Naked in Dangerous Places - Cash Peters [126]
I DID IT!!!
And with that, I turn my back on the dung, the mosquitoes, the insects, the barking of the dogs at the thorn fence, the braying squeal of the hyenas outside the thorn fence, the smoldering fire choking my lungs, and, against overwhelming odds, drift into an easy, happy, smoke-filled sleep.
1 Oh, no! Not again. How many times am I going to have to apologize to foreigners for the imperialistic abuses of my forefathers? Whole nations may still despise the French, the Spanish, the Portuguese, and those rascally Dutch for the trouble they wrought in the past, but it was the British who, throughout Historical Times, were the real problem kids in the playground. Nobody else managed to upset the natural balances of a foreign culture, or cause quite the level of unnecessary disruption and mayhem founded on equal helpings of greed, selfishness, discrimination, and sheer supercilious, we-know-best bloody-mindedness, quite the way that the British did. And the Masai, like so many others, felt the full force of it.
2 Seriously, what were the chances? Who among us speaks Maa any more? Personally I forgot most of it years ago. The only words I know now are yes, no, tank yu, and banana.
3 It's so cramped inside that Kevin has to resort to a novel way of lighting it. I don't want to get too technical or give away professional secrets, but basically what he does is wait 'til Wilson is looking the other way, then punch a hole in the wall with his fist and place the light outside the hole, shining in. Not to worry, they can fix it next time their cow takes a dump!
21
Scar Tissue
One day I was sitting in one of the edit bays merrily tinkering with the Alaska show, which had turned out great, by the way—better than great. TV Gold. Maybe even Emmy worthy; who knows?—when Fat Kid came charging down the corridor, dressed in his usual supersuit of tight V-neck sweater and taken-in pants, black hair slicked back into an almost-ponytail, now wearing a pair of bifocals to further hide his true identity.
As he sat down, a shadow of dark concern fell across his face.
“Something wrong? Is it Conan O'Brien? Did he cancel my appearance?”
His lips tweaked themselves into a grimace. “No, it's not that,” he said in a low voice. Low for him anyway. “The network's moving the show to Wednesdays.”
They're moving us again??
“But first they're taking us off altogether.”
“Oh—my—God. How long for?”
“No idea. Maybe a month. During the winter Olympics.”
In general terms, networks only resort to such desperate tactics just before the axe falls. In essence, they're raising a red flag, telling you you're officially on life support. It's tactical; there's nothing personal about it. A show gets jerked around erratically from night to night, slot to slot, playing whack-a-mole with viewers’ loyalty and patience, in the hope of somehow garnering new fans, even if in the process it means losing the old ones. Above all, though, a slot change tells you that your balloon's started to lose altitude.
“The wind isn't behind us any more,” I confessed grimly. “We're a 9 P.M. show, an adult show, not an 8 P.M. show. That's the problem. That's what's dragging us down.”
Those “family” viewers at 8 P.M., they can be an ugly crowd, I discovered. Whoever gave these people computers and e-mail accounts and access to the network's message boards has a lot to answer for.
This show would be great if it wasn't for the host. My seven-year-old said that she thought he was very rude and annoying.
—Karl, Kentucky.
I think [Cash's] next trip should be a week in Abu Ghraib, or drop his white butt off in Iran wearing flip-flops, American flag shorts, and a “Who farted?” tank top. Am I the only person who can't stand this dildo?
—Bill W., Miami.
Apparently not, Bill. Look—here's someone else:
Sir,
I find you to be an imperialistic, uneducated cultural elitist. The things that come out of your mouth are abominable