A job I'd really like to have

I'd like to be that really good-looking guy that's brought in on the last season of a television show to save it from being cancelled. You know, like that Sweathog from Alabama, or the Love Boat's cruise photographer or Fonzie's cousin who comes to town to be the dean of the local boys' school. I would make my living, buy my cars, attend exclusive Hollywood parties and have sex with Sandra Bullock all based on role after role of "Oh Mork, you act so funny sometimes. Come on, let's head to the beach." I would have an entire career, a proud, long one. I would become the subject of snotty Generation X poems worshipping the mindless popular culture they were raised on.

I, Jason Pettus! would be the saver of shows that don't need saving, the fucker of art for the sake of commerce. Regular casts would see me report for work on the first day and give each other looks, serious longing depressing looks, looks they gave each other last year when the adorable precocious child actor was brought on board. I, Jason Pettus, harbringer of doom, secret acknowledger of yes, you do have exactly 22 episodes left, so don't buy that Malibu ranch house you were eyeing last week!

Oh, it wouldn't be enough work to completely sustain me. I'd have to pick up other jobs -- I'd have to become that guy that always does those things in the commercials that you're NOT supposed to do. "Well, Jason, you did rent the car from Avis, didn't you?" "Well... not EXACTLY!" I would be the endless martyr, the guy who constantly dies so that the main character can have an emotional breakthrough. I would be that AIDS patient who dies in George Clooney's arms, that smackhead who dies in Dennis Franz's arms, that conspiracy theorist who dies in Gillian Anderson's arms!

And my friends would complain, I know. They would endlessly bitch at me after a dozen dollar beers at Estelle's on a Tuesday night, "Oh Jason, you sell-out, oh JASON, you purveyor of bad culture, oh JASON, you back-turner on the intelligent world in which we live." And I would have exactly one thing to say to them, one thing to say to each and every one of them, which is... "FUCK YOU!" It sure as hell beats the ten dollar an hour type a mindless memo from an adulturous executive to be ignored by another adulturous executive and sneak off to have another smoke break but who cares 'cause he's just a temp and will be gone on Friday anyway job! FUCK YOU, I say, FUCK YOU because I am Jason Pettus, smasher of worlds! Jason Pettus, demigod of late night Channel 9! FUCK YOU, for I am Jason Pettus, bad television actor!

Copyright 1997, Jason Pettus. All rights reserved.