{"id":5277,"date":"2019-08-26T00:23:41","date_gmt":"2019-08-26T07:23:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=5277"},"modified":"2019-08-26T00:23:41","modified_gmt":"2019-08-26T07:23:41","slug":"dancing-with-nobodies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2019\/08\/26\/dancing-with-nobodies\/","title":{"rendered":"Dancing with Nobodies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another year, another season of Dancing with the Stars<\/em><\/strong>.  As in recent years, the term \u201cstars\u201d is being used loosely.  I certainly consider James Van Der Beek<\/strong>, Christie Brinkley <\/strong>and Mary Wilson <\/strong>stars.  And I suppose one or two of the others are notables in their fields.  But the bulk of the lineup is what I like to refer to as a \u201cbunch of nobodies\u201d.  One name is getting lots of attention \u2013 former White House press secretary Sean Spicer<\/strong>.  Political figures are nothing new to DWTS<\/em>.  But this one has drawn the ire of an unlikely person \u2013 host Tom Bergeron<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It is unusual for Bergeron to voice an opinion about a contestant, and unheard of for him to criticize his own network.  But Tom did both.  In a lengthy statement, while acknowledging that he has no say in the show\u2019s casting, he discussed a lunch meeting he had with the executive producer regarding the direction of the show.  He hoped that DWTS <\/em>\u201cwould be a joyful respite from our exhausting political climate and free of inevitably divisive bookings from ANY political affiliations.  I left that lunch convinced we were in agreement.  Subsequently (and rather obviously), a decision was made to, as we often say in Hollywood, \u2018go in a different direction.\u2019\u201d  <\/p>\n

While Bergeron didn\u2019t name anyone specifically, it\u2019s clear what he meant by \u201cdivisive bookings from ANY political affiliation.\u201d  Spicer took the bait and responded via The Blast<\/em>: \u201cTom has been a great host to this show for 28 seasons.  I actually think that this show is a great opportunity to be an example, how we can have better dialogue and respectfully learn from each other.  I would hope by the end of the show Tom looks at this as more of an opportunity to help reach the divide that exists right now.\u201d  I wouldn\u2019t hold my breath.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another year, another season of Dancing with the Stars.  As in recent years, the term \u201cstars\u201d is being used loosely.  I certainly consider James Van Der Beek, Christie Brinkley and Mary Wilson stars.  And I suppose one or two of the others are notables in their fields.  But the bulk of the lineup is what I like to refer to as<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5277"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5286,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5277\/revisions\/5286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}