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Finally, the CBC has come up with a new way to humiliate itself! I thought it might be content to rest on its crappy scripted non-laurels (e.g. Being Erica) and its crappy unscripted non-laurels (e.g. Don Cherry), but the CBC seems to have decided it would like to be denigrated by more than just people who don't want to look at that guy from Da Vinci's Inquest anymore. 

Apparently unaware that its audience is made up of people who focus on how much better the CBC is than some unavoidably inferior American tabloid news station instead of how much worse anything it airs is than even the vaguest ramblings of Jim Lehrer, the CBC has decided to dress up in American right-wing grown-up clothes by allowing some really smug, annoying guy to say outrageous things. I am not going to make a snide comment about Peter Mansbridge at this juncture, as we all know that he is never outrageously anything.

The guy I'm talking about is Kevin O'Leary, a man who looks like a sleek and malevolent seal and has apparently made a career for himself out of making money (fair enough, I guess) and saying abrasive things he clearly think are hard to take because they're so steeped in bitter truth instead of because they're positively drowned in a sea of completely baseless self-regard.

For some reason, the CBC, desperate, perhaps, to employ someone who's not Nicholas Campbell or Eric Peterson, has allowed this man to appear on approximately 85 television shows. He's on Dragon's Den, where he dismissively tells people dismissive things and manages to be neither insightful nor funny, and on The Lang and O'Leary Exchange, which, when I thought about it all, I thought was a 1970s movie about hostage-taking.

The other day, he bravely faced off against Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges on the topic of the Occupy Wall Street movement. I say "bravely", because Hedges is obviously smarter, classier, and more celebrated than he is. 

O'Leary defends principles of journalistic accuracy and integrity by reminding Hedges that he called him a "nut bar" and not a "nut case". He apparently intends to disparage a largely grass-roots, anti-corporate movement by calling it "low budget." He leaps delightedly on the "you probably drove a car to the demonstration" point because he just KNOWS that charge of hypocrisy will oblige Hedges to give him his Pulitzer.

While watching this on the internet, I thought "Sun TV must have a larger set budget than I thought, and money for more than one camera-person." Then I discovered that my blessed ignorance of Canadian television had protected me from the knowledge that O'Leary was speaking as an employee of CBC. This is a CBC show. This man is employed by Canada's public broadcaster. He's not just biased, and combative, and insulting to his guest; he's also complacent and stupid and paid for with tax dollars. 

The CBC seems to be trying desperately to make itself relevant by employing more and more abrasive, shit-talking, smug sons of bitches. I don't see why they don't just replace everyone with Don Cherry. Surely, that would be more cost-effective.

POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough. Also, I'm not very good at copy-editing, so if something looks wrong, it was put there by accident.
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One of the great and unavoidable truths of life is that we have no idea what’s going on in another person’s head, not even if they tell us. 

I recommend the following exercise for the would-be Catastrophizer, the Catastrophyte, if you will: during a conversation, wait for a brief pause and then ask your talking partner what he or she is thinking about. He or she might say: “I was considering carefully what you just said about representative democracy” or “I was unable to stop focusing on how the colour of that shirt makes your eyes pop.” What you must learn to do is understand that those responses are almost certainly lies. What your partner was actually thinking was probably along the lines of: “I can’t think of a topic more murderously boring than representative democracy, or a person more selfishly tedious” or “How that shirt makes his or her eyes bulge as though he or she is being strangled. How I wish that were happening now.”

Once you’ve accepted that behind the smile or deeply thoughtful expression on your companion’s face lies a hidden world of criticisms, you are ready to progress to the next level of conversational catastrophizing. The Catastrophizer-in-training must become a master of projected interpersonal judgements and disappointments. Before you speak, imagine the internal negative response your companion will have to your comment; then try to imagine the next comment you will make in response to your companion’s silent and concealed condemnation; repeat. 

It should go something like this:

Catastrophyte: Canadian television is laughably amateurish.

Catastrophyte’s inner monologue: Oh God - I remember possibly having heard something about how my conversational partner has occasionally enjoyed watching the Royal Canadian Air Farce.

Catastrophyte: Well, I mean SOME Canadian television is somewhat lacking in terms of quality.

Catastrophyte’s inner monologue: Oh God - I remember possibly having heard that my companion’s romantic partner is an actor and was once punched in the face by Eric Peterson. Did I sound too laudatory?

Catastrophyte: Especially Eric Peterson. Does he have to be in every Canadian show? Or am I wrong? Are there just five different male Canadian actors who look very much like Eric Peterson?

Catastrophyte’s inner monologue: Oh God - doesn’t his/her partner look like Eric Peterson? 

Catastrophyte: Although Eric Peterson is incredibly sexy. I mean, I think about having sex with him ALL THE TIME.

At this point, the Castrophyte should become so dizzied and terrified by the unavoidable misunderstandings that occur every time two people speak that he/she will fall into a brooding silence and internally vow that in the future he/she will speak only to people so lonely that any criticisms will be tempered by gratitude.


POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough.

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