CSI: American Carnage (Monday, September 2, 2019)
NEW YORK – The Post guy looks down the Subway Inn’s bar and says, Don’t they have buckets of wings? I know they do. Where the heck are the wings? Barkeep! A couple more BrewDogs and a platter of your best wings! The bartender throws his towel in a sink and disappears through a swinging door. The Times guy says, So you don’t like my Grifter of the Week column idea? The Post guy says, No no no no. That is not the case. I think it’s long overdue, but you guys got your work cut out for you. So much stuff. The Times guy sighs. He says, Yeah. I know. The Post guy says, I’ve got some ideas, too. The Times guy says, About what? The Post guy says I’m thinking more about presentation, okay, how do we present the news? The Times guy says, Ok. I hear you. Visuals? The Post guy says, Yeah. Take the 2020 election campaign. The Times guy says, Okay. The Post guy says, Why not cover the debates with graphs and charts? Personally, I think it would be very helpful if we presented viewers with a Gaffe-O-Meter. Color coded. Cool green to red hot. It can even have a audio element, like a cawing or buzzing when you enter the red zone. The Times guy says, Nice. What else? The Post guy says, There’s the entire Monkeys on a Pole feature with a special Nate Silver bobble head to bang the lever and propel the monkey to the top. The Times guy says, Wow. Embedded video! Chris will love it, I think, they didn’t have that back when Jack was running against Nixon. Anything else? The Post guy says, Well, I’ve got a pretty controversial one here. The Times guy says, Let’s have it. The Post guy says, Well it’s kind of a virtual reality feature. In order for the viewer to read our analysis, they have to put on special VR glasses. The Times guy says, That might cut into its appeal. The Post guy says, Every edition of the paper, the actual paper, will come with a pair of BezoLenses. The Times guy says, Wow! What a great idea! You use the advance tech to jack up the appeal of the legacy product! Have you got the content producers to pull it off? The Post guy says, Absolutely. Entering the paper will be akin to embarking on a dark ride, okay, you grab your glasses and enter the funhouse through the front page. Immediately you’re in the hall of mirrors which opens into the room with the undulating floors that open up and swollow you whole and deposit you in a dipping room of slime and mold that stinks to high heaven and has no floor, it is bottomless, slowly absorbing every part of you, every bone and organ, every last tangible shred of decency and humanity until you are a simple puddle of scum merging with everyone else. The Times guy looks at his friend. He says, It’s too damn real. The Post guy says, Yeah, probably. Barkeep! Two more! – Monday, September 2, 2019