My current home of Cedar City was on two channels in prime time (simultaneously in much of the country) Friday night.
The main thing was the episode of the reality show Three Wishes which NBC premiered. The show was filmed here in August.
The surprise was my neighbor Paul Fice showing up on Hannity and Colmes. Paul and his wife were some of the first people to come over and say hello when we moved into the neighborhood.
Click the link for more details on both.
Three Wishes is hosted by Amy Grant, and it comes to a small town somewhere, solicits for wishes, grants three, throws a big concert, and then bugs out.
It sounds cheesy, but it actually is pretty straightforward and somewhat like a news magazine show. They push some emotional buttons, but not too many - I'd never seen the show before, and for what it was, I thought it was pretty dignified.
Of course, it helps to have a scenic location. It's been hard to convince all our friends and acquaintances from around the world that it really looks like that all the time here, but it does. And yes, it is constantly sunny, there are always cotton ball clouds in August, and those big red cliffs are four blocks off of Main St.
So, what wishes did they grant? One was for a recently married woman who was blinded by bacterial meningitis. They hooked her up with a bunch of outdoor activities for the blind, and then built a small park for her daughter close to her home. Another was for a girl who was saved by firefighters. She wanted to try being a firefighter and give something back to the fire department. The third was that there is a charity here called The Happy Factory that makes wooden toys by hand for kids around the world. They sent the "owners" to see some of their toys being distributed in the developing world.
Lastly, no we didn't go to the wish tent or the concert. The vXspouse hates button-pushing, and wanted no part of the experience. I was a bit intrigued, but I didn't push too hard, and their tent was closed down before I realized it. I am glad we avoided the concert - they don't tell you on TV that they were 2 hours late in getting started.
Paul Fice had the misfortune of being an amateur radio host who misfired on a joke. Paul is retired and has been working at a local radio station. Lately he has been hosting a call-in show that is a sort of swap meet. He lightens the tone with jokes. When a caller offered a Mexican roping saddle, Paul shot back that he wondered if you could rope Mexicans with it. Someone complained, and Paul was summarily fired by (new) owners who he had yet to meet.
Obviously, it wasn't the best thing to say. Like most employees, I'm sure Paul's job/hobby was at-will. Hannity and Colmes had him on for a discussion of whether this was an overreaction. The tone of both hosts and Paul was that this seems to be a case where the owners should have asked for an apology, since there was no precedent. For his part, Paul - who was probably on TV for the first time - looked like he was going to hurl.
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