I’m obsessed with Rod Blagojevich. Guilty as charged.
My adoration began when I wrote about Blagojevich (henceforth to be called Rod) for NBN and my Broadcast Writing professor forced me to watch an inordinate amount of local broadcast news. With each new update on the impeachment proceedings, I fell a little bit more in love with that mass of over-gelled hair and that horribly goofy grin. With each new sound bite of his faulty but impassioned reasoning, a sense of glee rushed over me. I could not stop laughing.
In case you haven’t noticed it yet, Rod is hilarious. He’s completely foolish and he doesn’t even know it. He’s a quasi-politician turned village idiot whom we can all find joy in laughing at. I found myself actually enjoying watching local broadcast news. Last time I turned on the TV, Rod was shown walking aimlessly on a sidewalk in Chicago as if he were lost. (Um, don’t you live in this city? LOL.) The fact that soon he would leave the airwaves and return to the boring, unpublicized life of regular civilians saddened me a little bit. Then it hit me — Blagojevich should have his own reality television show.
Imagine my joy when I heard that Rod had actually been offered a job in reality! According to politics and pop culture blog La Figa, the creator of VH1’s Shooting Sizemore and Showtime’s I Can’t Believe I’m Still Single, Terence Michael, wants Rod “to call [him] ASAP” about starring in his own reality series.
My visions of Rod’s shift into the entertainment industry may actually come true. The impending transition should not be too difficult for him. The media has already made references about his similarities to people in reality television. Time magazine even dedicated an entire article to the correlation. Plus, the salary should be inviting for a fallen politico such as himself: With the possibility of his pension being denied, money could be an issue. Rod is bound to make more in television than in his first post-impeachment gig as a pizza deliveryman.
This show would probably air on VH1 or Bravo and be rerun regularly on Sunday afternoons. Cameramen would follow Rod around as he tried to regain footing in the world. Now that he’s been banned in Illinois, is he going to pursue politics in a small town in the middle of Kansas? Or will he go into the business sector, perhaps starting his own clothing line, or better yet, hair product? How has his relationship with wife Patti been affected by all this? I bet they’d even have an episode or two featuring Rod facing the pain of trying to reconnect with his father-in-law. (“Hey Dad, how’s it going?” “Well Rod, remember that time I basically launched your political career and you ended up being an anchor of idiocy who brought down my princess’s reputation? Yeah, I’m still not over that.”) All ordinary life situations would be infinitely more interesting simply because of Rod’s involvement. Example: Rod learning to pay bills with money instead of favors. Rod at a PTA meeting trying to engage other parents’ in shady playdate deals. The list goes on.
Yes. I can already imagine it: Rod talking into a camera, explaining his ridiculous actions as if he were acting under a perfectly respectable mindset. Only now, he won’t be ruining the lives of ordinary Illinois citizens, just the select ones who choose to get involved with him. Everybody would love to hate this show. It’d be like I Love New York or The Simple Life, where at first you thought “How is it possible that my brain cells are dying so quickly even though I’m completely sober?” but 72 minutes later, you found yourself cursing the day Megavideo limited free video watch time. (Seriously, it sucks.)
The Rod Show will be awesome in so, so many ways. Next will come the Rod Blagojevich segment of The Fabulous Life Of…and guest roles on How I Met Your Mother. But maybe the best part is the image of our embattled former governor walking down the red carpet with Janice Dickinson on one arm, Brody Jenner on the other. Rod Blagojevich: From a superstar in his own head as a politician to a superstar in his own head as an entertainer.