WaltonUndercurrent
Beach Lover
This was the debut column that didn't run - so I'll run it here. Should spur some heated debate. The others are in the publishers blog at WU.com
The More You Know
One of the most heartbreaking reality programs- they're all heartbreaking in way or another - that I've come across while mindlessly surfing over three hundred channels of crap is one on MTV that documents the plastic surgery makeover of people who want to look like specific celebrities.
The show's subjects are willing to go through everything from having their toes replaced to their spines straightened in order to look like a famous person. I picture a drunk friend at a party discussing the realism of the special effects in Born On The Fourth Of July to the insecure Tom Cruise wannabe who spent twenty five thousand dollars having his legs removed to everyone's silent horror.
It's not just incredibly low self esteem that drives these tortured souls to complete body modification, it's the actual belief that to live the lives of fabulous people, all you have to do is look like them. Even though having Barbara Streisand's nose won't change the fact that on Karaoke night you still sing Evergreen like Roseanne Barr.
It's actually quite tragic that so many people let the artificially perfect prevent them from seeing the genuine good.
South Walton has a similar esteem problem. According to their web sites and marketing materials, many of our area's exclusive communities seem to want to be somewhere and sometime else.
It would make great reality television on HGTV or the Travel Channel.
Rosemary Beach desperately wants to be a small seaside town in the Caribbean without the pirates and beaches full of middle aged European men in speedos.
Seaside wants to be a coastal Victorian village, where like Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin's The Awakening, sexually misunderstood woman from Atlanta can dramtically wade to their deaths in the sea.
Watercolor wants to represent a simpler and easier time in the South, when tapeworm infestation sapped so much of our energy it was difficult getting out of our front porch rockers long enough to shoo the chickens out of the house or see the county's only doctor about our rickets.
Alys Beach wants to be Bermuda, and I imagine it will have lots of owners in dress socks and madras Bermuda shorts to prove it.
Baytowne Wharf wants to be New Orleans, but without the prostitutes, drag queens, genuine antiquity and hurricane damage of course.
It makes you wonder what we would be if we stopped trying so hard to be someplace that we're not, and we decided to be the someplace that we are.
Would tourists still like us or would they look for more glamorous places to hang with?
What if our confidence in our beauty matched our confidence in our style?
I think it's time we got over the hurt of being called Redneck Riviera on the playground for all those years. It's time we let the scar tissue heal.
Instead of the reality producing idiots at MTV, we should instead listen to Megan Mullally who plays Karen Walker on NBC's Will & Grace. She's currently featured in one of the network's latest sappy The More You Know segments.
"Getting caught up in all the hype? Don't Bother. Because it's who you are on the inside that counts."
Hum with me now.
The more you know.
The More You Know
One of the most heartbreaking reality programs- they're all heartbreaking in way or another - that I've come across while mindlessly surfing over three hundred channels of crap is one on MTV that documents the plastic surgery makeover of people who want to look like specific celebrities.
The show's subjects are willing to go through everything from having their toes replaced to their spines straightened in order to look like a famous person. I picture a drunk friend at a party discussing the realism of the special effects in Born On The Fourth Of July to the insecure Tom Cruise wannabe who spent twenty five thousand dollars having his legs removed to everyone's silent horror.
It's not just incredibly low self esteem that drives these tortured souls to complete body modification, it's the actual belief that to live the lives of fabulous people, all you have to do is look like them. Even though having Barbara Streisand's nose won't change the fact that on Karaoke night you still sing Evergreen like Roseanne Barr.
It's actually quite tragic that so many people let the artificially perfect prevent them from seeing the genuine good.
South Walton has a similar esteem problem. According to their web sites and marketing materials, many of our area's exclusive communities seem to want to be somewhere and sometime else.
It would make great reality television on HGTV or the Travel Channel.
Rosemary Beach desperately wants to be a small seaside town in the Caribbean without the pirates and beaches full of middle aged European men in speedos.
Seaside wants to be a coastal Victorian village, where like Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin's The Awakening, sexually misunderstood woman from Atlanta can dramtically wade to their deaths in the sea.
Watercolor wants to represent a simpler and easier time in the South, when tapeworm infestation sapped so much of our energy it was difficult getting out of our front porch rockers long enough to shoo the chickens out of the house or see the county's only doctor about our rickets.
Alys Beach wants to be Bermuda, and I imagine it will have lots of owners in dress socks and madras Bermuda shorts to prove it.
Baytowne Wharf wants to be New Orleans, but without the prostitutes, drag queens, genuine antiquity and hurricane damage of course.
It makes you wonder what we would be if we stopped trying so hard to be someplace that we're not, and we decided to be the someplace that we are.
Would tourists still like us or would they look for more glamorous places to hang with?
What if our confidence in our beauty matched our confidence in our style?
I think it's time we got over the hurt of being called Redneck Riviera on the playground for all those years. It's time we let the scar tissue heal.
Instead of the reality producing idiots at MTV, we should instead listen to Megan Mullally who plays Karen Walker on NBC's Will & Grace. She's currently featured in one of the network's latest sappy The More You Know segments.
"Getting caught up in all the hype? Don't Bother. Because it's who you are on the inside that counts."
Hum with me now.
The more you know.
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