Weather or Not

Perhaps my timing is bad from some perspectives, but I think the local TV stations ought to consider making the weather reports one minute in length. Well, okay, if there’s a hurricane involved, make it one and a half minutes. They give us entirely too much information. All I need to know, unless there’s a hurricane or a tornado, is what the temperature is and whether there’s going to be any precipitation or not. And in fact, if I wanted to, I could simply stick my head out the window and give the report as accurately as some of these people. That could well be the method they use to forecast, for all I know, and the fact that many weathermen have tans only on their faces and necks may be all the proof we need.

You may note that I am referring only to the male prognosticators. Blatant sexism? Not really. But the male of the species—Meteorosaurus Rex—seems to want to dominate the media, while most females appear to be less aggressive and just content to do innocuous map-pointing. I like to see people who are really enthusiastic about their jobs, like Chris Matthews, Paul Shaffer, and even those two strange little twin brother antique experts (Duncan and Phyfe? Henry and Don? Broy and Hill? Whatever.) on the “Antique Road Show,” but these weather guys take it a bit too far. I have no doubt that each of them sees the weather as his life, business and personal. And I wouldn’t doubt that it’s been a life-long obsession. When 13-year-old Bill Walsh or Rob Fowler’s mothers frantically ransacked their rooms, looking for salacious clues to explain their never leaving them, they didn’t unearth a veritable pornographic time capsule, as Pee Wee Herman’s traumatized mother undoubtedly did, but rather a pile of weather maps, quite possibly stuck together, a battery operated anemometer, and autographed pictures of Karen McGinnis and Willard Scott.

Of course, hurricane season only heightens the rapture for this group, as each wave off the coast of Africa seems to have a Viagric effect, enabling them to prolong their reports and endless updates for days, even weeks. Terms like isobar, ridge, funnel cloud, vorticity, and trough are spewed forth with orgasmic abandon, but when an actual hurricane is created, TV viewers may as well read a book—and some still can, you know—because there will be nonstop interruptions of programs or at least little maps in the corner of your screen ensuring that you are aware of the storm’s exat location at all times. At some point, when it appears there may be a chance the storm may be heading our way, then ti’s time for the “Rainbow Rambos” to break out the big guns. Citizens need not be afraid because these guys have got “Super Doppler 5000’s” and “Live Vipers” and they’re casting out “Hurricane Nets” and hunkering down, “loaded for bear” in their “Storm Centers.” And apparently, once this meteorological mobilization starts, there’s no stopping it, even if the forecast is, God forbid, erroneous and the storm misses us. Fearless reporters are sent forth with orders to give the totally helpless viewers live coverage of the horrible devastation and pathos. More often than not, this results in some permanently humiliated new employee at the station watching 9 inch waves roar ashore at a local beach or another guy observing the 5 o’clock traffic rush, and remarking with an air of faux solemnity that the street is wet. Although I will admit I recently witnessed a display of stultifying honesty during tropical storm Gaston recently when a reporter executed a calamitous career move by stating that “It really doesn’t look too bad out here.”

Perhaps, sensing that the station is struggling to make a macroburst out of a microburst, or either just wanting to be part of the big “story,” audience members frequently call in: 1. “The pine trees in my yard are swaying” (Big deal, that could be caused by a flatulent St. Bernard); 2. “My joggling board is soaked”; 3. “It blowed the flames detailing off my damned Camaro”; 4. “My wind chimes were making a death rattle sound”; 5. “Well, maybe those damned Yankees will stop moving down here now.”

But certainly, if a weatherman wants to show dramatic and complete destruction to his audience, there’s always one horse he can bet on, one unnatural phenomenon that’s even more predictable than “Old Faithful” or a Neocon with a service deferment: The trailer park. I really don’t understand it. Why are there some people who live along the coast or in Tornado Alley who insist on living in a trailer? Of course, I understand that some people may not have the money to buy a house, a situation I was in at one point in my life, but we took our $80 and instead of renting a prefabricated rectangle on wheels, we rented an apartment that was in a building fastened to the earth with pylons, steel and concrete. Don’t you people watch the news or look at the newspaper? Well, let me give you one final tip. What’s another name for a trailer? That’s right—mobile home. Mobile, move. Get it?! You have a Mobile Home; a home that can move. A big wind comes along, and that’s what your home does—it moves. Oh, sometimes it may take a while because it does it piece by piece, but you get the point. And no, surrounding it with cars on cinderblocks won’t help.

See, if the weathermen were public service oriented, they would have lectured the mobile home owners as I did, instead of inundating us with hurricane preparedness pamphlets, boring our school children to the point of committing violence with their mind-numbing presentations. “Well children, Jim Carrey had to cancel his appearance today, but that’s okay because we’ve got somebody else just as entertaining—the guy who wasn’t afraid of mean old Mr. Hugo, the hardest working meteorologist in town—actually the only one…Rob Fowler.”

However, I do recall during some of the 45mph gusts of Gaston, when I surely felt that all was lost, after not being able to try out my home colostomy kit due to a power outage, that it was one of our local weathermen on my battery-operated radio that yanked me out of the abyss of despair with these simple, but inspiring words, “I am on the air and I’ll be here as long as I’m needed.” Visions of Alexander Haig’s courageous utterance after President Reagan’s assassination attempt, “I am in control here at the White House,” floated through my tired brain as I peacefully dozed off, knowing that despite the climatological turmoil about me, my weatherman was still there.

Sure, Rob and Bill, and the other guy whose name can’t recall, sometimes you’re all annoying, self-important, ridiculous meteorological megalomaniacs, but you’re always there when we need you—or even otherwise.

Thanks.