Y’all, Nashville’s NBC affiliate has dropped The Book of Daniel from its line-up. I am not lying. NASHVILLE. A city of well over 5000 people. We’ve got a gospel drag show. How overly sensitive can we be? Yeah, yeah, buckle of the bible belt, blah blah, I know we’ve got us some crazies (you don’t even want to know what’s going on in the forums about this on the Tennessean’s website). And frankly, the show’s not all that great. But I liked just knowing it was there, you know? Available to me for my debauched viewing pleasure. The thing is that if stupid conservatives (I like to think that I personally fall into the “genius moderate” category) had just ignored the show, it would have sucked and gone away on its own. Just like most people probably wouldn’t have seen The Last Temptation of Christ if christian groups had just kept their panties on. Because nobody wants to see Willem Dafoe quiiiite that naked. Some Mother of Two who lives in Bumfuck (a small bedroom community to Nashville) said she was so relieved BOD was pulled. She had to monitor what her kids watched so they didn’t see it! And you know she just really has better things to do than to monitor what her kids watch on t.v. Now that this show is off the air she can go back to policing the rest of the world’s morality while her kids channel surf all the shows NBC has to offer that contain no references to homosexuality, extramarital (and decidedly un-family-friendly) sex, drugs or crime. If it please the Jury:
Will and Grace
Crossing Jordan
Medium
Law and Order (Gold stamped and PTA approved)
Saturday Night Live (if she really wants to do her kids a favor, she won’t expose them to this crap)
Dateline
Scrubs
E-Ring (see SNL above)
Four Kings
My Name is Earl
ER
Yes, NBC is chock full of wholesome Focus on the Family approved entertainment this season.
The thing is, I really don’t give a crap about The Book of Daniel.
People just wear me out.
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Anyone else have the overdeveloped sense of schadenfreude that I do over this whole James-Frey-is-a-big-fat-liar thing? I guess you’d have to be as irritated by Oprah’s book club as I am. And also, you’d have to hate writers who suck and lie at the same time, faking their way onto bestseller lists. It’s hard enough to be a writer. I don’t like people who cheat. I know too many undiscovered brilliant ones. And now I want to work for The Smoking Gun.
I saw this headline on CNN: ‘Holy warrior’ recruiting: 20 held. In one of my past lives I was a recruiter for a personnel agency, and I had to go a-cruitin’ on many occasions. It always ended up being me and one other person standing in a ballroom cubicle at a job fair, handing out pens and conning people into coming over and giving us their contact information. What would one give out as freebies when trying to recruit holy warriors? Little plastic virgins? Milk and honey bars? Bandanas imprinted with the word “shahid?” (“martyr”) (I read somewhere that’s what they wear when they go on a mission) One of those floaty pens that you can turn on its end and the little holy warrior inside floats up to Allah? Actually, that would be a cool pen. Not for holy warriors, but as a Baptist I wouldn’t mind having one of a little republican homemaker floating up to Jesus.
“Be part of the holy warrior team! Provide for your family, take pride in what you do, and gain the kind of respect that can only come from fifteen minutes of fame on the Al Jazeera website!”
There’s a huge pop up display stand behind the recruiters’ table with clip art people wearing burquas and vests giving the thumbs up with quotations marks around the company slogan. When I was recruiting, the company slogan was “Just good people,” which is so gay. Might work for holy warrior recruiting though.
“Just good people.”
“Just pious people.”
“Just crazy people.”
“Just beat it.”
“No Jews.”
“Only the insane.”
“Just fanatical muslims.”
“Just good pizza.”
“Mmmm, pizza.”
“Just nuts.”
“Just stay out of crowded areas and you’ll be okay.”
“Just send money. We’re training in a university near you.”
Am I completely and heartlessly desensitized? Or am I just fulfilling the evolutionary imperative of adapting to my surroundings? Perhaps you’d like to read more about it in the book I’m writing chronicling the true story of when I was kidnapped in Iraq but rescued at the last minute by a horny sheik who was impressed with my ample girth and winning smile. I talked him out of an insurgency but in exchange was forced to bear him many, many children, who are now outcasts because of their mixed racial status. So I sold them on the black market to finance my return to America where I will soon be appearing on Oprah’s book club show.
James Frey sucks.
