Nothing much has happened at the lot this last week. Salespeople are settling in for the long winter hibernation. Inventory is piling up as the public ignores all the shiny new models. I took two weeks off writing to recharge the creative battery.
But now I’m back dammit. And for the first order of business I want to revisit a touchy subject; the insanity of television programmers. There was a time when the Discovery Channel tried to offer educational, enlightening fare. World class researchers exchanged butt sniffs with mountain gorillas in an effort to fit in with the cool kids of the primate genus.
They also recreated the lives of ancient Egyptians, leaving out the more unseemly parts, like their personal hygiene and the era when they accepted help from aliens in industrial grade UFOs to build the pyramids.
Now when you tune them in for a quiet evening of enlightenment you find a series where groups of grown men beat the shit out of each other with sticks. They fly these half wits into a jungle and dress them up in primitive local garb, give them sticks carved from indigenous trees and tell them to go at it.
Last night they ran a commercial for this epic. A group of Africans dressed in colorful Zulu wrappings watched as a group of Americans chased each other around with heavy duty switches. The Zulus looked amused, confused and bored, just like the viewing audience One contestant, with his nose running , cried to the camera, “Who’ll take care of my wife and kids if I die here?”
Damn, it’s too late, he’s already spread the dumb-ass gene.
They take Accountants and Wal-Mart workers, strip them down to their skivvies, set them at each other and chase them around with a camera. Pure genius, I’m telling you. Who needs story? It just gets in the way of watching a bunch of losers whack each other with tree branches.
Our development department at our new company; Third Rate Productions, is working on a low budget version to air on the public access channel: Last Car Salesman Standing.
We’re taking a bunch of sluggish, bloated sales reps and stranding them in the Clearance Aisle at K-Mart They’ll be dressed in the colorful native garb of their homeland. Plaid Sans-a-Belt slacks, checkered polyester jackets, white shoes and bad toupees, capped off with grass skirts and war paint. We’ll give them vacuum cleaner attachments and toilet brushes and let them go at it. The bargain hunters will think they’re escapes from. Dollywood.
It’ll draw huge ratings because people will watch anything on TV.
I give you this advice as a friend. Go rent a DVD of The Sopranos or Deadwood. Leave this toxic crap alone.