We, the People

Dang. I need to write faster. You guys are getting way ahead of me in CommentLand. It doesn’t help that you make interesting remarks which compel me to Look Things Up on the Internets. I keep telling myself that every blog entry doesn’t have to be a mini-research project.

After orinenglish commented “I agree with you: What’s so great about being in mainstream America?” I got to thinking “What makes up Mainstream America?” and “What is the typical American?” So I spent some time wandering around the Internets wading through numbers and here’s what I found:

We’re white Christians with a high school diploma and some college. We are married and live in a city with our two kids and a cat. We’re in debt up to our eyeballs. We vote, sometimes. We watch “American Idol.” We like football and beer. We are fat.

Race – 2005 data

• White (includes European American, North African American, Middle Eastern American (Arab Americans), Central Asian American, Hispanic American) 74.7% , 215.3 million
• Black or African American – 12.2%, 34.9M
• Asian American – 4.3%, 12.5M
• American Indian – 0.8%, 2.4M
• Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander – 0.1%, 0.4M
• Two or more races – 1.9%, 5.6M
• Other – 6%, 17.3M

Religion – 2001 data

• Christian – 79.8%
• Other – 5.2%
• None/Agnostic – 15%

Years of education – 2005 data

• 84.6% High school diploma or higher
• 52.5% Some college or higher
• 27.2% Bachelors or higher
• 8.9% Masters or higher
• 0.3% Doctorate or prof degree

Urban/Rural – 2000 data

• 79% urban
• 21% rural

Marital status – 2005 data

• 53.4% married – Population 15 years and over

Children per Family – 2000 data

• 1.86 Own children under 18, Average per family with children

Dog/Cat

• “In the 1980s, cats surpassed dogs as the most popular pet in America.”
• Here kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty ….

Average SAT or ACT score
SAT – 2005 data

• Verbal – male 513, female 505
• Math – male 538, female 504

ACT – 2004 data

• Average composite score 20.9
• Average English score 20.4
• Average Math score 20.7
• Average Reading score 21.3
• Average Science score 20.9

Voting – Turnout of voting age population

• 2004 55.3%
• 2002 37%

Income – 2006 data – Average income

• All households $46,326
• Households with two income earners $67,348

Typical American Family

“Meet the typical American family. It has about $3,800 in the bank. No one has a retirement account, and the neighbors who do only have about $35,000 in theirs. Mutual funds? Stocks? Bonds? Nope. The house is worth $160,000, but the family owes $95,000 on it to the bank. The breadwinners make more than $43,000 a year but can’t manage to pay off a $2,200 credit card balance.”

TV Shows
Top 10 TV shows 2006:
1 American Idol-Tuesday FOX
2 American Idol-Wednesday FOX
3 Dancing With The Stars ABC
4 CSI CBS
5 Dancing W/Stars Results ABC
6 NBC Sunday Night Football NBC
7 CSI: Miami CBS
8 Desperate Housewives ABC
9 House FOX
10 Deal Or No Deal-Mon NBC
10 Without A Trace CBS

Nielsen ratings, 22-28 January 2007
1. American Idol (Wed) Fox
2. American Idol (Tues) Fox
3. Grey’s Anatomy ABC
4. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation CBS
5. CSI: Miami CBS
6. Deal or No Deal NBC
7. Two and a Half Men CBS
8. Cold Case CBS
9. Heroes NBC
10. NCIS CBS
11. The Valley of Light CBS
12. 24 Fox
13. 60 Minutes CBS
14. Shark CBS
15. CSI: NY CBS
16. New Adventures of Old Christine CBS
17. CSI: Miami (Thurs) CBS
18. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition ABC
19. Men in Trees ABC
20. America’s Funniest Home Videos ABC

Sports
2005 Harris poll – Favorite Sport:

• Pro football
• Baseball
• College football
• Auto racing

Profitability, I think, also reflects a sport’s popularity:

• NFL – 2006 data – Average team worth $898M
• MLB – 2006 data – Average team worth $376M
• NBA – 2007 data – Average team worth $353M

Food
Beer: “In 2000, Americans consumed an average of 27.1 gallons of beer per capita.”

Heft
Body Mass Index:

• 28 (2002 data)

BMI ranges:
Less than 18.5 – Underweight
18.6 to 24.9 – Recommended
25.0 to 29.9 – Overweight
30 or greater – Obese

Remote Control

orinenglish on No More Vacations for Dan Patrick. And Don’t Get Sick, Either:

I, too, suspect that KO deliberately chooses to skip his radio stint when Kuselias is on because he can’t stand him either.

I’m thinking that he has it written in his contract that if DP’s not on then he has a Go/No go option.

While I’m not a sports nut and lack the utter devotion to baseball that you so obviously have, I’d say that for an XX person I follow sports and enjoy them more than many. What I have found is that listening to ESPN Radio when Dan Patrick isn’t on The Dan Patrick Show is like landing on a planet I want no part of.

Dan may have a ways to go in terms of enlightenment, but you always get the feeling he’s trying. Either that, or nearly 20 years of marriage combined with being the father of daughters has mellowed him out. As a result, he comes off as the least sexist man of the ESPN Radio “regulars.” The younger guys who are a little greener and tend to be more in awe of a guy like KO when he deigns to share an hour with them are also usually pleasant to listen to. And the women? Just to be accepted into the He-Man Woman-Hater’s Club that is ESPN, they have to be pretty feminist, pretty tough and pretty special. ESPN doesn’t make the mistake of hiring brainless eye candy to attempt to appeal to male audiences–they let ABC do that.

I enjoy DP’s Dad perspective on things. His youngest daughter sounds like a real hellion. She reminds me of me when I was a kid — but she’s more of a Stewie Griffin than I ever was. ESPN’s demographic skews young, and I hope Dan doesn’t age out of his radio gig. I enjoyed his chats with Archie Manning and Joe Montana last week and how they commiserated on how hard it is to watch your kids play sports. (Did you see the Indy-Giants game earlier this season? Peyton vs. Eli. Poor Archie and his wife, Olivia, looked like the most unhappiest parents on earth with their boys playing against each other.)

Colin Cowherd’s producer is female and I enjoy it when he and Amanda engage in banter. (The Herd precedes Dan’s show on many ESPN stations.) Colin can be loud and obnoxious, but I’ve grown to like him. He will dish it out on male-female issues — from the male perspective, of course — but Amanda will give it right back to him. Like DP, he’ll admit to being a dope or saying dopey things, and I give them props for that. It seems like he’s been more willing to get into discussion on social issues lately. He was very passionate about Nick Saban’s racist comments on Cajuns this past week, and some of his remarks have made me look at racist speech in a different way.

It’s the older guys, the grizzled veterans, who have been around ESPN forever and feel as if they own the place who tend to talk the loudest and make the most idiotic blanket statements when doing it, especially when it comes to women. They do more talking about “hot chicks” than anyone else and are the quickest to do things like ridicule things they think only “chicks” like, to do the wink-wink-nudge-nudge thing in general and (and this is really annoying) discount and put down women’s sports. (Can’t remember now who it was on another day during DP’s vacation, but someone was going off on how ridiculous it was for Tiger Woods to be named Sportsman of the Year because golf isn’t athletically demanding enough, and as an aside saying that the Sportswoman of the Year should always be a tennis player because “tennis is the only physically demanding sport women play” or some such nonsense.) Yes indeed, that’s a jaw-dropping, incensing moment for me.

Grizzled veterans like Chris “You’re with me, Leather” Berman?

It could be that the older guys are living in the past and trying to keep hold of their “glory days.” The younger guys might be secure enough to engage in Guy Talk without going over the top. I don’t get too awfully offended when people make what I think are stupid statements. I generally cut people a lot of slack. Still, I can’t help but keep a mental scorecard. After too many stupid statements or stupid acts that person loses credibility.

As far as the banter on “hot chicks” goes, remember ESPN demographic; it’s about 80% male to 20% female. Their announcers are preaching to the choir when they refer to babes, chicks, Hooters, and the latest surveys on FHM, Maxim, etc. regarding the hottest babes and the hottest chicks. Offending their female audience isn’t something that worries ESPN.

And in the Department of Sex Sells: You should see some of the ads that run in ESPN Magazine.

I too was entertained by the “what is worse: To get spat upon or to get kneed in the groin” debate. I’d think from what I have heard that the knee to the groin is much worse because it involves actual pain to what I understand is a quite sensitive part of the male anatomy, but then what do I know? I was amazed that so many men thought that getting spat on was worse because it was an insult to One’s Honor!!!!

I have a pretty high threshold for pain. The thing that gets me about spit is the Yuck Factor. I think I’d rather take the hit than get the spit.

And Kuselias’ advice on television viewing? In this era of under-$100 TVs, here’s how I see it. Have enough sets that everyone can watch whatever they want. If a guy insists on watching TV with his girlfriend/wife even if he hates the show she wants to watch, you know that what it’s about isn’t really “preserving the relationship.” Please! He’s just hoping to get some either before or at the end of the show. Otherwise he’d go into another room and turn on what he wants. Whereas, chances are she knows there’s no point to snuggling up with him to watch his favorite show or the game, because he isn’t going to be paying a lick of attention to anything but what’s on the screen. So unless she really wants to watch too, she heads for the other room right away. Smart girl.

It is nice to have things in common. But tv show viewing is not on my priority list. There’s more to being a good partner than sitting on your butt and watching a tv show together.

And I see no reason in heaven why I should force myself to watch a rigid schedule of TV shows I find no appeal in, be it American Idol or anything else, just so I will “fit into American society” and have something to talk about with people around the water cooler. I agree with you: What’s so great about being in mainstream America? It’s true that I have sometimes found myself unable to chat with even dear friends whose every conversation starter is something like “Do you watch Lost?” or “Do you watch Grey’s Anatomy?” and so on. But I’d like to think we can still find other things to talk about besides TV.

I watched a lot of tv when I was a kid. A lot. In high school I’d get the tv section from the Sunday paper and map out my viewing for the week. I got all my homework done during lunch period and after school; evenings were pretty much free. Once I hit college my tv viewing habits changed. I guess I just sort of outgrew tv like I outgrew asthma. There are just too many other things to do, and not enough time to do them all. There are programs I like to watch, but if I miss a show or part of a show it’s not the end of the world. I see a lot of 10-20 minute slices of tv shows. I’ll tape a show every now and again, but we don’t have a TiVo. And you’re right: there are plenty of things to talk about besides tv shows.

I wonder if people like KO and DP feel they have to watch the current top shows because they are expected to comment on pop culture. Or can they get away with simply absorbing information on those programs via osmosis? It’s hard to avoid hearing about programs like “Lost,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “American Idol,” “The Sopranos,” etc.