Life and Other Discomforts

Ideas For Television Shows, that are quite unlikely to ever get picked up, really. Shame.

The Pitch: Ashton Kutcher travels through the U.S. visiting different cities and their unsuspecting inhabitants. In a fashion similar to that of Kutcher's previous series Punk'd, the presenter would surprise random women by punching them in the crotch whilst yelling the programme's catchphrase: "You've Been Cunted!" Needless to say, the name of the show would be spelt with the iconic apostrophe that made Kutcher's seminal masterwork such an international success.

Name of the Show: Cunt'd! (Pronounced "Cunted!")

The Pitch: A special episode of Wife Swap involving O.J. Simpson and some couple. Some poor fella spends a week in a damp crypt in a cemetery in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, his wife has been raped and murdered by a man whose only redeeming quality was a small role in the Naked Gun series. On the last day of the exchange, O.J. denies all charges repeatedly saying: "I didn't do it... but if I had..."

Name of the Show: Wife Swab

The Pitch: A Christmas Edition of Come Dine With Me, featuring Beth Ditto.

Name of the Show: The Huge L-Word

Rawk & Rawl...!

Plausible, yet fictional, news... Music press headlines for the new millenium

This Town Ain't Big Enough For Th' Both Of Us

Brian Adams and the Cardigans join forces against Ryan Adams and the Cardinals. Hilarity ensues. Both super-groups meet for one final showdown performance, which is eventually cancelled due to poor ticket sales. Both Brian and Ryan go on to co-write and co-produce a modern day re-imagining of the Adams Family.

What's that floating in my latte... I mean... errrr... my beer?

Independent icon, sound engineer Steve Albini fights blues musician siblings Johnny and Edgar Winter -who just happen to suffer from albinism, of course- over a misunderstanding involving a half-eaten muffin and a double-decaf, skinny, [insert random italianate word], mocha, frappuccino, latte with cinnamon, cream, and two sugars. Albini challenges the Winter brothers to a Mexican-style wrestling match, to which they both decline saying something along the lines of "[A] wrestling match? (...) Ya freak! (...)" Hilarity does not ensue.

"Thë Äcë öf Spädës, thë Äcë öf Spädës...!"

Imagine an island on which people had to kill other people to survive. No, not Manhattan. Think more along the lines of Battle Royale. But with rock stars...! Yeah! The first episode would consist of diaeresis-ridden artists fighting for umlaut supremacy, whatever that may mean. In any case, Motörhead leader Lemmy Kilmister, Mötley Crüe's Tommy Lee, Eric Bloom from Blue Öyster Cult, the funny-looking dude from Maxïmo Park, Bob Mould from Hüsker Dü, those weirdos from Röyksopp, all members of Spinal Tap, and all ex-members of Queensrÿche would fight for their lives and -ultimately- diacritical superiority.

Yeah!

Brideshead Revisited Revisited

Different Takes on a Classic of 20th Century Literature, or the many, many ways in which idiots mutilated high art, turning it into fodder for the uneducated masses.


Birdseed Revisited

Big Bird from Sesame Street, Edgar Allan Poe's pet Raven, Noah's Raven, Noah's Dove, the Dodo bird from Alice in Wonderland and the sexually explicitly named Woody Woodpecker from the Walter Lantz cartoons re-enact portions of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder. Expect homoerotic undertones, 1920's style debauchery, and aristocracy excess. With the text's poetry replaced with poultry.

Bridewell Revisited

A Brideshead Revisited / Oz crossover. Oz as in the gritty, HBO prison drama, not the dull, inane children's book about a pack of cowards sticking together due to their aforementioned cowardice. The romance of the original could here be replaced with sordid prison sex, whilst the sacramental references in the text could evolve into incarceration-induced religiosity of the born-again kind. Fun, fun, fun. Sodomy, breaches of human rights and a dark, damp, dirty mise en scène. What is there not to like?

Bridesmaid Revisited

Starring with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, obviously. Runaway brides and drooling, powerless, omega pseudo-males, of course. A Hollywood re-interpretation of Brideshead Revisited, meaning that the original text would be gutted, disemboweled and its insides filled with fresh dung, clearly. Dung of human origin, possibly. Put a happy ending and the rest will write itself. Join-the-dots type of pseudo-art, unquestionably. The type that makes me want to cry out of frustration, naturally.

Dang!

Enigmatic Essay Titles

Suggestion for Theses on Coetzee that should not be taken seriously, as a life of failure, constant humiliation and opprobrium would surely soon follow.

"The Easter Bunny as Organic Metaphor in John Maxwell Coetzee's Disgrace."

"Disempowering the Empire or Disempiring the Empower?: Confusing Ideas and Idealizing Confusion in the Novels of J.M. Coetzee."

"Panem et Circenses: Cakes, Muffins, Scones and Bakewell Tarts as Symbols of Phallocracy in Coetzee's Early Prose."

Bandwagonesque

Rock 'n' Roll Melodies for the myspace, facebook, pitchfork, bebo, emo generation. Thoughtlessness for the thoughtless, so to speak.

Nine Inch Snail

Industrial rock infused with syncopated drum machines and angst-ridden, anger-soaked lyrics about characters from children's book, including snails with low self-esteem, frustrated turtles, grinning cats, orphan puppies and ghastly-looking poultry. Songs that help adolescents deal with the pain of comfortable existences lived in suburbia.

Creedence Clearwater Survival

Survivalist folk-rock. An amalgam of Peace-Love-and-Understanding Southern Rock-influenced popular music and paranoid delusions, absolute libertarianism and ultraconservative derangement. Tunes to hum to from the darkness of a bunker in the depths of Waco, TX, as the End of Days predictably takes place outside.

Ironic Maiden

Sarcastic, highly amplified, rather distorted, harsh-sounding modern rock music with pounding beats and cryptic lyrics, often -yet not always- about serpent-like dragons, ice-clad mountains, flaming swords and blood-drenched skies. Sardonic heavy metal.

Manic Street Poachers

Political songs about revolutionary topics written in first person singular from the perspective of men and women who hunt, fish and catch game illegally. A sort of pro-hunting foil to Rage Against the Machine and all the other pseudo lefty rock bands whose idea of supporting communism is buying overpriced, sweatshop-made Che Guevara T-shirts from High Street boutiques.

A Short Film

Music For the Masses

Discovering Imaginary Covers, musical variations, melodious alterations, euphonic permutations, and discordant deviations.

Sexual Helium

Marvin Gaye meets That-Stupid-Bloody-Frog-That-Everyone-Except-Me-Loved-A-Few-Years-Ago. Maybe it could even be a duet for the Post-Thought Age. A helium-voiced Sexual Healing for the new millennium. Also a step-by-step guide on how to ruin a perfectly good song with unnecessary post-production.

The AAA Took My Baby Away

The Ramones' classic punk rock tune is re-imagined, replacing the barbaric KKK of the original's title with the somewhat more threatening American Automobile Association. It could -in the future- be used on convertible and sports car magazine adverts and television infomercials. The future is dark, the future is black. Scary thoughts, the stuff of nightmares.

Californicaragua

The same old, boring, unimaginative Red Hot Chili Peppers songs with latin rhythms added to them. The Contras-themed rhythms of Nicaragua's capital city, Managua. Perhaps now the song will have a vague scent of revolution and change? "Dream of Ca-li-for-ni-ca-ra-gua... Dream of Ca-li-for-ni-ca-ra-gua... " Don't expect much, though. I bet Anthony Kiedis' substandard lyrics will still manage to ruin the song once again. A second-rate lyricist if I ever heard one.