Dear Chris Harrison:
Before yesterday, I had no idea you existed. That probably has something to do with my insistence on reality. I’m weird like that. When it comes to TV, I’d rather watch a documentary about the mating habits of beavers than watch a pretend bride-to-be choose a pretend husband-to-be for a sham marriage that doesn’t last to the start of the show’s next season, when the process is repeated.
Did you know beavers mate for life, Chris? And they co-parent their offspring. I find that fascinating. TV taught me that. Not your kind of TV. The good kind. The kind that makes people think.
Which leads me to your tweet last night at 8:16 p.m. ET. You seemed upset that the ABC affiliate in Indianapolis, WRTV-6, pre-empted the season opener of “The Bachelorette” that you host to show the Indianapolis 500 Victory Celebration. This is a custom in the Indianapolis market. It just so happens that the ABC affiliate in Indianapolis secured the contract to televise the banquet this year, meaning your show wouldn’t be seen live. It wouldn’t be seen in the Indy market until (gasp!) 3 p.m. Tuesday.
So you tweeted this:
You weren’t the subject I had planned for this column, Chris. Instead, I was going to write something about Will Power and his brother Damien. You see, Will won the 102nd Indianapolis 500 presented by PennGrade Motor Oil on Sunday, broadcast live on your network. He’s one of the best racers of his era, he’s a good person, and he finally accomplished his ultimate goal.
While he was accomplishing that goal, his brother – a popular stand-up comic in Australia who really should be just as popular in the U.S. – was tweeting hilariously from Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Some of those tweets involved his middle finger, a reference to something his brother probably wishes would go away.
In 2011, after spinning out in a race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway that was restarted in the rain, Will Power was caught on camera sending a glorious twin-finger gesture in the direction of INDYCAR Race Control. Damien turned it into a comedy bit, going as far as interviewing then-Race Director Brian Barnhart while wearing a T-shirt featuring an image of his brother’s double bird.
So this column was going to be something about how two brothers reached the top in two different yet similar professions. Both are performers. Damien has sold out nearly every major venue in Australia, appeared on every major talk show. Will has won a championship and the sport’s biggest race. Both professions require enormous preparation. Both require bravery. Both can lead to enormous success and enormous failure.
“I look at how much homework he has to do and how much studying and working and writing, and how many shows he has to do before he puts a whole show together to see how different jokes work and how people react,” Will said of his brother Monday morning. “The best comedians in the world are the guys with a lot of experience who work hard at it and write a whole new hour every year. That’s what he does now. … It’s very similar (to racing). It’s like any line of work or sport, it’s the guys who work harder than anyone else who end up at the top.”
That’s what I was going to write before you came along, Chris. Two brothers who clearly admire and love each other. Damien’s routines often include references to Will – to his name, his racing success and to that unfortunate timing in New Hampshire seven years ago. At one point during Sunday’s race, Damien tweeted a photo of his middle finger with a banner of his brother in the background. “Yes!” he wrote. “Will now in third keep it up bro!!”
But then your tweet dropped, Chris, and hilarity commenced in the responses. Did you see this one?
Or this one?
And there were hundreds more like those. Many respondents wrote that they would be calling WRTV to thank the station for broadcasting the victory celebration instead.
What you clearly don’t understand about Indianapolis, Chris, is the amount of pride its citizens have in a race that carries the city’s name. It is the one thing that makes the city globally famous. Even Naptowners who don’t care for racing -- if they exist -- understand the impact.
Civic pride in Indianapolis about the Indy 500 abounds to the point that people want to watch drivers give speeches about the race. They’d certainly rather watch that than another round of pretend relationships and phony choosing-a-mate-for-a-few-weeks nonsense. Beavers are better at this, Chris. Arguably smarter, too.
There’s a contribution to society involved in what happens every May in Indianapolis. It might not look like it from afar, but inside the I-465 beltway, it’s impossible to miss. There’s also a contribution from coverage of an awards show celebrating the race and its drivers. People in the Indianapolis market get into it. They appreciate it.
It’s their reality. Let them enjoy it for one night.
Sincerely,
-- A guy who didn’t know you existed until 8:16 last night