The local news. It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry. Somedays it's just so cringe inducing you just have to look away. Shake your head and turn it off. Others, it's so unintentionally hilarious it's the bright spot in my day. All local news is generally awful, LA's included. But by comparison, the LA newscasts now look like the BBC World Service. The worst of the worst, or best of the best (depending on your frame of mind), are the morning news shows. My particular favorite is "No Bull Mornings", just for the title alone.
So imagine by shock and distress this morning when I found out that, come Monday, it will no longer be called "No Bull Mornings"! They're switching to the blandly generic "Good Morning Kern County!". What a shame.
In a city of only 300,00, there are at least four local news stations, each with their big city whiz bang graphics and "Action News" vans. They certainly aren't lacking in resources. And yet it's still all so head-scratchingly... awful. You certainly don't tune in to get any, you know, "news". Not unless you're dying to know who won "Fist Place Swine" at the Fair, or you need to know what time the Funny Car Drag Race is going off. But it certainly isn't lacking in entertainment value.
First you have Melissa, the weather girl. Or I should say "girls", 'cuz "the girls" is all you're going to be looking at. Supersized breast implants, straining to break free from two-sizes-too-small Forever 21 blouses. One of these days one of those buttons is going to blow and someone's going to get hurt. You say there's a cold front moving in? Well I can see that. Jeez, how cold is it in the studio? She's never quite mastered the clicker, so weather maps and forecasts unintentionally streak by at warp speed. If you want to get the weather from Melissa, you're going to have to freeze frame.
And then there's Karl, the sports guy. A walking bag of testosterone, he's needlessly loud and bombastic. He thinks he's quite clever and loves his puns, which when it comes to talking about high school football is unfortunate, because the hometown team is... The Drillers. So imagine the loudest, most obnoxious frat guy making endless jokes about "drill this, drill that". Oh, and Karl's last name? Mandick.
But by far the highlight, or lowlight as the case may be, is "Metro Traffic". METRO TRAFFIC! IN BAKERSFIELD!
There's only one fucking highway! And it goes to Fresno!
No matter. Three or four times an hour they cut to some old, toothless coot in a Hawaiian shirt seated in front a a plasma screen. His name is Doug. On the screen behind him is a graphic map of Bako, little animated cars whizzing to and fro. They cheat of course, they have to. What's the point of doing traffic if all you can show is little cars moving up and down on Highway 99? So they throw in a bunch of the side streets and try and make it look like Bako is a little urban beehive of activity. To no avail. Inevitably, they throw it to Doug, and Doug reports that there is nothing to report, and that's it. Back to you.
One morning I was in the kitchen getting coffee and I heard from the living room that there was a "Breaking Traffic Report"! Ooh.... whatever could it be? Jack-knifed big rig? Five car pile up? School bus on fire?
Nope. Bale of hay. Lane 2.
