Metroline Online

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entertainment

noun

the action of providing or being provided with amusement or enjoyment : everyone just sits in front of the TV for entertainment.

• an event, performance, or activity designed to entertain others : a theatrical entertainment.

• the action of receiving a guest or guests and providing them with food and drink.

Did you ever stop to consider all the possible sources of entertainment we have available to us?  I mean come on man; it’s all around us.  It probably is actually the oldest profession in the world.  There you are thinking the oldest profession is being a streetwalker.  It can’t be, stupid; there weren’t streets back in the beginning of time.  But there was some guy in a cave having an argument with his friends about who has the biggest dick.

There was the class clown of Neanderthal High, who drew a picture on the wall of the first guy looking down between his legs as if he were searching for what appears to be a really tiny crank. This of course much to the amusement of the rest of the school kids.

The joke continues to this day. How so?  Paleontologists the world over are still studying these cave drawings and spewing forth with all sort of pontifications about how cave men were not as interested in prehistoric sex as proven by the lack of any appreciative phallic presence regarding male genitalia. All this deciphered from some prehistoric graffiti drawing Grog made to make fun of his friend Thud. Boy, did they get it wrong!

In my own childhood I remember how easy it was to bring Mom to the brink of a stroke. Like this time I came into the house after playing outside in the dirt and mud. I was covered. I mean Charlie Brown’s friend Pigpen had nothing on me that day. Well I wanted lunch so I walked right on into the living room where Mom was entertaining (there is that word again) her bridge club.

She turns to me and starts yelling, (I think a form of entertainment for her) “Where are your brains? You are absolutely filthy. Take those clothes off before you get my house all dirty!” 

So in my mind I’m thinking “What Mom demands - I should do.” So I took my cloths off. I must say she was right though. They were wet and dirty right through to my skin.  Underwear and all.  So off it came. Right there in the living room in front of her bridge club.

Let me tell you. The look on their collective faces, now that’s entertainment! Then watching them all scramble when they noticed that ‘Just about to stroke out look’ on Moms face – icing on the cake.

Then there is the type of entertainment to others at your expense.  No one likes it but lets face it, it can still be some funny stuff.

Like the first night of my honeymoon when we went to consummate the marriage. She points and laughs while saying “It looks like a penis – only smaller” Ha Ha.

This of course brings up horrible memories of childhood and going through puberty. There I was in Jr. High, proud of having two pubic hairs. Then I pissed out of one of them and realized I was going to have to do a lot of praying to the Gods of masculinity or find some way to get out of gym class.

There are many other forms of entertainment.  Some last through the years and some don’t. One that seems to have an unending staying power is political entertainment. Don’t get me started here but suffice it to say just look at the Republican Party and people like Rush Limbaugh or “Noot” Gingrich. Will these people ever learn that the only ones who think they are anything other than something to laugh at are they themselves?

Great entertainment that will last the test of time are things like movies.

Who will ever forget Michael Rennie as the alien emissary in “The Day The Earth Stood Still?”  A classic that some think strongly influenced the foreign policy of the Bush administration.

Or how about “The Blue Lagoon?”  A beautiful movie about the morphing of two innocent children into adulthood while being unadulterated. Not to forget the swimming scenes where we get to see about everything you could on Christopher Atkins. (He later was in a movie called “A Night In Heaven” where his acting was supplemented by his willingness to do another full frontal scene. He later became an active nudist by the by.)

Lately the media has become nothing more than “Newsatainment.”  I happen to love it when the talking heads get in front of the camera and go on the air talking about shit they don’t have the slightest idea about.

The anchorman musters all the concern he can on his face and professes; “Now we take you to our on the scene correspondent who will bring us the latest details. Are you there Fred?” “Well Phil, the fire department just pulled up in one of those big truck things. I think it was a red one.”

Interesting enough is that there has come to be a saying that “The truth can be found in fiction.” This has become more true every day.  Authors take the time to actually research the material they will be drawing from to write an authentic story or screenplay. “The Laramie Project” is one such example as is “Prayers for Bobby,” which one of the other writers for Metroline wrote about. Stories that tell the truth, bring a tear to our eye, and teach us things we need to know.

I guess the bottom line is that entertainment in all it’s wonderful forms is what really makes the world go round. Football players make tons of money not because playing a game with a ball will solve any of the worlds problems, but because the entertainment gives the people who do deal with the world’s problems a chance to take a break and decompress for a while.

A very dear friend of mine just went through like 8 months of hell dealing with a very bad situation that got dumped on him. He got through it by finally finding some humor and laughing.

I have dealt with some pretty heavy shit in my life. Then I saw “Titanic” and realized that there are a lot of people, past, present and in the future who have it a lot worse than I do.

Entertainment gives me the ability to take my mind off the weight of the day and look outside of myself, and my problems. When I do that I usually find my life isn’t as bad or hard as I think.

I go on with just a little more of a smile than I had before. You can too.