Jack Comes Back with a Bang

I have been a fan of the show “24” from the very first season.  I remember reading about the concept and how it was supposed to be an entire season where each episode was an hour during one particular day.  The buzz was great that first season.  It was also a first season that opened with an entire plane exploding in mid-air with the terrorist responsible actually escaping out of the plane to do it.  That’s quite an impressive way to start. 

From that point forward “24” has seldom disappointed.  Has it made a few missteps along the way?  Sure, all of us who are fans recall with a cringe the whole Elisha Cuthbert versus the cougar phase.  Many of us also remember the season that just sort of meandered around while Jack flew into
Mexico and dealt with drug dealers and somehow the drug dealers had something to do with a virus or something.  It seemed to take forever to get going.  However, even that season, once the virus got released in a hotel full of people things started moving.  It made me realize that the whole season should have started with the virus being released in the hotel instead of the whole drug dealer thing. 

Anyway, last season “24” reached some kind of state of action-packed perfection that many shows just dream about.  Last season started off with some kind of two-hour premier that was, without a doubt, the two most-tension filled hours of television I had ever watched.  Sure, it stretched the plot a bit even last season, but it was consistently watchable.  Part of what made it so compelling were the strong performances of the President and First Lady.  That means when the plots was focused off of Jack and onto them the story was still compelling.   

Of course this season had a lot to live up to.  For those of you who are fans of the show and perhaps have yet to watch the four hours of the “24” premier this year that the show has not disappointed.  It may have taken until the second two hours of the four-hour, two-day premier to really make me sit on the edge of my seat and audibly gasp in surprise but it definitely did not disappoint. 

Now comes the hard part.  In this day and age when people have TiVo which has created an entire culture and class of people who immediately shout things at you like, “don’t tell me about it!  I have it TiVoed and I haven’t watched it yet!”  how do you actually talk about a show that relies almost solely on surprises for maximum effect?  I also know of people who let the entire “24” season go by so they can then either buy the subsequent season DVD release or put it into their NetFlix queue.  This really makes talking about it hard. 

Needless to say if you have seen any of the commercials you know that super hero and super agent Jack Bauer, played by Keifer Sutherland, is back from his escapade in
China.  At the end of last season Jack was captured by the Chinese and taken away on a boat for events that had actually happened the season before.  This season plays it smartly by starting the action two years later. 

David Palmer’s brother, Wayne, is now President.  The
United States is, once again, in trouble.  Terrorists have been committing acts of terrorism and suicide bombings in cities across the country.  Buses are exploding.  Bombers are walkig into crowded restaurants and shopping malls and pressing buttons that take dozens of people with them.  The terrorist responsible has one demand and he says he will point him to the man organizing all of this.  He wants Jack Bauer’s head on a platter. 

So, this is how Jack comes back from
China.  The man who comes back, however, is a slightly different Jack Bauer than we are used to.  In every other season no matter what happened to the man (even dying) he was always a man who knew exactly what to do.  He was also willing and capable of doing anything to get information.  This is a man who once uttered, “ I need a hacksaw” when it came to getting information from an informant.   

Well, two years in prison has actually tamed Jack Bauer.  He is a man with doubts.  He is a man who is now almost incapable of torturing another person, probably due to the torture has had to endure.  We see Jack is a man criss-crossed with scar across his back and a right hand badly burned and scarred from tortures we have yet to see.  He is a man who is furtive, unsure, and all too  human. 

Of course the threat is also all-too real this time around.  I do not want to give any of it away.  You should discover what the terrorists have planned all on your own.  The scary part is that this is a threat that many countries on the planet might have to face.  In fact, even before the bigger plot is revealed the idea of terrorists committing smaller acts of terrorism in multiple places is all-too real. 

Just remember that there are certain rules every season of “24” must follow.  There is always a traitor in the midst.  Many times this traitor is right in the President’s cabinet (or even the President himself, last season).  Multiple times someone with vital information will end up shot and dying before the information can be gleaned.  Everything is within twenty minutes driving time despite the fact the entire show is set in
Los Angeles.  Every time someone goes with Jack on a mission and that person is not a main character that person will die.  Also, whatever the terrorist plot seems like it will be at the beginning it will end up being something much larger and more convoluted than initially presented. 

Keep those things in mind.  The season opener has delivered the thrills.  During the second two-hours I found myself shouting at the television and putting my hands on the top of my head and gasping audibly and comically.  I was also, surprisingly, touched by Jack and his new attitudes. 

In the past the peripheral characters were always just a little bit more interesting than Jack.  That is still the case.  Lord help the writers if anything ever happen to Mary Lyn Rajskubs’ Chloe.  However, Jack himself was always rather one dimensional.  Yeah, sure, you liked him and wanted him to win but he didn’t quite tug at the heart strings.  There was once a rumor his character might get killed off and I actually thought that might not be a bad idea.  This season, I am very glad he is still around. 

So, I am once again hooked ‘til the end.  I am looking forward the next installment and I will be on the edge of my seat all season long.  This is a great show and it is just way too much fun.  Yes, it’s about terrorism, but it is still a blast and you know Jack will eventually just kick some serious terrorist butt. 

Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is available in print and eBook format at his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.

Attack of the Big Giant Head

I feel I need to do a lot of qualifying in this particular rant.  There are a few things I think need to be gotten straight and kept straight in everyone’s head before I can proceed.  There are some things going on in the media and on television over the past few days and, to be honest with you, it’s really hard to pick a villain in this scenario.  Yet, despite this fact and despite the rather obnoxious and potentially villainous demeanor and manner of other key elements of this story one giant enormous head has come screeching to an ear-splitting pitch and made me want to stab myself in the eyes with a letter-opener. 

FACT:  I think Donald Trump is a self-aggrandizing, no-talent, no-taste moron with the worst hairstyle of this or any century and I am including the ones back in Medieval times when there were no hairstylists.  He is constantly broke and yet always coming back.  When you dig you find he really does nothing more than lend his name to things and then self-promote the hell out of them.  He really has little controlling interest in the things he runs around acting like he runs.  Everything he has he claims is the best and the most fantastic and most wonderful.  However, having seen what passes for his home on one episode of that dismal show “The Apprentice” I can say that you would feel more homey sleeping on the marble floor of the
Field
Museum in
Chicago.  Still, he is not the villain in this tale. 

FACT:  The Miss USA pageant somehow manages to be less-classy than the Miss America pageant.  It is a pageant that at least had the decency to act like what a pageant should be and that is females parading around in skimpy outfits and looking sexy.  Miss
America wants to pass itself off as somehow more-classy by offering scholarships and changing the swimsuit competition and whether or not the women are barefoot of wear heels.  As if bare feet or heels makes a difference.  Still, it was almost laughable how the world and the entertainment “media” acted like it was the end of the world or a scandal on par with Watergate when the current Miss USA was nearly “dethroned” because of her partying.  Most men were probably like me and just wanted to see the pictures of her kissing Miss Teen USA which she was supposedly accused of doing.  Still, even this pageant, the notion of entertainment “media” or the fact that “The Donald” had to bend down like some self-appointed king and offer her clemency is the villain in this piece.  Of course, now, once some of the pictures were seen, Donald then REVERSED his decision and “terminated” her.  I have no idea what this means about her rehab 

FACT:  Rosie O’Donnell has a big giant fat head with a big giant flapping mouth and big giant flapping lips flapping over big giant scary teeth and a big giant annoying voice to top it all of in one big giant, flapping, scary, annoying package. 

I was so glad when Rosie stopped her show.  I hated her voice and the fact that everyone seemed to be laughing themselves into fits over jokes that were stale five years before she said them.  I hated her attempt to turn that one magazine into her own version of the Oprah magazine.  I was glad when that didn’t work either.  I, for one, hoped she might just retire somewhere and never be seen again except maybe on occasional attempts to revive “The Hollywood Squares.” 

Who the hell made her the one who could suddenly pass judgment on the morals and values of everyone else in
Hollywood?  Why does she suddenly feel she needs to step in and decide that whatever Donald does is beneath contempt but whatever she says and does somehow smells perfect and turns lead into gold?  Why does she get to tell people like Britney and Lindsay that they should come to her for help? 

Rosie seems to be a bit pent up these days.  It is as if the time off she took between when her self-titled show ended and her time on The View started she has just had to bite her tongue.  She apparently has bit it so much that everything behind her vocal chords has caused some kind of verbal constipation and The View has become some kind of laxative that has now allowed her to shoot verbal diarrhea all over the airwaves.  She used to criticize Howard Stern for his brand of broadcasting but I find everything Rosie has done lately infinitely more offensive, obnoxious and annoying that anything Howard ever did. 

First she had the nerve to attack Kelly Ripa for the strange events that transpired between her and Clay Aiken.  I forget the exact nature of the argument but Rosie somehow felt that something Kelly said (oh, right, about not knowing where Clay’s hand had been when he clamped it over her mouth, rather rudely) was homophobic.  As if on planet Rosie anything about hygiene directed at anyone who may or may not be homosexual is a direct attack on that community.  What about the fact that clamping your hands over someone’s mouth is rude and annoying?  Such things do not matter to Madam Rosie the giant flapping head when she perceives that maybe someone might have said something that may be misconstrued as homophobic as long as you also happen to be clinically insane.  What planet is she from? 

She amazes me.  She is a miracle of nature.  She has the nerve to make fun of Donald’s hair.  Of course, Donald’s hair is also a miracle of nature and hairspray but, really Rosie, heal thine own tresses before thou cast stones ‘pon the tresses of others.  You who once went so butch that you made others who are proudly butch want to wear long-haired wigs.  Right now your hair looks like a slightly-longer version of Mike Ditka.  It is obvious you take tips from him because you just pretty much brush it back of your giant enormous flapping forehead. 

So, exactly why she felt that this was an area where she should step in and comment and declare what she feels should be the way things should go.  I sort of feel sorry for the rest of the cackling hens on that show she is on.  It must be hard to get a word in edgewise when you have someone as giant and flapping and annoying and used to getting her own way on things.  Not that the rest of them have ever really had anything to say.  Apparently Star Jones was so intimidated by the other giant flapping head moving in she felt she needed to get out of there. 

So, I don’t really know what happened with Miss
USA.  I think she probably partied like a lot of young women do.  They see Britney and they see Lindsay and they think that maybe it’s OK.  I already talked about dumb stars being poor role models.  At the same time large, flapping-headed, fat-lipped, bad-haired women flapping their fat flapping gums in screeching annoying voices as if they were intelligent or possessed a shred of actual talent are also very bad role models.  In fact, it would be my assertion no one you see on television should be anyone’s role model.
Writers, on the other hand, I am sure they make fantastic role models. 

 

Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is available in print and eBook format on his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.

Closer than We Thought

I was watching television not very long ago and I happened to stumble across the show “Primetime Live.”  It’s tough to keep the news magazine shows separate, and I will acknowledge that.  They all seem to tell the same stories with the same dramatic flair and they like to repeat the same stories over and over and over again.  At this point if there is a creep looking for underage children on the internet and who gets invited anywhere and DOESN’T expect Christ Hansen to step out of the kitchen then that person not only deserved to be arrested and locked away forever for being a pervert but he deserves to be tackled by police and locked away from the light for being stupid. 

This show was not about anything to do with the internet.  You may have seen this story.  It really made me think and it made me wonder.  Of course, I also wondered for selfish reasons, but it also just made me curious.  It studied a fairly common phrase among most people and that is the idea that every person is only “six degrees” away from anyone else. 

You are probably aware of this idea even if you are not aware of the fact that it was a concept even before they applied it to the actor Kevin Bacon.  The idea is that anyone in the world is six people away from you and if you just make a phone call to a friend that friend will, in turn, know someone else and that person will know someone else and, eventually, you will find yourself face-to-face with that person in only about six people. 

On this particular episode they put it to the test.  They found a man who is a boxer and lives in a very poor area of
Brooklyn.  They then found two people who lived on the upper-east and –west sides of
New York and showed them a picture of the boxer.  They gave a name and who he was and where he was and told them to go find him.  The thing they could not do was just look up the gym where he worked out and call over there.  They had to reach out, as the first step, to someone they already knew. 

What was amazing to watch was that each of them reached out to someone they knew and took vastly different approaches to it but each of them managed to get to the boxer.  The guy they found actually managed to get to the boxer in five steps and he got there first.  The woman who owned a magazine in the
Hamptons managed to make it in exactly six links but she managed to find an entirely different route. 

It was pretty cool but then the idea came to the producers to try and reverse it.  Sure, when you went to people who were relatively wealthy and moved in large circles of power and had potentially hundreds of acquaintances and contacts it might be relatively easy to find someone.  The question was, is it easier to go downhill then to look back uphill.  So, they gave the boxer a picture of a pretty young woman who is a dancer on Broadway and had just landed a part in a revival of “A Chorus Line” and told him to do the same thing.  Now, how could a guy who lived in a poor part of town, had never been to a Broadway musical, and mostly knew other boxers find his way there?  Surprisingly he did it and he did it pretty easily. 

It really made me think.  It turns out there is a university that has been doing a study on an even wider scale for some time now.  They have people in the U.S. and other countries and assign them someone to find in
Australia or other parts of the world.  What the study has found is that even with an entire planet between the connections it was still possible to make the connection and do it, usually, in about six links.  This study is done mostly through e-mails. 

So, I had to wonder, if this is the case then it raises a few questions.  For example, does that mean I am only six links away from talking face-to-face with Stephen King?  The one man I would love to meet and talk with might only be six people away, if based upon this theory.  However, wouldn’t it be vastly difficult to do?  Wouldn’t I run into people in the publishing world who would not want to give up his name?  Wouldn’t it be easier to do if I had a television camera crew and producers who would let Mr. King know that some nut-job in Chicago who fancied himself a writer was going to see if he could get to him?  I am thinking doing the search through a television show may make things a little bit easier than trying to do this on your own.  Everyone wants to be on television, right? 

If everyone around the world is really only six links away from everyone else then why is it so damn hard to find Osama?  Couldn’t Bush actually do it himself?  Given this theory shouldn’t he be able to pick up a phone and make a call?  Aren’t the rest of Osama’s family rather wealthy oil-type people who actually hang out in fancy rich circles and attend school here in the
U.S.?  Seems to me the CIA should be picking up a phone call and making a few phone calls.  A boxer found a dancer so a CIA guy should be able to find a guy in a cave, I think. 

Technically, would we even need a CIA?  What about an FBI?  Why was it so darn hard to find the Unabomber?  Maybe the whole thing is that people still feel like they are isolated and alone and don’t realize that they may be closer to that guy across the street or that pretty woman standing on the corner than they actually realized.  Maybe it’s an idea whose time as come and maybe, just maybe, the entire theory needs to be looked at and a major change in the way we think should take place.  If we really are that close to each other, maybe the things you do and say have more of an effect than you realize.  Turns out that you may be closer to that person standing next to you than you realize.  Maybe that means you shouldn’t be so rude to that person when standing in line to by your venti whatever. 

The planet, relatively speaking, is a very large object.  In the vast scheme of the universe, it’s actually really tiny.  While you may believe in a god or God or deity the fact is, down here, every day, we are on our own to get through it.  That means we should start finding a way to rely on each other more.  Maybe people need to realize they are not just in this for themselves but that what they do has a potential ripple effect that could touch all of us.   

Then again, I am supposed to be a cynic and this whole article is starting to sound very optimistic.  It must be the Christmas music or something.   

Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is available in print and eBook format on his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.  Buy it and encourage a friend to do so. 

How to Destroy Your Career

This seems to be a theme that has become more and more prominent lately and I have already written twice about the insanity of the celebrities these days.  Just when I think there might be a break in this series of crazy events something else happens and it may be crazier than the first.  I think maybe it was a disease that was always there.  You can look back over the course of movies and celebrities and there are hints that all is not well among those who decide to make a living entertaining us. Back during the silent film era there was a man named “Fatty” Arbuckle.  He was a large man who was huge in silent film comedies at the time.  He was one of the highest-paid actors of his day with a contract of over a million dollars with Paramount Studios.  If you think about it that was back in the early nineteen hundreds so that was a tremendous amount of money.  Anyway, Fatty got himself into trouble when a young actress ended up dead after spending the better part of a weekend with him and a friend.  Arbuckle was accused of crushing the girl while attempting to rape her. 

That was just the start of it.  I am betting back in Shakespeare’s time there were actors who were hugely popular who were also involved in scandals.  Of course, back then, actors were all male and they dressed like women when the roles called for it.  You have to wonder about the mental states of those guys back then. John Wilkes Booth was an actor.  In fact he was one of the most-popular actors of his day.  Just imagine one of the popular young, handsome actors of today walking up and shooting a major world leader.  That was what it was like when Booth did what he did to
Lincoln.  Once again you have an actor doing something crazy. 

I think maybe we see it more these days because everyone and everything has a camera attached to it.  Phones have cameras.  Portable MP3s have cameras and can download pictures.  I bet there are shoes and ties and watches with cameras.  James Bond would look at the things we have with cameras and be amazed were he not entirely fictional.  This means if you do something these days you can pretty much count on the fact that it was probably captured on camera.  Want to hit your kid in the parking lot of the local “big box” store?  You had better believe you will be on camera.  Want to pee in your boss’ coffee?  You had better believe you will be caught on camera.  You combine this with the power and the immediacy of the internet and the popularity of sites like “YouTube” and other sites and you can instantly show the entire planet the embarrassing thing you caught on your necktie camera.  So, whereas at one time if Fatty Arbuckle did something it could take months for it to filter to the middle states now you can get to a computer and see Michael Richards spouting off hateful comments left and right.  In fact you can probably see it minutes, maybe hours, after the incident initially happened.  These days, you make a stupid and idiotic move like that and you can count on most of the world talking about it the next day.   It’s so easy, in fact, I am printing an easy guide.  If you are celebrity looking to be shunned and humiliated in the hopes of getting your own special with Barbara Walters here’s how you can do it: 

1.  Get Famous- first you have to get famous.  Become a movie star.  Get a hit television show.  Become a hugely famous singer.  Do just about anything just so long as it puts your name on most of the lips in
America.

2.  Do Something Public – this would be doing a comedy show or perhaps partying somewhere where you know a lot of people will take pictures.  This way they can post their videos of you taking shot after shot of tequila.  Maybe you want to stand up on the stage of a comedy club even though you’re not a stand-up comedian.  It doesn’t really matter.  Just do it in public so that a lot of people can see you and hear you and report about it later.  Once again, everyone has a camera including the cop who pulled you over so really the thing you would need to worry about is NOT being in public in some way or another.

3.  Immediately Go to Rehab – Once the tape or video hits the internet and then all of the entertainment shows the next day you should immediately declare yourself as having some kind of drinking or drug problem and then check yourself into rehab.  Whether or not this excuses your behavior or just takes away your inhibitions and exposes feelings you normally keep repressed is entirely debatable.  Whether or not this generates any sympathy is debatable.  Just know that by declaring it was the booze or the meth or the vicodin that was doing the talking you can maybe convince yourself you don’t actually think those things you said or that you were not really capable of doing the insane thing you did.

4.  Do an Interview – Find someone the likes of a Barbara Walters or someone from “60 Minutes” and schedule an interview.  Pour out your hearts.  Make a lot of statements like “if you were offended then I apologize” but never actually just say you were wrong and you were sorry.  That way you can turn it around and make it seem like the people who are offended are at fault for not getting your wry, witty and subtle sense of humor.

That’s really all there is to it.  Once you manage to do all of that you can maybe sell a book about your rehab experience.  Who knows, you may have a long and lengthy career in retail waiting for you.  On the other hand you might just end up directing a movie and winning Academy Awards or something. 

Regardless of which just remember there are about five billion other people who all want to be famous.  Therefore, once you have destroyed your career you can count on the fact there will be someone younger, more attractive and better at whatever it is you do to take your place.  The machine feeds itself.  It’s kind of cool in a very creepy way, don’t you think? Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is available in print and eBook at his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.

The Surprise of the Season

It’s amazing to think that there are places in this very country where men and women devote all of their time by high school football.  You see it in places like Chicago in some of the suburbs as well but it takes on a whole new level in some places like in Texas.  When you live in a big city like Chicago or New York or Detroit you have major league sports team to serve as a distraction.  You also have a lot of city with a lot of opportunities for kids to take advantage of.  In short, football isn’t the only way to actually get out of the town and into a big city. A few years back there was a book called “Friday Night Lights” about a town in
Texas where football was pretty much the very lifeblood of the town.  It was a kind of obsession that even the most ardent Bears or Packers fan would find strange.  It was the kind of obsession that made it seem as if people would live and die based upon what the local high school football team did.  Whereas you may wait until Sunday with anticipation for your NFL team or maybe Saturday to watch you favorite college team but these places waited for Friday night.  The games are carried on local television and news stations.  The local sports radio stations talked about the games and the players the way your local sports radio stations may talk about the NFL team. 

That book was turned into a movie starring Billy Bob Thornton.  It was a modest hit and pretty well received by critics.  It told the story of a man who came to the town of Odessa
Texas and was put in charge of a team called the Panthers.  It gave information about how life centered around high school football in that town.  It told the story of how economic depression had pinned everyone’s hopes on whether or not the high school team would make into the state finals every year. I never saw that movie.  A television show about football wasn’t one I was particularly interested in seeing.  I also had a problem that a television show called “Friday Night Lights” was not actually going to be on Friday nights which seemed logical.  However, I liked the actor Kyle Chandler who was going to be playing the lead and the previews seemed to be rather interesting and intense.  I decided I had nothing better to do and would tune in to the first episode. 

What I found was the surprise of the season. I found a show that was filmed in a documentary style.  I found a television show that was powerfully written with well-developed characters.  I found compelling storylines and interesting people plus amazingly filmed football game footage.  Finally, I found a show that was well-acted. It’s tough to find actors who are supposed to be high school students who can act.  This seems to be an issue that “Friday Night Lights” has solved.  There is the quarterback who ends up with the spinal injury.  His recovery has managed to become a story that is almost as compelling as whether or not the team is going to make it into the finals.  The story of the back-up quarterback trying to maintain leadership over the team resonates with me here in Chicago after going through last Bears season and watching back-up quarterback Kyle Orton hold the team together. 

Then there’s the player who is the quarterback’s best friend who is also an alcoholic and has a huge crush on the quarterback’s girlfriend.  He blames himself for his friend ended up in the hospital and uses that as an excuse to fall deeper into his addictions and self-destructive behavior. Meanwhile there is the quarterback who was illegally recruited to play on the team.  He was displaced due to Hurricane Katrina and was an all-star player on his Louisiana team.  Now the coach and the team may be in trouble due to the illegal recruitment. 

Holding all of this together is the story of the coach and his family.  How does a man manage to live day-to-day when the hopes and dreams of the town are placed squarely on his shoulders seconds after he wakes every day?  Everywhere he goes people give him advice on how he should coach the team and who he should play.  When he loses the townspeople seem to feel they have the right to threaten the man and his family.  There is a disturbing scene where the coach enters a fast-food restaurant with his daughter and his daughter is accosted by a man who at one time won a state championship with the football team.  The fact that he is now fat, still living in the town, and still obsessed with high school football doesn’t seem to matter with him. Some of the racism that was dealt with in the movie is absent in this television show, but it is there.  The black students are treated more like animals who are expected to perform on cue for the masses.  Meanwhile each of them holds out hope that a big college might recruit them and then they might get to the pros and provide money to their families. 

What is so compelling about this is that you know there are towns like this going through things like this right now.  There are towns right now gearing up for the Friday night game and there are kids who are putting the hopes and dreams of the entire town on their heads.  There are kids right now who think that football is the only hope they have to getting out of some small no-name town and into a life of untold riches.  All of them forget the toll that this game takes on their bodies or forget that the rich linebacker can now barely walk with his career over because his knees are shot forever. The head coach of the Chicago Bears, Lovie Smith, came from a town like that.  Part of the reason he may be so good at what he does is because he came from a place where everyone lived on a steady diet of football.  I would guess that he is the exception, however, and not the rule.  I am willing to bet that all of those kids out there in that town right now really have no more chance of turning pro than I do.   

It’s a sad fact that all of that pressure may not lead to more than a life in a small town, growing old, gaining weight and then sitting there at middle age looking at a tarnished state championship ring.  That is what the show “Friday Night Lights” is about.  That seems heavy, but the show is also compelling, well-written and exciting.  You care about these people.  It’s the surprise of the season and I am hoping the Dillon Panthers make it to the state championship. Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is available at his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.

In Case You’ve Been Wondering What O.J. Has Been Up To

I had originally planned to write about a show that has taken me by surprise by being of excellent quality.  It’s nice when that kind of thing happens mostly because it has been so rare as of late.  There was a time when you might find multiple shows that were pretty good.  Of course that may have been when I was about ten years old so it’s hard to say if I had any real taste considering I was still watching cartoons on Saturday morning.  Anyway, I had wanted to recommend a show to people because I have been taken by surprise by this particular show.  However, the Fox network showed a commercial for something that almost knocked me on the floor. 

You are probably aware of the Fox network.  I remember when Fox officially became a network.  There was a time when David Letterman would talk about the Fox network and then laugh in fake hysterical laughter.  This was back when Fox was showing things like “Married…With Children” and a bunch of shows about autopsying aliens.  Of course that also made Fox famous.  It was Fox who was willing to put on just about any show that anyone pitched at them.  We all remember the various “When Things Attack” phase of the network.   

Since that originally time the network has managed to put on some quality shows and made itself a major network force to be reckoned with.  “The X-Files” is a good example of that.  The thing about that show, however, at least with me, is I find I have no desire to watch them in syndication.  Fox also now has shows like “House” and “Prison Break” which are also quality shows in my opinion.  Finally the show has always been the best place to find the funniest animated shows ever.  “The Simpsons” has to hold the record as being the longest-running and yet consistently-funny show in television.  I am also a huge fan of “Family Guy” and “American Dad.” 

It seems, however, that Fox just cannot get fully away from the days when it would show pictures of bears attacking old women or whatever.  I saw a commercial for a show entitled, and I swear to you I am not kidding, “O.J. Simpson: If I had Done it, this is How it was Done.”  Having just written that I actually had to pause, rub my eyes comically, and then stare again at what I had just written.  I kept waiting for it to be a joke when I watched the commercial.  I kept waiting for the punch-line.  I kept wondering when it would be revealed to be some kind of “Punk’d” show or “MadTV.”  For all I know this will still turn out to be a joke.  O.J. Simpson did have a show you could get on Pay-Per-View where he did practical jokes. 

So, judging from the commercial, O.J. is going to sit there and in some weird Bizzarro World interview act like he didn’t commit the murders but then explain how he would have committed them if he had.  In addition to having sore eyes from the rubbing I just gave myself a headache with that explanation.  Here’s the thing that O.J. needs to keep in mind: we all know you did it and we always have. 

It seems a silly thing considering what has happened since O.J. had the entire country held in its thrall.  September 11, 2001 was still years away.  It is amazing to think that there was a simpler time when we didn’t live in fear and weren’t at war and an ex-football player who had killed his wife and an innocent waiter could hold our attention.   

Like a lot of people I got fairly caught up in the thing.  I was on the air at a college radio station when the whole slow chase thing was going on.  I was getting phone calls from people wanting to update me on what was going on. I figured O.J. was going to shoot himself in the head inside that Bronco but that didn’t happen.  No, we had months and months of details and trial shenanigans to endure yet. 

Like a lot of people, I was also surprised that he was found not guilty.  One thing that people often forget when people are found that is that they are not declared “innocent.”  All they say is you are “not guilty” which is a bit of semantics and splitting-hairs but it is important.  Essentially “not guilty” means that the prosecution hasn’t presented enough of a case to show that you are guilty. 

What was always interesting to me was that O.J. claimed he had cut his hand by breaking a glass when he was here in
Chicago at a hotel.  I knew where the hotel was that he was supposed to be staying at when he was here.  I used to drive past it all the time.  I remember when cops were combing the area around the hotel looking for the knife. 

I wonder what O.J. is going to say during this particular television special.  It seems amazing to me that he is going to say anything in particular.  Of course he isn’t going to just admit that he did it.  At the same time he is going to give his theories on how someone could get away with that kind of murder.  Apparently this is what all of his independent investigating has dug up for him.  Remember when he said he was going to devote his time to finding Nicole’s killer and then went golfing?  Apparently he found some evidence on the ninth hole. 

Of course Fox is showing this during the sweeps period that comes every November.  More than likely people will tune it.  At the very least it will be nice to visit and remember a time when you didn’t have to worry if the guy who lives across the street was a terrorist.  It was such a kinder, gentler time when you just had to worry about ex-football stars lopping your head off with a giant knife. 

It is also a throwback to a simpler time when the Fox network was showing specials about people autopsying alien bodies.  It was a nice time to remember when you could turn on Fox and see animals attacking children.  If only for nostalgic purposes this show may be worth watching.As for me, I remember the O.J. trial because of one phrase a friend of mine named Pat once said on a radio talk show.  Back then Pat and his brother and some friends would call this local night-time radio talk show and see if they could get on the air posing as legit callers and then fill their statements with inside jokes.  The goal was to see how long you could remain on the air with ridiculous sounds going on in the background or silly noises or strange phrases being thrown out.  It was funny.  Pat, however, called in once about O.J. and may have said one of the funniest sentences I have ever heard. 

“I think when the DA and the LAPD get the DNA tests back they’re going to see it was O.J.’s fault those people were DOA, do you agree with me?” 

Yes, I do, Pat.  Yes, I do. 

Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is available for sale at his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.

And Now a Word from Our Sponsors

You know you have to put up with them, provided you are not part of the TiVO generation.  These are the little bits of entertainment between the shows.  You may know them better as commercials.  Perhaps it’s been a while since you even watched these things.  Luckily for you, I am keeping an eye on things for you.  First thing you should know is that they have not gotten any better in the years since you first started using your remote to flip around when they came on. In fact, I am starting to think there may be a problem in the advertising world.  They seem to have completely lost the ability to create decent commercials.  I have a hard time blaming TiVO as the generation that will grow up with that device have not yet gotten jobs in the advertising field.  As such, they would not be there to create these infernal commercials that are not funny, not creative and not able to sell anything. 

At the top of the list has to be the old guy with the foreign accent selling the miles program for a national credit card company.  OK, I have never officially worked in the advertising agency but I can tell you that one of the things you should do when you have a spokesman is that you should try to find one that you can understand.  I have no idea what this guy is saying.  His sidekick is not funny but just stupid.  At the end of each commercial the old foreign dude says something that sounds like, “rewarring, veddy, veddy, rewarrring.” I have been morally opposed to the Burger King guy ever since I first saw him.  One of the other rules for advertising that I would like to put out there is that if you want to have a mascot then you should have a mascot that has moving facial features.  Its mouth should move or even an eyebrow.  At the very least it should wink.  The one exception to this would be the Jack-In-The-Box guy and even he can change facial expressions from time to time.  Essentially the actual Burger King himself is just creepy. 

The Army has been showing commercials lately that conveniently leave out certain facts about being in the Army.  Of course, that is also a rule in advertising that you shouldn’t put anything in there that might turn people off from your product.  Still the Army commercials where you show parents who are happy that the Army has made their son or daughter smarter or stronger or that they can run faster just seems a little odd to me.  Or the one where the father tells his son that he looked him in the eye and shook his hand for the first time.   I have just about had the end of the whole cell phone commercial thing.  The one where Joan Cusak is sitting in what looks like a shopping mall singing the words “Call me” over and over again has to mark a low-point in her career.  I am also getting tired of the guy in glasses who heads up the “network” of that one cell phone company.  His smirk is getting on my nerves.There are a few commercials out there that aren’t too bad.  I like the one where the car manages to fall through the center of the earth.  You just have to occasionally tip your hat at a commercial that obviously cost as much as Hollywood movie to make.  Of course, I kind of wish they would stop playing it every five seconds during football season. 

I am very tired of the commercial where the Loch Ness Monster attacks that car.  Who is screaming “shoot it, shoot it!” at the end of that commercial anyway?  Why would someone want to just shoot the monster having finally just discovered it?  None of those particular special effects look good anymore. I am liking nearly every commercial that star Peyton Manning these days.  I would have to say my favorite commercial from last year was the one where he was walking around getting autographs from guys working in grocery stores and asking wait-staff for their aprons.  I also like the one where he is selling some kind of cell phone with the goofy wig and mustache.   

I recently saw a commercial where two guys shoveled up some dog poop and then slapped it into the hand of an obnoxious neighbor.  I am both amused and utterly repulsed by this commercial.  Part of the problem is, of course, the way in which the message comes across is so shocking I don’t think I could tell you what the product was if you put a gun to my head.  I also would like to put a moratorium on the drugs for men with erectile dysfunction.  At the very least they should make an attempt to make sense.  I don’t know about the old couple who appear to be headed upstairs when their grandkids suddenly stop by.  How would you feel if grandma and grandpa kept giving each other lewd looks the entire time you were visiting?  Also, what place in the world has bathtubs in the middle of the ocean?  Is there a lighthouse somewhere with this feature?  This commercial needs to be selling vacation packages to that place and not for the pills. 

I guess I just don’t understand where these advertising guys are coming from.  I guess they just want to try and be different.  I can appreciate that, but why do you have to go from different to ridiculous?  It has always been my impression that most of those ads are created by teams of people.  These teams of people sit around and have brainstorms and they come up with ads.  At some point do they completely lose touch and end up with monster living in the lungs of children who then get coughed away?  Do we need anthropomorphic phlegm?  Who decides what phlegm should look like?  What is phlegm doing that it can evidently have children? So, what I am saying is that in all of those meeting with all of those people sitting around and staring at their screens and drawing storyboards do they eventually decide animated phlegm is the only way to sell a medicine that is supposed to make you hawk loogies?  At some point, when it is late at night and you haven’t seen your children in a week because you have been sleeping at the office do you just throw up your hands and agree that animated phlegm is the way to go?  I just don’t know.  If I were the drug company I would personally go back to letting pharmacists recommend my product and not trying to make phlegm look cute. 

Finally, as a word to advertisers, it bothers me that everyone in commercials uses their credit cards upside down.  I know, you want the label and the name of the card to be seen, but no one has a magnetic stripe on the bottom of the card so you can swipe it right-side up.  It just doesn’t happen.  It never will happen.  Stop it.  Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is available at his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.