The Big Reveal

The Big Reveal

By Pappy

US soap opera One Life to Live recently aired its last episode ever.  It's a show that has been on forever (I think, if there was a creation, God must have taken breaks during the days to watch His "stories") and in a "clever" twist, the finale was wrapped up with fair endings for almost all of the characters and delivered in narrated form by one of the shows villains as a screen play.  She is reading the screenplay to a bound hostage, tied to a hotel room bed.

Apparently every One Life to Live Fan had a pretty good idea that the person tied to the bed (who remained unseen until the last few seconds) was Victor Lord, who had recently died.  

We knew it was coming, but the show still wanted to do the full reveal and try to show people who have grown pretty accustomed to shocks over the last few decades that the show has been on.  The reveal itself wasn't spectacular and I really don't think the finale was better off for the reveal itself, more for the information that Victor is alive after all.

See, it's really the INFORMATION that the fans appreciate, not the reveal.  

Guitar companies can stand to pay attention to this factoid.  

Recently there was a bit of a hubbub as photos of guitars from companies were "leaked" out to stores and the press and these people posted the information on the Internet, perhaps in a premature gesture because it took the shock and surprise out of the reveal at NAMM.

But I say "Come on.  We had a pretty good idea what was coming."  Indeed, the only thing I've seen so far (having written this BEFORE NAMM) is that Parker is coming out with a seven string, which is sure to please the masses of metal heads to have been begging for one on several forums.  I would have liked to see a Ken Parker seven string Fly because I wonder what he would have done with it, but that's neither here nor there.

Guitar companies rarely come out with anything surprising.  Why should they?  Guitar companies want to make the most money possible, that means listening to the biggest group of people and saying yes, the world could stand a few more variations of the Telecaster, or another Jem, or this or that.  They want to make what sells because that's business.  There may be art at the core, but this is more like the galleries that want to sell the art than the starving individual in the corner who just wants to create it and see it enjoyed.

So I say so what if your pictures were leaked on the Internet?  What did you think was going to happen differently if the lid had stayed on that information and you were able to do that big reveal in those last few seconds?  Do you think more people would buy the guitars or amps because you teased them into a froth?  I doubt it.

But the information is out, and I believe that the information is all anyone REALLY wants and the leaks actually beat the inevitable flood of information that comes with bloggers and journalists trying to document everything that they see, so it isn't all bad.  I know I get so flooded with NAMM stuff from other blogs that eventually I stop caring (possibly even stop looking at NAMM posts) so I would take the leaks as a bit of a blessing.  

Perhaps if the reveal of Victor Lord had happened earlier in the episode we could have found out how the hell he's still alive...

XXX---XXX

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