European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - March 15, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse Testing your culture plus your staying Power How cultured Are you use the easy and foolproof Joe Bob Briggs culture test to find out. This is so easy there a Only one question to answer. The question is a can you sit through an entire performance 1. Frank Sinatra 75th anniversary tour show including the Regis Philbin warm up act. If this is As far As you can go you Are somewhat cultured. But can you sit through. 2. A two hour pcs special on Bluegrass bands from West Virginia including the part where they talk about their relatives and Robert Klein comes out and explains a the historical significance of native american if so you Are moderately cultured. But can you sit through. 3. The Road company of Les miserable performing at the san Jose civic Center. Now you re getting into some serious cultural obstacles. Most people can to handle this one but those who can Are extremely cultured. But there Are Many More Levels to pass through. For example 4. Guys named Yudi or Yuri or Fiesole who play the violin at Carnegie Hall. They re Only a Little easier to listen to than. 5. Guys named Viktor and Brech Tov and Vlasic Mycek who play the cello at Lincoln Center. Finally we All know what it takes to be really and truly cultural in America. Do you have what it takes can you sit through it can you Hack it in a speaking of course of Garrison Keillor. The Man is on the lecture circuit again. If he Dies before he gets to Texas i did no to do it. Really. I would never do that. Really. Speaking of real american culture though in a always a sucker for a vegas movie and deadly bet is the first one in be seen that actually makes vegas Leazier than it really is. Jeff Wincott is a gambling addict who spends about 80 percent of the movie either getting drunk getting the be jabber beat out of him beating the be jabber out of somebody else or begging Charlene Tilton to take him Back even though he owes thousands of dollars to mobsters and loan Sharks and he spends All Day beating up deadbeats and All night losing More Money and getting roughed up in the kickboxing ring. Four dead bodies. No breasts. Twenty two chop Socky scenes with head Butts strangling neck cracking nunchuck plenty of blood. Baseball Bat to the head. Beer bottle to the face. Great Rocky Ripoff sequence with lame Folk song about a a heroes where Jeff Wincott gets himself in shape for the big bout. Gratuitous lounge Lizard song called eight to five i lose. Kung fun. Jujitsu. Full Contact karate. Charlene Tilton fun. Drive in Academy award nominations for Michael Delano As the sle Zeball loan shark for saying a a you re All a Bunch of muscle building fags a you ainu to nothing to me kids Wincott for having about 50 Kung fun fights in one movie and for saying a one week and i am leaving this stinking town forever Tilton for wearing a lot of strapless dresses and saying a i like Rico a he a Good to me Sherrie Rose As Tilton a Best Friend for saying a a you re a drunk and a degenerate and Mike Toney As the fat Goon for saying a hike to Hurt people a i like to make them three stars. Joe Bob says Check it fit Jeff Wincott and Charlene Tilton in deadly be Joe bobs advice to the hopeless communist Alert the Concession stand and projection Booth of Vallejo Auto movies on Benicia Road in Vallejo Calif., located Between three cemeteries was gutted by a suspicious fire. It was already up for Sale allegedly because one of the screens fell Down. This shows you what negative thinking can do because two screens Are still standing Kevin Dill and Bret Grandrath both of Vallejo remind us that without eternal vigilance it can happen Here. Dear Joe Bob i read your column on the Porky pig Brouhaha which i took As a personal attack against me and the organization i represent the National stuttering project. In your fantasy dreams you forgot to include the reason Why Porky stutters. He May have been traumatic ally abandoned by his Mother at birth. For All i know he May be the illegitimate son of miss Piggy. Or maybe he began to stutter when he found out his Mother was miss Piggy. Who knows your column of fantasy is actually an attack on the worlds largest and most respected support organization for persons who stutter the san Francisco based National stuttering project Asp. This year our National convention was in your Home town of Dallas. But you did not attend because probably you have never met a person who stutters and did not even have the integrity to Call our organization to Check out your facts which Are mostly untrue before attacking us in print. Ira Zimmerman advocacy committee chairperson san Juan Capistrano Calif. Dear Ira lemme put it this Way. In a a texan. In a a texan who has a funny accent. Do you know How Many thousands of texans with funny accents have been in the movies a whole Heck of a lot of pm portrayed As dumb bigoted violent or just Plain old psycho i did not form an organization of texans who talk funny. You know Why i understand the difference Between movies and real life. Six year old kids do too. They understand that the movie is up on the screen and real life is Down in the theater sitting right next to Mem. Screen real life screen real life. They never get mixed up. Only adults get mixed up. Lemme ask you this too. Do you think that nobody in the movies should Ever be portrayed As a psycho a violent person a Weirdo because if the character is in the movie he a Gonna be a member of some group. He a Gonna be a stutterer or a southerner or a Chicano or something. Or do you think All weird psychos in the movies should Wear hoods Over their faces so we can to Tell what they Are its a cartoon Ira. Its just a cartoon. It does no to mean anybody hates stutterers. Creators Syndicate to discuss the meaning of life with Joe Bob or to get free junk in the mail and Joe Bob s world famous we Are the weird newsletter write Joe Bob Briggs . Box 2002, Dallas to 75221. Joe Bob s fax line is always open 214 368-2310television news you better believe the camera blinks Linda Ellerbee the Nice thing about being a reporter is that people pay you Cash to learn things. School was never like that. Lately because in be been working on a series of to programs for kids in be been learning a lot about kids and television and what in be Learned is both interesting and scary. Frankly i had no idea just How much television kids do watch How Little they know about it and How dangerous that can be. Most 5-Ycar Olds come to school with Well Over 1,500 hours of television under their belts. It does no to Stop there. Every available statistic shows us that kids growing up today will spend far More time in front of their to sets than in their classrooms. In other words television will be their most important teacher. Yet most parents answer to the television problem is censorship done to watch that. Its no Good. Turn off the television and go play with something. Turn that thing Down. Done to you have any Homework to do did no to i Tell you not to watch that they mean Well although Many of them arc the same people who invariably say a me watch television certainly not. In a a much better human being than that can to you Tell a very often these same people can also Tell you exactly what happened on the final episode of thirty something. It must have come to them in a dream or something. The Point is people do watch television grownups and especially kids. That being the Case its no longer enough to teach our children to read and write. We must teach them to be Media literate to read television if you will a and to understand it. Media literacy is different from censorship. Rather than being protected from overexposure to mass Media children and adults alike must become As familiar As possible with the communication technologies that surround them. Children must be taught How television is made techniques that arc used and the effect of these techniques. Kids need to understand the nature of television. Most of All they need to be taught they Are smarter than their to. A child needs to know that television and reality Are not the same that real life problems Are not solved in 30 minutes that houses do not automatically clean themselves that in the workplace actual work takes place. When was the last time you saw people on a television sitcom really work at their Job and not just stand around talking and on sitcoms parents always have All the time in the world for their kids have you noticed real life is not like that either As much As we May wish it were. We need to teach kids about commercials. What Are they really Selling there toothpaste or popularity what Are they saying to you if you done to use this product you wont be Complete we need to teach kids the economics of television. Remember the product is not the program. The product is the audience. The program is merely the vehicle to bring the audience to the advertiser. Television is not there for your enjoyment. Television is there for profit. We need to teach them about the news. Stop telling your kid the camera does no to lie. In be worked close to 25 years in television and in a Here to Tell you that nothing in the world lies As easily As a camera. It All depends where you Point it. Kids need to know this stuff. King features in March 15, 1992 sunday a Page 17
