Thursday, September 08, 2005

One From The Vaults

While I plug away at fine tuning my poetry for this weekend's appearance in Calgary please enjoy one of my older pieces. It's about one of my favorite game shows.

The Price Is Rant


You know what television show is great? The Price is Right. Goddamn I love that show. You’re probably thinking right now that there’s some sort of joke coming. You’re suspecting that I’m going on the record as saying that The Price is Right is a great show just so that I can be ironic. Maybe I am, but goddamn that’s some good TV.

But Michael, you’re probably saying out loud, Bob Barker is bringing so much light into the lives of so many people with his game show, why do you have to be so fucking mean all the time?

Bob Barker can have a spay-or-neuter-a-thon all he wants. In fact, he can line up all the house pets in America and sterilize them ‘til the cows come home, or I get laid, whichever comes first (and folks, the pun is fucking intended), though the cows coming home looks to be the pony to bet on in this race. Whatever. Big fucking deal.

Back to the point, though.

The best part of The Price is Right is that it’s not so much a showcase for all the great products being churned out by manufacturers everywhere, but rather that it’s a showcase for the people who play the games. Isn’t that awesome? I love how whenever I feel depressed about how shitty things seem in my life sometimes, I can always turn on the TV and there on The Price is Right there will be hundreds of people who are worse off then me. At least I’m not one of those fucking tools, one can easily think while watching that daily drooling parade of idiocy. Not only that, but those hundreds represent a demographic that could number in the millions. My fucking life now rocks! Thank you very much CBS!

I have to say that the people on the game show wouldn’t be that bad if it weren’t for all the fucking home made t-shirts. Each one of those ugly-ass t-shirts says the same goddamn thing:

[insert town, city, fraternity, military regiment name here] loves Bob Barker

Thank you, folks. I’m sure Bob can make the happiest corpse in the world now. Who the fuck cares what banal group loves him? That’s right, nobody. And believe me, we’re all fucking impressed that you were able to claw your way from Bald Knob, Arkansas to California to appear on a game show. In the grand scheme of the universe, of all the fucking great feats a person can ever hope to achieve I rank making an appearance on The Price is Right somewhere between getting your testicles crushed by transvestite ironically named Tiny and impaling yourself on a three-foot long dildo. In case you’re wondering how feats like that rank in the grand scheme of things in this universe among all the other great things humans have achieved, it isn’t very fucking high. Sorry.

But Michael, how can you just pick on these poor people who only come to win a Ford Taurus or a poorly made catamaran? They’re just ordinary people like you and me.

Wrong again. These are people who are setting humanity back oh, say about three evolutionary steps even while they are achieving. That’s just wrong on such a monumental scale. Think about it. You have the attention of millions of sofa jockeys across the world for minutes. That’s right, minutes. Millions of people are focused on you for minutes. How many times do opportunities like that come up for people? For most people, well ordinary people like you and me that is, there’s no audience of millions hanging on our actions in some pricing game. It’s a rarity to say the least.

And the best thing that any of these people can state, whether it’s on their fucking stupid looking t-shirts or when Bob puts the mic in their faces to ask them tedious questions about Gay Head, Massachusetts or French Lick, Indiana is “We love Bob Barker!” Holy shit! How terribly original and thought provoking and that, my friends, is fucking sarcasm. I’m sure Bob has been verbally fellated by just about every asshat under the sun, from Assawoman Bay, Maryland to Humptulips, Washington, at one time or another, way to squander the opportunity to make a statement again and again and again, morons!

Is Bob Barker really some kind of gold-plated god who has to be worshipped on a TV show for the better part of his adult life?

We love you Bob! Bob, you’re great! Bob, father my children; I need your perfectly coiffed seed to spawn!

Fuck you.

You see, there’s a reason why I’ve never been on The Price is Right. Believe me, I’ve tried. The problem is that my t-shirts never get past security. I keep thinking that if I could capture the imagination of millions for a few minutes I better give them something worth listening to. I better give them a message worth believing in. Does anybody really care if I love Bob Barker? No. Can I appear on a TV show without having to take it up the ass from the host so that he looks like some sort of modern day saint of sterilizing animals? You bet your ass I can’t! Fucking TV has gone to shit a long time ago.

Here’s a t-shirt message for you: Get Off The Sofas Of The World And Do Something With Your Lives, You Human Slugs; You Make Me Sick Enough To Puke Blood. Okay, maybe a tad on the long side. Or how about: Read A Fucking Book. Stop Spaying And Neutering Your Brains, Morons! Okay, a bit shorter, but still too acerbic to get past the quality control. I suppose all that’s left is: Edmonton, Alberta Loves Bob Barker. Holy shit! The people were right all along! They weren’t going on with the intentions of professing their love of Bob Barker; they wanted to say something decent, but couldn’t get it to fit on their t-shirts. I believe I owe the world a fucking apology.

So Price is Right contestants, I’m fucking sorry you lack the imagination to do something worthwhile with your t-shirt real estate. I mean that seriously from the bottom of my coal-black little heart.

I do wonder something about many of the people who wear these t-shirts to their big break on The Price is Right, though. Do they lay awake in bed for days beforehand thinking, Fuck, Bob is so totally going to fucking love my t-shirt. I bet he decides to move to Rough and Ready, California when he see how much we love him on my fucking t-shirt. I’m so fucking cool. Wow. The scary part is that I bet a few people out there really get hard dicks thinking about how awesome their Price is Right t-shirt is going to be. Mention the possibility of incorporating glitter into their design and I bet they jizz all over themselves. I’ll get a towel.

So here it is, The Price is Right will cheer you up no matter how bleak your outlook on life is. Sometimes life throws you one of those curveballs and you’re not sure how to handle it and it might even get so bad that you want to just slit your wrists and have it over with. Realize this, though, you can write The Price is Right, Tickets, 7800 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA, 90036, for tickets and see just how much worse things could be first-hand. I guarantee you that you’ll come away from that experience wanting to live just to line assholes up to knock them down.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

First things first. The poorley made catamaran comment was priceless. Its funny you would pick on the price is right when there are so many other deserving gameshows. Family feud for example parades your entire family out there. So millions or at least a few hundred see first hand what a tool your uncle rich is. Or the 10000 dollar pryamid with your host Dick Clark. You ever watch that? He puts his hand on the shoulder on each and every contestent. You know why? Thats right hes sucking the youth out of them.

Michael said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Michael said...

The catamaran comment was a tip of the hat to the Simpsons. Homer once mentioned gameshows offering people the chance to own "poorly made catamarans." And since I was ranting about a gameshow the obscure reference seemed appropriate.

It's funny you should say that about Dick Clark, though. I read in the latest interview he did with People Magazine ("Dick Clark: Youth Through Baby Skulls") that he was given the power of sucking youth through so little as touch after a series of incantations used to summon the 7th D'Jinn from the Circle of Xiotes. That, and his favorite color is mauve. But I mean if you're sucking people's youth through touching them on the shoulder day in and day you because you were given magical powers by the 7th D'Jinn of the Circle of Xitoes it's pretty much a given that your favorite color is mauve. Sometimes People can be so redundant.

Anonymous said...

I wish all our gameshows where fucked up as the japanese. It would be truly great.
It saddens me you would remove a comment. That is what makes blogging great. Anyone can say anything. Especially arse holes let them be shouted down from the rooftops.
your right people can be so redundent.
I wish all our gameshows where fucked up as the japanese. It would be truly great.
It saddens me you would remove a comment. That is what makes blogging great. Anyone can say anything. Especially arse holes let them be shouted down from the rooftops.
redundant is just french for boring asshole isint it? ;)
Thats my sarcastic wink if you didnt catch that. Im being scarcastic right now if you didnt catch that. That was a little less scarastic if you didnt catch that.

Michael said...

Oh sorry about deleting that post. It was basically the same post as the one I made after it, but with a huge typo that was bothering me when I noticed it after posting. I deleted it right away, but didn't think that it would leave a little message that says I deleted it, which still makes me look like an asshat. So it's either leave the typo in and look like an asshat or delete it and look like an asshat.