{"id":43,"date":"2013-10-08T00:58:18","date_gmt":"2013-10-08T00:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=43"},"modified":"2013-10-08T00:58:18","modified_gmt":"2013-10-08T00:58:18","slug":"open-letter-big-time-reality-tv-producer-thinks-jobs-alaska-cool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=43","title":{"rendered":"An Open Letter to the Big Time Reality TV Producer Who Thinks All Jobs in Alaska Are Cool"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Big Time Reality TV Producer Convinced All Occupations in Alaska Are Cool,<\/p>\n<p>I see it like I\u2019m right there with you.\u00a0I see you sitting at your desk, a mounted moose head behind you, a big map of Alaska on the opposite wall, and your people shuffle in, all averted eyes and hang-dog expressions, one at a time admitting they\u2019ve got nothing to out-<i>Ax Men Ax Men<\/i>. You curse them. One guy says he\u2019s got an idea about having a camera ride along with a long-haul trucker. You ask him what\u2019s the hook, what is the driver doing while on the road. Just driving, he says, maybe sometimes it\u2019s dark out or the weather gets bad. You tell him\u00a0the idea sucks. You\u2019re\u00a0set to fire him when<!--more--> the guy next to him, your go-to guy, snaps his fingers and shouts \u201cput the truck in Alaska!\u201d You green-light it right then and there, working title <i>Trucks in Alaska<\/i>, no pitch book, no episode springboards, three seasons good to go.<\/p>\n<p>Alaska? That\u2019s all you have?<\/p>\n<p>Does any job in Alaska in your opinion merit a reality show? What pixie dust does Alaska sprinkle on the same jobs we do everywhere else? Defend your promotion decisions, sir. What drives you to believe watching traffic citations in Alaska, as opposed to Kansas or Ohio, two fine states, makes for compelling television?<\/p>\n<p>Sir, by my calculations (which are available at your request), every Alaskan will be featured in\u00a0a job\u00a0reality show by mid-2016. This includes the unemployed and the Alaska-based crew members who make reality shows. I submit you have created a significant imbalance in the number of reality shows centered on Alaska and the amount of reality actually occurring there. Consider the evidence:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>FACT:\u00a0 in the entire 130-year history of the U.S. Census, to date only a net of 700,000 people out of humanity\u2019s billions have decided to make Alaska their home. How does this indicate a national Alaska fetish requiring unrelenting hours of reality programming? In that same period California added 37,000,000 people. In the court of population, Alaska is getting its ass handed to it.<\/li>\n<li>FACT: The same census referenced above indicates over 300,000,000 currently reside in the U.S. and its territories. Ergo, 99.8% of national reality does not occur in Alaska. Would you like the math on Alaska\u2019s percentage of\u00a0reality shows?<\/li>\n<li>FACT: There are nearly 12,000,000 illegal immigrants living in the U.S, a population seventeen times greater than that of Alaska. You will note they\u2019re not flocking up there either, despite ample reindeer meat and unlimited secluded hideout options.<\/li>\n<li>FACT: Las Vegas has taken the opposite strategy with far more success. Rather than televise even the most mundane of its jobs, the city takes great pains to ensure that what goes on in its confines remains in its confines. Fewer cameras on Alaskan state routes and more penetrating Las Vegas\u2019 great veil of secrecy would yield far more interesting programming and perhaps further our national security.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Let\u2019s stipulate Alaska is beautiful. But so what? It\u2019s America the Beautiful, not just Alaska the Beautiful. So Alaska has roads and trucks? We have roads and trucks down here. Alaska has salmon and bears? We have salmon and bears. Big damned bears. We have glaciers and mountains and snow. We have loggers, state troopers and fishermen. We have crabs. Perhaps you think fishing down here is easy. Have you seen <i>The Perfect Storm<\/i>? That\u2019s our fishing.<\/p>\n<p>Sir, do not perpetuate your Alaskan chokehold on reality television. The rest of us want\u2013 no, <i>deserve<\/i>\u2013our shot. Voiceovers and a soundtrack that make mundane jobs seem interesting is not a God-given right for one state, but for all fifty. Every American deserves the chance to debase themselves on reality programming.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, sadly this is where you have brought us. It is the American people who pay the price for your Alaska fixation. While you\u2019re working up <i>Yukon Yarn Shop <\/i>and<i> Tax Preparers of the Tundra<\/i>, I am sitting on a frigging haunted pawn shop remodeling job in the Everglades idea without even a call-back. Sir, I am prepared to buy a boat and fish the Bermuda Triangle with Tim Gunn and as many New Jersey a-holes as it takes.<\/p>\n<p>Or we could film it in Alaska.<\/p>\n<p>Call me.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p>Bob<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Big Time Reality TV Producer Convinced All Occupations in Alaska Are Cool, I see it like I\u2019m right there with you.\u00a0I see you sitting at your desk, a mounted moose head behind you, a big map of Alaska on the opposite wall, and your people shuffle in, all averted eyes and hang-dog expressions, one&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=43\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">An Open Letter to the Big Time Reality TV Producer Who Thinks All Jobs in Alaska Are Cool<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,24],"tags":[25,94,96,26],"class_list":["post-43","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humor","category-open-letters","tag-alaska","tag-humor","tag-open-letters","tag-reality-tv","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3CG0W-H","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":90,"url":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=90","url_meta":{"origin":43,"position":0},"title":"An Open Letter: Hey, Cucumber Guy","author":"rtmcontrol","date":"October 8, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Hey Cucumber Guy: An Open Letter You, Cucumber Guy. 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