Are You Shot? an Iraqi Reality Hit

he most recent Nielsen ratings released Monday confirm the surprising success of ABC’s controversial new show, Are You Shot?, an unscripted reality program featuring former soap opera star Lorenzo Lamas and a panel of judges critiquing the injuries suffered by American GIs and civilians in post-war Iraq.

Critics and social commentators have savaged the program ever since it rose from the ashes of ABC’s ill-fated reality dud Are You Hot? The Search for America's Sexiest People, which was cancelled earlier this year due to lukewarm ratings and a lawsuit by radio shock jock Howard Stern. Despite claims that the new show (which features Lamas detailing puss-soaked head wounds and missing limbs with a laser pointer) is in appallingly bad taste and degrades the whole of humanity, U.S. viewers can’t get enough.

“I always want to keep up on what’s going on over there in Iraq, but it can be so tough,� explained avid viewer and bakery assistant Megan Herbert. “One minute we’re the bad guys, then the good guys, then the bad guys again, then a deli blows up. I like it better when there’s points and we can see who’s winning.�

Producers set up the show by dividing Iraq into twelve different “Hell Zones,� geographical regions from which contestants would be drawn. Each episode of the show focuses on contestants from a different zone, with viewers voting over the Internet on which challenger had been most severely fucked-up as a result of the ongoing U.S. occupation.

Early episodes of the show have scored Nielsen ratings as high as 26.3, besting such popular reality staples as Temptation Island and Oops, I Ate Your Dog. Such a surprising early success has ABC executives buzzing about possible record ratings for the planned season finale in the “Hell Zone� of the Sunni Triangle. Thus far, the Nielsen Media Research corporation has been unable to track accurate ratings for the show in Iraq itself, due to the small number of working televisions in the country which haven’t been either kicked in or bartered for food.

On top of suggesting that the show devalues human suffering and takes too long to get to the good gory parts, critics have also slammed Are You Shot? for extending the career of celebrity waste-of-space Lorenzo Lamas, who until recently was making ends meet lending his talents to a celebrity prank-calling service.

“Sure, some people may argue that the show is in poor taste,� admitted Lamas, while compulsively highlighting this reporter’s papercut with his laser pointer. “But America has always thrived on raising poor taste to the level of an art form. Without our example, the rest of the world would have no way of knowing when the bottom of the barrel has been scraped.�

“Hold on a second,� Lamas interrupted, glancing at his watch as he dialed a cell phone. “Hello, this is Lorenzo Lamas, from Falcon Crest. Do you have Prince Albert in a can? No, no, that’s Prince Harry. No, I don’t think he would actually fit in a can. Yes, he is quite adorable. Uh-huh, you’re right on that. Okay. Okay, thank you. Goodbye.�

acists and peckerwoods everywhere trembled as their vaunted white power fizzled out into nothingness Thursday, surprising only those blind to the inevitable fall of empires everywhere. The absurdly-called "blackout," which started in the middle of the day during perfect daylight, plunged major northeastern urban areas into a state of non-electricity, which the white media presumably prefers to compare to "primitive" black culture with the derogatory "blackout" term.

The twin Northern American albino evils, the governments of the U.S. and Canada, both spent the day blaming each other for the power failure instead of spending their time fixing the power. The working classes and underprivileged were left in the dark Thursday night, with Friday night also no luckier in getting the power turned back on in some areas. White media was "delightfully surprised" that the non-white citizens left in the dark during the night didn't spend all their time looting their own stores and robbing white people—you know, acting civilized. As you know, when non-whites rob white people, it's anti-social crime; when whites rob everyone else, it's called capitalism.

New York City mayor Whitey Whiteberg praised New Yorkers for helping each other out and not killing each other like savage animals, then went home to his out-of-state mansion or high-grade penthouse with the gasoline-powered generator or whatever digs he shammed the people out of. Meanwhile, underprivileged suffering classes in Detroit went home to unbearable heat without power Friday night. Areas of New York, Connecticut, and Ohio with their power restored were forced to refrain from air conditioning in the record heat wave.

Rumors abounded in the immediate wake of the power failures. Though the most likely source of the catastrophe is now pointing to three failed transmission lines that eventually took out the Niagara Mohawk power grid, probably stolen from early industrious Native Americans, alternative unfounded causes were spread through the Internet and urban legend grapevine. Some blamed the power outage on a threatening Internet worm that managed to topple all the nation's power grids, the equivalent of blaming it on the Candyman. Most Americans were more anxious to blame it on the brown people of the Middle East, known as terrorists for not believing in the white man's God.

President and ranking redneck George "Whitey" Bush promised the problem of the electrical outage would be investigated and, if possible, enslaved and oppressed. He went on to call the electrical power grid system "antiquated," though how that makes it different from other revered elements of white culture wasn't explained by the inferior president.

Professor of African-American Electrical Engineering and frequent drinking buddy of this reporter Muhammad Bari offered more realistic interpretations of the grid power failure.

"It's clear the fatted citizens of Rome have trusted in their failing empire far too long," said the six-time winner of home Jeopardy! "The sacred calf is ripe for slaughter, and the time for the reign of a noble citizenry is nearly upon us. Now, I'm not suggesting we go out and rip down Con Edison and the White House or anything, you know. I'm just saying, in the eyes of the great and worthy Allah, we as wage slaves built this city on rock and roll and it's ours to do with as we please."

The white president refused to comment on these perfectly legitimate questions, proving who he's really serving.

I have never had my fingers pulled off one by one through my asshole. My wife Arvelyn used to tell me I should not knock things until I have tried them at least once, but I dare to say the experience is one I would not like even without trying it.

To avoid such an unwelcome new experience I have agreed to occasionally drop off packages for my new in-laws, i.e. the mob, to cohorts of theirs. Their reasoning was quite sound, even complimentary: "Rok, you are such a square as would not bat the eye of a policeman or G-man like Eliot the Ness, eh?" That's how my new cousin-in-law Yogi put it, and I agree. The police have no reason to suspect me for being a bagman for the vaguely-Russian mob. But it is exactly the case now.

The shame of it all! And imminent danger. Me, Rok Finger, champion of all things stodgy and establishment, delivering goofballs for no-goodniks! As I've made implicitly clear, the possible involvement in the Eurasian mafia by my wife Felchyana in no way diminished my love for her, but I cannot stomach doing wrong to the law. Unless I personally profit from it, for that's the American way, but being threatened into dishonesty, that's just plain… well, dishonest.

It's too bad to be forced to do favors for the mob in such a reprehensible way. Their might be some charm in robbing an armored truck or something fanciful like that. There might be a smidgen of honor in doing something like the old fashioned, pre-GoodFellas gangsters would have taken part in. Rolling in barrel after barrel of illegal Canadian booze and firing a tommy gun at thick packs of Irish cops. Who would object to that? If only those damned teetotalers hadn't lost all their power in Congress.

But there's nothing respectable about hard drugs, like marijuana. Pot kills brain cells and makes people act like complete assholes. It has none of the charm of hard liquor. Plus, it's frequently used by hippies—if you need a bigger case than that against it, I don't know where you're coming from. Hippie-lover. So, in addition to threatening to de-finger me and making my new marriage more complicated than it had originally been, these mob thugs have put me on a pro-hippie bandwagon. That I will not tolerate.

With all doors closed to me, some slammed violently on my feet, I have turned back to my reliable old friends Lee and Camembert. Well, I've turned to Camembert—Lee was busy with another tour date for his new book, written under the pen name of Daili Lama. All of Camembert's suggestions were lame, of course, such as contacting the FBI or telling the local police force, but it was good to have someone I could boss around again, even for a little while. I would probably ask him to move in with Felchyana and I, but Yogi might take a liking to him and make him capo or something. That's the last thing I need.

So right now, in this little mob war I'm going through, Camembert is my secret weapon. The secret being what he's capable of doing against the mob, and I wish I was in on that secret. But it's good to have an ace in the hole, and Camembert can be a huge ace-hole when called upon. My plan as for right now is to play along with Yogi and the gang, deliver the packages and betray no disloyalty, while figuratively hiding Camembert up my sleeve. We tried it literally and even without the wheelchair there's no way he'll fit.

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