-d-: On tv, crap

Sunset Tan - anyone watch this show?

Last Monday night I dialled in the wrong number on the satellite receiver and found myself on Sunset Tan instead of BBC Prime for sketchy Graham Norton. Ordinarily I would have just checked out of there because it is complete shit, from the absolute bottom of the biggest barrel of shit, but I did witness an unbelievable exchange between a client and the salon team which I managed to stomach about 30 seconds of before bailing in disgust.

A sequence of events followed, thus:
1. This woman came in for a spray session, and asked if they could also do her dog, a Maltese poodle, afterwards so the two of them "would match." She had the dog with her.

2. The human Barbie doll behind the counter actually said "no problem" and fuck, she meant it.

3. The quick-thinking manager guy (not sure why they have a manager on duty; the place always seems deserted) said it couldn't be done, because the spray-tan was designed for skin and wouldn't stick on the dog's fur. Not sure whether he thought this would be the only line of reasoning which the client and Barbie would actually believe and could thus rescue the poor dog, or whether his genuine concern was that the procedure might not work and to hell with the well-being of the dog. I'll go with the former, because I'm feeling unusually generous.

Either way, I was gob-smacked.

Now, I'm no bunny-hugger - in fact, I am a vivisectionist* by trade (gasp! etc); so these observations are not coming from a left-wing greenie hell-bent on saving the wildlife, and especially not for a loathsome Maltese poodle, the most pointless dog on the planet - but even I was apalled by the client even considering it, and more so by the Barbie for intending to go through with it. If the manager guy had been absent, this already ridiculous poodle would have been spray-tanned and who knows what might have happened next. Tho whole idea that people can not-think like that and still wilfully and persistently exist in public, inflicting themselves on other people with impunity is beyond disturbing to me, and so far from reason that I can feel my blood pressure rising just thinking about it.

In addition, I have questions about this show:
1. Who greenlights this sort of dreck for tv, anyway? It's a spray-tan salon; hardly the sort of business which immediately conjures up images of workplace tension and an interesting premise for a reality series. However, there seems to be more tension in there than in any office anywhere in the world.

2. Why do so many people spray-tan when they live in the perpetual summer of Los Angeles? Is that fake-tan yellow now more accepted than actual melanin in skin these days?

3. why does every cut-scene in the show feature footage of various LA county beaches, where everyone is getting a natural suntan from actual, you know, sun?

4. Exactly how synthetic are these people? I've seen entirely fictitious soap opera characters with more depth to them than the allegedly real lives of the denizens of Sunset Tan; and I've had action figures as a boy which are less plastic.

5. Where do they get the names of these women, anyway, the Playboy Book of Baby Names? They all sound like they come straight from porn - Janelle, Erin, Keely, Holly. You're not fooling anyone, you know.

There have been some really good reality drama shows, in my opinion - things like Lads' Army and Ross Kemp in Afghanistan, which blur the line between reality series and simple documentary; there have been ones which were both insightful and informative while remaining entertaining, like Amish in the City; and then there's this sort of faux-MTv bullshit along with Gastineau Girls and that contemptible Kardashians programme to go hand in manicured hand with the actual MTv bullshit like The fucking Hills.

I don't know how you Angelinos, Californians and Americans feel when you encounter this gross vacuosity from your fellows, but I was embarrassed to even be part of the same species as the two women under discussion here. In all honesty I'm not exactly au fait with all the ins and outs of Revelation, but I'm pretty sure that it must herald the breaking of the seventh seal or something similar.

In short, it was a thoroughly convincing thirty-second argument for the use of a suitcase nuke somewhere in the vicinity of downtown LA. I imagine that right after it aired, God got onto Google to see if Noah has any living descendants in the shipbuilding industry.

I sincerely hope you can all swim. Except the people of Sunset Tan.

-d-

*My PhD work involves a mouse-model of human malaria.