This is Us
We’ve decided, my friends and I, to start our own reality show. We say this because we are funny and because we’ve just finished another round of banter that involved the word “chicken” and another word that I won’t mention because we are just too weird. Then again, weird is what will sell our show.
I’m lying. When I say we, I mean I, because I’m the one who said, “We need our own show.” Nobody else agreed with me because most of us are against reality television.
Opening credit sequence:
Eight of us, ages 32-40, are sitting on two couches around a cocktail table at Jenny and Paul’s house and the music is playing and it’s Pink Floyd’s “Careful With That Axe, Eugene.” We like to do this sort of thing — get together and have dinner and get a little buzz going and listen to music. Ben, who is bearded and looks sort of like a bear, stands up and pounds his chest, and the rest of us ignore this because we’re in the opening shot and we need to look like we are lost in thought. Which we are.
But honestly, I’m a little weirded out by the music because it gets a bit scary.
Variations on the opening:
I’m thinking it would be cool for the intro to change each week. Like maybe a different song would be playing, something not as scary as “Careful With That Axe, Eugene.” And maybe we’d change our location too. Like sometimes we’d be sitting around on couches and sometimes on chairs on the front porch. Maybe once on the roof. Or in a swimming pool, all of us sitting underwater. And maybe someone different would stand up each week and do something unusual like how Ben just did that chest pounding thing. Pirouette. Jumping jacks. Warrior II pose. Statue of Liberty. I’m a Little Tea Pot. The week we’re underwater, someone could do Martha Washington hair.
“In our new reality show, each week we could use a different song,” I say. “Everyone gets to pick one.”
Oh yeah! Now they’re interested. We’re talking music.
Which leads to a discussion of what type of song would work in an
opening about us. Finally, I’ve reeled them in. But not really.
We have jobs to keep. Some of us - okay, all of us - are professionals.
Not suit and tie types, but still.
What goes on for the 22 minutes we’re on the air:
We sit around and talk and laugh and sometimes someone does something funny as shit and then we all laugh harder and we riff off each other and we use a joke until it is basically dead. There isn’t real drama because we’re not about to put that stuff out there on television.
I suggest that maybe the show should be about how we wish we were a band but we aren’t and maybe we could be even though some of us aren’t great. We have a saxophonist and an oboe player and a banjo picker and a fiddler and a didgeridoo dude and two guitarists. And one air guitarist.
And while I’m trying to hype this idea up, I realize that, one by one, everyone is leaving the room, heading to the kitchen because dessert is ready and we need to go get forks and plates and spear some key lime pie.
Closing shot and random end clip:
I’m left all alone on the couch and now something like Herbie Hancock’s Chameleon is on the stereo. My head involuntarily does this groovy bob and sway, and I think it’s a great ending sequence for our show. How everyone walks away and sort of fades out like ghosts as they leave the room and then there’s only one person left. And tonight it’s me and I just close my eyes and sink deeper into the couch which really feels like a cloud, because nobody is watching except our camera person and because this is reality TV and this is what I do. The screen goes to black.
But then there will be a weird little clip tacked on at the end, something old school, cartoon, but completely foolish. Maybe a rocking chair with a small cupcake sitting in it. The rocking chair rocks and the cupcake falls off and then there’s a word written in all caps like SPLAT! and a really cute voice says Splat! out loud and giggles. Because onomatopoeia is cool. And I just want everyone to be happy.