I have to admit that I usually start my days here in Bakersfield in a pretty good mood, and for that I owe a debt of gratitude to the morning news. It's never less than entertaining, although not for the reasons they strive for. Somedays it's down right hysterical. Picture your high school putting on a newscast and you get the gist of it.
A perpetual problem is running the wrong video, which oftentimes results in some interesting juxtapositions.
"City leaders say that without a budget in place they may have to resort to drastic measures..." drones the anchor over images of a building engulfed in flames.
Actually, now that I think about it, that may have been the correct footage... it's Bako after all.
Yesterday morning the female anchor did most of the broadcast with her bra showing. It was amusing at first, but after about 15 minutes the boyfriend took pity on her. "Maybe we should call in and tell them?" he said. I said "no, they'll figure it out", and after about another 30 minutes they did.
Our current fixation is the weatherman. "Didn't he wear that same suit yesterday?" asked the boyfriend. Why yes he did. It would be hard to miss... it's brown and two sizes too small.
"I wonder how many days he's going to wear it?"
That was three weeks ago.
"Let's take a look outside" says the weatherman as they cut to one of the pointless traffic cameras. On the screen you can kind of make out a deserted road. And bird shit. The camera has been covered in bird shit for months. And the sad thing is they know about it. "Yeah, we need to get someone out there and clean that camera" he says every time, but they never do. Every morning you get to watch the sunrise over Bakersfield through streaks of bird droppings.
But the best part, I find, are the infomercials. In an effort to pad out the newscast and appear more big-time than they are, they've apparently signed up with some syndication operation that books little 3 minute "interviews". Ostensibly it's a news or lifestyle segment...
"And here to talk about childhood obesity / auto safety concerns / summer travel tips is __________."
They cut to some stranger in a studio in New York. He or she is probably doing dozens of these "interviews" for flyover country, back to back to back. To them, Bakersfield is just some name on a check list, somewhere between Altoona and Cedar Rapids. After briefly touching on the the purported subject, we get to the real reason we're here...
"It's all spelled out in my new book/ website... www.shamnewscast.com."
Occasionally, it's for some worthy cause, say Breast Cancer. And on even rarer occasions it features a real life celebrity.
"Look! It's professional golfer Phil Mickelson! And he's talking to us here in Bakersfield!"
The other day, there was one that was an absolute car wreck. It was fabulous.
It was British actress Miranda Richardson, and she was talking about turtles. Evidently, she narrated a documentary about the plight of sea turtles. I'd tell you more, but we never really got to it.
The anchor was completely starstruck and immediately started asking her about past films and co-stars. I guess she should get points for actually knowing who she was.
Ms. Richardson tried to steer the conversation to the matter at hand.
"But really, I'm here to talk about the Tuh-tles" she said in a clipped British accent.
The anchor didn't take the hint and kept up her line of Hollywood questions.
"So what was it like filming 'Harry Potter'?" she asked.
"BUT THE TUH-TLES..." Ms. Richardson implored, looking clearly exasperated.
Things were spinning from bad to worse.
"Are you going to miss 'Harry Potter'?" the clueless anchor continued.
"TUH-TLES!" begged the actress. She was almost shouting at this point.
You could see her eyes darting left, offstage, obviously hoping someone would pull the plug and put this interview out of it's misery. At one point I actually thought she was going to walk off the set.
Ultimately, it did end, too soon for my taste. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.
