On an episode of “The People’s Court” that I was watching, Judge Marylin Milian, after hearing conflicting and acerbic testimony from litigant and defendant, declared, “Stick a fork in me; I’m done.” I chuckled when I heard it, because Judge Milian has a direct and familiar way when meting out justice on her show. She likes to rebut testimony by saying in Spanish, “It’s itching me here, and you’re scratching me there!” (She translates it for those among her audience who are “Spanish challenged.”) But being “done” is a recurring theme on my other great TV-watching passion: law-and-order shows.
All of the crime-themed shows that I watch have in common — in addition to the law-and-order thing – a statement being made by someone (usually a suspect or an attorney) that goes like this: “Are we done?” Or “Are we done here?” Or more bristly and brusquely: “We’re done here.” After having heard these statements for some time, I wondered if any of the attorneys and miscreants with whom I may have had contact have ever had the occasion to dramatically declare, “We are done here.” And exit, stage left, flapping summonses, writs, and requests to dismiss. Which is what is done by the people on my murder-most-foul shows. My editor once made a comment about scriptwriting and screenwriting, saying something about “lazy writing.” That would seem to apply in the shows that I watch, from “CSI” and all of its spinoffs, “NCIS” from Los Angeles to New Orleans, and “Law and Order” and its children and grandchildren. Suspects and attorneys on all of the shows uniformly say something about being “done.” While there is probably no mention of sticking a fork in the roast, I can imagine the brainstorming scriptwriting review sessions where someone chimes in, “Let’s stick ‘We’re done’ in there and we can go home.”
A recurring ad on a TV series I’m watching is for a dating service. Satan is looking for a match, and finds one. (Satan is portrayed as a “he.”) When they meet, Satan asks, “Are you Two Oh Two Oh?” His date responds, “Just call me 2020.” The two find themselves compatible and collaborate on such things as stealing all of the toilet paper. They wreak havoc in other ways and then, sit together and sigh, wishing that the year would never end.
Hunter S. Thompson wrote, “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming ‘Wow!’” Nina Simone’s cover of the “Ol’ Blue Eyes” standard, “My Way” is an upbeat and invigorating rendition of how to “face it all, and stand tall.” It sounds wonderful, that idea, but as much as we would like to, we cannot all do it our own way, as evidenced by the raging COVID-19 pandemic. In countries where the citizens adhered to government-mandated safety requirements, fewer citizens died, and the disease was stilled. In a country where many of us are encouraged to resist “mandates,” we are close to a half-million people who did not skid sideways into the grave, proclaiming “Wow!” They coughed and wheezed and wasted and died.
As the Quincy Jones-produced song, “Moody’s Mood For Blues” comes to an end, the singer says to the jazz saxophonist, “James Moody … you can blow now if you want to, we’re through.” As for me, I’d just like to say to these times, “We’re done here.”
I fear that we are not.
cjon3acd@att.net