McAvoy: Another Extraordinary Man, Struck Down Too Soon

My friends, I hope I can count on your forbearance if I deviate just slightly from my usual bailiwick and share my thoughts on a show I watched not last night...but yesterday afternoon. Well, actually, to get technical, I watched it last night, because I had set my Digital Video Recorder (or "DVR") to record it for me when it aired in the afternoon. The DVR is a nifty innovation, isn't it? Although I'm sure my colleagues toiling in the entertainment ghetto of television are chagrined to see the way it has changed the ratings for their shows, giving the viewer the power to set their own TV schedules. We who work in News, of course, are impervious to the vagaries of time-shifting technologies: when you, dear reader, need not only to know what happened in your world but to have the details read to you by a confident bass voice, you will turn on your set and watch live TV. I know, because it's under the pressure of a live broadcast that I truly shine.

But I digress! Today I need to talk to you about a program called The Nate Berkus Show, because yesterday it was snuffed out before its time. The show, as the title suggests, starred a young man named Nate Berkus, and though its premise was simple -- Berkus, an interior designer, offered tips to viewers -- the series contained multitudes. I believe it changed lives. I know it changed mine.

You see, Nate Berkus had a singular focus, and that was to help his viewers to live more beautifully. He had an instinctive sense of what changes -- both big and small -- any one of us could make to change our homes for the better. Granted, these are not changes I would ever make personally -- I have had the good fortune, over the years, to cross paths with very talented, world-renowned interior designers (I don't want to drop names, but Yabu Pushelberg) who've created the gracious living environment that is an integral part of my overall lifelong pursuit of personal excellence -- but the little people in this country don't have the resources I do. They need someone like Nate Berkus to look at an item as humble as a wooden shipping pallet and come up with five simple ways to transform it into a unique living room conversation piece. There's only one word for inspiration like that, and the word is "divine."

But alas, a long career at the center of his own show was not meant to be for Nate Berkus: his show will not return for another season. Even an extraordinary man -- with the backing of a very powerful female figure -- cannot always prevail in the tough, often savage world of media; Berkus, a protégé of no less a Mistress Of The Universe than Oprah Winfrey herself, discovered the hard way that he could not count on her, but had to depend on himself. Maybe it's a lesson he learned too late.

Do I see a little of myself in Nate Berkus? Well, maybe I do. And maybe, just maybe, tonight I will paint a cheerful design on a common plant pot. I probably won't. But if I do, Nate Berkus, it will be in your honor.

Courage, my aesthetically talented friend. This, too, shall pass.