Have you ever looked at your life and imagined it as a soap opera on television?
I have always hated soaps. I grew up watching them as a child. Both my parents worked so for about the first 6 or 7 years of my life, I went to a baby sitter, where myself and a bunch of other kids were subjected to each other's weirdness.
Remember the cartoon Muppet Babies? Yeah, same thing only with less interesting people.
I'll admit I was a blend of Gonzo and Fozzy Bear. But that's all I'm admitting to. For the record, the baby sitter's daughters were Miss Piggy. Both were obnoxious, pushy little bitches.
Back during the summer, we were forced to watch soap operas. If it was too hot outside, or if it was raining, then we stayed inside. The baby sitter loved soaps.
Frankly, I never understood them. To me they seemed like boring sets of dialogue that needed gunfire, explosions and monsters. And I think the creators of Supernatural and X-Files thought the same thing and that's how we got those awesome shows.
So yes, I watched those cursed shows. And as I got older, I understood them. It's a simple formula.
First, one plot line just begins. A second plot line is in the middle and a third one is just wrapping up.
This is how a show that's a hundred years old keeps snagging and hooking new viewers. My guess is a hundred years from now, we'll still have that show, only it'll be that time's equivalent to television. Maybe implants in the brains of people that automatically get a wireless signal that generates memories instantly of that day's episode. You're in an elevator, you tap your temple, and suddenly you remember being in a fight with your evil Mother-in-Law about the inheritance left to you when your wife, her daughter, was killed by a swarm of bees. What she doesn't know is how those bees were meant for her because the daughter, your wife, found out about the affair you two were having.
So, yes. My life would make a great soap opera.
As beer pours out of the tapper, so are the days of our Ted.
or...
All My Tedness.
or...
The Bold, the Beautiful, and the Ted.
or...
The Young and the Tedless.
or...
One Life to Live with Ted.
The plot lines would be easy. My life is a weird blend of train wrecks, bad choices, unrequited love, paranormal mistakes and watching a lot of people around me have sex. Well, not watching them, actually. More like they do it, film it secretly and then tell me all about it later while we watch the video.
The first set would be work. I work in a call center surrounded by all kinds of people making terrible choices, hiding their pasts, smothering their feelings and losing their minds. And it's a meat market so they're hooking up constantly.
As a writer, it's a material-rich environment. Not too long ago, a girl was crying because her boyfriend was teasing her about the um...lack of aromatic pleasantness in her um....lady parts. You can't make this stuff up. He was teasing her, other women were teasing her, it was ugly. She was really upset.
And so I was thinking this could be perfect for a product tie-in. The advertising revenue generated by a plot that incorporated sponsorship would be huge. An entire week of Female Character #12 and her angst over the foul smell of her hoo-ha while people make fun of it. And then a doctor, or Uncle Ted (wink), comes to the rescue. "Don't be sad, Female Character #12, millions of women suffer from your condition and it's treatable with Corporate Hoo-Ha Cleaner."
I could make millions on this one campaign alone.
The second plot would be the unrequited love Our Hero (moi) feels towards Female Interest of the Month. She would, of course, be totally incompatible with him. So much so, it would add to his angst. Soap Operas have a lot of angst, so this would work out well. Because Our Hero (moi) is too good for her, she will recognize this and hurt him terribly through her dark evil bitch powers. She will laugh at him behind his back, make jokes about him with the many men she patrons, and generally show just how wrong she is for him.
This brings up the third plot thread. We would need to have something paranormal and supernatural.
Having a medium or a psychic is great for foreshadowing, but also because they can be used to explain weird behavior. The Female Interest of the Month is only in her position because Our Hero (moi) was cursed by alien warlocks that abducted him in his sleep.
And then throughout the entire show would be Our Hero's (moi) struggles to be a successful writer as he is tormented by inner demons and loneliness. We would later learn the unrequited love bit is a function of his alternate personality who sets these things up just to torment the other half.
The comic relief in all of this, as if you'd need it, would be the moronic people Our Hero and the other characters are forced to deal with daily. For this, we could take real calls from the people I actually talk to and simply use them. I couldn't make up a more insane group of people acting as if they were in another dimension where sanity was unheard of and basic human kindness was abhorred.
"What do you mean I called the wrong number? Why did you pick up the phone if I called the wrong number? Why didn't you give me the right number in the first place? I hate you and your company!"
The season finale would be centered around whether or not Our Hero (moi) finally gets The Girl, or in this case the Female Interest of the Month. Season Finales are always cliffhangers. It looks like it might actually happen...it might become a reality. Oh wait, she just wanted to get close to Our Hero (moi) just to talk trash about another women so he wouldn't designate her the next Female Interest of the Month. And once she made her case, she refused to talk to him ever again.
Aw, so sad, too bad. But just before his heart breaks, aliens come and wake up the ghostly spirit of the Female Interest of the Month from last season who died in a quilting accident. The spirit does in fact love him! Wow!
I really should be in soap operas. But I would have to include Larry, my houseplant. He could be my spiritual adviser in matters of the heart.
The best part of soap operas is how they never end. Ever. Fucking ever. I'm serious. There are story lines from 2000 years ago still being played out on TV. The Greeks had a play they did called General Apothecary. Socrates called it, "the worst piece of shit I ever sat through" but he never missed an episode and openly wept when the hero, Phisysius, was killed with poison by his lover. But he was happy to learn a few seasons later it wasn't Phisysius that was killed but rather his evil twin and his lover was just protecting him.
This shit goes on and on and on....
I have always hated soaps. I grew up watching them as a child. Both my parents worked so for about the first 6 or 7 years of my life, I went to a baby sitter, where myself and a bunch of other kids were subjected to each other's weirdness.
Remember the cartoon Muppet Babies? Yeah, same thing only with less interesting people.
I'll admit I was a blend of Gonzo and Fozzy Bear. But that's all I'm admitting to. For the record, the baby sitter's daughters were Miss Piggy. Both were obnoxious, pushy little bitches.
Back during the summer, we were forced to watch soap operas. If it was too hot outside, or if it was raining, then we stayed inside. The baby sitter loved soaps.
Frankly, I never understood them. To me they seemed like boring sets of dialogue that needed gunfire, explosions and monsters. And I think the creators of Supernatural and X-Files thought the same thing and that's how we got those awesome shows.
So yes, I watched those cursed shows. And as I got older, I understood them. It's a simple formula.
First, one plot line just begins. A second plot line is in the middle and a third one is just wrapping up.
This is how a show that's a hundred years old keeps snagging and hooking new viewers. My guess is a hundred years from now, we'll still have that show, only it'll be that time's equivalent to television. Maybe implants in the brains of people that automatically get a wireless signal that generates memories instantly of that day's episode. You're in an elevator, you tap your temple, and suddenly you remember being in a fight with your evil Mother-in-Law about the inheritance left to you when your wife, her daughter, was killed by a swarm of bees. What she doesn't know is how those bees were meant for her because the daughter, your wife, found out about the affair you two were having.
So, yes. My life would make a great soap opera.
As beer pours out of the tapper, so are the days of our Ted.
or...
All My Tedness.
or...
The Bold, the Beautiful, and the Ted.
or...
The Young and the Tedless.
or...
One Life to Live with Ted.
The plot lines would be easy. My life is a weird blend of train wrecks, bad choices, unrequited love, paranormal mistakes and watching a lot of people around me have sex. Well, not watching them, actually. More like they do it, film it secretly and then tell me all about it later while we watch the video.
The first set would be work. I work in a call center surrounded by all kinds of people making terrible choices, hiding their pasts, smothering their feelings and losing their minds. And it's a meat market so they're hooking up constantly.
As a writer, it's a material-rich environment. Not too long ago, a girl was crying because her boyfriend was teasing her about the um...lack of aromatic pleasantness in her um....lady parts. You can't make this stuff up. He was teasing her, other women were teasing her, it was ugly. She was really upset.
And so I was thinking this could be perfect for a product tie-in. The advertising revenue generated by a plot that incorporated sponsorship would be huge. An entire week of Female Character #12 and her angst over the foul smell of her hoo-ha while people make fun of it. And then a doctor, or Uncle Ted (wink), comes to the rescue. "Don't be sad, Female Character #12, millions of women suffer from your condition and it's treatable with Corporate Hoo-Ha Cleaner."
I could make millions on this one campaign alone.
The second plot would be the unrequited love Our Hero (moi) feels towards Female Interest of the Month. She would, of course, be totally incompatible with him. So much so, it would add to his angst. Soap Operas have a lot of angst, so this would work out well. Because Our Hero (moi) is too good for her, she will recognize this and hurt him terribly through her dark evil bitch powers. She will laugh at him behind his back, make jokes about him with the many men she patrons, and generally show just how wrong she is for him.
This brings up the third plot thread. We would need to have something paranormal and supernatural.
Having a medium or a psychic is great for foreshadowing, but also because they can be used to explain weird behavior. The Female Interest of the Month is only in her position because Our Hero (moi) was cursed by alien warlocks that abducted him in his sleep.
And then throughout the entire show would be Our Hero's (moi) struggles to be a successful writer as he is tormented by inner demons and loneliness. We would later learn the unrequited love bit is a function of his alternate personality who sets these things up just to torment the other half.
The comic relief in all of this, as if you'd need it, would be the moronic people Our Hero and the other characters are forced to deal with daily. For this, we could take real calls from the people I actually talk to and simply use them. I couldn't make up a more insane group of people acting as if they were in another dimension where sanity was unheard of and basic human kindness was abhorred.
"What do you mean I called the wrong number? Why did you pick up the phone if I called the wrong number? Why didn't you give me the right number in the first place? I hate you and your company!"
The season finale would be centered around whether or not Our Hero (moi) finally gets The Girl, or in this case the Female Interest of the Month. Season Finales are always cliffhangers. It looks like it might actually happen...it might become a reality. Oh wait, she just wanted to get close to Our Hero (moi) just to talk trash about another women so he wouldn't designate her the next Female Interest of the Month. And once she made her case, she refused to talk to him ever again.
Aw, so sad, too bad. But just before his heart breaks, aliens come and wake up the ghostly spirit of the Female Interest of the Month from last season who died in a quilting accident. The spirit does in fact love him! Wow!
I really should be in soap operas. But I would have to include Larry, my houseplant. He could be my spiritual adviser in matters of the heart.
The best part of soap operas is how they never end. Ever. Fucking ever. I'm serious. There are story lines from 2000 years ago still being played out on TV. The Greeks had a play they did called General Apothecary. Socrates called it, "the worst piece of shit I ever sat through" but he never missed an episode and openly wept when the hero, Phisysius, was killed with poison by his lover. But he was happy to learn a few seasons later it wasn't Phisysius that was killed but rather his evil twin and his lover was just protecting him.
This shit goes on and on and on....
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