(Officious-sounding orchestral blasts accompany a fast-cut montage of high-profile news images.)
VOICEOVER: Tonight on 360… Texans in New Orleans: Has someone been messing with their DNA? Or are they just a bunch of ‘tards?
(Camera rolls in, pans across to focus on Anderson Cooper, the show’s immaculately dressed, superfoxy host.)
ANDERSON: Good evening and thank you for joining me on 360. I’m Anderson Cooper, and tonight, my guests are Bubba Ray Johnston and his wife, Peaches–both native Texans. Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Johnston.
BUBBA: (Staring blankly at Camera 1. Quietly.) …We on TV now?
ANDERSON: Yes, Mr. Johnston, you’re on TV.
PEACHES: (Lumbering up from her seat and ambling toward Camera 2) Hey, mama! I’m wearing that bra you done sent me last week! Don’t it look good? (Peaches begins to lift her muumuu. Stage manager lurches forward, wrestling Peaches back into her seat.)
ANDERSON: So, Bubba, tell me: what’s wrong with you people?
BUBBA: (Still staring at Camera 1) Huh?
ANDERSON: New Orleanians are wondering: are you all illiterate?
BUBBA: (Snapping out of it) I’ll have you know that I am a proud citizen of the US of A, and I got the farm license to prove it!
ANDERSON: (Sighing as gently as possible) I mean, can you people read?
PEACHES: Of course we can read–’till them menus down to the Dairy Queen start a-talkin’ at us, anyway! Then all bets is off!
ANDERSON: It’s just that, you’ve impressed the evacuees housed in Houston and elsewhere with your clean streets and strong public schools, but in New Orleans, you come across as a bunch of clueless, illiterate drunkards.
BUBBA: What you talkin’ ’bout, Andy?
ANDERSON: Actually, I prefer “Anderson.”
BUBBA: Well la-di-da! I bet you wear shoes in the house, too, don’t you, Mr. Snooty? Well, in Texas we don’t stand on ceremony, do we Peach-Pit?
PEACHES: No ma’am, we do not. (Moving once more toward Camera 2) Hey, mama, check out the new tattoo I done got yesterday from some little queer down in Greenwich Village! (Again the stage manager intervenes, and again Peaches is restrained, but not before flashing several million Americans and many foreigners 80% of her left breast.)
ANDERSON: So, you’re saying that you can read one-way signs?
BUBBA: Sure as hell can! You think I’d go both ways? (Laughs heartily at his own joke) The Peach may swing, but I’m all man! Ain’t that right, Peachy?
PEACH: You said it, Bubba-licious! (Places her hand on Bubba’s crotch.)
ANDERSON: So you understand, then, that on many streets in New Orleans, traffic can only go in one direction?
BUBBA: …Aw, go on! You’re just pullin’ my leg…. You almost had me there!
ANDERSON: And after weeks of driving through the French Quarter, you understand that you don’t actually have to stop at every intersection, because some intersections only have stop signs for the opposing traffic?
PEACHES: I never heard of such in all my born days!
ANDERSON: And of course you’re well aware that many of those living in New Orleans now are full-time residents with full-time jobs, and that by driving slowly and gawking at homeless people and making lewd overtures to secretaries on the sidewalk, you’re preventing hard-working locals from arriving at their places of employment in a timely manner?
BUBBA: Hell, Andy, now I know you’re puttin’ me on! Ain’t nobody works in New Orleans ‘cept them strippers on Bourbon Street and that there Hispanic who cleans our room down to the hotel–what’s her name, hon?
PEACHES: I think it’s Qwang-Li.
BUBBA: Well, that don’t sound Mexican, now does it? Maybe she’s one a them octoroons we done heard so much about….
ANDERSON: And there you have it, America: the ever-shrinking gene pool of Texas. (Muttering) Explains a lot about the commander-in-chief, doesn’t it?
BUBBA: I heard that–
ANDERSON: Well, that’s all the time we have for this segment of 360. Join me after the break for an hourlong special investigative report on New Orleans bloggers: how they stay so sexy amid the mold and debris, and how I selected one by the name of Richard to screw me into the middle of next week.
(Officious-sounding orchestral blasts again, accompanied by the same fast-cut montage of high-profile news images. Fade to commercial in 3, 2, 1….)
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