MR WRONG: Leave the weather to the weather forecasters
Indignity Vol. 4, No. 176
COLUMN DEP’T.
MR WRONG: Nobody Needs to See Anderson Cooper in a Hurricane
I GOT MAD at the teevee yesterday. I was watching the news, on CNN, on the “Erin Burnett OutFront,” program, one of my favorites, on account of it’s pretty much All News with no fluffers, and a lot of it was about the big hurricane, the latest hurricane—after the one that hit “Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and elsewhere” according to Wikipedia, that killed hundreds of people, Hurricane Helene—and the new big one that I was learning about last night was Hurricane Milton, but the names really don’t register, I think, unless you got caught up in one, and then you’re never going to forget about people you know and love getting killed, and maybe you losing your house and all your stuff when the water got high, then that name is going to stick with you.
Also, the whole thing, about, like, “well, serves you right, don’t live in the Hurricane Land,” that’s pointless, because, for example, all those people in Asheville, North Carolina, they’re not Flatlanders, they are Hill People! Two thousand feet above sea level! It’s not supposed to hurricane there! And really, there are lotsa people living on a fixed income, who don’t have a lotta dough, and they live in little trailers in Florida, that’s not Resort Living in Paradise, that’s living Econo so you can afford groceries and medicine! So it doesn’t matter where you live, it’s almost as if the climate has been changed somehow, globally.
So Erin Burnett, the host, is doing a split-screen thing with somebody in the hurricane, she's got some weather forecaster broadcaster in Bradenton, Fla, doing the shtick where they do the teevee-weather stand-up from out in the weather. Except this weatherperson in the soggy raingear is the broadcaster Anderson Cooper, who is famous and has a show that’s on after the Erin Burnett one. Anderson is the one out in the weather, getting wet for the teevee news, remote-ing in with the rubber boots on the ground reporting.
It was late in the Erin Burnett show and so CNN went right into his show, the Anderson Cooper show, or whatever it’s called, and he was still standing outside in Florida, being wet, but now he’s the one doing the Anchor Desk split-screens with other broadcasters, weather broadcasters, who are outside being inside of the weather, a thing we all at this point think is hacky and dumb, and now it’s double-hack because Anderson is not at his fuckin’ desk being an Anchor, no, he’s gotta be out there doing weather broadcaster-ing, because why would we want a fucking Meterologist or whatever talking about the fucking storm when we could have the guy who gets shits-and-giggle-faced on New Years Eve do it. I got mad, because, like, the weather broadcasters, this is all they got, it’s their only thing, this is the one thing they can do, to talk about the weather on teevee in this cliched manner, and now Anderson, who is supposed to be inside a studio at a desk being in charge, is outside playing weather, so they can’t even have this. What a fucking annoying goddamn excuse for the News, and then ding-dong goes and gets hit in the face with some debris.
Whatta weather-balloon-head, this guy. I’m still mad, because this is perfect for him. He gets all this heat for doing a bit that he swiped from the weather broadcasters, who now look, to me, like serious professionals, and now I swear, the hurricane, nobody cares, and nobody cares about the one where hundreds of people died, because it’s all about this dipshit doing shtick.
The MR. WRONG COLUMN is a general-interest column appearing weekly. No refunds. Write Wrong: wrongcolumn@gmail.com.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, October 8, 2024
★★★★★ The sky was cloudless with an almost imperceptible haze, enough to make the blue look like not empty space but some substance at a distance impossible to judge. Across town, light bounced off glass down the subway exit, and rows of windows from across the avenue projected their reflections onto the blank brick face above the FDR Station post office. Some upturned wisps of cirrus had arrived in the east. An American flag floated above a topped-off, unfinished tower on an almost invisible pole. Subtle diagonals showed in the higher-floor brickwork of a stepped white-brick tower. Vague, unscheduled errands beckoned; an unfamiliar bus seemed worth trying. Women were out in trenchcoats. On through the midday and afternoon, more and more varieties of clouds came in: bright shreds of fractus, white cumulus clumps, pale-gray-and-white clumps, low streaks of gray under high shining sheets of white. None of the display could chase off the brilliance of the sun.
New York City, October 9, 2024
★★★★ Steely clouds were dabbed on the brightening sky where it showed through the black leaves and branches of the trees in the rear. A layer of gray out the front windows came apart into a pink glow and another brilliant day settled in. The shade was a bit too chilly for a t-shirt with no jacket, but warm sun was waiting on the north side of each intersection. The same air that felt drafty through the open windows felt fine out on the balcony. A palpable hush filled the sheltered interior of the block; behind the passing roar of an airplane and the brief rustling of leaves lay an tranquility as deep as the air was clear. A flight of birds passed, up in the light, and a tiny shred of cloud grew into something like an eyebrow before lowering itself below the roofline.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
HERE IS TODAY'S Indignity Morning Podcast.
Tom Scocca
Click on this box to find the Indignity Morning Podcast archive.
TOM SCOCCA
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of the final sandwich selected from 'Please, M'm, The Butcher!': A Complete Guide To Catering For The Housewife Of Moderate Means, With Menus Of All Meals For A Year, Numerous Recipes, And Fifty-Two Additional Menus Of Dinners Without Meat, by Beatrice Guarracino, published in 1903, and now in the Public Domain and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
Egg Paste
3 Eggs.
1 dessert spoonful Anchovy Essence.
1/2 oz. Butter.
Salt. Pepper.
Hot Buttered Toast.
Boil the Eggs hard and pound the yolks. Mix well with the Butter. Season and add the Anchovy Essence. Mix again and serve on very crisp Hot Buttered Toast.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
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