Tuesday, November 01, 2005

NO AMERICAN DREAM IS TOO EXTREME

As I’ve already mentioned ad infinitum, pretty much everything is extreme in New York - extremely small dogs, extremely large meals, ever-changing extremes of weather. But yesterday I stumbled upon the TV programme with which I will rest my case.
‘Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’.
This reality show makes the UK’s ‘Changing Rooms ‘and ‘ DIYSOS ‘ look like your Great Grandmother trying to change a light bulb. Extremely large TVs don’t waste time coming into your life here merely to makeover your room or your wardrobe, your hair or your face. Oh no.

So to cut a long programme short, we are basically given a single mother (who’s had a pretty tough life, which frankly you would) with 8 children, and a house that needs more than a little renovation. So no Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen flouncing around with scissors and doilies is going to get the job done here. Enter the serious contractors, who decide that the best plan is to pull the entire house down and rebuild it from scratch. And that’s exactly what they do - demolish the house.

The new house is about five times as big and has games rooms, (f)utility rooms (with 5 years’ worth of free washing detergent – advertised in the break shortly after), a stuntman room (?), a catwalk, conservatories, ballrooms, beaches….ok I’m exaggerating a little, but it’s more than a fine place to call home. Said family return and there is (obviously) much crying, shrieking and screaming at 40,000Hz.

But that’s not enough, clearly, because we are in the USA. So the family is brought outside and there stands a 2006 Ford Explorer SUV. (Cue more screaming and crying.) ‘That’s surely it?’ I hear you whimper. But oh no. Not enough. The contractor then hands over a hefty cheque to cover the mortgage! I do hate using exclamation marks, but really they were falling out of my mouth as I was watching this total homage to materialism. All cried out now, the mother says how happy she is to finally see her children happy and then thanks God for bringing all of this to her. God? Did I miss something here? I could have sworn I saw a bunch of contractors, advertisers and corporations…….sorry, my mistake.
He most certainly does move in mysterious ways and in variously patterned overalls.

What worries me the most though is that there is also an ‘Extreme Makeover’ show, which gives people makeovers.
Cellulite on your thigh? No matter, let’s just rip off the leg and give you a new one…..
The mind boggles.

(This was brought to you by the Shark with a little help from Sony, Microsoft, AOL, Time Warner Cable and Google).

Live music: Heernt169 Bar NY
          

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