Feel free to take these show ideas, celebs
After carefully monitoring the city’s new “BloomCam” for 24 hours, a spoiler alert: You may kill yourself due to crushing boredom long before the cherry trees blossom in High Park.
Don’t misunderstand. That’s not a shot. Kudos, City of Toronto, for trying to ease the tedium of lockdown by bringing the great outdoors into our living rooms. All I’m saying is I don’t get why anyone with any memory of ENTERTAINMENT would want to watch a live feed of TREES.
What’s next? A DVP cam, so we can simulate the forgotten joy of rush hour?
At one point, I saw a squirrel in the BloomCam and leaned forward in my chair, like this was a plot twist in a Tom Clancy thriller. I screamed out to the kids: Come quick! Squirrel!
But you know what’s weird? Due to the blurry buffering, I’m not even sure it was a squirrel.
It might have just been a shadow-effect from my tears.
This is where we are, my friends. As it turns out, the revolution will be livestreamed. It’s amazing how quickly the world toggled into virtual mode. It bolsters the theory life is just a simulation.
You know what we are right now? Avatars in a pandemic. That’s it. This virus has killed offline life and we are digital replicas of our former selves — ungroomed, Bigfoot-looking monsters having our Zoom meetings and FaceTime happy hours and Google Chat rendezvous.
But if real life is just one big VR blast during lockdown, we need our celebrities to step up with innovative content. Cherry trees can’t fill the void of, say, pregnancy tips from Gigi Hadid or jet-skiing lessons with Justin Bieber or a new Melania Trump online series titled, “How To Maintain Two Bedrooms When You Hate Your Spouse And Would Rather Sleep With Potassium Cyanide.”
So based on news this week, here are a few ideas for new celebrity livestreaming programs:
The Oprah Housekeeping Daily: Did you see the video Ms. Winfrey posted on Instagram, in which she’s trying to slip a cover over her duvet? It was like watching a muskrat try to do long division. Oprah was violently yanking on the sheet and swatting at the duvet. The futility made it clear she has never changed linens in at least a quarter-century. And that’s why I want to watch her Swiffer the yard or clean the tub with Veuve Clicquot or disinfect Stedman with Lysol. Oprah is the bumbling, billionaire maid the world needs right now.
The Harry & Meghan Courtroom Diaries: The former royals have relocated to L.A. They are also waking up at 4 a.m. to listen in to courtroom proceedings in their lawsuit against tabloids, which would make for great pandemic content. I want to see a groggy Harry, sipping tea in the predawn hour, listening to testimony and telling Megs, “Bloody hell, babes, we are buggered.” The real winners of Megxit post-pandemic? William and Kate.
The Kylie Jenner Reality Challenge: I often tell my daughters to not be swayed by the illusions of social media. Thanks to filters, fillers and extreme makeup, stars don’t actually look as they claim. Case in point: Kylie Jenner, who posted an unrecognizable photo in which she resembled a bowling alley staffer who lives exclusively on Taco Bell. The entire Kardashian-Jenner clan should post footage of what they really look like during quarantine. I guarantee you, it will be impossible to differentiate between Kim and Cantus the Minstrel from “Fraggle Rock.”
The Anderson Cooper Daddy Cam: On Thursday night,
CNN’s anchor announced he is now a father to a beautiful baby boy, Wyatt Morgan Cooper. Congrats! Behind the anchor desk, Cooper is calm and unflappable. But what I want to see is a live feed of Cooper waking up at 4 a.m. to change a diaper or desperately sing “Five Little Ducks” as Wyatt screams bloody murder. I want to see the Coop rocking in a glider, baby on his shoulder, as he mumbles gibberish and has a breakdown while testing formula temps on his wrist: “This milk is hotter than Brad Pitt’s crotch!”
The Britney Arsonist Seminars: In a recent post, Britney Spears casually let fans know she accidentally burned down her home gym. Yeah. It seems “two candles” were the cause. But the ho-hum nature in which this mishap was conveyed — right before she started curling dumbbells with dead eyes — suggests Britney could push out comedy gold by simply playing with matches. In this new dystopian series, Britney breaks lockdown and sets fire to cultural institutions while giggling in her shortshorts and bra-top: “Oops, I did it again — bye-bye, MOMA!”
The Ben Affleck Health Show: A few days ago, Ben Affleck was photographed wearing a mask in public, which is noble. Less noble: pushing the mask up over your nose to puff on a cigarette, which kind of defeats the point. I want to see Affleck imparting other coronavirus remedies and tips, including hitting a bong while in a hypobaric chamber or adding vitamins to Jell-O shots.
Then he should go out and chase squirrels up cherry trees.