Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Drumsticks, Hamhocks, and Hearts Afire

I'm in Madison, Wisconsin for work (because I'm an important bizness man, you know). I'm in the hotel watching TV and I am looking at the oddest thing I've ever seen on television.

Do you remember the Yule Log? On and about Christmas day there would be an endless loop of Christmas carols and videos of a cracklin' fire? I guess they still do that, but I haven't checked in a few years.

Well, for the last 30 minutes or so, I've been watching a loop of meat grilling. Now I know they love their meats here in the midwest, so I'm not trying to bring some eastern sensibility to this. Still, watching meat grill endlessly on TV is most definitely odd. It is a public access channel, so I'm sure someone is trying to be funny, but why?

Every ten minutes or so, we get a different camera angle. It's a round grill. At each clock hour from 2 to 9 there are chicken drumsticks. At 11, 12, and 1, are three big hams. In the middle is god knows what. To me it looks like a giant human heart. I can't even imagine what it really is. It's on a loop, so it never gets any more done. There's a lot of smoke, but nothing's getting cooked.

Every few minutes you hear a guy cough in the background, or make a funny sound. It's like Hapax Legomena (the Shriekback song, not the latin term).

This may be the oddest, most frustrating experience I've ever had.

It's now 9:47 CDT. I'm hoping this ends at 10:00. I'm going to stick it out and let you know what happens, OK? Follow up to come.

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