By Mickey McClain
A whole new look, a whole new logo, a whole new catchphrase: “Weather …. Or NOT!”
Firstly, The Whether Channel fully admits that this roll out of our new look is predicated upon the great humiliation that descended upon us when it was discovered, nay “exposed”, that the Doppler image of the recent great storm which swept through the Eastern Seaboard in late February of 2016, was in fact NOT a radar image of Winter Storm Theon, but was, in truth, an ultrasound of our lovely female co-anchor’s in vitro triplets that we chose to play for 72 hours straight, hoping that none of you would notice the difference. We cannot apologize deeply enough; there had been a union walkout from our technical team that crashed our Doppler, (some dispute over their religious right to sport mullets), and we were, in a phrase, trying to fake it the best that we could.
But all that is behind us. As the Planet Earth’s weather becomes crazier and kookier, we here at The Whether Channel have realized that we have no choice but to begin naming Spring Weather Events. We are proud of our long history of naming Hurricanes, Tsunamis, and Winter Storms, but our need to keep the people informed (and somehow pull up our ratings, since the Direct TV debacle) has launched a new phase in Whether Channel history—24 hour coverage of Spring Weather Events.
These events will be divided into four categories: Spring Breeze Events, Rainshower Events, Dust Devils, and of course, dangerous and aberrant aquatic behavior observed by our new, specially trained team of Creeks, Rivulets, Inlets, and Brooks experts or, acronymically speaking, “CRIB” authorities. Be assured, we have gathered international uber-academics on the topics of these smaller but potentially deadly water bodies, and we will expand into an examination of manmade gutter behavior as we move further into 2016. No later than 2017.
1. The Whether Channel has long believed that the dangers of Spring Breezes have been grossly underestimated. Incidents of persons being hit by leafs, small twigs, milkweed seeds, thistles, spiders, flying insects, candy wrappers, airborne melodies, pebbles, ash, and all manner of grit has led to tragedy time and time again, as well as those pesky lawsuits. Here, for example, is a true account of someone who was in a terrifying accident because a rogue breeze caused something to fly into his eye. It is the story of a particle ejecting from a car’s dashboard fan, but the point is well taken:
A good example is a California driver who crashed their truck because of debris flying from the dashboard. "Turned the fan on and a tiny piece of plastic flew into my eye causing me to crash into a parked flatbed truck, bouncing off and over embankment downhill into a tree almost taking out a family of 4 that were having a picnic celebrating their 3 yr. old’s birthday." The driver said the accident caused them to miss work, required stitches to their eye, and caused a $4000 repair bill to their truck. –The Worst Cars and Car Problems of 2013, carcomplaints.com
Always on the cutting edge of technology, The Whether Channel is announcing its new “Toupée App”, in which a variety of meteorologists wearing toupées, (regardless of their actual need for follicle embellishment) will be standing in some of the more lethal Breeze Fronts, and, by gauging the behavior of said hairpiece, The Whether Channel will then use the App to tell you, the toupée wearer, what action to take: maybe good old carpet tape will not work on this blustery day; perhaps a dollop of Super Glue is in order. For those of you for whom transportation is a consideration, the App will interact with your GPS to tell you alternate routes you may drive, run, or walk, so as to avoid the embarrassing loss of your toupée, or slippage of same. And yes, yes, the Comb Over App should also be available at consumer level technology soon. (It is also worth noting that Google is currently developing an exciting new “preventative” technology for dealing with the wind and grit that can blow into one’s eyeball during a Breeze Event. The device will consist of two squarish or oval shaped pieces of glass that will fit into a frame that you wear in front of your face, over your eyes, slipping the two hooked ends over your ears to keep them snugly in place.) The Whether Channel would like to take this moment to completely repudiate the Fox News Channel’s methodology of measuring Spring Breeze Events by dressing their roving on-the-scene female meteorologists in short, flowy skirts and then providing their Fox Viewers with a downloadable Panty App that measures the Breeze-Rize of the skirt based on the Marilyn Monroe Seven Year Itch Grid.
And again, blow over to our Whether Channel website for updates. Click on “Google Mirth” and type in your address, and while away the happy hours watching Spring Breeze Events on Doppler as they move from your backyard to your front yard. It’s more fun than a basket of puppies.
2. A mere spring Rainshower may not, at first blush, appear to be a catastrophic event, but The Whether Channel has long been aware of something that the layperson cavalierly ignores: the human cost. What may appear to be a delightful occurrence when it is portrayed in the movies—the sudden shower, the giggling, the scampering for shelter—has a dark and damaging side that few speak of: schedules are disrupted. Traffic snarls abound, and then people get into all kinds of trouble for being late to work. Tires blithely roll through mud puddles and terrorize passing pedestrians. Dogs are not walked. Joggers do not jog. Women’s clothes cling in ways that are wildly inappropriate. It is a well-known fact that the reason Southern Baptists insist on “full water immersion” during Adult Rebirth Baptisms is that the husband knows full well that this will probably be his first and last chance to see his wife, or future wife’s, nipples. The point is, people are far more traumatized by Spring Rain Showers than they will admit, and so The Whether Channel will heretofore be NAMING these Moisture Events so that people can be warned, and plan accordingly. Now, just so you understand the process, it seems that we have, er, sort of used up the names of most Greco-Roman gods and goddesses on the beefier, better known Winter Events, and on Hurricanes and such, so for events that happen during other times of the year, we will name them after people who tend to think of themselves as gods and goddesses—i.e., Congressmen and Celebrities. With some fun names thrown into the mix, to keep us all laughing through the downpour. In an attempt to engage an increasingly hostile audience, we reached out to children across this great land and asked them to, ha ha, “brainstorm” some names (pun intended)—starting with the finalists and semi-finalists from this year’s season of “Toddlers and Tiaras” in Los Angeles, then on to the Midwest where the first graders of Moose Scrotum, Minnesota contributed to our growing list, then on to the Pre-Schoolers of the Kundalini Yoga Ivy School Prep Alcove & Self-Sustaining Roof Garden in mid-town Manhattan. Here are lists of nominated names for Spring Breeze and Rainshower Events. Names on the same line have no connection to each other whatsoever:
BREEZE EVENTS SHOWER EVENTS
Nathan Lane Tallulah
Ryan Seacrest Bambi
Richard Simmons Mr. Bubble Hour
Barney Fife Tinkle, Tinkle Little Star
Barney Frank Rainbow Time
James Traficant The New Coke
John Kasich Pissin’ Contest
Trump Inaugural Li’l Psycho
Kurt from Glee Special Effect
Ludwig II of Bavaria Restoration Hardware Shower Head
My Pomeranian The Angels Are Perspiring
Lâcher un pet Golden Shower
“Happy Birthday, Mr. President” “Into Each Life”
My X-Girlfriend’s Breath Wet Dream
Shop Vac Faucet Washer needs replacing
Broken Leaf Blower That Scene from The Notebook
The Answer, my Friend Shirley Temple
All We Are Clear Water
AND JUST FOR FUN
Windy Gene Kelly
3. DANGEROUS AND ABERRANT SMALL WATER AREA EVENTS: N.W.S.E.O., we have heard you! For those of you rogue weatherpersons, this is the National Weather Service Employees Organization, AKA The Union, also known as “the brawn of the outfit”. Following last year’s infamous walk-out, (as a result of which, of course, there was no weather for a while) where thousands of meteorologists refused to enter assorted rindles and sikes due to their elevated water levels (a result of PSEUDO-TROPICAL THUNDERSTORM VINCE FOSTER), and the grievous harm to life, limb, and dignity caused to said weatherpersons by those raised H20 levels, we will no longer ask our meteorologists to go into these assorted Liquid Events without the proper hip waders. We have tried a number of “hip wader/power suit” looks, and thus far, our focus groups are extremely disgruntled. We have called in the best: Armani. Hugo Boss. Joseph Abboud. They cannot find a way to make the power suit jive with the hip waders. Nonetheless, we are committed to the hip waders, and to making the whole look, oh, just work! To think of our fearless meteorologists laboring in those inadequate rubber boots that we bought off Alibaba in bulk some months ago, is simply inhumane, given the wisdom of hindsight. We all no doubt remember the unfolding drama, as a horrified nation watched, during Thunderstorm Streisand and the rising water levels that ensued, when armies of upward crawling crawdads entered first the Wallies, and then the nether regions, of our roaming meteorologist Sam Champion, right there while he was on air, coast to coast, reporting live from a rivulet …and, well, let us coin the cliché a la mode: that is something you just can’t unsee.
4. DUST DEVILS. We apologize for any offense we may have caused by dubbing our first Dust Devil of the season “The Frito Bandito”. Apparently certain ethnic groups were offended. We have renamed the ongoing Dust Devil “Don Knotts.” THIS JUST IN: We apologize for re-naming our first Dust Devil of the season “Don Knotts.” Apparently, certain other ethnic groups were offended.
In an attempt to halt any continuing offenses, we have called in an inter-ethnic panel of experts who have long history with Dust Devils. We have learned that the Navajos, for example, have extensive experience with the pesky, mysterious Dust Devil. They call the Dust Devil “Chiindii”, and have determined, over many generations, that a Dust Devil circling clockwise suggests “good luck”, while one running counter clockwise represents “bad luck”. To that end, we have provided a handy new “Dust Devil App” to protect and guide you in times of Chiindii danger. Once installed on your phone, the App will advise you to go outside, confront the Dust Devil, lick your finger, stick it up in the air, see where the sand lands on your digit, and then it will instruct you to make major decisions in your life based on that sand information. Kind of like Nancy Reagan having horoscope readings in the Oval Office, and Mary Todd Lincoln holding séances in the White House. And not that it has anything to do with weather, but we are fascinated to share with you this history tidbit regarding White House lore: it seems that Zachary Taylor was very sensitive to the growing unpopularity of slavery, and the impact that it would have on his political career, so he did the logical thing with his slaves, once he was elected president—he kept them hidden in the White House attic.
That’s about it. Coming in our next newsletter:
MICROWAFTS—WHAT THEY ARE, AND WHY YOU SHOULD BE TERRIFIED.
BOY SCOUTS IN THE NATIONAL PARKS: FACT OR FICTION?
THE IMPACT OF FIREFLY COLLECTING IN JARS ON GLOBAL WARMING
THIS BREAKING NEWS JUST IN: And at the risk of saying “We Told You So”, well, we told you so. A Significant Breeze Event has just occurred at the Southwestern Border of the United States, and it appears that thousands, perhaps millions of tumbleweeds are making their way over the border from Mexico. It seems some have already surrendered to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, APHIS division, and are requesting asylum. While some are being detained in plant nurseries in Texas and Arizona, it would appear that the President of the United States is fed up with this kind of thing and has called out CPB to work with the National Horticulture Guard in an attempt to immediately deport the tumbleweeds.
Did we not predict this? Did we not warn the world that a change in global weather patterns would in turn cause large scale changes in immigration patterns?
We caution you that the footage we will be airing shortly is extremely graphic: It seems that ICE has armed hundreds of Border Patrol Agents with tennis and badminton rackets—even ping pong paddles in some cases, for the younger tumbleweeds, and already, there are thousands of YouTubes showing these poor tumbleweeds being swatted over the border, out of these great United States, back from whence they came.
Oh, the Humanity.
And this is the Future. . . . .
PICKFORD WORD will be offering mullet hat prizes, and other assorted goodies, to anyone sending in visuals of what we have described herein, in the preceding two epistles. We are serious. Contact PICKFORD STUDIOS (moviesforyourmind.net) under the HOME button, hit “CONTACT US”. Let’s get to Photoshopping those tumbleweeds, free publicity for you!
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