Letters To Parade: The Dumbest Question Ever. Really.

I think it's fair to assume that most people in America understand that what happens inside that bizarre glowing box with the moving pictures and sounds and all that isn't, you know, real. Oh, sure, there is such a thing as reality TV but even that bares little resemblance to actual life (though I will say that I would have preferred Hulk Hogan to my own father and Ozzy would have been fine, too). But let's take a show like CSI for example. Most people understand that Gus Grissom is actually the surly and unappreciative actor William Peterson, that Las Vegas is actually Valencia, and that David Caruso, the man who stars in CSI:Miami also starred in NYPD Blue and was a bit player in Hill Street Blues for a few years and made a series of truly awful films and thanks god on bended knee every morning that he's drawing a good paycheck again for his nominal acting skills. And we know that the crimes didn't really happen, that people didn't die and that forensic experts rarely, you know, arrest people and all that. We know this. Or, I assume we all know this. What I know for sure, without a grain of doubt, is that anyone who writes fiction for a living knows this.

But that's why Walter Scott Personality Parade exists: to debunk my false assumptions.

See, sometimes I get worried that this little folly of mine will eventually get me killed, so I like to periodically Google the people I'm about to call a fucktard just to make sure they're not escaped lunatics or anything of the sort. I normally find nothing at all, or very little -- a phone number sometimes pops up (which is dangerous because I often ponder calling), occasionally something on a work website, perhaps a mention in an obit and that's it. Rarely do I find anything that provides insight into the inanity of the person posing questions to Walter Scott. Today was different. But first, the question itself. M. Beatryce Shaw of Conway, SC asks, amazingly, really:

Are the corpses used in the various CSI shows actual dead people or are they mannequins?

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Holy. Fucking. Fuck.

Holy. Fucking. Fucktard.

In my life, I have seen some stupid questions in the pages of Parade  -- the one about the dog on Blind Justice comes to mind, the one about why we haven't found Bin Laden is another and then all the other ones I've ever mentioned in this space occur to me -- but this is absolutely, without a doubt, the dumbest fucking question I have ever read. Who watches CSI and really thinks that the bodies being autopsied  -- which, often, are bodies that were previously, you know SAYING FUCKING LINES, OR, YOU KNOW, HAVE APPEARED IN OTHER SHOWS BECAUSE THE PEOPLE ON CSI ARE FUCKING ACTORS -- are actual corpses? Do they watch Battlestar Galactica and think the Cylons are actual robots? Did they watch Different Strokes and think Conrad Bain had actually adopted those two lovable little black children but somehow couldn't save either of them, or his daughter Dana Plato, from entering into a life filled with tabloid crimes, never mind the odd appearance of Nancy Reagan? Do they watch cartoons and wonder why no animals they know can speak? Do they try to rewind conversations in real life using their Tivo remote? Who are these fucktards and how do we get them educated?

Well, in the case of M. Beatryce Shaw of Conway, SC, she's the author of Mr. Browne's Roses, the "fictional story for the very young reader who has yet to discover the world of color awareness. It verifies the fact that children are inherently innocent. We, as adults, are responsible for cultivating seeds of respect, compassion and tolerance."

That's right. The person who asked if CSI uses real dead bodies writes children's books. "Fictional" children's books. I think the next book she writes for children should be on the subject of cultivating the seeds of understanding the difference between what's real and what's not...as in, that things on TV are not real, especially if those things happen to star people who die, but then later turn up on episodes of Hollywood Squares. Let's do a test.

Is this a real dead body?

Is this a real dead body?

Are any of these people really forensics experts? And are they really looking at a real severed finger?

If you answered "Yes" to any of these questions, you are a fucktard. If you answered "No" to any of these questions, you aren't a regular reader or contributor to Parade Magazine. If you answered, "No, all of the people pictured are B-level actors who'd be starring as Widow #1 and Thug #2 in old episodes of Mannix but are now, inexplicably, big TV stars," you are a regular reader of this blog and are therefore part of a community of intellectual leaders and god damned American patriots. Let's see if Walter Scott is with us:

Neither. They're actual live people. And the competition is so fierce that actors line up to try out for those parts.

You've failed me yet again, Walter. You had a chance to call Ms. Shaw out for being a fucktard but took the high road instead. Just as I expected, pigs are now flying out of my ass.

Comments

[David Thayer]

Okay, you're saying that none of the people looking at the severed finger are forensic scientists...none of the dead bodies are real.
That's fine, but Cylons? Those are real.

[P M Rommel]

that things on TV are not real,

Years ago, I used to live in a flat above a very elderly lady who believed (as far as I could judge, seriously) that all TV was real (especially Coronation Street, a long running UK soap opera).

All of it, that is, except for the news. The news, she told me, is government propaganda.

Hmmmm.....

[Dean]

You might be onto something, though: imagine if the bodies WERE real? A new form of reality TV... maybe I should try to get Lee to write a pilot.

I took a look at Parade's website yesterday, hoping to be able to read Walter Scott's latest, but the bastards don't let you see the current content until it's a week old. We don't get Parade in Canada, you see, which is probably a large part of the reason that Canada is consistently ranked ahead of the US on the list of nice places to live by the commie UN.

Be that as it may, the entire content of Parade reeks of fucktardedness. They should retitle the thing "Parade - the Magazine Of, By, and For Fucktards".

[Jim Winter]

That is absolutely the DUMBEST question I've ever heard. Not just in PARADE. Anywhere.

[JDRhoades]

We owe Tod a great debt of gratitude. He reads this shit so we don't have to.

[Erik]

What I love most about this stupid question is that she offered it as an "A or B" question. The way her question is phrased ignores the possibility of another option.

So, she is so dumb that the option of "actor playing the part" was ruled out or never considered, but "desecrating a corpse" seemed like a logical possibility...

Wow. I've considered being an organ donor, or offering my corpse to a university for students to study. I never considered that CBS might want it!

[Chikory]

OH MY GOD! Do you mean to tell me that they don't really kill the actors off so they can perform autopsies on them for the sake of ratings??? I'm aghast! This also means they don't train the actors to actually do the autopsies? Do you mean to tell me that they're all... ACTORS? How can this be? These shows have to be real! Right down to the last dead person who was alive the scene before.

You do realise that this startling revelation will crush people like Britney Spears. It's not every day that someone like her is influenced to go and, like, um, learn, stuff.

This is too much to handle. I think I need to contact my psychiatrist.

~Chikory

[Harry Connolly]

Hey, now. Marg Helgenberger is a terrific actress. Caruso is an embarrassment, though.

As for the question, I was kind of hoping it was from an 11-year old or something. Some sixth-grader who's so dreamy and isolated from the world that she gets weird ideas stuck in her head, like "Can I donate my body to William Peterson?"