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02.03.02 - 05.25.02.
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LUDIC LOG

Noon. Joan Lovett is our requisitely perky anchorwoman. In the teaser she refers to the 'Democrat Party'. The theme music is very aggressive. The lead story, which they're spending about 20 minutes on, is about a mix-up of bodies at a funeral home. It seems to be the very definition of a slow news day.

12:10. Some elderly goofball with a ponytail and a fakeola English accent is berating a young greaseball about his crappy counterfeiting skills. Now they're discussing a vaguely defined murder scheme. It's not as hideously acted as I expected. Switch to a healthy young bourgeois couple arguing about pregnancy. Someone calls trying to sell me a new long distance service, and by the time I get off the phone I've completely lost the thread of the plot. The woman has a strange rope/chain doohickey dangling from her waist and swinging phallically in front of her pelvis.

12:15. The dialogue on this show is trite beyond description, but as with most soap operas, it is very skillful at setting up proairetic sequences. Somebody just said 'fourth estate', and then someone else said "if you mean have we been hounded by the press", for the sake of the more egregiously stupid viewers. They're talking about a man named 'Kinder'. He is a bad man. Commercials: computers, flea collars, makeup. Kim Alexis has some exciting news for me about yeast infections.

12:20. Weather report. The weather guy, who is fat and bald, says that it's a beautiful day outside. And here I am stuck inside watching TV and digesting leftover ham. Commercials: carpet, health insurance for the geezer, big sporty SUVs, Osco drugstores. Now Osco 'brings' me a segment called 'The Corner Drugstore', where a Brooklyn thug type posing as a friendly pharmacist dispenses advice about acne. Next, a CNN correspondent teaches us how to make a 'fruit-flavored ice treat'. An 'expert' offers the following comment: "It's like having something that actually tastes good and that you can actually eat."

12:30. I don't know what these people are talking about. They're making holiday doilies and coasters. The guest is droning on and on about how she likes to drink beverages with a lot of ice around Christmas. Sue Hausmann is wearing a red frock that she obviously made herself. She warns against the evils of copyright infringement; she tells us to make sure and use our own designs for the holiday coasters so we don't illegally scam someone else's hard work. The set is decorated with quite unpleasant homemade rugs, drapes and tablecloths.

1:10. Thankfully, we cut to a commercial (for 'debt consolidation') before I have to watch one more minute of this cretinous Family Matters-level sitcom. The next commercial is for collect calling, then another for bankruptcy lawyers. All the poverty-demographic advertising is really filling me with the Christmas spirit. The sitcom returns. It carries on the tradition of featuring a really old unattractive man married to a much younger, much more attractive woman.

1:20. Faith-healing show with utter sleazeball Benny Hinn and his evil 'faith-healing' charade. There he is, onstange in Charlotte, NC, in front of a full house. He's doing that terrible 'slaying in the spirit' thing over and over to some poor old woman. He keeps making her get up and walk, even though she is having a great deal of trouble doing so. At one point she can't get up on her own anymore, so he has his soulless flunkies carry her off. It's hard to tell if Benny is speaking in tongues or not sometimes. He whores for his upcoming appearances and urges people not to miss a single one, like it's a spiritual Grateful Dead tour. I feel dirty.

1:30. Spanish flick. The title means 'Two roosters and two hens'. It's a 1950s-style musical, even though it was made in 1970. This is in keeping with the style of Mexican movies, being 20 years behind the times. Most current peliculas look like they were made around 1979. It's refreshing after all the crap I've seen today to watch something I don't understand at all. The lead actor looks a little like Elvis. 'Two charros make a bet with two roosters who are always arguing about the solution to their economic problems', says TV Guide. What can I add?

1:40. One of those inexplicably mystical Skittles commercials, then Rice Krispies, Sunny Delight and a spate of bankruptcy and vocational school commercials. Back to the show, which falls flat by trying to be dramatic instead of light and funny. There's a dream sequence featuring Albert Einstein, who for some unexplained reason talks in a stereotypical 'oy vey, so nu' Yiddish accent and dispenses New Age platitudes. There's ten minutes of my life I'll never get back.

1:50. I have no interest at all in this movie. Commercial: some guy named Jimmy 'The Scot' Jordan and his patented sure-fire 'gaming' system.

1:55. Mexican soap opera. Lots and lots of slow motion flashbacks to the recent wedding of one of the main characters, all set to absolutely horrendous, blaringly loud Latino bubblegum pop. There are also exciting commercials featuring a big fat guy sitting in the doorway of a helicopter flying over Los Angeles. It looks like he's in danger of falling out of the chopper and splattering on the Hollywood sign.

2:00. Another soap opera. This one has a guy whose kid is playing a video game. The guy says he doesn't want the kid's brain turning to 'cyber-rot'. He joshes humorously that for every hour the son spends playing video games, he has to spend two hours 'reading Shakespeare'. The mother laughs and says "Shakespeare? Oh, Frank!", as if the last thing in the world you would want your kid to do is read Shakespeare. Then commercials, commercials, commercials.

I give up. Sue me if you want; I'm not spending enough time in courtrooms. Besides, I have the number of a bunch of really good bankruptcy lawyers.