PRODUCTION v. CONSUMPTION

The scene waiting for the night owl bus, 2:30 Saturday morning. After watching a bit of Jerry Springer on broadcast at Little Chris’ spot. Stripper Showdown was the title of the episode. Jerry looked tired. Different pairs of ladies would come from backstage and fight with each other over problems at the workplace, usually based on relationships with men. When the ladies would start to fight the crowd chanted Jerry Jerry Jerry and on the broadcast they cut to reaction shots in the audience and I saw slack faces with eyes alive with merriment from the chaos, violence. Burly dudes wearing jeans and black t-shirts that said SECURITY stood around and pulled the women apart after enough television time had elapsed. Some of the SECURITY men looked tired and they all had on the carefully neutral face of people who know they are being watched, part of The Show. (Sometimes a jump cut, which was done well enough that you almost didn’t notice time in between things happening was made to vanish.)

Anyway, on the street, waiting for the bus, with all of that still ringing in my headbox, two white (drunk) trashy ladies in outfits--tight, short--that could have come from the Springer wardrobe department started going at it. Hair pulling. Slapping. Much screaming and slander. A large young black man also waiting for the bus (with his hands down the front of his pants because of the chill in the air, reminding me of similar postures from my fellow boy scouts on that winter camping trip) started chanting sotto voce Jerry! Jerry! followed shortly thereafter with Jerry! Oh shit! Bitches be pullin’ each other’s hair, oh no way. Stripper Showdown I said.