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Today
is Tuesday, April 17,
the 107th
day of 2007. There are 258
to go. The Sun is at 27 Aries The moon is waning.
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Keeping abreast of the news
BY DAVE BARRY
(This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Jan. 25, 1998.)
(This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Jan. 25, 1998.)
Recently, one of our local TV news
shows in Miami did a special investigative report on -- I swear --
brassiere sizes. The station promoted this report relentlessly for
several days. Every few minutes, you would hear an announcer's voice
saying, with an urgency appropriate for imminent nuclear attack: ''ARE
YOU WEARING THE WRONG BRA SIZE?'' You would have thought that women
were dropping dead in the street by the thousands as a result of
improperly sized brassieres. I was becoming genuinely concerned about
this problem, despite the fact that, except on very special occasions
involving schnapps, I don't even ''wear'' a brassiere.
Unfortunately, although I saw dozens
of promotions for this special investigative report, I never saw the
report itself. I assumed that the message would be: ''Wear the right
size brassiere!'' My editor, Tom Shroder, who has a keen interest in
the issues, did watch the report, and he told me that it explored the
troubling question of ``women wearing brassieres that were tragically
about 10 sizes too small for their breasts, which left said breasts
with no other choice but to spill, tragically, out of the brassiere
cups into the camera lens.''
But my point here is not directly
related to brassieres, although it is a lot of fun to use the word
''brassiere'' in a newspaper column, brassiere brassiere brassiere.
My point is that, pound for pound, the
most dramatic and entertaining programming on television is your local
TV news shows. Their only serious competition is the cable channel
that, 24 hours a day, features the TV Evangelists With Hairdos The Size
Of Adult Yaks.
If you don't receive the Big-Haired
Evangelists channel, you need to march right down to your cable company
and throw rocks through the windows until you get it, because these
people are way more entertaining than any space alien you will ever see
on ``Star Trek.''
My favorite is a woman with a gigantic
mound of hair colored exactly the same designer shade as Bazooka brand
bubble gum. Perhaps this fact explains why, almost every time I tune
in, this woman is weeping. Her tear ducts must be as big as
volleyballs. Using the standard evangelical measurement of Gallons of
Weepage Per Broadcast (GWPB), this woman could very well be threatening
the seemingly unbreakable records set back in the glorious '80s by
Hall-of-Famer Tammy Faye Bakker. I would pay serious money to see a
Weep-Off between these two great performers.
But as entertaining as these shows
are, their message tends to be somewhat repetitive (''God loves you! So
send us money!''). Whereas on your local TV news shows, they're always
surprising you with dramatic new issues that you should be nervous
about. Often these involve ordinary consumer items that, when subjected
to the scrutiny of a TV news investigative report, mutate into deadly
hazards. (John R. Gambling, of radio station WOR in New York, has a
wonderful collection of promotions for these TV news reports, including
one wherein the announcer says: ``TONIGHT AT 6: YOUR DRY CLEANING CAN
KILL YOU!!'')
A while back, one of our Miami TV news
shows -- I think it was different from the one that warned us about
improperly fitted brassieres brassieres brassieres -- did a dramatic,
heavily promoted investigative report on: frozen yogurt. This report,
which seemed at least as long as ''Alien Resurrection,'' but scarier,
investigated the possibility of deadly bacteria in our frozen-yogurt
supply. If I understood the report correctly, there have never been any
cases of any actual person actually being harmed by local frozen
yogurt, but that seemed like a minor technicality. The point was: IT
COULD HAPPEN! THE YOGURT OF DEATH!!
The way I have dealt with this menace
is by taking the medical precaution of never eating frozen yogurt
without first putting large quantities of chocolate fudge on it, on the
scientific theory that the bacteria will eat the fudge and become too
fat to do anything inside my body except sit around and belch. But I
would not know to do this if it were not for local TV news.
I also would not know how I am
supposed to feel about many stories if not for the fact that the TV
news personalities make sad faces for sad stories and happy faces for
happy stories. Sometimes, to make sure I understand the point, they
come right out and tell me, at the end of each story, whether it was
''tragic'' or ``nice.''
FIRST PERSONALITY: What a tragic
story, Bob.
SECOND PERSONALITY: Uh ... no, it
wasn't.
FIRST PERSONALITY: It wasn't?
SECOND PERSONALITY: No. That was the
story about dogs playing mah-jongg.
FIRST PERSONALITY: Whoops! I had it
confused with the story about the plane crashing into the orphanage! Ha
ha!
SECOND PERSONALITY: Ha ha! Coming up,
we'll have part four of our special investigative report: ``Formica:
Silent Killer In Your Kitchen.''
Well, I see we've run out of time, so
that's all for this week's column.
Remember to be nervous about
everything. And now for these words: brassiere brassiere brassiere.
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My pastor friend put
sanitary hot air hand dryers in the restrooms at his church and after
two weeks took them out. I
asked him why, and he confessed that they worked fine, but when he went
into the men's restroom, he saw a sign that read:
"For a sample of this
week's sermon, push the button."
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"Hillary Clinton has announced
she's going to meet with Rutgers women's
basketball team. Haven't these women suffered
enough?"
- Jay Leno
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"Carmen Electra has agreed to be the
host of a TV show where women
wrestle each other naked. The bad news is, the show is called 'The View'."
- Conan O'Brien
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"The weather around the whole country
today is like something you'd see in
a movie. It seems pretty obvious to me that God is sending us a message to stop voting for Sanjaya already."
- Jimmy Kimmel
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Letterman's Top Ten
Top Ten Things I, Dave Letterman, Have
Learned In 60 Years
10. You save a lot of money by making
your own hairpieces.
9. If I stay healthy, maybe I
can make it to 100 —
like Regis.
8. I owe my success to two
groups of viewers: prisoners and shut-ins.
7. "Lather" and "rinse" are
fine, but "repeat" is just a scam to sell
more shampoo.
6. Them redneck jokes never get old.
5. At staff parties, I always
get stuck talking to a guy named "Shecky".
4. For some reason, "Dancing
With the Stars" keeps sending my audition
tape back.
3. Can't think of anything
funny? How about this: [video of monkey
getting a root canal].
2. If you're missing "The Rachel
Ray Show," you're missing out.
1. Cookies is tasty.
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OK, move along, that's all there is,
move along please ....
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Res ipsa loquitur, sed quid in infernos dicet?
Home is where the grab bars are.