Only in California

 

I must confess that one of my most guilty pleasures is watching the 10:00 news… and making fun of the newscasters. It is, after all, harmless ridicule. And let’s face it - they are pretty much asking for it.

With the men, you generally have one of two categories: the gorgeous ex-jock Mario-Lopez-looking-guy in a sharp metrosexual suit, delivering the news as if it fell from the pages of Henry V; or old-guy-trying-too-hard-to-look-young with too much product, spray tan, and/or unnatural inky black hair who shouts at the camera as if it were Stellllla!!!!!

Then we have the women. Type one dons her short skirts, tight sweaters, or dipped off the shoulder tops complete with fashionable bangles, accessories, and what can only pass as go-go boots. Or we have the classic cavalier heroine with her long blond hair pulled over one shoulder in a love locket, as if to signal to the Mario Lopez counterpart that she is just one ripped-bodice away from number one ratings.

Yet, what stands out the most with the newscasters is their profound lampoonery of daily tidings. Despite the seriousness of the situations, they always manage to say things that are just… well… STUPID. “Tonight, we are standing in front of the house where earlier tonight, police found a woman who had been seriously stabbed.” Um… WTF? Not just stabbed, but “seriously” stabbed? Not jokingly stabbed or mildly stabbed, but “seriously” stabbed?

“From here, the fire spread to the house next door where embers lit on top of the roof…causing…. the house to burn.” Really? So the fire caused the house to… burn?! Seriously?!

“Here we are live with witnesses who observed the hit and run accident. So you just saw your best friend coldly run down and killed. How do you feel right now?” Head… SMACK!!!!!!!

“Why are these people being paid to do this job?!!!!” my husband asked. “We should be doing this instead!” With those words, I just had to laugh. “WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING?!” he asked with all the indignant upset of a Victorian gentleman who just discovered marmalade spilled on the lapel of his smoking jacket. Seriously – for those of you out there who know my hubby, can you just imagine how he would report the news?

“Tonight, the colloquial yet dexterous purloiner bounded unequivocally from the periphery.”

As the bimbo blond in the tight sweater stares blankly at him, tossing her length of hair from one side of her cashmere-covered shoulder to the other, he would have no choice but to roll his eyes just then, look at the camera, and say, “the bad guy got away.”

Only in California.