One thing's for sure about this life - you're certainly given plenty of opportunities to hear bad dialogue.
In my case, most of the bad dialogue I get to listen to happens right in my own house. Naturally, I'm thinking here of a fight I recently witnessed between two of my sons. They were standing on the staircase, bumping each other on the chest and getting in each other's faces, sort of like those big-horned sheep you always used to see battling it out for the Alpha Ram spot in old Disney nature films. Meanwhile, my boys were hurling the following lines at each other:"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah!"
"Who's gonna make me?"
"I'm gonna make you!"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah!"
I think you'll agree that as dialogue goes, this particular exchange lacked originality, as well as that certain crispness of expression one dearly hopes for when watching a family fight. Finally, I said, "That's it, you guys. No more bad dialogue. If I want bad dialogue, I'll just turn on another episode of `Baywatch,' thank you very much."
Since I don't watch that much TV anymore, I pretty much missed out on the "Baywatch" phenomenon until our friends Tom and Louise alerted me to all the fun I was missing by not tuning in. Tom and Louise love to sit on their bed and shout out lines at the television screen before the characters even get a chance to. They can do this because the plot of "Baywatch" is always so (you choose) a. predictable, b. highly predictable or c. extremely highly predictable.
Anyway, I left my kids fighting on the stairs and went into my room where I turned on the television just in time to catch (as luck would have it) the opening of that "Baywatch" episode in which Chief High Commander Mitch (he's the one in the orange swimming suit) and Lieutenant High Commander Stephanie (she's also the one in the orange swimming suit) tackle the problem of gang activity taking place along our beaches today.
Mitch and Stephanie realize they've got a gang problem when they show up to work one morning and find that their command post has been tagged. This really sets off the beautiful and fiery Stephanie, who shouts out a stiff warming to any gang members who might happen to be passing by. "THIS IS MY TURF! STAY AWAY!"
Then, in her despair (which I, the American viewer, believe to be totally real at this point), Stephanie turns to Mitch and says, "The beach is supposed to be a place where people can come and leave all their problems behind."
Mitch sighs the world-weary sigh of a man who has spent too many years in a bad television series. "Unfortunately, some people bring their problems to the beach with them, Stephanie."
As I sat there in my bedroom listening to this conversation between Mitch and Stephanie, I suddenly realized what listening to bad dialogue in my personal life has prepared me for - WRITING BAD DIALOGUE IN MY PROFESSIONAL LIFE! I've decided that what I really want to do from now on is to write scripts for "Baywatch," which will henceforth feature me and my family as regular cast members. I can just see us now.
Cut to a beach scene somewhere in Southern California.
Zoom in on Chief High Commander Ken Cannon and Lieutenant High Commander Ann Cannon, running along the sand in slow motion while wearing orange swimsuits and holding those special "Baywatch" flotation devices that look like small nuclear weapons. As they run in perfect unison, Ken and Ann notice a gang of troubled youth ahead.
ANN: What's going down, Ken?
KEN: It's hard to say, Ann, especially since so many young people these days are bringing their problems to the beach with them."
Ann and Ken keep running, even though Ann is panting now because she stopped working out when she hit her 40th birthday. Also, she's wishing she could ditch that stupid flotation device somewhere.
Ann and Ken are almost upon the gang when suddenly they realize that the troubled youth are actually their five sons, all of whom are wearing expressions of horror on their faces.
SONS: (in unison) YIKES! It's our parents! In bathing suits! In public! No wonder we're so troubled!"
So there you have it - my brilliant new career. Tune in again next week. Same "Baywatch" channel. Same "Baywatch" station.