BeigeJournal

I’ve been enjoying the Discovery Channel’s show Dirty Jobs. Whether it involves bat guano, dead animals, live animals, or septic tanks, host Mike Rowe is there to try his hand at the task and report on the smell (generally awful) for those of us in the TV audience who, fortunately for the ratings, can’t smell it. The show is actually informative at times and not quite as disgusting as it sounds. Who knew that there is special mud packaged and sold to be smeared on baseballs so that the pitcher can grip them better? Ever wonder what they do with the parts of the fish that don’t go to the grocery store? What do they do with the, um, stuff, they suck into the septic tank pumping truck?

Sometimes we just learn about American TV. Stallion penises are pixelated out, but close-ups of a mare’s vulva are perfectly OK, with or without a human arm and various bits of tubing inserted into one or another opening. I keep thinking that if I watch enough television programming about reproduction, human or otherwise, eventually a rationally-explainable pattern to what is and what isn’t shown will emerge, but of course I am always disappointed. It is foolish to imagine that any rational process is at work.