True Story™… African American Ninja Warrior
For all of my
discussion of how much I hate talking on the phone, there still remains a
precious few people who I will actually call.
Usually it is because I know that person will be in a car and a text conversation
will be disjointed as fuck or take longer than the time I have to deal with
whatever needs to be discussed. Or it is
more business than can be conveyed via text.
Worry not, though… I can still only be
counted on to make one or two calls a week to people I know. Otherwise, it will be a text message or one
of a constant barrage of memes on Facebook between my bouts with the FB filters.
So following last
week’s kidnapping fiasco, I simply sat on my couch and spun through
mid-afternoon on my lunch break instead of wandering outside back into danger. Needless to say, I found this painfully
boring. When I get bored, I will either
do something incredibly creative or something INCREDIBLY stupid.
I grabbed up my phone, turned the TV off and prayed the dogs kept their big
mouths shut and I made a phone call to an old friend…
“Old Friend”: “Hello?”
Me: “G’day old pal!”
“Old Friend”: “D-do I know you?”
Me: “Look, your phone number is not one of those
ones people can just up and call.”
“Old Friend”: “Oh…
OH! Yet you have managed to be allowed
to do so for about a year here.”
Me: “You enjoy my nonsense.”
(now-identified) Exec:
“You’re entertaining.”
Me: “Thank you.”
Exec: “So what idea that you came up with in your
bathroom did-…”
Me: “… During my workout, actually.”
Exec: “Whatcha got this time?”
Me: “African American Ninja Warrior.”
Exec: “What the hell?”
Me: “Hear me out, here.”
Exec: “Begrudgingly… GO ahead.”
Me: “Look, it is the EXACT same competition but
as the name suggests, only with black folk.”
Exec: “Have you actually watched Ninja Warrior?”
Me: “All the time… It’s what I am working out for; training if
you will.”
Exec: “SERIOUSLY?!!?”
Me: “No, hell no… Not at all.”
Exec: “Ha.
But in all seriousness. The
number of black contestants is low, like LOW-low--…”
Me: “So anyway…
African American Ninja Warrior.
The game and obstacles are almost all the same.”
Exec: “Then what is the point, or will this be another one of your stereotype menageries?”
Me: “The difference is what I might refer to as… Um, ‘accoutrement’.”
Exec: “Huh?”
Me: “Police dogs barking
The sound of sirens being filtered into the arena over the crowd noise
‘baby mamas’ standing along the whole thing as a distraction
Parole officers with clipboards”
Exec: “Sir, there is something SERIOUSLY wrong
with y--…”
Me: “A bunch of Chads and Karens screaming ‘ALL
LIVES MATTER’
More Karens calling the cops because black folk are trying to make something of
their lives
People wearing gang colors mad dogging the contestants as they ATTEMPT to
complete the course.”
Exec: “So does anyone actually complete the
course?”
Me: “Shit, very few people complete the damn
thing as it is now.”
Exec: “Then--…”
Me: “The fun is in the backstory!”
Exec: “B-backstory?”
Me: “Yeah…
Like I told you last year, there is a million different stories in the
hood.”
Exec: “I don’t think I want to ask.”
Me: “I’m sure you don’t.”
Exec: “So then what?”
Me: “Education?”
Exec: “Huh?”
Me: “Everything I named up there? That’s shit people see in their daily lives.”
Exec: “And?”
Me: “I’ve reached the point in watching Ninja
Warrior after 13 seasons that most people don’t win it all – even the season ‘winner’
has only finished it twice.”
Exec: “So, uhh…”
Me: “We’re selling the overcoming of adversity,
at least to the point of ‘how did we get here?’”
Exec: “Well it seems you’ve invested some thought
into this.”
Me: “Sure have!”
Exec: “But I got some bad news for you.”
Me: “Yes?”
Exec: “NBC owns American Ninja Warrior.”
Me: “And?”
Exec: “I don’t work for NBC.”
Me: “Shit.”
Like that, I found
myself having wasted half my lunch break on an idea that had zero chance of
becoming anything at all in the first place.
I guess in the scheme of “incredibly creative vs. INCREDIBLY stupid,” I did both this time.
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