Comedy's Tragic Case of The Clap

The irony of comedy is that the very manifestation of its appreciation -- applause -- is also its downfall.

In his NBC days, David Letterman exploded the borscht trappings of late night joke shows. His arch humor was entirely different than anything we'd seen before ("I don't mind the swelling, but I can't stand the itching") and the show let it breathe, never feeling the need to clog the proceedings with audience "energy." Indeed, my favorite recurring moment on "Late Night" was Letterman's reaction when a joke failed. His smile would broaden, his head would bob, and, often, a small, tenor-pitched "hee heeee" would escape his lips. It was almost as if he was honoring the proud comic history of failure. That wistful discomfort was its own joke and it was a great one.

Now the problem is not that the material isn't as fresh as it used to be (although it isn't), but that every joke, every bit, every utterance is quickly showered with lengthy, dutiful applause. When everything is sanctified, the genuinely good comic material, and, worse, the rhythm of a full routine, loses out.

But even the best late night comedy show on television -- "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" -- isn't immunized from the applause curse. Go ahead. Count how long the sycophantic clapping and whoo-whooing lasts after Stewart is introduced or after he introduces one of his correspondents. 45 seconds? A minute? Listen to the extra loud laughter and clapping ("I have to prove that I get it!") that follows, or even cuts into, a joke.

I'm not asking for silence. Just for the entertainees to allow the entertainers to earn their adulation once in awhile.

You're Uninteresting. Here's Proof.

There are now 1.3 million unique monthly users of Twitter, the social networking site that allows you to let fortunate souls know what you’re doing at any given time. That number is dwarfed by the 120 million active users of Facebook, whose most popular feature is a Twitter-like window in which you can also inform your "friends" of your waking hours minutiae.

After studying this reality-TV-era phenomenon, I don’t know what’s worse...the stultifying banality of the posts themselves, or the fact that people now rush to the computer (or fire up the phone) to report every ass-picking moment of their lives.

Here’s a sampling of recent posts I encountered on Facebook (with names changed to protect the boring innocents):

* Joe is going downstairs for some sprinkles and ice cream – Would almost be charming if Joe had children.

* Alice fell down the stairs last night and sprained my ankle – Quite a shame that you didn’t sprain your typing fingers.

* Donna flipped a lot of pancakes this morning! – Really?! Was there syrup too??? How ‘bout butter???? Did you cook on a skillet or a frying pan?? Need…more….details!!!!

* Faith is wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! – Even the Muslims?

* Tom is loving the fact his fantasy football team went 10-1-1 and has a 1st rd bye in the playoffs – Checking injury reports during work, eh? Can unemployment be far behind?

* Dave is getting ready to hang Christmas decorations – Can’t wait to experience the garish magic of those porcelain angels.

* Bob is happy that Rutgers may actually go to a bowl game this year – Congrats on that Chia Pet Bowl birth. I’m sure the Florida Gators are devastated.

* Fred is happy that the deal in Switzerland was signed – Relax, jet-setter. Selling paper towels overseas doesn’t make you a business magnate.

* Rick is amazed how cold it has become in the Northeast – It’s late November. And the first part of your word "east" is “North.” 1 + 1 = cold.

Proposition Hate

Transcript from the Vice-Presidential debate, which precluded the recent passage of Proposition 8 in California:

GWEN IFILL (Moderator):
Senator Biden, do you support granting same-sex benefits to couples?

JOE BIDEN:
Absolutely positively. Look, in an Obama-Biden administration, there will be absolutely no distinction from a constitutional standpoint or a legal standpoint between a same-sex and a heterosexual couple.

It's what the Constitution calls for. And so we do support it. We do support making sure that committed couples in a same-sex marriage are guaranteed the same constitutional benefits as it relates to their property rights, their rights of visitation, their rights to insurance, their rights of ownership as heterosexual couples do.

IFILL:
Senator, do you support gay marriage?

BIDEN:
No.
_______________________________________________

The bizarre nature of that moment (effusive human rights defense followed by uni-syllabic dismissal) shows, once again, how political expediency trumps common decency. It also proves that religious hysteria is the vicious undertow to many of our civil issues.

Let us recount, and easily rebut, some of the “arguments” against gay marriage:

1) Marriage is about procreation.
By all means, let us ban marriage for infertile couples as well. Menopausal? You’re finished. Impotent? Sorry, Viagra Vick…no wife for you.

If you believe that those who cannot conceive children should not be denied the right to marriage, then why make a case against the gay population for the same reason? Further, it has been proven, time and time again, that children raised in gay households have no more difficulties -- in terms of sexual orientation or future success -- than those of heterosexual unions. According to Bureau of Census statistics, "twenty-five percent of children today are born out-of-wedlock to single women, mostly young, minority, and impoverished; half of all marriages end in divorce; and married couples with children now make up only twenty-six percent of United States households. It is unrealistic to pretend that children can only be successfully reared in an idealized concept of family, the product of nostalgia for a time long past." [Columbia Law Review, April 1999. (Social Norms and Judicial Decisionmaking: Examining the Role of Naratives in Same-Sex Adoption Cases. Lexis-Nexis 3/27/01).]

2) It is an affront to the institution of marriage.
That was the same argument made in support of the illegality of whites marrying blacks, and no right-minded person still stands by that ghastly vestige. And how often do we hear variations of this argument: "If we let a man marry a man, what's next? A man marrying a dog?" Marriage -- like slavery, a woman's right to vote, equal pay and so on -- was never on a slippery slope. It is on an evolutionary and righteous continuum. Besides, many a heterosexual marriage is an affront as well. Larry King, anyone?

3) The majority of Americans are against it.
True – the latest polls indicate that 61% of Americans do not favor gay marriage. But our government’s job is to protect the rights of all of us, including those that are gay, not to uphold the irrational prejudices of the masses, as California is doing in this case.

4) Being gay is a choice.
Right. Gay people want to be hated and ridiculed. No, science has made it quite clear that sexuality is innate. Simon LeVay indicated a clear difference in hypothamic structure between homosexual and heterosexual men. Dean Hamer, a Harvard trained geneticist, looked at 40 families with two gay brothers. Hamer and his team found evidence in 33 of the pairs for a genetically maternal influence in the determination of male homosexuality. Hundreds of other, agenda-less studies point in the same direction.

Nonetheless, I find that having to come up with a "no choice" argument is, in and of itself, offensive and patronizing (the poor gays...they can't help their deviant behavior). Would it be acceptable to discriminate against homosexuals if their orientation was a choice?

If you have to think twice before answering this question, shame on you and your fellow, Bible-enabled bigots.

Banish These Phrases

* Stay hydrated -- I work with a number of "running enthusiasts" whose conversational palette is of the numbingly dull "minutes-per-mile/calories-burned/heart-rate/need-to-lose-another-2.25-pounds" variety. But it is only when they constanly blather about needing to "stay hydrated" that I get the urge to chew glass. Is the phrase "drink water" too jejune for the "sports science" set?

* Very unique -- Unique is an absolute, meaning one-of-a-kind. Therefore, the "very" is flat-out erroneous. The next time you attempt to qualify this perfectly solitary word, ask yourself a simple question: Would I say "extremely extreme?"

* Low hanging fruit -- This is the most offensive of the great business-cliché triumvirate ("thinking out of the box" and "thirty thousand foot view of the customer" being the others). In case you live in another orbit, the phrase refers to particularly "ripe" or easy opportunities. Unfortunately, it sounds like a clunky euphemism for elderly genitalia.

Is Less Candy More Fun?

America’s candy manufacturers would have us believe that there is an inverse ratio of fun to size. How else to explain the pervasive “fun size” chocolate bar found in your grocery store? All but the most Gestapo-like fitness addicts know that the “fun size” is the opposite of fun; it is a sugar tease… a mere amuse bouche for the junk food set.

As you can see in the chart below, the percentage of fun rises dramatically as the package size (shown along the x-axis) increases.

White Collar Vulgarity

“Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.”
-- Eric Hoffer (1902 – 1983), American Writer and Social Critic

Could it be that the prescient Mr. Hoffer saw clearly to the BlackBerry era?

My job as an ad agency Creative Director requires at least five live client presentations every month. Each one is the culmination of weeks of research, dozens of speculative designs, thousands of miles of cramped flights and countless forlorn nights in express hotels. But the theatricality of the show itself – the buzz of performance, the excitement of my audience, the knowledge that what I've crafted has genuinely resonated – fully trumps the foregoing discomfort.

Then it happens. One of the executives to whom I'm presenting casually unclips his or her digital brick, stares down and engages in the familiar thumb gyrations.

I’ll leave it to others to decry our social transition from tête-à-tête to tap-tap-tap. Mine is a more specific argument. I fully acknowledge that the BlackBerry (one of which I own, so don’t paint me as some digital-averse freak) is a remarkable tool, at once serving all inbound/outbound communication and entertainment needs. But its use in the aforementioned scenario is vulgar beyond compare. Worse still, it appears to be increasingly accepted as “the way business is today.” Is one hour of undivided attention too much to ask? Has the need to appear important overtaken basic civility?

Enough is enough.

The next time a busier-than-thou jerk looks down at their BlackBerry while you are presenting (or merely speaking in a smaller setting) I suggest three potential steps to forever eradicate their rudeness:

1) Without breaking your verbal stride, approach the offending party and stare directly at them.
2) If that doesn’t rouse them from their device torpor, stop talking altogether and see how long it takes for the silence to work its awkward magic.
3) If that still doesn’t do the trick, say the following in the most sickly polite manner: “I’m terribly sorry that our presentation has gotten in the way of your critical e-mail. Please let us know when you’ve finished and we’ll happily continue.”

Motivational Breach

Littering the fishbowl landscape of your place of business is something far more insidious than cube farms, bad coffee or HR Directors who haven’t been laid since the Millard Fillmore administration.

It’s the ultimate pseudo-philosophical garbage, spun as panacea: motivational accessories.

You’ve seen them on the bookshelves and desktops of many an executive – plaques, prints, calendars, and, yes, even stuffed animals (“Reach for the Stars” plush starfish, anyone?) meant to “inspire.” One Web site, where you can buy these ghastly items, has even coined a cutesy-poo name for them: “Successories.” That’s right. Hallmark stock imagery + believe-it-and-it-will-come-true bunk = executive success!

One motivational print, simply called “Achievement,” shows a small group of healthy trees sitting at the pinnacle of a barren mountaintop. The quote underneath: “Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.” According to the Web site’s promotional copy, “In an act of sheer will, the trees achieve the unthinkable by thriving in this unlikely setting.”

Three problems: 1) Rocks are loaded with nutrients which readily allow trees to grow on their surface, so the act is hardly “unthinkable”; 2) Trees have no will, thus their growth has nothing to do with pluck; 3) Is there a soul on earth for whom these bromides actually work?

Imagine an insurance salesman aimlessly walking the halls of a monolithic company, lukewarm coffee in hand, halfway to his monthly quota. He approaches the “Achievement” print, recently encased in a faux mahogany frame, and is quickly mesmerized by its powerful balance of imagery and words. He’s suddenly filled with the urge to do his job with more passion and purpose than ever before. He wants to grow, dammit! And he knows that from this day forward, he will sell Medicare Supplement Insurance with the same verve that allowed a bonsai tree to take root on a sedimentary rock!

Sound realistic? I didn’t think so.

What is this cottage industry known as “motivation” anyway? Are we so infantile that we cannot glean enough motivation from the prospect of our paychecks or, better still, from the innate rewards that come with a little sweat?

But if all else fails, don't fret. The “Leap to Success” plush frog can be yours for only $5.99.

The Book of The Year Is...

Standing Still, by Kelly Simmons.

This psychologically rich, achingly beautiful first novel is both a deeply satisfying meditation on crime, truth, matrimony and motherhood and a top-notch kidnapping thriller. Turn to any page and try not to find a moment of personal recogntion, crystallized in creamy prose. I dare you -- I double dare you -- to call this "chick lit."

I will avoid a story overview with the intense hope that you discover every ingenious machination of structure for yourself. Ms. Simmons writes with what can only be described as forensic elegance. Indeed, she could really teach the current crop of celebrated post-modern novelists a thing or two about narrative propulsion.

Click below to order.

http://www.amazon.com/Standing-Still-Novel-Kelly-Simmons/dp/0743289722/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216925523&sr=8-1

When Did This Happen?

* When did "invite" become a noun? Are we so starved for time that four-syllable words have become too arduous? Warning: I will not respond when you ask me if I've received your "invite".

* When did "irregardless" stop causing offense? The prefix means "not"; the suffix, "without". The negation leads to "regard". Double negatives are bad enough. It is quite a trick to jam one into a single word. This crime of inclusion is oddly antonymous to the "invite" problem.

* When did "bad boy chefs" become popular? Perhaps the pertinent question is why? If your idea of a fun evening is watching a sweating, adenoidal jerk shriek "not enough basil!" then by all means, have at it. I, however, don't really need "edge" with my pancakes.

LOL RIP

While the rise of online chat and text messaging (and syntactic idiocy) has led to an increase in febrile three-letter abbreviations, none are more grating than "LOL." This absurd sobriquet has exceeded, on the annoying-meter, such Joycean utterances as OMG and BFD. Why?

1) It's inescapable. LOL (which is not an acronym, as many people incorrectly assume, because it is does not serve as an accepted word like "RADAR" or "NASA") reached the exhaustion point within the first week of its inauguration. It is increasingly difficult to read a single electronic "dialog" without this three-lettered beast volleying between its neanderthal authors.

2) You are not actually laughing out loud. You have nothing literate to say in response to an amusing comment (and I'll bet it was quite the bon mot), therefore you resort to Pavlovian hackery. It has truly become the phony laugh-track of the digital age.

3) You are not 14. Yes, that is the "LOL" cut-off. If you are, heaven forbid, an adult in a business setting and you find yourself tapping out these letters (or, for that matter, writing "411" instead of "information"), please realize that yours is an empty existence.

Sins of the Flush

In my 18 years as a professional writer, I've been exposed to enough spoonerisms ("A well-boiled icicle"), malaprops ("they vaseline back and forth"), split infinitives ("to boldly go"), and other verbal and written monstrosities ("let's look at it from a 360-degree angle," "your" vs. "you're," "I" versus "me," etc.) to keep the descendants of Strunk and White bathing in caviar for decades to come.

But nothing -- I mean nothing -- stokes my righteous indignation quite like the "flush out" versus "flesh out" mistake.

A common example: "We need to flush out that idea."

No, plebeian, that is decidedly incorrect. Unless the idea in question is hiding in a thicket, what it needs is to be fleshed out; meaning, given more detail or information. In other words, provided with more flesh to aid its bare-boned essence. When you flush something out, you are either teasing it out of hiding or ridding it via your subterranean pipes.

Stay tuned for my "irregardless" diatribe, coming next week.

Jockocracy: Part Deux

Years ago, Howard Cosell derided a trend in television sports toward “jockocracy,” the awarding of broadcasting jobs to athletes who hadn’t earned them.

I thought about this neologism as I watched Mark Jackson, the ESPN "analyst" assigned to tonight's NBA draft, begin every sentence with the supremely unnecessary phrase, "When you talk about..."

"When you talk about the Chicago Bulls, they need a strong guard."

"When you talk about the state of the NBA, it has many reputation problems."

"When you talk about the first round, there's a lot of quality big men available."

So either he thinks that suppositions of guard needs, reputation problems and big-man availability only become fact when you talk about them, or he is ineloquent.

Occasionally, Mr. Jackson throws us a curve ball (or, in the parlance of the NBA, a verbal dime) by instead saying "When you look at..." Either way, this disregard for basic phraseology is an embarrassment to an occupation whose primary directive is communication.

But there are a few other, all-too-familiar problems with tonight's broadcast that have nothing to do with an overmatched neophyte:

* Stephen A. Smith. This lousy writer turned "personality" is ESPN's "angry" basketball pundit. Like Jackson, he does to language what a certain block of ice did to the Titanic. Unlike Jackson, who at least has a pleasant countenance, Stephen A, as he annoyingly deems himself, conjures up bullshit rage over the most innocuous subject.

* Twelve "Experts", One Desk. When did it become de rigueur to cram enough gasbags around the half-moon desk to form a minion? This has the dual effect of 1) giving each commentator no time to actually say anything; 2) reducing what they do say to a mere...

* Cliché-fest. Jeff Van Gundy, praising a coach, said, "His real value is stressing the right way to play basketball." As opposed to the 29 other coaches who stress the wrong way? Doris Burke, working the crowd, asked mothers of drafted players such probing questions as "Are you proud?" and "How do you feel?" I would have paid a king's ransom to hear just one mom reply, "After the hell he put me through, I feel relieved that his first pro check will pay for my new house."

A Critic Is Made, Not Born

“With the Web, ANYONE can be a critic!”

A colleague recently made this stupid declaration as a rejoinder to my invocation of a witty, negative book review in The New Yorker. His point, I think, was that paid critics have no value anymore since everyone can now write posted reviews.

By this logic, my screwing in a light bulb entitles me to an union card from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Sadly, in our new digital age, any Middle Earth inhabitant with a computer is a self-proclaimed, and often accepted, writer/critic. But it is worth remembering that true arts critics – David Denby, Roger Ebert, Michiko Kakutani, Anthony Lane among them – care far more about the crafting of their own prose than serving up puerile “like it, don’t like it” proclamations. In fact, fine critical writing is best enjoyed after seeing or reading that which is reviewed, because its greatness lies in the ability to crystallize what makes a performance brilliant (or execrable) or to vividly describe an author’s unique narrative structure.

Contrast that with any of the “reviews” “written” by the cognitively challenged mammals on IMDB or Amazon.com or RottenTomatoes:

* From Paula’s review of Sex and the City: “I still prefer Hitchcock, but there's nothing wrong with enjoying what isn't.”

Forget the flailing sentence structure. The real touch of genius is, of course, the summoning of Hitchcock. Yes, like Sir Alfred, Michael Patrick King has directed a movie and he is a mammal. Any other comparison is bizarre; as comically unnecessary as stating a preference for Tolstoy over James Patterson.

* Speaking of that literary titan, here’s some trenchant commentary by “SamRocks”: “So, I'm addicted to James Patterson. There are many mystery writers who are better, and some who are a lot worse. With Patterson, at least you know that you'll get a fast-paced, action-filled book without a lot of descriptions.”

For one named with such confidence and self-regard, Mr. “Rocks’” defense of his hero is decidedly weak-willed in three ways: 1) the petulant adverb “so” that kicks off his thick diatribe; 2) the admission that “many” are better but only “some” are a lot worse; 3) his pride in Patterson’s dismissal of something as unimportant as, ahem, descriptions. James Michener, eat your heart out.

* “Fubar’s” dramatic pre-review of The Incredible Hulk: “I don’t like to put the car before the horse but I think it will be really cool. Can’t wait!”
I’m guessing that the problem here is not a faulty “t” on the keyboard of Monsieur Fubar’s Commodore 64, nor is his an ironic commentary about the entire industrial/electronic age devouring the soul of our country. No, my hunch would be that he thinks the phrase is as he has written. Meaning that he doesn't read. Meaning that he also says things like “Don’t count your chickens before they’re cash” and “I did it in one felt tip swoop.”

One more aspect of this post that bears ridicule: the “Can’t wait!” exclamation. I have seen thousands of examples of this breathless nonsense. Your excitement about something yet to be seen is of absolutely no interest to me, and even less to the written-word archives. Please save your Batman salivation for your friends at the Auntie Anne’s stand.

* Finally, enjoy these two posts about The Godfather; one positive, one negative, each stunning in its illiteracy and surrealist logic:

Positive: “I've seen more than my fair share of Marlon Brando films, and in my opinion the character of Don Vito Corleone is this actor's signature role. Truly Oscar-worthy.”

In two short sentences, this “review” contains three unpardonable sins: 1) “In my opinion” is arguably the most unnecessary of all phrases. We know it’s your opinion. It’s certainly not that of James Joyce; 2) The contention that Corleone is Brando’s signature role is laughably obvious -- the world waits for your next bold assertion, sir; 3) Calling a performance “Oscar-worthy” is the equivalent of calling a book “good.” Writing about performance is difficult. That’s why hacks resort to the lazy shorthand of “Oscar-worthy.”

Compare that with David Denby’s description of Robert Downey Jr’s performance in Iron Man: “Downey, muttering to himself, ignores everyone else in the movie for as long as he can. Fixing his eyes, at last, on another character, he seems faintly annoyed that his privacy has been violated. Yet he delivers—to the camera, and to us. He can make offhandedness mesmerizing, even soulful; he passes through the key moments in this cloddish story as if he were ad-libbing his inner life.”

In just a few lines, Denby gets at the compelling smugness of this actor. No empty blather about Oscars. And since an Oscar was given for the stiffly acted, caterwauling performance of Jennifer Hudson, it would be faint praise anyway.

Negative: “When an ethnic group creates an underground crime organization we laud it in films and books, but when real gangs break out they are feared on Channel 5 news. Double standard, right?”

Wrong. Bad behavior is bad behavior. What we “laud” is the craft of the filmmaking, the finely nuanced screenplay, Gordon Willis’s Rembrantesque photography, the operatic but controlled performances, the lush yet unobtrusive score, the juxtaposition of family values and business means.

Then again, what did you expect from someone writing as “Monkey Stick”?

Data Paralysis

On Saturday evening I watched The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, an acclaimed film about Jean-Dominique Bauby, the editor-in-chief of Elle Magazine whose sudden cerebro-vascular accident left him in a state of head-to-toe paralysis (referred to as “locked-in” syndrome). Bauby gradually learned to communicate using his left eyelid, the only part of his body over which he had any control. Eventually, using a communication code devised by his therapist, he was able to write a memoir of his struggle and triumph.

What makes the film uniquely fulfilling is its utter lack of sentimentality and its stirring beauty. Diving Bell was directed by Julian Schnabel who, throughout the 1980s, developed a neo-expressionist form of industrial art that alternates between the intimate and the grand, often within the same piece. He has stunningly transitioned this technique to Diving Bell. The early scenes are steadfastly shot from Bauby’s point-of-view. Only when he resolves to “release his mind” is the camera released, tracking over fields, meadows and food. More than anything, the film is a triumph of directorial vision.

**********

This all serves as background to the decidedly negative experience I had after returning the film. You see, I received Diving Bell through Blockbuster’s online membership. Their Web site, in its infinite wisdom, gave me three commensurate recommendations: Awakenings, Whose Life Is It Anyway? and The Elephant Man.

Great. So now I’m pegged as the paralysis/deformity movie lover.

In fact, Penny Marshal’s Awakenings is everything that Diving Bell isn’t, and I mean that in the most disparaging way. Robin Williams is in full “look-at-me-I’m-a-cuddly-bear” form. The score was written not in notes, but in dollops of syrup. And the “meaning” (See? We ALL need to be awakened from our daily stupor!) is an affront. Whose Life Is It Anyway? is redeemed by Richard Dreyfuss’s smart performance (the film was made about 10 years before he turned into a schticky caricature), but was directed with all the visual richness of an episode of General Hospital. David Lynch’s The Elephant Man has style to burn, but is a ready-for-prime-time version of his earlier Eraserhead.

Would it not make infinitely more sense to recommend other films directed by Schnabel, or, at least, directors of his ilk who tried their hand at making films in a foreign country? What about other films that shared the screenwriter? No, the fatheads who devised Blockbuster’s business rules have determined the single criterion by which I will judge a movie: level of infirmity.

The final insult occurred when I clicked “Recommendations” in their Web site’s main navigation. It led me to a page with 15 “we think you’ll like these” titles. They include The Chronicles of Narnia, which features a lion as Jesus Christ; The Green Mile, which features a black inmate as Jesus Christ; and Pay It Forward, which features Haley Joel Osment as Jesus Christ.

Hmmm...

Smells Opaque to Me

While at a friend's home last weekend, I caught the unmistakably acrid scent of one of those ubiquitous Yankee candles. Following my nose to the restroom, I discovered the culprit: Midnight Pomegranate. Although it smelled (unlit, mind you) more like an Old West whorehouse than the sublime Persian fruit, it wasn't the olfactory assault that I found most offensive. It was the adjective. What, I ask you, would have been different about Noon or even Brunch Pomegranate?

Yes, yes...I'm well aware that our fine candle manufacturers are selling romance and emotion, not merely aroma. But allow me to list some other puzzling candle (oh, excuse me -- "aromatherapy") names. Find the romance in these:

* Fall Festival -- Ah, yes. The heady blend of cheap, oily carnival rides, junk food and human sweat (these torture marathons are typically run at the end of Summer).

* Ocean Water -- I can almost taste the salt and dead plankton now.

* Farmhouse Apple -- There's a reason apples are sprayed and processed before getting to your supermarket shelves: to purge the farmhouse manure.

* Velvet Petals -- Velvet? I'm sure you'd agree that nothing smells quite as delicious as tufted fabric in which the cut threads are evenly distributed in a short, dense pile.

* Beach Walk -- Essence of sunburn, grit and chafing.

* Vanilla Lime -- Sweet bean plus tart citrus? Not since Roosevelt and Stalin has there been a less comfortable alliance.

* Wedding Day -- What exactly is the smell of broken dreams and deferred hope?

Tragedy Porn

There may be no more horrifying teaser than, "Tonight -- a two-hour Extreme Home Makeover." This "wholesome" show, in which a freshly traumatized family wins an insta-McMansion, is actually a revolting display of "reality" TV at its most false...and exploitive.

Consider the poor sods who have lost their family matriarch, spawned a mental cripple, been denied payment for an amputated limb, or gotten screwed by the local contractor. Are they deserving of a new dwelling? Of course. But first, they must endure today's most insidious device: the on-camera confessional.

Go ahead. Count how long the EHM lens lingers on the quivering, melted faces of distraught family members choking out their pain. All the while ABC happily counts its Sears money, hoping that millions continue to watch at home, chewing their schadenfreude-flavored cud.

Arguably more painful to watch -- and certainly more painful to listen to -- is the show's raspy, shrieking ring-leader, Ty Pennington. This bullhorn-toting madman, who occasionally moonlights as a spokesperson for an ADD drug (isn't he a walking advertisement for its lack of efficacy?) flies around the construction site as if nails are in his nads. He goads. He prods. He cajoles. He cares, dammit! And, of course, he and his lovable crew speak in clichés by the pound about the "amazing" and "brave" people whom they serve with the piety of Jewish carpenters.

I am tired of the reflexive moral elevation patronizingly bestowed upon victims of circumstance. Sometimes, the dying aren't brave. They're just dying. And for that matter, most of us do not need to have suffering pressed into our collective cornea to gain "perspsective" (another popular bromide of Ty's witless builders). Life gives us a daily dose, thank you very much.

If the hacks behind Extreme Home Makeover were truly interested in filming reality, they would observe the grim faces of the neighbors slightly out of camera range (behind Ty's belching, ozone-destroying bus) as they wonder to what lengths they would go for seven plasma TVs.

Her Annoying Holiness

Perhaps it is her perpetual invocation of “angels on earth.” Maybe it’s her honey chil’ patois fueled only by the presence of black guests. Possibly it’s her cameras-at-the-ready, “they need me” appearance at every international disaster (at least, the ones covered by ABC News). Or could it be her shameless, bug-eyed, bitten-by-rabid-squirrels studio audience?

For these and dozens of other reasons, Oprah must be sent away, camera-less, Steadman-less.

Living the Dream in the Big Apple

You live in Coffeyville, Kansas. Save for the occasional dip into Oklahoma, you've never set foot outside of the state. But that is about to change.

You've gathered the requisite funds for a three-day stay in New York City. The possibilities are endless. But you have a dream that extends well beyond Broadway, the Met or the splendor of Central Park. Television is your muse. You were born for it. And though a neophyte, you head straight for the media mecca, Rockefeller Center.

It is raining, but you don't care. The ink on your pithy, home-crafted poster runs, but you don't care. Elbows are in your face, but you don't care. You are in the presence of Al Roker.

And so what if your fellow screaming cattle keep you slightly outside of Al's immediate orbit. So what if Matt Lauer's contract has a stay-inside-during-inclement-weather clause. So what if the on-air "talent" would sooner spit on you than share a dialogue when the cameras are off.

Clearly a quarter of your face was visible! And methinks your caterwauling about Bobby Sue's birthday was audible. Kudos to you. You've made the big-time.

This Just In...Local News Is Horrific

While never the bellwether of journalistic insight, local news has, over the past several years, slipped into a desperate, infantilizing coma. It matters not the tricked-up studio, pimped-up Guy Smiley/Cheese Cake anchor team or ginned-up “you should know” topic…your local news is an embarrassment (and the horrors are affiliate-agnostic). Shall we count the ways?

Local Reaction Interviews.
Must every “report” on a murder, sports team loss or election be accompanied by the sub-human “opinion” of the troglodyte next door? When the Philadelphia Eagles lose, I’m actually a bit more interested in gaining insight from coaches who have studied thousands of hours of film than from Joe from Fishtown who spent the last four hours studying the bottom of a beer glass. And then there’s Mary, framed by the gauzy sheen of her screen door, professing surprise that her neighbor was decapitated, “particularly around the holidays.” Really, Mary? Would have been the normal course of business if it happened, say, in April?

The Special Investigation Team.
The glowering looks. The leather jackets. The brick wall background. Yes, this must be the can’t-chain-‘em-to-no-desk special investigation team. They’re walking the beat to root out scofflaws from Ninth Street to Tenth. And if they can’t find any real corruption, they’ll talk a tough game and gussy up drama with grainy videography and whip-pan camera work.

Transitional Banter.
After Jock Itch Joe finishes his sports report, Annie Anchor does not posses the internal fortitude to simply thank him and move on. No, she needs to engage in schoolgirl “reaction dialogue” along the heady order of “Wow, Joe, that hit looked painful!” or “Awww….better luck next time for our team!” This elicits some convivial but uni-syllabic grunt (hardly surprising that extemporaneous wit isn’t the province of lobotomized news personalities), and the cycle goes on.

Weather Coverage.
This category is worth its own multi-page blog entry, but I’ll try to condense the inanity to a few sub-categories:

1) Good weather gratitude. Our jovial “meteorologist” (try getting a degree in that from Harvard) is swathed in “thank you’s” for reading a sunny forecast, much like the 16th century shamans were honored for the patterns of the sun, rain and wind.

2) “Wacky” weatherperson names. Philadelphia has its Hurricane Schwartz; New York has its Storm Fields. Recent events have forced Tsunami Sam to rethink his moniker. Stage names certainly have value for heretofore-unknown actors, relying on the patina of notoriety. But weatherpersons? What exactly is to be served by treating viewers like a cluster of three-year-olds watching characters in Romper Room? (At least Hurricane’s shamelessness didn’t extend to de-ethnicizing his last name.)

3) Bread, milk and salt. In Philadelphia, three inches of potential snow is all it takes to generate state-of-emergency coverage, complete with shots of parked salt trucks, bread and milk aisles, empty racks of snow shovels and other stock footage dredged from prehistoric amber.

4) Seven reporters, Seven miles. During a snow “storm” your local news station bizarrely deploys a multitude of reporters to towns all within a seven mile radius. Turns out, the road conditions are…the same! The snowfall amounts are…the same! And, of course, what roving reporter’s dispatch would be complete without the studio-bound anchor beseeching him or her, with faux sincerity, to “get inside where it’s warm!”? Hey – I didn’t ask Suzie to “brave” the elements, but if frostbite ensues, I’ll at least get a modicum of real news (and entertainment).

5) Tips on beating the heat, useful for those in the womb. Every time the thermometer flirts with the 90° mark, we have to endure such brain-dead “tips” as “don’t wear black,” “get near an open window, or, better yet, seek air conditioning,” and “stay hydrated.” This sage advice is often accompanied by shots of ugly children sucking down ice cream cones. It is to die.

Two Words Even More Irritating Than "Wintry Mix"

Has there ever been a more specious phrase than "soul mate"?

Smacking of provincial fatalism, it combines, in equally absurd spoonfuls, hothouse teenage drama ("Now and forever, Thad, we are soul mates!") and desperate religious justification ("A higher power has blessed us each with a soul...each of which has but a single, perfect mate!"). The reality of the "soul" is, of course, as patently absurd as any of the poorly written parables and lessons found in your local hotel room's night table.

The intellectually honest will readily admit that no matter how fine the state of their marriage or partnership, there's a lovely person in Dubuque, Iowa, Quebec City, Canada, or Damascus, Syria with whom they are at least as compatible.

The "Hero" Horse Who Died For Our Sins

Recently, America's news media breathlessly celebrated the one year anniversary of the death of Barbaro, Preakness-crippled equine. It brought back horrid memories, not of the undeniably sad leg breakage, but of the childish coverage of Barbaro's cruelly-lengthened life. The best line may have been from the Philadelphia Inquirer the day after his life was mercifully ended: "Barbaro fought like a champion until the very end.”

Really? How, precisely, did they know that? Unless I'm mistaken, Barbaro possessed no opposable thumbs nor the ability to speak any particular dialect, in which case he would have certainly expelled a bullet into his own head or asked his "caretakers" to do the same.

The public deserves blame as well, bizarrely showering the gates of Rancho Barbaro with plastic flowers and school-sanctioned letters from children, never to be sniffed or read.

When the Otherwise Sensible Go Dim

"Fate." "Meant to be."

When you hear this bizarre collection of words, run far away. They are all part of the dim legacy of our ancient ancestors, whose cognitive infancy lives on. Here's a perfect example of how the contemplative abilities of otherwise bright people turn to mush...

I once told a well-educated colleague about a particularly striking event in a football game. During one play, the tight-end caught a sideline pass, the trajectory of which forced him out of bounds. Before he could stop, he barreled into an elderly assistant coach whose head crashed to the turf. Knocked unconscious, the coach was rushed to the hospital where he received head x-rays to check the severity of the damage. Although he was only diagnosed with a concussion, one scan revealed a small spot that turned out to be a malignant brain tumor. It was removed. He's now cancer free.

As I told my colleague this bizarre story, I couldn't help but notice his slow, purposeful nodding and increasingly glazed, Magic Kingdom smile. At the story's conclusion he said, “See? It was meant to happen.”

Puzzled, I asked, "What exactly was meant to happen?”

"The play. If that didn’t happen he would have been dead. It was fate.”

To which I said, "Let me see if I'm perfectly clear. 1) God arranged for the quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs to slightly overthrow his intended receiver on a tight-end crossing pattern so that he would smash into the poor gentleman; 2) God caused the force of the collision to give the man a concussion [which, by the way, forced him to retire early from the game he loved]; so that 3) the tumor -- which was presumably put there by God -- could be discovered?"

“No, no, no....God didn’t give him the tumor. He led him to recovery.”

"And 'He' couldn’t have simply whispered something subtle like 'You have a brain tumor!' or have spelled out the imminent head injury in the coach's alphabet soup?"

My colleague ignored the question and finished the dialogue with, "And his doctor was also given the gift of practice."

A perfect microcosm of idiocy in action, yes?. In this world, a fortunate coincidence is God's work. A tragedy is too, but its ultimate meaning will be "revealed" later. Faith loopholes are endless. "Meant-to-be" moments are cherry-picked like the non- stoning/slavery/murdering sections of the bible (which are few and far between). And what precise value does prayer have when things are pre-determined? Can slapping our palms together really influence events in such a place?

What's most dispiriting about all of this fate nonsense is that it nullifies our responsibilities, our individual glories, our critical faculties. What could be more "unholy" than that?

Would Shakespeare Approve?

In just the past week, I've been in the company of no fewer than three people who described someone or something as being "gi-normous." This distasteful, linguistic mash-up is maddening in two ways:

1) Blending "giant" and "enormous" does NOT create a new plateau of hugeness, nor does it shorten a burdensome, multi-syllabic word (which, in itself, is a loathsome practice).

2) It has the creepy essence of a child's mispronounciation. Perfectly understandable for a youth whose formative years are spent fumbling toward Webster's master word list; deeply unsettling when "enlightened" adults run away.

"Spiritual?" No, You Just Like Granola.

Ever hear this chestnut? "I'm not religious, but I am spiritual."

What exactly is that? A catch-all term for those who skip church but shed tears during Titanic? Who never keep kosher but do admire sapling trees?

I'm an avowed atheist, yet part of me prefers the slack-jawed honesty of the "faithful" to the inane prattling of those who would have it both ways.

What's Next? Cloud-Ripened Rain?

In its latest advertising campaign, the putrid chain, Olive Garden, tries to impress the great unwashed (and apparently unfed) by bragging that its "chefs" "cook" with "vine-ripened" tomatoes. As opposed to what, precisely? Space-ripened? Magma-ripened?

It's bad enough that the typical OG meal tastes like day-old scrapings from a Stouffer's microwave casserole. But this faux gourmand messaging is the last straw... a cynical attempt to cash in on the myth of their adherence to quality ingredients and searing skill.

(But please try the pie. It's studded with tree-grown apples!)