bottom fishing

While trolling the networks for entertainment during my dinner break some days ago (and hearing experience shout "it'll never happen!"), I came across a segment of an "entertainment news" show that promised exclusive video of David Hasselhof in supreme debauchery. Staying tuned, I saw lovely photos of David in his Knight Rider and Baywatch days and other photos of him with his lovely family. Then a blurry, washed-out image filled the screen showing a paunchy man reclining on the floor surrounded by wrappers. Apparently he was eating something. The wrappers were empty or only holding food-specked cartons. There was no actual food that I could see, but that may have been because the video was lousy and the bright whites washed out the detail. Whatever.

This fat man moved his jaws and waggled distended cheeks. He wasn't totally fat, just paunchy like any self-respecting middle-aged man. He looked slightly woozy. He couldn't be bothered to answer the insistent questions of a child who apparently was holding the camera. He snorffled and snuffled as he repeatedly crammed his hands into his mouth. In the background was something that looked suspiciously like a beer bottle, although the label was turned so it could have been root beer. There was no condensation on the bottle (blurred out maybe). The contents, if there were any, were room temperature.

The "newscasters" came back into the picture deploring the ugly sight, expressing sympathy for poor David and acting as if he were doing something repulsive and quite possibly criminal. It was just a drunk man eating. How bad could it be? I've heard of messy divorces but I think they've taken it to brand new lows in California.

In my more lurid days during high school, I read the weird case of some psychologist's patient who could get very pregnant in a matter of hours. After some research he discovered she could consume about three grocery bags of food in a really short period of time and that this accounted for her distended belly. He gave her his brilliant analysis describing the complex psychological reasons why she did this to herself. She sighed in relief, miraculously recovered and lived happily ever after. uh huh. Nevertheless, I was impressed by her physical acrobatics. How the heck did she do that?

Mr. Hasselhof undoubtedly fits the category of acrobat as do many thespians. Acting is a very strenuous job. My guess is his first addiction is food and that alcohol just removes the barriers to gluttonous inhaling. I suspect these bouts are followed by periods of starvation and over exercising to get the physique he needs to keep working. Yes – that's sick.

While on the plane recently (and again desperate for entertainment) I watched a two hour condensed version of what the media considers news. At the end of this was a bite of fashion news showing a runway filled with models. Have you ever seen a widescreen movie shown wrong? It looks a bit like an El Greco painting, the figures pulled out of shape like images on silly putty. I thought for a second that there must be some technical difficulty and then realized that, no, this is how those women look. The baggy clothes did not help.

The real reason I've quit watching TV and most movies is that I'm tired of looking at food-crazed, half-starved psyches trapped in malnourished bodies. I get nauseated from seeing bones sticking out of places where flesh should be. I gawk with disbelief at the transparent efforts to cloak skeletal remains in loose attire. I can't keep my mind on the plot from wondering how they keep going from day to day and what they must be telling themselves and each other to keep it up. People are starving in Mexico and they refuse to eat in the land of plenty.

It's almost enough for me start a list of shows that have normal-sized bodies in them. Almost.