So we survived
another round of commercials and now the show was back on. They’re all back to
normal, focused on the TV. I think I already said how boring I think this show
is. The idea of this swash buckling DWI attorney was preposterous, to say the least,
and the
cheap production values, and unappealing characters made it a chore to
watch. I wouldn’t have watched it if I was home, in fact, I would have rather
spent this time not watching it here either, alone in my cell, so I could go
over my thoughts undisturbed. I needed to focus, but not in cheap
entertainments, in repeat re-runs no less, but I had no choice. I was expected
to watch right along with all the others. Attendance for the screening of
Austin DWI was mandatory, and the entire population of our block was there.
They liked it.
 |
| Mandatory Attendance |
Well, you could make
me watch, but you couldn’t make me like it. This car accident lawyer
“who-dun-it” show was the worst piece of crap; I guffawed at its absurdity,
even as the rest of the cons reeled and swooned with the very glances Our Hero
Austin DWI threw about the scenery. Oh look, there’s Mrs. Howell from
Gilligan’s Island. They’re really parading a cavalcade of stars tonight! Looks
like she’s the old boy’s Wifey, as she’s being held below decks on an ocean liner
by swarthy guys with black fedoras and trench coats on. The cabin is decorated
with empty cardboard crates and a hanging “3rd degree” light. Mrs.
Howell is tied to a chair and you can see how fake the rope is as it falls
around her as she struggles to “free” herself from her captors. One of them
holds a pistol, and the other one lunges into his cue “You better tell us where
the diamonds are, or else!”
He means business, and to show this, the
writers include a close-up shot of him raising his fist so as to strike and
then cutting away to just a blackened screen and the shriek of one Lovey
Howell. (The inimitable Natalie Schafer)
 |
| The Inimitable Natalie Schafer |
The bumper for Austin DWI flashes on the
screen with the distinctive 12-14 bars of the instantly recognisable theme song
chime out to inform us of another commercial break. This show has a LOT of
commercials in it. As thought the actual program in earnest wasn’t bad enough.
Now it’s 3 ads on either side of “Station Identification” and then a Public
Service Announcement before 2 30 second “tune in weekdays at 3 for “Joker’s
Wild” and weeknights at 7 for Black Sheep Squadron, (does this station ever play
new programs?) self-promotional slots before getting back to the show. The
whole time the population sort of sulked and turned back and forth in their
seats. They needed the Austin show to continue, they were mulish, sultry, but
fairly silent in their discomfiture and impatience. The show came back and they
eased off and breathed once more.
 |
| With your host, Jack Barry. Weekdays at Three. |
The faint wave of
nostalgia, and the brief distraction it affords, gave me pause, and I almost,
absent mindedly, began to follow the dramatic story arc of what was going on in
the program I sat watching, despite my better efforts. Seems as though Gus the
Fireman is so rich that he sends his wife, Mrs. Howell, out on world-wide
shopping sprees where she buys all manner of priceless luxury items as well as
large sums of foreign currency, precious metals and gems. She’s just on her way
back after a globe-trotting binge and has a fortune of diamonds stashed away
somewhere. Now these crooks are going to get it, and by any means necessary it
seems. The guy with the gun tells the other guy to take a breather. “Go get on
the blower wit’ de old man again an tell him to step on it wit’ that ransom
money, already!”
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| These guys ain't messin' around! |
As he fumbles with these simple lines, the actor seems slightly paralyzed,
partially induced by the quality of the script no doubt. He is frozen stiff at the shoulders and much
too intensely guarding the tiny, little old woman in front of him, the gun
welded in aim at his captive sitting perturbedly across the room from him. His
flop sweat comes off well, being actual beads of real nervous perspiration as he jerks
the gun sideways at his crony, off of the beat, and preforms a clumsy, and
totally accidental, visual non-sequitor which is quickly cut away in an urgent
edit.
Buddy’s on the
phone, a pay-phone on the wall, next to a port-hole style window denoting their
presence on a boat. I thought to myself,
“Do they even have pay-phones in storage lockers on ocean liners? Is that even
a ‘thing’?” Then I also considered that maybe I would never find out. Maybe I would remain here in jail for the rest of my days and never get out. I might
never be able to know! This thought crushed my spirit just that much more that I would
have to languish in my ignorance, wasting away my entire life, watching some awful
re-run of some second rate TV show, with its unrealistic portrayal of the
realities of driving while impaired, if not the patently false glamorization of
the roles and lifestyles of car accident attorneys and personal injury lawyers. The
insignificance of it all, and my inescapable position at its center, my
powerlessness in its shadow, this almost had me at the point I might break.
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| On The Verge of a Total Bug-Out |
But No! None of that
mattered here on Cell-Block K. There was no question amongst the boys. Austin
DWI was the BOMB! A kindred cheer went up every time he entered the scene, they
laughed heartily at the indulgences of his penthouse bachelor apartment. They
silently looked to each other and nodded in unspoken agreement at how Heff this
Huston Criminal Attorney was, living the pimp lifestyle with the bar right in
his sumptuous living room. Man, they thought Austin DWI was Bawse, and to be
honest with you, I found it hard to reckon with.
What could draw them
so dramatically to this show? I was puzzled, and thinking, I noticed, that when
I looked over, in front and to the side, there was Smiling Jack,
actively averting his eyes from the screen, and pulling the visor of his cap over
the front of his face while peering around it to keep an eye on the criminals
surrounding him, but effectively blocking out all sight of the TV
itself and being very careful never to actually look directly at the screen.
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| Averted Eyes |
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