Parade Has Passed Me By

Okay, here's my first mistake of the new year.

I put on the TV this morning to watch the annual New Year's Rose Parade. We stuck with it for an hour or so and then turned it off. This was the first time in my life, I think, that I've actually turned off the parade. For as far back as I can remember watching the Rose Parade has always been a yearly event in our house. After all it wouldn't feel like New Year's Day without it. Well, not this year.

It began with the dull broadcast/hosts. I realize they are nothing but copy readers, but their job should be to make the parade sound exciting and fun. These humorless, emotionless people made me wish I stayed in bed. I had more excitement and fun with my last colonoscopy.

The floats were okay I guess, but why can't the cameras stay with them longer than a second or two before cutting to something else? It's the same quick cutting technique that the movies use to accommodate the short attention span of today's younger viewers. It just makes me dizzy.

Besides the floats the main attraction of this parade are the marching bands. The marching bands are playing music. It would be nice to hear that. Why do the humorless, emotionless broadcast/hosts feel it necessary to talk over the marching band music? I know, I know. They have all this copy in front of them and they simply must read it all. And after all, it isn't about the music, it's about the readers, isn't it?

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I counted at least five marching bands from other countries. The Pasadena Rose Parade used to highlight local high school and college bands from around the area, sometimes bands from other states. That's what made it fun, seeing those kids looking so proud in their uniforms marching down the street. You knew they practiced for the whole year to be in the parade and their local PTAs and other civic groups sponsored them. Call me racist but I don't want to see bands from Santiago, Panama, and Japan in the Rose Parade.

Then we have the Grand Marshall. This year it was Gabby Gifford, the former Arizona congresswoman who became famous for surviving being shot by a maniacal sicko 12 years ago. Not surprisingly, she has been an avid spokesperson against gun violence. Also, not surprisingly, she is a Democrat which means it's all about too many guns, not about doing something about mental illness. Political. Why do we need to make everything political?

What happened to celebrities and dignitaries who were not political? I don't want to know the politics of pop culture figures any more than I want to know anything about their sexual orientation. I'm old enough to remember when politics wasn't worn on everyone's sleeve. As a young man I worked with and was friends with dozens of people of whom I knew nothing of their politics. It just never came up. It wasn't a major part of life back then.

Now all people want to talk about is their political and social views on everything. Where do you stand on abortion? How do you feel about "alternative lifestyles?" Global warming. Green energy. Cultural appropriation. Capitalism versus Marxism. Slavery reparations. Open borders.

Can you name one celebrity, one, who is not political today? Name one media personality who is not political. Name one actor, one entertainer who hasn't mouthed off on politics. There may be some, but if there are, chances are they are conservative and they're keeping their views quiet so they won't be blacklisted by the majority lefties in the business.

Next year I won't even put on the parade at all. I'll just sleep in and dream about the good old days. Back before the parade passed me by.

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