I just saw a rehabilitated seventy-eight-year-old, hair dyed, Pete Rose, being interviewed on television for pay, without a baseball cap on his head, concerning his take on the recently discovered scandals in sports, a seventy-eight-year-old, hair dyed, retired game show host, Chuck Woolery pushing gold on television, a seventy-six-year-old, also a hair dyed retiree, Joe Namath, he’s pushing health insurance, I’m thinking because of his demonstrated expertise in this subject. No one should condemn these elderly men for being gainfully employed, especially in this current ‘youth only expected, accepted’, market on television, its just that all this fake masquerading in the marketplace has affected our sense of expectation of appearance integrity, on the heads of our politicians and journalists, once that line has been crossed, and it has, so does our trust and faith in those so employed, so engaged in our welfare and public knowledge of current affairs. Harping back to a game show once hosted by Johnny Carson, Who Do You Trust? Televised during 1956-1963, or more importantly, today, whom ‘can’ you trust?

Vladimir Lenin was quoted as having said; “Give me just one generation of youth, and I’ll transform the world.”

It’s possible to influence a small-town gentle youth, who has never ventured more than five miles from his place of birth into a person his parents would never be able to recognize, as a killer of women and children. I know this because it almost happened to me. From day one, after being drafted into the Army during the Vietnam era, through seemingly trivial conditioning I was made to hate and fear a people I had never heard of nor ever even physically seen, never told out right to hate or fear, but conditioned to, as an example would be told to take care of my M14 Rifle, because I may find myself in the jungles of Vietnam, the only thing that may save my life will be that rifle.

From here on, here’s where you might call a long impossible stretch to prove a petty point, but what it boils down to is conditioning of the human psyche, in short, to be placed into the right psychological state of mind, the frame of, if you will, in the acceptance of a visual horror. I can begin with the acceptance of a 75year old male without any displayed gray hair, or a 80year old female blond hair dyed as if a twenty-year-old, if not outraged, that takes some conditioning, an altering of reality, forged in a masquerade of poppycock, and if I may add insult to my emotional suffering that soon will be extended on to you, if not now, but soon, ending with the asking of yourself, how, the word is and by way of conditioning…

In conclusion, you may ask yourself, where are the racist, the anti-Semite, bigots of tomorrow, where will they be coming from? why, from us…now living in the current…all through the practice of us being human with conditioning…to accept journalists and politicians forged in a faked up glamourous appearance, and saying nothing as if one can see no evil…as in one of The Three Wise Monkeys…
(Never forget, it was blond hair dye and greasy lips that helped launch a news-network.)

When the wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park in 1995, after they were almost eradicated off the face of the earth, the natural ecosystem of the park was restored, improved, well, that may depend on who you ask, as a recent reprise of a 60 Minute piece confirms, with any deed, one must learn to be able to approach and weigh the good with the bad, it was only after closely monitoring the wolves could just such a culmination of the event be properly explored.

Among most ethnic groups currently in America, new and old, among themselves, are classifications of what’s good, what’s bad, or just passing, as representations of the group that can be separated by appearance, most often by speech patterns, the television sitcom, Fresh Off the Boat tried to make comedy of this everyday occurrence. Today, MLK Day 2020 every blogger worth their salt will be pointing to affairs of advancement to those of setbacks for some ethnic group or another, here’s my contribution to this gumbo stew.

Recently I heard an accounting that there are currently more people of color appearing on American television than ever before, gone are those days when if one is on schedule, neighbors are called with the urging to be sure to tune in to this rare occurrence, it may be weeks before another one appears. Having proclaimed the appearance numbers be true, choices are being made as to the quality of these choices. By now I imagine everyone has heard of the ‘brown paper bag test’, which has sent some to wondering if one is currently being deployed among television casting directors, even to the booking of appearing working journalists, seemingly only scheduling ‘safe skin tones’ among them. When it comes to people of color there is such a wide range of pigments to choose from, but are we only seeing a very narrow selection of them, calling into question repeatedly the brown paper bag test in use? promoting only the appearance of the non-offensive looking safe skin tones, much like in the 1950’s offensive sight of kinky curly hair, that once was used to bar a New York reporter from covering a White House wedding without a head covering or a straight haired wig, how much have things changed? here in 2020, on MLK Day, only you can be the judge…

On Saturday 01/18/2020, the fourth annual Women’s March took place, one of the many key issues was for ‘pay equity’, or for my purposes here, ‘pay equality’, which begs the question why was such a march even a necessary? When it comes to simple employment, is there such a thing as a special dress code for women only, even more so than for men? When ever I come close to the above issues, the image of the five women of the NY1 lawsuit come rushing across my mind.

Last Sunday on the popular CBS Network program, Sunday Morning has as of most recent had as host a blond hair dyed Jane Pauley, that also featured last Sunday a profile piece on blond dye head actress, Kim Novak, then also most recently a puff piece on another actress, Laura Dern, perhaps naturally blond, but with some shade enhancements I suspect, being interviewed by CBS News correspondent a blond headed, Tracy Smith, had enough blond dye heads yet, but wait, there’s more, and an industry profile of a ninety-six-year-old, known as the Kiwi Queen, of the produce industry, Frieda Caplan, at her age must have been blond dyed too, no confirmation. So, would anyone be out of line if they concluded, its all this blond dyed hair was an enabler for some female employment, if not then someone please explain why the television air ways are so well stocked, bombarded if you will, with blond haired women, even Queen Latifah, whom has been a dye head blond and safely employed for years. I would like to think that the flood gates of this faked blond acceptance has grown so because of this American President flaunting his fakery, officially with his every public appearance, there’s no putting the paste back in the tube now…I know this, I’ve tried…

Since the 1950’s blond headed women has always been faddish among certain segments of the population, that blond was danced with, that blond was dated in High School, as some sort of head trophy to be hung on the belts of some men. Last night I saw two separate television commercials starring dark haired women, and it looked like someone didn’t get that marketing memo, anyway, it was like a breath of fresh air had just blown across my television screen, but it only lasted thirty seconds each…as it would later turn out, they were two women of color dressed in dark synthetic hair…

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
”The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy is a 2010 non-fiction book written by The New York Times media reporter Bill Carter. It chronicles the 2010 conflict surrounding the American late-night talk show The Tonight Show involving Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno. It is a sequel to Carter’s 1994 book The Late Shift, which detailed the struggle for the hosting spot on The Tonight Show between David Letterman and Jay Leno in the early 1990s following the retirement of Johnny Carson. It was first published on November 4, 2010, by Viking Press.”

New this season on NBC: Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, the premiere of which I watched, having been drawn by its unique concept for a sitcom. I may be wrong, the cast of Zoey’s employed a cast of hundreds, I tried to come away with the number of gray haired cast members, only could find one, I then concluded why, the election of the 45th president of the U.S., since his election the number of heads of gray has almost disappeared from the television air ways. On your own you proberbly can find many situations, were a little displayed gray hair would seem logical, but will be totally absent from view. In old clips of the Tonight Show, starring Johnny Carson, during his tenure hosting he was allowed to gray in place, as most of today’s televison hosts are not, even among today’s game show hosts. “A fish rots from the head down”, is my explanation for the proliferation of the absence of the gray haired among televison journalists or anyone for that matter directly involved, even marginally appearing on television. Another NBC program, not to signal out only NBC, its Law & Order series, it has to be noted has a lead actress, along with most of its current cast, appearing in its twenty-first season some has never appeared gray haired, and by the way has nothing to do with this president, I’m just referencing the lack of the gray haired culture here. Its now fashionable for any and every-one, of all ethnicities that has historically never shown any blond hair traits to appear as blond dye heads, seemingly able to get away with it, even the elderly desiring to be current in appearance. Did you ever think you’d be able to see televison hosts over fifty, or news anchors, seventy or older without exhibiting any gray hair? Or a seventy something American President, hair sprayed, blond hair dyed, with orange tinted skin running for re-election under impeachment, scared to appear in wet rainy weather haunted by the fear of provoking an appearance of smeared make-up and drooping hair.

I’ll leave you with these thoughts, on television it seems preferable to appear young and ‘odd looking’ instead of elderly and natural in reality. To put it another way, it took a long time for us to adjust to the preference of the fake over the real thing, ending with preferring it with acceptance, giving in to the struggle, which is where most of us are right now, I know, we just can’t help ourselves, are the victims and slaves to this culture of youth over age, I don’t mind pardoning you now as you disappear to go dye your hair again, only come back soon to some semblance of reality and real life.
Suggested reading; The War Over Going Gray by Anne Kreamer, an American journalist…whom has written a few books on the subject…

When asked how they became a working journalist, some replied that they sort of just stumbled into it, in high school the English department offered a way for some students to get extra credit if they joined and wrote for the school newsletter, later the school newspaper, some got hooked on journalism right away, then on into college, others didn’t, some went on to write fiction and books of many stripes on many subjects. Its those students that got hooked that went on to write for their local newspapers, or local radio stations, with an eye for the big time, a New York City paper like the New York Times, failing that, writing television news copy, maybe becoming an on-air reporter or anchor. Soon learning, that to be employed on-air, one must be extremely attractive, blond hair dyed or darning a straight-haired wig, however, can still write copy but from the back office off stage newsroom for the on-air attractive personnel. I have this notion that if the curtain could be pulled back, one could find the writers newsroom filled with fat balding men and unattractive women not pleasing enough in appearance to represent the station’s news department on television. About those attractive on-air news personnel, they can occasionally write news copy enough to get by in a pinch, but it’s not their strong suit, as much as their appearance is. I don’t want to say that all those young-looking morning female news anchors and reporters are airheads, but if I did, few would have grounds to dispute it. Local stations seemingly are so proud of their appearance they are not shy about parading them about in news program promos, displaying their images on the sides of busses and trucks, as if to say, look at how young and attractive our news team personnel are, and not once boast about the many degrees in journalism that are held by their young on-air talent, if any.