63. Almanac offers tremendous potential for comedy, plus a critical appraisal of CNN's use of BREAKING NEWS!

Random thoughts by Duane Hawkinson, CEO of Duane's pretty good Smokehouse Salsa

(because it's too cold to plant and too windy to think)

Just about any publication that begins with "Old" or "Old Farmer's" will be loaded with "wives' tales," popular mythology, superstitions, folklore, and, let's be honest, just a whole lot of hokum, also known as sheer nonsense, piffle-paffle, and twaddle, peddled as "truth" to the gullible.

One ad that I saw in the back of an "Almanac" had the cure for hexes, curses, bad spells, and poor posture. Sold in a bottle for $7.99, it was guaranteed. Guaranteed? That word raises a whole other set of issues.

"Hmm," I thought, two things came to mind: First, how would I know that I had been relieved of, say, a bad spell? What if I didn't know that I was living under the cloud of a bad spell, to begin with? What if my bad attitude and poor hygiene are mostly the result of getting up on the wrong side of the bed and failing to shower on any kind of regular schedule? And the idea that I might be living under a hex or a curse--well, that just sends cold shivers up my spine.

And now for the second thought: If it did what it claimed to do, wouldn't $7.99 be a bargain? I mean, c'mon, a product that frees a person from something so debilitating as a bad spell for only $7.99? Who decided on that price? Does the hex, curse, and bad spell removal industry know the value of its own products? (If it's incompetent in its pricing, what does that portend of its product? Hmm?) It seems to me a product that could honestly produce such amazing results should be worth--oh, I don't know--the price of an engagement ring: a few months' income. Maybe even a few years' income. Why, $7.99 is practically giving the product away; that would be like buying Apple stock for, say $19.99. Not in this universe . . . If the product did nothing else other than improve my posture, I'd be willing to pay 10 installments of $7.99. That seems fair. So what is it about $7.99 that makes me, shall we say, a tad skeptical?

Hmm . . .

Random thoughts continues.

I'm not saying that my response to these advertisements is in any way amusing or funny or downright hilarious. But in the right hands, in professional hands, someone ought to be able to make a buck coming up with shtick about those crazy ads found in the backs of dubious magazines, themselves a little more than less than innocent (yes, that makes sense; read it again).

So does this sound like a challenge?

Maybe.

Now wait a minute, "The World's Most Powerful"? Other "Curse Breakers" might take exception
to that boastful claim. And how did they get that title anyway? Is there an accreditation
board? If there is, can I get on it? I wouldn't mind the extra income from a part-time
job--not to mention the prestige of being on the "Cure Breaker Accreditation Board."
(Is the black cat an additional perk? I've always liked black cats. They're cool.) As long as I'm
at it, I'd like to also apply for a position as an adjunct "Evil Eye Removal" instructor, but
only as a night course instructor. My days are pretty busy, and there's something about
teaching the business of evil eye removal at night that makes it seem more, well, evil.

It's entirely possible that I should not thumb my nose at the occult and all things supernatural. (Thumbing one's nose is bad karma and it's bad for one's nose, if done to excess.) For the last several years, I've felt as though I'm not as funny as I could be. Oh, sometimes I make myself laugh, but I'm usually drunk at the time. It just feels as though I'm almost--but not quite--there. My one-liners sometimes fall flat; my setups are too long; the whole premise of some of my jokes is just plain, oh, how can I say it, without imposing years of therapy on myself? It's as though a hex or a spell or just damned bad luck has made me only somewhat amusing, at times, but never marketably funny--never "quote worthy." Maybe I should buy a bottle. 

Couldn't hurt.

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Not to change the subject or anything, which is exactly what I'm doing, but is anyone else as sick and tired of CNN almost always running banners screaming BREAKING NEWS!

Let's face it, using that banner is nothing more than a marketing gimmick, but when you see how often it's used, you know that CNN has a bad case of BREAKING NEWS!-itis. CNN uses that banner for stories that are more than a few hours old, sometimes a few days old, sometimes on something as trivial as BREAKING NEWS!, we're back from a commercial break--as if people tune in so rarely that they're completely fooled by the BREAKING NEWS! (Eventually, CNN will shout BREAKING NEWS! to announce it has no new BREAKING NEWS!, and it may even cry BREAKING NEWS! as a test of its BREAKING NEWS! banner, sort of like a test of the EBS, the Emergency Broadcast System, testing to make sure it's up and running in the event of a tornado or an incoming nuclear warhead.)

I'll know when BREAKING NEWS! had gone completely bonkers when it says BREAKING NEWS! Wolf Blitzer's Beard has lost three whiskers. Is a Bald Face in his Future? BREAKING NEWS! updates at the top of the hour!

BREAKING NEWS! may really be a self-conscious admission of the problem with CNN: Maybe the folks there use that old ruse because, well, let's face it, they don't have the best ratings--or even very good ratings, not to mention so-so ratings. But c'mon, is that the best they can do to improve? It's like a naked man screaming from atop a roof--somewhat similar to what happened at Salsa-Fest 2015 (to you loyal readers who know the reference)--using a cheap and untalented gimmick to attract ratings.

Now, if the executives had cutie Kate Baldoun prancing naked on a roof and screaming BREAKING NEWS!, well, now they might have something there. You can just see it now: BREAKING NEWS!, Kate Baldoun takes off her Sweater! She already tantalizes her audiences with those sleeveless outfits--and all that skin on her bare shoulders. Oh, boy.

And in a related story, it appears a hacker, who goes by the name of Eugene the Terrible, was able to break into CNN’s BREAKING NEWS graphic generator and disable its ability to BREAK news that’s not really broken, much less timely, urgent, or interesting. Unless his ransom demands are paid, Eugene the Terrible tweeted the best CNN can hope for from now on as a substitute for BREAKING NEWS is “and now for our next story . . . “ 

One of the more subdued "Breaking News" banners

Just a thought.

Now, I suppose I should get back to the topic of voodoo and hexes and spells and curses and evil eyes, and, of course, the infamous stink eye.

Or not.