Tyrades! By Danny Tyree
In case you missed hearing it from CNN, the Washington Post or umpteen other outlets, another “Two And A Half Men” star is making headlines.
Angus T. Jones, age 19, who plays the “Half Man” of the title, savages the CBS sitcom in a video posted by the Forerunner Christian Church on YouTube. Having found religion, Jones now describes the show as “filth” and pleads with viewers to stop watching it.
Angus T. Jones
So far the network and production company have been silent about the provocation; but while we’re waiting for the other condom…er, SHOE…to drop, we can take inspiration from this story.
Let’s not view this as just a narrowly focused tirade against Hollywood debauchery. I’d like to see Jones inspire a few more employees and spokesmen from various companies, professions and organizations to speak up. And for their superiors to shut up, grant them amnesty and take notes.
I’m sure there are retail clerks who go through the motions of telling a favorite customer “Those cigarettes are gonna kill you,” but what if more did it, and more earnestly, while saving some choice comments for the sucker’s game of lottery tickets?
What if a few marketing whizzes confided what an empty word “premium” is, or how “value-priced” items give away the secret that the upper-end products DON’T necessarily deliver value for the money?
Cash-strapped supermarket shoppers could avoid so many impulsive purchases if just a handful of magazine cover designers slipped in “You really think that each and every month we’re going to give you 75 sizzling sex secrets that no one else in the entire history of humanity has thought of? Sure, g’wan and try ‘em out in your oceanfront villa in Arizona.”
What if a nurse shared the information, “Dr. Jablonski studied really hard at med school, but I swear, his diploma really should have been signed by those high-pressure pharmaceutical salesmen”?
What if a political party spokesperson casually confessed, “Yes, we do seem to be a magnet for racists, but that problem is definitely somewhere on our ‘to do’ list”?
What if a gutsy union rep announced, “Yes, some of the members we’re protecting are lazy %$#@, but they’re OUR lazy %$#@”?
Wouldn’t the public and the corporation alike ultimately be better off if a restaurant employee told us, “I can attest that two-thirds of my co-workers NEVER wash their hands after using the bathroom”?
I know that bellyachers, malcontents and ingrates are a dime a dozen (unless you count the surcharges, hidden fees and dealer prep). And chaos would ensue, the stock market would crash, every aspect of life would suffer congressional-style gridlock and duels would be fought at dawn if EVERYBODY continually opened upon about EVERYTHING.
But a few strategically placed individuals with insider information and a genuine love of mankind could work wonders.
Who knows? Maybe “Two And A Half Men” could wind up giving life meaning instead of just DOUBLE meanings.
I know. Management has been trained to quash dissent as a reflex action. Wage slaves have been conditioned to fear pink slips and toe the company line. But I can dream, can’t I?
“Not without this expensive new prescription-only insomnia pill the salesman was peddling,” cheerfully advises Dr. Jablonski.
*Sigh*
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©2012 Danny Tyree. Danny welcomes reader e-mail responses at tyreetyrades@aol.com and visits to his Facebook fan page “Tyree’s Tyrades”. Danny’s’ weekly column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. newspaper syndicate. For info on using columns, please email Cari Dawson Bartley at cari@cagle.com or call 800 696 7561.
