The last two days there has been a bee stuck in my office. I fear nothing in this life except for bees. Everyone has a phobia. Mine can be traced to the honey suckle bushes surrounding my childhood home. The bees traumatized me. While learning martial arts in Tibet I thought of a career as a “Beeman” which would entail returning to the U.S. and fighting criminals as a vigilante dressed in a bee outfit. I would make my fear my enemy’s fear.

With the bee in my office I suffered a classic “fight or flight” response. The hairs on my neck stood up, my pupils dilated and my breathing shallowed. No joke. Coincidentally the same thing happened for an entirely different reason when I saw this obnoxious commercial last night while watching 30 Days.

I can imagine Dairy Queen ad-executives now. “Umm, could you like…try and speak even more Indian-like.” The accents are so over the top and seemingly pointless that it makes you wonder what the hell they were thinking when they authorized this. “The bee concept is funny but do you know what would make it funnier?” In fact, I haven’t seen a caricature this bad since “Ben Jabituya’s” in the movie Short Circuit.

I watched the FOX series “24” during its first season. I stopped cold after that. EVERYONE watches that show, but I am no longer allowed to follow Jack Bauer and his exploits. You see, I began having paranoid delusions and kept trying to save the world an hour at a time. Even when I did something as ordinary as go to the grocery store, I could hear this clock ticking in my ears. I once freaked out at 6:58 p.m. when there were only two minutes left in the hour and nobody was around to bag the groceries I had just purchased. I swear the guy in front of me in the checkout line was a Muslim terrorist just trying to slow me down. I feel sorry for my friends who still watch the show (now in its third season). They are totally paranoid. If I am talking to them and its like 8:55p.m., all of a sudden they’ll ask me if my phone is tapped and will insist they have to go. ZEE TV is trying to cash in on the paranoia and anxiety with their own rip-off of 24 titled, “Time Bomb 9/11.” FOX isn’t happy. From the FinancialExpress.com:

Zee Telefilms Ltd can go ahead with the release of its Ketan Mehta-produced thriller Time Bomb 9/11 as scheduled tonight [Tuesday night] at 10 pm as the Delhi High Court on Monday adjourned the matter for Wednesday. Hollywood producer Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation had sued Zee for infringement of its copyright on its ongoing TV serial 24 starring Emmy award nominee Keifer Sutherland.

[Fox Lawyers] alleged that concept of Time Bomb 9/11 was based on TV serial 24 and explained how the act of Zee Telefilms amounted to infringement of copyright.

On the other hand, senior advocate Arun Jaitely appearing for Zee refuted the allegations, saying that Time Bomb 9/11 was its original concept and a sequel to its earlier serial Pradhan Mantri, launched in 2001. “Nobody could monopolise on the concept of terrorism,” he said. Senior advocate Gopal Subramanian will be appearing for the producer.

“Nobody could monopolise on the concept of terrorism.” Indeed, I say. Where would society be without the concept of terrorism? The show even has an actor who portrays Osama Bin Laden. Jack Bauer never had to tango with such a malevolent adversary. Mid-day.com reports:

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In 1959 journalist John Howard Griffin published Black Like Me. The book revealed his experiences as a white man disguised as a black man in the segregated south.

In 1959, Griffin, a noted white journalist, decided to try an experiment. He felt that the only way to determine the truth about how African Americans were treated by whites, and to learn if there was discrimination, was to become one. After a series of medical treatments that darkened his skin, he began his travels in the Deep South. Made up primarily of his journal entries during that time, Black Like Me, read by Ray Childs, details the experiences he had while passing for black. He finds that the people who saw him as white days earlier would not give him the time of day. He suffered even more as he rode buses in New Orleans, discovering how whites would no longer sit next to him. Listeners will be fascinated by his bus trip to Mississippi during which the driver would not let any of the African Americans off at a rest stop and how some of the passengers decided to deal with this slight. A fascinating view of life before the heyday of the Civil Rights movement, showing the difficulties of being black in America.

Perhaps inspired by knowledge of this book, Morgan Spurlock (yes, THAT Morgan Spurlock) will document what it is like for a Christian man to live as a Muslim for 30 days. [via DNSI]The BBC reports:

Morgan Spurlock, the director of the cult fast-food documentary Super Size Me, has filmed a Christian living as a Muslim for 30 days for a new TV series. The show is part of his new TV series 30 Days, which puts people in unfamiliar situations for a month.

The shows sees the Christian dealing with “what’s it like to be a Muslim in America … who is seen every day as a threat to our freedom.”

The new series starts in the US on 15 June on the FX network.

Other episodes of the new show include a conservative man living with a gay flatmate, and a woman embarking on a binge-drinking spree as a warning to her daughter.

I want Spurlock to do an episode on what happens to a perfectly reasonable and well adjusted young man, who starts blogging for thirty days straight. Here is what I envision: He loses fifteen lbs., he has no time for anything, and the veins in his head start to bulge. Like this. Continue reading →

CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta betrays his roots by giving free, albeit useless, medical advice (“I probably would see a dermatologist”) in a new spot entitled “Melanoma.” Unfortunately, you have to register with CNN to watch the ad, and then fumble around with a clumsy Flash interface.

Bonus: In an ad entitled “Gandhi,” Lou Dobbs pops up as a creepingly lurking, know-it-all, third wheel. No registration required for that one.

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