ANNAMERICA
You know, I'm not one to complain.
I've learned in life that it is best to choose your battles, let the little
things slide and save your passion for the lofty issues. So I have spent
much time in consideration of this column, wondering, dutifully, whether or
not this is issue is loft-worthy. Well, I just can't seem to let it go, so
I'm going to let it rip.
Can someone tell me what has happened to out national media? Since learning
several days ago of the untimely death of Anna Nicole Smith, I have spent
nearly every waking hour scouring news outlets for information. I feel left
in the dark, one of the "little people", not worthy of being informed of
every detail that I am entitled to. Sure, lots of you are thinking..."Karl,
what are you talking about? The coverage has been wall to wall." Yeah,
you've got a point, and wall to wall is fine for carpeting, but not when it
comes to the death of an American Icon of this stature. I know the cable
news shows and every newspaper in the country has had almost non-stop
coverage, but it's not enough for me. Sure, we saw the spot where she died,
the inside of her refrigerator, an endless montage of pictures of her late
son, both dead and alive, and of course real-time interviews with her
estranged mother. O.K., there have been interviews with the litany of
squirmy men coming forward claiming to have fathered her most recent baby.
This is all well and good, but still, there is so much more I need to know.
I have questions haunting me such as, what was her last meal? Had she
showered recently? Where are the interviews with classmates from
kindergarten and the guy who once helped her change a tire? What about her
body, where's that going? You know, the writer Hunter Thompson was cremated
and then had his remains launched out of a cannon. Why couldn't we launch
those DuPont orbs of hers into outer space? Isn't that the kind of
"outside-the-box" thinking that Anna was famous for? What happened to her
cutsey-tootsey little dog? All I hear about is this billion-dollar baby. Who
will watch after the dog? With nearly every single person who was close to
her, the maid, the assistant, the boyfriends, the designers, all coming
forward looking to sell their story for cash, can't someone get this
information to me.
Even when I find some salacious special presentation, it seems always to be
interrupted by news about some war we're having or some Congress or
something that's having a non-binding revolution or something or 11 million
aliens that are here and are invisible, or something. It really gets me
fuming when these peripheral issues continue to roadblock my quest for
total-information, or as I call it, totalmation. My greatest fear right now
is that there will be another photo of Brittany exiting a cab,
commando-style, and then all the networks will turn to that for fourteen
days. Then what am I going to do? Will we ever know what caused the
shocking, out-of-the-blue, surprise-of-the-year death of Anna Nicole? She
must have been a really nice person because usually when a woman who sleeps
around starts looking for the "real" father of her baby, guys are running in
the other direction. Look at these guys though, they can't wait to "raise"
this child. Hold on...I'm getting a little choked up here.
It is not a given that we will get to the bottom of this. Greta Van Sustern
spent a year and a half doing the Natalie Holloway story every night but
they never found her killer. They did get a lot of quality time in Aruba,
though. This is the reason why we can't be distracted here. There is work to
do. I know there are kids getting abused and Governors buying Caddilacs,
rampant drug abuse and violence, but you know, that stuff will still be here
next week. Anna Nicole may not. So please, if any of you media-elite are
listening, raise yourselves up. Think of Edward Murrow. Think of Chet
Huntley and David Brinkley. Think of the rest of the world watching us
practically ignore the death of this magnificent American. O.K., come to
think of it, don't think about what the rest of the world is thinking while
watching us, but still, think about Anna, and what she would want. O.K.,
come to think of it, better not think about what Anna would want. Just think
about me then, and my quest for "totalmation". One man seeking total
intellectual saturation with the arcane. Whatever you do, don't stop to
think about how sick it all is. That might really make you cry.