Turgididity

Sometimes when I can't sleep--which this month has been basically every night, all night--I go back into my office and tinker around with stories, poems, plays, essays, letters, etc., some of which I initially wrote ten years ago (or more). I move commas around, I make global searches for the words "very" and "quite," I change the name of central characters, I add small flourishes that likely I would be the only one to notice even if a band of ravening grad students were set loose upon my work. I take it seriously.

That's why this evening's TV entertainment set my teeth on edge. It was the premier of "Smith," with Ray Liotta (aka the Human Death's Head) and a host of other basically talented actors, who have been done a terrible disservice by a team of writers who, apparently, in the immortal words of Tom Servo, "just didn't care." We're supposed to want to tune in next week to root for the following: a guy who steals the cat of his bridesmaidy one-night stand; a hard-lipped Las Vegas criminal slut who tazers a highschool acquaintance; the English guy who fancies this person but has no discernible personality in other respects; a dental assistant with brittle hair and a not-so-distant bad drug habit; a lipless man who is seriously, seriously taking advantage of the president of the plastic cup manufacturing enterprise for whom he "works." Boggles the mind. early reviews are strong and I despair.

The best part of the hour: the soulful song (Imogen Heap, "Hide and Seek") that closed the show, which included the (apparently not ironic) lyrics "What the hell//Are we doing here?"

Puts me in mind of "Wolf Lake", a CBS masterpiece of a few years ago--now, THAT was entertainment. I remember in particular one video (or maybe it was two, or three) of Lou Diamond Philips on his motorbike in the moonlight, chased by frat boys who were turning into wolves and terrorizing one another in the bushes. Seriously, It just doesn't get any better than that. I remember sitting in the office of a CBS exec and participating in a screening of the first two or three episodes--they all kind of blur together, fabulously. It was dark--really dark--and I couldn't see anyone else's face. When the lights came up and I was brushing the tears of hilarity from my eyes, I noticed that no one else was laughing. That's when I knew I wasn't really going to make it in that industry. It's probably best that I write about condominiums and foreign currency trading now.