This one isn't Fop. It's funny, or maybe I'm just slap-happy after a frustrating week.
Anyway, there's a commercial on tv, in which two animals wearing night goggles watch what I think is their predator, prowling around in the dark. Maybe they are gazelles or some such, and the predator's a lion. They laugh at his inability (I think) to find them; they call him by name, "Carl."
I have no idea what the commercial is advertising, or even if I've gotten the story line right. But the thought of two wildebeests calling the lion hunting them by his first name puts an entire world-view sort of conceit in front of me: what if all the animals, everywhere in the world, are actually intelligent, and have a common language? Or maybe they have several, or hundreds, of languages. But they are generally just lazy, given to pranks and just getting by. They spend their free time commenting on the humans. They have names --the ones who are pets have real names, other than the ones their owners have given them, and they tease one another.
"Hey, didja hear that Mort's new owner calls him Puffy? Hee, hee!"
That sort of thing.
The question is, is this worth a whole novel?
Riff # 3: Naming names
What with the City of Chicago's need to raise money, like all cities and states, to shovel into a deep budget hole, the idea is now presented that public buildings, bridges, and so forth ought to bear advertising signs for private businesses. I gather that this is, at present, being viewed as straight-up billboard-type advertising. If so, I think a huge opportunity is being missed; and the stadia of American sports is sitting there to exemplify the way the City ought to go: Cellular Field (formerly Comiskey Park) and The United Center (formerly Chicago Stadium) are examples of big opportunities for government.
Consider:
The Taco Bell Chicago City Council
The Preparation H Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel
Cialis International Airport
The Citi City Hall
I like this. I think I'll add to this later.
Riff # 2: Names for Cars
This is not original; I recall an item from a '60s comedian --Shelly Berman?-- about how cars ought to have names more in keeping with their "personas." So he came up with the Plymouth Bastard, for example.
But it's a fun game, especially if you use it as an opportunity to be politically incorrect. So here's a few.
The all-new Dodge Bimbo
The mid-sized Buick Nerd
The compact Buick Geek
The Volvo Caution
The Pontiac Dinosaur (get it?)
The Cadillac Mo-Fo'
The VW StormTrooper
The Smart Sumbitch
Try this at home! Win Valuable Prizes!
Riff # 1: The Calendar Channel
The Weather Channel has come to terms with its abject failure, this season, to achieve any reasonable level of accuracy; and with its resulting irrelevance. So today the Weather Channel announced that it has sold its coveted spot on Channel 54 to a new entry in the cable tv sweepstakes:
The Calendar Channel.
"You'll get hard-hitting predictions, breaking stories, human interest; and, every day in the year: Reality," spokesman Julian Gregory offered at a mid-morning press conference. "We understand the calendar; we're going to rip the mask off. Show it like it really is."
Gregory offered snippets of what viewers will see in the coming months:
"Late breaking news: Dateline 11:01 P.M., Chicago Time, from New York: It's actually, as we stand here in Times Square, tomorrow!" (Cut to local anchor shaking his head ruefully.) "Gotta hand it to those East Coast types, folks ..."
"Live from the International Date Line, let's go to roving reporter Reena Rove. Reena?" "Julian, I'm here where a gathering of scientists has made an amazing discovery" (Cut to a scene of men and women walking slowly around a conference table.) "Let's listen in:" (voices saying, haphazardly and repeatedly "yesterday ... tomorrow ... today ..." as the camera moves in towards a blackboard where an wizened man in a white coat scribbles frantically. Someone off-camera shouts, "Newton was right!")
"The drive-time forecast: tomorrow will be July 2, folks, so better check those watch settings as you head out the door. By noon, it will be mid-day; but tomorrow evening things will begin to change: the satellites are showing something starting way over in France, about, oh, about 7:00 our time. Yep, I think we're going to start seeing July 3 moving in; it'll reach us just after midnight."
"Live! From New York! It's Saturday Night ... but where you are, who knows?"
Who knows, indeed?
