies, deceit, and purposeful mis-impressions (guiding people to an impression that he knew would cause them pain and sorrow and anxiety while awaiting his return). It is one thing to lie. Not a good thing. But, to lie in such a manner that leaves other people needlessly hurting/grieving is just plain selfish. But, then, to have the audacity to be on camera a week later spouting off about how you can't stand people who lie (Candace) and going on and on about how YOU are so full of integrity---THAT is when my head starts to spin! I understand that deceit is an integral part of the game and I have no problem with that IN THE GAME. But to take such a high and mighty attitude against someone who is doing that in the game, when you yourself did it quite recently before you were even IN the game...that high and mighty, self righteous, delusional behavior just makes me scream!

Then, "Coach" went on and on about how he couldn't stand Erinn because she was so delighted over Jerry getting axed instead of herself...he just couldn't stand "evil" people like that, he confides to Tyson. Now, mind you, Tyson is the person "Coach" has drawn the nearest to and favors over all others....Tyson, the guy who will openly admit that he loves to see the dreams of others crushed...Tyson, the guy who proudly strives to be the most conniving, manipulative, maniacal, cruel, deceitful person there. THAT is who "Coach" chooses to ally himself with. THAT is who "Coach" sides with. Yet he can't stand Erin supposedly because of her two faced-ness...he proclaims this ad nauseum with such self-righteous indignation. Obviously, he can't stand either her (or Candace before her) because they don't adore him...plain and simple...obvious...nothing more, nothing less. It has nothing at all to do with truthfulness, integrity, loyalty, or compassion! The thing that makes my head spin is that I don't even think the poor guy SEES what a double standard he displays or SEES the illogical nature of many of the things he so vehemently proclaims to the camera. He is so full of himself that he probably, honestly, does not see the contradictions of his own faulty arguments. I think he compartmentalizes every aspect of his own life. So, what he does to get into the game is totally irrelevant to how he purports he plans to play the game...two different, separate compartments of his life.

Further, he keeps preaching how he is going to "change the game" and make it survivor of the strongest instead of survivor of the weakest. Vote out the weak! Then, he turns right around and first thing off the bat is manipulating the tribe he is on to vote off, not their WEAKEST player, but, instead, one of their strongest players who has the audacity to paint a target on HIS back (Candace--who I didn't particularly like, but she was a lot more of a strength to be reckoned with in the future challenges for the team than many of her team-mates, that Coach didn't gun for, were!). That is how the game is played. I wouldn't hold it against Coach playing the game the way it is strategically played. I do hold it against him playing it the way it is strategically played while still sermonizing to the camera trying to paint it all differently than it is! Still spouting the same non-sense in the second episode as he once again tries to sway fellow team-members to vote off yet another of their strongest players (Erin, whom I also don't like) instead of Jerry who I loved, but, who, honestly was so sick by that point that he could not compete worth a hoot. I don't fault Coach for the manipulations, but it aggravates me that he puts himself on such a pedestal and endlessly proclaims one thing while DOING another. I can't stand illogical propaganda (on Survivor or in the real world out here...way too much of it to slog through these days!). And, even more, I cannot stand self-righteous hypocrisy. People who are so deluded that they do not even see their own hypocrisy make me want to tear my hear out. Coach fits in that category!

Grant hasn't been as avid a watcher as I have been. He just doesn't have as much of a killer instinct! But, I have Darcy, my dear friend Lisa and her husband Iran hooked on it (none of us have ever been Survivor watchers before this season). The four of us sit there in stunned disbelief each week, riveted to the television for that hour on CBS every Thursday evening. I get a bit animated as I watch, to Grant's amusement, and during every commercial break, I have to call my friend Lisa to exchange rants!

Really disliking someone on a gut level is just as absorbing as having a favorite that you hope with all your heart will win. So, I am hooked on Survivor. Favorites? Well, I was rooting for Jerry and J.T., but Jerry is already gone.

I tell you all of that just to explain what a celebrity moment yesterday evening was when my cell phone rang while I was working late at the office. There was Darcy on the other end, excitedly telling me that she was at McDonalds and COACH was there, standing on the curb eating a hamburger! We can't stand him (what we have read about him and seen of him on TV). I'm relieved he is no longer SBU's soccer coach, as he obviously does not posses the values I want my (soccer playing, soon to be SBU student) daughter to develop in her own life. He makes my head spin. Yet, he is "our" guy...our hometown celebrity...and it is exciting to see him hanging out alone on the curb in front of our McDonalds eating his hamburger.

When I am watching the show, I find myself just wanting to spit nails every time he opens his mouth. But, as I am sitting here this morning, writing this all out, I find myself feeling sorry for him. Sympathy is not something I ever felt for him until after Darcy's excited call to me last night. I can't get the picture out of my head of Benjamin Wade ("Coach") standing on the curb in front of McDonald's, all alone, eating his hamburger as the cars pass by...no adoring crowds...no friend to sit down with...just a guy who needs to stand where he can be seen by all as he eats his hamburger and awaits recognition.