I got a form letter back from UPN.

Dear Neal,

Thank you for writing to UPN, and we appreciate your taking the time to share your thoughts and concerns about “WWE SmackDown!” Due to the tragic events in London last Thursday, we took the added measure of running an advisory four times throughout the broadcast so that viewers could make the appropriate viewing decision for their household. We will continue to monitor the situation involving this character and storyline. Please be advised that we have noted your comments and wish to assure you that they have been shared with the senior broadcast executives at UPN.

Cordially,

UPN
Viewer Services

And here’s WWE’s attempt to explain themselves - NOT apologize (from Fox News):

“We’re very proud of our product,” said “Smackdown” executive producer Kevin Dunn. “We try and be sensitive with everything we portray, but there’s got to be protagonists and antagonists on our TV shows. We just happen to reflect the politics of the world sometimes - especially with these Arab-American characters.” … WWE’s Dunn says, “We are firmly in the entertainment business,” and that the plot, as edgy as it might have been, should be taken tongue-in-cheek.”

UPN pulled Muhammad Hassan from last night’s episode of Smackdown. The WWE prefaced the show with a disclaimer. Here’s Pro Wrestling Torch editor Wade Keller’s description of the opening:

The show opened with an advisory stating that due to world events, “sensitivities have risen” so viewer discretion was advised. How about instead: “Due to world events which we’re trying to exploit, but in a tongue-in-cheek way only, since you know, simulating beheadings, suicide bombing themes, martyrs, and such are obviously tongue-in-cheek, and it wasn’t our fault the bombers chose the morning of last week’s show which we couldn’t change, well we could have, but chose not to, because any publicity is good publicity, and you people really need to lighten up, it’s just wrestling, and we’re giving the Bash to the troops for free, so we’re not all bad, and look at those soldiers cheer us, so that makes it all okay - viewers who are total PC freaks and pussies may want to not watch.”

They don’t get it. They think they’re being persecuted in an overly-sensitive PC world. They really don’t understand that there are intelligent ways to portray things like terrorism, suicide bombers, etc. for meaningful and dramatic value. Then there’s the way WWE does it.

Haven’t watched any WWE programming since Davairi “sacrificed himself.”

I get a deserved amount of hassling for continuing to be a wrestling fan, but as of last night’s episode of Smackdown, WWE has sunk to a new low. Ever since Vince McMahon let his completely unqualified daughter run the creative department of this publicly-traded company, the quality of programming has dropped dramatically. But that’s usually been in terms of shoddy storytelling, ridiculous hole-filled plots and poor payoffs. Now they’ve sunken to the deplorable low of exploiting real-life tragedy for the sake of making money.

They have a character now called Muhammad Hassan. He’s the bad Muslim who is a bad guy apparently because he doesn’t like how Americans view all Muslims as terrorists. I’m not sure how this makes him a bad guy, but it’s important to remember in WWE Land everyone is guilty until proven white. Yesterday, on the same day as the terrorist attacks in London, WWE went even further. To set the stage, Hassan has a match with the Undertaker at the next pay-per-view, so his manager, Daivari, was facing Undertaker on Smackdown.

From the Pro Wrestling Torch accounts of the show:

Hassan told Daivari backstage that he needs to understand his role. He told him to sacrifice himself for the greater good. He assured him his sacrifice would not go without a great reward.

As if the connection to suicide bombers and terrorists wasn’t obvious enough,

After the match, Hassan kneels and lifts his arms and head up (in a praying pose). A group of “terrorists” in black masks come to the ring and beat up Undertaker. They choke him out with steel wire wrapped around his neck. Hassan gets in the ring to huge boos. He applies the camel clutch. Undertaker has passed out. The terrorists are all on their knees in the praying pose when the camera pans back. The terrorists then grab Daivari and carry him out like a martyr.

I know WWE thinks they’re really cool and edgy when they do things that upset viewers. But this is ridiculous - this show ran on THE SAME DAY THAT REAL PEOPLE DIED IN A REAL TERRORIST ATTACK. I simply can’t believe it. I can’t believe a Viacom-owned station like UPN would even want to go there. And it wasn’t like WWE pulled a fast one on Viacom - this episode was taped Tuesday, and although in WWE’s slight defense, the London thing hadn’t happened yet, it’s not like they didn’t have all day Thursday to edit it out. I’m a student - I could have done it. I don’t buy any excuses that it wasn’t possible. So instead they ran a small crawler at the bottom of the screen a few times advising parental discretion.

If this offends you, please go to upn.com (click on the “Contact” link) and tell them how you feel about their station choosing to run something like this. And please spread the word about it. I think UPN - NOT WWE - needs to see how the general public reacts to things like this. I’m sure right now, the folks at WWE are smiling to themselves, thinking how successfully they’ve executed this “edgy” storyline, completely oblivious to what they have done for the sake of money.

I find myself doing stupid things for food.

Lately it’s been a habit of mine, when in a new city, to waste a good two hours or more in search of a late night meal. Maybe Omaha and Lincoln are just ridiculously predictable, but I’ve grown accustomed to the idea of finding places to eat at either 1) interstate exits or 2) major intersections.

A few weeks ago when I was in Minneapolis, I drove around for two hours searching in vain for absolutely any fast food restaurant. Maybe I just have the most insane bad luck, but the only thing I could find was a really scary Burger King in a neighborhood I really wished I hadn’t found at 11:30pm. I took all sorts of combinations of interstates, state highways, major streets - nothing. And I am not exaggerating. I just wanted a place to get food. I had some preferences, so in the event I found the type of clumping of restaurants I typically expect at interstate exits or major intersections, I could eliminate some options, but it wasn’t just a case of me being picky. I couldn’t find ANYTHING.

I eventually retreated back to the hotel to ask for specific directions. I need to back up for a minute - my 2 hour odyssey began when the desk clerk told me there were no fast food restaurants nearby (which was absolutely insane to me, because it was fairly near the airport). So I set out beyond the realm of “nearby” with no luck. Now I wanted specific directions to anything I could purchase through my car window. She gave me directions to a Taco Bell, which was going to end up being about 10 minutes away.

Last night, I needed to grab some dinner. My schedule was way off, because I didn’t eat lunch until after I was settled in my hotel room at 3:30 or so. I just went across the street to the McDonald’s. It just so happened to be the most disgusting McDonald’s ever, and not only could I not finish my double cheeseburger or my McChicken - I couldn’t finish my Diet Coke. It all tasted gross.

So it was 10pm and I wanted dinner. I was really craving Steak n Shake, because we don’t have them in Nebraska, and I remembered that Sara and I drove through there late at night last year when we were in town. It has been brought to my attention in the past 24 hours that Steak n Shake is not nearly as exclusive as I thought last night - but the important thing at the moment was that I wasn’t going to Florida and eating every meal at a place we have in Lincoln.

I asked at the front desk if there was any place nearby other than the McDonald’s and Wendy’s across the street. No. Not only “no,” but there was such a vast expanse between our hotel and the nearest restaurant that wasn’t the diner down the street that they flat out wouldn’t tell me anything. Even when I specifically asked for Steak n Shake, they would just echo, “You don’t want to go there, it’s just too far away. It’s just too far.”

I didn’t need them, I decided, so I did by best to follow my memory from 15 months before. I knew we were staying somewhere out near I-595, so I took that west. I recognized University, so I took that exit. I recognized Sunrise, so I drove around that area. I was wasting about 30-40 minutes at this point, so it became time to ask.

The clerk at the Shell station told me that it wouldn’t be open at this hour, so he wouldn’t tell me how to get there. The guy behind me in line knew it was open 24 hours, so he would give me directions. I followed his directions, and they were nuts. Wasted another hour or so. Returned to the Shell station.

“Yeah, his directions were way off,” the clerk tells me. “I knew you weren’t going to find it.” But Mr. Know-it-all Shell Clerk wouldn’t tell me the right way because he knew it was closed. Finally I got him to tell me how he would have told me to get there if it were open.

Eventually, at 12:45am, I pulled into the Steak n Shake drive through. It’s not quite fast fast food, so I didn’t leave until 1:00. I wasn’t sure if Flamingo went through to 595, so instead of taking the risk that I eventually learned would have paid off, I backtracked Sunrise to University, wasting more time, making my way back to 595.

To further outsmart myself, I knew that State Road 84 - the road on which my hotel stands - intersected I-95 north of I-595, so I decided to ignore all other signs and instead seek out the I-95N sign. Well, one of the signs I missed was the SR84 sign, and I discovered after getting on I-95 that you can get on 95 from 84 but not vice versa. Ten more minutes getting turned around.

Eventually I returned to my room, an hour after entering the Steak n Shake drive through, two hours and 45 minutes after leaving, to sit down and eat. It was still delicious. I was so frazzled and frustrated - I wanted to shove my food in the faces of the desk clerks when I returned, but I’d wasted enough time at that point.

Today, though, I was about to make a completely different stupid move in the name of a craving. I had a break before Mr 1776 was going to debut, so I headed down the Hollywood beach broadwalk (they actually call it a broadwalk - I’m not misspelling boardwalk) looking for something to eat. At this point, I had been killing time on the beach, doing some actual swimming in the ocean and just reading out in the sun. So I was really thirsty.

Enter the greek place. All these restaurants are your typical boardwalk setup - three walls, open front, patio seating. A gyro sounded good, but a gyro plate was $10. I was standing in the boundary between inside and outside reading the menu when one of the waitresses walked up to me and said “Eating here or to go?”

“I’m still checking out the menu,” I said, when she pointed out the special - buy a large pizza for $14, get a free pitcher of beer or pop.

I imagined having a whole pitcher of cold Diet Coke sitting in front of me. I imagined drinking the whole pitcher of cold Diet Coke. She took me to a table.

I read the fine print on the sign. $14 for a large cheese pizza. Toppings were extra. So I thought, okay, it’ll be $15 or $16 for a beef pizza, not so bad. But then I thought, am I going to be able to eat a whole large pizza by myself? I can eat a large Domino’s or Papa John’s pizza, but those are a lot smaller than these. It’s not like I’m going to put leftovers in the rental car for 5 hours while I’m following Mr 1776.

That’s when I realized that I was basically going to end up paying about $20 with tip for a pitcher of pop. That’s all I really wanted out of this deal - a $20 pitcher of pop.

So in my first wise move in the realm of food on this trip, I got up and walked out and went to a place down the broadwalk. I got a huge, delicious burger and a plate of fries for $6.25 and the jumbo Diet Coke - almost pitcher sized - for $1.88.

First off, Saturday is the wedding of Derek J. Lippincott.

Then I fly to Florida early Sunday morning to interview Mr. 1776, the superhero formerly known as Burgh Man, for my documentary. He’s making his debut on Hollywood Beach on the 4th of July, so it will be exciting to actually be able to capture a moment like that.

With the interviews and other work, hopefully I’ll be able to grab a minute to actually enjoy Ft. Lauderdale before I fly back Tuesday afternoon.

For some reason, this post reads like I’m just beginning to get a grasp on English.