NOTHING DOING

"We're going to have an even Greater Depression!"

It's no exaggeration to say that America is in the middle of a crisis unlike any other in memory. A pandemic that has caused the fatalities to pass the 100,000 mark. Unemployment numbers rivaling -- surpassing -- those of the Great Depression. Jobs vanishing that will likely never return. And on the horizon, the possible return of COVID-19 shortly after schools re-open. If they re-open.

But there's something even worse. One tragedy everyone is aware of but nobody is speaking aloud. 

America is bored.

Yesterday, while buying, ahem, supplies at the local beer store/tasting room, the TV at the bar was tuned to ESPN. The young man at the cash register was watching a baseball game. From 2004.

This I'd watch.

How desperate for sports must you be to watch a 16 year-old game which never made the history books?  I could have spoiled it for him by doing a two-minute Google search. Hey pal, the Pirates won, 7-6 in three extra innings. I'd have done him a favor just by snapping him out of his stupor.

It didn't even have the questionable historic interest of the 1950s hockey matches that were running some weeks ago. And even then, they wouldn't have been worth it because they likely lacked the original commercials. 

Even news is affected. Two remarkable items on the internet over the weekend caught my eye, ultimately for the wrong reasons. The first sported the headline THIEVES STEAL AND WRECK KANYE WEST'S PORSCHE PANORAMA WORTH $110K. 

As I eagerly pored over the details, my moment of schadenfreude was tempered when discovering the crime happened in 2010. Who needs a degree from the Columbia School of Journalism when what's required is a five-minute remedial course on using the internet?

At least this would be more topical.

Variety took the time machine back several decades further with its stop-the-presses breaking story, HOW CAROLE LOMBARD BECAME HOLLYWOOD'S FIRST CASUALTY OF WORLD WAR II. You know the movie industry is moribund when its premiere press chronicler has to report an incident that occurred nearly 80 years ago. Variety is less Hollywood's paper of record than its broken record. I look forward to their groundbreaking piece regarding the premiere of The Great Train Robbery.

HGTV needs better hosts.

 As for TV, there's no telling when production resumes, even as networks announce their fall schedule -- "fall" apparently meaning "on their face" if they have nothing new to run before the end of the year. The last two months have already given us a hint with its endless music and comedy "quarantine" specials. 

The channel my wife watches, HGTV, has been reduced to showing reruns of their home renovation shows, only now with the hosts watching while "quarantined" at home and adding useless narration. Um, we're already doing that from the comfort of our own couch.

But it's taken CBS to demonstrate how utterly bereft of entertainment television has become. Tomorrow evening, the company once known as "The Tiffany Network" will proudly air Haircut Night in America. I've spent several minutes pondering how snarky I can get describing what is laughingly considered a "special", but nothing tops the official logline:

“With the majority of salons and barbershops still closed while America shelters in place, many increasingly hirsute people are missing their regularly scheduled salon appointments, and now more than ever need expert advice on how to rein in their unruly manes. After nearly three months of social distancing, the time has come for people to take haircare into their own hands. In Haircut Night in America, top stylists will expertly guide celebrities in a ‘cut-a-long’ from their homes and reveal the final looks, no matter the outcome. They’ll also weave in tips and tricks for viewers to achieve the best at-home coifs, turning DIY hair-DON’Ts into hair-DOs!”

Raise your hand if you'd rather be in a COVID coma.

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