Word: telethon
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...town weekly Here Is Ranchos, said that "everyone knows when the families receive letters or a postcard." Fund raising for the war effort in Ranchos was proceeding welL The local rural agricultural society had collected more than $200,000; a local radio station held a 48-hour telethon two weeks ago and raised $36,000. According to Riva, the town's patriotism "has never been higher, but there is increasing anxiety that war may affect this haven of peace in ways none dare predict." Father Fidencio Gago, the parish priest, was holding a special Mass every evening, leading the community...
...world's only professional introducer, welcomes the next guest. All the approved minor vices are there--Anheuser-Busch, the roller skater rink operators with nubile figure skaters in tow), and even the president of Harley-Davidson, which sells choppers. And, of course, there's McDonalds, ten years a telethon sponsor, with its well-scrubbed crew members presenting checks. "From our employees and customers in the Tallahassee district...$87,897," they intone, these people who must have fried or shaked or made change better than any of their peers, and certainly never grumbled about cleaning up, or had to wear...
...hour extravaganza. Damn, they'd like to go to a real old-fashioned store, where people knew you and the food was good. But there aren't many of those in Lynn anymore; they've been driven out by the Seven-Elevens and the Hickory Farms--both big telethon friends--where you can find: dirty magazines in a rack by the window; a few objectionable apples; milk and bread; a bored high school kid behind the counter; and lots and lots of cigarettes and diet soda. And people have to pretend to love it, because there isn't any choice...
...habits and virtues and petty vices. If only everyone looked like them, and spent their time like them and ate and shopped where they did and listened to their records, then everything would be all right. And everything was almost all right anyway. The only people who criticize the telethon and all it stands for are "the people who can't understand the joy we're sharing," Lewis says. If only everyone liked Wayne Newton...
...here comes Wayne again; not only did he get to open the show, he'll get to close it too. He tells a short story about a girl named Jenny who died, he sings "New York, New York." And then, as the telethon is about to end, as the tote boards is making its last few revolutions, he wraps it all up, the tackiness and the communal feeling, the emptiness and the hope. He's sweating again, scarf round his neck, but now no clowning. First he sings "Dixie," agonizingly slowly, and then it segues into "America the Beautiful...