It was only this summer that I became a fan of reality TV when I started watching “America’s Got Talent.” I was hooked because, unlike other reality TV show, like “The Bachelor” or the granddaddy of them all, “Survivor,” which are simply cat fights and showcase selfishness and triteness, “America’s Got Talent” actually celebrates people’s best nature—the soldier who learned to sign in order to keep his platoon mates calm, the street thug who learned card tricks as a means of survival, the school teacher who turned her imagination into dance performances. Unlike the ubiquitous crime shows, like “CSI” and “Criminal Intent” that would have you believe that a large portion of America’s population, if let to their own devices, would spend its free time devising awful, horrible plans to kidnap and dismember people, “America’s Got Talent” would have you believe that Americans spend their free time learning to sing and do hand-stands and tell jokes.
In this week’s issue, we have two stories about two different women from Central Oregon, both who have turned their quirks and talents into careers. Over the summer, Natalie Fletcher, whose body painting art work has appeared on the cover of our paper and whose paintings are part of the Bend landscape (like the mural at Silver Moon), has been competing in “Skin War”—and last week it was announced to that show’s millions of viewers that she won. And this week, Tara Redfield, a woman who grew up in Sisters and moved to LA several years ago, will debut on TNT’s “On The Menu.”
Yeah, Central Oregon’s got talent!
This article appears in Sep 26 – Oct 2, 2014.
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