I would like to bring your attention to a Dave Petzal column over at Field and Stream

In the Presence of Death

One of the things I talked about on this season’s Gun Nuts is an (apparently) common ritual on many of the TV hunting shows. When hunter and guide (or whoever) walk up on some poor dead beast the likes of which you and I will never see, and which they have killed inside of 26 minutes, they exchange High Fives and a hearty “Yay, Hah”, like one of them just rode the late Bodacious for 8 seconds and lived to tell about it.

Now call me old, mean, and cranky, but I think this shows about the same attitude toward animals as the kids who think that meat comes from the supermarket wrapped in cellophane. It does not. It comes from an animal who spent its last moments alive bawling in terror in a slaughterhouse.

If you are one of the High Five set, a reminder: The animal at your feet over which you exchange hand slaps is not there voluntarily. It spent its last day on earth hoping at whatever level animals hope that it would live another day. Given a choice, it would not have given up its life to make you joyful.

Other, very diverse, hunting cultures do not slap hands and yodel. I’ve seen Bakwena tribesmen in Botswana throw a handful of sand on the hooves of a departed beast and murmur a prayer thanking it for the gift of its life. In Germany, at the end of a hunt, there is an elaborate torchlight ceremony in which the day’s bag is laid out in rows, and honored en masse.

I have nothing against a handshake and a “Good shot,” or something like that, but it should be tempered by the realization that being alive is something of a miracle and that death is the opposite of a miracle.

In other words, show a little respect.

Grandpa used to say “Don’t kick a three-legged dog for running slow.”

I think when we’re watching all this fist-pumping and high-fiving and we get caught up with the goofy attempts to inject competition into the experience and all the merchandising we are trying to judge these shows based on our own hunting experience. If you realize that these poor goobers are trying to make hunting a glitzy sport, then maybe you can have some sympathy.

Hmmmmm. Let’s take NASCAR kind of people watching and WWE kind of people producing and try and add in the excitement of The Shopping Channel, the bright personalities of The Weather Channel and the team identification of Roller Derby, and have people dressed in camo dancing around a dead deer– what’s not to like?

I remember one summer I dropped by my folks’ house one evening and found Mom and Dad watching the Spanish-language shopping channel. I was aghast.

“Murder she Wrote is a repeat.” replied Mom. “I told your father it was his choice. I shouldn’t have, I know.”

There was my Dad, glued to the screen, watching extremely cute women sell perfume and jewelry in a language none of us understood. I tried to suggest things. Baseball? A movie? Finally I found myself drawn to the dark-haired women on the screen and it was a good 20 minutes before I could tear myself away. I think there’s a connection there, somewhere.  I just thought I’d throw it in.

Oh yes, back to the subject.The thing that keeps popping into my head (beyond beautiful Latin women) is how trite these hunting shows are.  Look, let’s get something straight from the get-go: Hunting as a spectator sport is right up there with watching paint dry. The only way these shows exist is by injecting hype into the program. It is a cultural wasteland. It may or may not have been back in the days of American Sportsman. However, things have gone swirling down the bowl since then.

I am forever running into people that think the shows are real. They get really bent out of shape when you start to burst the bubble, by explaining what it is really like. To these people, I sound like a poser, a failure, a goof. Why? Well, first off, I don’t have the latest bow. I don’t even archery hunt anymore, because my shoulder went. Yes, I’ve killed some pretty serious deer in my time, but I’ve also had tag soup in recent memory. I can make an endless list. Truth is, by the standards set by TV, I’m a very mediocre deer hunter.

If your idol is someone like Ted or Tiffany, you probably cannot figure out where my head is at. Frankly, I have had a hard time figuring out where theirs is. When “Bone Collector” appeared on the cultural radar a few years ago, it took me a while to catch on what they were talking about. Also a few years ago, I was on a forum with the co-host of one of the then-current shows. In a very few exchanges this guy was absolutely livid at the treatment he was getting. Finally he launched into this bodacious swan-song flame-orama and disappeared. His point was that little people like me just did not understand the effort it takes to make a entertaining show. I’ll never forget one part of the diatribe where he lauded guys like the Drurys and Mark and Tiffany who “strap it on every morning.”

I never did get an answer about what exactly it was Tiffany was strapping on and whether or not it was going to be available to the general public. The idea still haunts me.

I’ve wandered a bit here, but here you have a genre of TV show that developed in the Sunday afternoon wasteland, that also saw the genesis of the the three-hour infomercial. Is it any wonder that anything it touches (deer, bass, African game) gets swallowed into the same goo? Big antlers are hawked like air curlers . Is the Popeil pocket hunter that far behind? And if you are going to fake orgasms over a rotisserie in front of a live studio audience, is it that far out to fake orgasms over dead deer?

Me? I wish we could take this thing all the way. Why not a show “Outdoors with Vince Schlomi.” “Ron Popeil’s Hunting Adventures.” We could stuff Billy Mays and drag him around in a camo tuxedo with co-host Larry Weishun, showing how TC products really are the choice of 9 out of 10 infomercial huxters .

Along the way, these guys can pull out their Sham-wow to clean up the gore from gutting the deer with Ginsu knives, and have live inserts with the chicks from QVC shooting real deer in the studio and then running them through a Vegomatic to make delicious Julienne deer jerky. And I’m still waiting for that strap-on that Tiffany puts on every day. Now THAT would be something worth watching between the Super Bowl and when Turkey Season starts.

I’m just saying.

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