6 February 2007

Jay Ingram from Discovery’s Daily Planet Drives me to Drink

Posted by Greig under: Asides; Updates .

So as I sit here with a rye and ginger in my hand this Monday night I contemplate how I got here.  Let me take you back. It all started 5 minutes ago with Discovery Channel’s Daily Planet and the host, beloved Jay Ingram.  Jay does a piece called Jay’s File which apparently (I have only seen it once) he bitches and moans about his pet peeves.  In this episode it is all about driving and talking on cell phones and multitasking in general.  “Fair enough,” I think. “A lot of accidents are probably caused by cell phone use while driving.”

But Jay takes a different, more roundabout (if you will), tack.  He says he has “always been skeptical about multi-tasking” and now a group of researchers somewhere sometime lately has found interesting evidence supporting that he is indeed right.  Incidentally, all these scientists gather weekly to sit around and chew gum in silence.

Jay proceeds to get into a car and talk to the camera in the passenger seat, regularly taking both hands off the wheel to emphasize his point.  He explains with great repetition that driving and talking on the cell phone is not something we’re designed to do.  I thought it was a joke, but no punchline came - he just drove his car while bitching about distracted drivers talking too much, taking his eyes off the road and his hands off the wheel. Now, Jay, I is not a literary genius but I think I may see some irony there, or at least some self-contradiction. All that was missing to make the demonstration complete was the cell phone and, perhaps, Jay getting into an accident. 

So as I sit here and sip away at my method of escape from yet another Discovery Channel piece of TV that I value as highly as ass-lint I send a message to Jay:

If you’re going to bitch and moan about the inability of people to realize that we’re not capable of multi-tasking and driving, I would recommend not multi-tasking and driving to get your point across. And, with all due respect, may I add - you’re an idiot.